Fàilte Gu Éire

In late April, the year 6 classes went on a language and cultural excursion to Ireland. Our journey throughout the country was mostly covered by bus, where we got to go on many day-trips. Over the span of 10 days, the places that we covered included Killarney, Galway, and Dublin. We would’ve wanted to stay longer! 

Killarney 

Our first night, we stayed in a youth hostel in the town center of Killarney. Killarney is a small town of around 14,5 thousand people in the southwest county of Kerry. Given we only spent a day there, our stay felt extremely short. We made a stop at the Cliffs of Moher, where there are trails running along the beautiful ocean. That morning, we went for a short hike near a pond leading to an extravagant historic castle. The weather was thankfully nice for Ireland, which made our overall experience even better!

Galway

The second stop on our Ireland trip was Galway. Galway is a harbor city on the west coast of Ireland with a population of around 80 thousand. This is such a lively and colorful town, especially at night when the weather is just right. During our three nights there, we got to explore the town in many interesting ways. One trip that really stood out to the group was the ferry tour to and the bike ride on the Aran Islands. The Aran Islands are where the well-known Irish sweaters are from. Our group biked around the islands quite a lot, going by beaches and cows following windy roads. After the biking outing, we went to look off of the cliffs, where the view across the ocean was flawless.

Dublin

For the last week of our trip, we stayed with host families in Ireland’s capital city, Dublin. The city lies on the eastern coast of the country with a population of around 550 thousand people. Here, we got to experience so many aspects of the culture and history, from a bus tour where we got to visit some significant landmarks to the Emmigration museum where we learned about the touching troubled times of Ireland. For the language learning component of the trip, we spent a couple of days at the Babel Academy, where we learned a bit about Irish literature and acted out political debates. However, it wasn’t all learning, we got to immerse ourselves into Irish culture by going to a pub sing-along and practicing Irish step dancing, which we all enjoyed.

All in all the trip was “grand” as the Irish would say. So glad we got to go!

A major thanks to our teachers who made the trip a success: Robert Kozak, Elisabeth Begander, Brigitte Greimel-Wasner, Christa Rauch- Kovatschitsch, Rebekah Berkovic and Marcas O’Cribin.