THE DUBLIN scholar who recorded the best Leaving Cert results this year has attributed his success to consistent rather than hard work.
Killian Donovan, a student at Gonzaga College in Ranelagh, said managing his time between school work, playing guitar in his band and his involvement in the scouts helped him to stay focused and achieve nine A1s.
“I had a lot on my plate because I was school captain [head boy] and heavily involved in the scouts, so it was mainly down to compartmentalising my time and saying this time is for study and this time is for this and that,” he said.
Killian (18), from Sandyford, said he expected to record pretty good results, but never nine A1s. “It was a huge shock when I came in to collect them and was told I’d gotten the top [results] in the country,” he said. Killian said his plans for the future were not set in stone, but he hoped to take up an offer from Cambridge University to study medicine.
He said his grandfather was a doctor but that he comes from a family of scientists, which helped as he studied maths, physics, chemistry, biology and applied maths, as well as Latin, French, Irish and English.
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Another high achiever was Francis Delaney (18) from Mountrath Community School in Co Laois who got eight A1s and plans to study medicine at UCC.
