Junior Cert Irish: Donegal dialect proves difficult for some

Donegal Irish proved a difficult dialect for higher level Junior Certificate Irish students.

Aaron Tracey and Conor O’Hanlon, two Junior Cert students at Catholic University School on Leeson Street in Dublin, felt the paper went well but parts of the tape were tricky.

“I found the listening comprehension hard because there are so many different dialects from all around the country. I found the written comprehensions easier. There was only one option at the end that suited my kind of writing,” said Aaron.

“I would have preferred if there had have been more Dublin accents because I think the Cork and Donegal dialects can be difficult to understand. Even if more of the voices were contained in Leinster I’d find it easier to understand,” he said. “We have practised the Donegal accent a lot but I still find it hard to follow,”

he added.

Conor said he thought the listening comprehension was difficult too. “The ones from Donegal or Kerry are hard. Overall the paper was fine, I was expecting it to be a lot harder,” said Conor.

“There are two comprehensions, a grammar section and then you have a choice of either a debate, an essay or a story or an incident. We both wrote about the incident,” he said.

Aaron added: “I found the grammar section of the paper easier than normal because it was putting words into the past tense. which is easier than putting it into future or conditional.

“I learned off a lot of vocabulary about fires so I was able to write that into one of the stories I wrote.

“I took my time; the Aiste took about 40 minutes to do but I had some time left over at the end,” said Conor.

Studied poetry, a story and a letter are all ahead on Paper Two in the afternoon.