The Irish Girl Guides

The Irish Girl Guides or IGG, is an organisation founded by Lord Baden Powel in England during world war two. It spread to Ireland in 1911 and has exploded since then.

The Irish Girl Guides are for girls from ages five until old age. Five and six year olds can join the Ladybirds. This is a group specially designed for this age group. They participate in activities such as crafts and games. Each session is generally an hour long once a week. The games can often have a deeper meaning providing an education in fire or road safety, health and hygiene among others. Ladybirds often have outings to the zoo or a suitable adventure centre. They provide girls with a good grounding in communication and tollerance of others and can help the girls find friends outside of school situations. The Ladybirds leader is known as Coccinella, from the French word for ladybird. She is normally assisted by Rainbow. They do a series of badge work to complete a two year course when complete they will move up to the second level of the Irish Girl Guides if they wish to.

The second group in the Irish Girl Guides is Brownies. This is for the age range seven to ten. They follow a similar program to the Ladybirds but more challenging. They also work towards optional badges as well. This gives the girls a chance to express who they think they are by showing what they are interested in and getting rewards for the work they put in. By this age they are old enough to go away on pack holiday for the first time. They go to a hostel or private accomodation such as the Guide Cottage in Enniskerry and spend a weekend there playing games and learning to be more independent. The patrol system is introduced in Brownies consisting of small groups known as sixes with a single sixer who would be an older Brownie. This system teaches the girls team skills and games are often carried out in their sixes. This helps the girls to socialise with other girls in the pack who they may not know as well. The leader of the Brownies is known as Brown Owl and she is assisted by Tawney Owl and Snowy Owl. After three years of Brownies the girls fly up again to the third level of the Guides.

The third level in the Irish Girl Guides is called Guides. This is for the ages of ten until sixteen. This is the stage where girls either drop out or decide that they love it and will stay on. This is because they change schools and go to secondary school during this stage and so have different commitments and often not enough time. This group also use the patrol system and work together as a team to gain achievements. The older guides are more often called upon to help the newer or younger girls in their test work. This team work is exemplified by the travels which are now available to the girls. The Guides are now of the age that they can go camping or even travel abroad. This provides the girls with the freedom to be what they want without the fear of having to impress the boys or look a certain way to catch the eye of the boys. It can be a form of a release for the girls who have always been in a coeducated school and so have not had many opportunities to be with a group of all girls without the affect of boys. The leader of Guides is known as Captain and she is assisted by her Leutenant. Guides gives the girls a chance to learn team work and leadership skills which can be of great asistance when trying to get a job.