Laura Dowling

Palace, yes, yes.

So it was all that.

Sounds like fun.

It was the opposite of going to college, but it was a fun time.

Yes.

But then I deeply regretted it when I failed, obviously miserably.

But look, I got through it.

It's fine.

And I ended up getting my pharmacy degree, going out and doing my internship.

And then I just worked as a pharmacist for...

you were in 20 years did that mean working in a chemist at the counter sort of thing yeah so I I went into community pharmacy and I never really left it so I worked in Boots for a while then I worked for another crowd that I did relief pharmacy work with which that was like all over the city in all different various locations and then I finally settled in Stillorgan in what was Unicare in Stillorgan and then it changed various different names but I was there for 17 years 17 years at the counter yeah

Yeah, yeah, or behind the counter rather.

But like, you know, we didn't have a toilet on that premises, it's gas.

So I would have known my patients and customers so well that if I had gone out to the public toilets to go to the bathroom and come back in and they were standing at the counter, I would have known exactly who it was just from the back of them.

And what dosage they needed.

I knew exactly what they wanted.

Isn't that funny?

No.

So I loved the fact that she just talked about all of these things that I suppose we weren't talking about in school.

Now, my mum was always really open about things, but even at that, we were still very much, it was still very much Catholic Ireland, wasn't it?