Darach Ó Séaghdha Author and linguist

In Calling 353, a brand-new series for The Journal, bestselling Motherfoclóir author and podcaster Darach Ó Séaghdha casts a linguistic eye on how we talk about what it means to be Irish, the signs we post to each other about Irishness – and what really lies beneath it all.

THERE IS A horror movie out at the moment in Ireland, dealing with obsession. An obsession, you might say, that will traumatise some participants for years to come. An obsession that we feel like we may have seen before. Yes, of course I’m talking about the Leaving Certificate examinations.

A state examination at the end of secondary school is not especially unusual, neither is the efficiency of using the results of this exam to allocate scarce third-level course places. But in Ireland we do go at it awful hard.

There is no talk in England, for example, of ‘A Levels weather’ splitting the stones in early summer. Nor do bouncers outside taverns in that country ask customers in the queue what Shakespeare play they studied in school to calculate if the age on their ID is valid (in Ireland it was always Othello in a World Cup year, Hamlet in a Euros year).

Education correspondents for major newspapers in Germany and Italy are not household names the way Christina Murphy was here. Some of you may have seen footage on the news this week of exam papers arriving at schools like coffins carried by pallbearers.

That’s probably not normal.

Bookies in Ireland have even given odds on what poets will come up on the English exam. Again, probably a bit weird.

There are a whole plethora of reasons for this situation emerging and a few reasons more as to why this situation is mitigated elsewhere. The critical mass of teachers among our elected officials might have some effect on it.

The only show in town

But the most important factor is is that the Republic of Ireland has a system where the Leaving Cert is the only show in town. Students at the preppiest private school on south Dublin’s coast sit the same English Paper 1 on the same summer’s day as those in Achill Island, Mountjoy Prison or Tullamore. I am not suggesting for a second that all these students arrive to these exams with similar advantages or supports, but it is the same paper.

This is not the case in A Levels where different schools work with different exam boards and students sit different papers for the same subject on different days. There is no tweet from the British Prime Minister wishing students luck in their A Levels (or the Higher in Scotland), nor is there is post-match analysis on the country’s most popular radio stations of what poet or mathematical problem came up on that day’s exam.

In the United Kingdom, the business model of private schools (and those places they call public schools, which is confusing) is different than that here. At a fee-paying school in the Republic, a student receives the Department of Education’s classic LC product and the fees pay for additional teachers, facilities, and so on.

In England, such schools are independent corporate bodies, funded entirely by much higher fees, and can take an à la carte approach to the national curriculum – some independent schools offer alternatives to the GCSEs, for example.

Next, we have the number of subjects taken – a minimum of six, with many taking seven or eight, including three compulsory ones. In Britain, Rishi Sunk’s attempts to make maths compulsory until 18 met with howls of indignation. I can only imagine the look on their faces if they found out that a school poetry textbook in Ireland was reprinted to bestselling success.

The one-for-all nature of the Leaving may have something to do with the story of education in Ireland as a kind of national project.

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The mission to restore the Irish language to everyday use is intimately linked to the school system, as has been the attempts to maintain an Irish identity in the face of colonial and corporate influences. Donogh O’Malley breaking rank and announcing free secondary education against the warnings of advisors is one of a precious few number of cheerable moments in Irish politics.

And then, there’s the CAO points system. Parents and teachers are obsessed with results and college places everywhere, but watching the value of various courses go up and down each year like stock market prices is a bit Irish. When I was a student in UCD I remember the horror when the points requirement for Arts briefly overtook those for Engineering; this was described by certain economists (arts graduates themselves, of course) as a harbinger of doom, a sign that the Celtic Tiger’s days were surely numbered.

Extreme examples aside, the fluctuating fortunes of various courses do give some insight into what sectors students expect to find good prospects. Attaching a points value gives us detail to build our arguments around. But of course, not all that is measurable is meaningful.

When I say that the Leaving and CAO have a very large cultural presence in Ireland compared to some neighbouring countries, I am not saying that this is entirely a good thing. The amount of news coverage and analysis over a bunch of standardised tests can only add to the pressure on already stressed-out students.

I hope they get through June unscathed, and when results day comes around they are not asked to jump in the air for a photographer. They’ve been through enough.

Darach will be back next Sunday with more thoughts on the words and Irish cultural phenomena that unite us.