Anne Peters made history at a Tipperary secondary school that is celebrating its 125th anniversary

An exhibition charting the story of the CBS High School  Clonmel was held  at the Tipperary Museum of Hidden History in Clonmel.

This year the High School is celebrating the 125th anniversary of the foundation of the school. The following article appeared in the  exhibition.

A significant number of people spent years in the High School before going on to make an impact in the world.

Anne Peters, however, turned that on its head, and within minutes of taking her first steps into the school, made her own piece of history.

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Anne became the first ever female teacher in the school in September 1970. It would take another 44 years before the school registered another similar groundbreaking milestone when Karen Steenson became the first female principal of the school.
Back in 1970, however, Anne Peters had no awareness she was taking such a giant leap forward in the history of the school.

While the arrival of a female teacher for the first time may have been a first for Clonmel High School for Anne Peters there was nothing special about it other than the feeling of excitement of starting out on a new job as a French teacher in her home town.

Because Anne had spent a year teaching in the first school founded by Edmond Ignatius Rice, in Mount Sion in Waterford City, Anne certainly did not see herself as somebody creating history at the time.

“At the time I was not at all aware that what I was doing was in any way special or even historic,” said Anne Peters. Anne does remember a ‘very happy place’, a welcoming environment.

She remembers the Brothers on the teaching staff being a little distant, but nobody made any issue of having a female teacher in the school for the first time.

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“All of the male teachers were very good to me and they included me from day one,” said Anne.

Anne remained on the staff of the CBS High School in Clonmel for four years before she moved to Wexford where she started a job in CBS Wexford and held that job up until her retirement.