The day the Leaving Cert results were published, Friday, August 21, was, we hope, a happy and memorable day for all students. At the end of a long straight road of five or six years in secondary school, they’re now starting off down a new one. Don’t all of us middle-aged adults feel again the momentousness of being at that crossroads long ago? I had a summer job as night porter in the Eccles Hotel, Glengarriff, and, having closed up the residents’ bar, was left by myself in the lounge to think out into the early hours what I was going to do with my life.
“What would you like to be when you grow up?” is the question that is asked, more or less playfully, of every child, while remaining silently ever-present in a parent’s mind. As that child passes from primary to secondary with career guidance available in the final years – even a whole Transition Year for the lucky students of today – this question comes more and more to the fore. All seek a place in the world, and examine ever more closely, ever more probingly, as the years pass, what they could have in themselves to offer that world – in a word, what gifts they have.
Good Leaving Cert results are certainly evidence of gifts, especially in certain areas. High marks are very likely in subjects the student was particularly interested in and therefore good at. After all, the teenage mind – indeed any mind – can only concentrate on what really strikes a chord with it. The next step is to pursue the favourite subject(s) to third level, gain a qualification and apply for a job.
Significance
The full significance of the term ‘lucky break’ comes home now to the job-seeker. We all remember, I’m sure, being on permanent look-out, once we were qualified, for something to come our way, some stroke of good luck, even what we were ready to call ‘a miracle of timing’? “Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.” How heartening this is! In my case, after completing my studies in UCD, I owed everything to my mother who happened to see an ad in the paper for a teacher of English and French in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth – my subjects precisely!
Many Leaving Cert students will know Robert Frost’s poem ‘The Road not Taken’, all about life choice. What has to be the most unusual road taken after Leaving Cert, “the one less travelled by”, is that leading to the diocesan priesthood or religious life. For nearly forty years I had the privilege of accompanying seminarians for their first two years in Maynooth, many straight from school in the early years of the course, others, in later years, with considerable work experience behind them.
Parallel
Can we draw a parallel between the individual in search of the right road and humanity as the sum of all individuals doing so, each and all discerning their way? The grown-up Leaving Cert student corresponds to humanity “come of age” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). We’re all on the same synodal road – towards what destination? What door might lie ahead that will open when knocked on? Magnifica humanitas (Pope Leo) – but magnificent in what sense? What miracle of timing might inspire all humanity to sing unanimously, “Magnificant animae nostrae dominum” (Our souls magnify the Lord)?
___
From students in 2026 wondering what life holds in store for them after their Leaving Cert, I come now to some ‘old boys’ knowing full well what it turned out to hold for them. I attended O’Connell School in Dublin. The 1966 Leaving Cert class met in June to mark their 60th anniversary. Of the 31 students, some were unable to come for various reasons; alas, four who were present at the 50th were nowhere above ground to answer ‘Anseo’ ten years later, leaving 17 who came to the lunch reunion in a pub-restaurant in the city. One of our teachers, Larry Lohan, was also happily present. Grace was said by one of the two priests that came from the class, the other being abroad. And so we chatted and reminisced for the whole afternoon, listening to each other’s stories which included the work we did to the best of our ability in the service of others.
