Workshops Galore

After visiting Áras an Uachtaráin on Wednesday, the Irish Life Experience students returned to King's Hospital for an array of Irish workshops to fill the rest of their day. Angie first gave her Northern Ireland Workshop and talked about growing up in Belfast during the height of the Troubles. She spoke very passionately about what she witnessed and gave the students a small peak into the history of the conflict. It was a perfect time to talk about the North, since the ILE students were heading to Belfast and the Antrim Coast on Thursday. She told the students how much progress and peace had been made in recent years. "Angie's Northern Ireland Workshop was very powerful and made me understand more about the Troubles that Northern Ireland has endured over the years," said Hannah. Later that afternoon, Dan taught rugby. Dan is a rugby coach at Terenure College in Dublin, so he has plenty of experience teaching the rules and techniques of the game. He even had some of his former students come to the workshop to help the students practice and show them a few tricks of the trade. He explained many passes and moves, before allowing the students to scrimmage against each other. With a few goals, rucks, scrums, and tackles, the ILE students picked up the sport very quickly. While many seem to favor Gaelic football, they all enjoyed learning rugby-especially from Dan and his students. A few mentioned they are interested in getting the National Irish Rugby Jersey and following the Irish Rugby Team in the US. Later that evening, a past teacher of the Irish Life Experience, graced us with her presence and taught an Advanced Irish Dancing and Tin Whistle Workshop to the ILE students. Corinna O'Donoghue first demonstrated a special dancing routine to Hannah and Scarlett. They worked very diligently for over an hour and managed to learn the steps to Corinna's routine very quickly. Next was the impressive Tin Whistle Workshop. Corinna taught the students a basic scale on a D Whistle-D, E, F, G, A, B, C-and then showed them how to play a polka and a slip jig. Taryn was amazed by how fast the students learned the two tunes. They are very musical. Dakota and Katie were naturals at the instrument and both said they were going to try and learn a few more Irish tunes when they get home. Thank you Corinna for your expertise;)! Taryn is trying to convince the students to showcase their talents on the final night in Galway, so hopefully they will share their newfound Irish routines for their ILE friends.

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