Ulster
Maths Grinds Monaghan
Monaghan has around eleven post-primary schools spread across Monaghan Town, Carrickmacross, Castleblayney, Clones and Ballybay, none of them large. It is also a border county, which affects the options in ways that are not obvious from outside it.
Get in touchMonaghan sits closer to Armagh and Dundalk than to any Irish city, and students do look across the border for services. For maths that rarely helps. A tutor who teaches GCSE and A-level is teaching a different syllabus with different papers and a different marking scheme, so experience with the Leaving Cert specifically matters more here than the distance on a map.
Carrickmacross and Castleblayney are both on the Dublin road, and some families use that for access to grinds schools, but it is a long evening and it tends to stop once the novelty wears off. Clones and the west of the county have the fewest options of anywhere in Monaghan.
There is a visible, measurable demand for this. Searches for maths grinds in Monaghan currently return directory listings and a public Facebook post asking whether anyone can recommend someone for Leaving Cert Higher Level. That is a county asking a question nobody local has answered properly.
What Monaghan students are up against
These are national figures. The State Examinations Commission does not break results down by county, so nobody can honestly tell you how your county compares.
- 11%
- got a H1 in Higher Level maths
- Down from 12.6% in 2024, and well up on 6.4% in 2019
- 27.3%
- got a H1 or H2
- Of the 23,450 students who sat Higher Level maths in 2025
- 36.3%
- of students now sit Higher Level
- Up from 15.8% in 2011, a 130% rise since bonus points came in
- 25
- bonus CAO points for Higher Level
- Awarded for 40% or above. 22,183 students earned them in 2025
National figures, 2025 exam sitting. Sources: RTÉ, Leaving Cert 2025 results, RTÉ Brainstorm, 2025. The State Examinations Commission does not publish results by county.
Which exam are you sitting?
Students across Monaghan
Online grinds mean the distance from Monaghan Town to anywhere else stops mattering. Monaghan has around 11 secondary schools, and students come from all over the county.
- Monaghan Town
- Carrickmacross
- Castleblayney