THE TEACHER WHO INSPIRED ME 

I was late, as so often had been the case in our long relationship, and I expected to be greeted by the same generous, forgiving smile, writes Fergal Keane. I was no longer a schoolboy but a hostage of the grown-up life with all its complications and competing timetables. 

Now approaching his room at the Bon Secours hospital in Cork I could tell that I was too late. Br Jerome had passed away. 

In the far-off days of the 1970s when he was my headmaster, Br Jerome Kelly would sanction repeated lack of punctuality by directing many of those who the offender towards some socially useful labour. I remember winter afternoons picking up rubbish on the Mardyke Walk next to Presentation Brothers College. "Don't return, boy, until it’s all clean as your conscience”, he would declare.

Brothers College was until it is as clean as your drifting peaceably but conscience," he would aimlessly, a haven for the declare. He never used   violence to impose his will. His force of personality was quite   enough to achieve any   necessary end.

Br Jerome came from   a small farming community in West Cork, living on an impoverished peninsula   where hard work, thrift   and a sense of community were primary virtues.

He joined the Presentation Brothers in the 1960s and became a missionary in the West Indies.  As a teacher in Trinidad, he taught many of those who would go on to become government ministers, judges ad prominent civil servants.

He was a force by nature.  By the time he came to Cork in 1969, Presentation College was drifting peaceably but aimlessly, a haven for the children of the city’s merchant classes, a noted rugby nursery but of limited academic prowess.

It was a private school with a reputation among other schools for a degree of snobbery.

Br Jerome arrived like a whirlwind, brimming with energy and ideas.  Exam grades improved but that was only one part of his revolution.

He built a television and radio studio, correctly anticipating the media revolution to come. I had my first experience of broadcasting at Pres. 

I was the child of a broken home, often in trouble for attention seeking in the classroom. Br Jerome was patient with me when many others might have kicked me out of school. Years later when I asked him why, he replied: “That Fergal was a troubled boy." It was his duty, he said, to keep faith with my possibility as a person. 

Within a year of arriving, Br Jerome set up the Share organisation - Schoolboys Harness Aid for the Relief of the Elderly-which would go on to build 200 homes for the elderly poor of Cork City. 

His pupils raised some of the money through an annual Christmas fast, while Br Jerome used his immense powers of persuasion to push the city council to provide the rest of the funding. 

Just as important were the visits we made after school, often accompanied by

Br Jerome, to sit with those elderly people living in poverty and loneliness. 

In the Ireland of the 1970s - still in thrall to more reactionary voices - his example provided me with an inspiring model of Christian witness. All of this was done with a boisterous sense of humour and an acute understanding of the psychology of teenaged boys. 

Br Jerome was my teacher, my role model, and my friend. I am a lucky person to have known him. 

By Fergal Keane

THE TABLET 17 October 2020