Conor Harris was an exception to the sons-and-brothers rule. He got into Brookfield because his parents could afford to make what was described as ‘a substantial donation’ to the school, for the planned refurbishment of the gymnasium. Figures for this donation have not been disclosed.

The school has a Latin motto: Semper et Ubique Fidelis.

It means ‘Always and Everywhere Faithful’.

Two former presidents of the Irish Republic had gone to Brookfield. According to one report, ‘It is harder to get into Brookfield than it is to get into Oxford.’

The school takes in a small number of boarders every year. Neither Richard Culhane nor Conor Harris, both of whom lived close enough to the school to be driven there every morning, belonged to this number.

Conor Harris’s parents habitually drove him to school. During his last year at Brookfield Richard drove himself, in the Nissan Almera his parents had bought him for his seventeenth birthday.

The halls of Brookfield are lined with polished wooden lockers and framed pages from newspapers dating back to the turn of the century. These pages memorialize the school’s sporting successes. You can’t visit Brookfield without being made aware of how seriously the school take sports of all kinds, and rugby in particular.

At the beginning of their fifth year at Brookfield Richard Culhane and Barry Fox formed a band called the Paranoids. Richard was a passable rhythm guitarist but Barry, the vocalist, was generally believed to be the group’s real talent. Their best original song was a three-minute rocker called ‘I Don’t Tan, I Burn’. On the flyers they handed out at their gigs they listed their influences as the Stones, Hendrix, Nirvana, Green Day, and the Beach Boys. They also did a cover of ‘My Generation’ by The Who. Their plan was to wait until their farewell gig – Brookfield’s annual Battle of the Bands Night – and then trash their instruments as a finale to The Who cover. But the instruments were too expensive and the warning from the principal was too severe and in the end they didn’t do it.

The boys did get into trouble fairly often, though. Struck by a new thought when they were drunk, they would pursue it without asking themselves whether or not it looked like a good idea. Some of their misadventures were essentially comic in spirit – or, at least, this was the tone they assumed in retrospect.

Like the time they hotboxed Barry Fox’s second-hand Ford Fiesta and the guards knocked on the window.

Or the time they broke into a building site in Donnybrook and Dave Whelehan, drummer for the Paranoids, speared his foot on a rusty nail when he jumped off a wall without looking.

Or the time Richard sneaked into the school car park and stole a hubcap from the car of a visiting old boy who happened to be Ireland’s star hooker for the coming season.

Or the time Barry squirted a carbon-dioxide fire extinguisher into a phone box on George’s Street and walked out through the mist, staring at passers-by and shouting, ‘WHAT YEAR IS THIS?’