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Every June, tens of thousands of students across Ireland sit the leaving cert.

These are some of the most difficult exams anyone has to take. I still wake up thinking about maths equations I've never understood.

Now, while maths was never my thing, history is my passion and I'm a firm believer it can be fun and engaging for students.

To this end, I've teamed up with leaving the cert history teacher Damian Lawler to develop the Irish History Summit designed to make leaving cert history as fun, engaging, accessible, and stress-free as possible.

This summit is a day long event which takes place online on January the 15th, 2022, and we'll be giving students access to leading historians to help them prepare for their exams.

The summit is based around seven presentations where historians and educational experts tackle topics which have been carefully chosen based on an analysis of previous exams.

While the summit takes place in January, it helps students write up to the exam itself. One feature people really valued last year was the fact that everyone who attends the summit gets podcasts of each talk so they can listen back as the exams approach.

This basically becomes their personal preparation from an expert in each area of the exam.

Last year, nearly 1,500 students from over 50 schools attended as well as scores of fans of history drawn by the talks.

Building on this, we've broadened the summit in our plans for 2022. While students will be able to watch online from the comfort of their own homes, the summit will be broadcast live from the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

Headlining this year is the renowned journalist and historian Leo Enreichs, he'll be presenting on the moon landing.

We're also delighted to announce that Dr. Sarah Ann Buckley from the National University of Ireland in Galway has agreed to speak.

Sarah Ann will tackle the airy years of the free state and whether Ireland was a gaelic and Catholic country.

This year also sees the first international guest at the summit. Dr. Dieter Reynish from the University of Vienna will be tackling about how Hitler used propaganda and terror to maintain his power.

Dieter is currently lecturing on this very area so his insights here will really make essays stand out in the exam.

Returning this year is Liz Gillis, the South Dublin County Council Decade of Centenaries Historian in Residence. Liz will be talking about the Civil War.

Dr. Brian Hanney from the Department of History in Trinity College Dublin will also be back this year.

Brian will look at the various threats to the free states between its foundation and World War II.

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