He was among the early Irish speakers who built and lived in the houses on Shaw’s Road from the beginning, and he still lives there.

Seán dug up as many memories from this period as he could find to show the students.

“The unrest had an effect, there’s no doubt about it: there was unrest here every other day of the week,” he said.

“But we held on.

“The only thing we had, and I don’t know if you’d call it a rule or not, was that Irish would be the language of the house.

“I was explaining to them the importance of community – it’s very, very important.

“If you lose sight of that, you pretty much lose everything.

“You have to know where you come from.”