Two years ago I arrived in the Dublin airport jetlagged and confused. Twenty-six other students and I wandered around the busy airport, collecting luggage and trying to regroup as we searched for Ireland Program Director Peggy McCarthy. Although we had heard stories about Peggy, who has been the director of the program for the past 25 years from past Ireland students, nothing would have prepared us for our experience with her that year.

Loaded down with purses and bags filled with books and dressed for cold, rainy weather, 27 students followed Peggy from the airport to the bus that would take us to our new homes. Although she briskly walked in front of us, we could hear her low chuckles of laughter as she warmly greeted the Saint Mary's director who had brought us over.

The bus drove us out of Dublin, past the small villages of Celbridge and Lexlip and into Maynooth where we stopped in front of an apartment cluster.

"OK everybody — meet the bus back here at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning for a shopping trip in Dublin," Peggy said as our cue to exit the bus.

Everyone was silent. What? We were to get off the bus alone? What were we supposed to do? Where were we supposed to go? Twenty-seven of us exited the bus slowly and silently into the damp Irish morning mist and looked around. Peggy waved as the bus pulled away.

Needless to say, we quickly settled into our apartments and found our way to the pubs.

For the next eight months, we followed our energetic, strawberry-blond, Irish leader around the Ireland countryside on "Peg trips." These trips always promised a crazy adventure. We never knew what to expect as Peggy would tromp around in castles, climb over stone fences, and tell us stories that we never knew whether to believe. On these long bus adventures, we would doze off, passing the rolling green countryside and grazing cows, as rain pelted down on our windows. We would dread the sound everyone knew was coming…

"Aheem…Is this on? In 1836….," Peggy would begin on the bus microphone as we entered another village. I actually learned a lot as my dreams melted into Peggy's history of Ireland. On my trips around Ireland without the group, I missed Peggy's stories. She created Ireland for us in a unique way that we would never have read about in a book.

Today, I am picking Peggy up from the South Bend airport. Although I am the one who is picking her up this time, I have a feeling I will still be following her out of the airport. She leads and it only feels natural to follow her. Who knows where we will end up?

It is a rare and special occasion when we have Peggy back on Saint Mary's campus.

If you see an Irish lady, loaded down with bags, wearing dark glasses and red hair flying in the wind this week on campus, follow her. Chances are you'll get the experience of a lifetime and maybe even a cup of hot tea.

• Follow Peg