As we go into the third week of Leaving Cert 2025, our Leaving Cert Diarist shares her thoughts on a new subject - Ukrainian. Lidiia, who is based in Co Wexford, tells us how it went for her.
The Leaving Cert Diary series, with thanks to our friends at the Irish Second-Level Students' Union (ISSU), gives students the chance to tell us about the exams in their own words.
Read Lidiia's blog here...
"Easy H1!" they say when someone mentions taking a non-curriculum language. And sure, one of the criteria for sitting a non-curriculum exam is that it must be your mother tongue.
However, I found it quite unsettling, as this was the first year the Ukrainian exam paper had been introduced, and there were no past papers to study from. I wasn't alone in feeling uneasy, other Ukrainian students shared the same concerns.
It came as no surprise this morning when I found out I was the only student in my school sitting the Ukrainian paper.
In the end, there was nothing to worry about. The exam followed a structure similar to other non-curriculum languages like Swedish, Dutch, or Czech. It consisted of three sections. Section One included six comprehension questions based on a provided text. Sections Two and Three were written tasks: the first asked for a short commentary (100–150 words) on a quote, and the second provided a choice of two topics for a short essay of at least 300 words.
This year’s theme was "Myths and Truths about Ukrainian Vyshyvanka" - traditional Ukrainian embroidered clothing. I found the comprehension text both easy to follow and genuinely interesting. It discussed the history of the vyshyvanka and included facts I hadn’t known. For example, in the past, the amount of embroidery on a woman’s vyshyvanka often reflected her age. Women over 60 would wear heavily embroidered clothing only twice a year: at Christmas and Easter.
I’m happy I chose to stick with my mother tongue. And I’m even more delighted that fellow Ukrainians will no longer feel they have to to sit the Russian exam - now they finally have a choice.
Slava Ukraini!
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The ISSU
Founded in 2008, the ISSU is the national representative body for school students in the Republic of Ireland. The ISSU is led by students, for students.
