1. It was split into three parts of equal horror
The aural (argh!), the oral (nooo!) and the bloody written paper (*mangled screams*).
2. We were forced to dwell in doom and gloom for two valuable years of our young lives
Problems facing young people. Drugs. The economy. The government. All things you were encouraged to form opinions on, as Gaeilge.
Why couldn’t we have written essays about the best things to get at the chipper, or holidays? WHY?
3. Half the poems on the syllabus were disturbing
There’s An Gealt, a light-hearted poem about a person with a serious mental illness, for starters.
4. We can never look at Brendan Gleeson the same way after Cáca Milis
She murdered him! In cold blood! For eating cake!
5. And then there’s An Triail
A play in which a young woman gets pregnant, cast out by everyone who knows her, then dies because why the hell not? It’s the Leaving Cert, may as well go all in.
6. We’re still trying to make sense of seanfhocail, years later
Ní dhéanfaidh an saol capall rása d’asal. (The world would not make a donkey a racehorse.)
Um, K.
7. And finally questioning the phrases that were drilled into us for so long
Why did everyone do things ‘ar nós na gaoithe’ (at the speed of the wind)? And why were we always ‘ar muin na muice’ (on the pig’s back), and not just happy?
8. Dreams of the Irish oral will haunt us for the rest of our days
What did you do this time? Sleep through it? Tell the examiner they were ‘an-ghnéasach ar fad’?
9. A simple beep is now the most sinister sound in the world
Dishwasher: Boooooop
You:
10. This sentence will live on in our minds forever
At least we will always know when to read our exam papers carefully. That will never be lost on us.
11. And we will never hear a Donegal accent without cold panic setting in
This is just unfair to Donegal people. They didn’t ask for it!
