Ever get that primal urge to just run away from all those responsibilities, but simply don't have the money to do so? Well Irish college students have proven that all it takes is a little push and a lot of ingenuity.
A 'Jailbreak' charity competition, organized by Sorcha McCauley for St. Vincent de Paul and Amnesty International, had one simple aim for its challengers: spend 36 hours getting as far away as you can from Ireland. Easy enough, right? Well the catch was that nobody was allowed to spend any money along the way.
The results of the Jailbreak have quickly gone viral, with contestants reaching such far off places as Sydney, Malaysia, and Argentina.
In total, 34 teams of 2 college students each participated in the charity event, and remarkably, all but four of those teams were able to get off of the island of Ireland. Five more made it to locations across the UK, with many of the rest reaching various other European countries, includeing Slovakia, Italy, Germany and a host of others.
Victory in the contest was actually as close to a photo finish as one could imagine. Clare Cullen and Matthew Hainbach were able to get all the way to Mirimar, Argentina, some 11,295 km away from their starting point. Second place? Brian Cusack and Siona Wu Murphy were a mere 37 km behind, travelling all the way to Telani, Indonesia.
So far the charity event has gathered over €10,000, and are hoping they can reach upward of €15,000. The bulk of the donations came from followers over all sorts of different forms of media. The event's Facebook page was able to draw 6000 likes, it's Twitter to pull 2000 followers, and they were able to reach over 5600 listeners over the college's radio station Trinity FM.
The students are now trying to get back to Ireland, and many of them are finding it much more difficult to return than it was to leave.
