Four weeks. Eight to ten people. One mentor. One shipped piece of work for each member, plus a public reference. We run one cohort at a time so we can mentor it properly.
One cohort is currently accepting signups. We kick it off when we have eight members confirmed — not on a fixed date.
Fill out localnews.ie's coverage of County Carlow from the ground up. The smallest county in Leinster, currently one of the thinnest on localnews.ie. Eight to ten members across six roles, four weeks, mentored by Kali.
You'll work on a real Irish news network with real readers. Your output ships to production. The reference letter at builtinireland.ie/references/<you> will name the specific work you contributed and link to it live.
See the full role breakdown →A four-week cohort with three members is a worse experience than the same cohort with eight. The kickoff call needs enough people in the room for the cross-pollination — sources researcher feeding the writers, vibe coder pairing with the entity researcher, designer in dialogue with everyone — to actually happen.
So we hold the start until eight people are confirmed. If you apply this week and we have seven others by next Friday, we'll kick off the Friday after. If it takes a month, it takes a month. We tell every applicant the running count so you know where we stand.
Cohorts 2 and 3 are designed but not yet open. They'll run after Cohort 1 finishes, in order. Apply for whichever one fits you best — the wait will be honest.
Ship ten editorial explainer pages on myid.ie that rank. Topic research, primary sources, peer review, hero images, SEO ship-and-track. For writers, researchers, an SEO analyst and a vibe coder.
Maps onto the Editorial SEO track as the main course, with the Vibe Coding slot for someone helping convert markdown to the site template.
Pre-apply →Enrich the Irish pub directory at pubhub.ie with verified, sourced, structured data: opening hours, food, music, sport, accessibility. Members each take a county and verify every entry in it.
Maps directly onto the Directory Data track. This is the cohort to wait for if you're a meticulous researcher.
Pre-apply →No graduated cohorts yet — The Academy launched in May 2026. This section starts filling up once Cohort 1 finishes.