Junior Cycle · Junior Cycle History
Junior Cycle History: Technology and innovation
How often Technology and innovation comes up on the History papers, every year it was asked, and questions to try.
CL Asked on 2 of the last 5 Common Level papers, most recently in 2026.
Technology and innovation, Common Level(7 marks)
Quick ones on Technology and innovation.
(a)Why was Gutenberg's printing press (about 1450) so important?
- Books became dearer and rarer to buy
- Books became cheaper and quicker to make
- It ended the use of Latin in all books
(b)James Watt's improved steam engine (1770s) was used mainly to power…
- Early electric street lights
- The first petrol motor cars
- Machines in mills and mines
(c)Ireland's first railway, opened in 1834, ran from Dublin to…
- Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire)
- Cork
- Drogheda (Co. Louth)
Show the answers
(a) Books became cheaper and quicker to make
(b) Machines in mills and mines
(c) Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire)
Common Level
Asked on 2 of the last 5 Common Level papers, most recently in 2026.
Every paper, year by year
| Year | Where it came up |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Q3 |
| 2025 | Not asked |
| 2024 | Q4 |
| 2023 | Not asked |
| 2022 | Not asked |
Links open the State Examinations Commission’s paper for that year.
Other History topics
- Chronology and timelines
- Working with sources
- Archaeology
- Museums, archives and heritage
- Exploration and conquest
- Genocide and the Holocaust
- Great Famine and emigration
- Historical concepts
- Home Rule crisis & 1916 Rising
- American & French Revolutions
- Local and family history
- Physical force tradition
- Sporting & cultural movements
- The 1960s
- The Northern Ireland Troubles
- The Reformation
- The Renaissance
- World War I or World War II
- Ancient or medieval civilisation
- Early Christian Ireland
- Fascism and communism
- Life and death in medieval times
- Parliamentary tradition
- Patterns of change over time
- Settlement and plantation
- The Cold War
- War of Independence & Civil War
- Women in 20th-century Ireland