River Lee Hotel, Cork
Forty Year Reunion 15th November 2025
We spent three years together.
sitting in lecture halls, standing outside waiting for the professors, sitting around styrofoam cups of coffee in the Rest, near each other, together even if not engaging.
Ninety percent of communication is body language. We got to know who was standing beside us without looking, we knew the backs of each other’s heads from a distance of forty feet.
We recognised a laugh across the quad and we were all equally part of what was going on, welcomed, brought up to date, , always with a laugh or a smile. because times were good.
We were young, ambitious, and mostly healthy. The world was our oyster. So we partied, those of us living at home envious of the students who came up from the country, who lived in flats they shared with classmates, where the parties happened.
Twelve lectures a week, some tutorials and library study when we felt inclined, with one set of exams, at the end of the third term.
No contiuous assessments, no papers to be submitted mid term, just a massive cramming three weeks before and after Easter.
We formed our groups, girls and fellas. but always fun interaction, flirting and hilarious laughter. Always the light touch to lift us out of a rainy Monday morning, we fed off the levity in the air.
Whether from a Kerry man with an incisive sense of humour, or a Corkman stating the obvious, it was always good natured and supportive.
This is what has lasted down the years.
This is the gem that refuses to fizzle out when we meet. the ready smile of interest and curiosity, when we all have forged our way in life in our various ways. This meeting changes nothing in the direction of our lives. It doesn’t threaten us, we’re all coming with different baggage and life experience.
What we can share is a past, a memory of times when we moved a bit quicker and the world was our oyster.
They are gruff , ugly and fierce. But they are sensitive to the changes in temperatures and the prolonged winter in a way that is lost to more regulated animals like milking cows. They have natural amounts of offspring, not forced to procreate several times a year to ‘maximise gain’. However they will naturally abort if they believe the weather may put the offspring at risk which has happened this year.
AH SURE AZURE 