Michael O'Connor from Mallow is the kind of schoolboy the old English public school story-tellers used to fantasise about, and fellow students loved to hate. Not only did the 17-year-old get a near-impossible maximum of 600 points in this year's Leaving Cert, but he also captained Patrician Academy's rugby team.
He is going to do electronic engineering, and would be a likely candidate to star in any Hollywood synthesis of Biggles meets Star Wars. His colleague, Kieran Kelliher, clearly put out that his five A1s and one A2 only got him second place in the class, has decided to postpone studying medicine and go to Sydney for a year.
Over in Fermoy, Murt Kelleher, from St Colman's College, got eight A1s, and Mallow sisters, Natalie and Alecia Barry, had achieved eight A1s in 1997 and 1998 respectively.
Down the road at Presentation Brothers College in Cork city, they breed geniuses in twos. Identical twins James and Bill McEvoy obtained seven As each. James got seven straight A1s for a maximum 600 points while Bill slumped to 590 points with two A2s.
Over in east Cork, Siobhan Crowley and Jennifer Corbett, pupils at St Aloysius girls' secondary school in Carrigtwohill, were celebrating 590 and 580 points respectively. They agreed that being at an all-girls' school helped. If you're sick of hearing about brainy Cork students, wait until next year. Normally reliable sources in Blarney report that Sarah Flannery, the young genius whose top prize for data encryption in this year's Esat Telecom Young Scientist competition had the world's electronics companies beating a path to her door, is due to take the Leaving Cert in the first year of the new millennium.
The Irish Times Website for analysis of the Leaving results is www.ireland.com/special/cao/