A CURRENT and former student at St Mary’s University College on the Falls Road have been named among 21 awardees of a prestigious year-long exchange programme between Ireland and the United States.
 
The Fulbright bilateral exchange programme has facilitated academic and cultural exchanges and strengthened Irish-US relations since 1957. Irish awardees for 2024-25 will serve as cultural ambassadors in the US and share their knowledge, ideas and experience when they return home.
 
Róisín Ní Raghallaigh graduated with a first-class honours degree from Ulster University. She is currently completing a TICO (Irish language PGCE) with St Mary’s University College, Belfast, and an MA in Translation Studies with Ulster University. Róisín has been teaching Irish to adults for many years, in evening classes, all-day intensive courses and weekend courses to the Donegal Gaeltacht. 
 
She has taught both English and Irish at a summer school run by the Belfast International Language Academy, for language-exchange students from the Basque country. Róisín is passionate about the preservation and promotion of minoritized languages. She will teach Irish at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as a Fulbright FLTA Awardee.

Caragh Nic Néill graduated from Queen’s University Belfast with a First-Class Honours degree in Irish and Celtic Studies and obtained a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from St Mary’s University College. 
 
Caragh has worked as a permanent Irish teacher at St Dominic’s Grammar School in West Belfast for five years and proudly promotes the Irish language and culture in her local community and desires to give back to a language and a culture that has afforded her so many invaluable opportunities. 
 
Caragh leads the Cumann Gaelach in her school and promotes all aspects of Irish culture including language, dance, music, sport and drama. She has won many accolades as an Irish dancer and has toured the world with dance shows, performing in many different countries.

Caragh will teach Irish in the US at the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.