Papers prove ceart go leor

COMPLAINTS were few enough from Leaving Certificate students who sat the second Irish papers in Killarney yesterday.

Austin Cirillo, who took the higher level paper at Killarney Community College, found the poetry difficult but said everything else was grand. However, he felt he got over the question on the poem Jack reasonably well.

Austin was delighted to have a crack at Kerry writer Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé’s work in the story section.

“Maidhc lives in the west Kerry Gaeltacht and is a favourite of mine. He writes very well and I had him studied,” said Austin, who plans to study computer games design at the Institute of Technology Tralee.

Amanda O’Shea sat the ordinary level paper and was well prepared for the poetry question on Níl Aon Ní, as she was for the story section.

“I thought the paper was fine,” said Amanda, whose aim is to study early childhood care, or social care.

Katie O’Sullivan was also pleased with the paper and liked the question on Gealt in the poetry section and also found Clare sa Spéir and An Bhean Óg questions easy enough.

“I was probably lucky as some of the questions had already come up in the pre-Leaving exams,” said Katie who plans to study Art.

Robert McCarthy found the poetry section in the higher level paper was easy but he thought the history section was very hard.

There were no major surprises either for Junior Certificate students sitting the second higher level Irish paper yesterday afternoon.

Anna Harrington, of Loreto College in Dublin, said the paper went very well for her.

“It’s basically the same as the past papers,” she said.

Anna left the exam early, fully confident in her performance.

Schoolmate Rebecca Mullen agreed that there were no surprises.

“It wasn’t easy, but it was as expected,” she said.

Another student Hannah Byrne was also quite pleased and said the difficulty was not with the questions, but with the language used.