Industrial Visit to Dublin, November 2016

November 12th, 2016

During their recent visit to Dublin, a group of first year students visited the following organisations:

The Irish Abroad Unit, part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Whilst there Ronan Gargan, the Director of the Irish Abroad Unit, spoke about the Global Irish Forum and its impact on the Irish economy, as well as the power and importance of networking. The students also had a guided tour of Iveagh House, which formerly belonged to the Guinness family.

They then visited the Book of Kells at Trinity College. This is Ireland’s greatest cultural treasure and the world’s most famous medieval manuscript and is a must-see on any trip to Dublin.

Our students had the privilege of visiting one of Ireland’s most successful movie studios, Brown Bag Films, where they met some of the 2D and 3D artists, got an insight into the pre and post-production phases, and held one of the company’s Emmy awards in their hands! Brown Bag Films are one of Europe’s most exciting, original and successful creative-led animation studios. After 22 years in business, their Dublin-based headquarters continue to produce cutting-edge animation for the international market, bagging numerous awards along the way.

The students also met with Ann O’Dea, founder of Inspirefest, Europe’s leading sci-tech festival and co-founder and CEO of siliconrepublic. Since going online in 2001, siliconrepublic.com has gone from being Ireland’s number one resource for technology news, to one of the leading online publications in Europe with over half-a-million page views each month and growing. Ms O’Dea spoke about the importance and impact of Inspirefest, as well as the importance of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), the importance of diversity and the role of women in STEAM. We are also looking forward to welcoming Ms O’Dea next year, when she will visit the college and deliver a guest lecture to our students and network.

We would like to thank all who welcomed our students during their visit to Dublin, and for giving the students an invaluable insight into their organisations.