{"id":522833,"date":"2026-06-07T08:07:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T08:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/522833\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T08:07:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T08:07:20","slug":"u2s-adam-clayton-and-others-on-their-boarding-school-days-being-separated-from-the-age-of-8-was-a-trauma-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/522833\/","title":{"rendered":"U2\u2019s Adam Clayton and others on their boarding school days: \u2018Being separated from the age of 8 was a trauma\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well-known people who attended boarding schools<\/a> reflect on their experience and speak frankly about whether or not they would have considered sending their own children to boarding school. <\/p>\n

Adam ClaytonBass player with U2\"U2U2 bassist Adam Clayton: ‘I had no real understanding of why I was incarcerated in this antiquated place.’ Photograph: Debbie Hickey\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Adam Clayton<\/a> was five when his parents moved to Ireland<\/a> from Africa and after a few years in a local primary school near Howth, he was sent to Castle Park, a private preparatory boarding school for boys in Dalkey, Co Dublin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents thought the boarding school system would be a good idea without understanding the type of child I was. A lot of the other boys there were children of doctors, farmers and clergy \u2013 the Irish establishment at the time \u2013 and I felt very isolated as an eight-year-old,\u201d Clayton says.<\/p>\n

He recalls being miserable returning to school after a day at home on Sundays: \u201cI had no real understanding of why I was incarcerated in this antiquated place, with no access to phones, less than one hour from home.\u201d <\/p>\n

In 1973 at the age of 13, Clayton became a boarder in St Columba\u2019s College in Rathfarnham, south Dublin. \u201cI had a couple of run-ins with the authorities \u2013 not over significantly bad behaviour but from breaching the school rules on clothing,\u201d he says. He recounts an incident in which he was denied leave to go into town because he was wearing jeans with embroidered stitching, a cheesecloth embroidered shirt and an Arabic scarf. \u201cI changed my clothes and was allowed to go but then when I got around the corner, I changed back. A teacher saw me in town and I was suspended,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

His parents then decided \u2013 upon looking at his academic achievements \u2013 that he wasn\u2019t going to become a lawyer or a doctor so they didn\u2019t need to continue to pay for his education. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was time for me to enter the state system,\u201d says Clayton, who then moved to Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin 3 where he went on to meet the other members of U2: The Edge (David Evans), Bono (Paul Hewson) and Larry Mullen jnr. <\/p>\n

Clayton says now that the more progressive attitude of Mount Temple suited him much better. \u201cThere was no school uniform. We were encouraged to be individuals. And we were allowed to rehearse on the school premises on Wednesdays and Saturdays,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

When asked if he would consider sending his children to boarding school, he pauses. \u201cI\u2019d say categorically that I wouldn\u2019t send children to boarding school before they are 12 or 13,\u201d he says. \u201cMy firm belief is that children are not old enough to be separated from their parents at an earlier age. Being separated from the age of eight was the beginning of a trauma for me. You are thrust into a situation that you don\u2019t know who your allies are.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"AdamAdam Clayton (far left) with fellow students helping a staff member to clear an area in the grounds of St Columba’s College in 1975 for a future arts and crafts complex. Photograph: St Columba’s College <\/p>\n

While he prefers state education, Clayton believes boarding school can be useful for children of parents who spend a significant amount of time away from home. \u201cBoarding school can give stability to children whose parents are on the move a lot. I\u2019m wary of the elitism that comes with boarding schools but it\u2019s an incredible opportunity and now boarding schools offer control over phone use and screen time.\u201d He says this is a huge benefit. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of children, and my own children included, would rather be on their phones than practising music or playing sports.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Inside Clongowes Wood: Who sends their child to boarding school in 21st-century Ireland?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Spending time in nature was something Clayton gained from his boarding school years. \u201cI found myself consoling my wounded soul out in nature, among the trees in the ample woodlands,\u201d says Clayton. And after U2 rented Danesmoate House \u2013 next to St Columba\u2019s College \u2013 to record the Joshua Tree album in the 1980s, Clayton bought the Georgian country house estate beside his old school. <\/p>\n

\u201cI realised that I knew the area better than I knew Malahide and I have since re-engaged with the school and met teachers who were students there when I was,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Clayton says St Columba\u2019s College is \u201ca radically different place\u201d now. \u201cThe art and music departments are extraordinarily well resourced and the current headmaster brings students from the school to visit students in the boarding school for disadvantaged black children in South Africa where he previously was headmaster.\u201d <\/p>\n

Domini KempChef and restaurant owner\"DominiDomini Kemp: ‘The food was really awful and we were permanently frozen’ <\/p>\n

Domini Kemp grew up in the Bahamas before moving to Ireland with her mother and sister shortly after her father died. She spent a year as a boarder at the coeducational Headford School in Co Meath and then became a boarder in Alexandra College in Milltown, Dublin for her secondary school education.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeadford was a culture shock for me. There were 14 girls in a large dormitory. The food was really awful and we were permanently frozen. I was also unbelievably homesick, developing mystery illnesses on Sunday evenings before I had to go back to school,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"DominiDomini Kemp as a young girl \"DominiDomini Kemp in her youth. She has not sent either of her daughters to boarding school <\/p>\n

She found Alexandra College \u201cless strict and more easy-going\u201d and was happier to be in an urban environment. \u201cWe all pretended to be vegetarian to get better food,\u201d she recalls. She hasn\u2019t sent either of her daughters \u2013 Lauren (now 28) and Maeve (16) to a boarding school. \u201cI have used boarding school as a threat sometimes during their teenage years but there is no way I\u2019d send them to boarding school \u2013 even considering the cost,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Inside the only girls\u2019 boarding school taught entirely through IrishOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Kemp does, however, understand how boarding schools fulfil a need for families who live abroad or in a rural part of Ireland. \u201cBoarding school teaches you to get on with people. There is brilliant camaraderie and deep friendships are formed. But, I think parents now want to invest [differently] in their relationships with their children. <\/p>\n

\u201cI see how some of my friends have a real closeness with my daughters and exposing teenagers to that wider adult community at home is very special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon CoveneyFormer t\u00e1naiste, now geopolitical strategy consultant with EY\"SimonSimon Coveney: ‘Boarding school forces you to be independent much earlier.’ Photograph: Daragh Mc Sweeney\/Provision <\/p>\n

Simon Coveney attended Clongowes Wood College in Co Kildare for his secondary school education along with four of his brothers. The second eldest of seven children, he says that although there were \u201cups and downs\u201d, his overall experience of boarding school was good. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was excellent for creating a rounded person who was resilient, open-minded and confident from a young age,\u201d he says. \u201cBoarding school forces you to be independent much earlier and teaches you how to cope with pecking order, tensions in circles of friends and in sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that, perhaps ironically, being in boarding school brought him closer to his parents at the time. \u201cI valued more the time I spent with them,\u201d he says. He mentions how he was \u201ca bit rebellious for a time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA young Simon Coveney at Clongowes Wood College <\/p>\n

He was expelled temporarily following a transition-year spell of drinking and partying. He was suspended after school authorities caught him under the influence of alcohol. He later left the school to attend a party in Dublin, and was expelled. He was asked back again, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed sports and clubs but I could have pushed myself harder academically. My style was to challenge norms and push boundaries and boarding school \u2013 and my career in politics later \u2013 allowed me to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Life at Ireland\u2019s biggest boarding school: \u2018I have so much more independence\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The former t\u00e1naiste and Fine Gael TD and his wife, Ruth, have three daughters. Two \u2013 Beth and Jessica \u2013 are in St Angela\u2019s College in Cork city, a non-fee paying day school for girls, and the third, Annalise is in Scoil na n\u00d3g, a coeducational Gaelscoil in Glanmire. \u201cMy wife went to St Angela\u2019s and she has strong connections with the school. I like that the students come from diverse backgrounds and different parts of Cork,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Coveney says that if the couple had sons, they might have considered sending them to Clongowes Wood College because he went there. \u201cPeople have a lot of loyalty to schools in Ireland if they went there but fee-paying schools are not necessarily better than non-fee paying schools. Boarding schools are not for everyone. It depends on where you live and what your options are but also on the personality of the child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boarding schools offer more flexibility than in the past<\/p>\n

Although boarding school numbers have declined substantially in recent years, Department of Education records show there were more than 3,300 boarders across 24 secondary schools in the State in the 2024-2025 academic year. <\/p>\n

Most students who attend boarding schools today have much more flexibility around going home for special occasions during the week and at weekends compared to the more draconian regimes that existed in the past. <\/p>\n

And while mobile-phone use is curtailed during school hours and extracurricular activities, the majority of boarding school students now have opportunities to speak with, or video call, their parents on a daily basis using their own devices. <\/p>\n

The relationships between students and teachers and boarding school staff also appears to be more egalitarian than in the past. Some boarding schools even have student committees offering input to menus, something that would have been unheard for previous generations of students who hated the food they got in boarding school.<\/p>\n

Martina EvansLondon-based Irish poet and novelist\"MartinaMartina Evans: ‘The nuns were ferocious’ <\/p>\n

Martina Evans\u2019s first novel, Midnight Feast (1995) was partially inspired by her experience of boarding school. She attended the Sacred Heart girls\u2019 secondary school in Clonakilty, Co Cork as a boarder in the 1970s. \u201cI have fond memories of the girls there but the nuns were ferocious. It was a very strict regime. There was a sense of being imprisoned. The food was awful and we were up for 7am Mass every morning,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

She never considered sending her now grown-up daughter, Liad\u00e1in, to boarding school. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have risked it. What if something happened? What if she was bullied and I wasn\u2019t there to see it?,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Adding that she knows people who did very well in boarding school, she reflects that she didn\u2019t perhaps do as well as she could have. Evans believes that, generally speaking, when children are in a day school, they have the freedom to be themselves at home after school. She also suggests that the gap between generations isn\u2019t as wide and children are allowed to make their own decisions about school. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Liad\u00e1in had wanted to go to a boarding school \u2013 say, to learn to be an actor or to learn Irish \u2013 I would have considered it because she could have changed her mind and come home if she didn\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well-known people who attended boarding schools reflect on their experience and speak frankly about whether or not they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[46414,18,117,19,17,225819,22617,12551,37851,2212],"class_list":["post-522833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-adam-clayton","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-martina-evans","tag-primary-level","tag-second-level","tag-simon-coveney","tag-weekendreview"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116707803771525065","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}