"We were very pleased - the girls did really well": Bower principal

Nationally, the percentage of H1 grades dropped from 12.1% in 2025 to 10.1% this year, but Our Lady's Bower principal Anne Beades said this trend wasn't evident from the Bower students' results.

"We were very pleased - the girls did really well. You will always have the top performers, but then you had other girls who achieved their own personal bests," Ms Beades told the Westmeath Independent.

"While there was a lot of talk nationally of a drop in H1s, that doesn't seem to have been reflected in our results. We had two out of every three girls getting over 400 points, and 30% of them over 500 points, so they were really strong results overall."

Our Lady's Bower had 90 students sit the established Leaving Cert programme this year, and had a Leaving Cert Applied class also.

Three students from the Athlone school - Roisin O'Donovan, Ella Lough and Gemma Mannion - each achieved an outstanding tally of 601 points.

"There was also quite a group with really strong results of between 540 and 600 points, and most of the students were very, very pleased," Ms Beades added.

"There will always be one or two disappointments but overall the girls were very happy and the staff were very happy. Our results in Irish, French, and Design and Communication Graphics (DCG) were particularly strong."