Arcadia Ireland

Last weekend we gathered our students studying all across the island of Ireland and brought them away from their campus location and into a rustic Irish community of Blessington in County Wicklow for our Éalú retreat. Éalú is an Irish word meaning escape. Throughout the weekend we encouraged our students to learn more about Irish society and culture while getting to meet other students within the Arcadia Ireland community that they may not have met yet. All events over the weekend encouraged integration between all of the Arcadia Ireland programs and Arcadia staff so that we could all connect as an Arcadia Ireland community!

We kicked off our weekend of events with a traditional Irish Ceili hosted by Experience Gaelic Games. The students first learned the basic steps that they’d need to be able to participate in the Ceili and after a bit of practice they were dancing like the locals! Having a bit of fun and dancing with the entire group was a great way to gently push our students out of their comfort zones and highlight the purpose of our weekend retreat.

Saturday morning our students enjoyed a traditional Irish breakfast and then were off to Ballyknocken Cookery School to pick up a few tricks and tips from one of Ireland’s well known celebrity chefs, Catherine Fulvio. We were guided by Catherine Fulvio and the rest of the staff at the cookery school on how to make Traditional Brown Soda Bread scones, Potato Soup with Parsley Oil, and Lemon Drizzle cake. After our lesson we then got to sit down and appreciate all of our hard work by eating all of the food that we prepared!

After we were well fed form our amazing cooking skills that we developed, we departed for a hike around Glendalough and St. Kevin’s monastery. After being give a little lesson on the history of Glendalough and the monastery, we were all given a bit of time to go off and explore the area on our own. It was a first visit for a majority of the students (and myself) to Glendalough, and it was the perfect autumn day to be surrounded by the beauty of the park. 

That evening we brought a bit of our students’ competitive streak out as we hosted a trivia night that tested their knowledge on US trivia, Irish trivia, and film and TV! We finished off the fun weekend with a bit of prize giving for our winning trivia team, the student who was the most enthusiastic over the weekend, our best chefs at the cookery school, and the best dancers at the ceili! It was a fun and exciting weekend, and was so nice to see all the students from various programs connecting and mingling as if they’d known each other for ages!