As part of our Civic Link programme we went with Movilla High School to Glendalough on a 2 night trip.
By Charleen McCallen in Transition Year
Over the duration of time we did team building, work shops and lots of bonding. The first day they came down Ms. Morris our principal and Ms. Ni Shuibne met them at Glenagery Dart Station to bring the people from the North of Ireland to our school. Once they got to our school everyone was shy. We were all in the library and Brett came over from the Movilla High School as nobody else from that school wanted to chat as they were all shy, but once Brett came over and said the first few words we all started to chat and everyone got together and started to bond. We brought the Movilla people on a trip around our school, and then we got pizza and went to Glendalough. We all chatted on the bus and started to get to know each other more and more. Once we got down there, we got our room and got our beds and got changed. After we were all ready we went on a little hour walk and then went back for our dinner. They made us chips, chicken goujons and lasagna for dinner. After dinner we went up to this room and we played games and done a good bit of team building so all of us could mix around and get to know each other more. We had to do these boring quizzes which nobody knew the answers of except a few of them. Then when we were finished that, we were allowed to go down and get supper before bed.
The next morning most people were out of bed at 8’ o clock in the morning for breakfast. Some people didn’t come down for awhile as they were too tired. Once we had our food, we went to the rooms to get ready for the day and our LONG 4 and a half hour walk. It was dreadful! Most people moaned all the way up but it was alright on the way down as we were walking downhill so it wasn’t as tiring as walking up. After the walk we went back to the hostel and got changed and went for lunch. We had soup and sandwhiches for lunch. Then after our lunch we did more workshops and had to mix again. We also showed them our community and the way the “ Noggin” is and they also showed us the way their part of Belfast is.
Later Ms. Ni Shuibne came down with pizza for everyone so we all ate them for dinner and they also made curly fries and chicken goujons so we could have it with our pizza. We all went back to our rooms and just chatted to everyone afterwards, then had some quizzes and fun. We played ‘Sing star’ and most people took part and we sang a few songs but they didn’t let us do it for that long. After all that was done we got supper. Then we were sent to bed but all of us sat in the corridors and were chatting away to each other, but then Ms. Lawlor and Ms. Brown told us to go to our beds. So we went to our beds.
The next day a girl called Margaret came down to see how we enjoyed it and what we learned about each other and what we learned bout their religion. Then we had to clean our rooms as we were leaving. Then we got the bus to Dun Laoghaire to drop the people off at the Dart Station. We all got of to say our goodbyes and then we got back on the bus and headed back to school. We then helped Ms. Lawlor to bring all the stuff into the school and then we headed home. We are going up to Belfast during April for 3 days so it should be as much fun as when they came down here.
