Poetry section of Irish exam provokes debate

THE poetry section in the second paper of the Junior Certificate Irish exam provoked the most debate after students finished it at lunchtime yesterday.

It was the fourth exam in three days with many finding parts of the paper difficult to answer.

However, Eoghan Finn, 15, from Deerpark, a student of Coláiste Chríost Rí in Cork city, stayed in the exam hall for the maximum time allowed and was happy with his morning’s work.

“It was grand because the stuff I had learned came up which was great. There was one question on poetry that I didn’t know but it was not bad.

“I had time to read over the paper at the end and I made a couple of mistakes where I missed out a word and I was able to fix them,” Eoghan added.

However, Ian Leahy, 15, from Gould Street, Cork city, found it to be the most difficult of the exams he sat so far.

After already completing the first half of his Irish exam on Thursday he was happy to put it behind him.

“It was very hard. The poetry was the part I mostly found hard. Some of the reading parts were difficult to understand but the rest was grand. I was okay for time and I looked back over the paper before I left,” he said.

Similarly his classmate Liam Horgan, 15, from Mayfield, said there were parts he fought with but he was pleased overall.