There was a red dress, a kiss and an earthquake - and Junior Cert Irish students were delighted. A romantic story set at the time of San Francisco's earthquake at the start of the century left higher-level students smiling in exam halls around the State. They were in control. The piece was fine and the questions were lovely.
"Hopefully paper two will compensate for a difficult paper one. This was a much better paper," said Ms Treasa Ni Chonaola, a teacher at St Michael's College in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
The earthquake was described in a lively, romantic and dramatic excerpt taken from Sean Mac Mathuna's Rafla. It left Junior Cert students feeling "quite pleased with themselves", she said. The unseen poetry is generally "hit and miss", she said, but students generally had no real problems with this either.
The section of short prose extracts was "difficult enough" and the questions were "testing enough". However the letter section at the end "cheered everybody up and they were quite happy with it". On the whole the paper was "difficult but not intimidating", she said.
Ms Maire Ni Laoire, ASTI subject representative and vice-chairwoman of Comhar na Muinteoiri Gaeilge, said students were satisfied after yesterday's higher-level Irish paper.
She described the paper as "daltalach" (student-friendly).
But Mr Hilari de Barra, a teacher at St Louis Secondary School in Dundalk, Co Louth, said the Irish higher-level paper was "extremely difficult".
Mr Sean de Paor, TUI subject representative and a teacher at Scoil Phobail Mhic Dara in Carna, Co Galway, said the format of the higher-level was "straightforward". Students in the Gaeltacht areas of Carna and Carraroe found said the pros liteartha question was "quite simple". There were one or two difficult parts, such as question 1b (iii), which would be "a challenging question for good students with flair and ability" but "borderline students would find it very, very difficult". The poetry section was "manageable".
He said students who would have discussed the peace process and peace in general would have welcomed the final part of the letter question, which asked them to write a letter on this subject to Foinse. There were no complaints about either the foundation written or aural Irish paper yesterday. The mna cailiula in this year's paper were Caitriona McKiernan and Sonia O'Sullivan.
The paper was "like multiple choice,", she said, which helps to make the paper suitable and accessible to students at this level. Another teacher in the west said the written part was "very fair, and overall it didn't place any burden on the pupils in his school" - and "they had no complaints" about the aural test either.