Girl on an Altar
Higher & Ordinary Level · 2027 & 2028 Leaving Cert
Marina Carr’s Girl on an Altar (2022) is your prescribed Single Text for the 2027 and 2028 exams. It takes the old Greek story of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon and rebuilds it as a sequence of raw, first-person voices. These guides break the play down so you can write about it with confidence in Paper 2.
The play opens in the aftermath of a terrible bargain: Agamemnon has sacrificed his and Clytemnestra’s daughter, Iphigenia, at Aulis to win fair winds for the war on Troy. What follows is a marriage poisoned by grief, a homecoming loaded with menace, and a revenge that has been waiting years to land. Carr lets the characters speak directly to you, so you hear the same events from sides that do not agree.
Girl on an Altar Study Guides
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Write about Girl on an Altar like you have it cold.
Plus has chapter notes, sample answers and short videos for Girl on an Altar, so you walk into Paper 2 knowing exactly what to say.
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Start with a theme to build the spine of an essay, then use the key moments page to nail down the evidence you will actually point to in the exam.
Power and Revenge
Who holds power, who loses it, and how Clytemnestra’s revenge is set up across the whole play.
Read the guide →Marriage and Grief
A marriage broken by a dead child, and how private grief drives the public action.
Read the guide →Key Moments
The eight or nine scenes you need to know cold, with what each one shows and how to use it.
Read the guide →English Hub Plus
Write about Girl on an Altar like you have it cold.
Plus has chapter notes, sample answers and short videos for Girl on an Altar, so you walk into Paper 2 knowing exactly what to say.