Any ex St. Malachy's guys out there?
My late father was there in the 1940s. My brother and I went there in the late 1960s. Dad loved the place, and could never understand why my brother and I hated it.
The educational standards were high, but my abiding memory of the place is the bleakness. Education was something to be thumped into the students, and there was no joy of learning. After 5 years at St Malachy's, I went to a comprehensive in Australia and the contrast was stunning. In Australia, we had teachers who were passionate about their subjects, as opposed to teachers who had been dictating the same notes for years (in some cases, since my dad had been a pupil there) and whose pedagogical imagination didn't extend beyond the cane or the strap.
Sorry if that sounds negative. I'm sure that there were people who enjoyed the place!