The 2025 guide is for students who plan to graduate in 2025. If you are graduating in 2026, please use the Complete Guide: H1 Leaving Cert English Guide 2026.

Leaving Cert English 2025 notes, sample essays, text analysis, examiners’ advice, video – it’s all in there. Free from AI
Contents:

Essentials
Paper I

Section I
Section II
Quotations in essays
Speech/Talk/The Language of Persuasion
Article / Opinion piece / Discursive Essay / Language of argument
Report/The language of information
Personal essay
Letter
– Letter to the Editor
– Personal letter
Descriptive essay
Short story

Paper II

King Lear

Introduction
Themes
Style
Sample essay: “In King Lear the villainous characters hold more fascination for the audience than the virtuous ones.” (2010)
Sample essay: “In the play, King Lear, the stories of Lear and Gloucester mirror one another in interesting ways.” (2006)
Sample essay: “Reading or seeing King Lear is a horrifying as well as an uplifting experience.” (2006)
Sample essay: “In King Lear honour and loyalty triumph over brutality and viciousness.” (2010)
Sample essay: ”King Lear is not only a tragedy of parents and children, of pride and ingratitude, it is also a tragedy of kingship”. (2010)
Short notes on other recent questions (2021, 2018, 2016 – both titles from each year)

Frankenstein

Themes
Style
Quotations
Characters
Key question
Sample essay: “The consequences of Victor Frankenstein’s passion for scientific knowledge and experimentation in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, are both fascinating and disturbing.” (2022)
Sample essay: “Is the Creature a child? Discuss the idea of parenthood and childhood in relation to Frankenstein.”
Sample essay: Discuss the role of Robert Walton in Frankenstein. Consider Walton’s contribution to the themes and style of the novel.
Sample essay: Discuss the importance of companionship in shaping the reader’s understanding of the characters and the events of Frankenstein.
Sample essay: Discuss the narrative purposes served by Mary Shelley’s inclusion of letters between various characters throughout her novel, Frankenstein. (2022)
Sample essay: Discuss how the use of imagery and symbolism plays an important part in the themes of Frankenstein.

General guidance
Link words
Cultural Context
General Vision and Viewpoint
Theme or Issue
Comparisons: making a comparative table
Novel/Memoir
Pride and Prejudice
The Silence of the Girls
All the Light We Cannot See
Small Things Like These
Hamnet
Educated
Never Let Me Go
Where the Crawdads Sing
Frankenstein
Rebecca
Drama
A Raisin in the Sun
Sive
Film
Ladybird
Mustang
The Shawshank Redemption
Knives Out
The Grand Budapest Hotel
On the Waterfront

Unseen poetry

General guidance
Sample answer

Prescribed poetry

General guidance

Eavan Boland

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
The War Horse
Child of Our Time
The Famine Road
The Shadow Doll
White Hawthorn in the West of Ireland
Outside History
The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me
This Moment
The Pomegranate
Love
Sample essay: “Boland’s reflective insights are expressed through her precise use of language.” Write your response to this statement, supporting your answer with suitable reference to the poetry on your course.

Emily Dickinson

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
There’s a certain Slant of light
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
A Bird came down the Walk
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died
The Soul has Bandaged moments
I could bring You Jewels – had I a mind to
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
I taste a liquor never brewed
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
Sample essay: “Dickinson’s use of an innovative style to explore intense experiences can both intrigue and confuse.” Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with reference to the poetry of Emily Dickinson on your course.

T.S. Eliot

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Preludes
Aunt Helen
A Game of Chess
Journey of the Magi
III, Usk
IV, Rannoch, near Glencoe
East Coker
Sample essay: “The poetry of T.S. Eliot often presents us with troubled characters in a disturbing world.” Write a response to this statement with reference to both the style and the subject matter of Eliot’s poetry. Support your points with suitable reference to the poems on your course

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
God’s Grandeur
Spring
As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame
The Windhover
Pied Beauty
Inversnaid
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
No worst there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief
Sample essay: “Hopkins’ innovative style displays his struggle with what he believes to be fundamental truths.” In your opinion, is this a fair assessment of his poetry? Support your answer with suitable reference to the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins on your course. (2013)

Patrick Kavanagh

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
Iniskeen Road: July Evening
Shancoduff
Advent
A Christmas Childhood
Epic
Canal Bank Walk
Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin
The Hospital
On Raglan Road
Sample essay: “Aspects of Kavanagh’s poetry could be seen as dated and irrelevant, but his unique poetic language has enduring appeal.” Do you agree with this assessment of his poetry? Support your points with suitable reference to the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh on your course.

Derek Mahon

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
Grandfather
Day Trip to Donegal
Ecclisiastes
After the Titanic
As It Should Be
A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford 
Rathlin
The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush 
Kinsale, Antractica
Sample essay: “Mahon uses language and imagery to transform personal observations into universal reflections.” Write your response to this statement with reference to the poems by Derek Mahon on your course.

Sylvia Plath

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
Black Rook in Rainy Weather
The Times are Tidy
Morning Song
Finisterre
Mirror
Pheasant
Elm
Poppies in July
The Arrival of the Bee Box
Child
Sample essay: “Plath makes effective use of language to explore her personal experiences of suffering and to provide occasional glimpses of the redemptive power of love.” Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with reference to both the themes and language found in the poetry of Sylvia Plath on your course.

Tracy K. Smith

Introduction
Detailed analysis of each poem individually
Joy (Elegy One)
Dominion Over the Beasts of the Earth
The Searchers
Letter to a Photojournalist Going In
The Universe is a House Party
Museum of Obsolescence
Don’t you wonder, sometimes?
It’s Not
The Universe as a Primal Scream
The Greatest Personal Privation
I am 60 odd years of age
Ghazal
Sample essay: “Tracy K. Smith’s demanding subject matter and formidable style can prove challenging.” Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with reference to the poetry of Tracy K. Smith on your course.

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