The University PhilosophicalSociety is under investigation by theSenior Dean amid allegations of anti-semitism. Meanwhile, a source close tothe scandal has reported Histinvolvement in the matter.

Ruth Faller, President of thesociety, chose to appear on The GerryRyan Show on Monday 8 October todefend her society, which printed theallegedly anti-semetic material in itsannual pulication, The Philander.

The magazine allegedly quoted theleader of Austria’s notorious xenophobicFreedom Party, Joerg Haider, stating that“Jews are always welcome in thechamber”, in reference to the debatingchamber of the Graduates MermoialBuilding. This was then sent to thehomes of the majority of incoming first-years, with the result that College

received a complaint by email from an offended reader.

College then moved to censor the

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D U B L I N U N I V E R S I T Y ’ S I N D E P E N D E N T S T U D E N T N E W S P A P E R

I R I S H S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R O F T H E Y E A R 2 0 0 7

TRINITY NEWS

Michaelmas term, Week 6 Issue 2, Volume 54 www.trinitynews.ie

CHRIST’S ANGELSON CAMPUS SOCIETY NEWS P9

25 YEARS OF THE LGBT IN TRINITY

CHRISTIAN GROUPS EXAMINED P

tn2 Exclusive interviews with Johnny Marr and Duke Special. A student’s guide to eatingat Tesco. What’s Hot and what’s Not. The Turner Prize and more.

7 The Last of theCultureVultures From film-makersto film success

tn2

13

Photo:Don

alO

Caoimh

donal.w

ordpress.com

Trinity banned from editingWikipedia by !re alarm geek

The College’s Internet Protocol Addresseshave been blocked from editingWikipedia.org “due to persistent vandalism” by students using college computers or through the college’s Internetconnection. The block was activated on the 19th ofSeptember 2007 and will remain active forone year. The block means that unregistered users cannot edit articles orcreate accounts while on the college network, be it in a computer room or ontheir laptops. This comes following several“friendly” warnings from Wikipedia editors and two “final” warnings, whichwere issued during a litany of vandalismover the summer. The final infraction was an edit made to thepersonal profile of Ben Schumin (whose

Wikipedia username is “schuminweb”), aWikipedia administrator (an editor with access to special technical and maintencetools).

Wikipedia, “the free encyclope-dia that anyone can edit” is the ninth mostvisited site on the internet.

This is the third time that Trinityhas been blocked for vandalism to the website. Previous blocks, in November2006 and March 2007, were for a matter ofhours. Wikipedia’s blocking policy statesthat blocks should be preventive in naturerather than punitive, i.e. they should be designed to prevent further vandalism tothe site rather than punish those responsible. The severity & frequency ofdamage, as well as the likelihood of recidivism are the primary factors in determining the length of a block. Institutional blocks are a special case:“Blocks on shared or dynamic IP addressesare typically shorter than blocks on

registered accounts or static IP addressesmade in otherwise similar circumstances,to limit side-effects on other users sharingthat IP address.”

As Trinity News was going to press Mr.Schumin hadn’t responded to an appealmade on his user talk page. According tothe Wikipedia administrators’ code all is-sues should be raised with the administrator initially responsible beforebeing submitted for arbitration. Before Trinity was blocked Mr. Schuminhad been engaged in a bitter dispute withanother editor over several personal attacksagainst him. Mr. Schumin had neverwarned or blocked Trinity prior to hisblock, nor had he reverted any of the vandalism made by Trinity users. Wikipedia has a history of vandalism andits blocking policy has been revised signif-icantly since its foundation six years ago.The most famous incident was a false bi-ography of Joseph Seigenthaler, whichwent unnoticed for 132 days. The articlemade several libelous

• Continued page 2

KEVIN LYNCHSTAFF WRITER

Phil Jewish jokecensored by CSCCAOIMHE HANLEYNATIONAL NEWS EDITOR

They wanted ablood sacri!ce, theywanted me gone. Iam not interested inan organisation that cannot see past itsfucking anger.”Richard Morrissroe, USI President, July 1st 2007 - 13th October 2007

“

MORRISROE AND CONLON OUT - FULL INTERVIEW - P6USI PRESIDENT LOSES NO CONFIDENCE VOTE - P2 JOHN MCGURK ON RICHARD MORRISROE - P12WHY USI NEEDS TO CHANGE - EDITORIAL - P13

Union of Students in IrelandPresident Richard Morrisroe hasresigned following a vote of noconfidence taken at the USINational Congress which tookplace in Galway on Saturday.Another member of the officerboard, USI Equality OfficerStephen Conlon, has also resignedin an internet scandal that hasrocked the union. The vote tookplace following a week ofcontroversy for the union, in whichConlon authored an unsigneddocument, posted on political newswebsite and forum politics.ie,attacking the leadership andintegrity of Morrisroe. Conlonaccused Morrisroe of “attemptingto rule Officerboard by decree, subject to his own whims.” He suggested that Morrisroe’s “style ofleadership has led directly to abreakdown in trust at the highestlevels of the Union, and he has, byhis actions, contributed severely toan alienation of the Union from itsconstituent organisations”,

Morrisroe is charged withbringing media ridicule to theunion, due to his unfortunate asser-tion that “lots of students drivetheir own cars because public trans-port is too expensive” and becauseof his failure to attend the Taraprotest march despite his assur-ances that he would be present. Ontop of these allegations, Morrisroe

is also accused of underminingunion morale by “publicly criticis-ing a member of USI Officer Boardin the presence of a Constituent Organisation,” and “failing repeatedly to consult with CO’swhen requested to by members ofthe Officerboard, and when requested by CO’s themselves”.But according to Conlon, Morrisroe’s greatest failing was inhis inability to “effectively put theUSI’s case to the Government” andby specifically “failing to put thecase for an increased grant to theMinister for Education.”

However, in an exclusive in-terview with Trinity News, Morris-roe has revealed that he feels hisousting was “completely political”and “absolutely disgusting”. In response to Conlon’s allegations,Morrisroe states that the majorityof the accusations were “hearsayand nonsense”. While admittingthat he has made mistakes, andconfirms that he did miss the Taraprotest march, the ex-president refutes the quotes referring to hisinteractions with the Government,revealing that his accuser Conlonwas also on the taskforce that dealtwith this issue, and negated to raisethe issue at the time.

Furthermore, Morrisroe finds Conlon’s actions “disgusting”, andcan see “no excuse for what hedid”. Morrisroe is “deeply upset”that Conlon did not raise his objections with him personally, instead preferring to “air USI dirtylaundry” in such a public way.

CAOIMHE HANLEYNATIONAL NEWS EDITORUSI President resigns

No Con!dence

Ben Schumin poses beside a Fire Alarm

collegenews@trinitynews.ie

P2 Michaelmas term, Week 6

CollegeNewsTRINITY NEWS

Editor: Gearoid O’Rourke editor@trinitynews.ieBusiness Manager:Conor Sullivan business.manager@trinitynews.ieChief Copy Editor: Nick Beard copyeditor@trinitynews.iePhotographs: Martin McKenna photos@trinitynews.ieCollege News: David Molloy collegenews@trinitynews.ieNational News: Caoimhe Hanley nationalnews@trinitynews.ieInternational News: Kasia Mychajlowycz internationalnews@trinitynews.ieNews Features: Eimear Crowe newsfeatures@trinitynews.ieSociety News: Conor McQuillan societies@trinitynews.ieFeatures: Sam Hannaford features@trinitynews.ieOpinion: John Lavelle & Kevin Lynch opinionanddebate@trinitynews.ieWorld Review: Kevin Breslin worldreview@trinitynews.ieTravel: Andrea Mulligan travel@trinitynews.ieBusiness: Danielle Ryan businessandcareers@trinitynews.ieScience: Sebastian Weismair science@trinitynews.ieCollege Sport: Jonathan Drennan collegesport@trinitynews.ieNational Sport: Felix McElhone nationalsport@trinitynews.ieSport Features: Conal McKenna sportfeatures@trinitynews.ie

TN2 Editor: Catriona Gray tn2@trinitynews.ieFilm: Conor Kelly !lm@trinitynews.ieMusic: Carolyn Power music@trinitynews.ieFashion: Ciaran Durkan fashion@trinitynews.ieBooks: Paul Earlie books@trinitynews.ieTheatre: Polly Graham theatre@trinitynews.ieArt: Caroline O’Leary art@trinitynews.ieEdibles: Beth Armstrong edibles@trinitynews.ieEndnotes: Ailbhe Ni Mhaoileoin endnotes@trinitynews.ieWebsite: Brian Henry webdesign@trinitynews.ie

Thanks to:Malachy McKenna, Joseph O’Gorman, Joey Facer; Pat Morey and College Security; the Mailroom; Caoimhe and Sally-Anne in the Communications Office; Andrew Payne; Peter Henry; Derek Owens; Tom Hickey; DaireHickey; Fionn McLaughlin; Ed O’Riordan; Paul Salmon; Sean McCormack.

“You can put in whatever you want, she won’t be available to meetyou at any time”.The response given to Trinity News by the Treasurer’s Office on attempting to arrange an interview with the Treasurer, Ms GraceDempsey.

“The comments of Sinn Féin are a grave insult … People can judgefor themselves the racist comments of Ógra Sinn Féin.”A spokesperson for the Democratic Unionist Party, responding toÓgra Shinn Féin’s recent “Brits Out” slogan on student recruitmentposters.

“We think no-one should take anything the DUP says on this issueseriously, as they’ve incorporated such bigotry into their politics forso long.”Ms Caoimhe Ni Mhuilleoir, Ógra Shinn Féin, Trinity College

“I felt that gender equality was important because I didn’t want theposters to get ripped down”.Students’ Union Ents Officer Ed O’Riordan explains his motivation toTrinity News for requesting provocative posters of men promoting clubnights.

“My Name is liar, liar pants on fire”An edit made to Wikipedia administrator Ben Schumin’s page from aTrinity College computer, which resulted in Trinity being banned fromediting.

“I would never write in your shitty newspaper”Tim Smythe, Auditor of the College Historical Society, gives his opinion on this year’s volume of Trinity News

!97.2 millionThe estimated deficit of the Trinity Pensions fund, according to con-

fidential documents obtained by Trinity News

134.226.1.234Trinity’s IP address that has been blocked by Wikipedia for repeated

vandalism on the site.

2400The number of tinned condoms Students’ Union Welfare Officer

Úna Faulkner had at her disposal during Freshers’ Week.

!14.6 millionThe total of the cor porate investment into Trinity’s financially

troubled Institute of Neuroscience

17The age of one Law Soc Committee member, who was

photographed drinking underage causing The Law Shock magazineto be censored.

371The years since The Annals of the Four Masters were last displayed

together, as they now are in the Long Room, Trinity College.

The Numbers Game

He said, she said“ ”

Editorial Staff

Treasurer casualty ofcollege restructuringPost of Chief Operating Of!cer approved at last Board meeting is thought to have madeDempsey’s position as Treasurer untenable.

Union of Students in Ireland PresidentRichard Morrisroe resigned his positionover the weekend after a motion of no confidence was passed against him.

Trinity College used its 22 votes toback Morrisroe as President of USI, Student’s Union Education Officer BartleyRock confirmed.

The union had an opportunity to prepare their position after a memo authored by USI Equality Officer, SteveConlon, was leaked on the politics.ie discussion boards.

The memo called for the resignationof Morrisroe on a number of grounds, themost serious of which was ruling “according to his own whims.”

Conlon refused to confirm or denythat he had authored or leaked the document when contacted. “I no longerwork for USI, and I’m not obliged to comment…I’m not talking to the mediaabout this at all” he said.

However, Conlon had earlier admitted to authoring the memo in question, and had resigned his position inUSI on the same day as Morrisroe.

According to Rock, the Union “hadno idea what would happen”, but, based onthe leaked memo, prepared an officialstance by holding a Union Executive meeting. He refused to be drawn on the details of the discussion, stating that themeeting had been held “in camera”.

Student’s Union President AndrewByrne, however, outlined the position ofthe Union on the matter, and their reasonsfor backing Morrisroe. Byrne said theUnion did not support Morrisroe for anyparticular allegiance to him individually,but rather because they believed it was inthe interests of the union.

“It was entirely based on what wasbest for Union… there’s no doubt thatRichie had some errors of judgement in recent weeks. We’re quite disappointed thatthis came up with USI at the moment” hesaid. “USI’s time would be better spent onissues that affect students rather than internal politics.”

A spokesperson for USI confirmedthat there was some confusion in USI overhow the vacant positions will be filled.“They don’t know what the next week’sgoing to hold,” they said. “We don’t knowhow the organisation will function in termsof positions.”

According to Morrisroe, Trinity wasthe only college which had any consultation with its students before the decision, though this was an unminuted executive meeting.

Trinity College sent two sabbaticalofficers to USI Council- Education OfficerBartley Rock and Welfare Officer ÚnaFaulkner. President Andrew Byrne wasaway on vacation to Germany last weekend, while Deputy President ClaireTighe had returned to county Mayo to visither family.

USI national council took place inGalway this weekend, and is primarily for

discussion, according to Rock. However,the motion of no confidence was broughtto Council on the day by the representativeof the Waterford Institute of Technology,Shane Kelly. Kelly was not reachable forcomment.

Morrisroe was defeated by slightlymore than the two thirds majority required,which included University College Cork,the college at which he was Student’sUnion President only last year.

DAVID MOLLOYCOLLEGE NEWS EDITOR

USI President losesno con!dence vote• Internal memo leaked on Politics.ie • Morrisroe ousted by two-thirds majority• Alleged author of Memo Stephen Conlon also resigns

Former USI Equality Of!cer Stephen Conlon who it is alledged wrote the memo callingfor Morrisore’s resignation. Photo: IT Sligo Students’ Union

College Treasurer Ms. Grace Dempsey resigned her position at the last meeting ofthe College Board because of the restructuring of positions in college.

Ms Dempsey, who has worked for thecollege for over a decade, resigned becauseshe felt that her position would become untenable after the newly created ChiefOperating Officer took office. This hasbeen confirmed by two separate unnamedsources.

The Chief Operating Officer will beresponsible for the general running of thecollege in a non-academic sense, and his orher job description has been recently finalised and the recruitment processstarted.

Unusually the resignation of such amajor college figure was not on the agendafor the Board meeting in question. Whilethere have been a large number of applications to the Board for early retirement in the last calendar year, MsDempsey opted instead to resign her position, which offers no financial benefits.

The sudden resignation followsmonths of discussion at the highest levelsof college regarding the proposed implementation of restructuring in January2008.

A member of the Treasurer’s Officerefused to make an appointment for TrinityNews to speak with Ms Demspey, either onthe day in question, the following week atany time, or at any point in the future.When asked if that meant Ms Dempsey

refused to comment, she replied “You canput in whatever you want, she won’t beavailable to meet you at any time.”

The Treasurer had previously refusedto talk to Trinity News, who were told thatshe was in meetings until 17.00 on lastThursday and Friday, having been unavailable earlier in the day. Trinity Newslater learned from a reliable source thatrather than being in a meeting until theclose of business, Ms Dempsey had actually gone home early on Friday.

Emails were sent from Trinity Newsto the Treasurer at both her Trinity emailaddresses which, according to her office,were seen by Ms Dempsey but not answered.

Ms Dempsey has raised several

issues on restructuring, particularly theneed to modify the references to the Financial Committee within the statutes, tocreate a more “cutting edge” approach thanthe current references which date from1926.

In addition the Finance Committeeundertook a self-evaluation last year, whichfound that the committee’s functions werealready being addressed by several otherentities within college, and that the FinanceCommittee “seems to have responsibilityand accountability, but no authority or realinput into financial planning.” The self-evaluation concluded that “the FinanceCommittee should be responsible for all financial matters in College.” The Collegealso commissioned a report from Athrú

Consultancy, entitled “Review of the Fi-nance Function of the University ofDublin, Trinity College” the final writtenversion of which was accepted on 27 June.

Ms Dempsey’s resignation is themost recent in a long list of staff lossesthrough resignation and early retirement.There have been almost twenty staff lossesnoted in meetings of the College Boardsince last January. The majority of thesehave chosen early retirement rather thanresignation, a financially beneficial way ofleaving College employment.

Notable exceptions include Dr N Biggar, a member of the College Boardwho resigned his fellowship last year inorder to depart and work in the Universityof Oxford.

Grace Dempsey, College Treasurer and other members of the Trinity Foundation meet in March 2004. Photo: TCD.ie

DAVID MOLLOYCOLLEGE NEWS EDITOR

collegenews@trinitynews.ie

Michaelmas term, Week 6

CollegeNewsTRINITY NEWS P3

• Continued from page 1

magazine, with the quote eithercut or blacked out from the remainingcopies. Faller stated that the commentwas “irreverant”, “not intended to beanti-semetic,” and that the Phil was“terribly sorry for any offense.”

The possibility of the Hist’sinvolvement in this matter wasdiscussed by the CSC. Whenquestioned by Trinity News, the Hist,Phil and CSC refused to be drawn onthe details of this discussion.

2FM researcher Laura Whelanwas the first member of the mediawho attempted to track down thestory, though this was denied byFaller in an interview with TrinityNews. Ms Whelan confirmed thatafter a brief phone conversationin inwhich Faller refused to confirm thatthe offending material had beenprinted, the society president becameunreachable.

Whelan then passed the leadonto Niamh Sweeney, an ex-committee member of the HistoricalSociety, and a member of the RTÉnews team. Her pursuit of the issueeventually led to the said appearanceon The Gerry Ryan Show. She alsoattempted to contact Faller and alsospoke to Student’s Union EducationOfficer Bartley Rock.

On air, Sweeney attackedTrinity students’ for theircomplacency, saying “they don’t givea damn” about the blatantly offensivecomments. She then asked for anexplanation as to why the “unfunny”material was printed. She alsoexplained that while in college shewas a member of the Phil and a

committee member of the Hist.Faller claimed that the

comment had appeared in thePhilander by mistake, and that the“inexperienced writer” responsiblefor the material has been “disciplinedseverely,” and fined, “in accordancewith college disciplinaryprocedures.” However, the program’shost Gerry Ryan was adamant thatthe author of what he called ‘thisanally retentive joke’ should beexpelled immediately from thesociety.

While the investigation into thePhil is ongoing, Trintiy has releasedthis statement to clear up its ownposition: “The comments in theUniversity Philosophical magazine inno way reflect any attitude, position,or policy of Trinity College Dublin.

On the foot of a complaint inrelation to the offensive content ofthe publication, immediate actionwas taken by the Dublin UniversityCentral Societies Committee (CSC),the body responsible for therecognition of student societieswithin the College. An apology wasissued to the complainant, and theoffensive section of the publication,The Philanderer (sic) was censoredand cut out of the publication. Thepublication that was distributed onCollege campus contains nooffensive content.”

Both the complaint to the CSCand RTÉ alledgedly came from thesame individual, believed by anunnamed source to have come fromwithin the Hist, due to its links withNiamh Sweeney.

Debating societymagazine censoredfor Jewish joke

Ben Schumin, the administratorwho blocked Trinity is a “self- confessed Wikipediaholic”.

He has been a member of“Wikipedia community” for justover two years. He is big on some-thing called GFDL compliance,hates parentheses (they “are evil”),and classes himself as a Wikipedia “inclusionist”, meaning that as manyarticles as possible should be in-cluded.

His prominent announcementof this has been mocked by the dis-gruntled authors of pages he hasdeleted (only administrators candelete pages), one parodied himsaying “This is a lie, oh my god thisis such a lie, I wonder will anyonebe able to smell my farts because Iwill I will bathe in my own smugness and deceit!”

He has also been criticisedfor promoting his personal websiteon his user profile. “The SchuminWeb” describes his daily life, in-cluding visiting Wal-Mart and edit-ing Wikipedia. He proudly recountsthe time he was hit in the face witha pie during college.

His “editing interests” include Vintage Ocean liners, Home starrunner cartoons, fire alarms andfire alarm control panels. On hiswebsite he boasts of the time hewas allowed to pull the alarm during a fire drill. We hope that hemade it to safety in time.

Ben Schumin

19th September 2007: The user profile of Ben Schumin waschanged so that the introductory line read “My Name is liar,liar pants on fire”. Mr. Schumin is a Wikipedia administrator.

12th September 2007: The words “taylor is a fagg” [sic] wereadded to the article about Facebook.

10th September 2007: A user edited the page for FM 104,the local Dublin radio station. The target audience of FM 104was changed from “16-34 year olds” to “16-18 year olds”.

27th July 2007: On the Hist’s page the famous, and oft usedin Hist publicity material, Ted Kennedy quote “The greatest ofall the schools of orators” was changed to “the greatest of theshowers of wankers”.

26th March 2007: All text from the page of the World Universities Debating Championships was deleted.

1st March 2007: Thirteen separate edits were made to the

personal page of Pat Kenny, the RTÉ broadcaster. All were vandalism. A number of inane claims were made such as hehad worked as a Showgirl in panama, is a robot, that the LateLate show was the shortest running chat show in the world (itis the longest), he only earned !6,350 (he earned !635,000 in2004) finally the logo for 90‘s Sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Belair” was substituted for his picture. The most serious claimmade was that “In 1992 Pat Kenny openly admitted to killingseven prostitutes over a four year period. In 2004 when askedfor his motives on his early morning chat show he simplyreplied, you mention that shit again and I will fuck you upnigga.”

14th February 2007: The words “is the most homosexualsport known to man”, was inserted into the article “Rowing(sport)”.

11th February 2007: The phrase “I hate everything that’s notWhite and Christian” were inserted between Newt Gingrich’snames.

Self-confessed “Wikipediaholic”bans Trinity from free encylopedia

Trinity’s wiki-vandalism

• Continued from page 1

claims about Mr. Seigenthaler, a respectedwriter and journalist, the most serious ofwhich implicated him in the assassinationsof both John and Robert Kennedy. An investigation by Wikipedia eventuallytraced the edits to Brian Chase, a managerfrom Tennessee. He publicly apologised toa gracious Mr. Seigenthaler. The incidentled to a public debate about the value andaccuracy of Wikipedia, as well as a tightening of Wikipedia’s rules on unregistered users adding and editing articles.

The size of Wikipedia’s databasehas doubled in each of the last two years toover 15GBs, with over two million Englishlanguage articles.

The Dublin University Law Society’s pub-lication, The Law Shock, was censoredduring Freshers’ Week for the portrayal ofunderage drinking by a committee member.

A photo of one underage committeemember was the reason for the complaintand subsequent withdrawal of the publication. A committee member is pictured in the magazine holding a bottleof beer, despite being only seventeen yearsold.

They are responsible for organizingLaw Day, the society’s biggest event,which is described next to her photo as aday of “charity and booze” that leaves you“so drunk you’ll be incapable of saying…thanks, but I don’t want to havesex with you.”

The Law Shock was the first publica-tion of the Law Society’s 74th Session.Midway through Freshers’ Week numerouscopies had already been circulated, but thesociety was instructed not to distribute anymore.

The Auditrix of the Law Society,Ann-Marie Glynn, confirmed that the photograph was the reason for the withdrawal. Despite being a separate bodyfrom the Law Soc, the Law School wereaware of the committee member’s age andtold the Law Soc that they should pull themagazine.

“It’s extremely frustrating”, said onemember of the society, “I’m not sure whathappened or how it happened”. The editorof The Law Shock was away when it happened during Freshers’ Week, butGlynn said “Everyone was taken by sur-prise.”

The age of the committee member,she claims, was unknown to any of theother committee members until last week.The society, however, pulled the magazineas soon as they were made aware of theissue. “It’s unfortunate that it has come outlike this” she said.

Trinity’s alcohol policy states:“Students who are over the age of eighteen– and the vast majority of College studentsare in this category – are legally entitled topurchase and consume alcohol.”

However it warns societies that “No

events should be organised which encourage the rapid consumption of alcohol, nor should alcohol be awarded asa prize or reward for competitive events.”The description of the underage committeemember in question promises to “get yourblood alcohol level to 13.7%.”

The Dublin University Central Societies Committee is in charge of overseeing all College societies. JosephO’Gorman, Honorary Treasurer of theCSC, says that this event has nothing to dowith CSC and it is a matter purely for theLaw Society, despite contravening the college alcohol policy.

Glynn emphasised, “We are not supporting underage drinking. Nobody intended on putting out the image that weare supporting underage drinking”. Of thiscommittee member, she said “she is veryresponsible and it is unfortunate that thereis alcohol in the picture.”

It is unclear what will now happenwithin the society. There is no rule that acommittee member has to be over eighteen,but being underage may cause problems ifshe is organising certain events that needGardaí permission. The auditor says they

do not know yet what will happen but they“will look into it and see how her age willimpede her position.”

collegenews@trinitynews.ie

P4 Michaelmas term, Week 6

CollegeNewsTRINITY NEWS

Should the Collegehave the right tocensor student publications?

Compiled by MartinMcKenna

Nora LynchJF Law

Yes and no. It depends on what'sbeing censored. In this case, thecensorship was justified. If it's bla-tantly racist, it should be censored.You don’t want to send a message toFreshers that racism is OK.

Simon DolphinJS Civil Engineering

Since the societies fund it them-selves they should have no less free-dom than any other publication inthe country. In one regard they arerepresenting the College but theyshouldn’t have to conform to theCollege’s view.

Sarah ArntzJS German and Film Studies

I suppose the image of the Collegeis important but students shouldhave the right to express them-selves. There would have to be lim-its to what could be censored. Acompromise between students andCollege would make more sense.

YourView

Law Shock censored by college authorities

Ely AfansyevSF History

Maybe some ethical issues shouldbe censored but not social or political questions. Of course thereshould be limits on what the College can censor. Maybe a groupof half staff and half students shoulddetermine censorship

Aoife Ní ChinneideH. Dip Applied Psychology

I don’t think the College should becensoring unless it libellous. Someone has to decide otherwisethey’ll get sued since they don’thave a solicitor to do it.

The offending copy of the Law Shock

DEIRDRE ROBERTSONSTAFF WRITER

The Democratic Unionist Party has at-tacked the recent actions of Trinity’s ÓgraShinn Féin, ahead of a visit to Trinity byparty leader Dr Ian Paisley.

Ógra Shinn Féin caused much con-troversy during Freshers’ Week when theydisplayed posters containing the words“Brits Out”. The offending slogan was pic-tured on a banner in a prominent photo-graph.

A spokesperson for the DUP toldTrinity News “The comments from SinnFéin are a grave insult to the thousands ofpeople down through the years from North-ern Ireland and Great Britain who havegone to and enjoyed their time at TrinityCollege Dublin. Trinity has a proud repu-tation for being an inclusive and multicul-tural institution. People can judge forthemselves the racist comments of ÓgraShin Féin.”

Ógra Shinn Féin retaliated over theweekend, saying “We think no-one shouldtake anything the DUP says on this issueseriously, as they’ve incorporated such big-

otry into their politics for so long. These arethe people who opposed equality legisla-tion and in terms of equality, they are thepeople opposing Irish language legislationin the North.”

Trinity News had contacted SinnFéin’s offices in Dublin City, and was toldthat the query had been passed on to the

head of Ógra Shinn Féin in Trinity, MsCaoimhe Ni Mhuilleoir. Ni Mhuilleoir toldTrinity News “it’s completely and utterlyridiculous. I don’t think it’s right, we’re nota racist party” she said.

OSF were instructed to remove re-cruitment posters containing the phrasefrom campus late in Freshers’ Week fol-lowing a number of complaints. NiMhuilleoir had previously told The Uni-versity Record that “Brits Out” was anacronym for “British Regiments, Inform-ers, Troops and Soldiers Out”. She furtherclaimed that any other interpretation wasan attempt to rouse anti-Republican senti-ments, a view which she reconfirmed onSaturday.

However, comments on this claim onÓgra Shinn Féin’s official website noted“The Brits Out slogan can quite easily de-fended...in its own right rather than resort-ing to ridiculous made up acronyms thateven long-term republicans have neverheard of.”

Ni Mhuilleoir believes the issue to beone of misunderstanding, where the photo-graph involved was of a peaceful protest.“People can read the Record and take theirown opinion away” she said.

The College Historical Society willbe visited by the controversial party leaderon Friday, 19 October, where he will givean address to 200 audience members. DrPaisley was invited to a commemoration ofthe life and work of Edward Carson, whoattended Trinity between 1874 and 1877.

He was a prominent member of theHist in the 1870s who is best known as oneof the most famous Unionists. Carson’sstatue stands before the front of the Stor-mont Building, Belfast. The event will bethe first to honour Carson since the foun-dation of the Irish state.

Auditor of the Hist, Tim Smyth, re-cently told the national press that it wastime Carson was commemorated. “Every-one of note but Carson seems to have beensome room or building or other, eventhough he is such a very major figure,” hesaid.

The spokesperson for the DUP con-firmed that no problems are anticipated DrPaisley’s trip, while Ni Mhuilleoir con-firmed that from OSF’s point of view,everything would go well.

“We welcome any open meetings,and we think it’s great that he’s downhere”, she said.

DUP slams Ógra Shinn Féin

Many continuing students havebeen unable to retrieve their timeta-bles on the Student Information Sys-tem, the main method of accessingsuch records.

The faculty with the most com-plaints seems to be the School ofEnglish, within which timetableswere not available until as late as theFriday evening before the start of lec-tures.

Even when timetables did ap-pear on notice boards in their com-plete form, they were listed in acomplicated manner. Sophistercourses were listed in a long tabledformat, rather than a weeklytimetable. A small number of studentsdid not even have tutorials posted ontheir faculty notice boards. Therehave also been a number of clashes intutorials and seminars.

One upset student was told bythe department “If you keep askingus, it won’t get done.”When asked to

give a response on the timetable de-lays, Stephen Matterson, Head of theSchool of English, said “apart from afew minority options and two JuniorSophister one-term courses”, Englishstudents should have already beenaware of their timetables by the endof Freshers’ Week.

Mary McMahon of the Exami-nations and Timetables Office alsostated that lecture timetables “weremade available on the SIS/ TCD Por-tal on the Monday before Freshers’Week.”

In the case of many students,however, their timetables were sent tothem by email at 18.50 on Friday 5October, with the beginning of lec-tures scheduled for Monday morning.

Ms McMahon noted that ele-ments of the timetable may not havebeen completed so she advised stu-dents to “consult the notice boards inthe relevant school, department ordiscipline for confirmation of theirtimetable details.

There have been a number ofchanges during the first week of lec-tures.

Timetable delaysdisrupt !rst weekDEARBHAIL STARRSTAFF WRITERDAVID MOLLOY

COLLEGE NEWS EDITOR

“Brits out” poster causes controversy ahead of Paisley’s visit.

Ian Paisley, who will be speaking in Trinityon Friday October 19th.

Trinity News has learned that the collegepension fund is insolvent. In the four yearsfrom 2001 to 2005 the fund has gone froma surplus of !6.9m to a deficit of !97.2m.

Furthermore, shortfalls in the collegepension fund have been funded from separate college resources, according to aconfidential valuation report on the pensionscheme by Mercer Human Resource Consulting leaked to Trinity News. The report was completed in 2005 and is themost recent valuation of the fund, the nextvaluation is due in 2009.

A source within the college withknowledge of the scheme has told TrinityNews that funds from the Strategic Innovation Scheme (SIS), amongst others,are being used to finance the shortfall in thescheme. The SIS is a fund that seeks to rejuvenate the university in non-capital intensive ways, such as funding researchprojects as opposed to new buildings. Trinity News’ source gave the example of ascholarship research team from the schoolof dentistry that had funding removed in

order to fund the pension scheme shortfall.The figures indicate that the fund has

seen a loss of !100m in just four years.This is equivalent to a loss of !1m everyfortnight in the four years from 2001 to2005

The college is obliged to prepare accounts in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)which were introduced in the early 2000’s.To date the University’s pension fund liabilities were classed under “Miscellaneous”. Trinity News understandsfrom a confidential source that KPMG, theUniversity’s auditors, are refusing to toler-ate this oversight of GAAP any longer.They have requested that the pensiondeficit be shown in the colleges annual accounts, or they will refuse to approve theCollege’s financial statements.

According to the report the scheme isonly 72% solvent, that is the total value ofthe fund’s liabilities are equal to 72% of it’sassets. The report also states that “no allowance has been made ... for future earlyretirements” and it states that costs arisingfrom future early retirements should befunded separately by college. In the pastyear alone there have been close to 20 early

retirements in College. Other explanationsfor the shortfall include the possibility ofbad investment decisions by the fund’smanagers. The report states that the deficitis due to a combination of high salarygrowth and lower investment returns thancalculated.

Nevertheless it appears the college isundertaking to resolve the problem. TrinityNews has learned that the University Secretary is in private talks with the Government to get the state to act as guarantor for Trinity’s Pension Scheme.This would mean that the fund would losesome of it’s independence and becomemore like schemes run in other universitieslike the NUI universities.

collegenews@trinitynews.ie

Michaelmas term, Week 6

CollegeNewsTRINITY NEWS P5

Trinity Professorto raise !2.5mfor teen cancer

Dr Owen Smith, one of the country’s leading haematologists,and Professor of Blood Disordersin Trinity College, is endeavouringto raise over !2.5million in an at-tempt to remedy the lack of med-ical infrastructure for adolescentcancer sufferers in Ireland.

Around 140 teenagers develop cancer every year in Ireland, yetthere is no specific system to caterfor them directly. Adolescentswith cancer may be cared for in ei-ther children’s or adult’s hospitals.

Dr. Smith, the blood disorder specialist for five different Dublinhospitals, aims to build a specialistunit to provide for their separateneeds in Our Lady’s Hospital forSick Children by the end of 2008using privately raised funds.

The project is not medically,but psychologically and socially, orientated. Dr. Smith attests that cancer sufferers have a betterchance of defeating the diseasewith the support of their peers, anda more suitable environment.

Smith’s fundraising effort iswell underway, with almost halfthe !2.5million target alreadyraised.Any contributions should be sentto Adolescent Blood and CancerUnit, c/o Prof Owen Smith, De-partment of Haematology and On-cology, Our Lady’s Children’s,Crumlin, Dublin 12.

Students’ Unionstays in the black

The Students’ Union has secured a major improvement intheir financial situation following successful Freshers’ Week sponsorships.

The Union raised over !33,000in corporate sponsorship money tocover all Union-organised Fresh-ers’ Week events.

The Ents Officer Ed O’Riordan secured backing from large companies such as Vodafone,while the Irish Times and otherssupported other Union activities,paying for events during the week,as well as providing the fresherpacks that were supplied from theStudents’ Union stand.

The Union also bought a prominent and expensive newstand for Freshers’ Week this year.Though he could not give an exactfigure, Student’s Union EducationOfficer Bartley Rock identified itas “a capital investment.”

Student’s Union President Andrew Byrne claimed that theUnion had received more sponsorship than ever before andhad covered its costs despite amore than usually expensiveFreshers’ Week, which included a“Pav party” with an ice cream van,a rented inflatable judo ring and abungee run, all of which wereavailable free to students.

“This year our sponsorshipdwarfed anything else brought in previously. “This has meant thatafter the rebranding, the Union iseven stronger financially than itwas several months ago.”

In addition the Students’ Unionfinish Freshers’ Week with adeficit, which Byrne identifies as apositive beginning to the year. “Itwas the Union’s most successfulFreshers’ Week ever, budget-wise”, he claimed.

In addition to the large finan-cial contributions, savings weremade by the Union using free ma-terials for distribution. Welfare Of-ficer Úna Faulkner received 2400“Think Contraception” tins fromUSI free of charge, for example.

News Brie"ng

Pension scheme creates !90m de"cit

Recent changes to the college net-work have increased login times andreduced the reliability of the network.Students wishing to connect theircomputer to the College wireless net-work will now do so using the self-service network access controlsystem.The new authentication system wasnot able to cope with the number ofrequests for connections during thefirst week of term, and the authenti-cation process failed on Friday 5,Sunday 7, Monday 8 and Thursday11 October.Bartley Rock, the Students’ UnionEducation Officer, said that college isworking towards providing a moresecure, yet user friendly system forthe students in the college and “it willmean that students will be able to relymore on the network than before.”This is the same system already inuse in College residences and the Li-brary communal areas. However, allcomputers now require a lengthierauthentication time for the pass-words, as a result of increased secu-rity measures being undertaken bythe College.Using the internet now requires a theuser to log in, wait for at least 40 sec-

onds, and then restart their browserentirely.Further, the native Mac OSXbrowser, Safari, is not compatiblewith the new authentication proce-dure. Mac users must download anduse Mozilla Firefox to authenticatethemselves on the network.In the previous year, concerns wereraised by various members of staffwith regards to the Student Adminis-tration System, which hosts studentrecords and student timetables,among other things. A source toldTrinity News, that this system was“flawed from the beginning”. Thishas led to it being axed recently bythe College Board.Early in 2007, IS Services introduceda new SPAM filtering service for theCollege email system. All mail com-ing into College is now filtered andquarantined by a Microsoft productcalled Exchange Hosted Services(EHS). While SPAM has been re-duced by 95%, there still remain in-tegration problems with the system.Initially many computers on campusdid not have the correct proxies set upfor the service, meaning that somestudents couldn’t access their emailsthrough the college network, but hadaccess through outside computers. ISservices are working on this; how-ever, the process is not yet complete.

Surge in new student connections bringsdown network

College Pension Fund lost !100m in four years, withfunding from other sources used to plug the hole

The Trinity College Institute for Neuroscience has received a !14.6m corporate handout just days before theywere due to come before the Finance Committee following months of financialproblems.

The Director of the Institute was required “to provide more refined budgetary estimates” to the Finance Committee on 11 October. On 3 October,just one week prior to the committee meeting, the !14.6m investment on behalfof the GlaxosmithKline pharmaceuticalcompany was announced.

The financial difficulties of TCINfirst came to light at a previous meeting on11 April 2007, at which the Pro-Dean of

Research, Professor Prendergast, was present to explain excessive overspendingwithin the Institute.

The Finance Committee questionedthe extent of expenditure over income and “related accountability issues”. They alsodiscussed the fact that money which hadbeen given to the Institute for buildingcosts had been used to pay staff salaries.

On that occasion the committee de-manded a guarantee from the institute thatsuch extensive overspending would nothappen again. Among other things, thecommittee recommended that if the activities of the institute were going to besustainable, long-term funding was required. “The College should take everyopportunity with both research funders andthe Higher Education Authority to raisethese issues”, the committee minutes noted.

However, the HEA have decreased

the general funding to the university as itwas found to be “overfunded” by sevenpercent.

On 27 June, the Finance Committeebrought the finances of TCIN into questionagain when they discovered that the preliminary budget for July 2007 - December 2009 was found to have a significant deficit. The sustainability of theInstitute was again brought into question.The committee instructed the Director ofTCIN to prepare “refined” estimates for hisbudget, taking into account the allocationof Allocation Resource Allocation Modelcredits, which were part of what wastermed “inadequate funding arrangements”, and the cost of the MRIscanning equipment, and to submit them tothe Finance Committee meeting of the 11October.

Though minutes from 11 October

have not yet been released, the first item onthe agenda was a status update on previousinstructions of the finance committee,which includes the actions of TCIN.

The Institute has, however, managedto secure a large financial investment inorder to research treatments forAlzheimer’s Disease. Not all of the fund-ing will go to the Institute, however. Na-tional University of Ireland Galway, hasalso secured itself a part in the program.Trinity and NUIG will work in a joint ven-ture with GlaxoSmithKline in the UnitedKingdom.

The TCIN had previously received amassive grant from The Atlantic Philanthropists group, totaling!13,460,000. This grant expired in December 2006, just four months prior tothe first investigation of TCIN’s finances.

The magnetic resonance imaging

scanners at the facility, which were praisedhighly in a recent college press release as“among the most advanced technologiesavailable anywhere for neuroscience research” were highlighted by the FinanceCommittee as a major resource drain. Theoriginal budget allocated for the equipmentwas labelled as totally inadequate for thecomplex, high-end machinery.

The recently resigned Treasurer, MsGrace Dempsey, also told the FinanceCommittee on 11 April that the system inplace for identifying overspending andkeeping track of financial commitmentswas highly inadequate, having alreadybeen discussed several times previously, including four risk reviews of the Treasurer’s Office. She expressed the be-lief that the responsibility lay with thebudget holders, rather than the Treasurer’sOffice itself.

Cash-strapped neuroscience institutegets last-gasp corporate handout DAVID MOLLOYCOLLEGE NEWS EDITOR

CONOR SULLIVANSTAFF WRITER

THERESA RYANSTAFF WRITER

Photo: David Adamson

Johnny Marr (pictured left), guitarist with theSmiths and Modest Mouseand consideredby some to oneof the greatest musicans, spoketo the UniversityPhilosophical Society duringFreshers’ Weekon Tuesday October2nd. He spokeabout his careerto date and hisprospects for thefuture with Modest Mouse.Reportedly the band are intalks with ENTsand the Philabout playing theTrinity Ball nextMay.

For general information on Pensions rights and entitlements;contact the Pensions Board on

(01) 613 1900 or emailinfo@pensionsboard.ie

national@trinitynews.ie

P6 Michaelmas term, Week 6TRINITY NEWS

Cross Campus

NUIG

Curious paradoxof bathroomgerms revealed innew study

Students may be better off notwashing their hands after using toi-let facilities in certain areas of Uni-versity College Cork, such is thehigh level of germs onthe bathroom taps, according to anew study.Mary O’Neill of the Department ofCellular Biology told apost-graduate conference held inUCC last month of the “curiousparadox” among the findings of herresearch into the dynamics of germtransmission in society.Ms O’Neill, who undertook thestudy with the possible implicationsfor tackling the MRSA bacteria inhospitals in mind, collected sam-ples from across campus betweenNovember 2006 and February ofthis year. “It is potentially safer forstudents not to wash their handsafter using the toilet facilities in cer-tain locations around the college”,she concluded.It is hoped her study and numerousothers discussed at the conferencewill be discussed during the year atunder-raduate lectures to promotethe culture of research that has beencultivated in UCC during the pastnumber of years.

Don O’Meara

UCC

Morrisroe and Conlon out• Continued from page 1

Moreover, Morrisroe thinks it is “disgraceful” that Conlon failed to gothrough the regular USI procedures for thevoicing of grievances.

Morrisroe feels that his removalwas “a completely political blood sport”and that his opponents “wanted a bloodsacrifice. They really wanted me gone”. Headded he “didn’t know if (he) could havecontinued in the role after this” as he is“not interested in an organisation that can’tsee past its own fucking anger.” He thenwent on to say that he was “not given a fairchance” as he was “judged before [he] gotin there”, and that the assembled delegatestook no notice of the good he has broughtto the organization. He also stated that despite setting up a task force to deal withthe student accommodation crisis, and having more meetings in three months thanthe previous president had in six, he “apparently still suck(s).”

Although the motion of no confidence was proposed by Shane Kelly,President of Waterford Institute of Technology Students’ Union, it was supported by the majority of delegates atthe congress. However, Morrisroe feelsthat “the delegates have let students down.The people who made this decision did nothave student interests at heart. With the exception of Trinity College (who held anunminuted meeting of their Students’Union executive), none of the collegestalked to their students before making thisdecision.” To illustrate this, he gives the example of University College Cork,whose boards have been inundated withsupport for himself, he claims.

Continuing with UCC, Morrisroefeels “completely betrayed” by his oldalma mater, of which he was Students’Union President only last year. He feels“incredibly angry” at the way UCC hastreated him in neglecting to support him inthe vote, maintaining that his successor asStudents’ Union President Kris Mcelhinneyhas transformed a personal grievance into apolitical one. He maintains that the ordinary students of UCC will continue tosupport him as they “don’t take kindly toshafting people.”

When asked why he feels he hasended up at the receiving end of the vote ofno confidence, Morrisroe stated that he is“too trusting. While others can lie, I can’t

tell one person one thing and another theopposite. I am a representative, not a politican. I’m not used to shafting people,unlike some others in the union.”

However, despite his grievances as tothe way he was ousted, Morrisroe is veryclear in his belief in the union if not itsmembers. He “hopes that the USI has a future”, but fears it won’t if the people behind it remain in power. He believes thatthe union has “created huge problems foritself,” and sees “no viable candidates forPresident, as although a member of the Officerboard is running for it, he’d be acomplete disaster.” And when asked howhe feels about any other accusers who mayhave co authored the document that causedhis downfall, he replied that if there aresuch people, “may they rot in hell.”

Wednesday October 10th, 2007

MEMO

TO: RICHARD MORRISROE, PRESIDENT, USICC: ALL CO PRESIDENTS

Mr. President,

It is with regret that we, the undersigned, feel compelled to call for your immediate resignation as President of theUnion of Students in Ireland.

Over the past several months, failings of your leadership have directly led to USI being placed in a series of untenable positions, outlined in greater detail below.

In short, we believe that you lack the necessary skills to lead a national union.

You have procrastinated all year on the major decisions, and bungled the minor ones. USI’s national directory has yetto be seen, because you failed to write your section.

You have failed to keep the team together. What started as a year !lled with promise has turned into a year where in-stead of campaigning, USI lurches from one crisis to another. You had 6 months notice of USI’s need to change of!ces,and bungled the process entirely through a lack of consultation, - to the extent that for two weeks, during the busiestperiod of the year for COs, USI of!cers have to work from home.

You have failed repeatedly to consult with CO’s when requested to by members of the Of!cerboard, and when re-quested by CO’s themselves.You have repeatedly failed to care for, and listen to the concerns of members of your Of-!cerboard.

Mr. President, it gives none of us who sign this document any pleasure to do so. We do it out of a deep conviction thatthis year can only be salvaged with a change of leadership.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, formally express to you that we no longer have con!dence in your leadership.

We believe that the time has come for others to consider their position. We intend to support any motion of no con-!dence in you proposed to National Council.

In an exclusive interview, USI ex-president Richard Morrisroe talks toTrinity News about the circumstances surrounding the motion of no-con!dence run against him and his subsequent resignation.

I am arepresentative,not a politican.I’m not usedto shaftingpeople,unlike someothers in theunion.

“

”

NUIG Lecturerpublished in taxdefaulters listThe name of a lecturer in NationalUniversity of Ireland Galway hasappeared on a list of persons whohave made settlements with theRevenue Commissioner for failureto pay taxes. Dr Riana O’Dwyer, alecturer with the English Depart-ment in NUIG, is stated on the listof tax defaulters as having given!101,554 to the Revenue Commis-sioner for “underdeclaration of in-come tax”. This is in relation to offshore assetsand single-premium insuranceproducts. The tax defaulters list iscompiled and published by theRevenue Commissioner quarterlyand details payments made to theCommissioner between March andJune of this year. Dr O’Dwyer ap-pears in part two of the list, whichdetails where settlements were ac-cepted rather than where paymentswere imposed by the courts. A totalof 136 names appear on part twothe list, which shows that over!31.7 in settlements have been col-lected by the Commissioner. The list is made up of a number ofbuilders and property developers,publicans, farmers and business-men. It also contains the name offormer Fine Gael minister MichaelLowry, as well as the companyGaruda Ltd, the refrigeration com-pany own by Lowry. Dr O’Dwyeris the only university lecturer thatappears on the list. Dr O’Dwyer was invited to com-ment but didn’t respond. Damien Foley

All students entering university should berequired to provide proof that they are freeof sexually transmitted infections, a Uni-versity College Cork researcher hasclaimed.Highlighting new interdisciplinary researchbetween UCC’s Department of Medicineand Department of Sociology, Dr DenisPalk said current methods of tackling STIsrely too much on individuals taking the ini-tiative to be tested themselves.“I have advocated a proactive approachseen in tackling smallpox in the 1970’s ortuberculosis in the 1950’s”, he said. “I hopeto present some of our findings in the fu-ture and ask for full testing of all studentsbefore they enter the university system.In the future we could potentially see stu-dents registering for the year and present-ing not only their subject choice and feespayment forms but also a medical certifcateto show they’ve been tested. It’s simply amatter of pragmatic responsibility.”Dr Palk’s research has shown that certainSTIs only occur if penetration lasts longerthan five minutes and he believes this hassociological behaviour implications.“Often in the past, sociologists tended toignore many of the medical issues and,likewise medical practitioners ignoredmany of the sociological elements, muchto the detriment of their study,” he said.“New research has yielded informationwhich was often taken for granted.”

The collaborative project aims to uncoversome of the mystery behind the behaviourand spread of STIs in populations. It ishoped that the research will bridge the dis-tinct medical issues surrounding transmis-sion of disease and the sociologicalelements, which can vary the spread withinpopulations.Dr. Patrick O’Shea of the UCC Departmentof Microbiology believes the interdiscipli-nary initiative could in the future impact onpublic policy surrounding control of STIs.Dr. O’Shea has been tackling these issuesfor almost four years and raised the profileof UCC last year through his identificationof two previously unidentified strains ofsyphilis-like STIs: Hennassia eideena andKeivina grantus.“The spread of STIs is one of the big prob-lems for Western science”, he said.“Whereas success has been seen in tacklingmany diseases such as polio, smallpox andTB, this has not been seen with STIs. Thesociological issues of transmission are socomplex we hope that this interdisciplinaryinitiative could yield promising results.”The research team was originally set upwith the intention of assessing governmentpolicy on the issues of STIs, but, due to ini-tial positive assessments of work, its briefhas been expanded to collaborate withother European research networks, anothermove which should help tackling the prob-lem of STI infection today.

DON O’MEARASTAFF WRITER

UCC researcher calls for full STI testingof all prospetive college students

NationalNews

internationalnews@trinitynews.ie

Michaelmas term, Week 6

InternationalNewsTRINITY NEWS P7

OXFORD UNIVERSITY

TheGlobalCampus

TEHRAN UNIVERSITY

Student leaders called on Iranian President Ahmadinejad to meet with themafter making a speech at Tehran University, sparking a demonstration outsidethe venue.

Hundreds of pro and anti-government protesters gathered on campus,according to the BBC, whose correspondent, along with all members of thepress, were locked outside the university gates.

Nonetheless, the BBC’s Jon Leyne saw the two parties of demonstratorsthrough the gates, and heard the government opponents chanting “Death tothe dictator”. Reports say that police used tear gas on the crowd when theytried to force their way into the hall. Scuffles broke out between the two fac-tions.

Demonstrators also tried to prevent Ahmadinejad from leaving the uni-versity. According to Fox News, the Iranian independent daily, Etemad Melli,published a photo of the student protesters holding a sign reading “We alsohave questions, why only Columbia?”, referring to the Iranian President’s visitto the United States in late September, where he told students at ColumbiaUniversity in New York City that “Iranians are free”.

“I wish Ahmadinejad could mange the country in a softer and flexibleway as he claimed at Columbia University,” said Milad Niazi, 21-year-oldchemistry student at Tehran Azad University.

Parts of his speech which were seen as critical of former PresidentHashimi Rafsanjani may have been censored out from state-run television.Baillie Card

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadspoke at Columbia University on Septem-ber 25th. Earlier this year, the university’spresident, Lee C. Bollinger, extended an in-vitation to the extremely controversialleader to participate in Columbia’s WorldLeaders Forum, amidst a flurry of objec-tions from prominent members of NewYork City’s Jewish community and Co-lumbia’s student population.

Large, stern posters quoting Ah-madinejad in his desires to wipe the stateof Israel off the planet, his doubts about ofthe Holocaust as a historical event, and hisopinions on homosexuals and women wereput up in my apartment building’s elevatordays before his arrival, located directlyacross the street from Columbia’s maincampus.

On the day of the event, I weaved myway through the crowd of tightly packedprofessors, protestors, neighbors, curiousonlookers, and students, following the di-rections of the NYPD officers and clutch-ing my Columbia ID, as no one without a

university identification or a press pass wasallowed on campus for the majority of theday. Hundreds of protesters lined the streetsoutside the campus gates.

Finally reaching main campus, Ifound a small open spot on the large lawn,in front of a huge screen that had beenplaced at the center of the campus plaza forthose who had been unable to acquire tick-ets to the event occurring only two build-ings away.

Reactionary posters, ranging frompictures of Ahmadinejad with a linethrough his face, a caricature of him with apigs face, and multiple Iranian flags de-claring “No War in Iran”, were displayedby protesters. One poster declared thatGeorge Bush was the real problem.

Half an hour late, the forum com-menced with Columbia University Presi-dent David Bollinger, who gave a pithy,articulate, and scathingly questioning andaccusatory introductory speech.

“It is a critical premise of freedom ofspeech that we do not honor the dishonor-able when we open our public forum totheir voices,” President Bollinger said, di-rectly responding to the many protestingthat Ahmadinejad should have ever been

invited to the university. “To hold other-wise would make vigorous debate impos-sible.”

Mr. Bollinger then stepped down toallow President Ahmadinejad to speak,through the voice of a female translator.Ahmadinejad immediately condemned theabsolute lack of respect Bollinger hadshown for himself, declaring it contradic-tory to Bollinger’s righteous claims of thepreservation of the integrity of the freedomof speech.

“Nonetheless, I should not begin bybeing affected by this unfriendly treat-ment”, he said, before launching into whatproved a highly controversial speech, typ-ical of the Iranian President, whose denialof the Holocaust and heavy bravado againstthe US has made him labeled a madman inthe West.

On the American government’s ob-jection to his country creating the ingredi-ents for nuclear arms, the President wasquick to point the finger back at the US: “Ifyou have created the fifth generation ofatomic bombs and are testing them already,who are you to question other people whojust want nuclear power. I think the politi-cians who are after atomic bombs, politi-

cally, they’re backwards. Retarded.”His assertion, however, that in Iran

“we don’t have homosexuals”, the blatantlies about the Iranian government’s treat-ment of women and arrests of dissident in-tellectuals in the country reminded us all ofhis status as, as Bollinger termed him, a“petty and cruel dictator”.

The most intriguing and frighteningaspect of the entire event was Ahmadine-jad’s entrancing and professional skills asan orator. Even an audience extremely bi-ased against him was found clapping, andeven cheering, for many of the points heraised, only to often quietly realize imme-diately afterward what they had beendrawn into.

He was a captivating and convincingspeaker, which only emphasized the pointthat, in order to wield so much power, es-pecially for cruel dictatorial purposes, onerequires a great deal of intelligence, train-ing, and innate skill. The juxtaposition be-tween his convincing eloquence and ourown president’s bumbling incompetencewas unnerving.

MELANIE KRESSCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Iranian President Shocks andAwes American Students

Twelve universities in the UK are to benefit from a !3.6 million donation toresearch and study modern Japan. The money has been donated by the Nipponfoundation, an independent funding body based in Tokyo and is to be used tofund thirteen teaching and research posts spread across the chosen institutions.

The aim is to improve British understanding of the politics and eco-nomics of Japan as well as its culture, with a view to maintaining and build-ing on the trade and technological relationship between the two countries.Oxford, Cambridge and the School of Oriental and African studies are amongstthe universities receiving a share of the funding.

Up until this year, one-sixth of all students graduating in Oriental andJapanese studies in the UK were educated at Durham but in 2004 the depart-ment there stopped taking on new students due to a lack of funding.

In a message read at the launch of the program, the Chairman of the Nip-pon foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, explained: “The United Kingdom has beena leader in Europe in Japanese studies and has played a vital role in their pro-motion and development within Europe, and indeed, the world. We hope that,through this programme, the United Kingdom will again become the princi-pal focus for research and scholarship, setting an example for other Europeancountries to follow.”Kerensa Slade

Japanese invest in English Universities

Iranian students protestfor equal treatment

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN

Is it possible to be a born-again fresher? I certainly felt akin to such a thing asI walked through Front Square during Fresher’s week this year. I studied inUniversiteit Leiden, the Netherlands as an Erasmus student for all of last yearand Trinity now feels like foreign ground. During my first few days back it feltlike everything had changed; the Buttery is now a sleek cosmopolitan café,I’m in final year and I feel like a stranger in my own college.

Gradually I’m re-adjusting. The novelty of effortlessly understandingeverything is wearing off, I’ve stopped complaining about the litter, the poorinfrastructure and the expense of Dublin and I’ve found that all my friendshave not disappeared into the library permanently as I had initially feared. Imade a few initial discreet enquiries about any births, marriages, deaths andmessy break-ups so I haven’t made any major social faux pas just yet. I alsodiscovered that nothing has changed. For all those worried about missing outon ‘so much’ if they go away for a year, I can re-assure you don’t miss out onanything maybe a few 21st, the occasional odd scandal or impossible essay butnothing worth sacrificing a year in Europe or the States for.

I’m finding it difficult to re-adjust to being one of a hundred in a vast lec-ture. In Leiden it was mostly small classes and tutorials depending on depart-ment and subject. I had one particularly crazy Dutch professor of Philosophywho used to read us St. Thomas Aquinas in the original despite the fact thatnone of us spoke Latin. His disgust in discovering that I didn’t speak Latindespite my Jesuit education was only surpassed by his disgust upon discover-ing that the Oxford student didn’t speak Latin either. He was a little nuts andold-fashioned, so much so that the faculty in Trinity seems positively modernand progressive in comparison.

After such small groups in the Netherlands, lectures here now feel sovast and impersonal. I am merely one in a sea of faces, though there are ad-vantages. I shall revel in my anonymity this year and enjoy the fact I can getaway with sleeping in. Sheila Lynch

Trinity Student Abroad: Sheila Lynch

A Varsity investigation into Cambridge stu-dent jobs has uncovered undergraduatesworking as prostitutes and strippers duringterm time, as well as a plethora of studentsselling essays and dates for cash.

One Cambridge student has admittedto spending her first undergraduate yearworking as a call girl, charging £50 perhour. Unbeknown to her friends, the final-ist slept with between 40 and 50 men formoney over two months, and once withseven men in a single night.

“I did have a day job at the sametime, but it just wasn’t paying enough,” shetold Varsity. “I met other students who didit too. Once you’ve done it, it is tempting.If you need quick, easy money, it’s there.”The student, who has since given up thepractice, said that she would get calls outto students “maybe once or twice a fort-night.

Another cash-strapped undergraduatetraveled to a northern city on weekends tostrip for clients in return for up to £100 per

dance.“It can be so degrading,” she admits,

“but, when I’m home, I’m not going tostack shelves at Morrison’s for £5.50 anhour when I could do this. There are themoments I really don’t want to do it, but itis certainly character building. My worstfear is dancing up there in front of some-one I know, but everyone has to do it.”

Takemetodinner.com claim that 450Cambridge students and alumni are mem-bers of their escorting site, which was for-merly known as Oxbridge Escorts. Ofthese, 342 advertise escorting services,charging anywhere up to £300 for a singledate. The company pride themselves ontheir selection of “elite dates”, a status re-served for Oxbridge and ‘Ivy League’ edu-cated escorts.

But they claim that despite the highprices and suggestive profiles the website“has always been and always will bestrictly a dinner date service”, and that “in-appropriate behaviour will not be toler-ated”.

Even more widespread was the com-pletion of work for the Oxbridge Essaysservice, a practice which the university has

condemned as “cheating, or complicit withcheating.” John Foster, head of sales atOxbridge Essays, estimates that the com-pany has “at least 500” Cambridge studentsand alumni on their books.

One student claimed to have made£2,000 by selling essays to the company,but said he could make up to £200 perweek. “If someone’s stupid enough to buyessays on the internet, then I don’t reallycare about their economic future,” he said.

Some Cambridge graduate studentsare even on “scholarships” of up to £10,000per year, which they pay back to the com-

pany by writing briefs.The university’s board of graduate

studies is looking to modify its existingplagiarism clause in order to prohibit this,calling the scheme “an attempt to deliber-ately degrade the academic integrity of theuniversity.”

“That’s a fairly ludicrous and ill-con-sidered statement,” said Foster. “The factis that most people just can’t get thatmoney elsewhere. They face a stark choicebetween getting some funding and notdoing postgraduate study at all.”

Studentsfor saleStudents are selling their brains and bodiesfor a tidy pro!t according to the Cambridgestudent newspaper Varsity

KATHERIBE FAULKNERNEWS EDITOR, VARSITY

newsfeatures@trinitynews.ie

P8 Michaelmas term, Week 6

NewsFeaturesTRINITY NEWS

The University of Dublin, Trinity Collegehas been awarded The Sunday Times IrishUniversity of the Year 2007, according toa report published this month by The Sun-day Times.

The findings, released under TheSunday Time University Guide 2007, rankuniversities according to twenty-five keycriteria, with an emphasis on all-round ac-ademic excellence and student satisfaction.With a total score of 602 points, The Sun-day Times noted that Trinity “has recordedconsistent excellence across several key in-dicators”, citing the university’s ability toattract high-performing Leaving Certificatestudents and its wide array of student serv-ices, in particular its new state-of-the-artSports Centre, as the primary reasons forthe award.

In addition, Trinity College, Dublintopped the Irish University League Tables– also provided by The Sunday Times - forthe fifth year in a row.

The Sunday Times University Guide2007 is just one of several universityleague tables published on an annual basis.In the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Ac-ademic Ranking of World Universities(ARWU) 2007, published earlier this year,Trinity again ranks highest among Irishuniversities, though it has failed to gain

ground on last year’s position. In thisleague table Trinity ranked among a largegroup of universities, occupying the 203-304 band of the world’s top higher-level in-stitutions. Commenting on Trinity’sperformance in Shanghai Jiao Tong’sARWU, a spokesperson for the universitysaid: “Such a high ranking is an achieve-ment for a university such as ours in asmall country competing internationallywith much larger and better-resourced uni-versities.” Trinity shares the 203-304bracket with Belfast’s Queen’s University,while University College Dublin and Uni-versity College Cork occupy the 305-401and 402-508 bands respectively.

The use of such international “leaguetables”, however, continues to court con-troversy among members of the wider ac-ademic community. Though it ismaintained that such rankings aid studentchoice and offer objective information an-tidotal to the sometimes extreme claimsmade in university prospectuses, it is alsofrequently pointed out that such tables arebiased towards older, wealthier universitiesand that they try to measure somethingwhich cannot, in fact, be measured. Oneacademic from Southampton Solent Uni-versity argues: “There can never be perfect,or even adequate, information about qual-ity, mainly because there is not agreementacross higher education either about whatis meant by quality or about how it shouldbe measured.”

Most of the controversy stems fromthe varying methodologies used by institu-tions in order to rank universities on an in-ternational level. The methodology adoptedby the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, forinstance, scores a university out of 100%based on several key indicators includingnumber of academic citations, staff andalumni winning Nobel Prizes and FieldMedals, research output, and “Academicperformance with respect to the size of aninstitution.” By contrast, The SundayTimes University Guide places emphasison nine key performance areas such as stu-dent satisfaction, teaching excellence, peerassessment, research quality, and the num-ber of students who remain unemployed sixmonths after graduation. These variancesin methodologies often lead to discrepan-cies in a university’s rankings across dif-ferent league tables. In 2006, for example,Trinity was ranked 78th in the world byThe Times Higher Education Supplementin comparison to this year’s report by theShanghai Jiao Tong University, whichplaces Trinity in the much lower 203-304bracket.

Commenting Trinity’s ranking in therecently published University League Ta-bles, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, DrJohn Hegarty, said: “The ranking reflectsthe high calibre of students the universitycontinues to attract and the quality ofcourses and teaching it offers those stu-dents.”

Sunday Times Irish UniversityRankings 2007

1. Trinity College Dublin2. University College Cork3. University College Dublin4. Dublin City University5. National University of Ireland, Gal-way6. University of Limerick7. National University of Ireland,Maynooth8. Dublin Institute of Technology9. Galway-Mayo Institute of Technol-ogy10. Cork Institute of Technology

Shanghai Jiao Tong Univer-sity’s Academic Ranking ofWorld Universities 2007

Where Trinity ranks: Top 203 – 304 Universities

Top Ten:1. Harvard University2. Stanford University3. University of California, Berkeley

4. University of Cambridge5. Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy (MIT)6. California Institute of Technology7. Colombia University8. Princeton University9. University of Chicago10. University of Oxford

Times Higher Education Sup-plement (THES) Rankings2006

Where Trinity Ranks:Number 78

Top Ten:1. Harvard University2. University of Cambridge3. University of Oxford4=Yale University4= Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy (MIT)6. Stanford University7. California Institute of Technology8. University of California, Berkeley9. Imperial College London10. Princeton University

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI)launched a Student Grant Campaign inGalway last Friday which was attended bystudent representatives from universitiesacross the country. The campaign seeks tohighlight the inadequacies of the currentstudent grant system and is calling on thegovernment to establish a centralised grantsystem which will ensure that grants aregiven to students on time, at the very be-ginning of the academic year. The cam-paign includes a petition in which studentsare asked to send postcards to their localTDs seeking support for such a reform ofthe grant system.

The problems with the currentsystem of student grants are manifold and areform for such a system has been a centralconcern of the USI for many years now.Talking to Trinity News, USI presidentRichard Morrisroe cited the inefficiency ofthe current grant allocation system as itsfundamental flaw, one which is most detri-mental to student welfare. The local au-thorities, who deal with grant applications,can take weeks to process applicationsmeaning that many students will not re-ceive their grant cheque until nearly the endof the first term. According to Morrisroe,‘the delay in getting grants out to studentsis utterly unacceptable. The beginning ofthe first term is the most expensive time ofthe year for students, with hundreds ofEuro needed for course books, fees andother course materials. It’s absurd that stu-dents are being left without enough moneyto live at such a time’.

Speaking from the campaignlaunch in Galway, TCD Students’ Union(SU) Welfare Officer Úna Faulkner toldTrinity News that she has had to deal withthe problem of students who have not yetreceived their grant cheque every day: ‘thestudent grant, as inadequate as it can be,means an awful lot to a great number of

students and it is incredibly important thatthe students who need such a grant receiveit on time’. She believes that if not rectifiedsoon the grant situation ‘will only getworse, with some students waiting formany weeks until they receive theirmoney’. She added that ‘being in this kindof situation can be hugely detrimental to astudent’s mental and physical well being.The stress of being in a financial crisiswhile studying results in the student expe-riencing serious anxiety and worries…andis something which I see on a daily basis’.

The reason for the delay in grantsis the lack of a proper administrative sys-tem in dealing with the applications. Theapplications are processed in a student’slocal County Council, which on the mostpart are under resourced, with very fewstaff working on grant administration. Thusit can take several weeks for a grant appli-cation to be processed. Furthermore, thegrant application form is notoriously longand complicated, meaning that many stu-dents accidentally complete the form in-correctly. This therefore delays the processeven further as, after weeks of initial pro-cessing, the form has to be sent back to stu-dents, re-submitted and re-processed.Morrisroe called the complexity of thegrant application form ‘ridiculous’ andcited the example of how if students do notwrite the letters ‘N/A’ in one small sectionof the form, the form is sent back to stu-dents. Faulkner explained that the com-plexity of the form is a major problem forincoming first years, as the deadline for thecompletion of the 16 page application formis the 31st of August. According toFaulkner, this deadline is ‘far too soon forthe majority of incoming students as theyhave just received their Leaving Cert re-sults as well as their CAO places. Theyhave so many decisions to make andchanges occurring that many simply don’thave the time to go through the arduoustask of completing the form correctly’.

The main aim of the USI GrantCampaign is for grants to be paid to stu-

dents on time. According to the USI, suchan aim will be achieved if the complexityof the application form is removed and theresponsibility for the processing of grantapplications is taken away from the 66local authorities who currently awardgrants and centralized instead in one gov-ernment department. The USI campaign isalso calling for the grant threshold to be in-creased and for other factors, such as thecost of child care, to be taken into accountwhen issuing grants because, according toMorrisroe, for most students the grant doesnot even cover the cost of rent.

The campaign is focused on urg-ing the Minister of Education, Mary Hani-fan, to honour a pledge she made inFebruary 2006 following the USI’s Lobbyof the Oireachtas that the student grantssystem would be overhauled that all stu-dent grants would be issued to students ontime. These pledges were to be outlined inHanifan’s ‘Student Support Bill’ which shepromised would be put before the Dáil inthe Autumn of this year, but which has yetto be published. Such a bill will aim to en-sure that all student grants are in place atthe very beginning of the college year andplans to remove the responsibility for stu-dents grants from the County Councils andto place this responsibility within the Vo-cational Education Committees (VECs) in-stead.The USI campaign is calling for this Stu-dent Support Bill to be published as soonas possible and is also highlighting the in-adequacies of some of its proposals. In aninterview with Trinity News, formerTCDSU president and founder of my-grant.ie (a website which aims to aid stu-dents in overcoming the complexity of thegrant application process), Dónal McCor-mack said that while he is very much infavour of the Bill’s proposal to ensure earlydelivery of grants, Hanifan’s proposal tomove the grant administration to the VECsis ‘nothing short of idiotic’. Richard Mor-risroe further explained that such a moveof grant administration from the 66 County

Councils to the 33 VECs will retain theflaws of the existing system and will be justas inefficient. Instead, the USI suggests thatcentralising the system in the Departmentof Social and Family Affairs would be a farmore efficient system, as well as costingthe gov ernment a fraction of what it cur-rently costs to administer the grants system.

Emma, a Senior Sophister Psy-chology student, told Trinity News thatwhile she thought her County Council is‘as efficient as it can be’ in processing hergrant application, she felt that because shecannot complete the form with the Col-lege’s stamp until after registration, she isinevitably left strapped for cash during theexpensive first few weeks of the Collegeyear. She believes that a system should beput in place where the student receiveshis/her grant on the first day of term. Sheadded that the size of her grant has notchanged considerably over her four yearsin Trinity, even though the cost of her ac-commodation has increased every year.

She believes that the size of the studentgrant needs to be reassessed by the gov-ernment with the ‘realistic evaluation ofhow much it costs the modern student tolive and study’ in mind. She also added thatthe ways of assessing grant applicabilityneeds to be reformed as ‘a lot of my friendswho really do need a grant are denied one,while it seems that some people who re-ceive grants are less worthy of them’.

The problem of late grants is onewhich affects students across campuses.Colette, a third year Law student in UCD,is entering her fifth week of term and is yetto receive her grant: ‘there is still no indi-cation from my County Council as to whenthe grant payment will come through. Ihave had to work double the hours I usu-ally would in my part time job just to keepme ticking over the last few weeks and amcompletely stressed out as a result’. Wheninformed of the proposed Student SupportBill, Colette said that it sounded ‘great’ andwas ‘a long time over due’. However, she

also believes that the method of grant as-sessment is in need of reform: ‘a friend ofmine who lives just a couple of miles downthe road from me receives double the grantI do because she lives just outside a 15 mileradius of College while I live just insidethis radius. It’s farcical’.

According to Morrisroe, the Stu-dent Support Bill should be publishedwithin the next few weeks. Students look-ing for information on student grants cango to www.mygrant.ie, www.education.ieand www.citizeninformation.ie. Dónal Mc-Cormack of mygrant.ie emphasises that thestudent grant is not the only source of fund-ing available to students. The Student As-sistance Fund exists to assist any studentsfacing financial difficulties during the year.For more information on the Student As-sistance Fund contact the Senior Tutor’sOffice or the TCDSU Welfare Office.

USI calls for overhaul of grant system

Trinity ranks best amongst Irish u niversities

EIMEAR CROWENEWS FEATURES EDITOR

How Trinity Compares

With thousands of students being left without the meansto live during the college year, Trinity News investigatesthe inadequacies of the current student grant system

The SundayTimes notedthat Trinity “hasrecorded consistent excellenceacross severalkey indicators”

“

”

PAUL EARLIESTAFF WRITER

societynews@trinitynews.ie

SocietyNewsTRINITY NEWS P9

Society Diary

diary@trinitynews.ie

Tuesday 16th OctoberYoga: Classes 1-2pm. Suitable for beginners andmore advanced. Room 50, Atrium.Capoeira: Classes 5-6.30pm in Regent House, !3.Falun Dafa: Exercise Classes 7-9pm, Room 50,Atrium. No experience necessary.Juggling: Practice 7-10pm for all types of juggling,Goldsmith Hall.Entrepreneurial: Dylan Collins comes to Trinity En-trepreneurial Society 7-9pm, Swift Theatre, ArtsBuilding.An Cumman Gaelach: Ciorcal Comhra, 7-9pm,Seomra a hocht, The Atrium.Chess: Friendly games and some coaching, 7-9.45pmin the Maths Seminar Room 2.6, School of Maths,Hamilton Building.Trinity Ents: The Freshers’ Ball! Featuring Republicof Loose, Deloretos, Hysterio, Backlash DJs, SpinFMDJs, and Voxpop in Tripod, doors 10pm.

Wednesday 17th OctoberFood and Drink: Free Brunch! Present your member-ship card at the stand in the Arts Building and enjoythe free food and drink. 10am-2pm.Yoga: Classes 1-2pm. Suitable for beginners andmore advanced, Room 50, Atrium.The Hist: Debate “This House Believes That ThereShould Be a United Ireland”, GMB 7.30pm.DURNS: The Alternative Freshers’ Ball, 9pm in TheVillage.

Thursday 18th OctoberYoga: Classes 5.30-7pm, suitable for beginners andmore advanced, Regent House.Falun Dafa: Exercise Classes 7-9pm, Room 50,Atrium. No experience necessary.DUBES: School Disco – bring out the old school uni-form for a messy night in the Turks Head, doors10pm, tickets !5.

Friday 19th OctoberThe Hist: Reverend Ian Paisley Address, 2-3.30pm,GMB.Capoeira: Classes 4-5.30pm in Regent House, !3.Dance Society: Classes, Regent House, 7.30-9.30pm.AfroCaribbean Society: Drumming Classes in ElizRoom, first floor of House 6, from 6-7pm.

Monday 22nd OctoberYoga: Classes 5.30-7pm, suitable for beginners andmore advanced, Regent House.Japanese Society: Sushi Night 7-10pm in the Atrium.See what the Japanese society does.

Tuesday 23rd OctoberYoga: Classes 1-2pm. Suitable for beginners andmore advanced, Room 50, Atrium.Capoeira: Classes 5-6.30pm in Regent House, !3.Falun Dafa: Exercise Classes 7-9pm, Room 50,Atrium. No experience necessary.Juggling: Practice 7-10pm for all types of juggling,Goldsmith Hall.An Cumman Gaelach: Ciorcal Comhra, 7-9pm,Seomra a hocht.Chess: Friendly games and some coaching, 7-9.45pmin the Maths Seminar Room 2.6, School of Maths,Hamilton Building.DUBES: Careers evening featuring BESS Graduatesfrom a variety of careers, 6pm Emmet Theatre, fol-lowed by refreshments. Food and Drink: Secret Event from 7pm. Check outtheir website www.dufoodanddrink.com for more in-formation. Sexy times…?The Hist: Debate “This House Believes College FeesShould be Reintroduced”, 7.30pm GMB

Wednesday 24th OctoberYoga: Classes 1-2pm. Suitable for beginners andmore advanced, Room 50, Atrium.The Hist: Burmese Prime Minister (in exile) SeinWin Address, 7.30pm GMB.

Thursday 25th OctoberYoga: Classes 5.30-7pm, suitable for beginners andmore advanced, Regent House.Falun Dafa: Exercise Classes 7-9pm, Room 50,Atrium. No experience necessary.

Friday 26th OctoberCapoeira: Classes 5-6.30pm in Regent House, !3.Dance Society: Classes, Regent House, 7.30-9.30pm.AfroCaribbean Society: Drumming Classes in ElizRoom, first floor of House 6, from 6-7pm.

Monday 29th OctoberYoga: Classes 5.30-7pm, Regent House.

This Freshers’ Week saw dozens of stands onFront Square noisily harassing beleagueredfreshmen into joining dozens of societies, withpromises of year long fun, instant friendship andso much free booze. Each were especially appealing in its own way, and each utterly samey.Why? Because it’s been quite the same everyyear since the Campanile was a sandstone acorn.Except for one society, which is special and exciting not because it is new but because it is sosurprisingly old.

When I experienced my first Freshers’Week almost a decade ago, there was one societyon my mind from the outset, even before I spotted its drab and distinctly avoided lookingstand. There, with a generous gap on either side,was an undecorated table, with a single A4 sheethanging desolately from it, reading “LGB Society” (as it was then called). This grey andsorry stand protected from the crowd a terrifiedlooking chap who had the demeanour of one

expecting a kick to the head from any angle. Ofcourse, he was in no danger - not even of verbalabuse - but he was not comfortable, and neitherwas I. I didn’t join.Now, mentally plot a vectorfrom the boisterously unabashed horde of queersyou might have seen on Front Square this year, tothe cowering martyr in 1999, and extend it all theway back - to 1982.

I don’t know how Freshers’ Week went in’82, but I do know that DU Gay Soc was officially set up in that year. Eleven years beforethe decriminalisation of homosexuality by a reluctant Fianna Fail government, and twentyyears before gay marriage could seriously bemooted as a possibility for Irish society – a groupof Trinity students convinced the College torecognise and fund them just for being gay. 25years later, DU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual andTransgender Society, inheritors of the pioneeringcourage and initiative shown by the long forgotten students who founded DU Gay Soc, arefilled with pride, and moved to immoderate celebration.

And that’s not all we have to be proud of,nor indeed should our gay students alone be

proud. The record of this College, its studentsand staff in advocating and advancing LGBTrights in Ireland is astounding, and absolutely unequalled. And it didn’t begin with the Gay Soc,the way to which was paved by a dashing andbrilliant English student in the 1970’s who, alongwith some like-minded coevals, set up the SexualLiberation Movement. The English student wasDavid Norris, and the Sexual Liberation Movement was the nucleation point for gayrights activism in Ireland, and the forerunner ofDU Gay Soc.

David Norris went on to found the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform alongwith then Reid Professor of Law, one MaryMcAleese, and later took on the former Reid Professor, one Mary Robinson, as legal advisor.Our present Reid Professor and newest Senator,Ivana Bacik, acted as counsel for Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan in their HighCourt case for recognition of their marriage,along with fellow Trinity Law lecturer, GerardHogan.

DU Gay Soc, now DU LGBT Soc was thefirst gay student society in Ireland, and has

always had an important role in the emergenceof gay rights movements, as well as pushing forgay student representation in colleges throughoutthe country. Today, as the situation for Ireland’sgay community improves, the role of the Societyis changing. While still active in LGBT politics,mainly through USI’s exceptional LGBT campaign, the Society is now more focused oncatering to a growing, increasingly confident,and ever younger gay student population withinTrinity. When I was a Fresher, the Society wasmainly postgraduates and activists, and, in fact, Ididn’t join until after my moderatorship. ThisFreshers’ Week, freshers will make up the bulkof our membership. Some will be confident, having come out in school; others will be terrified but hopeful. All need a college, staff andstudent body that supports LGBT colleagues.

The LGBT Society have been celebratingits 25th Anniversary since Freshers’ Week andwill continue all the way to Rainbow Week inJanuary, and it wants you, whether you are undergrad, postgrad or staff - gay, straight or bi,to take part. Pride isn’t just for the gay.

Bhuel, Tá súil agam gur bhain sibh sult as Fresh-ers Week leis an gCumann Gaelach. Níl dabht arbith faoi ach gurb é an Céilí i Front Square ceannde buachphointí na seachtaine, breis is 300 duineag damhsa ‘s ag léimt timpeall, agus ceol denscoth á sheint. Níl a leithead feicthe i gColáistena Tríonóide riamh cheanna, ach bíodh tú cinntego feicfear arís!!!

Tá an Chumann chun tús ceart a chuirleis an bliain le EGM agus Fáiltiú tús na bliana iseomra caidreamh an Hist ar an Máirt an 16ú. Táoifigeach nó dhó nua le bheith tofa ag an gcruin-niú, agus beidh ceol agus craic againn i gClubConradh na Gaeilge ina ndiaidh.

Má feiceann tú slua ag iompar cónratimpeall Front Square ar an oiche roimh OícheShamhna, ná bíodh eagla ort. Níl ann ach an Tór-ramh, the FAKE WAKE, ceann de imeachtaí ba

cháilíula a eagraíonn an Cumann. BeidhPíobaire, braon fuisce agus amhránaíocht ar ansean-nós ann.

Lads, hope you all had a great weekwith An Cumann Gaelach in Fresher’s Week.The céilí in Front Square was definitely one ofthe highlights, but be assured, there’s more tocome. Over the coming weeks you can look for-ward to our EGM and year-opening meeting. Ifyou want to take up the opportunity to get moreinvolved with An Cumann Gaelach, be sure to bethere, as there are new officers to elect and sub-committees to be formed. Afterwards, we’ll headon to Club Conradh na Gaeilge, for the usualTuesday night trad session.

One of Trinity’s strangest traditions isAn Cumann Gaelach’s FAKE WAKE, to be heldon the evening before Halloween. Don’t bealarmed by a piper leading a Funeral processionaround Front Square, but be sure to join in, as italways proves to be quite the night!

Bígí linn!!!

RONAN HODSONCONTRIBUTING WRITER

An Samhain savageSEAMUS CONBOYUACHTARÁN, AN GCUMANN GAELACH

Twenty-!ve years of Trinity LGBT

Auditrix: Anni Dai, Junior Sophister Law.Membership: 531Aims of the Society: Integration! The societywas set up to help combat the isolation of for-eign students; they want to unite students fromIreland and all around the world with a series ofsocial events and outings.Moving to a new citycan be an unnerving and unsettling experience.They help international students settle in toDublin life and are about promoting friendshipand understanding between all students in Trin-ity. Facts and Figures: Of the 15300 students atTrinity, 10% are other European, 3% are NorthAmerican, and 3% are from other countries. In

fact Trinity boasts up to 91 different nationali-ties in its student body; that’s 2448 students inTrinity who are not from Ireland.Greatest problems encountered: The majorityof Irish students go home at the weekends, leav-ing international students isolated.Regular events: DUISS have Saturday tripsplanned to places of interest around Dublin andIreland (like Bray); plus possible film and quiznights.Plan for 2007/2008: To hold as many events aspossible to create friendships and links betweenall students from different nationalities and fac-ulties within College. To show international stu-dents the cultural side of Ireland – the language,traditional music. To make sure internationalstudents have something to do at the weekends,and that they have made the most of their time inIreland. DUISS are aware how scary it can be

for a foreign student in Trinity, and so are pro-viding welcome information which include in-formation on Dublin buses, registering for yourPPS number, using the Post Office and getting abank account. They also want to help the Irishstudents meet people from other cultures.Greatest moment in society’s history: Initiallywhen membership broke the 400 mark in Fresh-ers’ Week 2007! In 2006, membership was fewerthan 100. However, more celebrations ensuedwhen membership reached over 500 for the firsttime.Website: Currently under construction, and thistime it seems this is true. It is still being updatedwith regular information on news and events,find it at http://duiss.orgWhat to look forward to? Meeting new peopleand discovering things about Ireland and Dublin you never knew!

On Wednesday 17 October the DublinUniversity Rock Nostalgia Society andthe Dublin University Internet Societywill be hosting the Alternative Fresher’sBall in the Village.

A top-rate collection of bandswill be playing from 5pm. First on areHalves fresh from their performance atElectric Picnic. Pete Pamf, a regular atthe Village, follows by offering somerock’n’funk to the crowds before NewAmusement takes the stage. NewAmusement have been together since2007 and have already played a numberof gigs, including Hard Working ClassHeroes (a festival devoted to showcasing“the best of Irish music to an internationalindustry audience and local discerningaudiences”), much like the subsequentband Grand Pocket Orchestra, with theirbroodingly brilliant melancholic sound.

Finally, Japanese Toys will beplaying and a quick glance at theirMySpace site will let you know theirmusic can be best described as“emotional, catchy alternative rock withharmonies to die for.” To finish upFrankie Whelan will be on the decks until2.30.

At !5 for members and !10for everyone else, this is a night thatwon’t break the bank.

The AlternativeFreshers’BallSOPHIE DAVIESDEPUTY SOCIETY NEWS EDITOR

DUISS in the spotlightSOPHIE DAVIESDEPUTY SOCIETY NEWS EDITOR

Michaelmas term, Week 6

Christ’s angelson campus

Hanging on the opposing walls of Haring2205 are twelve feet tall periodic tables.They stare imperiously at the two hundredstudents filling the rows of the lecture hallon this particular Thursday evening, but theheads bowed over the fold-out desks areoblivious to their catalogue of creation. Aprojector suspended from the ceiling humsin good faith, and as the words come intofocus it becomes evident to the passerbythat the assembled students are not balanc-ing equations. “We’re REAL people, Witha REAL relationship, With a REAL God”read the words illuminated on the board,and as the words scroll down, two hundredpairs of lips move in prayer.A similar scene can be found mostevenings on the UC Davis campus, whereChristian faith-based organizations aregaining clout as students flock to theircommunities. Hemming in the studentslazing on the grassy quad in the NorthernCalifornia campus is an array of colorfullydecorated sandwich boards, prepared bythe Asian American Christian Fellowship,Campus Crusade for Christ, Davis Chris-tian Fellowship, Cal Aggie Christian Asso-ciation, College Life Christians and GraceAlive. They advertise the times and placesof their meetings, retreats, pot luck lunchesand organised speakers. At a campusrenowned for its contribution to the sci-ences, it is difficult to understand the in-creasing frenzy among students to achieve“a REAL relationship, with a REAL God”.Interviews with involved students and As-sociate Professor of Religious StudiesKeith Watenpaugh shed new light on thisquestion.One student at the Campus Crusade forChrist’s meeting in Harring Hall is DanielleLee, a Junior Sophister Nutritional Sci-ences major at UC Davis. Danni, as fellow“crusaders” affectionately call her, invitesfriends back to her apartment after worshipto bake a “vegan chocolate and raspberrytart – delish!” Back in her kitchen, shepulls her blonde curls into a ponytail beforeplugging in a baby pink food processor – aChristmas present from her parents whohave long enjoyed the fruits of Danni’s pas-sion for cooking. Their involvement in herspiritual journey to find Christ, however,has been somewhat less encouraging.“We used to go to a Christian non-denom-inational church together as a family onSundays. There were donuts and gold starsfor the kids who knew their verses; it wasall a bit intimidating. But then my parentsdivorced and stopped taking me to church,I began to think that everyone there was ahypocrite anyway”, says Danni, spooningthe dairy-free butter into a mixing bowl.“Then in high school, I became interestedagain in finding some kind of spirituality. Ibecame a Junior High Ministry counselorand it was a reawakening. There were allthese girls that inspired me through theirenthusiasm to learn more scripture and tohave a relationship with God. I learned somuch from them.”Danni claims that the transition to univer-sity was the perfect time to reaffirm herfaith. “I didn’t have friends to pressure meor a family to judge, I wanted to seek out afellowship to continue learning, and grow-ing, but I also knew that I couldn’t rely onothers to steer that journey this time.”In Danni’s eyes the possibility for social

networking is definitely a draw for manystudents to Christian organizations, butthat’s only half the story. “It is nice to havesomething to believe in – there are peoplewho genuinely feel Christ in their lives.My faith may be more a product of timeand place, I am still a critical thinker andthere are a lot of things in the Bible I don’tbelieve. There are plenty of crusaders whoardently believe the Bible is infallible;while I don’t feel this way, I can still get alot out of the meetings and the Bible studysessions.”Danni the democratic, yoga-practicing,vegan Christian declares her “spirituality isunique” as she closes the oven door on herbaking and one is inclined to agree. How-ever, the mission statement of CampusCrusade for Christ – “facilitating spiritualawareness by introducing students to a per-sonal relationship with God through JesusChrist” attracts students from a differentend of the spectrum.“Dear God, I just want to thank you for allthat you are doing in Indonesia, to open upareas of Muslim control to Christian mis-sionaries”, says Junior Sophister ChelseaMarshall, with reference to the disasterplagued regions of Indonesia at one Thurs-day meeting of “Cru”. She is leading theprayers in what some might consider an un-orthodox fashion – praising God for in-flicting extreme suffering on apoverty-stricken nation in the South Pa-cific. Senior Sophister Microbiology studentInsup Kim, the son of South Korean immi-grants, is nodding his head in agreementwith Marshall. On his Facebook profile,Insup declares himself a member of the“Jesus generation” and a soccer fanatic too.He also believes that the environmentaldisasters occurring in Indonesia are evi-dence of the second coming of Christ andthe impending restoration of Jerusalem toChristian control – “we are humans, wecannot understand how God does his work,it is mysterious but we see signs all thetime.”Kim declines to comment further, butthrusts his head in his hands and returns topraying feverishly under his breath. Vari-ous students take up their instruments andthe singing gets underway as the lyrics areprojected on the screen:He’s High and Mighty - A Strong TowerI am sheltered by his powerHe is ever standing by my side. Rulers rise they fall and die But by and by I’ll hide behindThe only - High and MightyUC Davis Associate Professor of ReligiousStudies Keith Watenpaugh accounts for thegrowth of faith-based organizations as aform of hiding; a safety net for studentsplunged into an environment of racial, eth-nic and cultural diversity. “A University isa big anonymous place”, says Watenpaugh,whose ninth floor office is the closest oncampus to the heavens. “Most students ar-rive here with a very poor understanding oftheir own religious tradition and even lessso of other traditions.” “Joining a Christian-based organizationserves to reinforce pre-existing networks ofstudents so that there is little crossing ofrace and class boundaries. It is our job aseducators to fix or to challenge everyone’sunderstanding of religious traditions”.What occurs is a sense of confrontation,says Watenpaugh, between secular profes-sors and these students – “they becomeanxious when their knowledge is not rein-

forced.”Proclaiming one’s Christianity has also be-come a form of “social shorthand” suggestsWatenpaugh. Beyond the safety of identi-fying with some kind of tradition, Christianstudents find in their faith a place of “re-pose and peace” where they can socializewithout behaving in a hyper-sexualizedmanner, without the pressures of drugs andalcohol that flood other social contexts. When asked to comment on the fundamen-talist strain witnessed at Campus Crusade,Watenpaugh is ready to finger the blame;“mainstream churches are utterly failingAmerican society by not opposing otherforms of Christianity that emphasize the vi-olent, irrational and intolerant aspects oftheir faith. Students are drawn to thesestrains due to the abject failure of public in-stitutions to make sure certain people ar-rive at college knowing the value of reasonand thoughtful action.”One of Watenpaugh’s students, Dana Arm-strong, recently completed a documentaryexploring the relationship between modernAmerican universities and religious funda-mentalism, interviewing students, profes-sors and religious leaders about how theseinstitutions fit together. Dana, an unde-clared Senior Freshman from Monterey, isa dedicated Christian. Yet for all her reli-gious fervor, she recognizes that combin-ing faith with an institution, the universityor the government, “would be very dan-gerous. Nothing should be run in the nameof God, and no one should ever become aChristian in order to gain power or pres-tige.”Like Danielle Lee, Dana recognizes thather relationship with God needed to be apersonal transformation; “not somethinginstilled”, and her involvement with Chris-tian groups is secondary to this process.Dana rebukes her professor’s thoughts onthe “safety net” effect of Christian groupsby pointing out how her involvement hasbrought her every summer to Guadalajarato build houses in poverty stricken areas –a far cry from the comfort and security ofMonterey, California.As Dana takes her place among the circleof students gathered for “Prayer at thePole” on a sunny day in March, I ask herhow it feels to have students walking by,whispering, and casting bemused looks attheir practice. “I understand where they’recoming from”, she says before quoting He-brew 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of whatwe hope for and certain of what we do notsee”.Christian faith-based organisations on cam-puses in the United States, like so manyother institutions, have come to reflect thebest and worst elements of Western soci-ety. To some degree they challenge the ex-isting barriers of race and class that havekept many young Americans painfully seg-regated, both from each other and from theworld at large. Yet they have also trans-formed the college years from a time of po-litical and social awareness into a period ofnaval gazing, as students conserve more oftheir time and energy for spiritual growthand religious study. Whether Christian-based student organizations will continueto grow, or will wane like their politicalcounterparts, will be the subject of numer-ous cultural studies in years to come.There is no doubt, however, that the col-lege years will forever be fraught with at-tempts to discover meaning, friendship andsuccess – whether the hole in the heart isGod-shaped or not.

Christianity at College: A profile of the Christian groupings that attempt to recruit students from

University of California at Davis

LAUREN NORTONCONTRIBUTING WRITER

TRINITY NEWS

Religion&BeliefMichaelmas term, Week 6P10

features@trinitynews.ie

480 points does not a doctor make

The Minister for Science and Education, MaryHanafin, recently proposed reforms to the entryrequirements for undergraduate medicine de-grees. She wants the Leaving Cert points re-quirement brought down to 480 and some formof aptitude test to be used to select successful ap-plicants.

It is unclear whether results from this testwill be the primary determinant or simply an aidto select between students on the same pointswhen there are only a few places left to fill. TheMinister is worried that the medical schools arenot accessible to all, and this is her solution, ap-parently.

As a medical student, I find this all per-plexing. Why the sudden urge of the State to in-tervene in how independent and moreimportantly world-class medical schools selecttheir students? Where is the sudden need forchange coming from? The health “service” hasmany problems, but the quality of the graduatestraining to be doctors is not one of them.

Equally perplexing is that the Union of Stu-dents in Ireland is all in favour of it. In a pressrelease on September 3rd, USI president RichardMorrisroe said, “Minister Hanafin is correct tostate that ‘You do not need to have a perfect

Leaving Cert score to be a good doctor’.”But hey, it helps! And it’s probably better

for the patient’s treatment if the brightest appli-cants are selected for the intensive training whichfollows – which is, by the way, what patientswant. Good care takes precedence over a per-fectly representative medical staff.

Furthermore, both Minister Hanafin andRichard Morrisroe are foolish if they think thatchanging the entry requirements to somethinglike the mooted 480 points plus aptitude test re-sults will actually open the doors of a medicalschool to any Leaving Cert student on 480 points– unless the number of places in medical schoolsis increased, the courses will remain oversub-scribed and able to fill the majority of their placeswith students on 600 points, leaving a few placesfor those as “low” as 560 or 570.

In the USI press release, Morrisroegoes on: “What the Leaving Certificate mainlymeasures – apart from test-day performance – ispast academic attainment. That is to say, what isbeing measured is historical. Yet we know thatpast academic performance is an imperfect indi-cator of future academic success when consid-ered in isolation.”

Why would an aptitude test be anythingdifferent? Is it not also a measure of “past aca-demic performance” and “test-day perform-ance”? You cannot discriminate against thebrightest students in favour of those with less im-pressive results – standards would drop.

These are very demanding courses, and stu-dents have worked to earn their places – there isnothing to suggest that in the aptitude test stu-dents capable of 480 points would out-performstudents capable of 600, so what effect wouldthis extra test have? None.

“Viewed in isolation, Leaving Cert resultsdo not measure the progress made by a studentin building on his or her early education back-ground. But the present entry requirements meanthat students who overcome early educationalunder privilege to attain respectable Leaving Certresults have their extraordinary aptitude andwork ethic overlooked.”

Rubbish. Trinity Access Programme, forexample, allocates a number of places in themedical (and other courses) for students fromdisadvantaged backgrounds and poorer schools(which Minister Hanafin might be better advisedto work on, by the way) who overcome these lessfavourable circumstances to achieve very goodLeaving Cert scores. Through TAP, students areable to get in on around 540 points to a medicineclass otherwise filled with students who hadachieved 600 points.

Is Minister Hanafin proposing that this ap-titude test would favour the economically or so-cially disadvantaged? How exactly? Isn't it thecase that wealthy parents will pay for their chil-dren to see special tutors for this aptitude test?This would, in fact, make it is easier for wealthybut not-so-bright students to get into the “blue-

ribbon”, socially desirable medical career thatwould otherwise have been reserved for brighterstudents who could work to achieve 600 on theirown merits.

“Intellectual development occurs at differ-ent rates at different ages in different people. TheLeaving Cert alone cannot measure this.”

Again, is the USI proposing to discriminateagainst brighter students? How is that going tohelp an already overworked medical profession?The Minister and USI President are, with respect,barking up the wrong tree. We need more doc-tors, which means we need more places at med-ical school. The ridiculously expensive graduatemedical schools which the government has putin place are the preserve of the wealthy and thewealthy foreign students, and offer no real solu-tion to the shortage of doctors because these stu-dents head home after graduating. Of course,they are perfectly entitled to do so, I would neveradvocate that students trained here be obliged tostay here for any period of time.

We need more undergraduate places.This, and this alone, will lower points require-ments and make these courses more accessible, ifthat is what the Minister wants – as opposed tojust preying on disappointed school-leavers forpolitical point-scoring.

Conor McQuillan is a Senior Freshmanmedicine student.

Proposed changes to entry requirements for medicine will fail un-less extra undergraduate places are added

CONOR MCQUILLANCONTRIBUTING WRITER

am delighted to have been re-elected toSeanad Eireann. I look forward to gettingdown to work in the new session and hopeto continue to blast away the fig leaves of

hypocrisy from Irish political life. You may forexample have noticed before during and after thiselection a lot of hot air and posturing about Sen-ate reform.

Unfortunately it is just that – all hot air likethe affectation of demands for longer workingsessions and less pay ritually made by the oppo-sition parties in the Dáil in the run up to Christ-mas or the summer break. I have tabled a motionto adopt the Government’s own proposal forSeanad reform, seconded by my new colleagueIvana Bacik, and one of these days I’ll call a voteon it.

There will be a certain ironic amusement inseeing them all scuttling into the division lobbies

to vote against even the timid measures con-tained in their own all-party report. But it mighthelp to moderate their diversionary attacks on theuniversity seats, which are, in fact, by far themost democratic element of the entire Senate.

I have always believed in real and honestaction and not a lot of irrelevant stunts. It’s verynoticeable that in the middle of all these antics.Trinity has once more become the target for ac-cusations of elitism. I for one make no apologywhatever for representing the graduates of theUniversity of Dublin. I respect those who haveworked hard and earned third level qualificationsfor their endeavour and shall continue to defendthe Trinity constituency while also continuing toaccept the strong argument for an extension ofthe franchise.

This will in fact strengthen the universityconstituencies. One of the things which gives theNUI and Trinity constituencies their power and

effectiveness is the tradition of independence. Assome one who has never stood for political of-fice as a party member I feel I can make thispoint with conviction and integrity.

There is a lot of serious work to be doneboth in legislation and indebate. Just to give oneexample - it is now nearly four years since Itabled legislation giving legal recognition to longterm partnership relationships, both gay andstraight, outside marriage. We are now shame-fully among the laggards in Europe in this mat-ter because of the Government’s indecisiveness.

I intend to do my best to press this to a pos-itive conclusion before the next election and in-deed if possible in the next year to eighteenmonths. I have lobbied hard among my col-leagues and believe I have general support forthese proposals including at senior levels of gov-ernment.

On a more mundane but intensely practical

level Dublin traffic continues to be a mess. Wehave third world conditions in a modern Euro-pean capital and this is not acceptable. There isno doubt in my mind that the single most effec-tive measure to relieve traffic congestion is thedevelopment of a proper full-scale metro system.This session should see major developments onplans for the Dublin underground or Metro,which I pioneered in the Senate a number ofyears ago.

One new element in the Senate is the in-clusion as part of the Government team of GreenParty senators. I welcome this and look forwardto an active engagement in this area. I shall bepressing for positive action on matters such a cli-mate change and have already placed motions re-lating to this subject on the order paper, inparticular in response to an important paper pre-pared by climate experts from the National Uni-versity of Ireland on the implications of globalwarming for Ireland itself.

One of my major concerns has always beenthe area of foreign affairs and I hope with theagreement of my colleagues to be allowed tocontinue my work on the Joint Oireachtas Com-mittee on Foreign Affairs, which I helped to ini-tiate with Michael D Higgins. I am the onlyperson who has been on this committee withouta break since its inception. I strongly support theview of former President and Trinity SenatorMary Robinson on the need for our moral andethical values to keep pace with the furious paceof commercial globalisation.

It is very important to try to ensure stan-dards of integrity and decency in the conduct ofinternational affairs. It is also necessary that atleast some of us in public life keep the spotlightturned on the actions of both allies and adver-saries in this dangerous modern world. I intend tocontinue to advance human rights arguments inthe interests of the ordinary people of countriessuch as Tibet, Palestine, Iraq and East Timor.

There are also of course constituency mat-ters. I was able to intervene in a very practicaland positive manner when a large number of vot-ers were threatened with being disenfranchisedthrough bureaucratic error at the time of the lastelection. Together with my constituency col-leagues I will be meeting with the university au-thorities to ensure greater efficiency in theconstituency machinery.

David Norris was re-elected this summer tothe Dublin University Seanad seat that he hasheld since 1987. In the next issue, first time Sen-ator Ivana Bacik outlines her priorities for herterm of office.

Real action must replaceirrelevant stunts

I will continueto blast awaythe !g leaves ofhypocrisy fromIrish politicallife, writesnewly re-electedSenator DavidNorris

A liberal arts education provides invaluable and often in-tangible benefits that stay with you for life. The rewardsmay not be quantifiably measurable but rather contributeto inward development. Unfortunately, our universitystructures today seem to focus more on the economics ofhanding out degrees without regard for students’ devel-opment along the way.

Peter Berkowitz, a Senior Fellow at Stanford Uni-versity and a strong proponent of the need for a liberalarts education, makes the point that for most students, aliberal arts education provides “the last chance, perhapsuntil retirement, to read widely and deeply, to acquireknowledge of the opinions and events that formed themand the nation in which they live, and to study other peo-ples and cultures”.

Trinity, in many ways, puts the cart before the horse.By allowing students to set off on a four-year course with-out first mastering the basic skills of a liberal arts educa-tion – reading, comprehension and writing – Trinity is notgiving students the tools they need in order to succeed.For example, within the Department of Hispanic Studies,a Junior Freshman student is asked to write about theworks of Federico García Lorca without first having anintroduction to the interpretation of literature or even acourse on writing.

Because students converge on Trinity from variedbackgrounds and schoolings, it is important that a levelof proficiency in basic skills is obtained first. How canthis grand institution expect students to succeed in theirchosen disciplines without first having mastered the skillsrequired to do well? Subject material is easy to compre-hend and memorise; however, the real challenge is pro-ducing quality writing from what has been learned.

Through the implementation of a liberal arts cur-riculum, students who pass the requirements will developa common intellectual base which allows them to debateissues within any arena of the liberal arts. Furthermore, itenhances their understanding of whatever specialisationthey choose to master and allows them to appreciate howseparate individual disciplines are interrelated.

Sure, reforms are easy to preach. But they are muchharder to implement. The main obstacle to change is theteaching staff. Many will fight a core curriculum becauseit requires them to teach to a lower level outside of theirarea of speciality. It also decreases their opportunities toteach small boutique classes on highly specialised topicswith a devout group of students.

Trinity, notorious for its opposition to progressionand change, must therefore be changed from the top-down. What Trinity needs is an initiative led by a Provostwho knows the value of a liberal arts education and is ableto defend it courageously to his teaching staff. Moreover,the university’s alumni have the power to support and en-courage such initiatives by refashioning and modernisingour old institution.

Of course, this restructuring is asking a lot of Trin-ity, but in the long run the results of this initiative will payoff for both parties. A writing centre to teach writingcourses within a broad curriculum means that studentswill obtain higher marks overall and become better writ-ers. Trinity’s degrees will therefore be more valuable andwill acquire a higher standard. Trinity graduates will bemore prepared to enter the working world and be able tomanage the demands of the working world with a greatercomprehension.

I am not arguing that a strict trajectory of a four-yeardiscipline with a focused concentration is not to be had;rather I believe it allows students to grow within their cho-sen field. I am merely advocating that a mandatory broadcore initiative be put in place in the first year focusing onthe core of a liberal arts education. Such a core, for ex-ample, would require all students to take a writing course,study the classics in literature, a social science, and a nat-ural science. Not only would this allow students to graspthe wider context of academia and how the disciplines areinterconnected but also improve basic skills before enter-ing into a discipline. Many would argue that students in a rigid and a time-paced course – such as nursing, midwifery, or dentistry –would not benefit from such a broad scope in first year,much less add an extra year of study and it’s added ex-penditures. I would have to agree. In fact, I’d argue thatthe broad core should not apply to such courses becausesuch subjects have no place in an undergraduate liberalarts education.

They are rather vocations that give students a directlink to their chosen occupation (I’ll save my views on whysuch subjects should not even be offered in Trinity for an-other article). Point being, a liberal arts education doesnot preclude specific career goals and vocations, but com-plements them by providing students with the skills andknowledge that offer access to many careers. All successful academics know the secret to a solid un-dergraduate education: mastering the basics. Without thefoundation, there is no room for development or growth.

Restoreour liberalarts traditionMEGHAN BROWNCONTRIBUTING WRITER

I

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Editorial&CommentTRINITY NEWS

TRINITY NEWSD U B L I N U N I V E R S I T Y ’ S I N D E P E N D E N T S T U D E N T N E W S P A P E R

Issue 2, Volume 54Tuesday, October 16th, 20076, Trinity College, Dublin 2

www.trinitynews.ie

This publication is funded by a grant from DU Publications Committee.

Serious complaints about the content of this publication should be addressed to: The Editor, Trinity News, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2.

This publication claims no special rights or privileges.

The resignation of two officers of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI)has pushed the organization into the limelight for lamentable reasonsonce again. The USI is in a difficult position. Many turn to it to rekin-dle the bygone days of student political activism; our parents were at theforefront of campaigns against apartheid, military aggression and dis-crimination against minorities. Today student politics is the preserve ofa few “hacks” and has little bearing on most students’ lives. Many Sen-ior Sophister classes have no Class Reps, in freshman classes organisingthe class party is their most important function. “Apathy is a sign ofcontentment”, wrote the Political Scientist Arend Lijphart. Studentstoday are wealthier than before, and in modern Ireland universities arebecoming undergraduate degree farms rather than true academies forhigher learning, intellectual development and scholarship.

The landscape has changed since Cardinal Newman argued that“ University is not Learning or Acquirement, but rather, is Thought orReason exercised upon Knowledge”.

In order to remain relevant in this world the USI and its con-stituent organizations need to reform and refocus their efforts on issuesof educational policy. There is no shortage of them. Academic structuresand policies are being overhauled in the name of modernisation. Fund-ing for education and research, student life, and non-academic activities,the disconnect between most undergraduates in Trinity and their almamater, and the compartmentalisation of student activities into a “centre”all affect students fundamentally. The student body, transient by nature,struggles against bureaucratic administrators to be heard. These are thethings where the voice of the union is needed to fight for students. Theywill deeply affect our successors, but remain un-examined by studentstoday. Last year, the debate over which standard to fly over college cap-tured the Union’s and students’ imaginations. At the national level, theUSI should be speaking with the government on national policy, with250,000 students in Ireland only they can properly represent us.

Unions need to break away from the obsession with the purestforms of equality that create detailed constitutions, regulations and stand-ing orders, resulting in politicking and incessant infighting. All Unionsneed to slim down and become efficient lobbying organisations. Previ-ously they have become distracted by general political issues rather thanstudent ones: abortion, gay marriage and transport policy have no placein a modern Union.

What now for USI?

For the modern university, there is no other resource as essential as awell-equipped and resourceful library. As far as students are concernedit is literally the fount of knowledge, essential for written work , examsand general study. It is then a disgrace, therefore, that the library open-ing hours are so restricted at the weekends. A large percentage of stu-dents are required to work in addition to their studies, often limiting thetime available for study during the week. For these students, the week-end is their only opportunity to catch up on precious study time.

Yet, the Berkeley library at present ignores this, merely openingfrom 9.30 to 1pm on Saturdays. This, while presumably the most con-venient time for library staff, is hardly the best time for the average stu-dent. The difficulty to motivate oneself to get up on a Saturday morningearly enough to avail of the 9.30am opening time makes it an unfeasibleoption for all but the most dedicated. Even if you do manage to do thethree and a half hours that the library allows you, you still have an entirevista of weekend, with absolutely nowhere to sit down and study.

For students who need this resource for their studies this is amajor hindrance. And for those students who, for one reason or another,cannot study at home, the absence of a decent library service at weekendsseverely limits their capacity to learn. The postgraduate students, at least,have the 1937 Reading Room, a facility which is open 24 hours a day, butthe undergraduate students are being marginalized by college, having noequivalent resource available.

This is not a condemnation of the college libraries, quite the con-trary, all we are asking is that they could extend their opening hours tofacilitate more students. The resources of the Berkeley library are in-valuable, and all we ask is that we are given more of an opportunity touse them.

Time to study

A lady of my age can remember thegreat days of Trinity, when studentsobeyed that most basic of tenants –respect for your elders. Now itseems the juniors in the halls JCRhave gone mad with power tellingevery decent society in this collegeto do terribly impolite things. Nownow boys… play fair.

But boys will be boys won’tthey? Steady Eddy – who’s alreadymade great use of his office deskand his position as Ents Officer, de-cided that the campus fire lecturewas the ideal place to advertise hisChampagne and Cocaine party. Itseems our wonderful Junior Dean –ever the dry shite - just could notstand the sight of students havingfun. She dashed to the blackboard toerase this insult to her sensibilityand made an ass of herself, drop-ping the duster several times. Ohhow the little things make Evelynsmile, and many students laugh –that and the fire video. What a de-lightful evening.

From the Army to marriagecounselling – Noel McCann hasbeen carving up the GMB for theBoobs Faller and Tim “no puffs”Smythe’s divorce settlement. In analretentiveness it seems Boobs is nomatch for the pseudo-anglophile.The first seven photo frames are thePhils, the next 17 go to the Hist andso on…. Oh how terribly boring.

And while Faller has beencourting celebrities, Smythe hasbeen making enemies. Some say hewas quick to point the media in thedirection of an interesting anti-Se-

mitic story causing a few headachesto Boobs, poor “Old Uncle Joe” andthe rest of the CSC parotts who re-ally do just want a hassle free meal.When Smythe missed a recent sum-monsing by Uncle Joe he was toldin no uncertain terms to shove hisapology up his Devina Devine.Here’s hoping for a public spanking.

Active again Evelyn’s inform-ers tell her that an auditor of anabove Society was also responsiblefor the pulling of the Law Shockmagazine. It seems a young girlcan’t have a G&T around here with-out being harassed. Now that thegirl has become a lady, one hopesthat her underage drinking won’tpreclude her from membership ofthe bar.

Speaking of membership ofelite organisations; Players is open-ing up. It seems the ever powerfulgroupings of last year have disinte-grated leaving certain gay boys withno homo to go to and no friends toplay with. Oh, how awful, howamusing and how terribly bitchy.Evelyn just loves a playa’.

Another influential organisa-tion has begun recruitment – TheOrder Of Saint Michael a suppos-edly ancient order of influentialcatholic men. It has however foundhas found a distinct lack of possiblemembers. It seems what with all thehomos, women and Protestants inpower there is no one to join theirpathetic club. Oh well, Evelyn neverliked to see young men passed outon the steps of Botany Bay.

After a G&T with a senior

staff member, Evelyn was delightedto learn that this friend and her col-leagues are a tad confused about allthis business of college restructur-ing. It’s not that the pen pushersaren’t aware of what it is, but morethat they’re unsure if the Provost re-ally supports this. Perhaps he’s bet-ter off entertaining Kings andQueens than getting involved in col-lege politics.

And finally Evelyn was gladto see the SU funnel more moneyinto their rag of propaganda now

with a Guardian masthead. Pityabout the content though, it seemsthose naïve darlings may have neverlooked past the front page of thatBritish paper – maybe its that lackof reading ability. I’m sure they’llbring us many news worthy items“Senior SU Exec Member In GayRomp” – yawn or if they get terriblybored “TN Editor Shagging PubsChair”. If they could only print thetruth “SU – A Shower Of Wankers”.

Until the next time I have afew too many G&T’s…. Goodbye

EvelynTent

Those of you who are now enteringCollege from “Trinity families” mayalready have a rough idea of what atutor is and does. You will probablyhave heard – depending on the pastrecord of the relative of the relativewho gives you the information – ei-ther that “I never saw my tutor thewhole time I was in College,” orelse that “if you are stuck for theodd mark in little-go, old so-and-sowill get it for you if anybody can.”On the other hand, those cominghere without any previous connec-tion with Trinity may have someconfused notion that a tutor is some-one for whom you write essays andwho acts as your supervisor of stud-ies. The beginning of wisdom for aJunior Freshman is to realise that allthese conceptions of a tutor bear lit-tle or no relation to reality. Yourtutor will not be invisible (though attimes he may seem to come nearachieving this – to him – enviablestate). He will not get you the oddmark in little-go. And, in manycases – though not in all – he will

not be the slightest use to you aca-demically.

You may well ask – what pur-pose does he serve? Ignoring therude answers you would get fromsome quarters, I would suggest thatyou look to him for help at threedifferent levels. The first is a merematter of routine – you will need hissignature on all sorts of forms foradmission to the library, for apply-ing for rooms of fee concessions, orcheap air travel, and so forth. Thesecond is more important and moredifficult – it is his function to assistyou in interpreting the regulationswhich are embodied in the calendarand which must be observed if yourcareer is to advance reasonablysmoothly along the lines expectedby fond parents or more exactingeducation authorities. I may as wellwarn you that no tutor is infallibleand that it is all too easy to makemistakes, since the regulations areapt to undergo sudden and bafflingchanges. Your tutor will do his bestto keep track of these changes, but

sometimes they will outstrip him,and if in exasperation it occasion-ally occurs to you that he wouldhave done just as well with a crystalball as with a calendar, be assuredthat the same thought has probablycrossed his mind also.

His third function is undoubt-edly the most important. If you getinto serious trouble in or out of Col-lege, he is the person to whom youshould automatically turn andwhose duty it is to do what he canfor you. This does not mean that heis expected to act as a crafty defencelawyer who will enable you tododge some punishment you mayrichly deserve. But it does mean thatif you have a reasonable case he isthe make to make it. There is ab-solutely no need for a student tonurse some secret grievance or anxi-ety for long months, and perhapseven allow it to warp his whole out-look. Such things happen now andthen, but when they do they repre-sent a sad misunderstanding of whatthe relationship between tutor and

pupil should really be.I will end with a word of cau-

tion. A tutor is a very busy man, sodo not bother him with trivialitiesyou could perfectly well deal withyourself. Ponder rather the remarkonce made by an elderly and some-what irascible tutor to a JuniorFreshman who accosted him inFront Square: “Good God, boy,”replied the admirable man in a voicethat could be heard all over College,“don’t come pestering me with yourmiserable little academic prob-lems.” That was many years ago;nowadays we are more inhibitedand do not speak our minds sofreely. But you would be wise not toreflect that there is scarcely a tutorwho at some time or other has notechoed the sentiment, if not thewords.

By FSL Lyons (later Provost1974—1981) in CA David and JRHautz (eds), Trinity Handbook1956—57.

A letter from the Tutor

Dear Sir - Last Thursday I attendedthe American foreign policy debate,hosted by the Phil. Invited were awhole host of experienced individu-als, from both America and Europe,who-according to their one line Philposter résumés- knew what theywere talking about. Here, I thought,was an evening to savour. And asever, I was wrong. The entire debateseemed to be organised by a group

of people who were more concernedwith looking good (the auditor’shere's-my-chest-dress springs tomind) than setting clear parametersfor the debate. None of the invitedguests were clear on the format. Themotion itself was not clear, as thePhil’s registrar, Brian O Beirne, in-troduced the debate with an irrele-vant paper on U.S-Israeli relations.This was not what I came for- I

came for a debate on whether thewar on terror would make us safer(as stated on the Phil’s circular e-mail). Apparently the guest speakersthought so too, as one after anotherthey introduced their speeches withdisclaimers, saying that they hadbeen asked to speak on the war onterror, not on anything else. JoshuaMuravchik, one of the speakers,summed it up when he told his audi-

ence that the Phil had in effectmoved the goalposts not once butthree times. All in all, the eveningwas a shambles that was excruciat-ing to witness. Can’t Trinity do bet-ter than this?Yours etc,Hugh Taylor

An unclear motion and an irrelevant paper

Sports Hall staff should treat students betterSir- Having waited years for thenew gym facillities there was al-ways going to be an air of anticipa-tion among the students of thecollege... Some level ofdissappointment was inevitable.Yet, while the building is impressivefrom the outside, there is much in-side that leaves one wondering whodesigned the new sports hall,whether they have ever been in agym themselves and who on earth isin charge ofemploying staff?

The gym itself is no majorimprovement on the one in Lucehall. OK, there are about a dozennew pieces of equipment. However,most of the machines - in particular

the free weights - are exactly thesame.

And the gym is not muchbigger than the old one...which isodd because, since membership isnow cumpulsory for all Trinity stu-dents, the gym will be busier - espe-cially from 5 to 8 during the week.Surely someone ought to haveforseen this and enlarged the spacefor the cardio machines and weightsaccordingly?

Also, the floor in thechanging room is dangerously slip-pery when wet.Having studied con-struction for two years in secondaryschool, even I know that materialsought to be suitable for their in-tended purposes. There has already

been a number of falls, but nothinghas been done to make the changingrooms safer. Those in charge musttake some action before there isa more serious accident.

I will end this rant by say-ing a few words about the staff...well... a certain member of the staffwho should have been left behind inLuce hall to supervise the dust be-cause they should not be workingany gym, ever. This particular per-son (you know of whom I speak!)has an extraordinarily bad attitudetowards gym members. It is as if weare encroaching on her privatehome... but we're not! I have bit mytongue until now, but really hadtaken enough of her guffawing

when, I walked up to the receptiondesk to ask how her summer wasand she instructed me to go to thegirl at the other end of reception (asshe was probably busy checking here-mails). Unlike with the hopelesspositioning of the bricks and theplaster, theremedy in this situation is simple.We should send this women off toAmerica to torment those sentencedto death by lethal injection... the lastthing they ever hear is her snarl"Say Please!"Because good manners is thiswoman's forté.Yours etc Brendan Guildea

Michaelmas term, Week 6

with Joey Facer

FaceOff

Rewind eleven days. It is Friday, October 5th. Four pm.College begins, for the majority of undergraduates, Monday,October 8th. Nine am. And yet there is a hiccup in the system.I have no trustworthy idea of where I have to be MondayOctober 8th. I have yet to receive a reliable student timetable.

This is not to say I have no idea what is happening inmy final year at Trinity College. I am taking my mandantoryfour courses, and at two hours each I know there’s a wholeeight hours of my week gone. So far, in order to uncoverwhere and when they will be precisely, I have logged ontothe Student Information System approximately sixty times(not counting page refreshing). “My Student Timetable”, anoption apparently custom made, lovingly, for me, has sentme very nearly insane. First, for its complete lack of lessonstimetabled at all until about September 20th. Then, becauseonly half of my paltry eight hours appeared. Howevernothing could beat the last five days for mindlessbeaurocracy.

On Monday of Freshers Week I was still only seeingsix of my eight hours. On Tuesday I was apologised to by theDepartmental Secretary who had previously assured me thetimetable would be available now. The timetable, it turns out,is not even drawn up by Departmental Secretaries, but byDepartmental Administrators, nameless and faceless (or so Ihad thought) beings who have been moving my (potential)Monday 2pm to 9am, Thursday 3pm and oblivion onsomething approximating a rotation for five days.

So around 2:30pm on Friday of Freshers’ Week I decideto take action. I begin by blasting out “My EducationOfficer”, the undeniably cuddly Bartely Rock. Here, I amfaced with the sad, deplorable truth: the Student’s Union cando very little for students. Despite the most earnest of efforts,it has been made clear to me that nothing will change theglacial pace of administration unless a “significant amountof students express their concern”. I would hazard a guessthat Junior Sophister and Senior Sophister of an entirediscipline are fairuly concerned at this point on Fridayafternoon, but many may feel there is simply nothing theycan do about it. I, foolishly perhaps, believed I could dosomething. Fired by Bartley to seek out the causer of mywoes, I stormed to my much aggreived DepartmentSecretary. Informed by the International Students Advisorwith whom she shares her office that my disturbance wouldcause further delaying of my timetable (in particular seemedto be the implication), I persisted in my enquiries. On it beingreiterated that this Departmental Secretary has nothing to dowith timetabling I dismissed any lingering worries andlaunched into my tirade. Skipping the facile andunanswerable holy-grail questions I had tried earlier in theweek, such as when and where my classes would be, I triedsimply to discover when I would be enlightened on thesedetails. The answer I met with, to paraphrase, was that itwould be done when it was done. Acceptable? I think not.

However I did manage to glean the name of the CourseAdministrator and a quick search on People Finder renderedhe College extension. Gobsmacked that this person couldpossibly answer the phone after a mere two rings, I enquiredquietly, politely, when my timetable would arrive. Well, I amtold, no rooms can be booked after four pm, so it may wellhave to be completed on Monday, which is in fact herdeadline. At the latest.

Clearly, Monday at the latest. Because College willhave started. A quick glance on Student Information Servicesshows my Thursday class, originally Wednesday morning,has now hopped back to its Wednesday slot.

Rewind to April 2007. Junior Sophister and SeniorSophister choose their option courses for the year to follow.This before even the exam timetable has been published.How is it possible that six months later we still have no ideawhen these classes are? Or where? Moreover, as one personpointed out to me, there are Department Administrators for areason. It is somebody’s job to organise timetables. They arehired by our College, paid with our fees, to work for us incompleting this task. And yet results are not forthcoming. I dourge any readers who were in similar positions to stay silentno longer: we deserve a College system that does not causeus so much grief in providing the simplest of information.

After encouraging everyone I knew to bombard poorBartley with indignant emails (sorry) I resigned myself to thefact that I would just have to live with this ineptitude. Wouldhave to put off organising weekly meeting times for thePublications Committee, and office hours, and put off lettingmy boss know when I am available for my part time job. Thishasn’t just inconvenienced me, but many other people aroundme. That is not to excuse my lack of information. I will, Iassume, be working back to back shifts for a month for myjob to atone for my lack of cooperation in the simple task ofgiving my availability, something one would assume to bean easy task.

To conclude, a friend of mine was complaining aboutthe parallel problem in Trinity College of websitemanagement and upkeep. In the labyrinth that is the CollegeNetwork, it is easy to lose your bearings. Inexplicablyinstructed to alter his password, he relates to me that he wasadvised that to do so without installing updates he wouldhave to take the following action: “in order to continue,please continue to click ignore, and ignore the continuebutton”.

TRINITY NEWS

Editorial&Comment

letters@trinitynews.ie

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny lands some blows while visiting the Young Fine Gael stand during Freshers’ Week. Photo Emer Groarke

Student politics is a funny business. Last April, Iwas defeated by Richie Morrisroe fair and squarein the election to the Presidency of USI for thisyear. At the time, Richie, who was always gra-cious in victory, remarked to me that in sixmonths time, one of us would probably be wish-ing that the result had gone the other way, andthat it would likely be him, and not me. I don’tthink he could have known then how propheticthose words would prove to be.

I think we both knew at the time that thisyear would be no easy ride for the winner. USIhas never exactly been rolling in cash - despitethe perceptions of some of our critics, - and weknew that the new President would have to pushthrough an increase in the membership fee, - adeeply unpopular move – while funding theUnion’s relocation and trying to pay for the in-creased number of staff and officers called for bythe member colleges, - while still trying to payfor meaningful campaigns, and maintain the or-ganisations public profile. It was always going tobe a fairly daunting task, - and while I write withthe benefit of one who was never put to the testhimself, - it was a task that Richie was totally un-suited to.

The Richie Morrisroe I know, and ranagainst, is a man whose knowledge of the minu-tiae of education policy boggles the mind. He un-derstands the process better than many of thecivil servants who administer it. He can talk forhours and be genuinely animated about topicsthat would bore the pants off most people, - andfor that reason, he’s the best full-time EducationOfficer USI never had.

But he was never a President. Richie is nodiplomat, - he has always prefer the stick to thecarrot in an argument, - and while that trait haswon him a lot of arguments, it has cost him a lotof goodwill. He never understood, as his prede-cessor so clearly did, how important it was tomassage the egos of the people who run the localunions. Richie, to be fair, is entirely correct to re-gard most Student Union presidents as self-im-portant buffoons who think that USI should betrying daily to find new ways for them to get theirhands on cheap alcohol for their students ratherthan fighting for a national policy on disabilityrights issues. His problem was that he was a lotless adept at concealing this view than the rest ofus.

His unpopularity, to be fair, never stemmedfrom bad policy, but from bad politics. For ex-ample, Richie, in his last USI Officer report, re-ferred to a local radio station who had given hima rough time as “C**ts”. I empathise with how he

felt, but writing it down and distributing it widelywas an example of how he undermined confi-dence in his own leadership. Ultimately, Richiesowed the seeds of his own destruction, andwhile I feel very deeply for him, he brought thison himself.

USI Equality Officer Steven Conlon alsoresigned this weekend. He did so because of thestorm over the leaking of the memo he drafted tothe Politics.ie website. Steve has himself admit-ted that he authored the leaked memo, but unfor-tunately he has carried the can for its leaking.

I have not been asked to comment on this,but setting the record straight is essential. StevenConlon was in my company on the night thatmemo was posted to Politics.ie. He did not leakit, nor did he agree with its being leaked. Stevenis too honourable a person to out the real leakerof the memo, and in accordance with his wishes,I shall not do so either, but I know who did it.

Steven wrote what he wrote out of a deepsense of personal conviction, and agonised overwhat to do with it. He circulated it to a number offormer colleagues; me included, to ask if wethought its contents were fair. One of those peo-ple betrayed his trust. As a result, USI has lost anOfficer who, it’s fair to say, was the driving forcebehind most of the good work to emanate fromUSI HQ over the past two years. A man who hasdevoted 7 years of his life to serving the student

movement because he feels so strongly aboutLGBT and Equality issues, and a man who is oneof the best strategic minds in the movement.Steven should have been the automatic choice tosucceed Richie, and in my view he still shouldbe. He is honest, decent, hardworking and in-credibly talented, - but it says a lot about USI thathe is being hounded from office because ofsomething that everybody knows he didn’t do,while the person who did do it is still regarded assomething of a hero in the movement.

If USI’s national council have one iota ofsense, Steven will be recalled ASAP.

Finally, let me say this, - the events of thisweek will spark thoughts of a “crisis” afflictingUSI. USI is as effective as it’s ever been, - andfor some reason all the success of the past year isbeing forgotten in this maelstrom of madness.This is still the organisation that secured an all-party commitment to keep fees off the table forthe next five years, in the face of opposition fromour own provost and others. It’s still the organi-sation that quietly and effectively fights your cor-ner at a national level.

It’s still worthy of your support.

John McGuirk is a Public Relations Consultantwith Bracken PR and a former USI Officer. He was defeated by Richie Morrisroe for the Presidency of USIat the organisations annual Congress in April.

Bad politics not bad policy

In the mid-nineteenth century, Father TheobaldMathew, a humble Capuchian priest, spear-headed a mass movement as effective as those ofO’Connell, Davitt or Parnell. He travelled thecountry, holding public meetings and preachingabout the damage of alcohol on society - with as-tonishing success. In just seven years between1838 and 1845, Fr Mathew’s Temperance Move-ment persuaded more than half of Irish adults toswear off drink for life.

Never since then has alcohol had such a badreputation in Ireland. Last year, President MaryMcAleese said drink was creating “havoc in so-ciety” and was “the blight of all blights”. Suchcomments are typical of our national discourseon the subject. A chorus of politicians, journal-ists and academics regularly condemns the ill-ef-fects of Ireland’s high alcohol consumption.

A flurry of expert reports has entrenchedthis negative view of drinking. They almost uni-versally suggest more regulation and higherdrinks taxes as remedies. The most recent calledon the government to raise the minimum drink-ing age to 21 in order to reduce suicide amongyoung men. The Minister for Justice said he

would consider the recommendation.Yet while the downsides of alcohol - ad-

diction, suicide, violence, road deaths, ill-health- are regularly discussed in the media, the posi-tives are rarely mentioned. Economically, so-cially and culturally, alcohol has brought manybenefits to the country.

The economic costs of alcohol, mainlylower productivity and higher health spending,are well documented. The benefits of alcohol toour economy are less well known. Governmentrevenue from stamp duty and VAT on alcohol isaround !2 billion annually, almost !500 forevery person in the country. That’s to say nothingof tax on profits of bars, restaurants and drinksmanufacturers. No government in the world is asdependent on alcohol taxation as ours.

Thousands of jobs - in hospitality, tourism,agriculture and manufacturing - depend directlyon Ireland’s high level of alcohol consumption.The drinks industry has historically been amongthe nation’s biggest export earners.

Alcohol is not just economically valuable;it is socially indispensable. Drinking is a centralpart of all of our important social rituals - mar-riages and funerals, Baptisms and first Com-munions, birthdays and Christmas. It breaksdown social barriers and personal inhibitions,helping us to form friendships and relationships

that are crucial to personal well-being. And alco-hol often plays a key role in the early stages ofcourtship. A few whiskies less, your father andyour mother might never have got it together andyou might not be here.

Local pubs serve as focal points for manyIrish communities and have done for centuries.Without them, many would be left isolated andcommunities would die away.

Irish culture, too, has been greatly en-hanced by the national fondness for alcohol. It isdoubtful if the work of Joyce, Behan, Kavanaghand the rest would have been the same had theircharacters not been so fundamentally shaped bydrink. Certainly, Luke Kelly and Shane Mc-Gowan would have had very little to sing about.

The goodwill that the Irish enjoy abroadowes much to our image as a race of heavy-drinking, affable jokers. Free-flowing beer is themain reason that our patron saint’s feast day isnow celebrated from New York to New Delhi.

All that is not to say that alcohol does nodamage. Alcoholism destroys lives and families.Ill-health in later life is often linked to past alco-hol abuse. Drink contributes to some suicides.Around 100 people a year die in road accidentswhere alcohol is a factor. Doubtlessly, excessivedrinking causes real problems and should be ad-dressed.

Yet the puritanical approach suggestedby some - increasing tax, banning alcohol adver-tising, raising the minimum drinking age and fur-ther restricting opening hours (which are alreadyamong the most restrictive in Europe) - will dolittle to address these issues.

Alcoholism is a disease that, in most cases,won’t be cured by closing pubs earlier. Alteringhealth insurance policies so drunken accidentvictims pay some of their treatment cost is fairerthan paying for hospital bills with extra tax oncider. And as Americans are coming to realise,stopping U21s drinking won’t end drunk drivingas long, as it remains culturally acceptable.

The extra restrictions advocated by themodern-day Fr Mathews will, however, lead tohigher cost and inconvenience for the silent ma-jority of drinkers. People for whom alcohol, con-sumed regularly but not excessively, enhancestheir quality of life. Ultimately more regulationand higher tax on drink will damage Ireland’s so-ciety, economy and culture.

In considering new laws we should take ac-count of the positive effects of drinking as well asthe social costs. For Ireland, to paraphrase Win-ston Churchill, has taken more out of alcoholthan alcohol has out of it.

Alcohol not so bad after allJOHN LAVELLEOPINION EDITOR

JOHN MCGUIRKCONTRIBUTING WRITER

P13Michaelmas term, Week 6

Mines, Monksand Militants

A UN Security Council envoy has just got-ten back from Burma. The envoy didn’treach any particularly profound conclu-sions which won’t surprise anyone. Themilitary junta which has been imposed onthe country and the recent violent crack-down has been investigated by the UN Se-curity Council since visiting the country’sleaders at the beginning of October. Theyreported that the Burmese authoritiesclaims that it’s people were being treatedfairly amidst the current dissent were falseand that there was widespread unrest. Notso shocking. The generals though are con-cerned about the increased press the coun-try has been receiving.

The military regime admitted it hasdetained hundreds of Buddhist monkswhen troops turned their guns on pro-democracy demonstrators in recent weeksfor the whole world to see by way of theinternet.

The last time Burma saw such globalattention was on the 8th of August 1988when the government squashed a rebellionby killing 3,000 citizens and causing wide-spread terror. The parallels with the currentsituation are quite obvious.

Order was partly restored with thepromise of free and fair elections whichsaw Aung San Suu Kyi win 82% of the

seats. The ruling military of course rejectedthe elections and placed the NLD leaderunder house arrest where she remains tothis day.

The deteriorating situation within thecountry has led to refugee camps piling upalong the Thai border. It is now home toone of the world’s longest-running civilwars. Mines are used extensively by thearmy and also by almost all parties to theconflict. As a result Eastern Burma is themost heavily mined area in the world. Vil-lagers have reported “atrocity demining”whereby the Burmese Army forces localsto walk in front of soldiers as humanminesweepers.

Among its documented human rightsabuses (as reported by Amnesty Interna-tional) are forced labour, conscription ofchild soldiers, arbitrary arrest, systematicuse of rape and torture and extrajudicial ex-ecutions. It is also noteworthy that theBurmese junta recruits child soldiers.

Reports are now coming in from eye-witnesses of young school students beingshot by the army, masses of injured protes-tors being cremated alive, and thousands ofmonks and other protesters being killed anddumped in mass graves in the jungles. Thejunta has plans with the thousands ofmonks now imprisoned to “send themaway.”

The fact that the Burmese govern-ment is ranked alongside Somalia as one ofthe most corrupt regimes in the world today

does not give much credence to their refu-tal of these claims that protesters, activistsand opposition groups such as the demo-cratic voice for Burma are making.

All internet, telephone and communi-cation lines to the country have been al-most entirely cut off, hardly imbuingobservers with confidence.

The images and videos of monksprotesting in the streets, so effective in rais-ing attention of their message to the inter-national community, have begun to dry up.As the media has become saturated withstories and images of the crisis the affectsof inertia on the public conscience have be-come to creep in as the junta stall for timewith the UN.

In Europe, France and Belgium havereceived significant attention with regardto TOTAL, the largest Western investor in

Burma. It built and operated a gas pipelinein a consortium with Burma’s national oilcompany and the US group Unocal, nowpart of Chevron, to transport gas fromfields in southern Burma to plants in neigh-bouring Thailand. Burmese oppositiongroups have for years alleged that TOTAL- the world’s fourth-largest oil company -was a major conduit for cash to the hard-line military government. In 2004 Francevetoed a proposed EU ban on new invest-ment in Burma’s oil and gas sectors inorder to protect TOTAL’s investment in thecountry. The regime reportedly used its firstdownpayment for gas exports throughTotal to buy 10 MIG jets from Russia.

China is one of the largest suppliersof arms to the Burmese military regime.The Burmese junta is selling natural gas tothe Chinese at very cheap rates to maintain

China’s political support, but this is effec-tively robbing the Burmese people of thebenefits from their own natural resources.Resources are being depleted at a rapidrate, not helped by the Thai logging com-panies that raid the Burmese forests. TheIsraeli hafrada regime has been floggingarms to Burma’s military junta. China,along with Russia (and backed by SouthAfrica) has vetoed the inclusion of Burmaon the UN Security Council Agenda.

Burma imports more goods fromChina than from any other country (31% in2006). China has said that the detention ofpolitical prisoners in Burma (the mostprominent being Aung San Suu Kyi) is‘Myanmar’s internal affair.’

Michaelmas term, Week 6

“Forced labour,conscription ofchild soldiers, arbitrary arrest,systematic use ofrape and tortureand extrajudicialexecutions… arecommonplace

”

ARRAN SADLIERSTAFF WRITER

Turbulent timesfor Nepal

Nestled between the two new economic su-perpowers, India and China, is a countrythat is struggling to find peace with itself.Nepal, the highest nation on the planet, iscurrently in the midst of a political trans-formation which threatens to return thecountry to the dark days of its ten year longcivil war.Nepal is a place of magnificent beauty andexquisite scenery, where a collage of cul-tures, languages and ethnic groups havecome together to form one of the mostunique nation’s in the world. It is also aplace of deep reverence for both Hinduismand Buddhism. However, this veneration ofreligion has not stopped the violent con-vulsions associated with what now seemsto be the holy grail of statehood, democ-racy.Since 1990, Nepal has been a fragile con-stitutional monarchy. Maoist insurgents,looking to create a Maoist republic, foughta ten-year long campaign against the gov-ernment. It’s estimated that this ‘people’swar’ cost over 15,000 Nepali lives. In April2006, Maoist leaders agreed to end theircampaign and enter into talks with a newly

formed coalition. The end result of this di-alogue eventually saw the Maoists beingbrought into an interim government inApril of this year. Since that declaration of a ceasefire thedate for free elections have been set,changed and pushed back until this No-vember. Patience, especially among theMaoists, is beginning to wear thin. How-ever one of their main demands, that themonarchy be stripped of their power andentitlements has largely been adhered to bythe interim coalition, with the King beingno longer head of state or chief of the army.In a country of 17 million potential votersand where the 150 km trip between Kath-mandu and the next biggest city Pokhara,takes 8 hours by bus, the logistical task fac-ing the election commission of Nepal is notone to envy. Political and civil tensionshave also been exacerbated by a return toviolence along ethnic, nationalistic andcaste lines. The King seeing his power dwindle hasshown little support for a republic. WithMaoist patience stretched, its leader Com-rade Prachanda has recently promised thatif elections do not take place in Novemberhis party would quit the interim govern-ment and launch ‘nationwide agitations’. InSeptember they followed through on the

first part of their threat however, the prom-ised ‘nationwide agitations’ have thank-fully not yet materialised. Elections do not guarantee political, civilor economic stability, Iraq being the mostobvious recent case. The threat of a returnto civil war will not evaporate if electionsdo take place in November. For democracyto take root there must be a sense amongthe people that life under this new system isconsiderably better than that under the pre-vious one. Regional players and the inter-national community need to providefinancial and political support in helping tocreate a prosperous Nepal. CruciallyNepal’s neighbours, China and India, willhave to stop viewing the country as a bufferzone between their rival economies. Nepal is at a crossroads and the stakes arehigh, not just for this generation, but forones to come. The transition to a demo-cratic republic will continue to be a diffi-cult one, but if done with relative success itcould set a precedent for other countries inthe region and further a field, i.e. China,Afghanistan and Iraq. However, this suc-cess will only be achieved with mutual sup-port, persistence and patience by allsections of Nepali society and assistancefrom the international community.

Religious orders have taken much of the brunt of the violence in Burma. Photo: Racoles

JAMIE BURKESTAFF WRITER

TRINITY NEWS

WorldReviewP14

worlreview@trinitynews.ie

International sanctions may be the only way to restrain the Burmese junta

Michaelmas term, Week 6

City Breaks

KRAKOW

My father and I began our weekend in Krakow as oneusually begins a city break: disorientated and ratherhungry. We headed naturally for the Market Square, thecentre of all activity in this pleasantly compact city.Down a side street we spotted a Russian restaurantcalled Wisniowy Sad (ul. Grodska 33) and decided togive it a try. Though dingy and small there were can-delabras scattered everywhere. A classical guitar playerwas jammed into a corner wearing a shiny purple shirt-the likes of which was less ‘My lovely horse’ and more‘My lovely Borscht’. The one waitress looked rushedoff her feet and gruffly interrupted the guitar player tomake him hand her a glass from behind his head. Wait-resses in Krakow are not noted for their good manners.Despite this a cosy atmosphere prevailed, it was a lit-tle like being at a Christmas party in someone’skitchen. Russian food, incidentally, is excellent. Andcheap. But so is practically all the food in Krakow.Krakow’s café-bars are excellent too. You can haveanything from coffee to rum-spiked hot chocolate tostraight vodka at any hour of the day.

Since Poland joined the European Union Krakow,its most picturesque city, has become an increasinglypopular city break destination. Getting there is easy,both Ryan Air and Aer Lingus fly to Krakow fromDublin, from around 90 E return. An excellent publictransport system is in place in Krakow, but the relativesmallness of the city means it’s very walkable. Ac-commodation is good value and reliable. Food anddrink is incredibly cheap, as is shopping. Items to lookout for are leather and amber goods.

We began our second day with a trip to theWieliczka Salt Mines. Located about 25 minutes out-side of the city, the Salt Mines are generally sneered atby the locals but remain immensely popular withtourists. Our guide was named Alicia. She joked thatthe mineral-filled air in the Salt Mines keeps her look-ing young, and she’s actually 95. We all laugh rau-cously. She looked like she’d beat us up if we didn’t.We drank Cherry Coke from a shop 135ft underground.As we walked around to the lift shaft to bring us backup to the surface, we came across a ballroom dancingcompetition being held in one of the Salt Mines’ func-tion rooms. It was so surreal to be watching 12-18 yearolds doing the fandango 135ft under Krakow, in orderto win ‘The Salt Cup’

On Sunday morning the skies opened so we de-cided to go hunting for a bookshop. At the end of a notvery prosperous looking street was an unassumingshop, the size of a small apartment. The walls of Mas-solit Books and Café (ul. Felilcjanek 4, Krakowwww.massolit.com) were lined with varied books andat one end was a small counter serving tea and bagels.There was a sign leading to ‘more books’, so I followedit, expecting to find a stockroom. Instead I was directedacross an apartment hallway to a place straight out ofa Narnia novel. It was another full apartment’s worth ofbooks, ladders and couches. I went back to join Dad inthe café and we sat, and read, and drank tea. The waiterdid the same behind the counter, occasionally going outfor a smoke.

I had booked tickets for ‘Rigoletto’ in Krakow’sbeautiful opera house that evening, so we went backhome to get changed. Details on the Opera Krakowskacan be found at bilety@opera.krakow.pl. We ran to thetheatre to make the show in time, for half six. Yet, thewoman behind the counter wouldn’t let us in. We spenttwenty minutes fighting our case, speaking in English,battered Italian and crucified Polish. Eventually an oldman showed us his watch. It was half past 5. In our in-finite wisdom, we had decided that the hour wouldn’tgo back that weekend in Poland. We returned shame-facedly an hour later to an amazing performance, butnot before going for a stiff drink. Ailbhe Malone, Staff Writer

TRAVEL INFORMATIONGood places to stay are the Dizzy Daisy Hostel(www.hotels.poland-bookings.com) andHostel Deco, (hostel@hosteldeco.pl)

Nearly every restaurant and bar in Krakow has atheme. Favourites include the Wild West restauranton the main square and the frankly bizarre Transylva-nia Bar in Kazimierz, the old Jewish district.

Summer temperatures in Krakow are comfortablywarm, but the city is blanketed in snow for much ofwinter when temperatures stay at or below freezingpoint.

Cuba is bestseen with theeyes of a local

With Fidel Castro at death’s door and agreat deal of uncertainty surrounding thequestion of who his long-term successorwill be, there has seldom been a more sig-nificant time to visit Cuba. Situated in thenorthern Caribbean, only ninety miles offthe coast of the United States, the islandhas long been seen as a stronghold of re-sistance against the aggressive capitalismof its neighbour. Whether or not it is the so-cialist paradise it purports to be, though, isanother question. Curiosity regarding theworkings of a communist country, as wellas the promise of fine cigars, strong moji-tos and warm weather attract a huge num-ber of tourists each year. Indeed, thetourism industry is vital to an economycrippled in the early nineties by the disso-lution of the Soviet Union and strangledconsistently by U.S. trade sanctions.For the prospective tourist, there are a num-ber of important practical points of whichto be aware. Firstly, a travel visa is requiredto enter the country. This can be picked upwith little hassle from the Cuban embassyin Dublin. Secondly, a two-tier currencysystem exists in the country, whereby nor-mal citizens deal in pesos and tourists inpesos convertibles. One of these pesos con-vertibles equals approximately twenty-fivenational pesos, or one American dollar.Have no doubt that as a tourist you will bepaying more than everybody else. How-ever, when this means forking out theequivalent of between eight and ten eurosfor a three course meal in an averagerestaurant, it could be lot worse.Speaking of food, be warned that the stan-dard of Cuban cuisine is, generally speak-ing, quite poor. Food appears to come inone variety and one variety only: fried. Sovegetarians or travellers with high choles-terol will have a few problems. That said,the fresh fruit (especially mango andpineapple) and some of the simpler na-tional dishes, such as moros y cristianos(rice and beans) can be quite tasty.In terms of accommodation, a popularchoice is to stay in one of Cuba’s many

casas particulares, which are similar toguest houses. Here, a family will accom-modate visitors in their own homes for any-thing between ten and twenty euros pernight. Meals are also generally offered andthose cooked by casa owners tend to be alot cheaper, with much more generous por-tions than in restaurants. In addition, stay-ing with locals is useful for gettinginformation about the area. It’s worth men-tioning that things such as notepads andpens tend to be thin on the ground in Cuba,so a done thing among visitors is to leavepresents of such items behind them in theircasas. T-shirts with writing on them arealso appreciated. Also, you are a lot morelikely to be asked for a pen or some chew-ing gum on the street than for some change.

So whereabouts in Cuba shouldyou go? Havana, of course, is the country’scapital and centre of government. An air ofdereliction hangs over the place, but this isactually part of its aesthetic quality. Thecity’s buildings look like they have beenabandoned for fifty years and then sud-denly inhabited again, their crumbling fa-cades and flaking paint jobs masking hivesof activity. There’s a bustling atmospherein the centre of town, with people wheel-ing, dealing or just shooting the breeze outon the streets and laneways.In terms of things to do, there are plenty oftourist-oriented activities on offer. Mindyou, Cuban museums tend not to be great.The Museum of the Revolution, housed inHavana’s massive Presidential Palace is aparticularly bad example, with its seem-ingly random layout and suspiciously in-authentic-looking artefacts. Your best betis to go for a wander through the city’sstreets (that tend to be quite safe, even bynight) and attempt to get a feel for the placeyourself. Of course, as a tourist (especiallya pasty, Irish one) it’s difficult to blend inwith the crowd and encounters with jin-teros (street-hustlers wishing to sell youthings) are inevitable. The best thing to dois to civilly decline their offers and moveon.Music is, needless to say, a major part ofCuban culture and a high proportion of barsand restaurants will have a band playing forcustomers. It is polite to give a small tip to

HUGH MCCAFFERTYSTAFF WRITER

Only trust the Greeks when theyaren’t displaying timetables.

I would like to tell you all about my time in Greee. I was in Greece,you see, this summer. It so happened that I was subjected in aconversation, afterwards, with a friendly wit, a journeymanacquaintance, one of the real Wildean, Kafkaesque, Darwinian,Bowdlerizing types one meets every so often in Swords. Previousdisagreements on matters sexual, political, animal and vegetablewere forgotten, as we enthused righteously on the subject, withsome digressions on the peasantry

Erasmus O’Toole: (with feeIing) I was in Greece.Friendly Wit: (genuinely interested) And was it hot?EO’T: It was that and and more.FW: Before I forget, did I tell you about the crow?EO’T. Let me finish. If you wish to re-enact my journey, here aresome pointers. I went in June. As far as heat is concerned, thisusually allows for more pleasantness. Unfortunately, thanks to MrBush, I witnessed and suffered record-equalling temperatures ofup 45 celsius. If heat for you is an affliction, this is to be borne inmind.FW: (with gusto) It is absurd to have an affliction.EO’T: Invariably. After your time is sorted, make sure of yourplace. It was an air conditioned hostel in Athens in which I wasstaying, and wasn’t it only splendid. FW: Arrah, what are you saying! Are you joking!EO’T: That’s the truth for you. ‘Hotel Lozanni’, 54 Kapodistriou

street. 18 euro a night, and at most a 25 minute walk from theAgora. If you get to Omonoia square by metro, go along 3rdSeptember street and isn’t it the fifth left. FW: I’ll tell you one thing and then another.(Polite general pause)EO’T: On to the islands. Take the metro to the main port, Piraeus.We were to visit two islands: Aegina and Spetses, and in that order.At Piraeus, simply buy a ferry ticket at one of the seafrontpurveyors – less than E20 to Aegina. One hour journey. We stayedin a hotel by the seafront, E30 a night for two, balcony facing thesea. On the next day to Spetses, slightly more expensive ticket,three hour journey. Nothing annoys people so much as wrongtimetables, but only trust the Greeks when they aren’t displayingtimetables. We had to sprint for it, holding up the ferry in theprocess, but good-natured locals cheered us on. Then we were onthe highest deck, on the red-wine sea; we sipped iced coffee(Frappé) and watched the mysterious, haze-dressed islands aroundwhose enchanted shores Odysseus and his ilk-mates had skiffied. FW: Ah, that is charming. It produces vibrations. Edna O’Brien,with a horde of chimpanzees, couldn’t…EO’T: The poetry is immaterial. We found a place outside the maintown on Spetses to which their own van brought us – we had tworooms between us for E30 a night each, and a kitchen andswimming pool outside. Hospitable hosts; it is customary in Greeksociety to give one’s guests some ouzo, and they certainlyhospitalized us with theirs!FW: Very witty. Any moments in Athens of Grecian epiphany, inwhich all made sense for a time so small as to make the awarenessof its brevity a large part of its painful intensity, both during and

after?(Erasmus pauses then speaks. Friendly Wit stands agape andaghast as the everydayness of everyday life is transcended.Memory and art combine to make life worth the living)EO’T: (With quiet but painful intensity) It was the quiet momentsbefore the arrival of the sun. Slumped we were, on the hostel steps,empty bottles, and our hostelier stood up, and we followed, Dmitrihis name, along the dying streets, passing through Omonoia wherethe strays met us, fine specimens of doghood, Leonardo andNapoleon, and others, and we stopped for a slice of pizza and thenon past the Agora in the dimlight and up the hill, the ceremonialhill, where the processions of Athena once danced their way,stumbling and cursing, and then the Areopagus, the hill of Ares,white-bleached rock on which we lay after climbing, heads puffy,eyes dusty, and we talked and we dozed, and of the dogs onlyNapoleon still with us, and then the sunrise, and the Acropolis, seatof the gods from grey to gold, and the birds singing and the citybeginning to buzz and the sea awakening the hills, and theParthenon, white marble shining.(Deeply profound silence. Both have a healthy glow in theircheeks, vitalised by their new task, to bring this fresh-foundawareness into everything they do while realising the practicallimitations of abstraction.)FW: Well, I’ll see you tomorrow anyhow.EO’T: Sure this is it. After our shared epiphany here, you willfinally understand what Proust is on about.(Long live Proust, Truth and Beauty)

MICHAEL CARROLLSTAFF WRITER

musicians and, in most cases, merited aswhen they’re good, they can ignite a partyin the dingiest of watering-holes.Moving away from the capital, Cuba boastssome astonishingly beautiful countryside.Viñales Valley, only a few hours’ drivefrom the capital is a UNESCO World Her-itage site. Surrounded by mountains, pep-pered with enormous rocky outcrops andhome to farms where centuries-old agri-cultural methods are still used to this day,the views here are breath-taking at dawn.Another World Heritage site is the town ofTrinidad in central Cuba. Although at timesit can feel like a bit of a tourist trap, thecolonial architecture and little cobbledstreets give the place great character.Trinidad is also home to a rather uniquenightclub situated inside a cave a few min-

utes walk from the town centre. Being in a typically western club playingAmerican pop and dance music in Cubamakes one wonder though, about the effectthat the growing tourist industry is havingthere. Tourism is where the money is at andone can almost sense the emergence of astratum of people in that sector who canprovide for themselves better than otherscan. Of course, no political ideology is onehundred per cent implementable (religiousinstitutions have a very visible presence inCuba) and any casa owners spoken toseemed quite proud to be Cuban or, rather,not American. Still, it casts an uncertainshadow over the future of socialism in thecountry (especially with Castro in his cur-rent state), giving tourists a very good rea-son to visit now.

BRAIN RONSONNEWS REPORTER

The pearlof Poland

The promise offine cigars, strong

mojitos and warmweather attract a

huge number oftourists each year

but staying with locals is useful for

getting informationabout the area

P15TRINITY NEWS

WorldTravel

worldtravel@trinitynews.ie

Travel to where musicians can ignite aparty in the dingiest of watering-holes

On 20th to 24th August this year,Trinity College hosted the 1st Hinode Sci-ence Meeting. Around 150 Solar Physicistsfrom the world’s big space agencies gath-ered here to discuss the latest spectacularimagery of our sun that was provided bythe new Hinode space probe. Trinity’sSolar Physics group, led by Dr. Peter Gal-lagher, played – and still plays – a majorrole in the efforts to unravel the mecha-nisms that control the tremendous solarflares emerging from the sun’s surface andcreating solar storms in space that earth issubjected to.

On 22 September 2006, the new‘Hinode’ space telescope (working title:SOLAR-B) was launched into space as thesuccessor to ‘Yohkoh’ (SOLAR-A). Thisjoint project by JAXA (Japanese spaceagency), NASA, ESA and PPARC (UK) isthe latest endeavour aimed towards the sun.The satellite features the latest in X-Rayimaging technology along with optical andultraviolet imaging devices. These instru-ments allow it to resolve objects as smallas 50cm when pointed at Earth or morestriking, a human hair on a distance of100m (please try that yourself). Hinode(derived from the Japanese word for ‘sun-rise’) sits in a 600km high and sun-

synchronousorbit where itfinds best conditionsto delve into solar flaresand proton storms.

These solar flares are essentiallyhuge eruptions of plasma on the sun’s sur-face that are triggered by changes in themagnetic field of the sun. When they occur,millions of tons of material is ejected intospace and according to the Science & Tech-nology Facilities Council (STFC, UK),they release as much energy as a billionmegatons of TNT in the form of radiation,high energy particles and magnetic fields.Particles can reach the Earth within tens ofminutes followed a few days later by socalled Coronal Mass Ejections that emergeon the sun’s surface and alter its magneticfield to the extent that also the Earth’s fieldis affected.

Why should that bother us? Solarstorms can have serious impacts on allareas of daily life. We don’t realise veryoften how dependent we are nowadays on

com-puters, hand-held devices and evenmore so on electricity. But theseare exactly the targets a solar breakout has.The massive storms of proton particles thatthese breakouts constitute can have the ca-pacity to shut down all these. One of thebest examples is Quebec in 1989 when asolar storm induced currents in the trans-formers which caused the electric networkto fail, and left 6 million people in the darkand cold for nine hours.

Because these solar storms can occuranytime, it is vital to make progress in ourunderstanding of how they are generated.And Dr. Peter Gallagher proved to be con-fident that Hinode is achieving precisely

thatwhen he told TrinityNews & Research: “The new data fromHinode has forced theoretical and experi-mental physicists to almost completely re-think how the solar atmosphere works.”Groundbreaking research can be expectedand Trinity College based scientists areright in the middle of it as the conferencebeing held at TCD shows. “Trinity Collegeis honoured to host such an important con-ference,” said Dr. Gallagher.

science@trinitynews.ie

Michaelmas term, Week 6

Science&TechnologyTRINITY NEWSP16

SEBASTIAN WIESMAIERSCIENCE EDITOR

Staringat the

Top scientists behind Japanese sun probe hold

conference in Trinity

Holidays on Tenerife, aaaaaaaah! What afeeling to have this warm and soothing sungently petting my skin while I’m sippingmy café con barraquito at the San Marcosbeach. And the nice scenery! You have abeautiful coastline, an amazing forest ofpine trees, a volcano sitting in the middleof the island, and I could go on for hours…But one common feature of Canarian land-scapes that holiday-goers or even the localresidents generally fail to recognise is thegiant valleys cut by past, equally giant,landslides!

Wait, giant landslides? That soundsdangerous, doesn’t it? It actually is; giantlandslides are known to geologists to causedevastating tsunamis and volcanic erup-tions. Take this for example; in 1958, a 525m high wave (that’s right, 525 m!) was pro-duced when a large mass of rock fell intothe waters of Lituya Bay, Alaska. To put

things in perspective, however, this was arather tiny landslide and such a big wavewas partly due to the confining topographyof the bay. Huge landslides that leave bigvalleys like the ones on Tenerife are ex-tremely rare on human life timescales; themost recent giant landslide that geologistswere able to trace back took place on thevolcano of Réunion Island in the IndianOcean around 4,000 years ago. So, there isno need to jump out the window Simpsons-style in case you’ve just booked a flight toTenerife.

To give you an idea of what these val-leys look like, imagine a ~10 km radiussemi-circle tilted towards the sea with itscurved edge surrounded by up to 1000 mhigh cliffs!!! It is so big that most peopledon’t realise that this valley is the result ofa single event. Now that all sounds nice andneat, a few rocks fall into the sea and that’sit? Not quite... Imagine how the whole is-land is shaken from the vibrations these100 - 200km3 of rock create when they aremoving. Go to the Dublin Mountains and

try to rub pieces of Granite against eachother, that is not a smooth sliding thing. It’srather like taking a train without rails thatweighs 500 billion tons and can go up to100 km/h (!): You have one massive earth-quake, you better not be there. Some slow-moving landslides on Hawaii for examplehave caused earthquakes of already up to7.5 on the Richter scale. In this case, theflank of the volcano only slipped a few me-ters seaward and, yet, the seismic activitywas tremendous...so imagine if it hadslipped a lot further.. How do we know allthat?

Let me introduce Marc-AntoineLongpré. He is a fourth year Canadian PhDstudent in Trinity’s Geology Department,part of the Volcanic and MagmaticProcesses Group (www.vamp-group.com),supervised by Prof Valentin Troll and... hestudies giant landslides on the islands ofTenerife and El Hierro. He will help us tobetter understand what happens to the vol-cano when a huge chunk of its flank justfalls into the sea at high speed.

How did Marc-Antoine manage tostudy this? His approach is to combinefield work with analyses carried out in thelab in the hopes of finding some answers.The field part involves travelling to the Ca-naries (tough life, isn’t it?), hiking in themountains and observing the relations be-tween the different types of volcanic rockhe finds.

On the island of El Hierro, where oneof the world’s most spectacular landslidescars is found, he compares the volcanicrocks (or solidified lava) that erupted be-fore the landslide took place to the onesthat were formed after. He records and clas-sifies these rocks and samples some ofthem. Moreover, he uses a compass cli-nometre and a GPS to determine the exactposition of certain lava flows in 3D. All de-tails have to be noted, it’s a SherlockHolmes type of work, only it is applied torocks. After he has collected these data, hetries to find any systematics that might ormight not be there. Based on the mineralspresent in the rocks on El Hierro, he was

able to find a marked difference betweenthe volcanic rocks that pre-date the land-slide and the ones that post-date it. Anotherstriking difference in the volcano’s behav-iour following the landslide was in the lo-cation of eruptions, which shifted to thegiant amphitheatre-like depression left bythe landslide.

To be able to further characterise theeffects that the landslide had had on thevolcano, it was necessary for him toanalyse the specimen he collected in moredetail. Chemical analyses corroborated hisfield findings and overall results showedclearly that the landslide affected the is-land’s volcanism in two ways: Firstly, theunloading of 200km3 of rock obviously re-duces the pressure for the underlying sys-tem of volcanic conduits considerably. Allof a sudden this confining pressure is gone,so the subterranean magma is allowed tospill out, very similar to the opening of achampagne bottle. So, after such a giantlandslide volcanoes are likely to erupt morefrequently. What is even more interesting

for Marc-Antoine though, is that also thecomposition of the post-landslide rockswas markedly different. The lava started tocome from deeper regions in the Earth’smantle below the volcano, down to some45 km! Clearly nothing to do with the car-toonish picture of a round magma chamberfound at shallow levels beneath the vol-cano! So, what was going on there? Itseems as if the whole magmatic systemshifted closer towards the surface due to thelandslide while dragging additional magmafrom deep under. This is an important geo-logical conclusion because it implies thatsomething that happens at the surface (thegiant landslide) can actually trigger all sortsof changes at great depths within the Earthwhich in turn may affect surface phenom-ena in the world we live in.

So where does that leave us, thetourists in the end? As said earlier on, trynot to be there in case one is happening,However, next time you are on Tenerife,look out for these most impressive features.

SUN FACTS

Slidin’ down the volcano

SEBASTIAN WIESMAIERSCIENCE EDITOR

View to the East across the El Golfo embayment on El Hierro, a spectacular reminder of what goes on when a giant landslide comes down. This valley used to be filled with solid rock, entirely. Photo: Marc-Antoine Longpré

Animated Hinode resting inspace to observe the sun600km above Earth in asun-synchronous orbit. Image courtesy: NASA/JAXA

“”

Hinode sits in a600km high andsun-synchronousorbit where itfinds best conditions todelve into solarflares and protonstorms

Our Sun is a normal main-se-quence G2 star, one of morethan 100 billion stars in ourgalaxy. It is in the largest 10% ofstars by mass.

The Sun is by far the largest ob-ject in the solar system. It con-tains more than 99.8% of thetotal mass of the Solar System(Jupiter contains most of therest).

Throughout history different cultures have immortalised thesun as the giver and controllerof life. “Helios” to the AncientGreeks, “Freyr ”in Norsemythology, “Sol” in Rome, Lizain African cultures, “Garuda”,Vishnu’s mount (and or“Surya”) in Hinduism and “Re”in Ancient Egypt.

The surface temperature of theSun is 5770 Kelvins or 5499ºC.

The Solar radius is 432,470miles, that’s 109 Earth radii.

The current Sunspot cycle is predicted to peak in 2010, andto be one of the most powerfulin 50 years. It could bring geo-magnetic storms, producingpower outages and disruptingcompasses but also the beauti-ful Aurora affect.

Sources: www.nineplanets.org,Stanford Solar Centre, NASACompiled by: Kevin Lynch

St. Patrick’s Athletic and Bohemian FCmet in the eircom League of Ireland, withthe home side intent on avenging a 2-1 de-feat to the Gypsies in the FAI cup quarterfinal two weeks previously. Bohemians,perhaps with one eye on the League Cupfinal against Derry City, decided to restseveral first team players but still attracteda large (and vociferous) following for thisbig Dublin derby. St. Pat’s, like the visitors,also had a large crowd behind them, theranks of the regulars being swelled by sen-ior citizens availing of the “Grab a Granny”promotion in which fans who broughtalong their grannies gained admission forfree! The game itself provided plenty of ac-tion for fans both young and old to enjoy.St. Patrick’s Athletic were the livelier of thetwo teams in the opening period, and thefirst real chance of the match fell to theirnew Scottish signing, Billy Gibson, whoheaded a Keith Fahey cross just wide in the8th minute. Bohemians won a free kick ina dangerous area soon after, but StephenO’Donnell’s effort was comfortably savedby Ryan. 15 minutes in, the Bohemianskeeper Murphy had a more difficult task indiving to his right to keep out a goal boundheader from his namesake Anto Murphy,pulling off a fine save. Bohemians struggled to find their feet inthe game, and Saint Pat’s, particularlythrough the energetic Keith Fahey on theright, seemed the more likely to find the

net. On 37 Mark Quigley missed with an-other header from a Fahey cross, gettingunder the ball when he really should havedone better. Despite their apparent lack of a cuttingedge, Bohemians missed the best chance ofthe first half in the 43rd minute. Mansaramand McGinlay combined well and despitethe attentions of the Bohemians defenceyoung McGinlay managed to get his shotin, forcing Barry Ryan into making a goodsave, his first real action of the half.Bohemians began the second half with realintent. The half was barely a minute oldwhen Darren Mansaram slipped the ballthrough to Dean Richardson who blazedover from a good position. Mansaram wasproving a thorn in the side of the St. Pat’sdefence, holding the ball up well and con-stantly threatening with his strength andability.St. Patrick’s Athletic seemed devoid of cre-ative ideas and sought to change things onthe hour, with American striker Ryan Guyreplacing the labouring Glen Fitzpatrick.This seemed to spur the home side on anda few minutes later Mark Quigley wentvery close with a lobbed effort from a de-flected Anto Murphy cross.Almost immediately St. Pat’s were made topay for their litany of missed chances andfound themselves a goal down. ConorPowell’s through ball seemed to hit off theback of Darren Mansaram, but somehowhe managed to retain control of the ball andstroke a cool finish past the advancingBarry Ryan to claim his ninth of the seasonand third against St. Pat’s in two weeks,having bagged a brace in the cup match afortnight previously.The home side were denied a penalty in

the 73rd minute when Mark Quigley tum-bled in the box. Despite the replays sug-gesting otherwise, the referee waved forplay to continue. Bohemians missed a greatchance minutes later when DarrenMansaram again found himself clear buthis attempted lob was too close to the Pat’sgoalkeeper.Even though it was the Saints who desper-ately needed to find a goal Bohemians were

applying all the pressure, forcing their op-ponents back deep inside their own halfand restricting their goal scoring chances.The match was far from the ill tempered af-fair that seven yellow cards suggests, thereferee perhaps being a bit too happy tobrandish the cards in this hard foughtmatch.St. Pats eventually had a go at Bohemiansand came close when the excellent Keith

Fahey forced a brilliant save from BrianMurphy, who got down low to push a greatfree kick wide. They almost snatched apoint right at the death when DarraghMaguire, a second half substitute, foundMark Quigley with a lay off, but he wasagain denied by a superb save from Mur-phy. The Bohemians fans went wild as thefinal whistle was blown, a second victoryin two weeks over their city rivals secured.

Michaelmas term, Week 6

MARK MCDERMOTTSTAFF WRITER

Bohemians takeDerby Day win

”

St. Pat’salso had alarge crowd behind them, theranks of the regulars beingswelled by seniorcitizens availingof the “Grab aGranny” promotion - fanswho broughtalong theirgrannies gainedadmission forfree

Trinity TaeKwon-Dotake gold

Laura Cremen (JS History and Polit-ical Science) and Ciara Aucoin (JSPhilosophy and Political Science)won gold medals in the prestigiousteam sparring category at the ITF-TaeKwon-Do World Championshipsheld from 31st July to 5th August inBirmingham, England. They com-peted with three other girls as theIrish Ladies senior team. England(the pre-tournament favourites) heldthe girls to a draw in the first round,as did Argentina in the semi-finals,but Ireland defeated both in tie-breakfights. After proving themselves in the earlystages, the Irish Ladies easily de-feated Japan in the final in a tense andexciting contest, winning three fightsto zero. The final was presided overby an International panel of TaeKwon-Do masters (seventh degreeand above) and watched by Grand-master Choi Chung-Hwa (IX De-gree), President of the InternationalTae Kwon-Do Federation (ITF).In addition to the team events bothgirls competed in the individual cate-

gories for sparring, destruction(‘power breaking’) and patterns (apre-determined series of attack,counter and defence techniquesagainst a number of opponents inimaginary combat). Both broughthome Bronze medals for sparring asindividuals. In Tae Kwon-Do sparring is con-ducted on the basis of two rounds oftwo minutes each, in ‘semi-contact’style, meaning you are allowed to hitthe other fighter but not so hard as tocause injury. 29 countries, from five continents,were represented at the Champi-onships, an annual event which is thepinnacle of excellence in Tae Kwon-Do. The competition which runs con-currently with the Junior WorldChampionships (for under Eighteens)is open only to black belt holders.Miss Cremen is currently Captain ofDublin University Tae Kwon-DoClub, while Miss Aucoin served asCaptain in 2006/2007. Both girls arenow eligible for University Colours,having represented their countrywhile students at the University ofDublin.

KEVIN LYNCHSTAFF WRITER

Dublin City University Saints recorded acomfortable away victory over the

Shamrock Rovers Hoops in the Niveafor Men Superleague at the National Bas-ketball Arena, Tallaght. Both teams wereplaying their opening game of the season,watched by a passionate crowd of severalhundred at the impressive south Dublinvenue. The Hoops welcomed back starplayer Jonathan “J” Reed from last year.The 6’3’’ guard is occupying aplayer/coach role this season.

“J” Reed was involved in all of theShamrock Rovers Hoops’ good play in thefirst quarter. He got the home side off to agood start with an excellent 2 pointer. Thetenacious approach play of the Hoops,however, wasn’t showing on the score-board as 6’6” DCU Saints forward KennyGamble quickly found his scoring rhythm.Gamble’s prolific finishing, along with anexcellent three pointer from Pete Madsen,ensured that the Saints were leading 24-9with three and a half minutes of the firstquarter remaining. Two excellent threepointers from Jonathan Reed ensured theHoops finished the quarter strongly as itended 28 points to 18 in the Saints’ favour.

During the second quarter, the Hoopsfailed to convert their plentiful possessioninto points on the scoreboard. Mike Trim-mer had an influential quarter for DCU,scoring a number of important 2 pointers.The Hoops, however, kept in touch withpoints from Reed and 6’8” forward BryceMay. The crowd at the National BasketballArena tried to get behind the home side

with sporadic chants of “Defence!” but itwas the Saints’ who defended more res-olutely. The second quarter finished withan exciting period of counter-attacking bas-ketball. The Hoops missed an easy twopointer and were immediately punishedwhen the Saints’ guard James Donnellylanded an excellent long range effort forthree points. Bryce May responded with aslam dunk, one of several he contributed inthe game. The DCU Saints went into thedressing room at half-time leading 44points to 28.

The third quarter opened with a flurryof scores for the Saints. Irish players Mad-sen, Joey McGuirk and Eoin Darling alladded points to the scoreboard. Hoopsguard and Irish international Ian O’Boylehad an excellent period of play, scoring twothree pointers in quick succession. Sus-tained pressure from the Saints led to twopoints from Kenny Gamble after a neat in-terchange of passes. Dave Donnelly ran thepoint excellently for the Saints in this quar-ter, scoring nine points. Impressive Amer-ican debutant Keenan Bowder also scoredfreely. As the third quarter drew to a closeDCU Saints demonstrated their clinical fin-ishing by scoring a three pointer as the shotclock reached zero, extending their lead to79-52.

The Saints were able to close thegame out efficiently in the final quarter ofthe game. Pete Madsen scored two excel-lent three pointers from the left-hand sideof the court although the Hoops’ CiaranWhite successfully converted several re-bounds. Dave Donnelly controlled the finalstages of the game well although the resultof this thoroughly enjoyable match wasnever in doubt. The DCU Saints led fromthe beginning of the game and slowly ex-tended their advantage.

Hoops beatSaints in Superleague

“ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC 0BOHEMIAN FC: 1

FELIX MCELHONENATIONAL SPORT EDITOR

SHAMROCK ROVERS HOOPS: 74DCU SAINTS: 102

TRINITY NEWS

NationalSportP17

nationalsport@trinitynews.ie

collegesport@trinitynews.ie

P18 Michaelmas term, Week 6

SportingLegendsTRINITY NEWS

aeve Kyle should reallyneed no introduction, butunfortunately she does.Arguably the greatest fe-

male athlete Trinity College, Dublin hasever produced, Kyle became a pioneerfor female sport across an island thatwas obsessed with censorship andmorality. A prodigious competitor froma young age, Kyle represented Irelandin two sports with distinction; earning46 caps in hockey and running in theMelbourne, Rome and Tokyo Olympicgames. She achieved all of this in astrictly amateur setting while jugglingthe pressing responsibilities of familyand her career as a science teacher.Now living happily in Ballymena as aproud grandmother; Maeve Kyle has be-come part of the fabric of the town.Known throughout Ireland for her in-fectious and evergreen personality; sheinsists on giving me a lift to her familyhome and plying me with food at everyopportunity. When talking about her lifein sport, Kyle talks freely and excitedly,recalling a journey that has taken heraround the world many times.The journey began in rural Kilkenny;

Kyle grew up in a male dominated en-vironment of Kilkenny College whereher father was headmaster. She recountsan idyllic carefree childhood that wasenjoyed playing any game available.She recounts, “I grew up in a very maleenvironment and played everything;handball gave me very good hand eyecoordination, though it gave me welts inmy hands for years!” Those hard form-ative years paid off, Kyle went on torepresent Trinity at Lacrosse, Tennis,Hockey and even Sailing. Kyle‘s relationship with Trinity startedfrom a young age when she moved toDublin to live with her Grandfather whowas the Provost of the College. Shesays, “it was an incredible experienceliving in the Provost’s House as a younggirl from the country, I suppose I wouldhave been a bit like Huckleberry Finn.”After enjoying a “very liberal” educa-tion at Alexandra College in Dublin,Kyle was quick to integrate herself intothe fabric of Trinity life. “Trinity wasthe epitome of everything I ever wanted,it was an education, sport and impor-tantly wonderful people; I entered in1946, the year after the war which wastruly a golden era.” Learning the rudiments of hockey as a

child in Kilkenny with one of hermother’s sawn down sticks; it quicklybecame Kyle‘s main sport, playing inher first inter-provincial tournament atthe tender age of 14. The Dublin Uni-versity Ladies’ Hockey Club soon be-came an integral part of her Trinity

experience. She recounts, “Universitysport was played at a glorious level ofinconsequential outcomes, I got straightonto the Trinity team which was hon-estly like making the international team,the thrill it gave me.” Indeed, winningthe University wide Chilean Cup asCaptain of Trinity remains one of herproudest achievements. Growing up in a boarding school had

prepared Kyle for the academic rigoursthat awaited her on her arrival throughFront Arch. Studying science, geogra-phy and also attending lectures inPhysics and Maths “for my own enjoy-ment”, she was left with little time toherself. She says, “you were generallyup to your neck in work, now peoplegenerally get in arguments with meabout this, but sport was everything tome, it was my relaxation and sociallife.” If sport was there to provide somekind of therapy, it undoubtedly worked;Kyle went on to graduate with an hon-ours degree in science and a diploma ineducation.

While hockey launched her incrediblesporting journey, Kyle‘s athletics careerhas garnered her the most fame. How-ever, living in the more primitive timesof 1950’s Ireland, female athletes wereoften swimming against the tide ofstarched authority figures that werekeen to impose their will whenever pos-sible. “There wasn’t much of a femaleathletics scene in Ireland then; to behonest the Church didn’t like girlsshowing their legs and it became a bitof a desert.” Unable to enjoy the bene-fits of today’s female athletes both interms of exposure and facilities, Kyle’scolleagues were forced to fight for thebasic right to compete.In an era of money driven professionalsport, it can be difficult to comprehendKyle’s athletic feats. Modesty is a stan-dard part of Kyle’s personality and shedoesn’t appear to grasp the significanceof her achievements to today’s audi-ence. Originally training in athletics tohelp develop more speed for the hockeypitch, things became to snowball asKyle began breaking records effort-lessly. “I remember once playing ahockey match for Ireland on the IslandBridge Road and getting into the car todrive to Santry for an athletics meetingwith mud on my knees and managing tobreak an Irish record that same day,though it wasn’t very hard then.”After meeting her future husband Seanon a blind date after an internationalhockey match; she left the security ofher life in Dublin for the uncertainty ofsetting up a home in the Northern Irishtown of Ballymena. However, this movemanaged to forge one of the greatestathletic partnerships ever seen in Ire-land, with Sean acting as her constantmentor and coach throughout her career. By developing a sound sprinting tech-nique under the expert tutelage of herhusband; Kyle was able to defy the sta-tus quo and was picked as the only fe-male athlete in the Irish Olympic Squadfor the Melbourne Games of 1956. Herstory of selection for the games is typi-cally told with humour and warmth.“When I heard the news I was actuallyin Austria of all places on holiday, be-coming rather out of shape drinkingbeer and eating strawberry torte, then Iheard on the radio that I had been pickedfor the Olympics, I nearly died!” How-ever, after the initial joy, obstacles soonbegan to present themselves. Being theonly female member of the squadshould have been an achievement, butinstead Kyle was put under immensepressure. Kyle was pillared by somesections of the Irish press for neglectingher domestic duties and leaving heryoung daughter Shauna at home. Finan-

cial problems also began to rear theirugly head. “I’ll never forget, I got thisletter from the Irish Olympic Councilcongratulating me on making the team,it also asked me for £200 to go towardsthe cost of the trip which would beabout £5000 today”. Kyle raised the money and subsequentlycompeted at the Rome and TokyoOlympics of 1960 and 1964 respec-tively. Having realised she would neverperhaps reach the heights she wanted asa sprinter; Kyle successfully convertedto middle distance running, achievingdistinction in the 400 and 800 metres.Kyle’s philosophy on sport has alwaysbeen simple and it remains to this day; ifyou aren’t enjoying what you are doing,stop. She says, “you know, I alwayswanted to win so badly, but if I didn’tmanage to win it was always quicklyforgotten; sport was a major develop-ment in my life, it was so effective, it

taught you rules for life.” As the curtain drew on Kyle‘s career asa competitor in hockey and athletics; herlife as a coach was only starting. In tan-dem with her husband Sean, Maeve setup the Ballymena and Antrim AthleticsClub, giving young people in the area amuch needed sporting outlet. Todaythousands of children have passed undertheir expert tutelage and the enthusiasmstill burns strong. She states, “Kidstoday have so much pressure on themand Sean and I are like sounding boards,as a coach you become a surrogate par-ent, guiding them as best as you can.” The Kyle‘s beautiful house in Bally-mena bears the name ‘Tir na Nog’,meaning Land of the Young. The nameseems appropriate, their home is oftenfull of children from the athletics clubeager to train and talk with the couple. Itappears the sporting odyssey of MaeveKyle is far from over.

A modestmouse

“

”

Trinity wasthe epitomeof everythingI everwanted, itwas an education,sport andmost importantlywonderfulpeople

M

She was picked for inter-provincial hockey at the age

of 14.

Sport runs strong in the Kyle household, Maeve's

husband Sean is a renowned international athletics

coach and her daughter is a former Irish schools ath-

lete.

Earned 46 caps as a pacey left winger for the Irish

ladies' hockey team. She also was picked for the

World All-Star team in 1953 and 1959.

As an athlete, Maeve broke Irish, British and the

World indoor records at various disciplines, including

the 100,200,400 and 800 metres.

She represented Ireland in three Olympic games and

also competed for Northern Ireland in two Com-

monwealth games, her last came in 1970 at the age of

40.

After competing in hockey and athletics with such

distinction, Maeve's career moved seamlessly into

coaching. At the age of 79, she still coaches children 4

times a week at Ballymena and Antrim Athletics Club.

Biography

Kildare athlete Maeve Kyle is a womanwho needs no introduction. Arguably thebest athlete Trinity has produced, shereached the pinnacle of her professionwrites Johnathan Drennan

collegesport@trinitynews.ie

Michaelmas term, Week 6 TRINITY NEWS P19

Anyone who has played Ultimate Frisbee for anylength of time will have come across the cynical per-plexity of the majority of people who are unfamiliarwith the game. “It’s not a sport if a dog can play it”was my personal favourite slight, but anyone who hasactually seen Ultimate played to any standard will ap-preciate the requisite skill levels, tactical nous andsheer physical effort involved.A common way of describing how Ultimate works isby drawing a parallel with American football. Thepitch is about the size of a soccer or rugby pitch, witheach team of seven defending a large end-zone. Theobject of the game is to work the disc up the pitch-one cannot run with the disc in hand, rather like net-ball- until a catch is made in the opposition end-zone,resulting in a score. Outrageous throws and spectacu-lar dives are not essential but often employed, mak-ing Ultimate a remarkably absorbing game to watch.Skill, agility and an awful lot of running are commonto many sports, of course, but Ultimate players like tothink their sport unique in at least one respect: whatis known as the Spirit of the Game. The concept em-braces sportsmanship and fair play, but also enjoy-ment and the social aspect of play. There are,therefore, no referees in a game of Ultimate; all dis-putes are resolved by agreement between the twoteams. Every Ultimate tournament offers a Spiritaward- voted for by the participant teams- as well asthe normal winners trophy so as to emphasise and re-ward good Spirit. The Trinity team has, unfortu-nately, not quite won its share of these in Irishtournaments recently; this aberration is generally putdown to jealousy at our recent success. Ultimate in Trinity began in 1995 with the setting upof DUUFC. The club’s growth since then has beennothing short of remarkable; from a few enthusiastsidly chucking a disc around to an internationallyknown outfit. Trinity is now regarded as one of thebest clubs in Ireland and has dominated the nationaluniversity scene in recent years. This success was un-derpinned by back-to-back victories in the last twoIntervarsity Championships, both after nail-biting fi-nals against the auld enemy, UCD. In April 2007,Trinity became the first ever Irish team to win a UKtournament at the highest level when we won MixedOutdoor Nationals, held in Newcastle. At interna-tional level, DUUFC sent three male and two femaleplayers to the European Ultimate Championships inAugust, which saw the Ireland Open team finish a su-perb 6th out of 16 nations. Most recently, we sent ateam to the Burla Beach Cup at Viareggio, Italy.This season promises to be another hugely successfulone for the club, as we bid to retain our titles at Inter-varsities, Indoor Regionals and the annual Coloursgame against UCD. The international Cork Open willbe another target, as we were runners-up last year to astrong Italian side. With tournaments being mooted inSligo, Belfast, and Limerick (to say nothing of theUK and further afield), the coming months will be asbusy and enjoyable as any in the club’s history.Those who have never thrown a disc in anger shouldnot be put off- Ultimate is all about having fun, re-gardless of ability. The early season is replete withbeginners tournaments, each with nights out tomatch. UCD and DCU will both host indoor tourna-ments in the next couple of months, and the infamousjaunt up to Edinburgh will leave on the 27th of Octo-ber. New members are always welcome regardless ofskill level. DUUFC train on Monday nights in Santry,Wednesday afternoons in the Sports Centre and Sat-urdays in Herbert Park. For more information, seewww.ultimate.tcdlife.ie.

WITH CONOR JAMES MCKINNEY

Discworld

Flyingsaucerscome toTrinity

CollegeSport

“Hi Jonny, it’s Tony Smeeth the director ofrugby at Trinity, how would you feel aboutcoming over to Oxford and Cambridge andcovering the matches and getting to seehow the rugby club does things at firsthand?” My response was curt and quick,thanks but no thanks Tony. While I have al-ways loved the game of rugby, the sameunfortunately could never be said of itsplayers. Rugby players in Dublin undoubt-edly suffer from an image problem. Stereo-types of an army of Ross O’Carroll Kelly’sarmed with popped collars and proteinshakes prevail, leaving a vast body of peo-ple tarnished with the same brush. In myfinal year, I didn’t want to spend my lastFreshers’ Week on tour with a group ofpeople I didn’t know and wasn’t apparentlyable to relate to.

However, minds often changequickly; putting it down to life experience,I took the plunge and decided to go to Ox-ford and Cambridge on a whim. On the 2ndof October I stumbled into Dublin airportbleary eyed and irritable at 6.30 am forDublin University Football Club’s flight toEngland. Shuffling to the check-in desk, Iwas grateful to see a familiar face in JonnyWatt who plays fly-half for the club. Jonnyand I were friends at school in Belfast andhe immediately set about introducing me tovarious players. I’m not sure Tony had gotround to explaining my presence to theother players. While everyone was ex-tremely pleasant, I sensed some were anx-ious to know if I was playing and if notwhy was I there?

There was no time to worry. If NeilStrauss managed to write a cohesive bookabout going on the road with rock bandMotley Crue, surely I could write an arti-cle about a bunch of rugby players fromTrinity. DUFC could be likened to a ratherlarge and ungainly family were everyonehas a role to fulfil. If Tony Smeeth is thepatriarch of the club, then secretary KayBowen is undoubtedly the matriarch,calmly organising everything from pro-grammes to hotels. The backroom staff isnothing if not eclectic, a fitness instructorwho counts U2’s Adam Clayton as a for-mer client is aided by a globetrotting Aus-tralian physio who is fluent in Spanish. Thesheer size of the operation was daunting,not taking into account the large pool of 45players.

2ND OCTOBER 2007We’ve only arrived in Cambridge and it’stime to play rugby. With a short turn-around, I’m sitting on the team bus with the2nd XV travelling to Grange Road for thefirst fixture of the tour. The mood is a bitmixed, some players resort to nervouslygoing through tactics and moves while oth-ers simply choose to enjoy the sceneryfrom the window. However, the nerveswere proven unnecessary as Trinity recorda comprehensive 48-5 victory over Cam-bridge. The gauntlet has certainly beenthrown down as the 1st XV take to the field

that evening for their game against anuntested Cambridge outfit. The game is amixed bag. Scintillating counter-attackingrugby from Trinity is set against awkwardlate hits and aggressive forward play fromCambridge. However, the final whistlebrings relief as Trinity win comfortably 22-38. The proof of a hard-earned victory isseen in the dressing room afterwards. Thephysio is building up a steady queue by theoperating table as several players lie inagony. Injuries are constantly in playersminds and they become expert at self-di-agnosis. Conor Donohue has wrecked hisknee in the act of scoring a try and imme-diately realises his tour has come to an endprematurely. However, an unexpected twowins has lead to the players being given afree reign in Cambridge for the evening.

Despite it being the first night ofFreshers’ Week in Cambridge, the bounc-ers at the club we visit seem to have no ob-jections to both squads bypassing a longsnaking queue that spans the High Street.I’ve kindly been given a team jacket andI’ve managed to get in undetected, posingas a diminutive scrum half. Hours later weemerge into the cold cobbles of Cambridgesearching for that elusive taxi. It duly ar-rives in the form of an Indian man whoisn’t quite sure of his bearings, but is happyto take advantage of our drunken good hu-mour as we drive around for an hour anhalf like a lost ice cream van. After takinga detour to Bedford, I lose patience and fallasleep, leaving the directions in the capa-ble hands of Mick Bolland and Eoin OCuilleanain. Miraculously, against the oddswe make to the Holiday Inn, I fall asleepalmost immediately.

3RD OF OCTOBERSharing a room with Jonny Watt has twomain benefits. He never snores and he hasone of the best natural alarm clocks I’veever come across. Despite being out for thebest part of the night, we are expected toget up at 9.00 am, I’m not fully confident Iwould have achieved this feat on my own.The breakfast table is full of tales from thenight before and the game itself. I sit mo-rosely with a glass of water and fruit, re-gretting my decision the previous day ofasking Tony Smeeth could I train with theteam to get more of an idea of what theirbodies go through. It’s not one of my wis-est decisions. After a summer of completeinactivity, I’m panting fiercely as my mus-cles have woken from a long slumber. Starjumps, squats and scorpions are taking theirtoil as conditioning coach Caleb Cairnsbarks orders. I start to find my feet in thesprints managing to keep up with mostplayers. However, I get a bit too confidentwith my footwork and get berated by TonySmeeth for nearly colliding with centreEddie Hamilton. I’m grateful when thecontact session begins and I gracefully sitthe session out, pleading with team man-ager Jim Flynn that I’ll make myself usefulby taking notes and filling up water bottles.

4TH OCTOBERThe team bus makes its way slowly toGrange Road for training and I start to ap-

preciate my surroundings. The ground it-self is beautifully kept and retains a nostal-gic charm with its wooden stand andpavilion. Lacing up my boots, I am con-fronted by a stiffness in my limbs that in-structs me I need some exercise urgently.After some light stretching, we are askedto go in pairs for a routine warm up; I picksecond row John Denny confidently sizinghim up for the sprints. Caleb tells us we areto carry our partner for ten metres then youswap over. I move to walk away. Caleb in-forms me this isn’t a problem, John cancarry me both ways. Feeling as useful as ahand-break in a canoe, I retreat to the safetyof my notes.

5TH OCTOBERRugby is an incredibly demanding sport.Physically and mentally taxing, it takes uptime, effort and money. DUFC is run like asemi-professional outfit. Early morningweights sessions are supplemented by in-tense training at night during the week.Several of the squad aren’t Trinity students,with some players having to make hugesacrifices to play rugby at College Park.Second row Roger Young commutes dailyfrom NUI Maynooth to make every ses-sion. The player’s experiences on arrival atDUFC are all completely different. Someentered Front Arch with a bevy of schoolrugby honours, others entered having re-ceived no proper recognition before Trin-ity. While there are two teams on this tour,I’ve noticed an incredible cohesion. Thereappears to be no difference between the 1stand 2nd XV, it’s a collective effort that isbeginning to pay dividends.

6TH OCTOBERTypically, I’ve managed to miss the funni-est part of the tour. After an exhausting firstfew days, the players were asked to attenda swimming session to relieve tired mus-cles. To add a bit of colour to the piece Itell Tony I’ll be attending. Rooms havebeen changed and unfortunately my newroom mate Andy Wallace seems to be asnaturally inclined to rest as myself, leavingus to oversleep, just making it in time forthe remains of breakfast. I’m told it was hi-larious. Players originally thinking theywere going for a light dip in the pool areconfronted by the fact they’ve unwittinglygatecrashed one of Oxford’s premier wateraerobics classes; primarily for the benefitof pregnant women and pensioners. Urgedby the instructor, the players enter into thespirit of things and soon sixteen stone menare moving nimbly in perfect sync to eld-erly ladies.

7TH OCTOBERLast night the 2nd XV beat Oxford 28-18,with prop Craig Telford scoring a cruciallast minute try setting up a great platformfor today’s proceedings. Taking our seats atIffley Road, the mood was justifiably good,believing a clean sweep over Oxbridge waswithin sight. However, it wasn’t to be. The1st XV went down 34-0 to Oxford afterbeing outclassed by a bigger team, inspiredby former Australian international Joe Roffat fly-half.

Down and outin OxbridgeJONATHAN DRENNANFROM OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE

collegesport@trinitynews.ie

INTERVIEW: MAEVE CATHALAn athletics legend gets her due praise

INTERVIEW P22

5 Paul Gillespie

14 Shane Hanratty (Gareth Murphy, 50)

13 Volney Rouse

12 Conor Donohoe (Eddie Hamilton, 60)

11 Killian Stafford

10 Johnny Watt

9 Joey Burns

1 Graham Murphy (Tristan Goodbody, 50)

2 Ben Cunningham

3 James Gethings (Eoin O'Cuillinean, 60)

4 Ciaran Condren (John Byrne, 55)

5 Roger Young

6 Max Cantrell

7 Shane Young

8 Richard Morrow.

TheTeam

DUFC V CURFC

Paul GillespieFrom the first blast of the whistle,full-back Paul Gillespie showed sublime skills to launch severalmemorable counterattacks. TheSligo native also earned his spurs indefence, showing bravery underhigh balls and in the tackle. Scoringtwo tries wasn't the end of hisnight's work, he provided the inspiration for most of attacksDUFC launched. A former underage provincial cap for Connacht, Gillespie's individual brilliance was such that he managedto draw deserved applause from apartisan Cambridge crowd.

MAN OF THE MATCH

P20 Michaelmas term, Week 6

CollegeSportTRINITY NEWS

Triumphant Trinity giveCambridge boys the blues

After ten years in the wilderness, DUFCsucceeded on two counts; resurrecting anannual fixture against Cambridge and leav-ing Grange Road with a resounding vic-tory. Taking a cursory glance through aCambridge team is often bemusing; theplayers often seem to hail from the South-ern Hemisphere and are enrolled in post-graduate study. In a game as physical asrugby, size and age differences throughoutsquads can represent an enormous advan-tage at this level of play. However, after arather tumultuous pre-season, DUFC ar-rived in Cambridge with a more settledlook to their squad as familiar faces re-turned eager for the new season.Competing against a varsity squad who arelimbering up for their December show-down with Oxford is always a dauntingprospect. In their first home fixture, the

Cambridge team were under pressure toperform in front of an expectant crowd andresponded from the start by laying down anintense physical gauntlet. In the openingquarter the smaller Trinity pack appearedto be suffering from a dose of stage frightas they were pinned back by their wilyCambridge counterparts. Simple handlingerrors plagued the students as they strug-gled to impose themselves on the game,leading to a Cambridge penalty that wasduly slotted over.However, a 3 point deficit managed to cre-ate a wake-up call that provided the spurfor DUFC to create a feast of counterat-tacking rugby that delighted the crowd andcoaches in equal measure. After a period ofsustained pressure in Cambridge’s 22,American import Volney Rouse intercepteda misguided pass and gratefully ran underthe posts to give the visitor’s their firstpoints of the day. Johnny Watt convertedeasily to create a 7-3 lead.Despite coming under huge pressure in thescrum; DUFC’s forwards managed to learnto adapt against their bigger opponents, attimes showing incredible bravery. The for-

ward battle was memorable for Cam-bridge’s constant provocation of their op-posite numbers whenever possible. Thereferee managed to completely miss a num-ber of unsavoury off the ball incidents thatcould have tarnished the game, including ablatant kick in the face and several desper-ately late hits. Ignoring the cheap incidentsof the first-half, DUFC’s combination ofMax Cantrell and Shane Young workedwell as a unit, utilising an incredible work-rate that served to frustrate and quell rareCambridge attacks.If this match was marked by moments ofindividual brilliance, nobody stood outmore than full-back Paul Gillespie. Solid indefence and spectacular in attack, he con-stantly threatened the Cambridge defencewith jinking runs. He was duly rewardedwith an opportunist try that started in theTrinity half. Rouse used his pace to breakthe initial barrage of defenders beforeGillespie gratefully finished the move inthe corner; leading to a conversion fromWatt. At the end of the half, Cambridge andTrinity exchanged penalties to leave thegame at 17-6 to DUFC at the whistle.

At the start of the second half Cambridgebegan to finally rise to the occasion creat-ing attacking opportunities more fre-quently, aided by occasional lapses inconcentration from Trinity. Two rapid firepenalties from Cambridge made the score12-17. To compound DUFC’s jitters, influ-ential second row Ciaran Condren was yel-low card for not rolling away after he hadmade a tackle. However, out of almostnothing, Gillespie managed to put somewell needed light between the teams, usingsearing pace to beat the Cambridge coverdefence. Unfortunately, for all their impulsive at-tacking brilliance, DUFC managed to fallfoul of a referee who was keen to imposehis will on the game whenever he got theopportunity. Cambridge possessed a reli-able place-kicker who was grateful to take3 points whenever he possibly could. How-ever, Trinity were compensated somewhatin their own kicking game that rarely wa-vered under the experience at fly-half ofWatt who used a huge boot to create muchneeded territory for his battle weary for-wards.

Once again, DUFC’s attacking nous rearedits head. Try scoring opportunities werelargely down to individual brilliance ratherthan training ground moves; this may be ofsome concern to Director of Rugby TonySmeeth but it succeeded in thrilling boththe home and visiting support. A quick li-neout taken by replacement Gareth Murphydeep in Trinity’s half lead to a mesmeris-ing run from Gillespie who sprinted halfthe pitch to pass the ball into the gratefulhands of centre Conor Donohue whocrashed over the line. Unfortunately, in theeffort of scoring the try, Donohue seriouslyinjured his knee, curtailing Trinity’s defen-sive options slightly.Finishing the second half in style, DUFCscored a try that had all the hallmarks ofSerge Blanco in his pomp. The ever-im-pressive Rouse combined well with ShaneHanratty and Gillespie to evade a string ofhapless Cambridge defenders and score hissecond try of the evening. In the closingminutes Cambridge scored an ill-deservedtry that failed to cover a comprehensivescore line of 22-38 that was a fitting trib-ute to a night of enthralling rugby.

JONATHAN DRENNANCOLLEGE SPORT EDITOR

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY: 22DUBILN UNIVERSITY: 38

Paul Gillespie breaks away to score a try just before half-time in a game that saw the rampant Dubliners leave Cambridge in their wake. Photo: Sophie Pickford

DU Hockey Club battle for hard earned draw

Following their relegation from the top flight of LeinsterHockey, Dublin University Hockey Club have began their bid torejoin the top flight with a frustrating three all draw against pro-motion rivals Railway Union. Both teams endured poor seasonslast year and were duly relegated, ensuring that the first leaguematch of the season for Trinity’s boys in green was of vital im-portance. Under the new captain Ben Hewitt, the team looks to bein good order, with a mixture of experience and youth most othersports clubs strive for. The atmosphere on the pitch, heated at thebest of times, made for a interesting match as both teams wereclearly eager to lay down the gauntlet for the coming season.

The game began well for Trinity, with an excellent period ofsustained pressure culminating in an early goal for Richard Mylesafter eight minutes. Trinity had been unlucky to have a penalty

stroke appeal denied prior to this, but Myles’ opportunity, createdby some excellent wing play from Craig Moore, made amends forany complaints. Whilst play was largely congested in the middlethird of the pitch, it was Trinity who were controlling the game, as-sisted by some woeful passing by Railway Union’s midfield. Infact, such was Trinity’s early dominance that the second goal, ar-riving after twelve minutes, seemed like an inevitability given theamount of possession the team had enjoyed. This time Johnny Orrwas at hand to latch onto an accurate pass from Nick Odlum, whoin turn had capitalised on Barry Glavey’s excellent through ball.Glavey, who was involved with more than one difference of opin-ion with his opposite number, continued to control the middle ofthe pitch as the ball rarely left the railway half. Whenever Trinitydid find themselves in defence, solid play from centre back DaireCoady relieved any potential pressure. One such instance, arisingfrom a Railway short corner, caused the opposing striker to scuffhis shot and handed Trinity possession once more. Some creativeplay from Graham O’Neill and Jason Bryan saw the introductionof the aerial pass into the game to great effect, bamboozling theRailway midfield and allowing Odlum to capitalise on an inch-perfect pass from Myler before drawing the keeper out and slotting

the ball home after 30 minutes, ending a superb first half for He-witt’s men.

The Railway Union boys trudged off the pitch at half timeand must have received an effective talking to from their coach,given the difference in play after the break. It was as if the roleshad been reversed, as suddenly Trinity goalkeeper Johnny Roydsfound himself inundated with shots on goal having not had a sin-gle one to contend with in the first half. Sure enough, Railwaybroke their duck shortly into the second half as fiery character NiallO’Brien (of Irish cricket fame) drilled a shot past Trinity’s defence.As full back Aengus Stanley was forced to save an open goal op-portunity immediately after the goal, it was clear that Railway werea different team from the one who had capitulated so badly in theprevious half. A second goal followed seventeen minutes into thesecond half as some poor marking offered Railway a straightfor-ward chance. At 3-2 it was evident to all that the next goal wouldprove highly significant in the course of the match as the momen-tum was firmly in Railway’s favour. A stunning save from Roydsfrom a reverse stick shot in which he managed to deflect the ballonto the cross bar and into safety kept Trinity in front, and turnedout to be a match-saving moment. Despite Royd’s heroics, Trinity

conceded a short corner with eight minutes left, from whichO’Brien was able to convert for his second goal of the game. Thefinal stages of the game were a test of both team’s resilience, withseveral shots cleared or missing the Trinity goal by inches. De-spites some good play in the dying seconds by Trinity, the gameended in a draw that was testament to both sides’ volatile play.

If ever there was a showcase for sports psychology, this wasit. Despite both teams taking a point home, you would have beenforgiven for thinking that Railway had won and Trinity lost, suchis the frustration of squandering a three-nil lead. Trinity will prob-ably look on the game as two points lost rather than one pointgained, but they must acknowledge how well they did to hold onin the second half, and given a few more chances and less defen-sive errors they would have claimed their first home win at Santryfor eighteen months. The change in dynamic during the game wasastounding, and whereas Trinity were clinical in the second half,their resilience left a lot to be desired in the second. However, apoint against their promotion rivals is an admirable effort, andshows promise for the rest of the season, starting with Portrane onTuesday.

DAVID LYDONSTAFF WRITER

DU HOCKEY CLUB: 3RAILWAY UNION: 3

TRINITY ON TOURJonathan Drennann heads to Oxbridge with DUFC

INTERVIEW P22