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Active Language Learning Social and Leisure Programme

Our social and leisure programme consists of sports, arts and crafts, computers, music, videos, cookery and excursions to cultural and historical destinations and evening entertainment.

Leisure Activities

Fully equipped gymnasium with facilities for volleyball, badminton, table tennis, snooker, chess and board games, and heated swimming pool. The arts and crafts studio is a very popular activity for many students with its potter's wheel and kiln. The centre also boasts a 24 terminal computer laboratory and a fully equipped kitchen with ten work stations. Outdoor facilities include tennis courts, football, basketball, baseball and rounders.

Excursions

Excursions to Dublin to visit many of its cultural and historical buildings, art galleries and museums. Regional tours are held weekly to such destinations as Glendalough, Powerscourt Estate, The National Stud, Galway and Connemara. Evening entertainment consists of twice weekly events such as cinema, bowling, disco, ceili, barbecue, karaoke, International dinner parties and farewell party.

Irish Hospitality

Students are accommodated in carefully selected families who live locally. This is a very important part of the course as it offers the opportunity to speak English and experience Irish family life and culture. Students are regarded as a member of the family and each family will accommodate only one student of any mother tongue. Irish family life is warm, relaxed and friendly. Students are made to feel at home and full board is provided.

Adult students can avail of host family accommodation or guest house/hotel. Also available self-contained apartments with fully equipped kitchen facilities and all bed linen and hand towels are provided.

About Irish Heritage & Culture

Studying English in Ireland gives the visitor an opportunity to share our culture and to explore the history of an ancient civilisation. There are many historic monuments in Ireland, some older than the Egyptian pyramids. Each tells a story of the successive influences, which shaped and moulded Ireland's history - the prehistoric standing stones, the round towers and high crosses of the medieval monks and the grandeur of large country houses from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Against the background grew the modern state of Ireland, which achieved independence 1922.

Irish Tradition

Characteristically the Irish love of words led to the development of a long tradition of story telling and play writing. Some of the great Irish writers to gain international acclaim are Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith, along with George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, Sean O'Casey, Samuel Beckett and Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. James Joyce is perhaps the best known writer in modern literature.

New Talent has come to the fore in all areas of the arts in recent decades. Nobel Prize winner and poet Seamus Heaney and writer Roddy Doyle have continued Ireland's reputation for producing outstanding writers and both have become International figures. There has been a growth of filmmaking, led by director Neil Jordan and in the musical field groups such as the Dubliners and the Chieftains have brought traditional Irish music to a worldwide audience.

Irish Rock Musicians catering for the younger generation have also taken centre stage through the immense success of people like U2, Enya, Sinead O'Connor, The Cranberries and more recently The Corr's, BoyZone, Westlife and Samantha Mumba.

Irish Sport & Recreation

Sport and recreation is very much part of Irish life. Activities such as Horse-racing and riding, fishing, walking, cycling and sailing are coupled with sports like football, hurling, rugby, soccer, tennis, table-tennis, swimming, basketball, volleyball and golf.

Entertainment in Dublin, Ireland

Entertainment in Ireland is famous the world over and compares with the best available elsewhere. Theatre, Cinema, Cabaret, Pubs and Traditional Entertainment are integral part of Irish society. Dublin is the home of the Abbey Theatre famous for its association in its early days with W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge and Sean O'Casey The Gate Theatre is mainly concerned with the production of international classics and for famous comedies by Irish writers such as Goldsmith, Sheridan, Shaw and Wilde. Irish cabaret is a popular entertainment for visitors to Dublin. Top class performers provide a range of entertainment with an Irish flavour, which the visitor can enjoy in an amusing and friendly atmosphere. Pub entertainment has become widespread and popular and the visitor is likely to experience music, singing and dancing of a mainly Irish character. Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann (Centre of Irish folk music and dance) is situated in Monkstown.