Carl Mullan is a TV and radio presenter. He currently hosts RTÉ 2FM Breakfast Show with Doireann Garrihy and Donncha O’Callaghan
What is your most vivid Leaving Cert memory?
Studying out my back garden the day before English Paper 1. The weather was amazing (of course it was!).
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Can I pick two teachers? The first was Milo O’Shea – a man I’m still in touch with to this day. He used to regularly tell us to always remember “nobody can make me feel inferior without my permission”.
The other was Declan Fitzpatrick – our English teacher. An incredible teacher and a really decent man. He used to come in on Saturday mornings coming up to the Leaving Cert to give extra classes for any of us who needed them. He sadly passed away only a few months ago but I know a number of us who were his students contacted his family at the time just to let them know how much of a mark he had left on us.
What advice would you give to your Leaving Cert self?
Do not do a postmortem after an exam by chatting to your mates and comparing yourself to them. What’s done is done.
What was your most difficult subject?
Probably Irish – but I had a great teacher who refused to allow me to drop to ordinary level and I ended up getting a B3, which I couldn’t believe!
And your favourite?
Music. Especially because half of the exam (the practical) was out of the way well before the Leaving Cert began. It was also one of the last exams on the timetable, which gave me loads of time to cram!
Can you recall what grades or points you got?
I think I got 480 points – which I was absolutely chuffed to bits with. I remember the result that surprised me most was getting an A2 in Honours English. It was literally the first time I had ever gotten an A in English. I remember showing my teacher Mr Fitzpatrick the certificate and was delighted with myself.
What did you do after secondary school?
I went to IT Tallaght and studied creative digital media. From there I went on to work for RTÉ Digital Radio. From there I worked my way in to 2FM and now I’m a presenter on the 2FM Breakfast Show.
What would you change about the Leaving Cert?
Leave a break of a week after the English and Irish papers!
What advice would you give to your Leaving Cert self?
To remember that, as stressful as it all is, to also try take as much of it in as I can.
They’re the last few days that you’ll spend with a lot of your classmates until you randomly bump into each other on the street in your 30s. You feel like it was just yesterday but now you have kids and you’re married and have a mortgage.
