Luke O’Neill, an immunologist and professor of biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin, is also an author and a musician. He sat the Leaving Cert at Presentation College Bray, Co Wicklow in 1981.
What is your most vivid Leaving Cert memory?
After the last exam, me and a classmate went down Bray seafront (I’m from Bray) and we jumped into the sea in our uniforms. Free at last!
Who was your most influential teacher and why?
Fran Mooney, biology teacher. I would not have done natural sciences in Trinity if it wasn’t for him inspiring me.
What advice would you give to your Leaving Cert self?
Don’t take advice from people in their 50s.
Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten: ‘Romance took a lot out of us. It was like a bomb went off, and then that silence’
A day in the Bere Island school where teachers commute by ferry and classes take place on the beach
Nicky English: The rules that hurling could, and should, steal from football immediately
Summer strawberries: Two desserts that celebrate the defining fruit of the season
What was your most difficult subject?
Irish. For some reason I had a hard time learning it. Probably because I only did it in school, never outside.
And your favourite?
Biology, obviously enough!
Can you recall what grades/points you got?
It was before points! If memory serves I got a few As and Bs.
What did you do after secondary school?
I went to Trinity College Dublin to study natural sciences (biochemistry)
What would you change about the Leaving Cert?
There have to be other ways to assess students, other than sit-down exams, but I’d like to see evidence that they are fair and don’t increase disadvantage for those already at a disadvantage because of socio-economic group.
