I got this – an example of what my Dad used to call a “Stiff Ticket” – via email today.
I suppose I’m supposed to show it to my superiors to prove that I wasn’t just on holiday in Cork last week. I think I’ll print it out and put in on the wall of my office, alongside the certificate for my Cycling Proficiency Award (Bronze).
Today’s the day for Dublin Pride 2025. It’s thought that over 100,000 are attending! Best wishes to everyone taking part from one of The Olds. Although the weather’s not the greatest, I hope everyone has a grand time. Bród Sona Daoibh!
I’m wearing my GCN T-shirt for the occasion!
I’m on an early-morning train from Cork to Dublin, missing the final day of EAS 2025. I’d like to thank the organisers and all the contributors for an extremely successful meeting. I’m looking forward to EAS 2026, which will be held in Lausanne (Switzerland).
Yesterday was another busy day, during which I attended – among other things – sessions on gravitational lensing and a plenary talk by Andy Fabian. The latter event reminded me that in my final year as an undergraduate I took a “Minor Option” on High-Energy Astrophysics lectured by Andy Fabian. That was 40 years ago…
After the scientific programme for the day was over, participants were bussed to Páirc Ui Chaoimh, Cork’s main GAA Stadium, for the conference dinner. Some of the participants had the chance to try their hands at hurling before the food.
After the food, there was traditional Irish music, with the audience joining in the singing and dancing. A good time was had by all.
Incidentally, Cork play Dublin next weekend in the semi-finals of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. To the surprise of many, Dublin knocked out Limerick in the quarter-finals. The other semi-final is between Kilkenny and Tipperary. Those people who attempted to put hurley to sliotar last night will be even more amazed at the level skill on display in those games.
I spent most of today at the EAS 2025 sessions about Euclid. These were mainly about the Q1 data release I blogged about here, although there were some talks about what to expect about the first full data release (DR1), which is due towards the end of next year (2026), before I retire.
There were three Euclid sessions, one in the morning and two in the afternoon; I’m writing this during the last of these.
I was reminded this morning that the word “plenary” is derived from the Latin plenus, meaning “full”. This explains why there are no free seats for the plenary session, so I had to watch the stream in one of the overflow theatres.
I also attended a lunchtime session about the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO). This was interesting, though the first full data release from SKAO will not happen until after I’ve retired.
And, to end the day, I’m at a reception and meeting of SKA Ireland, a group campaigning for Ireland to join the SKAO.. There’s win.
Tomorrow I’ll be travelling to the fine city of Cork, where I shall be for most of next week, attending the 2025 Annual Meeting of the European Astronomical Society I was planing to travel today, but I have some things to attend to at home tomorrow morning so I won’t get to Cork until late afternoon.
The EAS Annual Meeting is a very large meeting with well over a thousand participants expected. It is held each year in a different European city but, according to tradition, never a capital. Last year it was in Padova (Italy) and the year before that in Kraków (Poland).
I usually enjoy smaller-scale meetings and workshops over these mega-conferences, but I’m looking forward to this one. There will be a strong Maynooth contingent there but I also hope to see some old friends from elsewhere, as well as catching up on some exciting science results.
Talking of science, I am on the Scientific Organizing Committee for this meeting. The programme is very large and diverse and there were a few headaches on the way, but nothing compared to the logistical challenges facing the local organizers; they will probably reach peak stress levels ahead of the opening of the meeting, but I’m sure everything will go well. The Irish National Astronomy Meeting (INAM) was actually held in Cork in 2023. Although a much smaller meeting than EAS, the experience of running that will probably have helped the organizers.
I’m not actually giving a talk at EAS but I will be participating in a panel discussion in a special session on The Future of Scientific Publishing: Strategies and Challenges for Astronomy on Tuesday 24th June. When I saw the initial announcement for this special session, I was was concerned that it would be entirely dominated by representatives of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and their publisher EDP Sciences. The first session (9.00 to 10.30) titled “SCIENCE PUBLISHING TODAY AND TOMORROW” is still like that, but the panel discussion in the second session (13.15 to 14.45) “SCIENCE PUBLISHING: A COMMUNITY’S VIEW” is a bit more balanced than that, with a representatives of NASA/ADS and the European Southern Observatory (among others). If I’m given an opportunity to get a word in, I’ll be arguing that traditional journals are unnecessary and obsolete.
Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof…
I’ve just graded the last of my assignments for this (academic year). I had a bigger class than usual for Computational Physics this time round, so it took much longer than usual to mark the project component. It always takes a while because I not only have to read and grade the reports, but also look at the code they submit and run it to check that it works. I uploaded the final grades to our system just now and although I finished later than planned I was relieved to see that I’m not the last lecturer to do so!
What happens next is that all the marks from all the modules will be collated and cross-checked. Then we will have a meeting of the Departmental Examination Board (on Thursday morning) to go through the results in the presence of our External Examiner. Since this is the end of the academic year, we will also look at the final grades of those students who are completing their studies this year in order to consider the classification of their degrees. There may also be some who are not qualified to graduate and may have to repeat failed examinations or other assessments. Another (pleasant) duty of our Examination Board on Thursday will be to award prizes for the best performance, not just for finalists but for students at every stage, including the first year.
I was teaching a module for the Department of Engineering last Semester so I should attend their final Examination Board too. Many of our students at Maynooth take joint degrees, in which case their final degree classification depends on grades from two Departments. For that reason, there is an overall Examination Board at which the marks are combined. Fortunately, only the Head of Department (who is not me) has to attend that one.
If all goes to plan, students will receive their final marks on Friday 27th June. It’s a lengthy process so as to allow plenty of opportunities to check and validate the different stages. After that, on Tuesday 1st July, we have a consultation day at which students can ask for advice about repeat examinations, etc, and after that we have to make sure repeat examinations are available. The repeat examination period is Wednesday 6th August to Tuesday 19th August.
Between the end of this week and the repeat exams, perhaps I’ll get a bit of time to do some research…
I was saddened to hear of the death on Tuesday at the age of 85 of novelist Edmund White. Like many gay men of my age I read his semi-autobiographical novel A Boy’s Own Story as a teenager, and it had a profound effect on me.
It’s the story of an adolescent boy coming to terms with his sexuality in the American mid-West during the 1950s. It is as frank about the description of gay sex as it is truthful about the confusion that goes with being a teenager. When I bought it I didn’t realize it was going to be so sexually explicit, as the whole subject of gay sex was very much taboo in those days. I didn’t think it was possible to write about such things in such a matter-of-fact way and at the same time so beautifully. The book is also unflinching in its description of the personality flaws of the central character.
The Irish Times has a collection of reflections by various writers on Edmund White that say far more, and far more eloquently, than I ever could. I’ll just say, as a (now) sixty-something gay man that Edmund White helped me on my journey to self-acceptance when I was a struggling teenager all those years ago, and for that I will always be profoundly grateful.
Rest in peace, Edmund White (1940-2025).
I’m currently on the train travelling back from Wexford to Dublin. The WIFI is a bit flaky so I’ll post more about the reasons for this trip later on, when I get home.
For the moment, I’ll just say that Wexford (Irish name: Loch Garman) is a picturesque historic town at the mouth of the River Slaney, near the Southeastern corner of Ireland. I had a nice walk around this morning. It’s a pleasant place to stroll about; the streets still follow an obviously mediaeval layout, and parts of the old city wall are still standing.
The train journey from Dublin is very enjoyable, right along the coast for a while, then heading inland, then along the banks of the Slaney. The train isn’t very fast, but it is comfortable and costs less than €10 each way. There’s only a single line from Wicklow to Wexford, which severely limits the number of trains that can operate on the route. The same is true of the Maynooth-Sligo service, actually.
When I moved to Ireland (about 7 1/2 years ago), I planned to travel around and see some of the historic places. Workload issues and the pandemic put paid to that idea for a while, but I have a bit more time to travel now.
P.S. Curracloe Beach, a few miles North of Wexford, stood in for Omaha Beach for the film Saving Private Ryan. I didn’t have time to go there.
Today is not only a significant date for me (in more ways than one), but it’s important for many young people in Ireland because the Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate examinations both start today, so the first thing I need to do is wish everyone starting their examinations the very best of luck!
Among other things, the results of the leaving certificate examinations are important for September’s university admissions. This year the grade inflation that occurred during the pandemic years will be reduced, though it is not yet clear how. Whatever happens is likely to have a big impact on student recruitment to third-level institutions.
In the system operating in England and Wales the standard qualification for entry is the GCE A-level. Most students take A-levels in three subjects, which gives them a relatively narrow focus although the range of subjects to choose from is rather large. In Ireland the standard qualification is the Leaving Certificate, which comprises a minimum of six subjects, with many students taking more than this. This gives students a broader range of knowledge at the sacrifice (perhaps) of a certain amount of depth; it has been decreed for entry into this system that an Irish Leaving Certificate subject counts as about 2/3 of an A-level subject for admissions purposes, so Irish students do the equivalent of at least four A-levels, and many do more than this. It’s also worth noting that all students have to take Mathematics at Leaving Certificate level.
One can choose to do Leaving Certificate subjects at Ordinary or Higher level and there’s quite a big difference between the two, especially in Mathematics (of which more below).
Overall I prefer the Leaving Certificate over the UK system of A-levels, as the former gives the students a broader range of subjects than the latter (as does the International Baccalaureate). I would have liked to have been allowed to take at least one arts subject past O-level, for example.
For University admissions points are awarded for each paper according to the marks obtained and then aggregated into a total CAO points, CAO being the Central Applications Office, the equivalent of the UK’s UCAS. This means, for example, that our main Science pathway at Maynooth allows students to study Physics without having done it at Leaving Certificate level. This obviously means that the first year has to be taught at a fairly elementary level, but it has the enormous benefit of allowing us to recruit students whose schools do not offer Physics.
There is however a big problem with Mathematics. It was decided some years ago that students would get 25 extra CAO points if they got a mark of at least 40% in Higher Mathematics. This has led to more students taking the subject, which is good, but there are signs that this may have led to a decline in standards. If, for example, the marking is such that a fixed proportion of students get the top grade but more weaker students take the examination, that means that standards fall at the top end. For more discussion, see here.
Anyway, our Theoretical Physics & Mathematics course requires a good result in Higher Mathematics for entry. Will changes to the marking of Higher Mathematics this year make it harder for students to make the grade? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Moreover, since the pandemic struck, students have been able to choose to answer questions from a limited range of sections on the mathematics examination papers. That means that students can get very high grades despite knowing nothing about a big chunk of the syllabus. That matters most for subjects that require students to have certain skills and knowledge for entry into University, such as Physics. I taught part of our first year Mathematical Physics course in Maynooth for about 5 years. It was noticeable how the fraction that were comfortable with basic differentiation and integration was falling. Will this trend accelerate? Again, we’ll just have to wait and see…
In the Dark 