Walking home after having coffee with a friend on Friday morning, 18-year-old Diarmuid Keher got an unexpected peak at his Leaving Cert results when he glanced at his phone 15 minutes before they were due to pop up.
“I didn’t actually look at them. I just saw one or two of the grades and put it away till I got home. I was so scared,” beamed the student from Lucan Community College in Dublin.
He need not have been — he was one of two pupils at the school who brought home six H1s, totalling 625 points, more than enough to secure his preferred pharmacy course.
“I was shocked, I didn’t think I would do that well,” he explained with genuine modesty and a broad grin. It was a common expression among the school’s students as they gathered in their former school gym to exchange stories.
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This was the Covid-19 generation. Together they had endured an upended education experience and navigated their final exams with a quiet dignity. In all, 144 sat the Leaving Certificate, more than half of whom surpassed the 400 point mark. Five students broke 600.
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“It was fine because our year was more chill about it,” thought Nick Oleinik (19), a towering figure with an apparent appetite for tests — a black belt in judo and a driving license should follow soon. He secured enough points to study sports science.
“It was a stressful time but our year took it well,” he explained. “It was easier than it was for other schools, we are all friends here, we all know each other, we had a fun time in class trying to get the work done.”
That attitude was evident on Friday morning as the young classmates mingled and smiled, shook hands and hugged. Lucan Community College is one of Ireland’s largest schools with over 900 pupils — it is, according to principal Diane Birnie, a “microcosm of society” in west Dublin.
During the pandemic, she said, the young men and women “were looking out for each other, keeping an eye out for that student who was finding things a bit difficult.”
Earlier, sitting at home on her bed, Yasmin Aminou (18) opened her phone app to find seven H1s and 625 points waiting inside. She hopes to do medicine but has pharmacy to fall back on — any career path with a reliance on her first love, chemistry.
“Online learning was new but not too bad,” she said of her preparations during lockdowns. “I was lucky, I had a home I could study in. Not everyone has that.”
Ibrahim Salawu (19) was another of the smiling assortment. He laughed as he explained how he whispered his points total in the ear of his sleeping brother that morning. “I told him what I got. My brother screeched, it was a pretty funny moment.”
Ibrahim will study computer science. The mind of a future software coder was evident as he rattled off variations of numbered bus routes that might take him to potential campuses, although he will likely end up at Maynooth.
Jacinta Nderesi (19) said she might query a couple of results but, disappointment in those to one side, she has done enough to pursue midwifery via general nursing.
“I am just happy it’s over,” she said, summing up what many in the gym were no doubt feeling. She had more immediate problems on Friday as her classmates filtered out to celebrate: getting out of a shift selling popcorn at the local cinema.
