Paul Connolly (b. 1944)

The Osprey Hotel in Naas was the venue for this recording with Paul Connolly. The hotel was build on the site of The Apprentice School, which was a boarding school for boys run by the Army to educate and teach crafts to the students, aged 15 – 17 years from all over the country. Paul Connolly relates the circumstances which led to his attendance there as a student of mechanical engineering. He speaks about the schedule at the school, the various departments, such as mechanical engineering, woodworking and electrical. The school prepared its students for a trade as well as for an army career. In 1999 a reunion of his old class was organised, and it was fascinating for Paul to rediscover his comrades and to hear about their life experiences. In 1965 Paul bought himself out of the army and joined Aer Lingus as an aircraft fitter. In this recording he recounts all the aircraft which were in use by Aer Lingus in the 1960s, when all the maintenance work on the aircraft was undertaken manually. In 1968 the Viscount aircraft was replaced by the Boeing 737, which marked the beginning of the enormous changes which were to occur in Aer Lingus over the following years.