Tipperary author tells his story about how adult literacy journey has transformed his life

Life turned full circle for a county Tipperary man when he revisited the national school that he had first attended as a child.
Liam Cleere, 55, was a pupil at The Commons NS as a young boy starting school, but admits himself that he slipped through the cracks of formal education and could neither read nor write when he left.

Now, half a century later, he has a book of poems and short stories to his credit, and was invited back to his old school as a published author.

The title of his collection explains his remarkable journey – ‘My Journey from the Back of the Class with Tipperary ETB’. The ETB is the Tipperary Education and Training Board, and Liam attributes the huge change in his life to his ten years in adult education.

His return to The Commons NS, Ballingarry, was a highlight of that journey. “I sent copies of the book to the school and they asked me to come in and sign one. Then they asked me to come back and read parts of the book to the pupils. My life had turned around 100% since my schooldays. I was so happy to come back to the school as I wouldn’t like to see any pupil fall behind as I did”, he states.

It was a different story when Liam, the middle child in a family of nine, first attended school. He admits he wasn’t great in school and soon lost interest. Although he was never diagnosed, he is convinced that he is dyslexic, while he was also late talking and had a speech impediment.
“It was also very strict in school and I lost all confidence in myself in those crucial formative years. That’s when you have to get children interested. But no one noticed my difficulties and I was well able to hide them. I was a good actor and got away with it. I didn’t do any homework and got into trouble for that”.

Liam then moved from primary school to secondary school, in Scoil Ruáin in Killenaule, but his time in formal education didn’t improve for him.
“I got into the highest class and I was completely lost. At Christmas, I went down to the next class and it was just the same. So, at the start of the second year, I went into the bottom class and I settled in there as there were some more lads from my background.

“I later discovered that some of my friends in class were also dyslexic. One of them came into my adult learning class and said he was diagnosed as dyslexic at age 35. But I was also a messer and in a class of messers, it’s easier to hide it”.
Liam eventually left secondary school after four years while still unable to write. And yet he passed his Group Certificate. “I was good with my hands and was happy with subjects such as woodwork, mechanical drawing, metalwork, cooking and art. “I got five C grades, and D grades in the rest, and scraped through even though I could barely write my name,” he recalls.
After leaving school, Liam worked at a variety of jobs that didn’t require reading or writing skills. He got married, had children, and later separated from his wife and became a single father. And not being able to help his children properly with their homework was a source of great anguish for him. “I could make out some of the questions, but I couldn’t help them to write, but they were bright enough that they didn’t need much help”, he remarks.
Then Liam Cleere’s life changed. It started in an office where he was trying to fill out forms and he asked the staff for some help. “They said they were too busy to help me. So, I said to myself that this will never happen again. I had the courage to ask for help and it was refused. I was so low coming out of that office but I was determined to start a new life”, he recalls.
That brought him into the world of adult education with the ETB, and with his tutor Marie Clancy, for whom he has nothing but the highest praise. A friend he had confided in had given him the number of the ETB and he made the call that changed his life.

“On the first night Marie told me that this wasn’t school and it was not like school. That stuck with me, because if it was anything like school then I wouldn’t have been back on the second night. But I’m ten years there now. I was assessed and my reading level was a bad Level 2 and my writing was a very low Level 1.
“And it was hard work. We started out with the basics, what I had missed out on in school. But the tutors are so good and so patient and you’re never afraid to ask a question. I never asked a question in school”, Liam says.
He still finds it remarkable that those formative years with the ETB eventually led him to writing a book. Adult education had unearthed a talent that had lain dormant since his difficult years in school. “We were often called stupid, but we weren’t. We could have done it if we wanted to with the encouragement,” he adds.

That encouragement eventually came from his tutor, Marie Clancy, who suggested that he write a story, and she told him the finished article was very good. He then moved on to writing poems about his early years’ experience in school and that too was well received. He read it out publicly and a lot of people approached him and said they had similar experiences.
He continued to write poems and stories and they were published in an annual that the ETB produces each year. He says – “I don’t think I have a talent. Sometimes I feel a bit of a fraud as I’m in a class with people and their talent is unbelievable. They are great writers and poets, but like me, they were lacking in confidence. It leaves me in awe”.
Marie Clancy’s next encouragement to Liam was to produce a collection of his work. Funding would prove crucial but that was sorted out following a visit to Dublin. Liam was asked to read some of his work at a conference on Adult Education for Life, attended by government minister Simon Harris, and the minister liked his work and said he would provide funding for the publication.
“And he kept his word. I got my collection together and passed it up through the chain in the ETB and we went ahead. So many of us had slipped through the cracks in education but this was a new opportunity for me”.
The book was subsequently launched at a gala ceremony in the Horse and Jockey Hotel to great acclaim. It’s Liam’s story of personal development, self-confidence and self-discovery, from his cautious and uncertain early expressions into a confident and fluent writer.
Liam now recalls with a smile that he did so little writing, if any, over the first four decades of his life, that he was aged 47 before he ran out of ink in a ballpoint pen. “It was a landmark moment, as I never wrote enough to use a full biro before”, he adds.
Another transformative moment for Liam was when he wrote a Valentine’s card to his new partner, Davina. They are now together in The Commons, and have five children – William and Brigid from Liam’s first marriage; Davina’s Dan and Jess from the time before she met Liam, and their daughter between them, twelve year old Caitlin. And Liam points out that their first grandchild, Brigid’s eight weeks old daughter, Ellie May, is the apple of their eyes.
But he looks back at the time when he first met Davina, and in a romantic gesture, bought her a Valentine’s card, wrote the message, and sent it to her. “But it was three or four years later that she told me that she couldn’t read it. She could make out my name, but nothing else, the message didn’t make sense”.
And as with the time in that office when he was refused help by staff who were too busy, this was another occasion when he knew he had to change his life and learn to read and write properly. That journey has taken him to having his first book published, and not surprisingly for a man whose self confidence has grown and blossomed over the last ten years, he is already working on the second volume.
His own commitment and determination to succeed was a huge part of that journey, but he has no hesitation in giving credit where, he says, it’s due – to the ETB and its tutors.
He states – “Marie Clancy is more than a tutor and mentor to me, she’s one of my best friends and I love her like a sister. All the tutors are brilliant. I never had this help in school and even if I did, I would probably have turned it down as I was lost at that time.
“I cannot praise the ETB enough and I have advised people with similar problems to mine to make that phone call. There’s not a class or a night that we don’t take something away, we learn something every night. I am doing computers and desktop publishing now and I will continue on as long as I can. I want to keep learning”.