School Daze with Owen Curtin: 'I was too busy playing cards to go to lectures'

Owen Curtin.

Free second-level education was not introduced in Ireland until 1967. My class entered second-level in the last year where fees were required to attend secondary school. I grew up in Prosperity Square in Cork and went to school at O’Sullivan’s Quay CBS, then Deerpark Secondary School.

In those days, access to education was frighteningly rare. There were about 55 pupils in our classroom in primary school and there was only a certain number of scholarships in the city. At school, they picked some of the fifth class and some of the sixth-class guys to sit a test. We wouldn’t leave school until 7.30pm. We would be there from 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, all in a prefab in the yard. We were the elite. 

A lot of kids didn’t have the money to pay the fees to ordinary, public State-funded school.  We were the last year of that. Free second-level education has been enormously transformative in Ireland. 

A teacher I remember is Brother Malachy McLoughney, a Tipp guy. He treated everyone the same. He was a fantastic Christian brother and we also had wonderful lay brothers at Sully’s Quay. My dad and three brothers all went to the school.  The Christian Brothers were fabulous. They were eccentric but offered phenomenal teaching. It was a community effort in those days. 

My kids went to Coláiste Choilm, with no streaming and every socioeconomic background. It offered respect with education. We had a microcosm of that model of education. I was on the VEC committee for 12 years and I had so much respect for teachers and particularly primary school teachers who can influence people. 

Owen Curtin.

As a child, I was the quiet little guy in the corner who was ignored — until I was selected to play Oliver in the Irish premiere of the musical, at 13. I was just coming into my first year of secondary school at the time and suddenly people were looking for my autograph! I did a lot of acting, I was in all the musicals in school and I got away with murder. It was like being a film star!

The production of Oliver! went to the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin after and then back to the Opera House. 

My mother was an incredible woman and understood the importance of education, and elocution and speech and drama classes.  She worked several jobs herself till the day she died. All her family were from Barrack Street. We didn’t have any money but my mother was amazing, miles ahead of her time. Prosperity Square and Barrack Street were wonderful communities, people may have had little money, but they minded each other.

I love talking to people.  I was the small guy in the class so I knew I needed to mind myself or ally myself with someone who would.  

If I met myself as a kid today I would say “Believe.” It was something we needed to hear particularly at that time in Ireland. We were beaten as a society. We have to say, yes, we can. It has to be based on belief. When you believe, you can do it. And you need to become passionate and own it.

I go to all the University College Cork reunions but I never went to lectures — I was too busy playing cards. I did law and management in UCC, majoring in law. But I also had a fulltime job in the South Infirmary hospital as a porter. My boss there trusted me and when he died, in my second year of college, the hospital asked me to fill his role. I dealt with all the suppliers, buying and delivering supplies into the wards. I used to work nights as a porter, 6.30pm to 6am, 84hours a week. It was a fantastic learning curve, dealing with people, knowing when to politely kick someone out, making sure the nurses who were sneaking back late were sneaking back in unseen. 

Owen Curtin.

As for school discos, we didn’t really have one. There was a thing the Legion of Mary used to run that I thought was horrific. We ended up going a bit more on the wild side, to the Stardust. 

I love engaging with people. A 13-year-old is in an ideal place — the whole world is their oyster.  All I would hope is that would see something in me that would give them encouragement to do what they want to do. I think what I would like to do is talk to kids in transition year and give them ownership and social responsibility. I think there’s a big gap in secondary education on that side. We need to build trust and community. There’s a need for something like civics — only not as boring.    

Owen Curtin is founder and chairman of Healthcare 21. Healthcare 21 supplies medical equipment such as ventilators, beds and blood pressure monitoring equipment, from its warehouse in Blarney, Cork, to various medical facilities and organisations including the HSE in Ireland and the NHS in the UK. 

It employs 500 people and also operates a decontamination centre in Limerick. Owen grew his business from one person to 500.