The Greendale Orchestra and Choir students took a trip to Ireland over spring break to perform at St. Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny with the Kilkenny Youth Choir. The students and advisors flew from Chicago’s airport but had some problems with the flights.

“We were supposed to fly out direct from Chicago on one flight. The airline forced us into two separate flights in both directions, but we’re not sure why.  We would have preferred to fly together, but that change was out of our control,” choir teacher Michael Jones said.

During the problematic time at the airport, the employees made the students split up to go on three different planes. One of the planes left on time and the second one left later, but the third one got canceled so a third of the kids weren’t in Ireland for very long

“I was on the plane that had gotten canceled. I was obviously upset that we got canceled and had to stay overnight in Chicago but I was grateful that I was able to leave on the Sunday flight,” Senior Bryn Richards also said, “It was a positive and negative experience. I learned a lot from what happened but I was also sad that I had missed the tour day in Dublin,” 

When half of the students got there, most of their favorite parts were going to all of the castles and going on top of them to kiss the famous stone. Their favorite part was also seeing the Cliffs of Moher.

“My favorite part about the trip was being able to see the Blarney Castle and Kiss the Blarney Stone. We got to walk around the castle grounds and we also went to the top of the castle to kiss the famous stone,” Richards said.