In May 2024, under the direction of professors Jessica O’Hara and Lori Bedell, 19 Penn State students traveled to Ireland to be immersed in further learning about deliberative democracy through citizens’ assemblies. 

In 2019, the Penn State McCourtney Institution for Democracy presented its Brown Democracy Medal to David Farrell and Jane Suiter for their work with the Irish Citizens’ Assembly. Inspired by Farrell and Suiter, the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences saw an opportunity for students to engage and dive deeper into the study of citizens’ assembly.  

“After the global recession that happened in 2008, there was a huge distrust of the government by citizens, and it was new because the Irish people had typically really liked their government and trusted their government,” Bedell said. “But because of what happened [with the] bank bailouts and austerity measures, there was a huge nosedive in public trust.”

So, David Farrell and Jane Souter decided to figure out how to improve relationships. They started these citizens’ assemblies, which are rooted in this idea of democratic deliberation. Democratic deliberation brings people together to talk about issues that are important to them. One of the first initiatives was the legalization of same-sex marriage, which came out of the First Citizens’ assembly. 

This was not the first time O’Hara had taken students to Ireland. She was excited to return, this time focusing on democracy and Irish culture. The trip was originally planned for 2020, but because of COVID-19, it had to be canceled. O’Hara and Bedell gained the courage to reboot it this past year. 

“I was excited because I actually have a Ph.D. focused in Irish studies,” O’Hara said. “It seemed like a real natural fit, our interest in this kind of deliberative dialog connection to policy, which connected to what we taught curricularly, for rhetoric and civic life, intertwined with my expertise in Irish studies.” 

This trip was all about immersing the students in the idea of democratic deliberation through the citizens’ assemblies. 

“We wanted students to experience democratic deliberation and understand how it can happen. [We wanted to understand] what it is about Irish culture that allows for people from all over the country to come together to discuss things like same-sex marriage and abortion,” Bedell said. “This is a Catholic country, so how do they come together and then ultimately legalize those things? The students’ job was to interview citizens and ask them about the citizens’ assemblies.” 

For O’Hara, this trip was about fully understanding the Irish themselves and the culture around them. 

“We were curious to share with the students what elements of the culture needed to be in place for these citizens’ assemblies to have credibility or to function appropriately, or to mirror what the general public in Ireland wanted or felt like needed to change, where were the sources of trust in Irish,” O’Hara said. “It was mainly to understand how they could work here in the United States. Why or why not?” 

The consensus throughout seemed to be that these citizens’ assemblies wouldn’t work here in America, especially on a national level.  

“Unfortunately, I think there’s just a lot of misinformation out there, and people very much get sucked into echo chambers, where they’re only really interested in hearing what they believe. I’m not saying I don’t think it would ever be a possibility here, but I don’t think people would be as willing to participate,” Barbara Price, one of the 19 students who went abroad, said. “Another thing is that Ireland is such a small country compared to us. I feel like regionally, the different areas of the United States could almost be different countries. It’s just such a wide variation.” 

Students also got to meet with various important figures to understand the citizens’ assemblies.  

“We got to meet with Leo Varadkar, who had just recently been the Prime Minister of Ireland and had just stepped down a month before we got there,” Bedell said. “They also met with David and Jane and so they really got to hear grassroots, scholarly, and political points of view about the challenges of the citizens’ assemblies, the reasons its been successful, and the concerns about what’s happening right now that maybe threaten the citizens’ assemblies.” 

Students had to keep a journal every day, and in the end, create a documentary on a different view of Irish culture. Views ranging from the educational system to the housing crisis across Ireland were discussed in the documentaries.  

“We did a blog post, which was like our journal, almost every day we were there. We were supposed to look at a different thing that we had seen in Irish culture and how that compared to the United States,” Price said. “With the documentary, each group picked a different facet of [Irish] culture to look into and see if that contributed to their more open nature when debating.”  

For many of the students, this trip was their first experience out of the United States. This trip was as much about growth as it was about academics. The group found some time to visit and climb Diamond Hill in Connemara National Park.

“[The students] really got to see how important it was to lean on and to trust one another. A lot of them didn’t think they would be able to do it, and so many of them commented in their blogs how important it was to do that and to recognize how important their peers were in encouraging them, and encouraging one another to get up that mountain,” O’Hara said. 

Although this was an academic study abroad trip, students still had the opportunity to make some spontaneous and memorable side trips.  

“Some of the students wanted to go see the Barack Obama service plaza, which was literally a gas station that had information about Barack Obama. In order to justify going a little bit out of our way, we had to argue why gas station culture was so important to us as Pennsylvanians. On the bus there, we had a Sheetz vs. Wawa debate,” O’Hara said. “It was absolutely ridiculous, and we were laughing our heads off at how we were justifying this detour. We ended up going, and it was really cool. It’s actually about the American presidency in Ireland, so it was more than Barack Obama. There was actually an amazing museum on the top floor. It ended up being a really awesome and funny experience.”  

This trip allowed students to learn not only academically but socially as well.  

“I think the biggest thing is just whenever you are immersed in a culture that is different from your own, it just really expands your worldview. One thing I found really interesting was just how friendly people are out on the streets in Ireland, not that that’s not the case anywhere in the United States, but there was definitely a difference,” Price said. “When they talked to us, they definitely were trying very hard to understand the perspectives we had, so just the idea of listening first to understand, and not focusing so hard on trying to be understood. That was the biggest life lesson I would say I learned.” 

For student Madeline Shanafelt, the trip taught her how to make time for not only academics but for things she was interested in beyond that. 

“I learned a lot about how to balance my time because we were in a new country and we wanted to go do all these things, but at the end of the day, it was study abroad,” Shanafelt said. “We were not just having fun abroad. So, it was finding a balance between doing stuff, but also not missing on other opportunities.” 

To commemorate the last night of the trip, the group all dressed up in “I Heart Dublin” t-shirts and ventured to a nearby pub.  

“It was just such a unique experience because you meet these people you’ve never interacted with, and probably would not interact with if it wasn’t for the trip. Then by the end of it, you were like a happy family,” Shanafelt said. “Even though everyone had to wake up at almost 4 a.m. to go on their flight, we all went out together. It was just the friendships made on the trip. And we still hang out with each other, we’ll have our little bonding days.”