Sacred Heart's optional clinical experience in Ireland

Sacred Heart in Ireland: the Dingle campus

Sacred Heart University lists Dingle, Ireland among its international and extended locations, next to its online programs. Stateside, nursing is based at the Center for Healthcare Education in Bridgeport.

Ireland is also one of the college's international clinical partner countries, together with Ghana, Guatemala, Jamaica and Australia, according to its clinical affiliations page. The campus BSN shows the Irish link most clearly: its page describes a Nursing Leadership immersion in Dingle that offers clinical hours in the Irish healthcare system, and says trips to Jamaica and Guatemala count toward required clinical hours.

Those details belong to the campus BSN, where Sacred Heart schedules every placement; the BSN clinicals page covers that program. Online graduate students should read the next section instead.

How time in Ireland counts toward your hours

On Sacred Heart's pages, time in Ireland counts toward a capstone's hours rather than replacing the course. The CNL's two final practicum courses carry 150 hours each in the MSN guide, while the NMEL and Nursing Education capstone courses carry 60 each. A two-week term covers some of that, and the remainder still happens with an approved preceptor at home.

Because each track may cap global hours and the caps are not published, plan your home preceptor for the full course total until your advisor gives you a number in writing. Any approved Irish hours then shorten the home schedule instead of leaving a gap to fill late in the module.

Three more points deserve a direct answer: whether hours in Ireland are logged in E*Value like other practicum time, which compliance items the Irish setting needs, and how the license rule applies abroad. The MSN guide ties clinical practice to a current, active, unencumbered nursing license in every state where it happens, and its public pages do not say how that works outside the United States.

Fitting Ireland into a module, with a home preceptor ready

The non-NP online MSN tracks run every course, capstones included, in eight-week modules, so two weeks in Ireland take up a quarter of the course. The home placement still moves through Sacred Heart's full process: advisor approval, a Contract Request Form, an affiliation agreement, which for a brand-new site may need as long as nine months, and the Cleared for Clinical email. Contract timing is covered on the affiliation agreements page.

That home placement is where we come in. We locate a clinician near you whose setting suits your capstone, build the schedule with your Irish dates already in it, and tell the preceptor about the gap before the module starts. We prepare the preceptor's CV and RN license for your advisor's approval and hand you the site's contracting contact, which the CRF asks for. If the Ireland term is confirmed late or not offered, the same placement is set up to carry the full hours. Share your track and module through the form on this page; how it works shows the full process.