Every year thousands of Irish children reach a threshold in their lives. They prepare to leave their closest friends and the surrounds that have lived in since five years of age. They have become big fish in a little pond. And now they must learn to swim in the lake.

Their range of experience is about to expand exponentially as they embark on a journey through adolescence and into young adulthood. They will experience a new kind of freedom and a whole new range of challenges. They will have to navigate their way through a host of new pressures and encounter a slew of new characters. The transition from primary to secondary is one of the biggest in a child’s life.

And yet this great threshold goes relatively unmarked in our society.  On this retreat we will create the conditions for these pre-teens to celebrate their last days together, to bid a proper goodbye to their days in bunscoil. We will introduce them to wild medicinal and edible plants, forever altering their perception of the natural world. Through expressive arts of dance, performance and slam poetry, we will scaoil amach the range of emmotions of this transition. Playing on the beach just for the fun of it, we will take iománaíocht out of its competitive setting and re-discover the joy of the game.  We will swim and stretch and taste and test the wierd and the wonderful and the wild. And finally around the fire, we will create one moment of magic, where we announce to the world, táim réidh. This is for the parents and teachers that recognise the need to mark this graduation in a different way. It is for those that recognise the important role of Nature in helping our young people to absorb and integrate the great challenges that they face.

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What's Included

Dormitory Accomodation in Brú na Gráige with four separate dorms

All meals, organic and locally sourced produce as far as possible.

A coastal adventure to forage seaweed

Expressive Arts workshops

Active Yogic Dance

Wildcraft - learn how to make face creams or soaps.

Ceol - there's always ceol

Cuireadh - an invitation to each child to share their talent around the campfire

Fire and Ritual: a simple ceremony to mark this transition

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