Invasion Française!

Mercredi, le onze mars, St Conleths was visited by “trente cinq” French students from le lycée Notre Dame of Saint Nazaire, just an hour east of Nantes. We did lots of activities with them et nous nous sommes bien amusés.

Pour commencer, we did some “speed-dating” to get to know each other. We had a list of questions to talk to the French students about, and before long it was almost difficult to hear each other with all the conversations going on. Après ça, we learnt a bit about each others’ cultures, with a “Did Oscar Wilde really say this?” and a “match the French person to their quote” game. Je pense que tout le monde a appris quelque chose. Après une petite pause, the French students split up and came with us to English class. It was a very Irish class, studying Yeats’ famous poem “The Lake Isle of Inisfree.” Il y avait du soleil, du coup, nous sommes allés à Merrion Square Park, to take photos at the statue of Oscar Wilde. To finish off, we had a picnic in the sun,  before heading home for the day, very excited for the céilí we would be doing on Thursday.

The following day a cheilí was held to show our French visitors some traditional Irish music and dance. To kick off this event, 5th year Sofia Barry performed some traditional Irish dancing with 5th year Elizabeth Tighe playing the fiddle. After this, the French students, joined by the 5th and 6th year French classes all got on the dance floor to do a Gaeltacht style cheilí. Bhí craic agus spraoi i ngach áit, with both nationalities chatting and exchanging numbers. À la fin, tout le monde a mangé des crêpes au Nutella ensemble. We may be enemies on the rugby pitch but Ireland and France still get on well in other things.

By Peter Murphy and David MacNicholas

by Charles Latvis