Leaving Cert Diary: History and French are finished for the class of 2025

RTÉ News​

11-06-2025

In this entry to our Leaving Cert Diary, our contributors look back on Leaving Cert French and History.
With thanks to our friends at the Irish Second-Level Students' Union (ISSU), two of their members, Chelsea who is based in Mayo and Dublin student Isabelle took the time to tell us how it went today.
As the exams stretch out for some students, make sure to check out these top tips for minding yourself.
Une petite aventure Française. This morning, I sat the French Ordinary Level paper- and honestly, it went better than I expected.
The reading comprehensions were interesting. One was about fashion, and the other followed a teen on holiday with his uncle. Most texts were manageable, though there was one I found slightly tricky - but nothing too overwhelming.
The usual "fill in the blanks" and form section made its return, but it wasn't too bad. The form was on sport, which was a nice topic and overall, not so challenging. There were also good options: a formal letter, a diary, a message and a postcard. The prompts were creative and allowed plenty of room to express yourself.
The listening paper was also fair. Each question brought something different, and most of it was straightforward. The last part - the news items - was a little tougher, but still manageable.
Overall, it felt like a balanced and well-structured paper with lots of familiar content.
For the Class of 2026: stay on top of your vocab and try a few past papers before the real thing. It really helps you to feel more confident and prepared.
C'est fini! Au revoir, French paper - on to the next one!
How was history for Isabelle?
Well, the day we have all been waiting for has come. And now the past 2 years of studying have become history.
Time is never on One's side in Leaving Cert History: 2 hours and 50 minutes is a tight space of time to analyse two documents and write just over 3 lengthy essays. I had to have my watch set 5 minutes ahead just to have the smallest hope in finishing in time!
It was hard with the exam being in the afternoon, I was fighting sleep as I wrote and wrote and wrote.
The Documents Based Question (DBQ), while highly predicted to have been the Nuremberg rallies, turned out to be the Jarrow March. I liked how completely different the documents were as I was able to make quick, sharp comparisons.
I answered two questions from Ireland Topic 3: The Pursuit of Sovereignty and the Impact of Partition, and one from the United States and Wider world. In both the DBQ and main essays the questions were wildly different to how they have been in past years. Gone are the questions directly relating to the case studies; now we are seeing the case studies masquerading behind other aspects of the topic, proving to be a wild curveball for many of us.
Founded in 2008, the ISSU is the national representative body for school students in the Republic of Ireland. The ISSU is led by students, for students.