Reaction: Castlecomer Community School That eerie exam quiet hung over the school grounds of Castlecomer Community School yesterday afternoon. Groups of students sat on the wall outside or in the school's foyer chatting quietly among themselves. Day two was nearly over, but not quite.
After a morning of maths and an afternoon of Irish, there was only the Irish aural exam to complete before it was time to go home - to study, to sleep, and for some to play hurling.
Conor Kinsella (18) was going to play a bit of hurling for an hour or two to help him relax when he got home, he said. The higher-level Irish paper in the afternoon was good and everything "was up to date", he said. He particularly liked the text about young people on the roads and crashes. Maths (higher-level) was "difficult enough" but was "really pleased" with the induction question.
How would his class-mate, David Stone (18), relax? "This is it," he said as he sat back on a school bench and chatted to friends. He said he was very happy with the maths (ordinary-level) paper especially the calculus question and the Irish (ordinary-level paper was "easy enough ... It's a good start so far," he said philosophically.
Claire Rothwell (18), a Leaving Cert student at the school, was pleased about her Irish (higher-level) paper. "I'm a rarity," she said. "I just loved that paper. The essay I did on politicians was hard but we'd done stuff on it. I liked it." And maths "wasn't too bad", she said.
Seán Allen (18), said the algebra section of the maths paper in the morning was "good" but paper two is on Monday, "so I'll be doing maths all weekend", he said. All going well, he hopes to do PE (physical education) at the University of Limerick after the summer. The Irish paper was "fairly easy" and he especially liked the piece of comprehension on Croke Park. Ann-Marie O'Neill was looking forward to a rest when she got home. Irish posed no problems, she said, although the two pieces of comprehension, about Gay Byrne and Croke Park, "were a bit hard".
Máire Ní Bhróithe, the school's new principal who took the helm last September, said that "although yesterday was long and hard", the school's 108 Leaving Cert exam students were well able to manage the exhaustion and the pressure. And, she said, "after day three tomorrow they have the weekend".