The "Irish Times" should be completely ashamed of itself

White-Teeth

Okay, so it's all over. However, before everyone rides off into the sunset, there's just a moment to reflect.

I know there are a couple of threads on here about the infamous Laura Brady (loike, roysh, etc.). However, this thread directs its fury at the Irish Times. What were they thinking? How on earth did they think a D4 princess (who's really very pompous and downright arrogant) who's doing the LC for the THIRD time could relate to the ordinary student? In fact, her aim appears to have been to make students feel bad.

Someone pulled someone strings big time. Judging by the reaction on message boards, through word-of-mouth, and letters to the paper (see below), a lot of people are very angry.

Well done, the Independent! Maybe next year the Times could grow a spine and not bow to the will of the D4 mummies and daddies? One can dream, I suppose.

PS, the reaction:

Exam Diary hits a sore point

Madam, – I am one of the 51,000 students currently sweating through the Leaving Cert exams. In previous years I have enjoyed reading a student’s Exam Diary in The Irish Times, but in the past few days I have grown increasingly frustrated with the diary of this year’s writer, Laura Brady.

Admittedly, her bravery in sitting the Leaving Cert for a third time arouses a certain admiration and there is no doubt she will wholly deserve her points. I wish, however, she would spare a thought for those of us undertaking these trying and testing examinations for the first time.

As you can imagine my satisfaction with my 12-page English paper was somewhat diminished on reading about the abundance of Laura’s 25-page submission. I had thought that in the Exam Diary I would find some sense of solidarity and consolation, but unfortunately Ms Brady seems all too keen to differentiate herself from her peers.

Maybe, in my panicked and stressful state, I am failing to pick up on the humour in her columns. However with little anecdotes such as “I felt like I had 200 points tucked under my pillow”, I suspect I’m not the only one to miss the joke. – Yours, etc,

REBECCA CAHILL,

Edmonstown,

Ardee,

Co Louth.

Madam, – While Laura Brady delights in trivialising the stress and pressure many Leaving Cert students are feeling at this time, maybe she should have approached the past week with more respect for the gravity of the state exams.

As a third-time candidate, striving for those all-important points to achieve her goal of studying medicine, Ms Brady shocks me with her devil-may-care attitude. Her references to her unbelievable self-assuredness (200 points are, apparently, already tucked under her pillow) combined with her love of Sex and the City and all things girly and light, make me wonder how dedicated she really is to pursuing this dream of saving lives and healing the sick. But that is personal and, therefore, none of my business. Nor is it any of my business that she sleeps in a baroque bed, or that she can afford to splurge close to €600 on shoes. Bring back Miroslawa Gorecka, or someone with her earnest nature and kind words.

Maybe Laura Brady is included in the Exam Times page to provide comic relief? If so, job well done. She has powerfully depicted the stereotype of a South Dublin princess. – Yours, etc,

S. O’CARROLL,

Tralee,

Co Kerry.

Madam,- There’s a marked contrast between Laura Brady’s lifestyle and that of your columnist Kathryn Holmquist as depicted recently in your paper.

If Laura wants to continue having breakfast in posh places and paying €575 for one “divine” pair of shoes, she’d better consider a career outside newspapers, unless she has sights on your post and salary, Madam.

How did we survive in boarding school in the 1960s, when a treat during the exams was an HB choc ice, if the nuns opened the school shop? We had no newspaper articles and radio programmes with post-mortems on each day’s papers, and no Mammies about either. But we survived! – Yours, etc,

SHEELAGH COYLE,

Derryguile,

Mountmellick,

Co Laois.