Leaving Cert. Irish

aisling1429

Hi guys, wondering if you can help me. I'm in 5th year at the moment, and I'm doing Higher Level Irish. I'm awful at Irish, I can't even understand the basics. I can't remember anything I study; nothing will go in. I had my summer test this morning, but didn't study for it because I knew I wouldn't learn anything. My question is, should I do Ordinary Level? I'm okay at the oral exam, and if I was to stay in Higher, that'd be the only thing I'd be relying on. The teacher I would have cannot teach at all - nobody learns a thing in their class. I'm not certain about what I want to do after school, but I definitely want to go to college. So: should I stay in Higher or drop down to Ordinary? Thanks.

A7XGirl

I suggest you not to drop down, I started 5th year late (5 months) so I missed out on a whole lot in Higher Irish. They had already done all the poems and stories and essays. So what did I do? Every week I picked out a certain thing to study in Irish since the course is pretty repetitive (Story, Poems, Essays). I would first read the poem and then watch a YouTube video on it, there are many Irish Youtubers who make Irish more fun. A perfect example is Gaelgory, watching his videos have lightened my mood on Irish. It is still not my best subject, but I've learned not to be negative about it. Since I started my own method of learning the Leaving Cert Irish course, I've honestly improved quite a lot. I could still work harder and I plan on doing that during the summer, just to ensure I'm ready for 6th year. And something I also found that helped is by not learning off huge paragraphs. Key words are the answer. If you know some basic key words for the topic you're doing, you can practically write pages on it yourself So don't give up, just keep working! I have my summer test tomorrow for Irish and all I've done is watch YouTube videos relating to what I'm learning. I'll find out if this works or not tomorrow...hopefully it does
One last thing, dropping to Ordinary level won't really change much. The only difference is that they write less and have less things to study.

Peregrine

Unless you want a job with requires Irish, I suggest you drop down.

BUT if you're worse at your 7th subject than Irish, then you might want to stick with it and try your best to improve over the summer or something.

If higher Irish isn't going to be one your six subjects and you don't need it for any courses you like then it's simple really. Drop down and concentrate on the 6 subjects that is going to be counted in your points.

lc_2013

Anyone doing Irish for their Leaving Cert this year, I'm wondering what points to make for the Education System as an essay? And how many points should suffice?

SiobhainD

It really depends on how many honours subject you're doing and the amount of points you think you can get. I'm in sixth year right now and doing 8 subjects including pass maths and lcvp (which almost everyone gets 50 points in ). I decided to stay in honours because I like oral Irish and I could get a C if I tried. If I was doing another subject instead of lcvp I would probably move to ordinary level.
My number one piece of advice would be to go to the Gaeltacht if you haven't already (and I mean a strict gaeltacht like lurgan, spleodar or Coláiste na bhFiann!). If you decide to go to ordinary next year you still have to do the same oral exam as an honours student and it's worth 40% so it's helpful either way! Don't worry too much about poetry and pros. The comprehensions, aural, oral and essay are FAR more important. The poetry, pros and optional pros/poetry(eg:an triail) need a little bit of rote learning and the right vocabulary and understanding of the key themes. Do not learn off rubbish you don't need (like I did with my abysmal teacher last year!).
I would say stay at it and if you find it very hard or discover you don't want to count it for points you can always move next year.
Go n-éirí an t-ádh leat!