No fees, no problems as 10 students celebrate best results in the country

This year’s top Leaving Certificate students are proof that you don’t have to go to a fee-paying school to get the best results in the country.

With more than 1,500 students, Gorey Community School in Wexford is the biggest in the country and now it can boast of having Mark Berney as Ireland’s top school leaver in 2013.

An impressive list of nine other students celebrated eight higher-level A1s, with all but one attending free schools. Four went to school in Cork — Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh and Mount Mercy, both in Bishops-town; Loreto Convent in Fermoy; and St Francis Capuchin College in Rochestown — and another attended Presentation Secondary School in Milltown, Co Kerry.

Most of the schools are not averse to publicity about having students with the best grades at Junior or Leaving Certificate, and their top students this year were joined on the roll of honour by others at non-fee-paying schools in Kilrush, Co Clare; Galway City; and Dundalk.

Mark was the only student nationwide to achieve nine higher-level A1s in his Leaving Certificate.

It was also a day that any Irish mammy would be proud to celebrate as Nicky Deacon’s son became, officially, the brightest boy in the class.

“It’s just brilliant,” said deputy principal Frank Duke. “He is a quiet, unassuming young lad and it is a tribute not just to him but also to the school. He also has a younger brother, Conor, who did his Junior Cert this year... poor lad. No pressure.”

Mark was thrilled and surprised. “I was not expecting this at all,” he said. “I was looking for 500 points to do science in Trinity and was hoping for about 550, but I got 625.”

Mark, 18, who studied biology and Italian on his own with seven more subjects at school, is more than academically bright. He plays tennis and is also musically gifted, with a part-time job playing piano at Seafield Golf and Spa in Ballymoney, Co Wexford.

He is already planning ahead: “I will be doing general science for the first two years, but then I will probably choose chemistry because I have an interest in medicinal chemistry.”