Globe Trotters: Enjoying the Emerald Isle -

Juniors Sarah Lynch, Erin Lynch, and Maddy Niland show off their “CUA” pride at Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Courtesy of Erin Lynch

Hi! Erin & Sarah here in Dublin, Ireland! We are juniors studying abroad this semester at University College Dublin (UCD). At home, we both study marketing in the Busch School of Business. UCD is similar to CUA as it is a city school with its own campus. It is about 20 minutes from City Centre in Dublin. One way it is different from Catholic is in size. On a typical school day there are 21,000 students on campus. Many of them are commuters but there are 6,000 international students. Today is the halfway point in our program, and though we have already done so much, we have so much more to see.

We have only been in Ireland a short time, but we are more than in love with the country and its people. In September, we traveled to a small town called Gorey for our “home stay”. Gorey is in County Wexford and has 10,000 people. During this time, we stayed with Irish families for a weekend in a small Irish town. We were lucky enough to end up with host families who were good friends. Helen & Mary only lived a short 30 second walk away from each other, which allowed us to spend time with both families. Over the weekend, we were treated to home cooked Irish meals. Notably was Helen’s Irish stew & homemade bread and Mary’s bacon and cabbage & apple crumble. We left Gorey gaining 5 lbs! We ventured downtown to main street Gorey and down to Courtown. We walked 7km to the coast in Courtown Harbor and visited a seal sanctuary. It was a very quaint, small coastal town which really gave us the true experience of a small Irish town.

We’ve enjoyed traveling the Irish countryside. Ireland is truly God’s Country. Throughout our time being here, we have hiked over Giant’s Causeway and explored the streets of Galway. Giant’s Causeway was one of our favorites. It was a very cool rock formation off the coast of Belfast in Northern Ireland. Erin loved it so much she went twice!

Since our time being here, we have had plenty time to explore the exciting city of Dublin. We are just a short bus ride away from St. Stephen’s Green, Trinity College, and Grafton street. We are thoroughly enjoying our time here, but in the next few weeks we will continue our weekend journeys out of the country. Trips to places like Italy and Norway are on the horizon.