The reason that Ormston House will always stick with me is because it was where I felt my year in limerick came together for me, for lack of a better word for it.
See most of the year I contemplated dropping out several times. Wondering whether I was going to take something away from doing the course. Intensified by the fact that a close friend of mine dropped out within a few weeks. Not to mention the fear that I was going to fail anyway. All this was magnified by personal issues while living in limerick. There were so many I never mentioned during that year.
Everything seemed to manifest in particular when I was presenting my work. I struggled more than I ever had with explaining my ideas. My confidence shot from this.
But when I did the talk in Ormston it was different. I funnily enough put up the wrong draft of my presentation instead of the one that I had decided to mechanically learn by heart. So I had to sort of let go and just adlib.
And in the end it worked. I felt such catharsis, like I had done a marathon.
– Barry McHugh
