Irish in Ireland AMA

[SrSteveOskowski]

Following on from a Dane in Denmark, I'm Irish, living in Ireland AMA

I did 7th year.But it was more like a course.No uniform.I did mine in typing[showing my age].There was marketing and something else as well.

7th class was a thing when kids could leave school at 14 and before "free education" was introduced. Instead of travelling long distances to a vocational school or paying fees for a secondary, primary schools could develop a "7th class" which kept the kids in education until they could officially leave.

Some schools still do it on an unofficial basis rather than have a child repeat 6th and there's a school in Co Waterford that takes boarders for a year between primary and secondary for 7th class as Gaelige.

@whosafraidofabigduckfart you mentioned the "inter", does anyone else remember the "group cert" at the end of 2nd year, officially called the Day Vocational Certificate.

I was in the last year to sit the Group and the Inter back in 1990/91

dustarr73 That was known in my area as Post Sec / often mispronounced as sex cos you know what teenagers are like?

Regarding going somewhere to train etc and not coming home that's exactly what happened to me.

Came to Liverpool for the summer 12 years ago. Have a dp, a house and a dc in school now, so I'm pretty stuck. I did toy with the idea of going home before dc started school but it just never happened

Aah, thanks for all the explanations about education. Anyone know why it isn't just called fourth year instead of transition year? And as I understand it that is a relatively new thing? So would the standard have been to do 1-3 year and 5-6th year?

We didn't have transition year in my year at school, it depended on demand. None of us wanted to do it.

So in our school, after JC, you went into 4th year and did the LC in 5th year.

The years that the school did have transition year, it was just called that or TY.

It meant that we were a year younger leaving school than many of our college/uni classmates so couldn't go boozing

It was just starting when I did my leaving (late 90s) It was optional at the time. I didn't do it. It's compulsory in some schools now, still optional in others, but from what I see the majority of pupils want to do it now. Sometimes there are limited places and all sorts of problems kick off!

My school had TY from the 1970s but only about half did it at the time.

DH did a 4th year after the Inter Cert where he did O levels before going on to 5th year and the Leaving Cert.

@SallyGardens, I was in a country convent. We were probably a bit behind the times.

I did transition year and we spent the year doing synchronised swimming (!), running small businesses (eg the tuck shop), work experience, meditation, music appreciation, and lots more random things I can't quite think of now. It was a lot of fun.

When I was in TY it was called 4th year. I think back in the day some schools did the Inter in 4th year. I was the first year to do the Junior Cert.

When I did 4th year we did all sorts of fun stuff but also started the LC curriculum, particularly for Higher Level subjects, which meant you spent most of 6th year doing revision.

@oh4forkssake If you were the first year for Junior, I was the last year for Inter the year before so I was doing TYO (Transition Year Option) while you were a 3rd year. (love the username)

This is all really interesting.
Has anyone delved in to the RTE archives? There are such gems as children singing about unemployment
Mixed marriages
Leaving cert results

It's so interesting.

Can't believe this thread is still going 16 pages later

This is a bit of a specific one but I would love an opinion... my fiancé is Irish so we are getting married in Ireland next year. All venues charge you (a lot) more for a choice of main course at the reception. Fiancé says this is both a standard Irish wedding thing and its expected. I've never heard of this at a U.K. wedding. Is he right? Or can I not have a choice of main without everyone judging Me?

Yeah having a choice of mains is pretty standard at Irish weddings. There's even an Irish racehorse called Beef or Salmon. That doesn't mean you have to go for it though. If you'll save yourself a heap of money by ignoring this, do that! Meat eaters can cope just fine with beef served to them rather than a choice between beef and salmon.

Your fiance is telling the truth, lol, and yes, it usually is beef or salmon. However when I got married I had turkey and ham and if you don't eat that, tough
I had a few vegetarians who had to be catered for alright though

Have you been to any Irish weddings before? As mentioned earlier on in the thread, they're definitely VERY different to a UK wedding, well an English one anyway. I've never been to a Scottish or Welsh one.

Irish weddings are pretty formulaic in the main so I'm all for something that bucks the trend a bit, even if that's just denying someone a choice of dishes! So what if your DP's Auntie Mary and Uncle Dermot are scandalised