Gaelic Football and Hurling-Wey Hey!

Hello ILE Families and Friends! Students woke up early Saturday morning after getting plenty of sleep the night before. They felt refreshed and rejuvenated from their jet let and were excited to start their first day of class. For breakfast, they enjoyed brown bread, a variety of cereals, toast, and orange juice. After getting some food into their stomachs, they delved into their first Irish literature class with Angie. Angie shared the history of Irish literature with them and read a story by Frank O'Connor. Rachel said it was very interesting. Since the students were going to the Leinster Finals on Sunday, the Waterford GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) came and gave an incredible Gaelic Football and Hurling Workshop to the students. This threw off our schedule a little, but was well worth it. Mid-morning was devoted to learning these two incredible Irish sports. Gaelic Football is a sport played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score points by passing the ball through the other team's goals, a set of two upright posts separated by a crossbar 8.2 feet above the ground. Hurling has prehistoric origins and has been played for at least 3,000 years. It is thought to be the world's fastest field team game in terms of game play. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic Football, such as the field and goals, number of players, and much terminology. There is a similar game for women called Camogie. ILE's Friend and Waterford GAA Coach, Mark Cooney, first taught the students Hurling. He showed them what a hurley and sliotar were and then ran some important drills with them to get them comfortable with the sport. He said that Conor, Luis, and Tyler were naturals at the game. They had some fantastic hand-eye coordination. Anica and Casey also had some great plays. After learning the basics, the students had a little friendly competition with each other. It was fun to watch. "I like the way they pass it up and down the pitch," said Casey. The students eventually switched over to Gaelic Football, which they were all looking forward to, since they would see a game at Croke Park on Sunday. Again, Mark demonstrated the important techniques and ran some drills. He decided to make a challenge for two teams to see who could hand pass the ball and kick it over the goal post the most. The deal-the losing team would have to buy the winning team McFlurry's from McDonalds. It was close, but with Luis' stellar soccer skills, his team was able to pull off the win! Mark told the students that he was extremely impressed with their talents and said they were the best group he has ever worked with from the Irish Life Experience. Props to the 2012 ILE'ers! After getting a great workout, the students had built up quite an appetite. They raced over to the cafeteria for a hard earned dinner. The students then had free time to explore Waterford. Dan brought a group in and gave them a quick tour. Many of them exchanged money and bought a few necessities, while others just wandered and soaked it all in. Brigid said she really likes the town and it's a nice size. When students returned back to Newtown Boarding School, they enjoyed a nice meal of lasagne. After tea, they had their first drama and dance class. They started working on their limericks in drama class and Scones taught them the basic 3's and 7's of Irish dance. Morgan, our Irish dancing student, even demonstrated a jig for the students. It was impressive to see. Many of the students decided to watch Old School and some of them just hung out in the Music Hall. Liam said it was a great day and the perfect beginning to the ILE!

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