Ireland: Outside of your Comfort Zone and Into Another World

Sunset in the Glen overlooking the Atlantic Ocean has been different every night. 

To truly step out of your world and into another this day in age is a rare thing.  This summer, in one of the remotest parts of Ireland, two cadets and one teacher are doing just that.  In a valley (known as a glen in Ireland) that has been inhabited for over 5000 years, the cadets started a journey into an immersion program  in order to learn the very rare language, Irish Gaelic.  But the experience, at this point in the journey, goes way beyond just learning a new language.  Glencolmcille is located in a Gaeltacht, a place where Gaelic is still spoken on a daily basis by the locals and this particular valley is straight out of a Yeats poem.  Windswept beaches and meadows, dramatic and dangerous weather, rocky hillsides speckled by thatched roof houses and flocks of roaming sheep, all encapsulated by mountains, waves and bogs.  'Glen' as the locals call it, has been kept remote geographically by it's difficulty to get to, but also by the families that have lived here for centuries.  

Join us on a journey to follow two young cadets guided by one instructor as they explore this world through cliffside hikes, nights of stories around the fire, intense Irish language classes, nature exploration, and socially as they hope to weave their way into the lives of the sometimes tightly woven families and residents of the Glen. 

The waters around Ireland can be as blue as the Caribbean but as cold as the North Sea during the winter months.