What a day Rang 5/6 had in Dublin for their school tour. From start to finish the day offered us lots of fantastic experiences. The weather forecast hadn’t been great, but the sun came out to welcome us to the capital on many occasions!
We had an early start at 8.30am but the excitement on everyone’s faces was a sign of all the great times ahead we would have. Our first stop in Dublin brought us to the Office of the Children’s Ombudsman, Niall Muldoon. We learned all about the Children’s Charter of Rights, had a cinema experience, group workshops and chill-out time on their fabulous buddha bags. As ever our students were a joy to have with us and were very impressive in their input into the session. Our facilitators Aoife and Stephen were very impressed by the children’s knowledge and interesting questions regarding children’s rights, and commented on the excellent levels of manners and enthusiasm.
We then headed off to our second destination St. Patrick’s Cathedral to board the hilarious, exciting and informative Viking Splash Tour. Sitting in the open-topped 1940’s amphibious vehicles used first in the D-Day landings in Normandy, our tour guides imparted vast knowledge on some of the most famous historical sites around the city. With the Bórd Gáis theatre in sight, we parked at the Grand Canal Basin and our guides passed out the life jackets for the next treat of the day…our buses took to the water and we continued our sightseeing of Dublin, all the time entertained by our guides. Back at base in Christchurch, we all agreed on one thing for sure…that this was so much fun!
Croke Park is a familiar stop for many, however we rarely get to look behind the scenes. The children were treated to a tour of the grounds and facilities. We got to see the player’s lounge, dressing rooms, warm up area and we even got to climb the hallowed steps to collect Sam! Once we had raised the famous cup, we took on the vertigo inducing Skyline tour. After climbing 140 steps, we were led on a bird’s eye tour of some more famous sights of the city, with lots of informative facts and tales from our tour guides. We saw Mountjoy Prison, Poolbeg, Christchurch, The Four Courts, Glasnevin Cemetary, the Olympic torch sculpture and much more. At 44 metres in the air we had an amazing view of the city and the grounds, along with the added excitement of the sky-high walk.
All that was left was our journey home with a yummy treat along the way! We got back to school at 10.00pm and were still all full of beans as we could not have asked for a better day, and as always our children made us so proud with their good humour, manners and sense of fun.
This certainly was a day to remember!
