Leaving Cert English - Thoughts

I do think the English course is good. I really enjoyed the comparitive study of a book, play and film.

What texts did you study?

Plough and the Stars by Seán O'Casey was our play. Our book was Regeneration which is about a shellshock hospital during WW1 - featuring Sassoon and Wilfred Owen as characters. Our film was On the Waterfront, with Marlon Brando.

Theme of conflict, I suppose.

It's a nice combination. I've never taught any of them, but that's the beauty of the new course - there's just so much variety.

Yup, conflict was indeed the theme!

Plough and the Stars was being staged in the Abbey at the time. A great production it was too.

johnfás wrote

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Yup, conflict was indeed the theme!

That's half the reason I gave up teaching. Not good to be too predictable...

Having said that, English is a wonderful subject to teach because you get to know the students so well - in ways they don't even realise you know them, sometimes. So much of a person's personality is revealed in they way s/he writes. How they manage the subject is interesting too.

English was my favourite class in school. We used to read and debate the columns written that week by Kevin Myers and Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times and critically analyse them as a class. We used to sing, rather than read, On Raglan Road. We had Brendan Kennelly come talk to us about Patrick Kavanagh's Poetry and we had the author of Regeneration come in and talk to us about her work. Spoilt really.

Brendan Kenneally is a legend and my fondest memories from college revolve around his drama lectures. I was blessed to make it into his elective but he decided to have a heart operation when he should have been taking my (rather scary) 'writer as critic' module in 3rd year. I don't think I've forgiven him yet. He taught the kind of lessons you don't find in books, the ones that last long after what you've learned has been forgotten.

Very true, when we were in sixth year Trinity ran a series of lectures in the evening on the poets which were on the cirriculum. I presume they still do similar. Kennelly was fantastic in them.

I'm having lots of fond memories here of my English days in school! I wanted to get a signed copy of a Seamus Heaney book for my grandmother's 90th birthday and I ended up having the book and an introduction for myself with the man himself, sorted out by the head of the English Department at school!

Well the head of your English department is rather well connected and has built a name for himself outside the classroom. I find him an intelligent debater on all things literary, but sadly an intensely annoying speaker. I find myself getting grumpy when I hear him on radio. Sorry.

His voice was rather annoying! Very nice man though.

He wasn't my teacher, we got the benefit of his knowledge but escaped his voice. Their class used to get free books though, which we didnt, boo-urns.

When I write the next great Irish novel, I'll send you a free, signed first edition. And it won't go out of date in a year...

Hurray!! Do you like to write novels Kate?

I'd love to write a short history book... now to find some time to do it!

I'm just kidding - but, if I wasn't, you'd be getting the signed copy. And it would knock the Book of Torts into a tin hat.

The man who made time made plenty of it (apparently). If and when it's the right/ important thing to do, it will happen. But you could doodle a bit and practice in the meantime.

The subject matter is always one of the difficult things to decide upon as well... so many different things to choose from! Maybe I'll just pack in this law jargon and become a writer

Doesn't have to be an either-or scenario, does it?

In any case, you'll have to start somewhere. Where ever you are now is probably the best place.

I reckon I'll get to most things like it. Not as if I particularly want to be a solicitor all my life. I find the subject matter interesting and I think it will be a good professional qualification to open up doors into other things... that's the longterm ambition anyway!