School Tours
Galway School Tours for all Ages
At the Slieve Aughty Centre
Slieve Aughty Centre in Galway, offers fun, safe, and educational school tours.
We can accommodate groups of up to 50* students at a time.
To ensure that each child gets more individual attention and hands-on opportunities for learning, your Galway school tour may combine two programmes at no extra cost.
Pancake lunch is available, or children are welcome to bring their own packed lunch.
Farm Friends
Discover life on the farm with arts and crafts, live animals to pet and groom, pony rides, games and a farm tour.
It’s a full day outdoors!
*This programme cannot be combined with another option.
Ideal for children up to 2nd class
Great for Juniors to 6th class
Pony Rides
Our friendly, safe ponies and experienced staff guide students in learning the basics of pony care, including grooming, tack and leading.
The children go for a trek or ride the ponies in our enclosed sand arena, with leaders. Riding hats are provided and students should wear boots with heels, or wellingtons.
Bushcraft
Bushcraft is the art of using the resources provided by our natural environment to survive and thrive in the outdoors. It combines the knowledge of how to best use the plants and animals around you with some basic bushcraft tools to efficiently live outdoors.
Depending on the age of the children and size of the group, this could mean finding edible plants, building a shelter, understanding what you need to survive, getting “un” lost, and finding water.
Bushcraft skills not only teach kids to survive in the wild, they are fun and build confidence!
Best for 2nd to 6th class
Perfect for 4th class to T.Y.
Outdoor Survival
You are lost in the forest around Slieve Aughty. How are you going to survive?
Depending on the size of the group and time allowed, activities include starting a fire, basic tools, foraging and cooking wild plants, advanced shelters, purifying water, and tracking wildlife.
The challenge of surviving outside of our comfort zone not only gives us the skills to live in the elements, it increases our ability to adapt to new challenges, builds confidence and self-sufficiency, encourages teamwork, and prepares us to face unforeseen problems in the world.
Medieval Roundhouse Living Experience
We invite you to step across the Slieve Aughty hills and back in time with a visit to our authentic Medieval Roundhouse.
Combining living history, biodiversity awareness, wilderness skills and natural heritage, our unique Roundhouse living experience is the only one of its kind in Ireland.
Great for 2nd class to T.Y.
Great for 2nd to 6th class
Foraging
Embark on a foraging adventure through the surrounding fields and along hedgerows of Slieve Aughty Centre. Discover which wild weeds, leaves, and flowers are edible. Taste dandelions and daisies, and learn how to eat a raw nettle leaf without getting stung! Make a wild herbal tea with freshly harvested plants. Sample a wild food treat and be awakened to the wild food all around you!
AIRE (Association of Irish Riding Establishments) and Failte Ireland approved.
Slieve Aughty Centre is family owned and operated by Esther & Merel Zyderlaan, we have been serving the local community and abroad for more than 30 years.