Tony clocks off after 47 years at St Cecilia's College

The atmosphere in the rainbow-arced St Cecilia’s College was fabulously festive.

Staff and students in Christmas jumpers, baubled headbands and antlers moved good humouredly through the corridors. 
The beautiful voice of  a pupil practising ‘O Holy Night’ for the carol service drifted through the foyer.

Derry Now was in the Bligh’s Lane school to have a chat with Mr Tony Morrison, who is retiring as the school’s caretaker after 47 years at the helm.

Tony Morrison receiving a retirement gift from St Cecilia's College Principal Mary-Jo O'Carolan.

Easier said than done, as Tony was waylaid at every turn by hugs galore from staff clearly delighted to see him and wishing him well for the future. 

Eventually, in the boardroom, over a cuppa, Creggan born and bred, Tony clearly remembered his first day at St Cecilia’s, the old school as he described it.

“It was January 1975 and Ms Cunningham was the principal. Eugene McCool was the caretaker at the time. Eugene actually was involved in the building of St Cecilia’s, which opened in 1967. When he retired, I took over from him. 

“I then got an assistant, Jimmy Little, who we called ‘Gentleman Jimmy’. When Jimmy retired I got Pat Meenan who worked with me for 20 years.”

With a distinct twinkle in his eye, Tony said he was now into his sixth principal.

Mary-Jo O'Carolan, principal, St Cecilia's College with Tony Morrison and his family celebrating his retirement.

“There was Terry Cunningham, Mamie Pederson, Grainne McCafferty, Kathleen Gormley, Martine Mulhern and now, Mary Jo O’Carolan,” he said.

“The highlight of my 47 years at St Cecilia’s was that my three daughters, Clare, Patricia and Karen, all went to school here so I really went to school with them. They went to primary school up there in St John’s and I saw them every day and then they all came down to school at St Cecilia’s and they all did very well. I would have had no hesitation recommending St Cecilia’s to anyone coming from primary school.”

Having been at the school so long, Tony recalled sadder times, particularly the deaths of two young pupils. “Those were terrible times,” he said.

Recalling what in St Cecilia’s parlance was called the ‘army’ door, Tony recounted a terrifying encounter with the British army in St Cecilia’s in the dead of night.

“I just came into post as the army left. They had to pull out of the school. At one time they had taken over half of the classroom block but even after that we had plenty of annoyances with them. 

Tony Morrison with friends and retired teachers at the celebration event to mark his retirement.

“I remember once, there was a fault with the boilers and they were running from a Friday to a Monday, burning 24/7, which was wasting oil. I mentioned it to the principal, Ms Pederson, who asked me to come down on a Sunday night and set the boilers at 11 or 12 o’clock to let them run until the morning.

“So I came down on the Sunday night and jumped over the fence and put the key in the boiler door. The next thing I felt was a rifle in the back of my neck and a soldier said to me, ‘We were about to shoot you’. I said I was the caretaker and he said, ‘How would we know that’ and I said, ‘Because I have a key’. He said it didn’t matter, they were searching the school. 

“When they arrested me, as a ‘suspected terrorist’ I said, ‘I am entitled to one phone call’, so I went into the school and rang Ms Pederson. She said, ‘Don’t you worry’.

“She knew to talk to the officer was a waste of time, so she phoned the Bishop and the Bishop phoned the major over in Ebrington. Ms Pederson told me afterwards the Bishop said, ‘If you don’t let that man go, we will have the whole school down at the barracks on Monday morning’. I was then let go,” said Tony.

“That was all part of the job,” he added with a chuckle, ‘but at the same time, I could have been shot.”

A mine of information, Tony told how he had discussed the siting of St Cecilia’s College with former principal, Ms Kathleen Gormley, who was originally a History teacher.

He said: “Kathleen told me that the St Cecilia’s site was given to the Bishop by the farmer and his wife who owned the land. 

“Apparently, During the Siege of Derry, Captain Bligh assembled his troops on this field. It is an extremely historical site, hence the name Bligh’s Lane.

“St Cecilia’s is now a split site school. For the past eight years, I have been up at the sports’ pavilion, which is on the site of the former St Mary’s College, up beside St Mary’s Church. 

“We have a full sized football pitch up there. Sport was always a very important part of St Cecilia’s. Roisin Lynch and Isobel McNulty were a very big influence in that regard,” said Tony.

Tony said he was “dying about the St Cecilia’s students”.

“Do you know this here? I am 47 years in the school and I have never had to report one girl, not one. 

“I must say this too, the canteen people, especially Kathleen McLaughlin who is still there, were amazing. I remember one day in the old canteen they were up to their ankles in water, cutting the turnips with a hatchet. It is very different from today when everything is bagged and diced.

“I also had magnificent cleaners too. I had 12 to 14 cleaners for the size of the school and to tell the truth I never had to worry about a thing.

“The canteen staff kept me well fed. I should be 20 stone.

“Helen O’Donnell’s speciality was a bacon toastie for the breakfast,” said Tony.

Tony said although he was “shooting for 50 years at St Cecilia’s” he just felt now was the right time to retire.

“I am married to Donna, my princess, and I want to spend more time with her. I was four or five years at St Cecilia’s and then I married a St Mary’s girl, which didn’t go down too well in here,” laughed Tony, as Corona McDaid, a member of St Cecilia’s office staff, put her head in the door to wish him well and ask about his son, Tony, who is teaching overseas.

Then there was the time Tony and Paddy [Meenan] were putting up the school Christmas trees, a job which Tony did not like.

“I thought no-one was watching,” he said conspiratorially, “so I said to Paddy, ‘Stand back a minute’ and I unravelled the lights and I just fired them over the trees, the way the fishermen do with the nets. But, I was caught red handed. One teacher saw me and it was all around the school in two minutes.”

Tony, who lives in Leenan Gardens, three minutes from St Cecilia’s before the Ráth Mór Centre was built, described coming into the school as “a pleasure”.

“I did break a few wee rules, like letting wanes into the school a wee bit earlier because their mammys and daddys, maybe had to get to work. I would rather have had them inside where it was warm and there was never any bother with any of them. 

“People are now telling my daughter, Calre, who works in Sainsbury's, ‘Your father was a gentleman. He used to let us into the school early.’ When I mentioned it to Ms Gormley, she actually decided to open a breakfast club in St Cecilia’s.”

Thanking all the whole school community of St Cecilia’s College for their support over the years and their good wishes, Tony has no plans for retirement.

“I’ll still be taking Clare’s children, Rebecca and Nathan to St Eugene’s Primary School and over to the wee Creggan shop for a treat.”

Mary Jo O’Carolan, Tony’s sixth principal, recalled how she met him 30 years ago across a table at St Columb’s College, where she taught Tony Jr A’ Level Business Studies.

“When I came to St Cecilia’s everybody talked about Tony, how much of a gentleman he was, as the longest serving member of the St Cecilia’s community.”

Joe Lafferty, the St Cecilia’s vice principal, said he had known Tony 20 odd years and there was always a bit of craic with him.
“Everytime I think of Tony Morrison, I think about wee Pat Meenan too. They were like Laurel and Hardy. You didn’t see one without the other and there was always a joke and a bit of a laugh to be had with both of them. Tony is a gentleman.”