Trinity Students Selected for Internships on Washington Ireland Programme

Posted on: 09 May 2012

Five Trinity College Dublin students have been selected from more than 350 applicants to participate in the Washington Ireland Programme (WIP), a cross-community charity which offers young leaders from Ireland and Northern Ireland the opportunity to live and work in Washington DC while completing leadership training and public service projects.

Students Sarah Mulcahy, History and Political Science; Wilmé Verwoerd, Philosophy, Political Science, Economics & Sociology; Séan Gill, Mathematics and Economics; Eoin O’Liatháin, English; and Lewis Mooney, Law and Political Science will spend two months working in Washington DC.

Trinity students Séan Gill, Sarah Mulcahy, Lewis Mooney, Eoin O’Liatháin and Wilmé Verwoerd,  participants in the 2012 WIP 

The prestigious two month internship will give each of the students an opportunity to understand and develop their leadership abilities through an intense leadership programme that includes: skills testing, the study of international leaders, and developing personal qualities such as public speaking and critical thinking.  During their time in Washington DC they will work at Capitol Hill and government agencies, entrepreneurial businesses and organisations in the non-profit sector.  At the end of the summer, the students will return to Ireland with enhanced professional and interpersonal skills, as well as a new confidence in their ability to work together to make a difference.

Throughout its eighteen year history, WIP has built strong links with the political elites in Washington DC with several interns working with then Senator Obama, then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has remarked that: “Many of WIP’s four hundred alumni are now emerging as a new generation of leaders, committed to peace, stability and prosperity in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.”

The team’s progress during the summer months can be followed at the programme’s website, http://www.wiprogram.org