A few weeks ago, our Transition Year pupils received their much anticipated Junior Cert results. Luckily for them, their results were exceptional so we left them escape that evening for some (organised) fun! Sofia McConnell reports.
On Wednesday, 12 September all 52 of us received our Junior Certificate results. There were tears, smiles, frowns and laughs but by 1.30, all that was pushed to the back of our minds as we set out on our trip!
We reached Dublin and all got off the bus, excited for what was ahead of us. Randomly split into groups of about 23 we each set off for our separate adventures. My group’s first trip was a Viking Splash Tour, we all got on an open roofed bus with Viking helmets on our heads and, driven by our tour guide Paddy and his almost funny jokes we made our way into Dublin City Centre. He showed us the main Irish offices for Google, Facebook, the Boland’s mills, houses and apartments of Bono, Jedward, Colin Farrell, admired some pretty ‘Celts’ that passed by our bus and finally we arrived at the canal. After putting on life-jackets and readying ourselves for the change from land to water, our bus became a boat and we continued our tour by canal.
Our next activity was a visit to the Jeanie Johnston, a beautiful, old boat that had been used to transport emigrants from Ireland to Canada during the Famine in 1840, she was famous for having a kind, caring captain and an accomplished doctor. We learnt about how difficult life had been for them, how rarely they found who they were looking for once they arrived at their destination and the small percentage that actually made it there alive (however on this particular boat everyone was taken care of and survived the journey, sadly this wasn’t always the case with other boats.)
Our final group expedition was a sea safari around Dublin bay. We went in an open boat, rode the wake, got thrown about, completely soaked and overall had a brilliant time. Delicious, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside chips, hamburgers and hot dogs followed as dinner.
Finally all 73 of us walked to the Odeon Cinema. With popcorn and cokes in hand we watched a gruesome and exciting movie about prohibition in the USA, in Virginia. At 10 PM we arrived back in school feeling content, comfortable and not nearly so worried about our results. We would all like to say a big thank you to Mr. Sherwood, Ms. Kilfeather, Mr. Clarke and Alannah for coming with us and organizing such a brilliant day.
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