History students had to cope with a difficult higher-level history paper yesterday afternoon.

TUI subject representative Mr Donough O'Brien said students who had done a lot of work might have been disappointed at their inability to display their knowledge. A number of expected topics topics, including Parnell, Bismarck and Lemass, were noticeably absent. Question 3 in section A was unusual in that it demanded two mini-essays rather than one, he added.

However, the ordinary-level paper was "very good, very fair. It was straightforward, giving the students every chance", said Mr O'Brien.

Fr Iggy O'Donovan, Good Counsel, New Ross, Co Wexford, contacted Exam Times to say section A of the Irish history paper was "tough and technical and mean in that none of the old reliables appeared".

Most students would have prepared Parnell, Home Rule, Gladstone and Michael Collins, instead they got questions on agriculture and the Anglo-Irish literary group, he said.

Many students were unlikely to have studied Arthur Griffith, who also featured, added Fr O'Donovan. "Students were downcast leaving the exam."

A number of distraught parents also rang Exam Times to say that their sons and daughters - good students - were most unhappy with the paper. Conor Tierney, a higher-level student in St Peter's, Wexford, said it was "draconian and over the top".

One Co Kildare mother, a history graduate, described the paper as "appalling, very unfair, unbelievable and more suited to university students". She had spoken to a number of other parents and the general consensus was that the Minister for Education should decide to mark it differently.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said that marking conferences are held after the exams and any difficulties will be discussed.

In economic history, the higher-level paper contained a reasonable range of mainstream questions, said ASTI subject convenor Mr Des Cowman, although there were some anomalies, particularly in the international economy section. Some 520 students are entered for economic history this year.

Question 5, on the slowing in the rate of increase in the Irish population in the decades before the famine, was based on a "dubious" assumption, he asserted. A spokesman for the Department of Education said this slowing in the rate of increase was well documented.

Mr Cowman also criticised question 14 which asked about the economic factors which made Britain support free trade and America oppose it. The spokesman said the paper had been approved by a number of eminent university-based historians.

The ordinary-level paper "was not really aimed at the cohort who would take it.