What is a good foreign exchange student program? (specifically Ireland)?

Well if you want to go during the school year it makes no difference when you go as you will make friends easily anywhere. It would be quite expensive but no more so than and other western European country but if you stay with a family its pretty cheap then but you couldn't work here as you are underage but sometimes people work at this age so here's hoping! You will be treated very well as we Irish are extremely hospitable and fun people to be around. It is really nice here, great scenery reasonable weather a bit on the wet side but don't let that put you off as its not too bad. I would suggest that is you want an easy school term and by look at your age i would look into doing T.Y or transition year. It's a really easy year where you learn loads of invaluable skills but you still do work, Irish;English;Maths;a foreign language (French,German or Spanish[popularity in schools by that order]) Physical Education; and a few more subjects ranging from art, science(biology/chemistry/physics), woodwork/metalwork and cooking(home economics) but subjects depend on the school. I would not go into third year as it is an exam year preparing for the Junior Certificate so a lot of test and homework! The other option is 5th year It's the year after T.Y or 3rd year (T.Y is an optional year in school after 3rd year) this is a year where you do lessons similar to that of T.Y but you pick about 4 option along with the 3compulory subjects (Irish,English and maths) Here we use euros as our currency but in northern Ireland they use Pounds. 1 Euro = 1.4 U.S. dollars