Shane De Poire

It hasn't appeared since 2023.

But it's been on the paper every two to three years before that.

So maybe for this year, because there was a march in September for the Irish language, the rights of the language and also the rights of the people in the Gaelic, maybe on Irish in the Gaelic in 2026 or possibly a very popular one is Irish and the Irish culture nowadays as well.

Yeah, of course they can.

But like what I would say to students is like to try, like there are neutral phrases you can develop as well.

Not everything has to be specifically about, you know, this essay all the time.

You can have a generic opening, a general opening, a general closing that kind of addresses problems in society.

You can have a couple of sentences throughout every paragraph that like this is awful.

I can't believe this is happening.

But what I would tell students is if you want the very best marks, what you have to do is kind of explain the issues at hand.

And for Irish paper one,

the big amount of marks go for spelling and grammar.

So 80 of the 100 marks are for spelling, grammar and the richness of your language.

So I say to my students, you don't have to be the most interesting person in the world, but you do have to be accurate to get top marks.

And just the oral exam, just break that down for us.

So the oral exam is into three different sections.

Section A, kind of short and snappy.

Section B is two conversations.

That's worth 28 marks in total.

And then section C is worth 18 marks.