Clonard House – Secondary School History Programme
Active, engaged learning at its best!
Students experience the past in an stunning environment, which they will always remember.
The day is divided into two parts … the students dress up as servants first and participate in the following activities:
Butter-making, collecting eggs, washing and chores using equipment from 100 years ago, exploring the basement of the house and seeing how food was stored and used.
Everyone then dresses as Lords and Ladies (we have hundreds of costumes) and have a wonderful time higher up the social ladder. We play parlour games, do a treasure hunt and dance a Victorian dance.
Meet people from history, either face-to-face or through role play (Any event of the last two centuries can be explored through prior arrangement with staff). Compare different eras through artefacts, events and puzzles. Some of the people in history that we have covered so far are:
- A young person in Ireland in 1850 (including details of the famine – very powerful interactive piece led by the students on the site of an actual soup kitchen)
- Social change in Ireland through the twentieth century, led by an octogenarian who gives his experience of change and leads a question and answer session with the students
A spectacularly effective way to learn history in a spectacularly authentic setting!
Minimum 12 students and maximum 250 students
1 day programme (4 hours): €17 per student
Students should bring a packed lunch and wear their oldest clothes and bring a complete change into their second oldest clothes.