School tours

Ruu_Old

I was remembering having to get up terribly early for those horrible primary school tours. They used to bring us to Newgrange and if we were "lucky", to Blanchardstown for some shopping.

One time in particular, the bus that waited for us was meant to pick up the teachers (who were having a few pints, us not knowing or thinking about it) before getting us. When we saw went to pick up the teachers and saw them slowly plodding from the pub, let a big roar out of the bus. Ah good times.

WindSock

Ahh yes. And the bus journeys also provided ample time to sing the infamous 'stop the bus we want a wee weeee' song.

Charlie

Newgrange. The amount of times they dragged us to that god foresakin place. Scholl tours got god around 5th/6th class. We had a legend of a teacher who brought us to Salthill for a weekend in 5th class, Mr. Feeney, I salute you.

School tours in secondary school.....:D ....Holland..;)

Tar.Aldarion

Marble arch caves for us, a lot!
Also walking up the mountain and finally to delphi.
Italy in secondary school.

Kimbot

Ah the Coke factory!!

"Give that man a can of coke"

Zaph

My secondary school was great, tours in both 5th and 6th year. Paris in 5th year and then running amok in Munich and Austria in 6th year. My fondest memories of school.

Ruu_Old

jonny24ie wrote:

Ah the Coke factory!!

"Give that man a can of coke"

My brother went on that one. Feck, we got nothing even close to that.:) Yep secondary school tours were good, we went to Germany and Austria (like half the nation).

Tar.Aldarion

jonny24ie wrote:

Ah the Coke factory!!

"Give that man a can of coke"

I would have loved to have gone to the coke factory.

Malteaser!

we went to the popes croos for a picnic for one of them...

think we went to a farm for another one, can't really remember...all i know is, they were crap!

the bus journey was always the best though....i bet the teachers hated that part, they'd always get annoyed after the first half hour or so and try to get us all to shut up!!

Kolodny

jonny24ie wrote:

Ah the Coke factory!!

"Give that man a can of coke"

My friend was telling me about this the other day - did you have to answer a question about the tour to get a can?

My school tours were always quite interesting but I got left behind for a while on one (teacher miscounted on the head count apparently). I was left at Westonbirt Aboretum in Gloucester, which was quite a distance from my home and school in Bristol. Another kid had sat beside the girl I was sitting with on the way there so she didn't notice I was gone but someone eventually realised and they came back to get me after only about 15 minutes (me aged 8, in floods of tears waiting at the gate with 2 staff members, thinking I might be stuck there forever - I mean, it was a very pretty place but I didn't want to live there!).

They had to tell my mother of course - needless to say she was not impressed. She came in and 'had words' with the staff and the principal and filed a complaint with the Board of Management. There wasn't so much threatening legal action back then

The only place I hated going to was the zoo because I didn't like seeing the animals caged up (yes, you might argue that tigers shouldn't be wandering free around the city but I thought it was cruel to have them in such confined spaces).

Wherever we went on a school day out, the best part was usually visiting the gift shop at the end. Even if you didn't have pocket money to buy anything, it was just the excitement of rummaging through baskets of tacky keyrings, pens and useless bits of plastic.

ixoy

Ahh the Coca-Cola tour. I did that one and I got the "give that man a can of coke!" but never got the can And yes, you had to answer a question to get the can but you were given a can each anyway.
You also got a Coca-Cola pencil case, pencil and ruler. I had the case for years and years afterwards.
Scariest bit (in retrospect) was the brain-washing device that was the Coca-Cola bus. They played the Coca-Cola song in a loop for the whole journey. Nefarious and I'd love to see the absolute uproar that this would cause today. Joe Duffy's phone system would go into meltdown if a global corporation was seen pushing sugary carbonated drinks into children's hands with such insiduous practices...

Other school tours in primary school were to see something like Bosco's haunt (Dublin Zoo) or a Punch & Judy show. In secondary school we went to the Burren for 1 night as part of a geography trip. We certainly didn't get these fancy foreign places that today's spoilt txt-spk-writing brats get :mad:

Kolodny

ixoy wrote:

Scariest bit (in retrospect) was the brain-washing device that was the Coca-Cola bus. They played the Coca-Cola song in a loop for the whole journey.

Sounds like something from The Simpsons

Feral Mutant

ixoy wrote:

Ahh the Coca-Cola tour. I did that one and I got the "give that man a can of coke!" but never got the can And yes, you had to answer a question to get the can but you were given a can each anyway.
You also got a Coca-Cola pencil case, pencil and ruler. I had the case for years and years afterwards.
Scariest bit (in retrospect) was the brain-washing device that was the Coca-Cola bus. They played the Coca-Cola song in a loop for the whole journey. Nefarious and I'd love to see the absolute uproar that this would cause today. Joe Duffy's phone system would go into meltdown if a global corporation was seen pushing sugary carbonated drinks into children's hands with such insiduous practices...

I didn't get to go on the coke bus, or maybe I just forgot that.
There were questions but they were easy.
"Does anyone remember what year blah blah coke blah happenned?"
"Eh"
"What was that? Did you say 1968?"
"Eh yeah"
"Here's a coke"

Was it actually the coke factory or just the coke bottling plant? I can't remember.

WindSock

Lambert puppet theatre and the Zoo. I remember in the zoo we were having our lunch on some grass and I went off to find the bin for my squeeze or amigo carton, to be good, then when I came back, everyone had gone. Then one of the teachers grabbed my arm and gave out to me for going off and I sulked
Memories of Lambert Puppet theatre? Sitting in the audience and trying to open a can of the old ring pull of coke and handing it to someone to open Missed the coke factory, just as well, I'd have struggled.

bullets

I remember going to some Caves and Fota Wildlife Part in Primary school.
The Best School tour was always done when you were in 6th Class.
We were all looking forward to visiting Dublin Zoo for ages.
Unfortunatly for us when we were in 6th class while running a shop
for sports day too many of us robbed the sweets and the shop made a loss.
Our class was punished by cancelling the trip!

Secondary school mainly consisted of Trips to Delphi and other such
places like Achill where the local girls the same age
as us were very friendly one of which was VERY Ahem Friendly.
Which was a very memorible moment in my life.

~B

Nightwish

We were brought to Dino Live! at the Zoo at the height of the dinosaur craze amongst kids when Jurassic Park was released, and I must say I was the most disappointed 10 year old in the country that day. It was 5 or 6 dodgy robot dinosaurs shaking their tails or growling.

Also, over the years we were brought to Morrell Farm, somewhere in Co. Kildare, a boat trip down the canal in Robertstown, and to some creepy dolls museum in Dublin. In secondary school we took a trip around the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.

WindSock

Remember the wax museum? the two different tunnels that led to a room that made you dizzy were my favourite bit. Went to madame tussauds in London a few years back. It stank in comparison.

Ruu_Old

We went to some planetarium up the North (can't remember the name of it) in primary school and I had been to the one in London that summer, I was disgusted and also that one of the smart boyos down the back kept howling through the whole thing.

imeddyhobbs

Good thread!!

I use this one sometimes as my party piece cause its so irish
In 1991 we were all supposed to go to france for our school tour but something went wrong very near to the departure date so it never went ahead.
We went to shannon airport instead!we sat on the 52 seater coach wiping the condensated windows watching planes take off,that was the new tour.
On our way back we stopped in Foynes and our econimics teacher pointed out the fact that this is where some imports and exports happen,then somewhere along the line we stopped for chips and got them in those poxy white plastic containers:eek:

I got 5 pounds of my old man that day before i left and i came home with change for next day,maybe it is a sign that you are getting old when you notice that some kids today have credit cards for school tours,Oh,sorry,Its known as an excursion now isint it?

Zaph

Just remembered another one. Anyone else go on the day trip to Holyhead? 3 and a half hours on the boat over, an hour or so on a bus tour of Anglesey, a short while to wander around Holyhead and then another 3 and a half hours on the boat home. Grim stuff altogether.

445279.ie

we went to Peigland in 6th year. Went to the Alawee Caves too in the Burren.

Always sang "all yer all very quiet up the front................"

Flukey

I did Newgrange and ones to Monasterboice and Melifont Abbey and to see St. Oliver Plunkett's head in Drogheda. I was in Melifont Abbey last year for the first time in years. I was recently in the Natural History Museum for the first time in years too. We did a day trip to the Isle of Man once, but I've not been back there since.

1huge1

I loved the primary school tours

2nd class= buttercup farm
3rd=tralee aqua dome
4th=galway
5th=clare alliwee caves
6th= UL

havent really gone to many places in secrondary school at all

nlgbbbblth

Primary school tours for me

1976-77 Kennedy Park
1977-78 Kennedy Park
1978-79 Kennedy Park
1979-80 Callan
1980-81 No tour
1981-82 Dublin Zoo
1982-83 Blarney
1983-84 London

Cormic

I cannot remember how many times we went to the Boyne valley in primary school. We also remember going to the waxworks museum but not being allowed into the scary part was we were too young...

Never did a foreign tour in secondary but did go on a retreat to Knock when I was in sixth year and a load of us skipped out of the B&B and went to the pub. I ended up snogging a local girl

Charlie

Anyone ever go to Clara Lara on a trip. Looking back, the place was so **** but at the time, it was our very own Disney Land.

I remember the wristband you'd buy that would get you on all the rides (about 2 if I remember ) but people used to always slide theirs of to give to a friend so they would get on aswel. Fools, coming up with such a system when most kids back then were had twigs for wrists, the chubby little checkers that are today's kids would be caught out.

Tar.Aldarion

Nightwish wrote:

We were brought to Dino Live! at the Zoo at the height of the dinosaur craze amongst kids when Jurassic Park was released, and I must say I was the most disappointed 10 year old in the country that day. It was 5 or 6 dodgy robot dinosaurs shaking their tails or growling.

Lol, I loved that!
Although, I was younger and stuff.

WindSock

rebel72 wrote:

Always sang "all yer all very quiet up the front................"

Not unless they were singing ''theres a whole lot of wallies at the back...

DMC

Every year in primary school, from around 2nd class on, we were let loose in the big smoke...

Part one of the day was to the Zoo. Then Sandymount strand to eat our lunch. If the smell of Dublin Bay didn't put us off our sandwiches, I dunno what would. Ick.

Then, the piste de resistance. To the RDS for the Spring Show!

Food stalls! Tractors! Farm Machinery! Prize Bulls!

I distinctly remember one year, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride, show ponies prancing around to music. The choreography was fantastic.

If we had time on the way back, we'd go to the Hill of Tara.

The one thing I really remember about those days was, the teachers just let us go. Just be back at the front door at 6pm. And everyone was. There was no molly-coddling, no fear of us getting lost or injured or worse.

Innocent times, and fond memories.

Mrs. MacGyver

Everywhere we go....people always ask us....who we areeeeeee.....who we areeeeeeeee and where do we come from.........

Sing all together now!!!

We went to the 'big' shopping center in Limerick (cant think of its name, Thomond???), Kinsale and oysterhaven and the UL sports center (it was called something else in 1990)

Sawa

In primary school we always seemed to go the National Art Gallery or Musuem and do the SAME thing each year, it got so boring but it was a day off school! I remember one day, my mam didn't give me money for the trip so I wasn't able to buy one of those rainbow rubbers they had in the gift shop or those highlighters shaped like a triangle.
We went to Fort Lucan or was it Clara Lara (cant remember) for 6th class, that was by far the best.
Also went to Newgrange.

Secondary school:
various museums, once to Belfast.
I also went to Chester/Birmingham in 2nd year. great fun!

petes

charlie mchugh wrote:

Anyone ever go to Clara Lara on a trip. Looking back, the place was so **** but at the time, it was our very own Disney Land.

Yep. We went to Clara Lara. From what I remember it seemed like great craic.

And of course went to Newgrange.

ciaran76

We went to Mosney a few times.
The memories I have from there is unreal.

Then we all did the usual Christ Church, Newgrange and the musuems.

xzanti

My first school tour was to the Puppet Show in the Riverbank Theatre.. I remember it like it was yesterday ... Think, after that it was the farm or the zoo most years.. (That was primary school of course) they got better in secondary

The Zoo, Mosney, and Blessington Lake in primary school. And some farm in Cavan but I wasn't allowed go cos I was bold!

In secondary school, we went to Carlingford for a weekend, didn't bother goin on the Paris trip. We weren't made of money in my house!

Mushy

Most definately Clara Lara(its about 20 mins away). Yeah, looking back on it, it sucked so bad. The big slide used to scare the crap outta me, but then I grew up and couldnt get off the yolk. Went in like 6th class I think, maybe 5th. Wouldnt mind going back now, but think its closed down.

As for the Coke factory...the "technical fault" that just happened. Haha, we saw the switches and they were all switched to the off position. So many cans of Coke consumed that day

thelordofcheese

Ruu wrote:

We went to some planetarium up the North (can't remember the name of it) in primary school and I had been to the one in London that summer, I was disgusted and also that one of the smart boyos down the back kept howling through the whole thing.

It's in armagh, i went there during one of my summers way back when, i loved it, my family wasn't so impressed. I liked the "choose what you want to see next" show at one point, it had shades of futurama

"if you'd like to see the dinosaurs destroyed in an apocalyptic inferno, press A
to experience the tedium of an archlogical dig, press B"
*presses A*
"you have selected: B"
"waitasecond....."

We got dragged to some sort of heritage park up north for one of our few school tours (we generally couldn't be taken anywhere), no idea what it's called, though, any ideas?
It has alot of time of the famine stuff, including a replica of inside one of the coffin ships [complete with oat-cake things, you could eat them, but they tasted like dirt], good times.

walrusgumble

senoir infants the to the local fire station - (and for 2 months wanted to be a fireman)

first class - local castle (woopidy doo)

second class - first ever trip to dublin (scary) went to kilmainham jail (like good little republicans), then natural museum (booring), dublin zoo (dinasour exhibition) and obligatory st stephen's green sc

third class - dublin again cant remember were but dublin zoo again and christchurch (pretty cool, underground stuff).

fourth class - co clare - aliwee caves & craginowen (brilliant cause there was a heatwave that day and the caves were nice and cold and every time i watch the father ted holiday episode i think of good times doing a fr furlong screaming in the caves)

fifth class - galway went to galway crystal, and aughrim and sc and something else. (another great day weather wise)

sixth class. great teacher none of that shopping centre rubbish. on one occassion we went to templemore garda training centre. for the main tour we went canoeeing (sp) on lough derg which was brilliant.

then secondary school tours were better. snoging in the back of the bus, or chugging a sneaky smoke once teachers were out of sight. main one were

3rd year - hill of tara (rolling down the hiils), fran ledwhich's gaff in slane, st ollies church in drogheda, monsterboice and then harry's of kinnegad for grub. and smuggly slagging off the man utd fans cause they were loosing to bayern in the cl final only to hear drunken roars coming from pubs on the way home and little brother in cuckoo land.

various trips to dublin for music class to see national concert hall and abbey theatre (very la di da)

ah those were the great days. glad i have some pictures of them

Gaspode

We went on No (0, nada, zip) tours in primary, and in seconday went to howth and dollymount. considering I lived in Raheny this was no biggy really. and some of you jammy bastards got to go to Newgrange and blanchardstown. You jammy jammy bastards!

DublinWriter

Dude! I remember in 1982 when was eleventy-one, the trip that year was to Bunratty Castle, but we got to go in the Aer Lingus 747 from Dublin to Shannon!

Amazing, considering I think we only paid something like a tenner and it was at a time when only the very rich flew.

The flight time was only about 15 minutes. But it was in a jumbo!

Yeah I remember that being a popular trip for kids in the mid eighties. Down to Shannon and back. Technically you didn't do anything, the journey was the tour!

Ruu_Old

Ah we went on that boat on the Shannon as well before, just reminded me with the above post.

shane86

For anyone else, were really ****e tours to Athlone part of the experience? We took at least one, and I know of at least three other people who were brought by their national school, even though its there is pretty much nothing there. We were taken to some sort of yoke at a lakeside hotel which on reflection was like some cheesy team building American corporate trip. Completing tasks, one or two competitive games, thats all. Then it was to a shopping centre and back home

One I recall whenever some DJ in a cheesy dive sticks on Cotton Eye Joe. Trip to the Gaiety. On the bus we were all singing it :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Must have been about 95. Height of the legendary rave scene and we were sheep listening to that cheese

Kojak

In National school, we were'nt allowed to go on school trips as one lad got lost a few years before we we were of the age to go (i.e. 5th or 6th class), but eventually we were allowed to go on one - to Leisureland in galway :rolleyes:

In seconday school, we were brought to the Dáil - it was the most broing day of my life. There were literally 3 TD's in the Dáil that day, talking about some law from the 1960's.

DarkJager

Primary School:

Junior Infants: We went to a park about a mile away from the school to have a picnic. My mother decided to load me up with a bag of sweets, which got confiscated on the bus by the bitch who was teaching me at the time. Got into serious sh1t for a few weeks afterwards, after hitting the bitch with a rock in "innocent retaliation".

6th Class: Went to Kilfinane to a "retreat". Rock climbing, indoor soccer and an overnight stay. In the evening we went down to the "town" (2 houses, a pub and a shop) and persuaded some pensioner who was out jogging to buy us drink. Queue myself and 4 classmates, getting wrecked drunk and thrashing the room we were staying in!! Needless to say our teacher found out, but kept it on the hush for fear of his job!!

January

Ehm... I can hardly remember any of my tours, the trips to the zoo, Museum, cinema, playgrounds. We went to the transport museum in Howth, and some deadly place over the southside that had a giant polar bear in the swimming pool. We also went to the Japanese Gardens and the Stud Farm.

In Secondary school we went to dublin castle, the dail, the natural history museum, hell fire club (and then to our teachers house, who lives right down the hill from the hell fire club) then carlingford, glendalough, and france, rome...

In college we went to edinburgh on a photography trip lol

superdudeman007

Feral Mutant wrote:

I didn't get to go on the coke bus, or maybe I just forgot that.
There were questions but they were easy.
"Does anyone remember what year blah blah coke blah happenned?"
"Eh"
"What was that? Did you say 1968?"
"Eh yeah"
"Here's a coke"

Was it actually the coke factory or just the coke bottling plant? I can't remember.

For me the Coke bus was replaced with a science bus

billy the squid

In primary we used to go to funderland in January and mosney in May or June of each year.

trips closer to home (at the time that is ) included St. Anne's Park, Phoenix Park, Wax Meuseum Zoo,

We went to Ferns in County Wexford as well once

There was also the trip to Glendalough with the stop off at the hell fire club.

We also did the Viking Adventure thing when it ran during the Dublin Millennium.

murphaph

My best memory is the Beechams factory on the Longmile road (long gone). They had a full pallet of lucozade that the couldn't sell cos the bottles had been slightly under- or overfilled. "Here you go children, take some high pressure glass bottles on the bumpy bus ride home". The days before litigation eh!

minnie_mouse

3 years in a row we went to a farm, and one of those times was the family farm anyway talk about ironic,

aidan_dunne

Like yourselves, I did all the usual ones. In primary school it was the likes of Dublin Zoo, Newgrange, Hill of Tara, some other castle thingies I can't fully remember, all that stuff usually over and over. In sixth class, though, we went down to Cobh and visited Fota Wildlife Park, then went on a boat trip around Cobh Harbour and it sailed right into the Naval Base in Hawlbowline and right alongside one of the Naval Service ships docked there. There were a bunch of sailors working on the deck and when they saw us passing by they stood to attention and saluted us, for the laugh. We thought that was brilliant! One thing I will never forget about that little boat trip, though, was the smell coming from the old Irish Steel plant. At one point the wind was blowing the smell in our direction and it was fúcking horrendous! If the boat bobbing up and down on the waves wasn't enough to make us bunch of landlubbers sick, that smell certainly was! :eek:

Secondary school was mostly museum trips to Dublin. Lost count of the number of times we did the whole National Gallery/National Museum of Ireland-type trips. There was yet another visit to Newgrange at one point during secondary school as well. We also went to a few plays and things as part of English class and stuff. Oh, and of course there was also the almost obligitory trips to the Young Scientist Exhibition during secondary school as well!