Adventure and Leadership Program: Semester Length, Fall and Spring Cohorts

I loved my semester with Irish Gap Year! Despite covid restrictions, we were still able to explore Belfast, Derry, Enniskillen, Galway, Sligo, and the Cliffs of Moher among other towns. Living in a house with a group pf people my age is a unique opportunity IGY provides and I have come out of this program with many friendships. My leaders are fantastic and so much fun! They are always positive and flexible. Our days are filled with surfing, hiking, cliff jumping, camping, fishing, exploring cities, volunteering, and workshops. I have come out of this program with countless new skills, like setting up shelters, and navigating. I am taking the connections I made and unique experiences away from my gap year with IGY.

I had a really good experience with Irish Gap Year! We did some super fun outdoor activities like hiking, surfing, and camping. We also did a few workshops and a bit of volunteering around the town which was great! Even with restrictions, we took a few trips around Ireland so we got to learn about bits of Irish culture and history. The leaders are all super friendly and want to help you grow as a person. I also really liked the housing situation as it allowed me to become close with all my peers.

Irish gap year was super fun overall. I loved the independent living situation, which is unique compared to many other organized gap programs, and sense of schedule throughout each week. Although our movement was restricted for much of the program (out of IGY's control), we still managed to have tons of fun exploring Donegal, Belfast, Galway, and Derry. The hiking and surfing were amazing, especially because nearly every location we went to had great views (cliffs, ocean, mountains etc). Despite the program being centered around adventure and the outdoors, I still felt that we experienced a solid amount of culture and city life.

I had a fantastic experience with IGY this past semester! The program has great leaders and staff that are always listening to the feedback of the students. This year was different due to covid restrictions but Irish Gap Year still managed to have great workshops and outdoor activities lined up for us. The trip was filled with great hikes, learning to surf, city trips, and some volunteer work around Bundoran. Living in a house with students my age was loads of fun and I gained so many new friendships here. The highlight of the trip for me was our Belfast trip where we stayed in a hostel for two nights in the city. The program had a great mix of scheduled activities for students as well as free time to relax and explore. I would recommend this program to anyone who loves the outdoors and is looking for a gap year program with loads of adventures!

Even though we were restricted from some of the activities the leaders found other ways to make this experience amazing! From hiking to surfing and spending nights with great people my own age, I had an amazing time. We had some great adventures like hiking, cliff jumping, fishing, surfing, and exploring cities like Galway, Belfast, and Derry. This trip was probably the best for me because I really felt like I had a say in our schedule for each week. I also got to know some cool people my own age as well as go on adventures. Mixed in with all the fun we had we did do some work too but I found it enjoyable because the work we did was helping to build castle park. I would recommend this program to anyone who likes the outdoors, wants to explore Ireland and wants to have fun in the ocean as well as meet other Peale your own age. Even if you haven’t surfed before you will still have a lot of fun learning how to surf.

I had so much fun with Irish Gap Year, I would highly recommend to anyone interested!we got to do so many different activities all across Ireland, such as traveling to various cities like Belfast, Derry, and Galway. We also got to hike up many mountains and go fishing. But my favorite activity was definitely surfing! We were provided with boards and surfing lessons and it was very fun! I also loved getting to live in a big house with a bunch of other people my age who were a part of the program!

This was by far the best program I could have chosen to participate in. Though beginning in the midst of a pandemic, the experience I had I would trade for no other - between surfing near daily, spending nights having wild fun with people my own age and taking some of the hardest hikes I've ever been on, there's nothing that could compare.
Being stuck in level 5 had little bearing on my enjoyment of my time here, as the leaders successfully created an itinerary that kept us all engaged for the whole time. We had input on the schedule too, and though it was difficult to coordinate making what we wanted to happen under level 5, we were successful enough. Some highlights included near daily walks, hikes, and leadership workshops, and occasional kayaking, swimming, cliff jumping, and biking outings, not to mention all of the memories that were created with the people I met.
However, this is not the place for people looking for a seriously outdoors experience. While having a home base of sorts in Bundrowes was nice, it meant that we were living in Ireland as students with outdoors education experiences as opposed to students on an outdoors based program. It is a comfortable and loosely planned experience with room for feedback, your own activities and relationships to grow.

My time with Irish Gap Year over the past semester was an amazing experience! Though the pandemic meant we had to quarantine when we arrived and prevented us from being able to do some of the usual program activities like meeting more people in the community, going on more trips and doing liquid therapy, I still had a great time. We were able to go on a couple trips in the beginning where we stayed in pretty nice hostels, went on hikes and had some free time for exploring the town. Later on, however, when Ireland introduced more COVID-19 restrictions, we were not able to go farther than 5k, or go anywhere in town that was not the grocery store, pharmacy or a few takeout places. Obviously though, that was not IGY’s fault and we were still able to do amazing and fun things! We surfed a lot, went cliff jumping, kayaked, went on some bike rides and went on lots of hikes which was all very fun! We also volunteered on a farm, learned about sustainability, had leadership workshops and worked on designing and building a park/community space near the house. The staff were really great— approachable and super fun! The house was great to live in too. I had two roommates and we had a very spacious room and our own bathroom. Overall, it was an amazing experience and I would highly recommend it!