.... go forth with the gift of eloquence!

---

Thursday

We left Sneem very early, because we had two school visits to do in Killarney. First, we visited a secondary school. The children were doing their exams, so we didn't really have a place to be. The principal talked to us for like 45 minutes in the hallway while we stood.

We then went to a school called St. Oliver's which was probably my second favorite school that we visited, after St. Michael's in Sneem. The principal was awesome. He had a great vision statement for the school. He talked about how he believes in instilling worth with children. He mentioned how the church lost sight of it, and that's what the scandal occurred. If you've been following the Ryan Report, a nine-year report in the making, about the abuses in the Irish Catholic Church, you'd know what I was talking about.

Killarney also has a lot of "Traveler" children. They are an interesting subculture group. They're the gypsy group. They are kind of like a mafia group. They are very wealthy in Killarney, but there are also Traveler People that are very poor. I couldn't tell who was a Traveler child, but a typical Irish person could. What's interesting about the Traveler's is that they do not prioritize education. Travelers are very Catholic and believe that formal education ends when the Catholic Confirmation occurs. That means that some of these children will not go into Secondary school and their education ends at age fourteen/fifteen. Girls are often forced into marriage at a very young age.

I'm going to do my research paper on how the Irish Education System includes the Traveler children and how the encourage the completion of secondary education, and even tertiary education.

Finally, we went south in Cork to visit the Blarney Castle! I kissed the Blarney Stone! Now, I must go forth with the gift of eloquence. I also was able to explore the castle a bit.

We finally went to our hotel in Limerick. It's kind of dangerous in Limerick, so we stayed on the outskirts and were not really aloud to leave the hotel. We had our last dinner together and then had a quiz night afterwards and Batt bought us all drinks. (He bought me a pint of Smithwicks at dinner for telling my story) My team won the quiz! (I probably answered the most questions though.

---