EuraStudy
This topic is the preparation behind one half of one assessed element rather than an assessed element of its own, and the distinction matters: there is NO coursework component in this specification and nothing here is submitted for marking except a Summary Sheet. The individual research project is what the introduction and discussion of Unit A2 1 is about. That element runs approximately six minutes — a one-minute introduction and a five-minute discussion — and it is assessed on the AO4 and AO3 criteria, with AO4 alone worth 7.2 percent of the A level, the largest single block of that objective anywhere in the qualification. The project must be on an aspect of an Irish-speaking country or community, chosen from three prescribed options, and its topic is constrained by a cross-unit rule the specification states in both directions. What is submitted is a Summary Sheet of approximately five headings, teacher-authenticated and sent by the centre to CCEA by the deadline set. The research itself is never marked; only the talk is.
5 sections~29 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Foundation 2 · Standard 2 · Advanced 1
basic level
There is no equivalent of this at AS. The AS 1 presentation is a prepared talk on a theme topic, three minutes long, with a Summary Sheet of approximately three to five headings and a Preparation Sheet of up to sixty words. The A2 project is longer, deeper, chosen from three prescribed options rather than from the themes, and followed by a five-minute discussion you do not control. Treat the AS presentation as the rehearsal it is.
higher level
Section 4.5 defines synoptic assessment at A2 and one of its clauses is directly about this project: following their own lines of enquiry and recording and observing FROM PRIMARY SOURCES. That is an instruction about method, and it is the clearest statement in the specification of what kind of research is wanted — not a summary of what others have written, but your own enquiry into material you have gone to yourself.
Reading depth: In depth
Text size: Standard
The three prescribed research options
A candidate wants to research traditional music. Narrow it, under the culture option, until it is a project rather than a subject area.
Not a topic. It is centuries of repertoire across an island and a diaspora. Six minutes on it would be six minutes of generalities, and the first follow-up question — cén sórt ceoil go díreach? what kind of music exactly? — would end it.
Better. A defined tradition with an identifiable practice: unaccompanied solo singing in Irish, ornamented, and regionally varied. Still large, but now it has boundaries and it is unmistakably connected to Irish-speaking communities, which the option requires.
Better again, and it combines two of the three options in a legitimate way, since a cultural aspect can perfectly well be studied in a place. Now there is a repertoire, a set of singers, a regional style, and a set of local institutions that sustain it. Six minutes is beginning to look short rather than long.
The best projects have a question rather than only a subject. How is sean-nós singing passed on now that fewer households sing at home? Who is learning it, and where? Has recording changed how it is learned? A question converts research into enquiry, which is what §4.5's synoptic clause asks for.
One minute of introduction: what it is, where, and the question. Five minutes of discussion in which you will be asked to explain, exemplify, compare and evaluate. A topic at level three has enough material for that; a topic at level zero has one minute and then silence.
Before committing, check it against the AS 1 presentation topic and both set works. If you presented on a traditional-music organisation at AS, this project is probably too close and the whole exercise has to begin again — which is why the exclusion list comes before the narrowing, not after it.
Result: Four levels of narrowing from a subject area to a project with a question — traditional music, to sean-nós singing, to sean-nós singing in one region, to a specific question about how it is transmitted now — followed by two tests: does it fill six minutes of discussion, and does it clear the exclusion list.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Write one candidate topic under each of the three options, then test each against three questions: is it genuinely connected to an Irish-speaking country or community; can I say what it includes and what it excludes; and could I talk about it for six minutes without repeating myself? Discard anything that fails any of the three, and expect to discard at least one.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §3.4 and Appendix 3 (CCEA)
The exclusion workflow
A candidate presented at AS on Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, is studying a set film at AS 3, and expects to answer on the prescribed poets at A2 3. They now want to research sean-nós singing. Work the exclusion list.
One: the AS 3 set film, by title. Two: the A2 3 poetry selection — Ó Ríordáin, Ó Searcaigh, Ó Direáin and Mhac an tSaoi. Three: the AS 1 presentation topic, Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. Four: the proposed research topic, sean-nós singing. Now test four against one, two and three in turn.
Probably clear, unless the film is centrally about traditional singing. Note the word 'probably' — this is not your judgement to make alone, and the teacher who authenticates the sheet will make it.
Worth thinking about rather than dismissing. Poetry and song are adjacent, and one of the prescribed poets is associated with a Gaeltacht region where singing traditions are strong. This is exactly the kind of adjacency that 'relates to' might or might not cover. Flag it and ask.
Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann is an organisation for traditional music, and sean-nós singing is traditional music. A reasonable teacher could easily judge that the research topic relates to the presentation topic. This is the collision, and it was created a year earlier by a choice that seemed to have nothing to do with A2.
Do not try to distinguish sean-nós from Comhaltas by argument. Move to a different option entirely: a twentieth-century historical period, or a region. A region project on a Gaeltacht district would be a genuinely different subject with genuinely different material, even if singing appeared in it as one element among many.
The collision was not created at A2; it was created at AS, when a presentation topic was chosen without a reserved research area written beside it. One line on the four-row sheet in the first year — 'A2 research to be a period or a region, not a cultural aspect' — would have prevented the whole thing.
Result: A real collision found between the AS 1 presentation topic and the proposed A2 research topic, resolved not by arguing a fine distinction but by moving to a different prescribed option — and traced back to its actual cause, which was choosing an AS topic in year one without reserving a research area for year two.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Make the four-row sheet — AS 3 set work, A2 3 set work, AS 1 presentation topic, A2 1 research topic — and fill in everything already decided. Then write, for your proposed research topic, one sentence for each of the other three explaining why it does not relate to it. Take the sheet to your teacher and ask for the topic to be agreed in writing before you begin.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §3.1, §3.4, Appendix 1 and Appendix 3 (CCEA)
Your project is on a Gaeltacht district, under the region option. Plan a term of research that satisfies §4.5's primary-source clause and produces material you can talk about for six minutes.
Find out what the district is: where its boundaries are, roughly how many people live there, what the principal settlements are, what the main forms of employment are, and what institutions exist — schools, a co-operative, a radio station, a summer college. Two or three general accounts, read fast, purely to find out what there is to ask about.
Identify four primary sources you can reach. A local Irish-language radio or online outlet. The published material of a local organisation. Official statistics from the relevant statistics office, which you will describe rather than quote inaccurately. And one person you could interview — a teacher, a relative, someone who works in the district.
Listen to the local output regularly and take notes in Irish. Read the organisation's own material. Conduct the interview in Irish and record the questions and answers as notes, not as a transcript. If you can visit, visit, and record what you observe: what languages are on the signs, what you hear in a shop, what is on the noticeboard.
By now you know too much for six minutes, which is the correct problem to have. Choose the one question the talk will answer. What keeps Irish the community language here when it has ceased to be elsewhere? How has the summer-college system changed the district? What happens to young people who leave? One question, and everything else becomes support for it.
Return to the sources with the question in hand. This second pass is where the specific, usable material comes from — the detail that makes an examiner ask a follow-up you can answer. It is also the stage that distinguishes enquiry from collection, and it is the stage §4.5 is describing.
Only now write the Summary Sheet. Five headings that outline the research, agreed with your teacher and authenticated by them, submitted by the centre to CCEA by the deadline. Written at this stage they describe what you actually did; written in week one they would have described what you hoped to do.
Result: A twelve-week plan: two weeks orienting, two locating four reachable primary sources, four engaging with them in Irish including one interview and one visit, one week identifying the single organising question, two weeks returning to the sources for it, and one week writing the five-heading Summary Sheet last rather than first.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
List four primary sources for your topic that you could actually reach this term — not four you wish existed. For each, write what you expect to get from it and how you will record it. Then take notes on one of them entirely in Irish, and count how many words you had to look up. That number is your vocabulary syllabus for the project.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §1.1 Aims, §1.2 Key features, §4.5 Synoptic assessment (CCEA)
Your topic is a Gaeltacht district and specifically how Irish is passed on there. Test it against the five kinds of question, in Irish, to confirm it will survive five minutes.
Is ceantar Gaeltachta é ina labhraítear an Ghaeilge go pobalta, agus tá scoileanna, stáisiún raidió áitiúil agus coláiste samhraidh ann. It is a Gaeltacht district in which Irish is spoken as a community language, and it has schools, a local radio station and a summer college. Note labhraítear, the autonomous present, which is exactly right here.
Cuirtear an teanga ar aghaidh ar thrí bhealach: sa bhaile, ar scoil, agus sa phobal féin. Ní leor ceann ar bith acu leis féin. The language is passed on in three ways: at home, at school, and in the community itself. None of them is sufficient on its own. A mechanism, stated in three parts.
Is é an difear idir teanga phobail agus teanga scoile ná go bhfoghlaimíonn duine an chéad cheann gan iarracht. The difference between a community language and a school language is that a person learns the first without effort. Significance stated as a distinction rather than as an assertion of importance.
Le glúin anuas tá athrú tagtha air: bíonn níos mó Béarla ag teacht isteach ó na meáin agus ó dhaoine a bhogann isteach. Over the past generation it has changed: more English comes in from the media and from people moving in. Attributed if you have a source; directional and unnumbered if you do not.
Is é mo bharúil féin gurb é an ceann is laige den trí bhealach ná an baile, agus gurb é sin an ceann is deacra do pholasaí a athrú. My own opinion is that the weakest of the three routes is the home, and that it is the hardest for policy to change. A judgement, owned, about the subject.
Dá bhfeicfinn go raibh teaghlaigh óga ag tógáil a bpáistí le Gaeilge arís, d'athróinn mo thuairim. If I saw young families raising their children with Irish again, I would change my view. Nobody asks this question, but a candidate who volunteers it demonstrates the analytical response AO4 is looking for more clearly than any other single sentence.
Result: Six answers covering description, mechanism, significance, development, evaluation and falsifiability — the last volunteered rather than asked. Between them they carry the autonomous present twice, a three-part mechanism, a conditional in both clauses, and a judgement explicitly owned, which is what AO4 and AO3 together are marking.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Write your topic in one sentence with an 'includes' clause and an 'excludes' clause. Then write the five kinds of question — description, mechanism, significance, development, evaluation — and answer each in Irish in three sentences. Fifteen sentences. If any of the five is hard to answer, the topic is not yet broad enough and should be widened before it is polished.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §3.4 and §6.4 Unit A2 1; §4.3 (CCEA)
Turn the Gaeltacht region project into a five-heading Summary Sheet in Irish, and show what each heading commits you to.
An ceantar: teorainneacha, daonra, agus stádas Gaeltachta. The district: boundaries, population and Gaeltacht status. This commits you to being able to say where it is, roughly how many people live there and what its official designation means — all describable facts, and the population figure attributed to the statistics office rather than recited.
Trí bhealach a chuirtear an teanga ar aghaidh: an baile, an scoil, an pobal. Three ways the language is passed on: home, school, community. This commits you to a structure you can talk through, and the autonomous a chuirtear is the right form because the agents are collective.
An coláiste samhraidh agus mná an tí. The summer college and the women of the houses — which is, not coincidentally, the subject of the first sample presentation title in Appendix 1. This is where your primary sources live: what you observed, whom you interviewed, what you were told.
An t-athrú le glúin anuas: na meáin, an teacht isteach, agus an obair. The change over a generation: the media, incomers, and employment. This commits you to a directional claim, attributed, with no invented numbers — and to being able to say how you know.
An cheist: cé acu is tábhachtaí, an polasaí nó an teaghlach? Agus mo fhreagra féin. The question: which matters more, policy or the family? And my own answer. This is the heading that converts a report into an enquiry, and it is the one the examiner is most likely to open the discussion with.
Heading one gives you the one-minute introduction. Headings two to five give the examiner four obvious lines of questioning, each of which you have researched. And the sheet is five short lines of Irish, teacher-authenticated, submitted by the centre — not a script, not an essay, and not a plan for research you have not yet done.
Result: Five substantive headings — place, mechanism, close-up, change, question — each committing the candidate to something specific and researched, with heading one supplying the introduction and headings two to five supplying four researched lines of discussion, and with the whole sheet written after the research rather than before it.
Typical mistakes
Active revision
Write your five headings in Irish, then hand them to somebody who knows nothing about your project and ask them to predict three questions they would ask you. If their questions are ones you can answer well, the headings are doing their job. If they ask about something the headings imply but you have not researched, fix that before the sheet is submitted.
Active recall
Recall the key points — then reveal.
Sources: CCEA GCE Irish specification (2016) — §3.4 Unit A2 1; Appendix 3 (CCEA)
References & sources