Ireland Program History

How It All Started

In the autumn of 1972, Gertrude Horgan, Dean of Women and member of the English department at Aquinas College, started the Ireland Study Abroad program at Old Head Beach in Louisburgh, County Mayo. However, later that year she was driving through Tullycross and fortuitously stopped. During this visit she met Paddy Coyne, who was active in the project to construct the cottages and a founding director of Connemara West. As the story goes, Horgan felt that Tullycross provided the perfect setting for a two-semester program. In the autumn of 1973, Betty Jennings and Sister Mona Schwind established the first group of students in the cottages. Since that time over 1,100 students, faculty members, and their families have called Tullycross home for a semester and their home away from home ever since.