Visiting Claregalway - 15th October - 19th October 2009
For our first planning-meeting and launching the project all partners met in Ireland.
On Thursday the 15th most partners had arrived in Galway, a city about 10 km from Claregalway.
The Galway Bay FM Radio reported about the project in radio:
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On Friday the program started with an Irish breakfast in Arches Hotel, Claregalway. After a short walk through Claregalway partners arrived at Claregalway NS. The foreign partners were warmly welcomed by children and teachers. |
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| First the project was launched officially and the Apple Tree was planted in the school garden. All partners introduced themselves live on ustream, a live Broadcast and video channel (Introduction on ustream). Partners divided into groups to visit classrooms, Children and teachers prepared many things for their guests, questions were asked, songs were sung, etc. After lunch in school children demonstrated on the School field two Irish field games – Gaelic Football & Hurling. |  |
| The Music teacher arranged a Concert in the school hall. Traditional Irish music was played by the school band and five pupils performed an exhibition of Irish dancing. At the end of the concert all partners were taught a traditional dance called “Shoe the Donkey”(concert on ustream) In the afternoon partners and hosts walked through the village to Claregalway Castle where they received a guided tour of the old Norman castle. In the evening partners met in Galway and discussed their impressions of the day. |
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On Saturday partners visited Inis Mor, one of the three Aran Islands. It was a very impressive day. The island is famous for its strong Irish culture, loyalty to the Irish language, and a wealth of Pre-Christian and Christian ancient sites including Dun Aonghus a Stone Age Fort. On this island are two primary schools and one secondary school, so children from Aran Islands don't have to leave home for education. When we returned to our hotel in Galway we held a planning meeting where important decisions were made for the future of our project. |
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On Sunday the Burren was visited. The interpretative center opened the doors for partners, so partners could inform themselves about the historic background of this unique landscape. The Burren is a karst-landscape region in northwest County Clare, in Ireland. It is one of the largest karst landscapes in Europe. Burren is rich with historical and archaeological sites. A lively sing-song on the bus featured contributions from each partner school. In the evening partners met in Claregalway Hotel. After dinner a last working meeting took place. Many things were discussed and decided. As well partners met again teacher, parents and pupils for a last discussion. |
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| Very interesting days in Ireland ended, we decided many things about the future project activities, built a team, learned about Irish school system and culture ...
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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
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