Live reaction to Leaving Cert Irish paper two and Junior Cycle exams
Leaving Cert: Irish paper 2 (9.30-12.35pm), biology (2-5pm)
Junior Cycle: graphics (9.30-11.30am), French (1.30-3.30pm)
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11 minutes ago
27/05/2024 – MAGAZINE - Oliver Callan for Magazine. Photograph Nick Bradshaw for The Irish Times
'I got through the last two days of the Leaving on painkillers and no sleep'
We've been asking public figures, entertainers, politicians and others about their Leaving Cert memories.
Oliver Callan spoke to us a few years back and we think he wins the award for most vivid and cinematic exam memory:
'During the weekend in between exams, a few cattle 'broke out' into a neighbour's field. It was Sunday night, dusk, and I was summoned to help the rescue mission. Running across boggy ground, I went down, twisting my knee in a hole and tearing my cruciate ligament. My father had to carry me back across the field. Dosed on painkillers and with no sleep, I managed to get through the last two days of exams with my leg up on a chair. I felt very Joan of Arc about the sacrifice for the cause of agriculture. History was my last exam. I got an A1, but I may have tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.'
You can read the full piece
here
.
17 minutes ago
Leaving Cert students from Libya completing the exam in Malta
The Leaving of Libya
The exam weather has been mixed of late - but there are no such problems in Malta, where more than 100 students are sitting the Leaving Cert in 30 degree heat.
Why? There is a long-running arrangement with the International School of the Martyrs (ISM) in Tripoli, a private schools where students have access to the Leaving Cert.
It is the only place outside the State where the exams are held annually - although the exams have been held in Malta in recent years due to the turbulent political situation.
It is largely thanks to Brendan Coffey, a former lecturer in communications at Athlone RTC - now Technological University of the Shannon - and a former principal of ISM.
'We gained approval to run the International Baccalaureate but we didn't take it up as it was very expensive,' Coffey told
The Irish Times back in 1997
. 'We then approached the Department of Education about the possibility of taking Junior and Leaving Cert. They considered it for a while and eventually agreed.'
ISM International School first opened in 1954 as the Oil Companies School, a school for the children of oil company executives and diplomats posted to Libya. ISM is the oldest international school in North Africa and has successfully graduated every class since 1960.
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