A test of composure

EARLY each morning before departing to sit his Leaving Certificate exams, Jackie O’Callaghan’s son would take out his electric guitar.

Cue a cascade of ear-splitting shrieks at the family’s rural West Cork home.

For a change, he sometimes went out to the garage and played the drums. Loudly. “I often wondered what the neighbours thought and whether it put the cows off their milk. But this was how he got rid of the stress,” says Jackie.