Firstly, a quick reminder to all the Classical Studies sitting the Leaving Certificate exams at the minute: all PowerPoints from the CAI-T Leaving Certificate Classical Studies Lecture Day are available here. Best of luck to everyone!
Secondly, over the next few months the Access Classics Transition Year Unit will be transformed into a Micro-module, in line with the new Transition Year programme. We are excited to work within the new programme statement to help bring Classics to even more schools! The current Unit will remain on the website until the new micro-module is available. Please send any queries about the Unit to bridget.martin@ucd.ie.
With the trees in leaf, it must be time to look back on another packed academic year of visits and events for Access Classics!
Each year, we try our best to accommodate as many school visits and events as possible as these are central to Access Classics’ mission to extend the reach of Classics in Ireland. We were delighted, then, to be able to meet more than 1,000 teachers, students and parents this academic year, and to welcome back old friends (such as the Dundrum College of Further Education) and meet new ones (such as St MacDara’s Community College). Once more, Access Classics worked very closely with the UCD Classical Museum, especially with Sasha Smith, to expand the amount of student visits, offer a wide range of activities and promote the ancient world through, for example, its artefacts, history, literature and languages. We had great fun introducing students to the wonders of the Museum and its handling collection alongside Greek language workshops and a range of Classics-related talks. Below are some highlights from the year!
CAI-T Leaving Certificate Lecture Day, 2025
Across a busy April, we had the enormous pleasure of collaborating with the Classical Association of Ireland Teachers (CAI-T) on two important events: the Leaving Certificate Lecture Day and the CAI-T Young Classicist Awards!
Photo credit: Delia Donohoe (2025)
We always love hosting the CAI-T Leaving Certificate Lecture Day in UCD, and this year was no exception. On 5 April, we welcomed ca 170 Leaving Certificate students and their teachers to the UCD campus to hear a range of lectures on topics connected with the Senior Cycle curriculum. Huge thanks to the UCD School of Classics’ lecturers who kindly gave up their Saturday morning/afternoon to present and to CAI-T’s Delia Donohoe for her help with organising and spreading the word about the day! All PowerPoints from the day are available by clicking on the “CAI-T lecture day 2025” tab above. The strands and topics covered are as follows:
1. “Greek and Roman funerary practices” (Dr Bridget Martin) Strand 4: Gods and Humans; Learning outcomes 4.9, 4.10 and 4.11
2.“Gods and Humans: Morality and Living Well in Plato’s Crito” (Dr Christopher Farrell) Strand 4: Gods and Humans
3.“Judging them by their enemies: Alexander & the Persians; Caesar & the Gauls” (Associate Professor Philip De Souza) Strand 3: Power and Identity
4. “Greek Tragedy: The Dionysia” (Dr Suzanne Lynch) Strand 2: Drama and Spectacle; Learning outcomes 2.4 and 2.5
5. “The Failure of Aeneas in Aeneid 2”(Dr Martin Brady) Strand 1: The World of Heroes; Learning outcomes: 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, 1.8, 1.9 and 1.10
6. “‘The same night awaits us all’: Death in Horace’s Odes” (Dr George Prekas) Strand 4: Gods and Humans; Learning outcomes 4.13 and 4.14
Classical Association of Ireland Teachers Young Classicist Awards, 2025
Access Classics’ Dr Bridget Martin joined Trinity’s Dr Charlie Kerrigan to judge the Awards this year, and, as ever, the range and creativity of the projects was amazing! The students were set the challenge of creating a project based on any aspect of Classics to compete in five awards categories: Junior Award (1st-3rd year), Transition Year Award, Senior Award (5th-6th year), Languages Award (for a project based on/with a component of Latin or Ancient Greek) and the Sustainability Award (for a project connected to Global Sustainability Goals). On 29 April, the finalists and their teachers and fellow students came to the beautiful, sunny UCD campus to display and present their projects. Dr Martin was on hand on the day to meet the finalists and have a chat about their projects! Under the steady hand of CAI-T’s Séamus O’Sullivan, the Awards went off without a hitch!
As every year, the students presented a dizzying array of projects, from beautiful poems, to paintings, hand-drawn comics, excellently researched essays, stop-motion animation, videos and original songs. As an added treat at the end of the Awards, students had the chance to visit the Classical Museum, take part in a role-play game or hear about Greek and Roman journeys to the Underworld! Well done to all students on their fantastic entries – we’re already looking forward to seeing what you create next year!
Spreading the word
The collaboration between Access Classics and the UCD Classical Museum bore fruit in 2024 in the form of an article in Museum Ireland (volume 30), arising from our paper at the Irish Museums Association’s “Education and Outreach Forum” (June 2023) in the beautiful surrounds of the Law Society of Ireland, Smithfield. In this article, entitled “Working Towards Inclusive Education with the UCD Classical Museum and Access Classics”, we discuss the aims, successes and challenges of our collaboration in attempting to increase access to and inclusion in Classics. Check it out here!
Access Classics was also delighted to speak to the UCD Widening Participation Outreach Network (9 October 2024) and at the Classical Association of Ireland Teachers annual conference in Maynooth (11–12 October 2024) about the successes and challenges of the programme. It’s always brilliant to chat with others engaged in outreach and, especially, with the teachers who are getting such amazing results from their Classics students at second level!
Access Classics even made its way into Dr Bridget Martin’s presentation at the conference “100 years of leaving certificate Greek and Latin: Histories, challenges, possibilities” (held in the Long Room Hub, Trinity, and organised by Dr Charlie Kerrigan and Mnemosyne Rice). In her contribution, entitled “Accessing the Classical languages at second level: Challenges and opportunities”, Bridget argued in part for the importance of outreach in spreading knowledge about ancient Greek and Latin, and thereby increasing access to the same.
Considering that the new specifications for Senior Cycle Greek and Latin are coming onstream in September 2025, this was a timely, uplifting and inspiring conference!
Coming soon!
Hot on the heels of the launch of its 2nd edition, the Access Classics Transition Year Unit is about to undergo another transformation! The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment announced a revised Transition Year Programme Statement (TYPS) in September 2024. Under the TYPS, Transition Year Units will be superseded by micro-modules. We are working very hard to re-imagine the Unit as a micro-module and will make this available (free of charge!) to all schools in time for the 2025/26 academic year. In the meantime, you can check out the Unit as it currently stand here.
Thank you!
Finally, a massive thank you to all the students, teachers, colleagues (in and outside UCD) and friends for their help and enthusiasm over the past year! As every year, we are inspired and humbled by the drive to expand access to Classics in Ireland, and we can’t wait to join in all over again in the next academic year!
UPDATE: All PowerPoint slides from the lecture day are now available under the “CAI-T lecture day 2025” tab.
The UCD School of Classics and the Access Classics team are delighted to announce that UCD will host the the annual CAIT lecture day for Leaving Certificate Classical Studies students this year, on Saturday, 5 April! UCD School of Classics lecturers will give talks based on topics from the Leaving Certificate curriculum, allowing students to expand and consolidate their knowledge, as well as enjoy a day on the beautiful UCD campus! The lectures will take place in Theatre M of the Newman Building. The provisional schedule is as follows (click on the image above for a pdf of the schedule):
10:00 Welcome 10:05 – 10:35 Greek and Roman funerary practices (Dr Bridget Martin) 10:40 – 11:10 Gods and Humans: Morality and Living Well in Plato’s Crito (Dr Christopher Farrell) 11:15 – 11:45 Judging them by their enemies: Alexander & the Persians; Caesar & the Gauls (Assoc. Prof. Philip De Souza) 11:50 –12:40 Lunch ***As most restaurants and cafes on campus are closed on Saturdays, please make sure to bring a packed lunch. Vending machines available in the building.*** 12:45 – 13:15 Greek Tragedy: The Dionysia (Dr Suzanne Lynch) 13:20 – 13:50 The Failure of Aeneas in Aeneid 2 (Dr Martin Brady) 13:55 – 14:25 “The same night awaits us all”: Death in Horace’s Odes (Dr George Prekas)
There is great excitement in the Access Classics camp as we launch the 2nd edition of our Transition Year Unit! First launched in 2020, we have been delighted with the response to the Unit from teachers and students over the past four years and are very excited to share the 2nd edition with everyone. Containing both old favourite and lots of new ideas for lessons and activities, there is something here to engage all students. Head over to the “Classics Transition Year Unit” tab to get your copy of the free, downloadable Teachers’ Manual and PowerPoint!
Whether just dipping in and out or using the complete Unit, we are on hand to help with any questions or feedback – simply email either bridget.martin@ucd.ie or access.classics@ucd.ie.
Would you like to know more about Achaemenid Persia!? Well, we have just the thing for you! Access Classics’ Dr Christopher Farrell joins Noiser’s “A Short History” podcast series to talk about all things Persian. Click on the image above or listen wherever you get your podcasts!
As we reach the end of another hectic academic year, it’s time to look back on some of the visits and activities that made this Access Classics’ busiest year to date!
School visits
As ever, second-level school visits are the beating heart of Access Classics, and we were delighted to welcome hundreds of students to UCD and to travel to second-level schools: since September 2022, Access Classics has interacted with … wait for it … c. 1,300 second-level students!! Working closely with the UCD Classics Museum, and its curator Dr Jo Day, we welcomed second-level school groups from Dublin, Wexford and Leitrim to the UCD campus, where the students took part in lots of activities, including tours of the Museum collection, artefact handling, unlocking the mysteries of ancient languages and creating curse tablets!
We also continued our visits to schools. Highlights include meeting the Transition Year students and their teacher Chantelle Delahoy in Loreto Beaufort and chatting with the newly formed Classics Club in St Raphaela’s Secondary School in Stillorgan, run by former UCD Classics student Dylan McKeever. It was great to see such enthusiasm for Classics in a school that does not currently offer the subject at Junior or Senior Cycle! We were also delighted to continue the strong tradition of collaboration beyond the UCD Classics corridor, joining forces with the UCD College of Arts and Humanities to welcome visiting students from America during the summer, with UCD Global to introduce newly arrived international students to options available for study in university, and with UCD Access and Lifelong Learning to bring Classics to DEIS-school students during a UCD Experience day in March!
Classical Association of Ireland Teachers (CAI-T) Young Classicist Awards, 2023
March was a particularly busy month for Access Classics: we hosted school visits to UCD, travelled to Cork to chat about goddesses in University College Cork and, most importantly, collaborated with the Classical Association of Ireland-Teachers (always a huge pleasure!) on two events: the Young Classicist Awards and the Leaving Certificate Lecture Day.
Access Classics’ Dr Christopher Farrell and Dr Bridget Martin joined Trinity’s Dr Charlie Kerrigan to judge the Young Classicist Awards and were blown away by the high standard! On 14 March, we were delighted to facilitate CAI-T in hosting the Awards in UCD (in person for the first time since 2020!). On the day, the finalists in the four categories – Junior Award (1st-3rd year), Senior Award (4th-6th year), Languages Award (for a project based on/with a component of Latin or Ancient Greek) and the Sustainability Award (for a project connected to Global Sustainability Goals) – presented their projects to the hundreds-strong crowd of students and teachers, with CAI-T’s wonderful Caitríona Maher acting as MC!
The students did amazing work, producing creative projects ranging from stop-motion animation videos to hand-drawn comic strips, paintings, sculptures, posters, essays, PowerPoints and even some spoken Ancient Greek! To round out the day, Access Classics’ Bridget gave a short lecture on Greek tragic drama as a preface to an amazing student-production of Euripides’ Medea! With the amount and standard of entries going up each year, we can’t wait to see what next year’s competition will bring!
CAI-T Leaving Certificate Lecture Day
Close on the heels of the Young Classicist Awards, Access Classics’ Chris organised the in-person return of the CAI-T Leaving Certificate Lecture Day, which was held in UCD on 25 March. Huge thanks to the UCD School of Classics’ lecturers who kindly gave up their Saturday afternoon to present short lectures on aspects of the new Leaving Certificate curriculum to a full house of c. 180 students and teachers! All handouts and PowerPoints from the day are available by clicking on the “CAI-T lecture day 2023” tab above. The strands and topics covered are as follows:
Gods and Humans: Experiencing Ancient Temples (Dr Jo Day)
Gods and Humans: Funerary Practices (Dr Bridget Martin)
Judging them by the Enemies: Alexander and the Persians; Caesar and the Gauls (Assoc. Prof. Philip de Souza)
Gods and Humans: Morality and Living Well in Plato’s Crito (Dr Christopher Farrell)
Roman Spectacle: The Colosseum and Circus Maximus (Assoc. Prof. Alexander Thein)
World of Heroes: Odysseus and Aeneas as Heroes (Dr Nicholas Freer)
World of Heroes: The Aeneid as Propaganda (Dr Helen Dixon)
Student news
The Access Classics team was delighted to join forces with Dr Martin Brady to run the level-three Access Classics module in UCD for the third time this year! This module, which teaches students techniques of outreach and engagement, always attracts very dedicated and enthusiastic students, and this year was no exception! From conducting podcast interviews to producing posters explaining and advertising artefacts from the Classics museum, doing an amazing job with the module Twitter account (@AccessClassics) and being constant supports at Access Classics events, the students were a stellar bunch this year!
Spreading the word
In exciting news, Access Classics will feature in an upcoming publication! Arising from a joint talk on Classics at second level in Ireland (for a Classical Influences and Irish Culture (CLIC) seminar in May 2022), Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson, Ms Aryn Penn and Access Classics’ Dr Bridget Martin wrote a chapter entitled “Green shoots on the Emerald Isle: an update on Classics in schools and communities in Ireland” for “Class and Classics”, a Trends in Classics volume by De Gruyter. This gives an overview of Classics in and outside the classroom in Ireland, and we are particularly pleased that the chapter will be available through Open Access, so keep an eye out!
In April 2023, Access Classics launched a survey of Classics at second level in Ireland!
We sent a questionnaire to all second-level schools to gain a greater understanding of the current landscape of Classics in second-level schools in Ireland (e.g. how many schools offer Classics in some form, how many students take Classics/Greek/Latin, how many schools offer Classics at TY level), uncover the reasons the majority of second-level schools cannot/ do not offer Classics, and measure the reach and impact of Access Classics at second level, particularly the use of the Access Classics Transition Year Unit on Classical Studies. This is just the first step in some far larger plans for Access Classics, and we look forward to seeing what emerges from the responses! If you would like more information on this, drop an email to bridget.martin@ucd.ie.
Thank you!
Finally, a huge thank you to all the students, teachers, colleagues (in and outside UCD) and friends for their help and enthusiasm over the past year! It was a particularly busy academic year, and we looked forward to doing it all again next year!
Since its creation in 2019, a fundamental aim of Access Classics has been to increase knowledge about and uptake of Classics in second-level schools in Ireland. To help us achieve this aim, we are conducting a survey of all second-level schools and adult-education institutes in Ireland to gain a greater understanding of the following:
(i) the current landscape of Classics in second-level schools in Ireland (e.g. how many schools offer Classics in some form, how many students take Classics/Greek/Latin, how many schools offer Classics at TY level);
(ii) the barriers to maintaining and introducing Classics in second-level schools (whether lack of knowledge about the subject, lack of interest from teachers and/or students, lack of resources, etc.)
(iii) the impact of Access Classics, particularly the use of the Access Classics Transition Year Unit on Classical Studies.
The data we receive from this survey will form part of a report on Classics in second-level education in Ireland that will be available on this website (keep an eye out for updates!) and will be used to lobby for greater support for the subject at government level.
A link to a questionnaire will be sent to all second-level schools and adult-education institutes. If your school does not receive the link and you would like to be involved, please email Dr Bridget Martin, Director of the Access Classics, at bridget.martin@ucd.ie.
The UCD School of Classics and the Access Classics team are looking forward to hosting the annual Classical Association of Ireland Teachers (CAIT) lecture day for Leaving Certificate Classical Studies students on Saturday, 25 March! UCD School of Classics lecturers will give talks based on topics from the Leaving Certificate curriculum, allowing students to expand and consolidate their knowledge, as well as enjoy a day on the beautiful UCD campus! The lectures will take place in Theatre O of the Newman Building. The provisional schedule is as follows (click on the image above for a pdf of the schedule):
10:00 Welcome 10:05 – 10:35 Gods and Humans: Experiencing Ancient Temples (Dr Jo Day) 10:40 – 11:10 Gods and Humans: Funerary Practices (Dr Bridget Martin) 11:15 – 11:45 Judging them by their enemies: Alexander & the Persians; Caesar & the Gauls (Assoc. Prof. Philip De Souza) 11:50 – 12:10 Gods and Humans: Morality and Living Well in Plato’s Crito (Dr Christopher Farrell) 12:10 –13:00 Lunch ***Please ensure that you bring something to eat and drink. There are vending machines and water fountains for snacks and beverages, but UCD cafes and restaurants will be closed. *** 13:00 – 13:30 Roman Spectacle: the Colosseum and Circus Maximus (Assoc. Prof. Alexander Thein) 13:35 – 14:05 World of Heroes: Odysseus and Aeneas as Heroes (Dr Nicholas Freer) 14:10 – 14:40 World of Heroes: The Aeneid as Propaganda (Dr Helen Dixon)
There’s great excitement in the UCD School of Classics as our level-three outreach module is back with a new cohort of students! We are really looking forward to hearing all the students’ opinions on and ideas about the place of outreach in Classics and can’t wait to see what materials they produce. As a first step, the student will take over the dedicated @AccessClassics Twitter feed and, over the next few months, will use this to promote engagement with Classics. Look back through the feed to see the work of previous student cohorts – it makes for a good read! Please consider supporting our students by following @AccessClassics!
From joining with the UCD Classics Museum to welcome large school groups to UCD to helping an amazing class of primary-school children in Falkirk, Edinburgh, say “hello” in Ancient Greek, it’s been a hectic year for Access Classics! With the arrival of the end of term, this is the perfect time to sit back, look at some highlights of Access Classics’ activities since September 2021 and, most importantly, thank everyone who helped make this our most successful year yet!
School visits
School visits remain at the heart of Access Classics. Although the scourge of Covid-19 limited the possibility of face-to-face visits at the beginning of the school year, the tide began to turn as we approached Christmas, when, not only did we have the opportunity to visit schools again, but we were even accompanied by some of the UCD students on our Access Classics module (more on this later!). Our largest visit coming up to Christmas was to Gonzaga College SJ, where, with the invaluable support of the teachers, we were able to run four simultaneous activities, meeting all first-year students in one morning!
With the New Year came a lot of interest in Access Classics visits, and over the following months we were delighted to interact with lots of schools and students both online and in person. A particular highlight was heading out to Loreto Bray early in the year to meet all the TY students, who enthusiastically threw themselves into the task of writing and translating Ancient Greek! Thank you to all the schools and teachers who reached out to us and helped so much during the visits!
Collaborative visits/events
The overarching aim of Access Classics this academic year was collaboration, and we were particularly delighted to expand our working relationship with the UCD Classics Museum, under the careful guidance of the curator, Dr Jo Day. Along with a number of smaller visits, the combined forces of the Classics Museum and Access Classics ran two large visits from Gorey Community School and St Conleth’s College in May, in which the students were broken into smaller groups and rotated between activities in and outside the museum. Although this involved some careful logistical planning (and lots of running around campus!), we were delighted to welcome so many students to UCD and to chat to them about Classics!
Access Classics was delighted to be asked to give a sample lecture at an Access and Lifelong Learning (ALL) Future You event in early May: the opportunity to introduce 150 DEIS school students to monsters in the ancient world was too good to pass up! Looking ahead, we are excited to collaborate (through ALL) with colleagues in other colleges for the Creative Arts Summer School in June, especially as this is the first year of our involvement that will be face to face! We have met some really amazing people at the online Summer Schools over the past two years and can’t wait to meet everyone in person this year!
Access Classics’ Dr Bridget Martin and Dr Christopher Farrell put on their judging hats for the second year in a row and joined colleagues from Maynooth University, Trinity College Dublin and the Classical Association of Ireland Teachers (CAIT) to judge the CAIT Young Classicist Awards in May. The level of creativity and engagement was incredibly high this year, and it was no small feat to pick the winners from among the many deserving entries. The Awards have been growing in popularity and scope every year, and we are looking forward to next year’s entries already! As an added bonus this year, the UCD School of Classics became the sponsor for the Palma Lingua Antiqua award which is given for a project based on, or with a large component dedicated to, Latin and/or Ancient Greek (see the winners for this award here)! Well done to all the entrants and to the organisers of this wonderful event!
Resources
It has been very gratifying this year to see the Access Classics Transition Year Unit on Classical Studies used (in whole or in part) in so many schools, and we have really enjoyed hearing how teachers are using it, what aspects students enjoy and also some ideas for future iterations of the Unit (keep the comments and suggestions coming!). If you haven’t come across our Unit yet, you can download a copy of the teaching manual and accompanying PowerPoint by clicking on the images below (if you have any questions about the Unit, just drop us an email: access.classics@ucd.ie / bridget.martin@ucd.ie). You can also find more TY resources under our Transition Year Unit tab, and make sure to check out our resources for the Junior and Senior Cycle also!
Speaking of the TY Unit, a highlight this year was visiting Ardgillan College, where the amazing teachers Ms Murry and Mr Walsh hope to begin introducing Classics to their students through the Unit in September 2022. We really cannot wait to hear how this goes, and we are delighted to be involved in any way with this wonderful project. Good luck with it, and may many more schools follow!
Student news
In the autumn term, Dr Martin Brady, Dr Christopher Farrell and Dr Bridget Martin ran the Access Classics module in UCD for the second time, this time face to face! During this module we train the students to “design and deliver a portfolio of teaching materials in a variety of media” to second-level students. As with last year, the students enthusiastically threw themselves into the module and produced some great work, including a weekly radio show on UCD’s Belfield FM to discuss Classics! As an added bonus, two of the students visited their former secondary schools to talk to some of the students there: thanks a million to Loreto College, Foxrock, and St Fintan’s High School, Sutton, for accommodating this. You can check out the Twitter account the students maintained for the module here.
Getting the message out!
On our home turf in UCD, Access Classics was able to spread the word about our initiative and, more importantly, hear all about the initiatives of our colleagues in the School of Arts and Humanities through an outreach event organised by the School’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. After listening to our colleagues speak about their Schools’ initiatives, we can safely say the future of outreach is in safe hands! Thank you to Dr Joe Twist and Access Classics’ own Tasneem Filaih for organising this event! Thank you also to the Principal of the UCD College of Arts and Humanities, Professor Sarah Prescott, for her continued support and for inviting us to speak about our initiative at the College Council recently – it was a lovely way to bring the semester’s events to a close! And, finally, to round out a great year in UCD, we had the pleasure of attending a long-delayed in-person ceremony for the UCD Values in Action Award which the team won in 2020! Hearing about the activities and initiatives of the other winners made for a great afternoon!
Beyond UCD, Access Classics’ Dr Bridget Martin joined Lisa Doyle (Trinity College Dublin) and Helen Meaney (Classics Now festival) for the Hublic Sphere Podcast in January to talk about bringing Classics to the public. Thank you so much for Lisa for the invitation to contribute and for the insightful questions and comments during the podcast. Hearing Helen speaking about the amazing work done through the Classics Now festival was a real treat! In a similar vein, Bridget was pleased to join Dr Louise Maguire, Dr Arlene Holmes-Henderson and Ms Aryn Penn to speak about “Classical Subjects in Schools: An Update from Ireland” for the Classical Influences and Irish Culture(CLIC) seminars. Using Access Classics as an example, Bridget spoke about Classics outreach in Ireland.
Thank you!
As usual, we are incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported and interacted with us over the 2021/22 academic year. It has been a very heartening experience to once again visit second-level schools and throw open the doors of UCD to the students: thank you to all of the teachers and students we met this year, and we hope to see you again next year! Thank you to Dr Jo Day for being so accommodating with the UCD Classics museum and with trusting us to bring some artefacts with us on school visits! Thank you to Eleanor Kellett and Maria Wood for their always-wonderful podcasts and help. And thank you to the UCD School of Classics and the College of Arts and Humanities for their constant support.
Keep an eye on the website for any updates/new resources, and get in touch at any point if you have any questions or would like to talk about a visit! Goodbye for now from the Access Classics team: Bridget, Christopher and Tasneem!
Access Classics 