I’m sad about Liam Ruiséal’s because I played a part in its downfall

Liam Ruiséals: I’m sad it’s going. It was the school books that got me in and then the exam papers. Round about September, the booklets of past Junior Cert and Leaving Cert papers would take over a section in the corner, says Colm O’Regan

A world of painful wonder was revealed when you opened an exam paper. Between 1993 and 1996, it was just around the start of the friendly exam papers with nice pictures with Helvetica font that made you feel it was easier. But as you paged further back the exam papers stretched into the 80s when the questions were in Courier font and if you got them wrong not only did you get no marks, there was also the threat of a duster across the back of the head.

Ruiséals was also a landmark. When I was getting to know how to navigate Cork City by myself, it was an anchoring point so I knew how far up the ladder of Oliver Plunkett St I was. When they changed their shop-front colour, it nearly made the news.