I was on a walk with my husband the other night, and we started a conversation about school debs. As we were chatting, it dawned on me that this month marked 25 years since my own secondary school debs back in 1999. Besides the rapid passing of time and saying, “Jesus, that’s not twenty-five years, is it?” when we got home, I rifled through my phone to find any photos and discovered some that I had scanned years ago. Looking through the photos, I can remember bits of the day and night—probably more than others, I’d say—because I didn’t consume alcohol at the time (I was a teetotaller well into my thirties). The vast majority of the people I haven’t seen or heard from to this day; one is a friend I keep in touch with via Instagram, two I see on TV (a news correspondent and a sitting senator), and one woman is the editor-in-chief at a multinational online women’s magazine. I don’t really know much about where the rest of them ended up, except for those few.

Anyway, it was held in the old Jury’s Hotel on the Western Road; the River Lee Hotel and adjacent apartments are in its place today. The whole lead-up to it, days before, was very much like an American high school prom: who you were going to ask, what suit to wear, etc. Being a very closeted gay teen at the time, and with my school, let alone the entire country, not being as progressive as it is these days, I asked my friend, whom I had known since we were four years old, to be my date. She was incredibly awesome to say yes and looked amazing on the day. The suit I rented was from either Morley’s by the Queen’s Old Castle or Black Tie at the other end of Patrick’s Street. I had never worn a three-piece suit in my life, and as a skinny just turned 18-year-old with no shoulders, it fit fine.

It was such an event that all our family, friends, and neighbours gathered to see us off. When we arrived at the venue, there was a photo booth in the reception for couple photos, which I think I still have in a box somewhere. We were then ushered into one of the big ballrooms of the hotel to take our seats, but before any food was served, we had a big group photo taken of around 130 people from our year. I think it was one of the larger years to come through the school at the time, and still, a few people were missing from the debs. Mushroom soup was the starter, I remember that and still cannot understand why it would ever be served as the only option on the evening.

I was telling Harry when we were talking about it that, following the dancing and “Rock the Boat” at the hotel, a group of us went to the Coliseum for some bowling well into the early morning, and then we all grabbed a taxi to the airport to have breakfast in the old terminal. I had forgotten about that last bit, and he said you can’t do that anymore with the restaurant being after security. It’s nice to talk about and look back on that time in my life, wondering where everyone might be and funnily when I told my parents about it yesterday, the first thing my mother said was, “Jesus, that’s not twenty-five years, is it?” ^^