Sin Volume 14 Issue 9

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FREE STUDENT NEWSPAPER

VOL 14, ISSUE 9

18 FEB 2013

USI hits out on the use of debt collectors in Universities.

By Jenna Hodgins The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has slammed the hiring of debt collectors in colleges to chase down students who have yet to pay their fees.

USI president, John Logue, has spoken out about the “gross insensitivity” of universities and colleges who condone the use of debt collectors on students.

He said; “We condemn these tactics in the strongest terms. These debt collectors serve only one purpose: to intimidate students into coughing up money they simply do not have.”

He went on to say that the “dramatic increase in college fees in recent years […] has seen far too many students drop out

of college” and emphasized that “[students’] work prospects have already taken a hit as a result of not graduating, yet these universities are demonstrating gross insensitivity by employing debt collectors when they should be working with the students to come to a more amicable agreement.”

NUI Galway, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and Dublin City University (DCU) have publicly stated and confirmed that they will not resort to the employment of these debt-collection firms.

A spokesperson for NUI Galway has said; “NUI Galway confirms that it does not use debt collectors and has not taken legal proceedings. The University is sympathetic

to cases of real hardship and operates a Financial Aid Fund for students, which incorporates the Student Assistance Fund managed by the VicePresident for the Student Experience.”

NUI Galway hopes to outsource some sort of fees collection and management, but currently have no intention of creating a debt collection system.

At the support services committee meeting on 27 November 2012, NUI Galway SU President Paul Curley asked for the college to deal with the outsourcing of fees collection in an “appropriate and delicate fashion, and be very sensitive towards the financial situations of the students and their families.”

The University of Limerick (UL) has already hired an agency to collect outstanding fees from students and UCD plan on following the suit.

The universities defend their decisions as necessary for balancing out the on-going financial stress induced by cuts in state funding.

According to The Limerick Post, President of UL, Professor Don Barry said that hiring debtors was “very much a last resort”.

He said; “We are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place in the sense that we have an obligation to collect this charge and the government deducts it from our grants. It is only fair that we treat all our students the same.”

Galway Peace Proms: 4 Songs for peace and unity World News

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Interview: Gavin Duffy 10 Horsemince scandal renders public opinionated

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70 is the new 20

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Men on Trend: How to get the look

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Witless Grand Final

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Movie Reviews

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Do you binge-drink?

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Continued on page 2…

Who said ‘there’s no smoke without fire?’

By James Falconer Students and staff were given an unexpected opportunity to mingle and converse outside the James Hardiman Library this Valentine’s Day. On the 14th, which w a s a T h u r s d a y, t h e smoke alarm went off in the library at approximately 10:15am.

It is believed that the smoke, which spread throughout the library, came from the adjacent construction site (new library).

A member of the library staff said last Friday that “the full facts have yet to be established.”

A full evacuation of the building was carried out by library personnel and the building was completely evacuated

in approximately four ­ inutes. m All the fire marshals were quickly in place and the building was secured and locked. The relevant authorities came on site to investigate the incident.

At 1.30pm they deemed that it was safe to allow both staff and students back into the library.

The library stewards were able to put their regular fire drill training to good use when the alarm went off. Ensuring the safety of library personnel and students is fundamental to the role of ‘the men in blue’.

Representatives from the buildings office, health and safety, security, and the fire office, were all on site within about five minutes, to

access the situation.

Whenever an alarm goes off on campus, these offices are activated straight away.

There was said to be no panic and the evacuation went ahead without any drama or commotion.

Final year student Brian Carey described the scene as follows; “I was downstairs in the Assistive Technology Area when the alarm went off. I smelt the smoke and knew it was time to leave the building.”

Sin: Could you see the smoke?

“Oh yes, I saw smoke.”

What did you think of the response by the library staff?

“They were very quick to react – excellent.”

Continued on page 2…

Nightingale, which was performed by a group of clowns from Croatia, received a great response at the Múscailt Arts Festival. Intrigued? Turn to page 22 for more.

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USI hits out on the use of debt collectors in Universities.

Continued from page 1…

A statement issued by UL said; “As a public body the University of Limerick has a duty to seek to recover outstanding debts.

Students are currently not permitted to graduate with outstanding student fee debt. Having applied a range of debt collection practices, The University of Limerick, like other Irish universities and other public bodies, uses external mechanisms as a last resort in recovering long-standing debts. The University of Limerick currently does not issue legal proceeding over outstanding student fees.”

UCD has already called for prospective debt collecting companies to manage these affairs with a deadline at the end of February.

The USI have announced on Twitter that students of UCD and UL should be aware that there is no financial assistance available for those who fall into arrears.

In a statement, USI acknowledges that third level education has received significant cuts in the recent budget and that they are all “operating on tight budgets”, however, the decision to invest in the help of these external agencies has proved unpopular as it ensues pressure and fear into students and their families.

Disputes have already broken out over the recent increase in the student contribution fee (which is due to rise to €2,500 this September) and they will continue if third level institutions resort to these debt collecting agencies.

Despite the high hopes set for the new system, Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) has failed to prove itself to be a more efficient way of managing student grants. Thousands are still awaiting their grant this late into the academic year.

These contentious issues created by SUSI aren’t only proving difficult with providing maintenance grants, but also for the fee payment system for eligible students. This has left significant numbers of students faced with the dilemma of not having had their fees paid and thus, being subjected to the threat of debt collectors knocking on their doors.

John Logue said that he and the USI call upon the minister for education, Ruairi Quinn to “condemn this practice and to urgently work towards a solution that will provide relief for students in arrears. This issue has arisen as a direct result of his decision to increase fees and cut the maintenance

grant. The Minister owes them some clemency.”

In response to this, the Department for Education has denied any association with the debt collector agencies, claiming that third level institutions are “autonomous bodies”, that they are internally run by the institution and that the department has no control over the institutions’ operational affairs.

Regardless, the department hopes “that institutions deal with students in a sensitive and understanding manner in relation to the payment of any outstanding arrears.”

A spokesperson for the Higher Education Authority (HEA) requests that colleges and universities allow their students to pay their contribution fees in two installments throughout the year to ease financial difficulties.

The consequences for students who are forced into arrears include climbing interest rates and bad credit, which could potentially affect students in the long term when applying for loan or a mortgage in the future.

Some students may have to face barristers knocking on their doors, not because of a fault on their behalf, but due to the ‘mix-up’ with their forms at SUSI.

Who said ‘there’s no smoke without fire?’

Continued from page 1…

Was there an announcement made?

“Yes, the announcement on the intercom was loud, precise and to the point ‘All students are asked to exit the building, and NOT to use the elevators.’”

Well, you know the saying Brian, ‘there’s no smoke

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without fire’, but you didn’t see a fire?

“No, I didn’t see any fire, so it’s a mystery to me and I’d say, to many, as to where the smoke was coming from From what I heard, the majority of the chat from the students was about how long it was before we were allowed back in again, no one came and made an announcement to inform us, we were left standing there guessing.”

All is well that ends well; it’s reassuring to have such great staff looking after our well-being.

The evacuation of the library was an event unrelated to Valentine’s, even though some romantics may like to believe otherwise. If you did manage to make a new friend outside the library, let’s hope that Cupid was on duty, because let’s face it - sparks did fly!!

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RAG Week appeal by GMIT and NUI Galway

By Ruth-Ann Browne Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) has recently issued an appeal to all local bars and nightclubs asking them to refrain from “jumping on the bandwagon” during unofficial Raise And Give (RAG) Week celebrations in Galway city.

Despite the fact that the RAG Week tradition was abandoned by both GMIT and NUI Galway in recent years due to cases of antisocial behaviour and several complaints from angry residents, a campaign has been set up urging Galway students to celebrate RAG week from February 18 to 21.

There were 3,694 followers of the Galway Rag Week 2013 Facebook page, which was set up in late January, before the page was removed from the social network a few weeks ago.

While the organisers of the page added a “disclaimer” that it does

not condone excessive drinking or antisocial behaviour, a previous description of the event called for “carnage” and the cover photo showed scenes from last year’s unofficial RAG Week event in which a flare was set alight outside Supermac’s restaurant in Eyre Square.

President of GMIT Students’ Union, Joe O’Connor, stated that GMIT would not be supporting any unofficial RAG Week event but felt that the college had a “vital role to play” in clamping down on antisocial behaviour, particularly in residential areas.

“We’re not going to put our hands over our eyes and ears and pretend that it’s not happening,” he said.

“If we do have a situation where [the plan for unofficial RAG week] continues to grow and gain traction and there is, in our view, an increased threat and risk,

particularly to the local community in terms of noise pollution and antisocial behaviour, we will be ensuring that the student patrols are intensified over that period and any incidents would be dealt with in the same way as any antisocial behaviour here in the college, in terms of disciplinary measures.”

He also confirmed that preliminary discussions had taken place with local gardaí, who are “aware that this threat does exist” and would be dealing with it “as they see fit”.

A spokesperson for NUI Galway declared that all students had been warned to behave in a manner that does bring discredit to the institution.

“The University Student Code of Conduct clearly states that ‘use of social media to organise, support or contribute to social events associated with the concept of Rag Week’ is in breach of this policy,” she said.

Smarter savings could amount to €12 million

By Sean Dunne An unpublished report on finances at NUI Galway has indicated that NUI Galway could have savings amounting to €12 million. The draft report was leaked last week to the country’s TDs and Senators.

The report entitled ‘Strategic Procurement Plan’ was commissioned

by NUI Galway in 2011.

The 104-page document indicates that the annual non-pay related expenditure at NUIG is approximately €80 million.

According to the report there is wide scope for savings at the university, which is largely financed by public monies.

“Although the data analysed does not facilitate a detailed breakdown

and opportunity analysis of the non-pay spend, our experience from assignments with similar bodies indicates that potential savings of the order of 15%,” it said.

The report, which was conducted by Dublin-based Achilles consultants, found that the procurement activity in NUI Galway ranks in the middle third of the Irish Universities as a group in terms of good practice.

NUI Galway has annual non-pay spend of approximately €80 million euro.

The 104-page document states; “Although the data analysed does not facilitate a detailed breakdown and opportunity analysis of the non-pay spend, our experience from assignments with similar bodies

indicates that potential savings of the order of 15% plus […] are not unrealistic,” it said.

In response to the leaking of the report NUI Galway said; “While NUI Galway engages in collaborative procurement initiatives on a sectorial and national basis, it does so in a piecemeal and adhoc manner with little or no account taken upfront of the potential benefits to the university”.

They added that they are “completely committed to ensuring compliance with public procurement requirements and delivering best value for money on all goods and services purchases.”

It is not yet known whether or not the report will be officially published.

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Editorial

By Jessica Thompson Liking, following and logging on: it’s almost time.

Isn’t the internet great?

Here we can do our research.

Here we can keep in touch with friends who are worlds away. Here we can learn whatever we want to learn.

We can shop, read, watch TV, listen to radio. Really, we can do whatever we want on the internet.

The best kinds of websites are the interactive ones. Facebook pages, Twitter, websites that allow you to leave comments and give your input. Can you guess where I’m going with this?

Yes, we’ve finally ironed out the details, and we’re getting to work on our brand spanking new website. If all goes according to plan, sin.ie will be social media friendly, easy to interact with, and most of all, informative and updated regularly.

If you’re in the library and want to take a break for half an hour, why not go onto our website and see what news we’ve got for you? If you’re interested in writing for Sin, why not log on to the website, contact the editor and submit your work for review? Chances are it’ll be online within 24 hours.

Such is the beauty of online media. Immediacy

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is something I’ve always wanted for Sin. When there was a Gangnam Style mob in NUI Galway’s reading room, there wasn’t much point in Sin reporting on it – it was already all over YouTube and Facebook. It was old news by the time the next issue came out.

When USI President John Logue was arrested for turning his back on TDs a few months ago, it was two weeks later that Sin newspaper got to report on the story. Instead of saying “oh my god, did you see in Sin that the USI President was arrested?” students were reminiscing on the news; “oh yeah, remember when that happened?”

But supposing we had a nice website that you used for all your NUI Galway news? If one of our journalists was on that story immediately, you would say “did the USI President get arrested? Quick, let’s check Sin!” or “Was there a mob in the Reading Room?

Sin should have the video!”

That is what I want for Sin Newspaper, and if I have achieved that by the time this semester is over, I’ll be happy.

We’re all on Facebook these days – or most of us are – and Twitter is just as popular, if not more popular with some students. So why not follow Sin Newspaper?

It’s time to really get the online side of things going.

If you’d like to follow us on Twitter, you can do so by finding @sin_news. I promise we’ll follow back, and I’ll even update our Twitter on a daily basis once we’re all ready to go with sin.ie. That’s a big deal for me, because I rarely use the Tweet-machine.

As for Facebook: when I came on board as editor of Sin, there were a few Facebook pages. One of these was an actual Facebook account that you add as a friend, and I find myself regularly logging on there to accept your many friend requests, but truth be told, I will rarely update it. I log on, accept requests, and then return to my own Facebook account where I can update the official Facebook page.

The second is a Facebook page called “Sin Newspaper”, which has over 400 likes. I have no access to this and have asked the administrator to delete it, so if you have liked this page or any other from before this page, you will not receive any updates.

The Facebook page that I do have access to, and that is the official page for Sin is called “Sin Newspaper, NUI Galway”. I would greatly appreciate it if you

could all take a stroll to the nearest computer, like the Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, and share us around with your friends so we can build our online audience and make sin.ie the online community for NUI Galway news.

When the website has been sorted, perhaps you’d like to contribute? You don’t have to write a story, but you could let us know if something has happened around campus and we can investigate and report it to the rest of the college.

Have you got a comment regarding one of our articles? No longer will you have to close the newspaper and quietly whisper your comment to yourself. Log on and post your comment under the article itself.

Sin.ie is coming, folks.

We can no longer ignore this online media trend.

Until next time, Jess

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NUI Galway celebrates 40 years of the MBA

By Martin O’Donoghue NUI Galway recently celebrated 40 years of its Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme with a conference entitled ‘40 Years A-Growing in Business & Management: Learning from the Past, Leading the Future’.

Organised by the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics, and attended by over 200 MBA graduates on Friday January 25, the conference boasted a panel of 15 national and international contributors from business and academia, a majority of which were MBA graduates.

There was also an address from Professor Jim Doolan, the programme’s first director in 1972. Indeed, Dr Alma McCarthy, MBA Programme Director and event organiser, reflected that she was “struck by the considerable success which our MBA alumni have

Congratulations to Roisin Kelly (pictured here with Dr. Patrick Lonergan) who won our writing competition. Thanks to Dr. Lonergan for judging the competition and also to Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop who donated the prize of a €100 voucher.

achieved in challenging senior management positions nationally and globally.”

The conference featured a number of symposiums focussing on different subjects such as innovation and entrepreneurship, Ireland in the national and international economy, and ethics, governance and leadership, with a broad range of speakers at each.

Liam Bluett of Ballybane Enterprise Centre chaired the innovation symposium, which saw contributions from Joe McBreen, CEO of Celtrak; Jill Holtz, Founder of The Ahain Group; and Connor Flanagan, Director of LotusWorks.

NUI Galway’s own Dr Alan Ahearne and Professor John McHale addressed the symposium on Ireland in the national and international economy, which was chaired

by Brian Molloy, CEO of Orbsen Therapeutics Ltd. The conference also included the Global Mindset symposium, chaired by Dr Emer Mulligan, Head of the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics at NUI Galway.

Dr Mulligan commented on NUI Galway’s reputation as a management centre “as evidenced by two recent national All-Ireland competition wins for MBA programmes on the island of Ireland.”

Over 200 people then attended the black tie gala dinner at the Ardilaun Hotel to celebrate the MBA anniversary, where Dr Leo Smyth, Adjunct Professor of Management at NUI Galway and former MBA Programme Director and Lecturer, gave the keynote dinner address.

Editor: Jessica Thompson | editor@sin.ie Layout: Shannon Reeves | Contact via Ed. News Editor: Marése O’Sullivan | localnews.sined@gmail.com Deputy News Editor: Sean Dunne | nationalnews.sined@gmail.com Features Editors: Órla Ryan. Sean Dunne | features.sined@gmail.com Fashion, Arts & Entertainment Editor: James Falconer | artsentertainment.sined@gmail.com Sports Editor: Mark Higgins | sport.sined@gmail.com Sinners: Ruth-Anne Browne | Paul Browne | Eileen Cameron | Isabella De Luca | Claire Devaney | Hazel Doyle | Sean Dunne | James Falconer | Iosac Gallagher | David Garvin | Ken Glennon | Deborah Greene | Luke Henderson | Mark Higgins | Jenna Hodgins | Emer Hurley | Khai El Baba Jones | Michael Joyce | Jane Kearns | Gillian Keating | Leigh Michael Keeney | Rachel Kelly | Roisin Kelly | Ciara Luke | Austin Maloney | Adam Moore | Niamh O’Connor | Martin O’Donohue | Aine O’Donnell | Michael O’Loughlin | Jonathan O’Rourke | Marése O’Sullivan | Órla Ryan | Mandy Jo Shelton | Sarah Jane Smith | Conor Stitt | Valeri Tarassov | Jessica Thompson | Siobhan Wilcock

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Galway Peace Proms: songs for peace and unity

By Seán Dunne The Galway Peace Proms which attracted more than 2000 Galway school children on Saturday and Sunday, 9 and 10 February, at NUI Galway have called for “unity, peace, harmony and tolerance” to continue North and South of the border.

Speaking at NUI Galway Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland (CBOI) director Sharon Treacy-Dunne spoke of how the recent return to the troubles was worrying and had affected a recent CBOI Belfast workshop.

“The full Belfast workshop was unable to go ahead recently as some schools in The Republic, had been

afraid to travel up,” said Ms Tracy-Dunne. Speaking of the recent violence in Northern Ireland she called the behaviour “absolutely shocking”.

“The core message from the Peace Proms is still peace, unity, harmony, and tolerance. It just goes to show the work has to go on and you have to keep

spreading that message.” she said.

Echoing this sentiment was Tenor Emmanuel Lawler who spoke of the sense of community and unity the CBOI were trying to create especially for the children regardless of religion or political backgrounds.

“The main message of the orchestra obviously, is

for the power of music to unite,” he said.

“It shows a different side and different possibilities,” the tenor said. The sense of community was also shared

by Ireland’s premiere conductor Gearóid Grant who urged the Galway school children to “sing out and enjoy your music”.

The “Peace Proms” phenomenon was conceived and developed by the directors of the CBOI over the past eighteen years. The main idea behind the initiative was to unite young people from both sides and from different communities together on both sides of the border.

The parents of the participating school children in The Peace Prom concerts in NUI Galway spoke of how honoured they were that their children were taking part in something ‘so special’.

One father, Chris McMullen, added; “In terms of the child’s experience it has

opened up a whole new world and put enjoyment back into music.”

Donal Mulligan spoke of his joy of taking part in the concerts this weekend; “Just being able to sit behind an orchestra and being able to sing with them is really cool.” Donal is one of the participating students from St Joseph’s National School Kinvara.

This sense of excitement was shared by Ms Siobhan Gohery, a teacher at Killeeneen National School who said; “The children love the repertoire of participating in The Peace Prom. It raises awareness for the children in a way that they never would have thought of before. It makes them open their eyes to things they wouldn’t have had access to before.”

The Galway Peace Prom concerts were led by Ireland’s Premiere conductor Gearóid Grant and featured tenor Emmanuel Lawler.

Professor Joshi appointed Vice President for Research

USI unveils Women in Society seminar series

By Marése O’Sullivan

By Marése O’Sullivan

NUI Galway has appointed Professor Lokesh Joshi as the new Vice President for Research.

Professor Joshi’s study focuses on the integration of life sciences, chemistry, engineering, medicine and informatics in the discipline of Glycosciences and Bioengineering, with the aim of discovering and developing biomaterials for industrial bioprocessing.

With over 1500 academic and research staff – as well as 1,200 postgraduate research students – at NUI Galway, Professor Joshi’s role will be to lead NUI Galway’s contribution to global research, to represent NUI Galway’s research strategy, priority areas and vast research community both nationally and internationally, and to cement NUI Galway’s place amongst the top research universities worldwide.

Professor Joshi received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Rajasthan in India, and he also completed

a Masters in Zoology there.

He was awarded a British High Commission Fellowship for UK study, which saw him gain a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Bath. He then pursued Post-Doctoral and Research Associate training at Cornell University, New York.

Before joining NUI Galway in 2007 as a Science Foundation Ireland Stokes Professor of Glycoscience and Director of the Alimentary Glycoscience Research Cluster, he worked at Arizona State University (ASU) in the United States as an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the Center for Glycoscience and Technologies in the ASU’s Biodesign Institute. His lab team at NUI Galway includes four researchers from ASU. As Associate Director of the Centre for BioAnalytical Science (CBAS) at NUI Galway, Professor Joshi is frequently involved with co-ordinating the development of bioanalytical technologies for the biopharmaceutical industry.

Professor Joshi stated that he was “honoured” to take on

the role of Vice President for Research.

“I firmly believe that NUI Galway has a unique opportunity to excel in research areas that are relevant to Ireland and the global community, and [I] am convinced that NUI Galway’s excellent research community will quickly adapt to the challenging climate in research funding and continue to be successful,” he said.

President of NUI Galway, Dr. James Browne, declared his enthusiasm for Professor Joshi’s appointment. “I am delighted to congratulate Professor Joshi,” he declared. “As an accomplished and successful international researcher, Lokesh brings a unique and fresh perspective to this vital role. I look forward to working with him to support the continued development of the university’s ambitious research agenda.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Terry Smith for his excellent contribution to the university as Vice President for Research for the last four years.”

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has launched a series of seminars concerning women in society, which will be held all over Ireland in 2013.

The seminars will discuss what it is like to be a woman in this country today and many other topics, like the representation of women in media and politics.

According to USI statistics, women – on average – earn 17% less than men.

Throughout Europe, one third of women have a managerial role. A mere 12% of boards in the biggest publicly-listed companies in the European Union can boast having women as members, while 3% of women chair them.

Less than one quarter of journalists on Irish radio news and current affairs shows are women and only 15% of elected politicians in the 2011 General Election were female. The USI believes that these figures represent the necessity

for a national debate, and that the ‘Women in Society’ seminars will help to “increase dialogue around gender equality issues on campuses across the ­country.”

“We live in a rapidly changing world, characterised by intensive globalisation across cultural, economic, political and social arenas,” stated a representative of NUI Galway’s Global Women’s Studies Department.

“Under conditions of inequality, this poses new challenges for how we rethink and seek to realise democracy, development, equality, human rights, the rule of law and social inclusion, especially in women’s lives.”

The first seminar took place at University College Cork (UCC) on January 28, where speakers such as Deirdre O’Shaughnessy, Editor of the Cork Independent; Fiona Buckley, Lecturer in the UCC Department of Government; and Fiona Finn, CEO of ‘Nasc’, the Irish Immi-

grant Support Centre in Cork, presented their views on women in society.

The second seminar took place at University College Dublin (UCD) on February 7. The speakers included Kathleen Lynch, UCD Professor of Equality Studies; journalist Margaret E. Ward, Founder of ‘Women on Air’; and Michelle O’Donnell Keating, CoFounder of ‘Women for Election’.

Laura Harmon, the USI Vice President for Equality and Citizenship, remarked; “We are excited to be holding these seminars on campuses across the country and we hope that discussions will be generated around gender equality issues and barriers that women face in progressing in their careers.

“These seminars will be a great opportunity for students to hear from successful women who are in leadership positions and to ask them about their experiences. Needless to say, the seminars are open to everyone, regardless of gender.”

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NUI Galway and UL launch L-Drivers have higher passing rate in Galway joint medical academy

By Gillian Keating NUI Galway and the University of Limerick (UL) recently announced the opening of a joint medical academy at Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe.

The academy will provide clinical education to students from the allied universities, bringing together the expertise of two of Ireland’s leading medical schools through shared teaching and facilities.

Since January, 22 medical students from both institutions have carried out a portion of their training at the hospital. It is anticipated that NUI Galway and UL alumni will become junior and senior medical staff there in the future.

Professor Fidelma Dunne, Head of the School of Medicine at NUI

Galway, stated; “Recent investments in staffing and new infrastructure in NUI Galway – including three new buildings for medical research, as well as ground-breaking developments in our research activities – have positioned the [NUI Galway] Medical School as one of the top Schools in the country and we are delighted to offer this unique approach to medical education with University of Limerick to our students.”

The opening of the Ballinasloe Academy will enable the two medical schools to share the premises and academic staff. The Alliance between NUI Galway and UL will give students the opportunity to compare their curricula and enhance their education.

Professor Michael Larvin, Head of UL’s Graduate Entry Medical School, said; “Our expectation is that [the students’] co-existence will lead to great synergy... It will be a wonderful opportunity for both staff and students to learn from each other.”

The NUI Galway – UL Strategic Alliance was established in 2010 and partners the universities in research and teaching. The main objective of the Alliance has been to support the social and economic development of the western region by combining the strength of both universities.

Through their collaboration, NUI Galway and UL can increase the quantity and quality of medical research and teaching, as well as advance their international reputation.

Nominations for teaching awards opened

By Austin Maloney The nominations for the NUI Galway President’s Award for Teaching Excellence 2012-13 are now open.

The aim of the annual awards is to recognise the efforts of the teaching staff to ensure that students receive the best learning experience possible.

Between four and six members of academic staff are awarded for their teaching excellence every year.

Six award winners have gone on to win national teaching awards: the highest number of any higher education institution in Ireland.

Sin spoke with Dr. Sharon Flynn from the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching to find out a little more about the awards and how students could get involved.

What qualities do the awards seek to recognise?

‘Teaching Excellence’ is a broad concept. It may include, for ­e xample a

r­e flective approach to teaching and learning; inspirational, stimulating and imaginative approaches to teaching; and the use of teaching and learning methods [that] encourage students to become independent, critical thinkers fully engaged with the subject matter.

The Awards Panel is made up of eight people, including senior members of the university, lecturers, the Students’ Union Education Officer and an external panel member. Each person approaches the materials from their own teaching perspectives. They will each have their own ideas about what constitutes excellence.

It is impossible to predict the themes that may be considered in any particular year.

When will the awards winners be announced?

Usually the winners are announced in late June, via email, to staff. An announcement will go onto the web page as well. The Award winners are recognised at

an appropriate conferring ceremony in October or November.

So if students want to nominate someone, what should they do?

To make a nomination, download the nomination form on the website. The nomination must come from at least two people, and should include a paragraph or two on why you are proposing this particular person.

The form can be submitted by email direct to bernadette.henchy@nuigalway.ie. The closing date for nominations this year is Friday February 22. After making the nomination, you may be invited to participate in the independent feedback. Make sure to do this and encourage your classmates to give their feedback as well.

More information, including a complete list of rules and regulations, as well as lists of past winners, is available on http://www. nuigalway.ie/celt/.

By Jane Kearns Recent statistics from the Road Safety Authority (RSA) have found that learner drivers who take their test in Galway could have a higher chance of passing.

The results showed that, when compared to the rest of the country, Galway City has a higher than average pass rate of 61.5%.

The average pass rate nationwide is 56%, but 14 of the 33 test centres across the country still managed

to have better pass rates than Galway City.

If doing the test in County Galway, learner drivers have a better chance of passing their test if they sit it in Clifden (64.6%), and even better again if they were to sit it in Tuam (64.7%).

Loughrea, however, has the lowest pass rate for any test centre in Galway City or County at 58.5%.

The findings also reveal that people who take the test in Portlaoise, statistically, have the least chance of passing in the country, at just

42.2%; in contrast, those who sit it in Ennis have the best chance of passing at 70%.

The details of the pass rate by test centre were released by the RSA and relate to tests in 2012.

The authority also announced average wait times for those waiting to do their test. L-drivers will have to wait, on average, nine weeks before they can sit it in Galway; eight weeks in Clifden; and eleven weeks in both Tuam and Loughrea, which is the highest for any centre in the country.

Grants crisis still not resolved despite progress in backlog

By Jessica Thompson Despite progress in the grants backlog, 31 Galway students are still waiting on grants to be processed, while hundreds are still facing hardship.

Labour TD Derek Nolan welcomed the progress made on the grants backlog, saying; “This is very positive news for students and families across Galway as it will provide much needed clarity to those who experienced some delays with the system.”

He added; “I am also delighted to see that over half of all applications submitted to SUSI by Galway students have been awarded. It is clear that strong progress has been made on processing applications and that the initial teething problems with SUSI appear to have been resolved.”

Deputy Nolan confirmed figures received from the Department of Education, which stated that of the 4,566 applications submitted to SUSI this year, 1,004 were incomplete applications which could not be processed.

However, the deputy also confirmed that SUSI is now allowing those whose applications were incomplete to submit outstanding documentation by the end of February.

Students who need assistance with this are encouraged to contact his office at 091-561006.

According to Deputy Nolan; “SUSI was established to effectively provide a one-stop-shop for grant applications, however there were some teething problems during its start-up and implementation.

“Many students I met with had worries about the long waiting times for correspondence, approval and the payment of grants.

I understand an external review of SUSI will now take place to ensure the organisation will not encounter such problems next year and I welcome this undertaking.”

Students who have not sent complete applications to SUSI have a final opportunity to do so by the end of this month.

Students’ Union Education Officer Conor Stitt will be holding an open SUSI clinic for those who have not yet received their grant.

This will be held in AC215 and all are welcome.

If you can’t make this clinic, feel free to contact Conor at su.education@ nuigalwayie.

Funding for eleven research projects, with a total value of over €6 million, has been announced for NUI Galway. (l-r) Dr Thomas Ritter, Professor Paul Murphy and Professor Kevin Sullivan are among those working on the 11 projects funded at NUI Galway. Photo by Aengus McMahon.

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NUI Galway organises privacy law event

NUI Galway announces 2013 Alumni Award winners

By Gillian Keating

By Jessica Thompson

The NUI Galway School of Law will run a symposium on privacy issues on Friday, 8 March 2013.

Entitled ‘Privacy from Birth to Death and Beyond: European and American Perspectives’, the symposium aims to highlight the increasing importance of privacy in an environment where almost everything is done online.

Rónán Kennedy, Director of the LL.M. in Law, Technology and Governance at NUI Galway stated; “The rise in popularity of social networking, image and video sharing sites mean that the regulation of privacy is becoming increasingly complex and challenging, and anyone working on these issues

needs to keep abreast of new developments.”

The event will host a range a speakers from Europe and America. Mr. José Maria Baño, will open the event, discussing the European Court Justiceproposed legislation on ‘The Right To Be Forgotten’.

This legislation could give people the right to demand the removal of embarrassing information that others post about them and selectively delete themselves from the Internet.

Mr. Paul Lambert, Solicitor with Merrion Legal Solicitors and an Adjunct lecturer at NUI Galway, will explore privacy in legal practice in areas including cyber bullying and defamation.

The issue of protecting children’s privacy online will be addressed by Dr.

Sharon McLaughlin from Letterkenny Institute of Technology, in her paper ‘Children & Privacy: Protection v. Participation – A Tangled Web’.

Also speaking at the event is Mr. Damien McCallig, an Irish Research Council Scholar from NUI Galway’s School of Law, to discuss the concept of privacy after death.

Professor Joshua Fairfield of Washington and Lee University will discuss the development of privacy regulation in America. Dr. Ciara Hackett, Queens University Belfast will deliver a Rapporteur’s Report on the conference.

This symposium is organised by the LL.M. in Public Law and the LL.M. in Law, Technology and Governance at the School of Law.

Top film producers scout Galway

By Claire Devaney For the second year in a row, ten leading Dublinbased film producers have scouted Galway as a location.

The ‘Galway Film Showcase’ initiative aims to encourage producers, production managers and location managers to make use of Galway City and County – particularly Kylemore Abbey and the Inagh Valley – in upcoming productions.

The visit was organised by the Galway Film Centre, a non-profit, membersbased association, dedicated to “the development of film as an artistic medium” in the West of Ireland.

Located in the Cluain Mhuire campus of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, the Centre supports the film community with the provision of equipment, training and education. It also collaborated with the City and County Councils to establish the Galway Film Showcase.

The Centre is enthusiastic to promote the varied locations, expertise and facilities of County Galway, and encourages more filmmakers to benefit from the outstanding natural landscape.

The Showcase was inspired by the success of Brendan Gleeson’s The

Guard, the majority of which was filmed in Galway in 2011. Declan Gibbons of the Galway Film Centre declared: “You can sit down and wait for the next Guard to happen or you can go out and try to make it happen!”

Section 481 of the Taxes Consolidation Act promotes investment in Irish film.

International firms who locate in the country are also required to hire Irish producers.

A website maintained by the Galway Film Centre, www.screenwest.ie, is a vital resource for filmmaking in the West of Ireland and provides further information on film production in this part of the country.

The NUIG/GMIT Sub Aqua Club held their annual “Spring Fin” on Saturday 5 February.

For a full report on this trip, go to www.galwaydiving.com. Photo by Adam Moore.

NUI Galway has announced the winners of the 2013 Alumni Awards which are to be presented at the 13th annual Alumni Awards Gala Banquet on Saturday 9 March 2013.

The Gala Banquet is to be presented by RTE’s Gráinne Seoige and will be held in the Baily Allen Hall.

The awards recognise achievements among NUI Galway’s more than 80,000 graduates worldwide. The programme boasts an impressive roll call of 68 outstanding graduates who have gone on to honour their alma mater, including, for example, President Michael D. Higgins.

This year’s awards winners come from across the world as the University celebrates the Gathering 2013.

Speaking of the Awards programme, NUI Galway President Dr. Jim Browne said that the Alumni Awards programme recognises NUI Galway’s alumni who are leaders in their chosen fields.

“These awards celebrate the life-long value of an NUI Galway education and recognise individual achievements among the University’s more than 80,000 graduates worldwide,” he said.

He went on to say; “In this year of The Gathering, we are delighted to

recognise, in a very special way, graduates who have distinguished themselves internationally, and who return to their alma mater from various parts of the globe.

“I congratulate each of the Award winners and look forward to welcoming them back to campus for the Gala Banquet in March.”

This year’s Bank of Ireland award for Business, Public Policy and Law will be awarded to Adrian Jones, of Goldman Sachs.

The award for Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, sponsored by Medtronic, will be awarded to Mary E. D’Alton of the Department Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeouns.

Hugh O’Donnell, deputy CEO and COO Drilling of Saipem Spa, will receive the Bank of Ireland award for Engineering and Informatics.

Meanwhile, Seamus Kavanagh, Vice President of Global Innovation and Technology Debelopment Hollister Incorporated, will be awarded with the Aramark Award for Science.

Finally, the award for Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies, sponsored by AIB will go to Joyce McGreevey, author, and a supervising editor for the Academic Division of National Geographic.

To book tickets for the awards, contact the Alumni Office on 091 493750 or email alumni@nuigalway. ie. Online bookings at www. nuigalway.ie/alumi-friends.

RTE’s Gráinne Seoige, who is an NUI Galway alumnus, will be presenting the awards at this year’s Alumni Awards.

Horse abuse prevalent in Galway

By James Falconer The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) has noted that nearly a quarter of calls they receive about horses in distress come from the Galway area.

For its second successive year, the ISPCA has launched its Hay Drive campaign, which endeavours to raise much-needed funds to prevent the neglect of horses.

There have been almost 400 calls from concerned people in the Galway area, regarding not only horses, but neglected ponies and

foals as well. In many cases these animals have been abandoned, underfed or mistreated.

In over one hundred of these cases, the ISPCA had to intervene and take the animals to their equine centre in County Longford but, in more acute cases, animals have been taken to the ISPCA centre in Ardrahan in County Galway.

This figure has increased from last year and the ISPCA expects the number of cases to rise dramatically in the coming years.

The Hay Drive campaign is trying to reach out to people to assist the ISPCA, and

to feed, care for, and find horses, ponies and foals a new home.

A spokesperson for the ISPCA said that, as a result of the wet summer last year, there has been a problem with feeding many of the animals over the winter, due to hay being fairly scarce.

He said; “This is our second year doing the Hay Drive and every €3 helps provide enough hay to feed one horse for a day.”

If you want to help a neglected horse, the ISPCA website has all the details.

Check out: http://www. ispca.ie/rehoming/horses_ rehoming.

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New ambulance measures to Galway girl ready to compete prevent stroke deaths in World Dwarf Games

By James Falconer A charity-funded ‘Act F.A.S.T’ stroke awareness campaign is to be launched by the Irish Heart Foundation, which will see ambulances publicise the symptoms of a stroke in an effort to reduce the number of stroke deaths.

The initiative is Ireland’s first ever advertisement campaign using emergency vehicles.

The project was launched at St Mary’s Hospital in Dublin. It aims to revive the ‘Act F.A.S.T.’ campaign, which has contributed to an increase of over 400% in the numbers of stroke patients receiving potentially life-saving clot-busting treatment – known as thrombolysis

– since its launch just over two years ago.

A stroke is a condition in which the brain cells suddenly die because of a lack of oxygen. This can be caused by an obstruction in the blood flow, or the rupture of an artery that feeds the brain. The patient may suddenly lose the ability to speak, there may be memory problems, or one side of the body can become paralyzed.

The two main types of stroke include ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke; ischemic strokes account for about three-quarters of all strokes and they occur when a blood clot, or thrombus, forms, which then blocks blood flow to part of the brain.

In Ireland, around 10,000 people suffer a stroke every year and about 2,000 of these people die as a result. The F.A.S.T. signs are: Face – has the face fallen on one side? Can they smile? Arms – can they raise both arms and keep them there? Speech – is their speech slurred?

Time – time to call 999/112 if you see any one of these signs. If you seek further information on stroke symptoms, treatment, or have been affected by a stroke, see www.stroke.ie or talk to an Irish Heart Foundation nurse in confidence on the National Heart & Stroke Helpline on 1890 432 787.

Lack of bus-parking facilities results in a decrease in visitors

By Jane Kearns Galway is losing up to 2,000 visitors a week during peak season due to a lack of adequate bus and coach parking in the city centre.

The current parking for tour buses in Galway is outside the cathedral, but The Galway City Business Association (GCBA) has complained that the tour coach parking facilities at the Cathedral are too far away from the city centre which is deterring tours from visiting the city.

GCBA fear that as many as 30 buses per week could be staying away from Gal-

way because of the distance from the shops and city centre attractions to the drop-off point at the Cathedral.

GCBA recently met with city councillor Niall McNeils to discuss the issue and it was decided that €25,000 will be spent by Galway City Council’s Galway Transportation Unit to carry out a study on possible locations for tour buses to park and drop-off closer to the city centre.

The money will be used to determine whether it is possible to provide tour bus parking facilities at Merchant’s Road Eyre Square, or somewhere else closer to the city centre.

When asked about the issue Councillor McNeils said; “we could be losing up to 2,000 visitors a week.

That’s not an outrageous number when you consider there could be 80 people on some coaches. Galway Cathedral is too far away from the city centre for tour operators; it is too far away for people to walk, particularly tours with elderly American visitors or the elderly from the UK. These are the types of tourists we should be attracting but they won’t come unless we provide drop-off facilities nearer the city centre where the shops and restaurants are located.”

By Jane Kearns Galway teenager Sinead Keon is your average Transition Year student, but she has some very big ambitions when it comes to sport.

The 15 year old is currently training and fundraising to compete in the 2013 World Dwarf Games in Michigan, USA, and the United Kingdom Dwarf Games in Birmingham.

Sinead, who is a member of the Little People of Ireland Organisation, has a restricted growth condition known as Achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism. She is just one of three young people in Galway to have the condition.

Sinead is just four feet tall, and is unlikely to

grow more than a half a foot further. The top of her legs and the top of her arms are short; her reach is very restricted.

Sinead hasn’t let her condition hold her back though; when she’s not attending school in the Mercy College in Woodford, she is training for the upcoming games.

Sinead started playing sports just over a year ago when she joined the Galway Speeders, a sports club for children with a physical disability, and has since competed in national competitions, in table tennis and field athletics.

She also won the NGB Grand Prix Best Newcomer Award in Field Athletics and came first in all her events: javelin, discus and

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NUI Galway’s Mountaineering Club held a fundraising raffle at their Christmas party in aid of COPE, and raised €200. (L-R) Claire O'Grady (COPE Galway), Jennifer Cunningham, Padraig Kerins, Mary O'Shea, Piaras O'Giobuin, James O'Connell (NUIG Mountaineering Club).

shot put.

Her love for sport spurred her on to compete in the upcoming Dwarf Games in the USA and the UK, and her ultimate ambition is to compete in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, Brazil.

“My disability has made it difficult for me to compete in any type of sport in my local community or in school, but with the help of Irish Wheelchair Association Sport, a whole new life has opened up for me,” she says. “ T h e Wo r l d D w a r f Games held in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2009 – and, more recently, the Paralympics in London – has inspired me to represent Ireland in Michigan in August 2013.”

re We a the n o ted ence loca i

/Sc Arts course Con Smokey to next s Café Joe'

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w orld N e w s

Pope resigns suddenly

By James Falconer Pope Benedict XVI shocked much of the world when he resigned his position as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The German pontiff left the Catholic Church reeling when he said he would step down – the first Pope to do so since the middle ages.

There was no lead up to the announcement, which will see the 85-year-old retire to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer retreat near Rome, and will subsequently live in a cloistered monastery.

In his statement he said he wanted to “devotedly serve the holy church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”

In an address read out

in Latin before a group of cardinals in the Apostolic Palace, the Pope said he had decided that due to his “advanced age” and deteriorating strengths, he would be stepping down as head of the Catholic Church on 28 February.

Luke Doyle, a seminarian from Kansas studying at the American College in Rome, said he was saddened by the news. But, he added; “This decision by the holy father fills me with admiration for him, and a deeper respect.”

However, Norbert Denef, from north Germany, who was abused as a boy by his local priest for six years and was later, offered €25,000 (then £17,000) by his diocesan bishop to keep quiet, said; "We won't miss this pope."

Two King Cheetah cubs born in Tama Zoo Japan

By Valeri Tarassov Staff of Tama Zoo in Japan were delighted last month when 5 cheetah cubs where born.

They were even more delighted to see that two out of five cubs are king cheetah.

Only a couple of dozen of these types of cheetah exist in captivity in the whole world.

King cheetah is a cheetah that, due to genetic mutation, is characterized by the spots on its fur flowing together in lengthwise lines along their backs; three other cubs were born with normal spots.

The mother of these cubs is a 9 year old cheetah imported from SouthAfrica called Sumire. She gave birth to a female king cheetah 2 years ago.

She is believed to be carrying the rare mutated gene even though her own fur is normal.

The Tama Zoo will start showing their two newborn rare cubs and their siblings next month when the weather is warmer. For now, we wish these five cute kittens good health and luck with bringing joy in to this world.

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Louvre artwork vandalised

Richard III’s bones found after five centuries

By Jenna Hodgins

By Marése O’Sullivan

A 28-year-old woman has been arrested and charged with defacing Eugène Delacroix's iconic painting, ‘La Liberté guidant le peuple’, otherwise known as ‘Liberty Leading the People’.

The 183-year-old masterpiece was on display at a branch of the Louvre Museum that only recently opened in the old mining town of Len in northern France. The attack occurred on Thursday February 7, just before the museum closed at 6pm.

The painting commemorates the July Revolution of 1830 and the fall of Charles X in France.

It depicts a female personification of Liberty holding the tricolour flag of the French Revolution.

It was the image on the one hundred franc banknote before the Euro currency switchover.

A spokesperson for the museum stated that the integrity of the painting “has not been affected”, as the inscription was “superficial” and “remained on the varnished surface without reaching the layer of paint.”

The graffiti should be “easily” removed. However, a restoration expert must

examine the painting before any decisions can be made.

The vandal was caught and detained by security immediately after scribbling on the 325cm by 260cm work of art. Local prosecutor, Philippe Peyroux, has spoken about the woman in custody as “unstable” and that she may require a psychiatric examination.

Police have not yet revealed her identity.

The woman is said to be associated with the 9/11 Truth Movement, made up of individuals who dispute the accepted explanation behind the attacks on 11 September 2001, in the United States.

According to the French media, the 12-inch scrawl clearly referenced the widely believed 9/11 conspiracy theory amongst ‘truthers’.

However, the Truth Movement has denied any direct connection with the painting’s damage: “We do not know if this act of vandalism was done in reference to our organisation. Whether or not this is true, [we] condemn and deplore the defacing of this priceless work of art and all public and private property.”

Women can now wear trousers

By Jenna Hodgins Women in Paris, France, can now legally.

The 200-year-old ban on women wearing trousers was implemented in November 1799 and has finally been lifted this month.

The law has been altered since the nineteenth century, but only to allow women to wear trousers while “holding a bicycle handlebar or reins of a horse.”

Otherwise, women would have to seek a special order from the police to wear “men’s clothing.”

During the French Revolution of 1789-1799, working-class female revo-

lutionaries turned their backs on the typical aristocratic fashion of the day – silk breeches or “culottes” – and earned themselves the name “sans-culottes” for wearing trousers.

However, their efforts to formally gain the right to wear trousers proved to be unsuccessful; the law was revoked but never formally abolished.

Madame Najat VallaudBelkacem, the French Minister for Women’s Rights who campaigned for the formal abolishment of this archaic law, stated that it was “incompatible with the principles of equality between women and men [that are] listed in the Constitution.”

After more than five centuries of remaining undiscovered, the potential remains of King Richard III were finally confirmed to be his earlier this month.

The royal bones had been uncovered in a 2012 excavation of a car park by a team of archaeologists from the University of Leicester, in association with the Leicester City Council and the Richard III Society.

However, the mystery that surrounded the actual location of the king’s hasty burial cast doubt over whether the skeleton was really his, as Greyfriars Church – where he had been laid to rest – had been demolished during the reign of King Henry VIII. After thorough examinations by the university – using radiocarbon dating evidence, historical reports of his appearance, bone analysis, and an evaluation of Richard III’s mitochondrial DNA in

comparison to two living maternal line descendants of his elder sister, Anne of York – the researchers were able to authenticate the discovery of the last Plantagenet king’s remains beyond reasonable doubt.

Richard III was 32 years old when he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and was the last English king to die in battle. The findings revealed that he died from a trauma to the back of his head, and was likely to have been killed by one of two fatal injuries to his skull, possibly from a sword and halberd.

The lead archaeologist in the search for Richard III’s remains, Richard Buckley of the University of Leicester, declared; “It has been an honour and privilege for all of us to be at the centre of an academic project that has had such phenomenal global interest and mass public appeal. Rarely have the conclusions of academic research been so eagerly awaited.”

Voters decide on new Monopoly token By Áine O Donnell Everyone’s favourite property game has gained a new token in the form of a cat, which will replace the iron token.

Fans from all over the world voted up until Friday February 5 on each token’s fate. The cat is the first new addition since the dog and wheelbarrow were added in the 1950s.

This was the first time in the game’s history that fans had an input in the game, choosing to vote for one of five proposed new tokens that would be added: a diamond ring, a helicopter, a guitar, a robot and, the

eventual victor, a cat.

Fans were also asked to vote for which of the current tokens would be replaced with the new token. The iron, a token since the game’s invention in the 1930s, was the least popular option and will no longer be a Monopoly game piece.

Fans from over 120 countries voted to save their favourite Monopoly pieces in a tough contest, with the shoe and the wheelbarrow narrowly being saved in the final hours of voting. The cat token will be expected to pass ‘GO’ sometime later this year.

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New Public

LGBT and Sport Other sports have accepted it; why is football any different?

There is a general culture of acceptance that exists towards homophobia in football. The Football Association in the UK have fully pledged to support any player who openly admits to being gay. But is this enough? Over the years many “straight” footballers have been ‘outed’ by the media and have suffered homophobic abuse from players and fans.

Football is a macho world.

From the lads going down to watch the game in the

of being a football fan is defining yourself against your rivals, in a far more Football: visual way than most other the final taboo sports. This manifests as chants and banter on the These days the acronym terraces using any target LGBT isn’t far from people’s available. An openly gay lips. Whether it is negative player would be a gold or positive, Lesbian, Gay, mine to rival supporters.

Bisexual and Transgender The sport needs to take a issues grace our newspapers leaf out of the women’s daily. The LGBT movement game where LGBT women has overcome many obstaare lauded for their skill cles in the last few decades, and not taunted for their but it is still a taboo subject sexuality. in mainstream sport; parClubs need to work ticularly in football. with the FA to create an Not since 1990 has any atmosphere of tolerance, professional football player from the dressing room been brave to the terraces. enough to pubFootball is a macho world.

Campaigns such licly “come out”. as the “Kick It Justin Fashanu Out”, an antiFrom the lads going down faced backlash homophobia from many of campaign, have to watch the game in the his peers for this started the ball decision, with rolling but there pub to the hooligan who is one manager is a long way to refusing to let go. only there to cause trouble, him train with Will we see his team as he an openly gay it is a man’s game. was homosexfootballer in this ual. His brother publicly pub to the hooligan who decade? Probably not. It disowned him and tab- is only there to cause trou- will take a brave person to loids fabricated many ble, it is a man’s game. The step forward from the shadstories about him. In 1998 atmosphere on the pitch ows. They will have their Fashanu was accused of and in the stands is tough. football career over-shadsexually assaulting a sev- It’s built around the stere- owed by their sexuality and enteen year old. In May of otype of the strong, brave will become an ambassador that year he hung himself. aggressive male. If a player to the gay community in He left a note stating that was to “come out” the the world’s biggest sport. he didn’t want to embar- football association would That is a huge burden to rass his family any more. not be prepared enough bear. It will most likely be Football failed him. to respond to instances of an established name who Two decades on from anti-gay abuse. has had a full career and what should have been These days it seems to has nothing to lose. I look a crucial moment in the be the media that keeps forward to the day when history of the game noth- professional footballers in an openly gay player puts ing has changed. The the closet. A professional on his team’s jersey and recent responses to stars player admitting he is gay walks out onto the pitch in other sports have been will make huge headlines to cheers from both sets of very different. In 2009 around the world. It won’t fans like any other player.

Welsh rugby star Gareth be long before the media Unfortunately this might Thomas “came out”. The will be rummaging in his not happen any time soon. response he got was very bins trying to unearth juicy Coincidentally, the day positive and he has now stories and connect him before publication, Amerbecome an icon for young with everybody under the ican Footballer Robbie gay people. Various other sun. Unfortunately he will Rogers came out as gay, sports men and women be judged by his sexuality and has the full support of such as Donal Og Cusack and not his skill. his former team members. (hurling) and Steven Davies Another thing deterring Robbie has decided to step (cricket) have chosen to do players is the vile abuse away from football and the same in recent years; to they would be subjected discover a life away from mainly positive responses. to from the terraces. Part the sport.

By Paul Browne, GiG Soc

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OPINION: Scottish independence: United Kingdom no more?

By James Falconer

Alex Salmond think again, and now the favoured approach is to remain part of the sterling area, at least for the time being.

There appears to be a lot of fence jumping going on in the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). A clear example of this is Salmond’s new policy which commits an independent Scotland to membership of NATO, but without any nuclear weapons in Scotland. This is a complete U-turn for the SNP and one which saw some of its key members resign as a matter of principle.

NATO is responsible for tens of thousands of innocent deaths, some of which were Scots serving in armed forces. One might speculate that this is morally acceptable to the SNP as long as they get independence. The SNP seem to be trying to cosy up to the United States in search of investment and security, they certainly aren’t the first! What kind of bearing would Scottish independence have on the island of Ireland?

land Peter Robinson said that; “It is hard to envisIn 2014, Scotland will age a majority of people have a referendum to in Scotland voting to end the Union when there is decide if they want to no longer even a majority become an independent of Catholics in Northern country, or remain in Ireland that would vote to the UK. Scotland’s staend it.” tus within Europe has He went on to add; “It also come into question regarding the possibility would not alter Northern of independence. More Ireland’s desire to maintain the link with England precisely, Scotland will and Wales.” be voting on whether H o w e v e r, i t w o u l d it will give its devolved government a mandate to very likely alter England's negotiate independence. desire to continue paying H o w e v e r, e x a c t l y billions of pounds every year to keep Ireland parwhat form this protitioned. It is important posed separation takes to remember that Mr remains ambiguous and Robinson comes from it is widely expected to remain so until the elevthe platform of “No, no, enth hour. On a recent no, never” to cross border bodies, power-sharing and trip to Edinburgh, I appeasement of Sinn Féin. asked many people how they felt about the prosNever say never, Mr Robpect of independence inson!

Scots may be less proand the responses were independence than they mixed. Some thought it was a great idea and were are anti-England/Tory; enthusiastic about the Salmond has said that possibility of breaking the everyone in an independlink with England. Others ent Scotland would have were more sceptical, fearthe right to a home and a ing economic insecurity free education. These are and isolation. attractive promises which Some major politicians tend issues still have Democracy is often more to make preto be addressed. referendum.

T h e p e r c e n t - successful in smaller countries, H o w e v e r , age of national democracy is debt with which where each representative often more they’ll be sadsuccessful in dled [Scottish is directly accountable smaller countries, where each banks were bailed out with representative is to their constituents tens of billions] directly accounthas to be considered, and There have already been able to their constituents. also exactly what share of signs of insecurity from It would have a better revenues from oil in the Unionists in the north of chance of success in an North Sea actually belongs Ireland. They have held independent Scotland of to them. These questions protests outside a Scottish 5 million as opposed to will culminate in a nerv- office as they realise that a United Kingdom of 65 ous apprehension relating an independent Scotland million. to the financial position in would not only disband A ‘Yes’ vote in the referwhich the country will be the United Kingdom, but endum next year will only left, post-independence. also isolate them and give enable the SNP to initiate Do Scottish nationalists fresh impetus to those a viable programme to believe that the solution seeking a united Ireland. attain independence. The lies in joining the Euro? Is Recently, Sinn Fein implications of an indethere such a big difference president Gerry Adams pendent Scotland could in having one’s monetary has put some pressure be very interesting for policy delegated to Lon- on Unionists by demand- politics and economics don or Frankfurt instead? ing a border poll on the on this island. But, would The severity of the Euro- constitutional future of it really bring about drazone crisis has made Northern Ireland. First matic changes? Time will Scottish First Minister Minister of Northern Ire- certainly tell.

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INTERVIEW: Gavin Duffy, Dragon’s Den

By David Garvin Gavin Duffy, entrepreneur, radio and TV personality and “dragon” on Rte’s Television programme Dragons Den discusses emigration, the best business advice he ever heard, abstinence from drinking and smoking and how to pull women out of your league sober.

I meet Gavin in a private function room at a packed Roscommon racecourse.

I am by no means at all the only reason that he is there, he is just after giving a talk to a group of local business people, entrepreneurs and suits and the rapturous applause after the speech suggests that the group has received some return on the €60 per head entry fee.

When I greet him, I am left in no doubt that the man has a strong presence, an intoxicating draw to him, his handshake is firm and he seems to have that sought-after ability to make the person that he is speaking to feel important.

I conduct the interview with the aid of my older brother and only mention both our names in passing at the beginning; it is enough for him to remember, even after speaking to a room full of people. It is a golden rule from the business teachings of Dale Carnegie. Remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language. Gavin has it off to a tee.

So, you say go?

Yeah, but I don’t mean that in a negative way. Sorry this sounds terribly negative but why would you stay?

This country is badly debt-burdened, and I am very positive I’m staying in this country as I have kids. But if I was young free and single? Yeah, why not?

Why wouldn’t I be in Canada or Australia and gaining all of that experience?

I’m speaking to you as a 52-year-old; our fathers and mothers worked very hard. We got an education, we creI read on your RTE profile ated this great economy from a third that you set up a radio world country to a first world counstation employing 20 people try and then we cocked it up because at the age of 18. What advice Irish people suffer from an excess gene. would you give to students We can’t stop and now were suffering leaving college and setting up from the hangover. And do you want business for the first time?

Well I would say to people while they to be around for the hangover? I’d find are in college to consider setting up a out where the next party is and if it’s in China I’d be business while you are in college.

I started scoring way out there.

If you make a few bob extra, but of my league. With my I read in an gosh, if you could article that get anything from acne and everything I dated you don’t a paper round up, drink or the joy of working Patricia Warren who went smoke... what for yourself and do you like to be able to go off on to become Ms Ireland. do to relax? and be independI never drank ent is something very important. We all ever and I’ll tell you why. When I was have to be able to sell ourselves and our a teenager I was [ugly]. I noticed that services in the future so just being well if I was I was going to discos as they qualified isn’t good enough anymore. I were in our day and If I went across would say to people get involved in busi- and asked a girl for a dance and had ness as soon as you can. a bit of a joke with her and […] you know when you don’t have the looks you have to make up for it in personalWhat is the best piece of business ity. She would say “oh you’re very funny advice you have ever received?

What I would say to students setting up you must have had a few drinks” and a business is that... it sounds like a play I would say “I don’t drink” and then on words or a cliché... geography is his- suddenly these very good looking girls tory and what I mean by that is with the would latch on, so I started scoring way internet you don’t have to be based in a out of my league. certain place anymore; you’re now in a You’re a good-looking guy, but me global market. Never worry where you are with my acne and everything… I dated located.

Patricia Warren who went on to become The best piece of business advice I have Ms Ireland. Would you drink when you ever received was from a fellow called Sean were just beginning [to do well with O’Riordan about 20 years ago. He said; girls]? I got to 21 or 22 and realised I “Gavin, however how good the business genuinely didn’t need it. idea you have, within 6 months of launching it you’ll find you’re going to have to And to relax? move to the left of it or the right of it.”

I like horses. I like show jumping.

Even if you’re doing all of the research you I really should have done more with know people want more of that than that horseracing. When a horse wins grand and you move quickly through it. nationals it gets millions; to win a showjumping competition you get a hundred Euros. It’s a silly sport but I love it...

It is well known that you are being self employed I can still take a part owner of HRM recruitment, long holiday if I want to. I take fairly one of Ireland’s largest players extravagant, lavish holidays in the recruitment industry.

What advice would you give to Westport or somewhere like that? students looking for work in a (laughs) Last Summer I went to Candifficult economic climate?

This is going to make me sound cun, Mexico and I have been to Morzine unpopular with the Mums and Dads but in France with the family.

“

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”

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The abortion debate: How did we get here?

By Deborah Greene

Debates about abortion have been underway for many years in Ireland and in many other countries around the world. Abortion is one of those few issues that require individuals to take a moral standpoint. Those in favour of abortion on demand have been labelled prochoice, while those who oppose abortion have been dubbed pro-life.

Both sides have been campaigning and arguing their point for some time.

A constitutional and outright ban on abortion was signed into law in Ireland in 1983.

However, there have been five other referendums on abortion in the thirty years since. At present, abortion is illegal in Ireland, unless it is performed to save the life of a mother. Following the death of Savita Hallapanavar in October, there has been huge

pressure placed on the government to finally introduce legislation for the ‘X case’.

Just over 20 years ago, a fourteen year old girl travelled to England with her family to have an abortion. She was pregnant as the result of being raped and had spoke of suicidal thoughts because of the unwanted pregnancy.

While in England, the family contacted Gardaí in Ireland to ask if DNA from the aborted foetus could be considered evidence against the man accused of rape as he was denying responsibility for the crime.

The Attorney General at the time sought a High Court injunction to prevent the girl having an abortion as it was illegal under The Constitution. The High Court granted the injunction but this decision was overturned shortly afterwards by the Supreme Court which led to what is now known as the

‘suicide clause’. It was decided that suicide is a ‘real and substantial risk to the life of the mother,’ and so, pregnant women who are found to be suicidal can now legally obtain an abortion in Ireland.

Later that year, a referendum took place in which three amendments to the constitution regarding abortion were proposed. The first of these amendments was to prohibit abortion in cases where the risk to the mother’s life was by suicide. It failed, allowing abortion in cases where a pregnant woman may commit suicide because of the pregnancy. The other two amendments concerned the right to travel and the right to information, both of which were passed. Subsequently, pregnant women are entitled to information about abortion services and are allowed to travel to countries where abortion is legal.

In 2010, another Irish high profile case concerning abortion came to light. Three women known only as A, B and C had travelled to the UK for abortions. Following their abortions, they brought a case to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that their human rights had been violated in Ireland. They believed, among other things, that their right to privacy had been breached and that they had been subjected to humiliating and degrading treatment.

All complaints were dismissed except one.

The court found that C’s right to privacy had been violated as it was not clear where she could go to access an abortion if she believed that her pregnancy was life threatening. The significance of this case is that Ireland would have to clarify the circumstances in which an abortion may be carried out to save the life of a

pregnant woman.

The Irish government have so far failed to clarify this information. However, the issue arose again in October 2012 when an Indian woman named Savita Hallapanavar died in an Irish hospital as she was not permitted to have an abortion. Following her death, Ms Hallapanavar has become a symbol of the necessity to legislate for the X case.

Ms Hallapanavar sought medical attention when she suffered back pain on 21 October last year. She was admitted to hospital as it was believed she was miscarrying. She passed away a few days later after suffering septicaemia and multi-organ failure.

Her death led to nationwide protests with many people calling on the government to legislate for the ‘X case’.

S a v i t a ’s h u s b a n d , Praveen Hallapanavar, firmly believes that if she’d had an abortion

she would not have died.

He alleged that doctor’s refused to carry out a termination even though Savita had repeatedly requested it as ‘It’s a Catholic country.’ An inquiry was set up in November to investigate the case. However, Mr Hallapanavar has said he has ‘no faith’ in the seven member panel set up by the HSE to investigate Savita’s death.

In response to the protests after Savita’s death, the Minister for Health, James Reilly confirmed that the government intend to introduce legislation for the ‘X case’. “[…] we will clarify in legislation and regulation what is available by way of treatment to a woman when a pregnancy gives rise to a threat to a woman’s life,” he said.

It has been speculated by politicians and the media that a referendum may be necessary in order to introduce such legislation.

What have we lost in losing Hitchens?

By Jonathan O'Rourke

Whether you like him or loathe him, Christopher Hitchens is regarded as one of the most influential figures in modern media. Renowned, if not infamous, for his bohemian love of tobacco and whiskey, his work was controversial both for its anti-conformist anarchism and its targeting of culture's most revered icons.

“

being, as he called her, a "lying, thieving, Albanian dwarf".

However, for all his anti-conformism, Hitchens was no libertine. To the right wing, he was an intolerable contrarian, whose eidetic command of prose and rhetoric made many declines his invitation to debate. For those on the left, he was a traitor whose support for the Iraq war was, as they saw it, an outrageous

There were many who deemed his

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death an act of God as he was killed by the organ with which he blasphemed.

In twelve books and five essay collections he sought, in typically erudite and confrontational style, to trial Henr y Kissinger, destroy the American idolatry for the Kennedys and even, much to Catholic dismay, expose Mother Teresa for

abandonment of both principle and belief.

For this reason, it is perhaps impossible to label Hitchens neatly in partisan terms. What constituted his body of work, be it politically right or left, was his indefatigable effort to combat those

institutions he deemed as totalitarian, unjust and criminal. He picked his fight against those he saw as liars and bullies, and paid no heed to however society beatified them.

S a d l y, f o l l o w i n g an aggressive form of o e s o p h a g e a l c a n c e r, Hitchens passed away just over a year ago, in December 2011.

So what have we lost by losing Hitchens? There were many people, who disdained the obituaries he had written for his enemies, who were more than happy to write his death notice.

Indeed there were many, particularly in religious circles, who deemed his death an act of God as he was killed by the organ with which he blasphemed. In an interview with Jeremy Paxman shortly before the end of his life, his response to this criticism was typically erudite (a feature of

his wit now known as a ‘Hitchslap’).

"There were many more organs with which I blasphemed, if it comes to that," he quipped.

He was more than familiar with such comments. Following the fatwa issued in 1989 for Salman Rushdie, a close friend of Hitchens, he moved into the frontline of the modern Atheist movement. The publication of God is Not Great, Hitchens - like Rushdie, Harris and Dawkins received much criticism from both religious groups and what he dubbed, "the tepid, western left" for his confrontational attitude on religion and blasphemy.

His diagnosis, and the bleak prognosis it came with, left many of his critics wondering if the prospect of death had altered his opinion; whether he had come to understand the religiosity

of those who are scared to die. The ordeal, perhaps unsurprisingly, had changed his opinion little. Typically stoic to the last, he remarked in the same Paxman interview that, "The fear [of death] is not that the party stops, the party goes on. You just gotta leave. [sic]" It is unsurprising therefore to the Hitchens reader that no deathbed conversion took place.

To his debaters, he was a stubborn contrarian who won his audience through sardonic humour and eloquence. In reality however, the work of Hitchens demonstrates precisely the pursuit of reason he felt was exemplified by Paine, Jefferson and Orwell.

He wrote prolifically and perpetually illustrated his willingness to challenge the claim of hypocrisy. When criticised for his belief that waterboarding failed to constitute torture, he

accepted an invitation to try it. When he concluded that it was in fact tortuous, he retracted his belief in the face of evidence and admitted his fault.

Reason and logic were his beliefs and the prospect of death only strengthened his conviction.

So what have we lost in Hitchens? Aside from the political journalist, the polemicist, the contrarian or the wit, what else could we have lost in a man with more enemies than most nations? In the year following his death, the vacuum opened by his absence is one of a bohemian intellect, undeterred and unconvinced by society’s unquestioning assumptions about those it beatifies. Unless political journalism gets very fortunate in the near future, then it is perhaps this tradition that has been most negatively impacted by the death of Hitch.

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OPINION: RIP Garda Adrian Donohoe

By Niamh O'Connor January 25 was a dark day for me. As someone who has a family member in the Gardaí, the killing of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe made me imagine how I would feel if my own relative had been harmed in such an incident.

I thought about the closure of 95 Garda stations that happened in the days after this horrific attack. What if my relative had been called to a similar situation to the one in which Garda Donohoe lost his life, but with even less resources than he had?

What about myself? What if I, or any other student, felt unsafe to go outside due to less security on the streets?

On the last day of his life, Garda Donohoe arrived at Lordship Credit Union in Co Louth to aid staff who were transferring money to a bank in Dundalk. His assigned firearm was in his pocket. He was flanked by his colleague Det Garda Joe Ryan, not knowing what the next few seconds had in store for him.

As he stepped out of his car, he was greeted by a masked man - not with words but with a short, sharp

blast to the front of his head.

He had no chance. His gun remained in his pocket, untouched.

His colleague was held at gun-point, his firearm still in his own pocket. He must have been terrified as he watched his friend lying dead on the floor. Panic and fear would have swept through him and the others who were present. What now for his colleague’s young family – how would they manage? The thieves didn't just steal cash; they robbed a wife of her husband and two children of their father.

In this moment, Garda Ryan probably also feared for his own life. As the masked gang were shouting their demands, he would have wanted to do whatever he could to calm the situation with as little bloodshed as possible, but, as he was at gunpoint, there was little he could do.

The men proceeded to steal the paltry sum of €4,000, leaving as much as €40,000 behind at the scene.

Following the robbery, the gang left the Credit Union and scrambled into a dark Volkswagen Passat that was left poised to flee. The car

was later found burnt out in Ceady in south Armagh.

Gardaí, who are liaising with the PSNI in their investigations, say that at least five men were involved in the robbery. They believe a cross-border gang suspected of carrying out a previous armed robbery on the credit union in 2011 could have been involved in the murder.

Thousands of mourners attended Garda Donohoe's funeral on January 30, including some 2,500 uniformed members of the Gardaí. Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has urged anyone with information

to come forward to help in bringing those responsible to justice.

The murderers did not just attack one man; they attacked the State and its entire police force. Members of the wider community, including students at NUI Galway, should be extra vigilant and look out for one another even more following this tragic incident and the closure of so many Garda stations.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and the rest of the Government must realise that Garda resources cannot be stretched any further.

OPINION: Cuts in health and education, but money for new submarines and F15s

By James Falconer While visiting Athens and Rome recently, I took the opportunity to speak to people about the calamity of the situation in Greece, and the problems facing Italy. Under the shadow of the mighty Acropolis, many people seemed aware that they’ve been set up and I read the statement “We are the slaves of Europe” sprayed on walls around Athens. How did Greece get into this mess?

Did the seeds to their current economic problems predate their entry in to the Euro? Was Greece fit to join the Euro?

Greece was certainly not ready to join the Euro when it did. It was US investment bank Goldman Sachs, who

organised and facilitated a series of transactions intended to deceive the people of Greece and the rest of Europe, by giving the appearance that Greece met the convergence criteria required to join the Euro.

The transactions concerned were a series of off market derivative contracts. One might wonder why there were no prosecutions for these immoral and fraudulent transactions, both among the Greek politicians who agreed to them and Goldman Sachs staff who knowingly facilitated them. Moreover, why is Goldman Sachs allowed to continue to do business in the Eurozone given that it has facilitated transactions intended to deceive and

manipulate the economic and financial system of the European Union?

While taking part in a demonstration to the House of Parliament I spoke to a number of people from the health-care sector that had organised the march.

There was major concern about the closure of hospitals on the islands and the amalgamation of hospitals on the mainland. Jobs are being axed in health-care and lives are being put into grave danger.

I discovered that there’s a protest by different public sectors almost every day in the Greek capital. Public health-care, education and transport workers take turns in 24 hour strikes in protest against the government’s implementation of the

Dr Martina Prendergast, Strategic Development Manager of the Ryan Institute at NUI Galway, speaks with Tony Juniper author of the new book What Has Nature Ever Done for Us – How Money Really Does Grow on Trees. Juniper was at the University on 31 January to deliver the keynote address at the ENVIRON2013 conference. Photo by Aengus McMahon.

Troika’s austerity policies.

Transport workers walked off their jobs to demonstrate opposition to the new pay cuts and push the government to reconsider the austerity measures.

Health-care centres and hospitals operate on emergency staff as doctors and nurses go on strike to protest against shortages in staffing and poor working conditions. The union that represents workers at Greece’s Public Power Corporation also staged a 24-hour strike in solidarity with the transport workers. The Greek government has made a 25% cut to the wages of public sector workers.

There have been a total of 27 general strikes since the bailout catastrophe. In a protest to the austerity measures, an OAP committed suicide in front of the House of Parliament – he left a note outlining his position; “The government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state […] I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don't find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance.” The number of suicides in Athens alone rose over 25% last year.

After making all these cuts, the Greek government still has money to spend on purchasing new submarines for their navy.

This type of spending has upset many Greek people, who are watching their country’s brisk and painful disintegration. I found the volume of people sleeping on the streets upsetting, particularly when multimillionaires are hiding away in plush suburbs inside gated compounds, evading tax.

Corruption exists in every country to varying degrees. “When in Rome” I took part in a demonstration by students and teachers, who are both fundamentally opposed to cuts in education and the sale of public schools and destruction of universities.

One student declared; “We are demonstrating to state our total opposition to the draft law 953 which aims to scrap students’ representatives on school boards and would enable private companies to enter our schools.”

The Italian government is led by unelected Mario Monti, who is a former Goldman Sachs international advisor. He has just slashed another €200 million off the education budget. Italy is a very wealthy country, but has continually neglected

state education and successive rounds of spending cuts have caused major problems in schools and universities throughout the country. €8 billion has been axed from the education budget since 2008 with 120,000 teachers being made redundant.

What makes the cuts appear even more intolerable is that the Italian government has purchased new F15 fighter jets at huge cost to the taxpayer. Of course, the arms industry is enormously political and governments carelessly spend our money on things that we don’t need. F15 jets kill and maim, but they prefer to make themselves and their friends rich.

Is it just a coincidence that Goldman Sachs has been mentioned in both situations pertaining to Greece and Italy? We are continuing to witness a huge transfer of money and resources from the poor, working and middle classes to the rich while the masses are led to believe, through a rotten corporate media, that they are somehow responsible. We now live in a world where people do not rob banks anymore, banks rob people. The exercise of state power greatly depends on the consent of the ruled, if we remove that consent, we can destroy the abusive power of the state.

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What does the liquidation of the IBRC mean for students?

By Niamh O’Connor

Finally, the financial zombie that is the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (the IBRC, formally Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide) has been allowed to rest in peace.

These are harsh words, but this has been a harsh saga.

The series of events that have led up to the Government’s surprise announcement that it will pass legislation so that the IBRC can be liquidated have spanned over five years.

The Fianna Fáil, and subsequently Fine Gael, government used halfmeasure after half-measure to try and keep the worst of the home-grown financial crisis buried, mostly with promissory notes.

These are what most people would understand as ‘I.O.U.s’, given by the government to the bank’s creditors to keep them from frightening the financial markets by pursuing their debts in court cases. This would not only look bad for the Irish state,

but would cost it millions in legal expenses.

Throughout their directorships of Anglo during the Celtic Tiger, Sean Fitzpatrick and his partner in crime, David Drumm, procrastinated at the ultimate expense of the Irish government by letting its debt grow to an unmanageable amount, doing nothing about it until it was too late.

On September 30, 2008, they threatened the Government that the Irish economy would collapse the following day if they did not bail what was then called Anglo Irish Bank PLC out of this predicament.

Drumm and Fitzpatrick tied the Irish economy to this millstone and allowed it to sink into the murky depths of recession. How were they able to do this?

Anglo Irish Bank was a company – the bank itself was essentially a separate legal person, which acted only upon the advice of its directors, two of which were Sean Fitzpatrick and David Drumm.

These two were considered geniuses in financial circles prior to the bank’s collapse, because they were able to raise millions for the bank’s reservoir of money, which they used to lend to more and more clients, and increased the amount of interest payments that they were taking in.

Their elusive ‘formula’ for raising this money was only to lend to property developers and first-time home owners, because they were the ones who were at the crest of the wave that was the Celtic Tiger. Of course, when Lehman Brothers collapsed in New York that was more than enough to send the economic boom crashing down around our two favourite directors.

Since then, the government was using only short-term solutions (namely the I.O.U.s) to deal with this long-term problem. The public coffers were so exhausted that the E.U. and IMF had to bail us out – twice.

On February 6, 2013, the Cabinet met at 9pm to finalise the deal and Michael Noonan was scheduled to announce the news at 10.30pm.

The Irish state was slowly going to be relieved of the millstone that was Anglo Irish Bank (as well as Michael Fingleton’s Irish Nationwide Building Society). At last, a long-term solution to a long-term problem.

What does this mean for us students? In the short term, not much.

Liquidation is a slow and painful process. With David Drumm hiding out in his luxury property in Massachusetts, it will take a long time to bring him to account. Legal proceedings have been brought by the Irish state through IBRC against him in the American courts (IBRC is the proper plaintiff in this case, as it was the legal ‘person’ who was wronged) over the last couple of years, and there is nothing to say that it will come to an end any time soon.

Then there is Sean Quinn, who was given financial assistance by Anglo to buy shares in the company that was Anglo Irish Bank PLC. Such a transaction is illegal under section 60 of the Companies Act 1963, and the infamous ‘Quinn Case’ was the first case to be tried under this section of the law.

Quinn’s own family have been continually evading the issue, with techniques such as fleeing across the border and unashamedly telling the courts that they had no idea that the loan they guaranteed for their father was illegal. They use the fact that the transaction was illegal so that they would not have to make good on their side of the bargain, and Mr Justice Peter Kelly upheld this defence.

But this means that as they continually evade the course of justice, the law has to spend more time catching up with them, and we students have to wait perhaps

years for the government to free the public finances from this millstone. We will not see much improvement in the provision for educational resources until the government gets some of the cash back from its 2008 guarantee of the banks.

In the long term, for our younger brothers and sisters who may be coming to college over the next decade, it may be better for them than it is at present. With the liquidation of the toxic Anglo and Irish Nationwide, the government has made a step in the right direction, but unless KPMG can get a hold of David Drumm and all the other dodgy characters in their luxury hideouts over the next six months, the creditors of these two banks will have to wait even longer to get repaid, and students will have to wait even longer than that to see an improvement in the provision for third-level educational resources.

Computer help: Your antivirus

By Valeri Tarassov

We all use our laptops or desktop computers for work in college. It is essential to remember that there are many bad things out there in the online world, and it is a priority to keep your computer and data safe.

Those of you who use Microsoft windows often wonder what the best antivirus is, and of course you would want it free. This is a recommendation and instructions of how to install a decent and free antivirus on your desktop or laptop.

There are many out there such as Avast, AVG, Panda or some versions of Kaspersky, but an ultimate solution comes from Microsoft itself, called Microsoft Security Essentials. It is an antivirus designed specifically for Microsoft Windows users and is compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 7.

In order to acquire it you must first go to http://windows.microsoft.com/ en-US/windows/security-essentialsdownload or simply type Microsoft Security Essentials in to Google or other search engine of your choice.

You must select a version of your operating system, depending on the type of your processor; it can be either 32 bit or a 64-bit version. You can easily find it

out by right click on My Computer and selecting Properties. Next you have to download the file and install the antivirus, which is an easy 3-step process.

However, no matter how good the antivirus is, if executing a file or clicking on some dodgy link online, you essentially give the system an admin

privilege to run this software, and this will bypass your antivirus. So here are some obvious tips for internet safety: 1. If you download music or videos from the web and downloadable files are in format file.exe or file.dll, you can be sure this is trouble, as these are executable files primarily used to install software.

The most common music file extensions that you will see are

.wma or .mp3. The most common video file extensions you will see are .avi, .mpg or .rm.

2. If you see a shiny add telling you that you won an iPad or even a million dollars, don’t click on it; you will end up spending more on fixing your computer and you will win nothing.

3. Guys and some girls, remember there is no such thing as free porn; you either pay for it or pay for removing viruses or other malware from your computer.

4. If you get an email from someone you don’t know offering something very good, it is usually not true; think about it, who would leave you a million dollar inheritance in Africa?

5. And be very cautious when sharing your personal information with someone on the web, as everyone knows privacy on the internet no longer exists.

This is a first in the series of articles on using your desktop or laptop safely and efficiently. In our next issue, we will discuss various free options of operating systems and office suites. Have fun and be safe.

If you have a computer-related question for Valeri, feel free to send it in to editor@sin.ie and he will answer it.

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OPINION: Horsemince scandal renders public opinionated

By Khai El Baba Jones The recurring revelations of horse in mincy bovine guise have by now likely made you a jaded observer of food-industry mega-fraud.

But cast your mind back to when you first learned that people (that’s you!) were consuming often, and with recession-busting gusto, bun- and now lasagne-loads of over-processed previouslypaddocked horseflesh.

You were shocked, only superficially if you are not a keening sensitive, because of the standing taboo in your culture against the consumption of that upon which ancient heroes rode to war; that most noble-seeming of the domesticated, personallynamed animals.

Then, being of course a hardened Pope-less rationalist, un-muddied by indefensible mythologized sentiment, and resisting the morality tales of Sewell, Spielberg, Sheridan et al. (or, if you’ve had frequent contact with warm breathing horses IRL, then the memory of their meeting your gaze), you concluded that it doesn’t bother you. What’s the fundamental difference between horse and cow, such that it saves your distaste from the charge of gastronomic species-ism?

Perhaps you even liked the tinge of the exotic, although processed horse-meat is significantly cheaper than beef, and most probably came from mistreated, mangy nags who, if they were ever loved, were done so within strict economic parameters by anyway-loathsome children.

Nevertheless, it felt as though you’d cornered some kind of a deal, scored something extravagant from the Tesco Finest range in the Reduced-to-Clear section that you didn’t think, upon tasting, would have been worth the original price of €7.99, but for which you would happily have paid another 50c on top of the asked 37c.

That feeling was quick to fade, while the horseflesh saga exhibits pre-millennial-Lance-Armstrong-like stamina and potential.

International criminal organisations, corruption at the heart of a profit-driven system that’s seen the standards slip on goods aimed at the tightest-budgeted or laziest consumers; blame pass-theparcelled and hot-potato’d across Unionised Europe.

You’ll never trust again, and were a fool to ever have trusted.

Future relationships will suffer, but your concerns now, without the immediacy of revulsion or anything sim-

ilar, surround your newfound loss of confidence in product labelling. You’re no longer even slightly scandalised by the detection of equine crime-juice in increasingly more sophisticated readymeals. You are assured by the media that food fraud is rife, and this is probably just the meaty tip of a frozen continent of misinformation.

Yo u t h i n k y o u r s e l f unshockable, post-horsegate. You’re way past punning, grief was much easier than expected (and actual red-hot anger never came). Having since discov-

ered that it was all along a gang of Romanian/Polish/ Irish anarcho-vegan saboteurs, free-spirited to the point of barefootedness and infecting the chow-chain with horsemeat liberated from boucheries chevalines and supermarchés along the south-west coast of France (or whoever in the final instance was deemed responsible), you move onto considering the wider implications for the surviving, edible world.

You ask yourself, for example; “can I place any trust in the vast mega-companies supplying my food,

What must the neighbours think?

By Luke Henderson Recently news broke that some Irish beef burgers were not actually beef. In fact they were only a fraction beef, with the balance made up of horse meat. This has obvious implications for Ireland and Irish people. Firstly, there will always be a doubt when you pick up a steak or burger as to what you’re really getting. Coupled with this, the reputation of Irish exports of beef are also at risk internationally.

Before this, Irish beef had a steadfast reputation worldwide. Now the future

of Irish-farmed beef is in an unsavoury position. At the moment, Irish agriculture (agricultural food) accounts for 46% of Ireland’s total exports.

While there is no risk to the health of anyone who ate the burgers, the false advertising on the packaging has done nothing for Ireland’s situation. Internationally, it does not bode well for us.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny was quick to say that those who ate the meat were not in danger, but clearly the situation is an awkward one for him as all eyes are on Ireland during our presidency of the EU

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particularly when that food is so cheap that even without specialist knowledge of the work involved it seems too good to be true?” To this you conclude “no”. Obviously. Then you wonder whether it matters whether you trust them?

On then exploring the global food industry, following your moral compass, you are horrified by it: all of it, in its wasteful, unnecessarymassacring-of-sentient-life, third-world-exploitation, deforestation-for-palm-oil, Euro-American neo-colonial decadence. You commit to

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Council.

In Time magazine an article written by Sorcha Pollack talks of the “embarrassment” of the Irish over findings of horse DNA in the burgers tested. The article could have been much worse and, while it does still leave an air of embarrassment, Ms Pollack discusses the French’s embracing of horse meat as a form of cuisine for centuries.

She sees the reaction of the Irish and British media as an overreaction.

While perhaps it could be deemed an overreaction, there is the right of the consumer to be considered. If you go to buy a Mercedes car you want a Mercedes, not a fraction Mercedes with a bit of Audi thrown in for good measure.

The Time article also quotes Dr Annie Gray. The food historian claims that the British and Irish “put beef on a pedestal” and that it is a sense of national identity to eat good, hearty beef.

While there is definitely an argument for the use of horse meat the questions still remain: is it not our right as consumers to purchase what we paid for? If it is not what it says on the tin why shouldn’t we be outraged? Aside from all of this, could the scandal damage Ireland in the future?

Naturally, other countries have smelt blood. In Spain, the magazine El País has come on the attack. According to an Irish Times article, the country is still smarting from the E.coli pandemic which blamed Spanish cucumbers for the outbreak

veganism and eschew shoes, though you do, in later years, resolve for health reasons to partake of a weekly salmon feast, on the selfimposed condition that you catch, descale, and fillet the lil’ fella yourself.

You’re also a key player in the popularisation of insect consumption in the West, which push-starts the proliferation of it in the rest of the world, by proving theologically that insects, especially furry ones, only have souls equivalent to those of cacti and succulents. You die happy. in Europe. So the situation abroad would appear to be grave indeed.

Exports from agriculture amount to almost half of Ireland’s total exports. This is significant considering that confidence in Irish beef will reach a low point following the revelations of last month.

However, perhaps there is a silver lining to be found from what has gone on. Due to Tesco, Dunnes and Aldi all having traces of horse DNA in their burgers, the local butcher is now probably rubbing his hands with glee.

The emergence of these supermarkets has meant many small butcher businesses throughout the country have suffered. If confidence in supermarkets is low, there could be an opening for the smaller businesses to (at least in the short term) capitalise.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has come out to say that horse meat in beef burgers is “unacceptable”.

No doubt this was not the ideal time for this news to break, given the increased attention currently on Ireland. It would seem that on an international scale, the country takes one step forward only to take two back.

In a speech to the European Parliament last month, Enda Kenny said; “We must work hard together to renovate, restore and to renew our union,” This reporter wonders if by “restore” he means Ireland’s reputation. Does “renovate” mean our consumer standards? Does “renew” mean our fleeting confidence in Irish products?

Aoine, Sathairn & Domhnach 1-3:

Féíle dramaíochta Náisiúnta/ National University Drama Festival, Aras na Mac Léinn (Níos mó eolas le teacht)

Luain, 4:

Seoladh Seachtain na Gaeilge agus Feachtais Scéim Cónaithe na Gaeilge in OÉ Gaillimh, Áras na Mac Léinn, 12pm Launch of Seachtain na Gaeillge, Aras na Mac Léinn, 12pm

Máirt, 5:

Maidin Caife, Caife Aras an nGael

Céádaoin, 6:

Sesiún Ceoil, Am Lón, Caife Aras na nGael Music Session, Caife Aras na nGael Ceol Choirm Waylander, Kellys, Doors 9pm

Our SU Education Officer Conor Stitt will be holding a SUSI Grants Clinic on Tuesday 19th February 12pm-3pm in AC215.

Luain, 11:

Maidin Caife, Caife Aras na nGael, 10am My First Gaeilge - Beginners Irish class Aras na Gaeilge, 4pm

Ceadaoin, 13:

LÁ NO BÉARLA Speak Irish for a day an collect money for charity.

Roisin Dubh Discó Ciúin, 10pm

Deardaoin, 14:

Bricfeasta Gaelach, Caife Aras an Gaeilge My First Gaeilge - Beginners Irish class, 116 Aras na Gaeilge, 4pm Turas go dtí an gCeathrú Rua, Deireadh SnaG 2013

You can contact him on su.education@nuigalway.ie for more information.

Deardaoin,7:

Bricfeasta Gaelach, Caife Aras na Gaeilge Rós Aras an nGael, 45 Sráid Dominic, 8pm

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Fr Ted and the Central Bank: From one Irish institution to another By Órla Ryan “This debt is large, but that debt is far away.”

Flippancy aside, this comment pretty accurately sums up the promissory note situation in Ireland as it stands.

Unfortunately, it’s quite unlikely paraphrasing Fr Ted quotes will aid in simplifying any other aspects of Irish-European politics.

Although, after the week we’ve had, little would surprise the electorate.

Following on from the agreement with the European Central Bank (ECB), the Government no longer has to spend the next decade paying €3.06 billion annually in promissory notes. Instead, they – or rather Irish taxpayers – will repay long-term bonds between 2038 and 2053.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny described the deal, which was facilitated by the early morning liquidation of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), as a “historic step on the road to economic recovery”.

Some commentators have agreed, pointing to the fact that it will gift the Government with an extra €1 billion come Budget time and aid our exit from the bailout programme. The

announcement that ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has upgraded its outlook on the Irish economy from ‘negative’ to ‘stable’ would certainly appear to attest to the latter.

The promissory note deal is good for Ireland in the short-term, but what impact will it have on our future and the future of our children? The way in which many media outlets have failed to question the deal sufficiently is of particular concern. The Government said it was a large step in the right direction and many organisations and individuals seem to have simply accepted this as gospel.

However, others have denounced the agreement, saying our public representatives have sold us out and placed increased levels of debt, albeit with a lower interest rate, on the next generation. What was originally banking debt is now sovereign debt – it’s ours for keeps.

Economist David McWilliams has warned that the Irish deal will be one of the factors that feed the ever-growing European bond market bubble until it bursts.

“We know that you never make a balance sheet with too much debt better with

yet more debt. You make it better with less debt.

Countries with huge debt/ GDP ratios – such as Ireland – which add to their national debt in a cavalier way, will default in huge and dramatic fashion,” he stated.

Mr McWilliams believes an Irish default would not lead to us being cut off by the ECB – citing Greece as proof of this fact.

So where do we go from here? It seems as though many members of the general public believe we have little or no control over how our money is spent.

Tens of thousands of people attended marches protesting the debt burden over the weekend. Large crowds gathered in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford to voice their disapproval of austerity measures.

The protests were organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) long before the debt deal was reached, but the date on which they were held proved to be extremely timely. At the Dublin-based protest, ICTU General Secretary David Begg stated that the fact Irish people are paying 42 per cent of the European banking debt burden was unfair.

People are undoubtedly frustrated and somewhat ‘out of the loop’ regarding the series of events that surrounded the promissory note deal.

Given that it is the European Year of Citizens and Ireland currently holds the presidency of the EU Council, one might have hoped that greater levels of communication with the public would have been evident.

The liquidation of the IBRC (formerly Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide) was all very cloak-and-dagger. However, it is true that the lead up to such events cannot be publicly shared for obvious financial reasons.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan said he was forced into passing the necessary legislation overnight on 6 February last due to leaks

by Bloomberg. He admitted the process had almost happened on a number of occasions in recent months, to the shock of some 800 IBRC employees.

On the day the promissory note deal was announced, Minister Noonan was interviewed on Pat Kenny’s RTÉ radio show.

The pair had quite a jovial conversation about the legality, or lack thereof, of the deal.

The minister described the initial deal that was put in place by the previous government three years ago as “totally” illegal. At this point, the men traded chuckles and agreed that there’s an element of truth in the opinion that many things in the EU “are illegal until someone does them and then they become OK”. Hilarious stuff.

This admission gives credence to Mr McWilliams’ assertion that “The ECB was created by politicians” and “will be brought to heel by politicians”.

Is our government one of a growing number of institutions that is seeking credit for cleaning up a mess they created in the first place?

As an electorate, are we powerless to stand up to our politicians and have our voices heard? As a nation, are we powerless to do the same to our counterparts in Europe?

Is Mario Draghi our Bishop Brennan? Is longterm debt the legacy we want to leave to the next generation? Perhaps it’s our collective attitude that needs a kick up the arse.

Profile of an ALIVE Volunteer: Barry Foley

Profile of an ALIVE Volunteer: Fiona Gardiner

By Rachel Kelly

By Siobhan Wilcock

Barry Foley is a first year Occupational Therapy student. Outside of his studies, he is an active volunteer with Ability West for the past number of years.

Ability West is a voluntary organisation dedicated to enabling people with intellectual disabilities to reach their dreams and ambitions.

Barry trained as a special needs assistant and he also completed gym instructor training. He decided he would like to find a way to bring these two learnings together so this is when somebody suggested that

he applied to volunteer with Ability West. He hasn’t looked back since.

Barry has developed fitness programs for some of Ability West’s service users.

He accompanies them to the gym every week and educates them on the importance of fitness and healthy eating.

“It is great to see the service user’s enthusiasm growing every week,” he said Barry revealed that he was apprehensive on his first day volunteering with Ability West as the safety of the service users is so important, especially when using the equipment in the gym.

However, once he got to know everyone’s individual skills and abilities this apprehension was replaced with fun and energy.

“Volunteering is not work; I love it! The service users are my friends and I will never give up working with them,” he added.

Barry has applied for the ALIVE certificate which is a president’s award from NUI Galway and he wants to encourage all of his fellow students to give some of their time to volunteering.

Fiona Gardiner is a second year Arts student at NUI Galway.

She has volunteered with three separate organisations in the last year and is currently volunteering with Childline.

She discovered these volunteering opportunities through the ALIVE website and through the Galway Volunteer Centre.

Volunteering has become an integral part of her life and so far she has had some

brilliant experiences and has met some amazing people.

When asked how volunteering has helped her as a person, she replied by saying that it has really helped her to develop her confidence and her social skills.

She said; “I’m not as nervous when it comes to meeting new people and my listening skills have improved dramatically, so much so that I find myself actually listening throughout all of my lectures!”

All of Fiona’s chosen organisations have been very diverse, and she attributes this to her enjoyment of meeting people from different backgrounds and having

individual experiences.

She intends to continue volunteering with Childline for as long as possible and plans to volunteer with more organisations in the near future.

Fiona concluded the interview by saying; “If I could give anyone thinking of volunteering one piece of advice, it would be to just do it! Volunteering is so rewarding and you get to meet so many new people. College is the ideal time to try volunteering because once you’re out in the ‘big bad world’ you may not have the time, and volunteering is something that you don’t want to miss out on!”

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Bee Bikes Malawi: A Galway-dweller’s story

By Mandy Jo Shelton The founder of the Galway Tour Company has organized a charity bicycle event in the Chilomoni township of Malawi, Africa.

In his new role as Marketing Director of the Beehive Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, former Galwegian Declan Somers hopes to raise the profile of the township through the first Chilomoni Bike Chase on March 16.

For the past four months, Mr Somers has been living in the Chilomoni Township, located on the outskirts of Blantyre, Malawi's second largest city. The Beehive Centre for Social Enterprise is a not for profit organisation that seeks to create employment opportunities in Chilomoni.

Speaking via Skype on the eve of a used computer sale at the Beehive, Mr Som-

ers, from County Carlow, said he grew up visiting Salthill during holidays. After spending seven years working in Japan, he purchased a cottage in Connemara, with ambitions toward becoming "a hermit poet." In 2007, he sold the cottage and bought two tour buses, starting the Galway Tour Company. His fluency in Japanese helped grow the tour business into a popular choice for day trips to Connemara and the Cliffs of Moher, among other locations.

After five years as a businessman in Galway, Mr Somers relocated to Malawi to devote his energies to social entrepreneurship.

Residents in Chilomoni grow maize and engage in tin-smithing and metalworking, but "most of the businesses weren't doing well because of a lack of business acumen," Mr Somers said.

The unemployment rate in the region is approximated at 85%, although the lack of welfare benefits means the numbers of unemployed are not officially recorded. The Beehive and its subsidiaries seek to address the issue of unemployment in a growing region.

"Our goal is to empower the community by creating jobs," Mr Somers said.

The BeeBikes bike shop is one of the Beehive enterprises in Chilomoni.

BeeBikes refurbishes and sells donated bicycles, which are an inexpensive and sustainable mode of transport in an area where car ownership is rare. The shop sells bikes donated from many sources, but in 2008, Royal Mail in the UK made a noteworthy contribution of 20,000 retired postal carrier bikes, which feature sturdy frames, Ital-

ian leather saddles and capacious front baskets.

The BeeBikes bike shop supports a staff of 11, with all surplus proceeds from bike sales going to the Mother Theresa Children's Centre, another of the Beehive enterprises, which provides day-care for local children. The children, aged 0-6, receive three meals per day, a bilingual education, and the opportunity to "learn through play," Mr Somers said.

Caregivers from the Mother Theresa Children's Centre visit families throughout the community and nominate children for places in the childcare centre. A committee of stakeholders, including the chief of Chilomoni, make the final decision as to which children receive a place in the childcare centre.

"We're basically growing the next generation of leaders," Mr Somers said.

The aim of the Chilomoni Bike Chase is to fund additional childcare places so more children will have to opportunity to attend the Mother Theresa Children's Centre.

The Chilomoni Bike Chase is billed as Malawi's first township bike event, with teams of four competing in a 4-kilometer relay through Chilomoni.

He hopes the Chilomoni Bike Chase will become an annual event that raises the profile of the region.

Mr Somers said he already had the idea for the Chilomoni Bike Chase when he arrived in Malawi, though it took a commitment from a friend, who brought Paddy Power on board as a sponsor, to convince him it would really happen. The sponsors will

own the bikes used by the team, and ideally will donate them to local charities within the community after the race.

Sponsorship for a fleet of original Royal Mail bikes costs €540. However, for €750, corporate sponsors can have the bikes repainted and branded with their own colours and logos. Mr Somers hopes that the branded bikes and the event itself will grow the Bee Bikes name. "We're building the business model for Bee Bikes in the future," he said.

In addition to corporate sponsorship, Bee Bikes accepts donations in Malawian Kwacha, US Dollars, Euros and UK Pounds to curtail administration fees.

For more information, check out the Facebook page, Bee Bikes Malawi, or email infor@beehivemalawi. com.

My J1 Experience

By Emer Hurley I’m not going to lie: one of my favorite things about college has got to be the incredibly long summer holidays. How can you make the most of those months off? The answer is simple – go on a J1.

In my first year I learned of this opportunity and never looked back. I started thinking about my J1 in November but it didn’t transpire into something more real until USIT, the top J1 travel and work company, visited campus in January.

USIT took all the effort out of everything. They made sure my visa was processed, that I received the best price on flights, and that my insurance covered everything, including exam failure. With USIT taking care of the logistics, that left me time to plan the more exciting stuff.

After talking to friends and relatives, a friend and I decided to go to San Francisco. In order to be able to live in America for the summer we needed a source of income. This is where USIT’s Job Database came in handy. Thanks to their list of employers and job vacancies, my friend and I secured waitressing and bartending

jobs. Next step was to find ourselves accommodation.

Google searches commenced and we decided to live in a Berkley fraternity house just outside of the city.

On 27 May I said my farewells, jetted off from Dublin international airport, and my adventures began. Over the next three months we lived the dream.

I loved the constant buzz of the frat house and made loads of lifelong friends from all over the world. While this was an ideal option for us, some J1ers may prefer to look into other options, such as short-term rentals. Living in any of the major cities may be pricey, so don’t forget to check out the suburbs.

My serving job was fun and fast-paced, and the Irish charm coupled with Americans’ generous tipping habits funded my nights out, tourist activities and living expenses quite well. On your J1 you can find yourself any type of seasonal employment from lifeguarding, working in SeaWorld, selling sunbeds & beach umbrellas, bartending at a concert venue, or working in Hollister to name a few.

Be sure to prepare a résumé before you apply for jobs, which is a shorter version of

the CV. USIT can help you tailor your CV into a résumé if you need any help with this.

Be sure to explore all your summer home has to offer.

For us, some of the major attractions we enjoyed in San Francisco were Alcatraz prison, the Golden Gate Bridge, Union Square, Chinatown and of course, the outlet malls for some serious shopping. While we may not have been the legal age (21), but we certainly didn’t let that stop us from embracing the amazing nightlife that San Francisco had to offer.

After three months, our carefree time in San Francisco came to an end, but our J1 experience didn’t end there. We had decided to use the free stopover offered by USIT to visit the Big Apple and finish our summer of a lifetime. We spent an incredible four nights in New York City before returning home to Ireland.

To me, going on a J1 is a rite of passage for all students, and in my experience, USIT makes this extremely easy to happen. To all of you contemplating or planning your J1 this year, best of luck, see as much as you can, and enjoy. I hope you have as fantastic a time as I did.

Jobs Bulletin Finding a job can be difficult, especially if you’re not looking in the right place. But NUI Galway’s Career Development Centre brings you a fortnightly jobs bulletin to assist you in your search. For more information on duties and requirements for these job opportunities, go to www.nuigalway.ie/careers.

1. Permanent, full-time IT help desk assistant wanted for Adecco Ireland in Galway. 6 months to 2 years’ experience required. Apply to galwayjobs@adecco.ie by 10 March 2013.

2. Full-time safety and health, environmental quality officer wanted for Ward & Burke Construction Ltd. Apply to info@wardandburke.ie by 6 March 2013.

3. Graduates wanted for company secretarial practice with Pearce Trust in Dublin. Apply to career@pearse-trust.ie by 10 March 2013.

4. Analytics Graduates wanted for VistaPrint in Barcelona, Spain. Apply at http://goo.gl/q2eh8 by 28 February 2013.

5. Internship available with Google in Dublin and throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa. Apply at http://goo. gl/GpXL7 by 15 March 2013.

6. Junior regulatory advisor with excellent Chinese and English wanted for permanent wotk with Talent Search People in Spain. Apply to tdecman@talentsearchpeople. com by 1 March 2013.

7. NPI Engineer wanted for permanent work with Adecco Ireland in Galway. 2 years’ relevant experience required.

Apply to galwayjobs@adecco.ie by 8 March 2013.

8. Systems Engineer wanted for contract and graduate job programme at Eire Systems in Jappan. Apply to recruit@ eiresystems.com by 14 March 2013.

{18} 70 is the new 20

By Michael Joyce While attending a swing music set in a pub recently, I witnessed something truly remarkable. Men and women, 70 and older, were dis-locating and relocating their pelvises in a rhythmic fashion, while listening to the classics of their generation.

A six-piece band played an incredible set, complete with a lead singer who gave a pitch-perfect Sinatra impression. The predominantly older audience fox-trotted, twisted and jived with each other and, as the beat developed, the dancing reached an almost

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animalistic fever pitch.

When the sax solo came in, it was hysteria.

Elderly men embraced their wives; at least I think it was their wives, for the whole pub to see. None of the typical conservative, “What would the neighbours think” mentality – simply dancing with reckless abandon, switching partners and back again, as the walls began to sweat.

I had all but concluded it was some type of preswingers party, but when the music stopped, a slower groove came on, and daughters joined fathers to share a dance. It couldn’t believe it, these weren’t social deviants

or mind-addled nursing home refugees; these were real people.

While watching all of this, what Oprah would call an “A-Ha! Moment” occurred. These people were living proof of how fun aging can be. Sure, your vision starts to fade; your back starts to go; your nose hair grows longer as your head hair disappears, but there are so many implicit advantages associated with reaching retirement age.

Where have these people been? Why aren’t they educating my generation on how fantastic getting old can be?

Ageism is running rampant; as soon as a certain age is reached you are discarded as being societally obsolete.

But I say the elderly associations should parade these dancing men and women as their mascots. Never mind the antiquated image of the elderly couple who goes to Florida to fish; show the ones who drop it like it’s hot while ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ plays in the background.

Elderly generation, please, allow me to act as your public relations advisor and life coach for the next while.

First, let’s address and discard the antiquated, “Why it’s great to get older” clichés. Enjoying grandchildren without having to be a disciplinarian? Meh. Free bus journeys? Doesn’t grab me. Sitting on a bench with your wife, as you reminisce of years gone by, with the sun setting ahead of you? Please.

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Now, with those addressed and appropriately discarded, let’s explore the real benefits of growing old. If you’ve done it right you’ve managed to save up a little nest egg, so what do you do? Hint: don’t buy a ticket to Lourdes.

Your kids are raised, you’ve been breaking your back your whole life, so hit some strip clubs in Vegas and let the missus play the slots. Let’s face it; if you’ve made it this far, you and her are pretty rock solid.

What else? Buy that ridiculous car you always wanted but felt was too impractical. You have the double veil of senility and post-mid-life crises to avail of, who can tell you not to?

Which brings me to my next point; why fight

against this misconception of feebleness and universal Alzheimer’s that is attached to you? Exploit it! If some activist manages to swing the public perception between now and me getting my dentures fitted we’re going to have words, that’s for sure.

Am I advocating criminal activities? Of course not. Am I advocating morally ambiguous activities? Most definitely.

Come on! You’ve been playing by society’s rules for long enough – live a little.

So, while the rest of my generation worries and swims futilely against the tide of age, I will be patiently waiting on the shore, until I have joined your revered ranks, and then the fun begins.

Jogging in January

By Hazel Doyle

Speaking about attitudes to climate change at NUI Galway on Thursday 14 February were: Dr Henrike Rau, a lecturer in Political Science and Sociology at NUI Galway, and leader of the Ryan Institute’s SocioEconomics and Policy priority research area; Professor Daniel Schrag, Director of Harvard Centre for the Environment and member of President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; and Professor Colin Brown, Director of the Ryan Institute for Environmental, Marine and Energy Research at NUI Galway. The event took place ahead of the Climate Gathering, which will see over 50 participants from more than 10 countries gather in The Burren to discuss climate change this weekend.

As January came to an end, I thought I’d better get some use out of the runners. We could all do with loosing a few pounds after the Christmas, and I was procrastinating as usual.

Dusting off my sports bra and blasting some embarrassing “boppy” music on my iPod, I attempted to do a few stretches before tearing out into the cold. Despite my inability to reach past my knees, I remained hopeful.

“I’ll run for a half an hour,” I thought, “that’ll get the blood pumping. I thought; “Got to raise my heartbeat so that the cholesterol doesn’t build up”.

It’s fairly obvious I haven’t a leg to stand on when it comes to fitness.

And so, full of good intentions, I locked the door, stuffed my keys into my pocket and turned to face the outside world. I began with just a brisk stride, so as not to fall flat on my backside before I’d even reached the end of the hill outside my house. Stopping to hitch up my tracksuit bottoms I thought; “Ah it’s working already! Sure the weight’s only flying off!” It was with dismay I noticed the elastic had loosened considerably since the last time I’d worn these pants; circa TY. “That’s two songs done – surely I’m nearly at the halfway mark by now?”

Each time my feet hit the

ground I felt as if my ankles would snap in two. “Stupid runners”. Alas, it had been but a mere five minutes, and my goal was nowhere near being realised. I was suddenly envious of my mother’s sensible nurse’s shoes. How I longed for their bulky-practicality. I would never mock them again. Would my feet survive this expedition? Would I have to tell my future children that I had run my feet into the ground?

Cars seemed to slow down as I thundered along the pavement. Were the drivers mocking me? I tried to tell myself that they only seemed to slow down and that, in reality, I was quite the sportswoman, and I was simply keeping pace with them. I deduced that they were just staring to marvel at my speed and technique, and not to get a good look at the looper in the rain, dragging herself along the side of the road. I’d plaited my hair the night before, in two braids, like Peppy Herself, and each time a car passed, I would have to try to keep my upper body from swaying too much, so that I didn’t resemble Martia Brady, hair swishing like a druggedup pony, or Phoebe from Friends, all limbs flailing.

“Ten minutes done. Ah sure look, if I turn back now, I’ll still have to do another ten minutes running and I can do a few sit-ups then, at home, where nobody can see me.”

I found that it was easier to keep going if I just kept my eyes down, so that I couldn’t see how far away the end was. But every now and again I’d try to guess my distance, and I’d always be wrong.

“How do people actually enjoy this? What is wrong with me? I’m twenty-one!

I should be in the prime of my health!”

Does anyone else have this problem? Am I the only one fated to become purple and panting after a mortifyingly short stint of exercise? Or should I take it that I’m special? Perhaps a Chosen One? What felt like an hour later, I arrived home. In reality I’d barely made it twenty minutes. My neighbours probably got a good laugh. I vowed to run more regularly so as to ensure I would be less unfit and opening the fridge in search of water, spied the cakes I’d baked the night before. My knees were trembling from my exertions.

Resistance would be futile.

“But love went into those cakes, and I had to use energy when I mixed the bowl,” I told the wave of conscience that tickled me (the idea of doing situps was now foreign to me).

The cakes I gorged on will always be worth it, but the pain in my legs the next morning will never be. God invented those sucky-inny knickers for a reason. Sure, I’ll help the economy by stocking up on a few pairs.

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OPINION: 24 Hours is enough

By Ciara Luke

What’s in a Name?

There was sheer delight etched on his face when he figured it out: Órla is an anagram of oral (the fada is optional, but does add an extra dimension of the exotic). At that very moment, my classmate might as well have discovered the Higgs boson.

N a t u r a l l y, 1 6 - y e a r old me was teased for a few days. Luckily, many teenagers have an attention span shorter than a tadpole’s trousers so they promptly forgot and we all moved on with our lives.

The birth of Amy Huberman and Brian O’Driscoll’s daughter received mass media coverage last week. Until her name, Sadie, was released, the baby had been dubbed ‘Huberbod’ in a mangled amalgamation of her parents’ names. Rumours that this is actually her middle name have not yet been confirmed.

Sadie can breathe a sigh of relief – she could just have easily been called Aviva. Celebrities have a habit of giving their progeny bizarre monikers. The classics Moon Unit, Dweezil and Diva Thin Muffin (triple props to Frank Zappa) are often name-dropped in this regard.

Other gems include Sage Moonblood (bestowed

by Sylvester Stallone, of course), Pilot Inspektor (offspring of Jason Lee of My Name is Earl fame), Moxie Crimefighter (seed of Penn Jillette), God’Iss Love Stone (daughter of Lil’ Mo’ – singer and fan of apostrophes) and Tu (which isn’t remotely funny until you find out his dad is actor Rob Morrow).

Good ol’ regular folk are by no means innocent when it comes to dodgy names. In 2007, a couple from New Zealand met official opposition when they attempted to name their son 4Real, for real.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton were told they could not register the name because it included a digit. Mr Wheaton said he came up with the novel name after seeing his son in an ultrasound scan and realising their baby was "for real". Quite.

The parents continue to use their preferred choice at home but had to give their child a different legal name.

So what did they choose?

Something a bit more normal? Stephen? John? Ben? No, they finally settled on Superman. At least that looks better on his birth cert – 4Real Wheaton sounds like a fibre supplement.

To be fair, an unusual name is not necessarily the baptism of fire it has been labelled. Having a common forename can present an equal number of problems, albeit slightly more boring ‘Which Mary do you mean?’ kind of scenarios. Originality must meet practicality half way.

Even with the best intentions in the world, parents can lumber their child with a terrible burden from day one. A name is not just for Christening, it’s for life.

What may seem like a sweet, unique idea in infancy can become prime ammunition for bullies a few years down the line.

Yes, the Toy Story trilogy is a childhood classic but calling your kid Woody borders on child abuse. At least make bullies do some of the work themselves – it’ll improve their vocabulary if nothing else.

Naming your child after the celebrity du jour on a whim is extremely shortsighted. Psy Callaghan is not particularly likely to stand the test of months, let alone years. And as bootylicious as your baby is, Beyoncé O’Regan just doesn’t sit well.

Names are, obviously, quite subjective – one person’s Apple is another’s

mouldy peach. A moniker doesn’t even have to be outwardly odd to become a bone of contention.

A 15-year-old Icelandic girl recently made headlines for suing her native State for the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother: Blær (which translates as ‘light breeze’).

Authorities deemed the name unsuitable as they didn’t think it was feminine enough.

Iceland, and other countries including Denmark and Germany, has strict laws on names – they must fit official grammar and pronunciation rules. The Icelandic Personal Names Register is a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that parents can choose from. Officials maintain the list protects children from embarrassment.

Potential teasing isn’t the only aspect of forward thinking one must factor in when legally labelling a human. What if that child grows up and falls in love with someone whose name is difficult to merge with their own? Where would we be without Brangelina or Kimye or our very own first couple, Mabina? These abbreviations save us precious seconds and make us sound like pompous assholes – two popular contemporary pursuits.

Of course, an adult can legally change their name if they so wish – just ask Snoop Sheep or whatever he’s calling himself these days. If you can’t be bothered going through this process – why not experiment with a nickname?

I’ve been trying to convince people to call me KitKat because I’m prone to breaking things and went out of fashion several years ago. It hasn’t caught on yet, but – taking inspiration from the Wheatons – I plan to persevere.

Do you know the TV ads where family members of those killed in car accidents speak straight into the camera? The ones that make you feel sick and scramble for the remote? After seeing these, you briefly think about how awful it would be to lose someone important to you because of an accident.

Did you know that across Europe each year 4,000 people die due to sleep-related car accidents? Concurrently, RSA statistics show that one in five of all car accidents in Ireland are caused by lack of sleep.

The fact that your mum or brother or child could be taken from you just because someone didn’t get the recommended six hours of sleep the night before is truly shocking.

With this in mind, why do we continue to put the lives of patients around the country at risk by forcing our doctors to work shifts of up to 36 hours?

Lack of adequate sleep affects attention and reduces reaction times.

Would you feel safe letting a doctor diagnose you after zero hours of sleep?

It does not take a rocket scientist to put two and two together: patients could die because the staff required to care for them are just not physically able to. This is not a standard of care Irish people should have to adhere to or indeed “put up with”.

This article is not a jibe at doctors’ training or their passion for their patients; this is a student doctor saying that myself and my peers should not have to be terrified to start work, for fear that – through no fault of our own – we might accidentally kill someone due to lack of sleep.

It is not out of laziness that we ask for these working hours to be changed – in fact it is insulting that someone would even suggest that. The point is that caring for patients,

which is the single greatest ambition of each and every doctor, cannot be done sufficiently by doctors who are run off their feet and enter into a state of utter exhaustion.

Ireland needs more doctors and less hours to be thrust upon them. There is no short supply of readyto-hire doctors from our universities. If the work environment for new doctors in Irish hospitals is seen as a black hole then, inevitably, they will go to the nearest alternative option; even if that option is 10,000 miles away.

Approximately 12,000 patients die in hospitals in Ireland each year. Of course, many of these deaths are due to natural and unpreventable causes.

However, if 20 per cent of car crashes can be put down to a lack of sleep, then surely more than a handful of these patients could and should be saved. Twenty four hours is enough.

A new book examining the history of a “think tank”, established in the mid 1950s, to challenge the ways Ireland was governed, socially, politically and economically, is to be launched in the National University of Ireland on 19 February. Tuairim: intellectual debate and policy formulation: Rethinking Ireland, 1954-75, published by Manchester University Press, was written by Dr Tomás Finn, a lecturer in modern Irish History at NUI Galway. Launching the book in Galway recently were Professor Jim Doolan, a former member of Tuairim and a financial analyst with the world bank, a Senator and Professor of Management of NUI Galway; Dr Mary Harris, lecturer in History, NUI Galway; Dr Tomás Finn, lecturer in modern Irish History, NUI Galway and author of Tuairim: intellectual debate and policy formulation: Rethinking Ireland, 1954-75; and Emeritus Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, NUI Galway.

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fASHION

14–09

18–02

Men on Trend in 2013: how to get the look

By Michael O’Loughlin Men’s style and grooming are the latest trends to rock the NUI Galway concourse.

Students are beginning to follow suit to fashionable celebs like Olly Murs, Tinie Tempah, One Direction, Bressie and Dermot O’Leary but how can students find and replicate these styles in Galway.

Geek Chic: This is a trend that is on set for both men and women. The geek chic style combines striking patterns, bold colours and a wide variety of accessories to create a visually effective look.

The look is expertly worn by singer Bruno Mars and Doctor Who actor Matt Smith.

Geek Chic outfits are easy to assemble and should most definitely have geek frames and a shirt or polo shirt buttoned up to the top.

While the geek chic style is now very common there is huge space for individuality with different colours and accessories.

It can be influenced by a classic ‘50s-like James Dean effect or an ‘80s colourful explosion like screech from Saved by the Bell.

Preppy Style: This trend stems from casual yet formal wear from brands such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger.

This style has been modernised by the “chino boom” and their prominence in high street shops like River Island, Topman, Forever 21 and Zara.

The look is simple to fashion and consists of and a jumper, shirt, chinos and loafers.

The style has its origins in the Kennedy family but the look has been updated with the emergence of outfitters such as Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch and Jack Wills. Their target audience is 16-30 and they aim to provide a modern preppy alternative.

The style can be correlated to a form of elitism but is definitely evident in young men’s attire.

James Bond: The slick and suited look associated with James Bond is never out of style. During college ball season, being able to dress formally is very important.

The pristine and smooth look is worn

supremely by X-Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary. The correct colour and right tie/ bowtie is very important when choosing a formal outfit, but the style is sure to get looks and to be noticed.

Casual Connected: Casual wear does not mean Canto trackies and a Nike hoody.

A casual look can be easily put together and is rocked by contemporaries like One Direction.

The look can be created with a stylish open shirt and jeans or a nice jacket and chinos. The look is expertly assembled by high street shops like River Island and H&M and is something that is always en vogue and looks attractive.

Fashion Photography by Kirsty An Chnoic

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f e atur e s

14–09

18–02

Gene Moynihan “He wasn’t particularly a good pope with how he handled the child scandals.”

Student Speak

Amy King “I’m not really

By Sean Dunne & Orla Ryan religious but I This week we asked NUI ­Galway thought students how they felt about it was a job the Pope’s resignation. you had to do forever.”

Jason Conneely “The first time since 1450 that it’s happened. I never had any problems with how he did his job but it did come as a shock.”

John Healy ?

“The pope resigned did he A pe?

Who is the new Po r-old pope is the way yea 25.” forward for the church

Mairead Moynagh “I didn’t really like him.”

Padraic O’Leary “I never even knew until you told me, It’s a bit sad actually, I’m really disappointed, I guess we just have to wait for a new pope now.

I am religious and go to mass every Sunday but it’s time-consuming waiting for a new pope. I think they should make a younger cardinal pope because the older they are you just don’t know what will happen.”

Thomas Nolan “I’m not religious.

I don’t really care.”

Rena Friel “He didn’t do anything to influence me.”

Kamile Jucyt e “We just didn’t know he could do th at.

We thought it was a thing you coul d step down from.”

Lisa Tierney “He didn’t handle all the abuse scandals very well.”

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Witless Grand Final 2013

By Isabella De Luca The Witless Grand Final 2013 took place on Tuesday 5 February. Guitar and drums duo Rofi James won the competition entering the history books as the first acoustic band to win the competition.

Six bands battled it out for the title and results were weighted 40/60 between the public and the judges’ vote.

The judging panel consisted of Olaf Tyaransen, Hot Press journalist, Louise Clarke, presenter with iRadio and Bernard O’Neill, manager of Electric Garden.

Cotton Ball Three, a four piece jazz/pop/rock act, were well-received from the

crowd and were awarded the top number of votes. Anomaly was the only all-covers band who made it to the final. Their strong female vocalist and great choice of songs demonstrated that they definitely deserved to make it to the final stage of the competition.

Super7aiyan’s instrumental progressive rock sound stood out with its interesting rhythms and entrancing guitar phases. For a band that only formed last summer, they displayed great musical chemistry.

The Rusty Fixtures were arguably the favourites in the lead-up to the final.

Finishing in second place in

Witless 2012, their extensive gigging experience was evident in their tidy blend of roots/folk/rock.

Prospect Avenue, winners of the Witless semi-final, had a long road to travel to reach the final, and their performance echoed the determination and energy that got them to this position.

Winners of the Acoustic heat Rofi James were the closing band before voting opened. Although they did not come out in the top half of the public vote, the judges were obviously impressed by their selfwritten original tracks and infectious percussive beat.

Clowns in the Cube

By Meg Mulcahy and Íosac Gallagher On Wednesday 6 February, as part of Múscailt Arts Festival, The Cube in Áras na Mac Léinn was host to the wonderful performance of Nightingale by the Croatian clown group Triko Cirkus Teatar, who were named Best Independent Theatre Company in Croatia in 2012.

Directed and written by Lee DeLong, Nightingale tells the primarily interpretive and musical tale of a middle-aged and profoundly innocent woman in desperate need of a place in the real world.

Aided by her eccentric and highly concerned parents, we follow her story as she celebrates her 37th birthday, holidays with her parents, meets a man, mar-

Cotton Ball Three claimed second prize, with Super7aiyan coming in third place. All the bands are expected to have a great future ahead of them in the Galway music scene and beyond. Cotton Ball Three are playing at the Masquerade Ball on February 21, and will be featured alongside big names at the upcoming Cycle Against Suicide fundraiser in the Radisson Hotel.

Rofi James consist of two first year students, Ronan Flaherty, 19 who is studying Cumarsáid and Jamie Murray, 20, of Software Engineering in GMIT. The band formed in 2011 and have been writing their material and gigging regularly since then.

When asked what they thought the clincher was on the night, they said; “… it was the songs, we have songs that everyone can sing along to.”

They seemed shocked and over-whelmed to have won the competition; “We came here tonight saying we’ll play, and if we play a good show we’ll be happy.

We’ve done so much gigging; I can’t believe we got something as a reward.”

The prizes for winning the competition included recording time in the Forge Recording Studio worth over €500, one month’s free rehearsal space in Galway Rehearsal Studios and gigs at Electric Garden/The Factory and the 'Colours Fringe Festival Galway 2013'.

Witless 2013 was held in aid of Galway charity Ability West. Rock Soc Vice-Auditor and Witless Event Manager, Thor McVeigh said; “Witless has proven once again that it is one of the best battle of the bands competitions in the West of Ireland. The standard of the bands was incredibly high, resulting in the most competitive final in the last fifteen years. You couldn’t predict a winner. In addition, NUIG battle of the bands history was made as Rofi James became the first ever acoustic act to win the competition. I would like to thank everybody involved in making Witless 2013 happen and become such a success; best wishes to whoever takes over managing the event.”

Measure for Measure ries, explores her sexuality, experiences loss and finally becomes a woman.

However, after being encouraged into a relationship by her parents, the awkward pair struggle with getting to know each other.

Having only ever had a relationship with her pet bird, the daughter must now overcome her lack of experience to embrace her physicality and in many ways, new life.

No longer can she shy away from adulthood, and we witness the age-old story of innocence versus experience as she is gently (and often not-so-gently) nudged forward by her knowledgeable mother.

This magical account of the hectic world of family relationships and personal hurdles was beautifully accompanied by a charismatic three-piece band which culminated in a high energy performance filled with jazzy music, wonderful songs, realistic sound effects, synchronized dances and perfect comedic timing.

The performance was funny and touching, without being silly or over the top, as is so often the case in clown performances. It was hilarious, heartfelt and wonderfully choreographed, with precise lighting that almost became a character itself, setting the tone of each scene perfectly.

Minimal props were needed but they certainly left their mark on us here at NUI Galway.

By Sarah-Jane Smith Theatrecorps production of Measure for Measure, written by William Shakespeare, was performed in the Black Box Theatre between the 29 January and 1 February.

The play tells the story of a young man, Claudio, who is sentenced to death for impregnating his girlfriend and future wife. In the absence of the Duke, Lord Angelo is left in charge and when Claudio’s innocent sister Isabella arrives at the scene Angelo sets forward on a mission that would disgust any moral viewer.

The story is set in Vienna where injustice, division, lust, disguises and power

pave the way for the cruel treatment of Isabella and sets the scene for the discovery and trickery that shall occur.

The cast consisted of Emmet Byrne, Daniel Guinnane, Sarah O’Toole, Réidín Ní Thuama, Seán T, O’Meallaigh, Mary Monaghan and Darragh O’Brien.

Each member of the cast had several roles to play, using alternative costumes and accents to enhance the change and keep the audience on track. This did get confusing at times as there was also much use of disguise; however it did not take away from the impeccable performance of each character.

The company had only four weeks of rehearsals, however, this was not apparent on stage. The cast spent the first week exploring the script and getting a grasp on the atmosphere of the play and the relationship between the characters. Max Haffler said that he would not direct another play without this first week, emphasising its importance.

Sean stepped in as the Duke 2 weeks before opening night to replace their previous actor John Cullen saving the day.

The play was a success and had quite a substantial audience each night. It was an enjoyment to watch as Vienna came to life on the empty set of the Black Box.

The Notions you can’t help but love

By Leigh Michael Keeney It’s rare that a band comes along who refuses to stay grounded in any particular “box.” The Notions are such a group and their sound is so versatile that you can’t help but love them.

Comprised of Laura Thomas (Guitars, Mandolin, Piano and Vocals), Eoin Ó Conghaile (Bass guitar, Backing Vocals, Keyboards), Damien Quinn (Guitars, Keyboards Percussion) and Aaron Matthews (Drums), they took the Bentley by storm on 9 February. Support on the night was provided by Jack Wright from the band Set the Scene.

What’s surprising about The Notions is that they master different styles of music beautifully. They started off their set with an original called ‘Brandy’, which is on their new EP The Scoop, and it was so smooth with Laura’s soulful, bluesy vocals, Eoin’s clean bass, Aaron’s nice high hat and Damien’s funky guitar.

They instantly established themselves as a tight band who played effortlessly together, making you want to say, ‘Oh yeah’, but suddenly changed their style to, ‘Hell yeah,’ with a really gritty rock explosion.

They’re an absolute pleasure to listen to and they really got the crowd moving in the Bentley.

This year the band will tour through England, Holland, Germany, France and Austria and I’m sure that the performances will result in many new fans for The Notions across Europe. For those who love to support fantastic indigenous bands The Notions really are an Irish gem that has to be sampled. Already they’ve popped up on the radar of MRU in 2012, who review unsigned bands, and The Notions were finalists in three categories, “Best Blues/Rock,” “Best Newcomer,” and “Best Album.”

Check them out at www. thenotions.ie or purchase their tracks on iTunes.

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Damo descends solo to Galway

By Eileen Cameron Live music fans are in for a treat this month when Damien Dempsey returns to Galway. Rather than being backed-up by a full band, this gig will showcase the mellower 'Damo' as he is affectionately known by his loyal following.

On Saturday 23 February he will perform an acoustic set which will most likely include some the folk songs showcased on his Rocky

Road album, combined with tracks from his latest album, Almighty Love. The gig is already a sell-out, but social networks are buzzing with fans trying to beg, borrow or steal tickets.

The Dublin-born singer/ song-writer first exploded onto the scene in 2000 with the release of his debut album They Don't Teach This Shit in School. This was followed up by his Negative Vibes EP where he collaborated with Sinead O’Connor.

Seize the Day, with guest guitar from Brian Eno, was released in 2003. His 2005 album, Shots, entered the charts at No.1 and was followed in 2007 by the chart-topping To Hell or Barbados. Along the way, he has gained many fans, including luminaries such as Bob Dylan, U2, Morrissey and Shane McGowan.

He has been nominated for a number of Meteor awards, bringing his “phenomenal voice”,

as it was described by the Sunday Times, to audiences throughout Europe and the US. He is touring Australia later this year, but no matter where he goes, his love for Dublin, Ireland and the Irish people are evident in both his lyrics and his passionate performances.

Damien Dempsey has been labelled a working class hero, with influences as diverse as Bob

Marley and The Dubliners.

His new album, Almighty Love, has been hailed as a mature version of this social awareness. He has also collaborated with the Dublin graffiti artist Masser on a street art project and made his acting debut in the Irish film, Between the Canals.

The former boxer also has an altruistic side as demonstrated by his collaboration with Glen Hansard on The Auld Tri-

angle single release in aid of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SVP).

Moreover, his work with the PREDA Foundation and Father Shay Cullen, nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize and other Human Rights Awards, is a charity which tries to free children trapped in jails and brothels in the Philippines.

Damien is a man of principle and this can be heard and witnessed in his music and performances.

The Nualas to have ‘One Night of Dignity’

By Isabella De Luca

I r e l a n d ’s f a v o u r i t e all-female singing and comedy sensation, The Nualas are back on the road this spring with their new show ‘One Night of Dignity’. They will be hitting Galway Town Hall Theatre with their trademark style and wit on Friday February 22.

The Nualas first formed in 1994, in a world where pop stars thought nothing of singing in their underwear. They bucked this trend by dressing in

proper, glamorous costumes onstage.

Fine purveyors of comedy, music and mayhem, these dynamic ladies have wowed audiences all over the world and have established a massive cult following.

In their early years they achieved 17 theatre runs including 6 totalsell-outs at the Edinburgh Festival, and extended seasons in theatres in London and Dublin. They also headlined the first Singapore Comedy Festival and completed five major tours, including a

64-date run of theatres.

Closer to home they have played at The Grand Opera House in Belfast, The Gaiety, Vicar Street and Olympia Theatre in Dublin and across the water in The Royal Albert Hall, London.

In 2001 they made their American debut – a three-week stint at The Irish Arts Centre in New York, which was extended to seven weeks after unprecedented critical response.

Just over a year ago, the two original founding members of the Nualas,

Are you right there for the Fest, Ted?

By Jenna Hodgins From the 21-24 of February Inis Mór and Inis Oírr will play host to the annual Father Ted festival.

Be sure to get the some tea, biscuits, cake, and rosary beads ready for the upcoming Ted Fest. Every year at the end of February Ted Fest takes place on a little island in the Atlantic. A bit mad is it? Well, Dougal thought it was.

The Aran Islands turn into the infamous and fictional ‘Craggy Island’ which pays homage to the much loved sitcom that ended over a decade ago with the sudden and tragic death of comic/actor Dermott Morgan, who played Father Ted Crilly. Despite this, the show has since gone on to become one of the biggest cult TV series on Channel 4 and across

the globe, known for its satirical humour and catchy one-liners.

Ted Fest will send festival-goers reeling with madness and inevitable chaos at the hands of ‘Craggy Islanders’. Events planned for the three day bender of pure hilarity and madness includes: Nun versus Priests beach volleyball, Ted’s Got Talent, Buckaroo, the Virtual Confession Box, the Lovely Girls competition and much, much more.

The randomness continues with Ronnie Drew hour (in which beards and rough voices are mandatory), Country-Western dance-offs and generally mad people dressed in dog collars and nun’s habits wandering around desolate islands being sort of… mad.

Previous years have reported mayhem from grown men dressed as

Spiderman in a nappy (Spiderbaby - get it?) many Tom (Pat Shortt) wannabes in their “I shot JR” t-shortts, sorry – shirts. However, this year’s Ted Fest promises to be bigger, madder and above all a great entertaining experience for fans and even for those who have never watched an episode in their life (shame on them).

Ted Fest is in its seventh year and is always growing in popularity. As always, there’s a high demand for tickets. Careful now; get to the official website (www. tedfest.org), watch the videos and grab your tickets quickly! Ecclesiastical attire at the ready and hop on a ferry to Aran. In the words of the world’s most beloved house keeper: “Ah go on, go on, go on, go on!” Also, remember when in doubt: “that would be an ecumenical matter.”

Irish comediennes Sue Collins and Anne Gildea, decided to get the ball rolling again after a 10 year hiatus and approached American singer/actress Maria Tecce to join the ranks.

With a renewed arsenal of material and music, The Nualas reformed and launched to great acclaim on RTE’s The Late Late Show with their debut song ‘Yummy Mummy Recession Blues’.

They went on to storm festivals and venues alike, playing to packed audiences, reaping unanimous praise wherever they performed. The Sunday Times said; “The

Nualas have put comedy and music in a blender and come up with a world class soufflé.”

In their new show, they are promising original numbers, scintillating vocal harmony, ambitious choreography and

a night packed solid with craic, laughter, tears, and chat (not necessarily in that order).

Tickets for the performance cost €18, €14 for students.They are available at the Town Hall Theatre Box Office.

RENT the Black Box

By Sarah-Jane Smith

The Black Box theatre was transformed for Galway University Musical Society’s production of RENT which ran from 5-9 February.

Rent, based on Puccini’s La Bohme deals with the many conflicting difficulties of modern day life in a truly inspiring and touching story. The plot of the musical is set in New York’s Lower East side in 1989-1990 in Bohemian Alphabet City. During this one year, AIDS/HIV, death, love and sexuality are a primary focus and struggle for the young musicians and artists of the city.

GUMS casting was superb as each member embodied their character and

embraced their individual plot allowing them to interact with the audience.

Although the stage remained unchanged and quite dull in appearance throughout the performance, each character brought a new life and colour to the stage, using the bleak backdrop to emphasize the plot, emotion and interaction on the stage.

There were many spectacular moments during the show and the performance kept the audience entertained and focused from beginning to end.

One moment I can definitely highlight was John Joyce’s (Mark) rendition of I’ll cover you reprise. The emotion in his voice and

expression beamed from the stage and the tears fell from all eyes which looked upon it with awe as he sang his last song for his loved one, Angel.

The choreography, arranged by Michael Flanagan and Gillian Keady, of the entire show was danced with force and emotion by the chorus.

The costumes, designed

by Niamh Alvey and Jessica Mullins, perfectly represented the different classes of society present in the musical.

Moments of both comedy and severity were acted with such care and understanding and each voice truly portrayed a most unique and inspiring story insuring that this musical was a success.

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Poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill A Portrait of the Artist pays a visit to NUI Galway

turn into a song. Generally I write songs when something happens and is worth writing about.

By James Falconer

Flirt FM – Tuesday 11.30am

By Róisín Kelly Those who have studied Irish for the Leaving Certificate will likely recognise Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's 'Dán do Mhelissa'.

Speaking to the MA in Writing class on 7 February, Ní Dhomhnaill recounted her daughter's indignation when the poem was featured on her own Leaving Cert, and she became the subject of her classmates' curiosity: 'Are you the Melissa from the poem?'

Students' dislike of anything that was ever featured on their Leaving Cert notwithstanding, Ní Dhomhnaill is widely regarded as one of the most significant poets writing in Irish today.

The English translations of her work have also become renowned in their own right. She has published nine books of poetry and has been a visiting professor at US universities such as NYU,

Notre Dame and Boston College.

Born in in Lancashire, England, in 1952, she moved to west Kerry when she was five and became a fluent Irish speaker. During her time at UCC in the 1970s she became part of the 'Innti' group of poets.

Their aim was to revitalise Irish poetry, because otherwise they thought it was 'for the birds'.

When it came to translating her own work into English, however, she felt that she could not do justice to her original poems. Her poetry has since been translated by Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon, to name a few.

Ní Dhomhnaill emphasised the importance of sound in her work, particularly in the Irish versions. She read several of her poems to the class, in both Irish and English, and laughed when the class – which contains many non-Irish nationals – made clear their prefer-

ence for the sound of the Irish versions; “I'm glad you said that, she added.”

The Ireland she inhabited when she first started writing was a very different place for women. Ní Dhomhnaill described one incident when she was invited to read with other poets at NUI Maynooth, and was urged to “come up and show [her] legs” as the token woman.

But each generation has its own mission, she said, and we have to find out for ourselves what that mission is.

She is currently working on a project which involves visiting ancient cities around the world.

It is part travel literature, part memoir. When her publisher realised that the project did not consist of poetry, she was dropped, but she is confident that it will get published elsewhere.

“Well,” she paused for a moment: “It depends if it's any good or not.”

There was ‘A Skull in Connemara’

By Roisin Kelly

“You would agree, now,” a man was overheard saying as we exited the Town Hall Theatre, after the evening's showing of A Skull in Connemara, “that what we saw was typical of the Irish psyche?”

“

theatrical tropes such as the play's kitchen setting and tangential conversations about the weather.

McDonagh also has a reputation for creating characters that are probably at least somewhat mentally unhinged. Once a year, Mick Dowd is employed to exhume old

Despite the atmosphere of

”

apprehension, McDonagh is mostly concerned with macabre humour

If he’s right, the Irish psyche is indeed disturbing. Those who have seen the films In Bruges and, recently released, Seven Psychopaths, will be familiar with writer Martin McDonagh's fondness for juxtaposing violence with humour, which here unsettles familiar Irish

corpses to make room in the local graveyard, and this year he is required to dig up his deceased wife, Oona.

He is assisted by young Mairtin – portrayed compellingly by Jarlath Tivnan – who exists in a constant state of fluctuation between sly

playfulness and wounded pride, interposed with glimpses of a capacity for shocking violence.

The instability of the characters is reflected by the instability of the set.

Mick's kitchen is ambiguous about its interiority: the lighting is bleak and cold, leaves are scattered across the floor and a wheelbarrow leans against the wall. At one point in the play, the wall collapses with a crash to reveal an impressive graveyard set, with Mick standing in one partlyexhumed grave, with Mairtin perched above him.

Te n s i o n r e v o l v e s around the grave of Oona and Mick's reluctance to dig up her remains.

The mystery that surrounds her death, and the question of what her

Speaking to NUI Galway student and musician Dylan Cassidy.

Did you have a bit of success recently?

Oh yes, there was an open mic competition in Róisín Dubh and I won it. I got a few bob and an opening slot for a band – pleased with that.

You did well to win. How long are you playing to live audiences now?

That was only my fifth time to play before a live audience. Big change from jamming upstairs in my bedroom!

What are you studying at NUIG? I study Arts with Social and Political studies and I’m in my final year. It’s fairly interesting and it keeps me going.

What about your artistic process?

I think it comes down to boredom and jealousy. Having nothing to do and watching other lads producing great songs generally sets off my own process. Then I’d see something, or something would happen to me and then I’d create from that.

What sort of background are you coming from? Is it musical?

Oh yes, our house is like walking into a musical. My Dad plays loads of instruments. Back in our estate, in Sligo, you’d definitely hear him before you’d see him.

My little brother is getting big into the guitar now. They’re into heavy metal though so I am not sure where my acoustic sound came from. Well, I suppose I heard a lot of Johnny Cash and the Beatles growing up.

What about your mother, is she a musician too?

No, she likes music, but she doesn’t play. She listens to James Blunt and she likes the X Factor, which I don’t agree with whatsoever.

I know you come from a musical background, but what artists influence you?

I’m a big fan of Mic Christopher, Noel Gallagher, Pete Doherty, Glen Hansard, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison. They have all influenced me and also bands like the Beatles, the Kinks, and I think Oasis were brilliant too.

Have you any interest in forming a band?

I have played around with a few lads, but I don’t know if I’d have the discipline to be in a band. I think it would be unbelievably brilliant, but it’s a lot of work.

If you were locked up in solitary confinement and were allowed to have one album, what one would it be?

I’d say it’d be Skylarkin’ by Mic Christopher or Definitely Maybe by Oasis. Skylarkin’ has got great emotion all over it with amazing songs. Definitely Maybe is just absolutely rocking. It’s a hard one, I love them both.

“Maybe” you could take 6 tracks from each of them!

That’d be ideal. Skylarkin’ to calm me down and Definitely Maybe to throw me over the top.

So how do you deal with blocks?

Do you have a key to unblocking?

Oh no, if I try to write a song and it doesn’t work I just leave it alone. For me, the riff is the most important part. I love to play around with the tunings on my guitar.

So where have you performed lately?

I’ve played the Rosewood sessions in Garvey’s on Tuesday, it was a great night.

I wasn’t the only one playing there were a few others there too. It’s a really cool live music scene.

Do you think the X Factor is “selling your soul”?

Well, I think if they want to be taken seriously, they should try to write their own songs.

So we can find you around the Galway scene?

Yes, I usually play the open mics in the Róisín Dubh every Sunday night at 10pm; they’ve been good to me. I am also hoping to get an EP out there fairly soon.

What do you think motivates you to write a song?

Well, I mess around with the tunings on my guitar. I get a good riff going and it can often become addictive and finally

Have you a facebook page with some of your music?

Well, if people just want to add me, I’ll be putting some recordings up very soon – Dylan Cassidy.

­ isinterment will reveal, d are the play's driving forces. Did Mick cause his wife's death in a drinkdriving incident, as he claims, or, as local opinion has it, did he actually murder her?

But despite the atmosphere of apprehension,

McDonagh is mostly concerned with the macabre humour he can wring from these situations. Disappointed with Oona's mundane manner of dying, Mairtin asks, “Wouldn't it be hard to find somebody around here that hasn't killed

somebody drink-driving?”

Under the direction of Andrew Flynn, a gruesome scene featuring skeleton-pulverising to a Dana soundtrack is memorable enough as to engender discussion on the Irish psyche once the play has ended.

{sin} A rt s & e nt e rtainm e nt {25} 14–09

18–02

Review: Lincoln

By Ken Glennon Heavyweight but surprisingly easy viewing from Steven Spielberg.

Spending two and a half hours in the cinema watching Abraham Lincoln tackle slavery sounds like more work than it is in Steven Spielberg’s surprisingly appealing take on the much loved American icon’s mission to abolish slavery in the United States in 1865.

Taking his cue from a seventy page segment Tony Kushner’s (Munich) screenplay, which originally tackled Lincoln as a full on biopic, Speilberg cuts straight to the final months of Lincoln’s life which saw one of his greatest triumphs shortly before his assassination.

It's a deft decision as what we are given is a focused account of a key period in the man’s life as well as hugely effective character portrait of an American emblem.

If it still sounds a bit awards-seeking and worthy then take heart from the presence of Daniel Day Lewis giving a rich performance as the 16th American president, aided by a stellar supporting cast that includes Tommy Lee Jones (Oscar nominated for his work here) as a radical republican, Sally Field (also up for a supporting Oscar) as Mary Todd Lincoln, Joseph Gordon Levitt as Lincolns oldest son and, among many other distinguished performers, a host of familiar faces from television work as varied as Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad and Justified.

Around his consummate leading man, Spielberg and his team of set decorators, artists, costume designers, technical advisor’s and ever present composer John Williams and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski recreate a world in the late 19th century that feels rich in period detail and atmosphere.

A long-held passion project of Steven Spielberg and the first collaboration between one of the widely considered greatest directors and actors respectively working today, Lincoln feels like something special, not least because of the requisite superlative performance brought to the table by Daniel Day Lewis.

His Lincoln (apparently of whom no audio recordings are to be found) is a soft spoken, immediately warm,

REVIEW: The Master

By Jane Kearns A well-crafted film; it is perfectly cast and is shot beautifully.

Set in post-World War II America, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master sees Joaquin Phoenix play a mentally unstable and shell shocked ex sailor caught up in an organisation led by the charismatic Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

The Master is the follow up to Anderson’s incredibly successful There Will

Be Blood starring Daniel Day Lewis, but unlike the 2007 hit, The Master just falls short of being appealing to both critics and the wider audience.

The opening scenes give the audience a sense of who our main character is, Freddie (Phoenix) is a young man struggling with the on-going war and his fragile state of mind. He has a serious drinking problem, he is violent and he appears to be sexually deviant, all of this results in his discharge from service, it is from here

that we see Freddie struggle to reintegrate back into normal society. He bounces from one menial job to another and gets through each day by drinking nasty concoctions of paint thinner, bleach and anything else he can get his hands on to make his infamous “hooch”.

After a few years of running from his mistakes, Freddie finds himself hiding on the boat of Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman). Also known as the Master, Dodd is the charismatic leader of

well-mannered man prone to frequent storytelling who views the process of slavery as something akin to a fundamentally broken maths equation.

The few moments Lincoln raises his voice most notably his “cloaked in immense power” speech remind one a little of the ferocious characters Day Lewis brought to life in There Will Be Blood and Gangs Of New York. It's

a performance that merits the latest raves as well as the inevitable best actor Oscar this year.

Like its fellow awards contender Django Unchained, Lincoln deals with the issue of slavery, but oddly enough the stately Spielberg entry doesn't feel remotely drawn out next to Tarantino's brilliant but overlong exploitation epic.

What Lincoln ends up offering is a fast two-and-a-

half hours that goes down a lot easier than it should and of the half dozen awards contenders I've seen next to Lincoln, it holds its robust running time the best.

Neither too sleight, too long nor overly sentimental in its depiction of an easily caricatured figure Lincoln is a pleasantly engrossing piece of cinema which should win Best Picture at The Academy Awards this February.

a small but devoted group of followers of the Cause.

Freddie’s lack of guidance or stability in his life makes him the perfect project for Dodd, who welcomes him into the Cause.

One scene early in the film sees Dodd preform what he calls “processing” on Freddie; this involves breaking Freddie down and forcing him to tell his most shameful and private thoughts and experiences.

This scene is long and difficult to watch at times but was surely instrumental in getting Phoenix and Hoffman an Oscar nomination each.

The leading men are both excellent in their roles, but it is clear that it wasn’t much of a stretch for either of them; Hoffman resurrects his character from Doubt in many scenes and Phoenix plays the troubled younger man that we’ve seen in many of his older works like To Die For and Parenthood.

The view of cult groups in this film is very interesting at times, but often falls short of being a truly compelling insight into cult teachings.

Dodd is often confused and uncertain throughout the film of what he wants the Cause to be, this makes is difficult to believe people

would follow him so blindly.

It also appears that Anderson wanted to draw parallels between The Cause and Scientology, both religions have similar beliefs and inauguration processes, and Dodd’s character is clearly a parody of L. Ron Hubbard, but the similarities are too few to make the film a satire on Scientology but still too much to make the Cause an organisation all its own.

Overall, The Master is a well-crafted film; it is perfectly cast and is shot beautifully. It does however lack direction at times and fails to deliver the satisfying ending it deserves.

small but important parts as the hunt grinds on with increasingly little hope of success, crashing frequently into dead ends.

A great deal of the film consists of watching people sit around pondering intelligence and counterintelligence information (occasionally interrupted by terrorist attacks). If the weaving together of actual behind-the-scenes mechanisms and fictional dramatisation behind the eventual capture and shooting of Bin Laden doesn't entice interest then this slow-burning snapshot of recent history won't be easy to sit through.

At over two-and-a-half hours, with little in the way of literal action, this is anything but a gun-ho jingoistic American action film. It does boast a great performance from Jessica Chastain, a reliably excellent ensemble and, in the final forty minutes involving the breach of the Bin Laden compound, a terrifically tense virtuoso set-piece.

A challenging and altogether fascinating film that successfully dramatizes the Bin Laden manhunt without devolving into a propaganda film Zero Dark Thirty is griping entertainment.

REVIEW: Zero Dark Thirty

By Ken Glennon Self-Billed as the story of history's greatest manhunt for the world's most dangerous man.

Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal collaborated to great success with multiaward winning war drama The Hurt Locker in 2009 and return with this testing but quietly absorbing procedural about the CIA's hunt for Osama Bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Operating at the centre of this tough but impressive

motion picture is the character Maya played by Jessica Chastain who plays a central role in finding the al-Qaeda leader after a decade-long pursuit.

Most of the torture scenes are dealt with in the opening half hour as Maya arrives in Pakistan under the apprenticeship of a senior interrogator played brilliantly by Jason Clarke.

That said, this is not an agenda-driven, storytelling film, but a dramatized presentation of the processes involved in finding Bin Laden. Pity the controversy

surrounding the depiction of torture in the film has created some sour press because what's on display is an intricate and often fascinating account of the shadowy intelligence work that went into one of the most famous manhunts in recent history.

As our totem in the story, Maya provides a great part for leading lady Jessica Chastain (the forerunner for this year’s best actress Oscar). Obsessed and ferocious in her pursuit, Maya serves as the rock solid anchor that holds together the diverse plot involving

various intelligence officers and footsoldiers in a story that spans ten years.

Among said players we have the aforementioned Jason Clarke who leaves a lasting impression as a relatively ordinary and intelligent man whose line of work just happens to involve torture. A bevy of respected character actors from Jennifer Elhe as Maya's friend and comrade, Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes), Édgar Ramírez (Carlos The Jackal), James Gandolfini and Joel Edgerton (Warrior) to name a few appear in

{26} 14–09

H e alth & F itn e s s

{sin} 18–02

Do you compare yourself to others?

By John Mulry of Expect Success Fitness Do you compare yourself to others? Do you measure yourself up against your peers, your mentors or just people you see in the gym, on the street as you walk to college or in Smokey’s while you’re enjoying a liquorice tea?

Comparing our achievements, looks and personal progress to others is accepted as being normal and inevitable; we all do it,

whether it’s intentional or not and if you don’t, then you’re considered odd. The thing is though we needn’t do it.

The only person you need to compare yourself to is the you of yesterday. Contrary to the status quo of the health, fitness and beauty industries (and practically every industry out there) comparing yourself to others is not the answer to success. You should only ever be interested in comparing yourself to who you were yesterday or last week or last year – then ask yourself the question – am I better, worse or the same as before? And if I’m not better, what can I do to become better?

Take the fitness environment for instance. For me fitness gives us a rare gift.

Fitness gives us the ability to be in the fiercest competition of all - competition with ourselves. Every single time I head ‘into battle’ in the gym I have one goal: to be better than the day before. This personal competition opportunity that fitness gives us can and should be put to good use no matter what your level, ability, age or gender is.

Have you ever walked into a gym for a workout out and immediately found yourself looking around, instantly comparing yourself to the other people in there? I know I used to. You probably look for the

Do you binge-drink?

By Kiri Renssen Have you ever felt you should cut down on your drinking? Have people ever annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?

Have you ever felt bad or guilty about your drinking? Have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover?

These four questions make up the CAGE questionnaire which is routinely used by clinicians to pick up problem drinkers. If you answered “yes” to at least two of the above questions you have a problem; especially if you answered “yes” to the last question on needing an eyeopener.

A glass of wine can vary in size, so always be aware of how much you are drinking.

most in shape people in the gym and say to yourself “What’s the point – I’ll never be like them.”

You know what? You’re right; you will never be like them, but not because you don’t have the ability to achieve what they have achieved – you do, you most definitely do, but on your terms, not theirs. You’ll never be like them because you’re not them, you’re you. So forget the “what’s the point” attitude, they started out exactly as you did: at the beginning. Now their beginning may have been different than yours but they had a beginning nonetheless.

Instead of comparing yourself to them, start using these people as your inspiration.

Look to emulate their drive, passion to succeed and work ethic to look the way they do.

Don’t compare yourself to them. Your only concern whether you’re starting out or a fitness veteran should be on achieving your goals and bettering yourself and no one else.

When you’re only competing against yourself, the feeling is amazing, your motivation sky rockets, you go into every workout expecting success (clever huh?), you don’t concern yourself with others in the gym – you enter what I call the “success zone”. Everything else becomes irrelevant, your workouts are more exciting and are always challenging.

“

There’s a quote from one of my favourite movies Coach Carter that always inspires me to strive to beat the me of yesterday, continuously improve and forget about comparing myself to others and I hope it does the same for you.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The message here transcends to any area of your life. Whatever area of your life you’re looking to improve upon whether it’s fitness, in your exams, your love life or whatever, go ‘into battle’ thinking one thing: “What can I do today to kick my own a** and better myself of yesterday?” Do that and you’re writing your own success story.

People no longer say that someone “is biggy”,

”

“is dizzy as a goose”, “has got the glanders” or “has been too free with Sir John Strawberry”

Not so long ago, the tongue-in-cheek lexicographer, Paul Dickson, made it into the Guinness book of records with his list of 2,231 synonyms for the word “drunk”.

Interestingly enough, the previous recordholder was none other than Benjamin Franklin who published his own list in 1736.

While people no longer say that someone “is biggy”, “is dizzy as a goose”, “has got the glanders” or “has been too free with Sir John Strawberry”, our own hefty Irish store of modern synonyms likely reflects our over-attachment to alcohol as a nation.

So how do we objectively measure this relationship of ours with alcohol in Ireland? What is the dynamic between Irish youth and alcohol in particular?

The ‘My World Survey’, a collaboration between the UCD school of psychology and the organisation ‘Headstrong’ collated the opinions of 14,306 young Irish people between the ages of 12 and 25 on several areas that affect mental health, and found that 33% of males and 42% of females practiced normal drinking behaviour and that the rest were drinking outside of normal limits with 42% of males and 41% of females in the problem drinking category.

Furthermore, 12% of the guys and 9% of the girls surveyed were drinking hazardously and the remaining percentages made up the “potential alcohol

­ ependence” category. Drinking behavd iour was assessed using the AUDIT (alcohol use disorders identification) test and the groups were categorized according to AUDIT and World Health Organisation cut-offs. Evidently we have a problem.

Binge drinking is defined as consuming six or more drinks in one sitting or session. But what defines a “drink”? How can you tell if you’re binge drinking if you don’t know what a “standard drink” is?

The HSE published a report defining just that and found that a standard drink roughly contains 10 grams or pure alcohol. A half pint of beer or cider, 275ml of an alco-pop, 100ml of wine, 71ml of liqueur and 35.5ml of spirits each contain approximately 10 grams of pure alcohol.

You are all likely more familiar with “a pub measure of spirits” or “a small glass of wine” as standard drinks; however, if you’re serving yourself, you have to bear the strength of the beverage or the ABV% in mind. What you may consider a “standard” glass of wine before heading out may be twice the size of what you would get in a bar. Especially if you happen to have large wine glasses!

In essence, objectively reflect on your drinking habits. Do you binge drink?

Should you cut down? Is your drinking affecting other areas of your life? Be honest with yourself. Your body will reflect what you do to it whether you are willing to acknowledge the cause or not.

Clubs Bookings in Kingfisher CLUB

Monday

PArk AND rIDE Tuesday to Dangan Sports Pavillion: now operating!

Commences to Dangan at 5.45pm Last bus from the Pavilion at 9.15pm

Wednesday

Bus will start at the Orbsen Building and complete its usual pickups.

You can hop on and off as usual but this bus goes all the way to Dangan Pavillion!

Thursday

Friday Saturday Sunday Mon – Wed Thursday

Service Operates:

5.45pm – 9.15pm 5.45pm – 8.15pm

Monday – Wednesday Departing from Orbsen Building:

5.45 | 6.15 | 6.45 | 7.15 | 7.45 | 8.15 | 8.45 | 9.15 (final bus from Dangan Pavillion)

Thursday

Departing from Orbsen Building:

5.45 | 6.15 | 6.45 | 7.15 | 7.45 | 8.15 (final bus from Dangan Pavillion)

Aikido Karate Badminton Archery Club Futsal Soccer Taekwondo & Judo Swim Club Karate Club Archery Fencing Club Ladies Basketball - Varsities Karate Club Aikido Club Maui Thai Cricket Club Kayak Club Volleyball Volleyball Aikido Archery Mens Varsity Basketball Cricket Club Badminton Taekwondo Karate & Judo sharing General Varsity Training Sub Aqua Swim Club Frizbee Muai Thai Cricket Ladies Basketball - Varsities Ladies Basketball - Recreational Table Tennis & Fencing Taekwondo & Aikido Fencing Advanced Swim & Lifesaving Club Mens Basketball - Varsity Archery Club Fencing Inline Hockey Volleyball Club Blank Judo Club Waterpolo Taekwondo

TIME 1.00pm – 2.00pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 8.00pm – 10.00pm 8.00pm – 10.00pm 8.30pm – 11.00pm 7.30am – 9.00am 7.00pm – 9.00pm 6.00pm – 7.30pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 7.00pm – 9.00pm 7.30pm – 9.30pm 9.00pm – 10.30pm 9.00pm – 11.00pm 8.00pm – 10.30pm 1.00pm – 2.00pm 1.00pm – 2.00pm 4.00pm – 6.00pm 6.00pm – 7.00pm 7.00pm – 9.00pm 9.00pm – 11.00pm 7.00pm – 9.00pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 8.00pm – 9.00pm 9.30pm – 11pm 7.00pm – 8.30am 5.00pm – 7.00pm 7.00pm – 9.00pm 9.00pm – 10.30pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 8.00pm – 10.00pm 6.00pm – 8.00pm 8.00pm – 10.00pm 6.00pm – 10.00pm 9.00pm – 11.00pm 11.00am 11.00am – 1.30pm 3.00pm – 4.00pm 7.00pm – 9.00pm 6.00pm – 10.00pm 6.00pm – 7.00pm 7.00pm – 9.00pm 9.30pm – 11.00pm 12.00pm – 2.00pm

VENUE Hall 3 Raquetball Court Hall 1 & 2 Hall 3 Hall 1 & 2 Hall 3 Full Pool Dance Studio Hall 1 Hall 1 Hall 2 Hall 3 Hall 3 Hall 1 Hall 3 Full Pool Hall 2 Hall 2 to Oct 17th Hall 3 Hall 3 Hall 2 Hall 1 3 halls Hall 2 Hall 3 Hall 3 Full Pool 2 Lanes Hall 1 Hall 1 Hall 1 Hall 2 Hall 2 Hall 3 Hall 3 Raquetball Court Full Pool Hall 2 Hall 3 Hall 3 Hall 1 Hall 2 Hall 3 & 1 Hall 3 Full Pool Raquetball Court

Swim Club

4.00pm – 5.30pm

2 Lanes

Fencing Club

2.00pm – 4.00pm

Raquetball court

5-ASIDE SYNTHETIC PITCHES Cages for hire – Students & Staff

€20 PEr Hour

Located at Corrib Village For further info: contact Kevin Cassidy Email: nuigcages@kingfisherclub.com Text Kevin: 0861772589 Or visit www.otc.nuigalway.ie Kevin Cassidy is the facilitator for all your recreational soccer. Most capped player for Galway United, Manager/Coach with Galway District League.

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{sin}

Sport s

14–09

NUI Galway heading to quarter final in Irish Hockey Trophy

By Hannah Jenkinson After two disappointing defeats for the NUI Galway Hockey 1st teams in the last few weeks, this weekend’s Irish Trophy roundtwo match was a perfect chance to redeem themselves.

The match took place on Saturday 9 February in Dangan on a cold and damp afternoon, however neither the weather nor their last two defeats could stop NUI Galway from getting on with what they knew would be a tough match.

NUI Galway 1sts were taking on Ulster team Grosvenor, who had had a successful win in their previous round and who were most definitely up for winning the match despite the long journey to Galway.

The first half of the match saw NUI Galway playing some great hockey and getting back to form, with excellent passages of passing and possession of the ball seeing them dominate the half.

Great pressure from the defence lead to turnover balls with quick counter attacks which ended up in a short corner or two, however the Grosvenor goalie was on form and made some good saves.

Spirits were high and the team was eager to keep fighting on in order to get the result they needed and deserved in the second half.

NUI Galway started the second half well and the team began to gel even more. Some well strungtogether passes down the right hand side of the pitch by Dee Hatton and Aoife Smyth produced a short corner. NUI Galway opted for a straight strike on the short corner and it was Tara Melvin who struck to give NUI Galway with their first goal of the match.

Following on from this came NUI Galway’s second goal from Sile Johnson.

A long corner for the college side resulted in a ball crossing the circle from the back line and it was Johnson who was on the back post to composedly tuck the ball into the back of the goal to pull NUI Galway closer to the quarter final of the Irish Trophy.

Grosvenor continued to play well and was unlucky not to convert a goal from their short corners; however NUI Galway goalie Emilie Molloy was on hand to produce some excellent saves to keep the visitors at bay.

Michelle Carey (front) and Hannah Jenkinson (back) get ready for an attacking short corner.

NUI Galway’s third goal came from an excellent piece of play from Dee Hatton and Aimee O’Connor; Hatton dribbled along the baseline and pulled the ball back to O’Connor who was on the penalty spot to put it in the net, a textbook piece of play with great positioning and a clinical finish.

NUI Galway was winning 3-0 when a good passage of play led to a consolation goal in the final moments for Grosvenor, leaving a final score of 3-1. NUI Galway were delighted with their win and will now strive to continue with their success in the quarter final of the Irish trophy competition in March.

18–02

NUI Galway athletes thrive at Indoor Inter-varsities

By Neil Hyland NUI Galway’s runners, jumpers and throwers offered some fine performances at the new national indoor stadium in Athlone IT at this year’s indoor inter-varsities.

A total of 14 athletes competed, with a few standout performances amongst them. Barry Quigg was agonisingly close to a medal in both the long jump and combined events, finishing fourth in both.

Meanwhile both Michael Kenny and Conall Mahon also went extremely close to podium finishes as they finished in fifth and sixth place in the weight for distance and the triple jump respectively.

Moving on to matters on the track there were heartening performances from many long distance runners such as Aisling Moyles, Michelle Maher, Peter Mannion and Luke Griffin in the 800m, Dee O’Dwyer in the 300m and Cormac McDonnell in the 1500m. Peter was another, only a whisker away from a medal as he also finished fourth in the race walk.

Galway Fest 2013

By Aoife McCollum

Left: NUI Galway’s Aimee O’Connor. Right: Sile Johnson.

CLUB PROFILE: NUI Galway Badminton Club

By Megan Reilly Boasting a membership of over 600 people, NUI Galway Badminton club is the university’s biggest indoor sports club.

Training is over four hours a week, 6-8 on a Monday and 9-11 on a Wednesday. Despite the late times, courts are always packed.

Members range from serious competitors to those who just want to have a bit of fun.

After all, the sport in Connacht is thriving, with county championships taking place every couple of weeks in nearby Galway Lawn and Tennis Club (GLTC). And badminton in NUI Galway is no exception.

With three League teams competing home and away in various divisions, nights out, and the opportunity of weekends away at Badminton tournaments, it’s always fairly busy.

The first semester saw ordinary as well as committee members of the club travel to Limerick and Holland for epic weekends away at International Student Badminton Tournament (ISBT). It’s for all levels and let’s just say there’s a fair amount of craic to be had day and night.

Semester two promises to be even more exciting than semester one. With inter-varsities approaching in March, the club

is putting together two teams to represent our university all the way down in UCC, where they will be held this year.

Speaking as a first year who only joined a couple of months ago, I can truly say that it has been one of the things that has made my first year experience.

Those who run the club are friendly and up for a game with anyone. It’s a great place to play sport with friends. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s a professional coach on Monday who helps with fitness as well as playing technique.The club provides rackets and shuttles so you don’t need to bring anything except yourself.

Amongst the sprinters there was a standout performance from Emmanuel “Manni” Sobayo who finished third in the men’s 60m hurdles.

Ronan Dobey, Neil Hyland and Simon Callaghan also performed commendably in their sprints and all will look to build in their performances over the remainder of the indoor season.

It promises to be a busy few months for the Athletics Club, with the Cross Country Championships on in Jordanstown on 9 March, closely followed up by the Mountain Running Championships.

Throw in the prospect of a major charity fundraiser and the Outdoor Championships, there is something for everyone to look forward to this semester.

And, as always, remember it’s never too late to join us for a run down in Dangan, whether you’re targeting Rio in 2016 or just targeting a bit of fresh air and a jog.

As the saying goes: runs end, running doesn’t.

NUI Galway’s Kayaking club is preparing for Galway Fest 2013, the kayaking festival, will take place from the 23 to 24 February.

This is the second year for the event as it goes from strength to strength. Organised by past and present NUI Galway Kayak Club members, the event will have over 100 Irish and international competitors.

There will be both Whitewater and Freestyle events happening over the weekend. The White-

water will take place on the Boluisce River on Saturday 23 February, with the Freestyle taking place in Tuam the following day.

Sponsors include Galwaybased companies River Deep Mountain High and the Great Outdoors alongside international kayaking brand names.

Weekends such as this help to build the Kayaking community nationally and further the skills of all the competitors involved.

Have a look at the Facebook event page for all the latest news.

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Willie Mullins Cheltenham team

By Brian Sheerin Recently in Leopardstown, the exciting young hurdler Fatcatinthehat booked his Cheltenham Festival ticket with a smooth success in the opening juvenile maiden hurdle.

He was impressive, as 8-15 shots should be, and punters who snatched up the short odds on offer never had a moment’s worry.

He was always travelling well and pretty much won as easily as he liked, cruising into the lead well before the second-last flight, and as his rivals’ whips flailed in behind, he galloped on strongly to win by eight lengths.

A half an hour later, Arvika Ligeonniere seemed to be travelling well out in front before losing his concentration and parting company with his jockey Paul Townend four fences from the finish. With the long odds-on favorite out of the race it was Benefficient, the outsider of the field, who came home in front much to the pleasure of his jubilant trainer Tony Martin who said; "That's racing, we had the rub of the green today!"

The following day the Mullins camp gained compensation for that Grade One anguish when Pont Alexander landed the two-and-a-half mile novice hurdle. He had to make his own running, and came away nicely from the very useful Sizing Gold to win by 11 lengths.

That performance proved the French recruit has enough pace to run in the Neptune Novices Hurdle at Cheltenham, although Mullins will not rule out the Albert Bartlett, which is run over an extra half mile, as the five year old French recruit looks to be a real staying chaser for the future.

The Neptune has been a race that Mullins has done well in at the Festival, winning it with Fiveforthree in 2008 and Mikael D’ Haguenet in 2009. Once Pont Alexander is confirmed for the race, the current 7/2 that is available is sure to contract and he will be hailed as the ‘Irish banker’ leading up to the festival.

Beginning to see a trend? Mullins is sitting pretty, and we haven’t even mentioned the Hurricane and how he laid down the gauntlet to his Champion Hurdle rivals with an electrifying turn of foot to win his 14th Grade One in the Irish Champion Hurdle on the same card. 11/4 favorite for March the bookmakers bellowed, and no bigger.

Of course there are the flag bearers, like Hurricane Fly, Quevega, Sir Des Champs and Uncle Junior. They don’t make them any more high profile than Hurricane Fly who has demonstrated his trademark turn of foot to good effect and has put his problems of last season firmly behind him.

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Mullins’ stable star has looked invincible this season thus far and, as the warm favorite for the Champion Hurdle on the opening day of the festival, his performance will probably determine the fate of a significant proportion of Irish punters for the week Another Mullins inmate who has had her fair share of training problems is Quevega and punters have become accustomed to seeing her just twice on a racecourse each season.

The daughter of Robin Des Champs has won the David Nicholson Mares Hurdle at Cheltenham for each of the past four years, and prior to each of those four victories she has run a total of just once. It is a testimony to her master trainer who has come up with a training routine that the star mare enjoys much to the pleasure of her adoring public.

Sir Des Champs is a little less

straightforward. Ever since his victory in last season’s Jewson Novices Chase he has been earmarked for the Gold Cup and was arguably staying on better than any at the finish in the Lexus Chase at Christmas.

One thing we know is that he will love the stiff uphill finish as he is already twice victorious at the festival in 2011 and 2012. If his jumping – which has been a little scratchy this season – can improve, he could be the one to break the Willie Mullins duck in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. As Cheltenham teams go, they don’t get much more exciting than the Mullins team at present. Expectations are the barometer of which success is measured on and with such strength and depth in the Closutton stable, the expectations leading into this year’s Cheltenham festival will be very high. Let’s hope it’s a success.

18–02

NUI Galway Horse Racing Society hosts Cheltenham Preview Night

By Brian Sheerin With the eagerly anticipated Cheltenham Festival kicking off in the second week of March, the NUI Galway Horse Racing Society has teamed up with The Racing Post and John Mulholland Bookmakers to hold their annual Cheltenham Preview Night on the 4th of March in the Salthill Hotel.

The event began 12 years ago as a Horse Racing Society function, and has risen over €100,000 euro for Direct Aid for Africa in the past 12 years while attracting crowds in excess of 400 people each year.

As well as being for a worthwhile cause, the preview night has

been educational, informative and lively with a variety of views being expressed on the major races at the Cheltenham Festival.

With high profile panellists such as Champion Jockey Davy Russell and Champion Amateur Jockey Patrick Mullins confirmed, this year’s event provides racing enthusiasts a chance to receive their Cheltenham tips straight from the horse’s mouth.

There will also be a guest appearance from TV personality Hector O’ Ó’hEochagáin as well as some fantastic raffle prizes to give away.

Tickets will be available at the door at a price of €10, and everyone is urged to show their support.

Disappointment for Ladies Soccer team in Intervarsities

By Rosa Shine The Ladies Soccer squad travelled to IT Sligo early Thursday 7 February to begin their intervarsity campaign and were focused for the game against University of Limerick at 2.30pm.

The game was played on astroturf because of bad weather and NUIG started brightly, getting a few early shots on goal as well as keeping it organised and defend-

ing as a unit.

UL didn’t look like they’d score but late into the second half they conceded a controversial penalty when Julie-Ann Russell fell to the ground outside the box. Sarah O’Connell was unlucky not to get to Jenny Brennans low shot and UL went 1 nil up.

They got another goal a couple of minutes later when the referee missed a foul on O’Dowd. The

girls were sickened to concede two goals after playing so well for nearly 70 minutes.

Final score was UL 2-0 NUIG, which meant that a result was needed against Athlone Institute of Technology the next day.

The second group game versus AIT was played in Cleveragh. The girls gave it their all and were 10 minutes from making the semifinal when Jackson pounced and scored, from a tight angle, the

goal that knocked them out.

UCC were eventual winners of the competition beating IT Sligo in penalties 4-3. Well done to everyone who travelled and be proud of the effort put in over the weekend. Thanks to Padraic de Burca and John Hynes for all they did. It’s not the end of the road for the Ladies Soccer team with an All-Ireland quarter final against IT Tralee coming up soon so watch this space.

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Bullied, bruised and beaten

By Pádraic Ó’Ciardha Fifty years ago, Ireland and England drew 0-0 in their Five Nations encounter in Lansdowne Road. The 2013 instalment probably edged it for excitement.

Zero tries; zero line breaks; less territory.

Despite providing these less-than-ideal statistics, it was England who left the Aviva with their first victory in Dublin for ten years and their Grand Slam hopes still alive.

Before the game, much of the focus was on how the Irish scrum would react to last year’s thrashing at Twickenham.

While Cian Healy and Mike Ross dominated their English counterparts, the men in green seemed to struggle with every other facet of the game.

It was a day for playing simple rugby with the wet weather making ball-handling especially tricky.

Such conditions usually dictate

that the team which makes the fewest mistakes tends to come out on top and this fixture proved no different.

Ireland’s ball-handling was particularly poor with a number of players knocking the ball on at crucial times. Jamie Heaslip, Gordon Darcy, Mike McCarthy and even Brian O’Driscoll were all guilty of committing basic errors in a first half which ended with Ireland trailing 0-6.

While Declan Kidney was forced to make changes due to injury, the loss of Simon Zebo and Jonathon Sexton cannot be blamed for Ireland’s loss. Keith Earls often looked like Ireland’s best attacking outlet and the game seemed tailor-made for Ronan O’Gara, with the Munster man having built his reputation as a top-class kicker out of hand.

Unfortunately for Ireland and O’Gara, ROG hasn’t been at the top of his game for some time and aimless punts downfield and poor kicks

to touch meant he struggled to impose himself on the proceedings.

When England’s James Haskell was sent to the sin bin on 56 minutes, it looked like the opportunity Ireland needed to finally get into the game. When O’Gara levelled the scores, there was a sense that Ireland could grind out a scarcely deserved victory.

Poor discipline cost them again, however, and by the time England were returned to fifteen men, the impressive Eoin Farrell had put them ahead 6-12.

The English refused to be moved in defence and did not allow Ireland’s dynamic running game to develop. The home crowd’s miserable day was epitomised when, in the 79th minute, England stole an Irish lineout, crushing any last hope of a gamewinning try.

What comes next for Ireland?

They face Scotland in Murrayfield on 24 February. With Zebo ruled out and many others nursing knocks, the squad will be grateful for the rest after two bruising

encounters against the Welsh and the English respectively.

Any hopes for the Grand Slam and the Triple Crown have now gone. Questions will be asked about Declan Kidney’s perceived lack of a plan B and his continued faith in O’Gara, despite his poor form.

If rumours are to be believed, Kidney has a fight on his hands to lead Ireland into the 2015 World Cup. Should his team repeat their England performance in the upcoming games, it is not a fight he is likely to win.

Kerry falter as Dublin drive on

By Mark Higgins The opening rounds of matches in the Allianz National Football have left Dublin and Kildare sitting pretty atop the Division 1 table, with Kerry and Cork slumbering at its base, yet to pick up any points in this campaign. The major talking points of the league so far have been Kerry’s poor form and the impressive displays from Dublin’s young guns.

Kerry sit rock-bottom of the League, having lost consecutive games to Mayo and Dublin. The Kingdom were nothing short of abysmal against Dublin in Killarney, managing only four points in the entire 70 minutes. Despite

bringing back several of their marquee players, including Kieran Donaghy, Tomas Ó Sé ad Declan O’Sullivan, Eamon Fitzmaurice’s side looked completely lost against Dublin’s young attack.

This came after a heavy loss to Mayo in Castlebar, in which they went the entire second half without registering a score.

It’s early in the season to speak about a crisis, and there are some big names yet to return, including Paul Galvin and Colm Cooper, but their poor start suggests the miles in the Kerry player’s legs may finally be catching up on them. Next up they face a Kildare team riding high in the table after two wins from two.

Jim Gavin’s Dublin were excellent in Killarney, regardless of the poor opposition. Gavin has fused the experienced core of the 2011 All-Ireland winning team with fresh blood, players from the hugely successful minor and u-21 teams of recent years.

One such player, Craig Dias, came off the bench to notch a goal against Kerry. If Gavin can continue to successfully blend the experience and youth at his disposal, expect Dublin to be in the shake-up come August and September.

Elsewhere in the division, Donegal put a disappointing opening-day defeat behind them with a win against Down in Ballybofey. Their opponents in last year’s All-Ireland, Mayo, nearly staged an unlikely comeback against Tyrone in Castlebar, only for Stephen O’Neill to convert a last-minute penalty to maintain the northerners’ unbeaten start to the year.

In Division 2, Westmeath top the table after two wins from their opening two games. A victory over neighbours Longford was ground out on Sunday, in front of a meagre crowd at a sodden Pearse Park. The loss sees Longford propping up the table win two losses from two, and fears of a relegation fight must already be growing for Glenn Ryan’s side.

The Peter Canavan Project is gathering pace in Fermanagh, as the former Tyrone great’s charges continue their unbeaten record in Division 3. A six-point win over Roscommon in Brewster Park offered the clearest signs yet that Fermanagh are becoming a dangerous prospect in Ulster.

Canavan will have his sights set firmly on promotion to Division 2 his season, before a Championship opener against either Cavan or Armagh in June.

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News

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18–02

CloakRumours

Sin Newspaper, NUI Galway

SHAG Week posters lead to 10% drop in gun crime on Campus.

Ceramics students disappointed after attending PotterFest - lodge complaint of false advertising against PotterSoc. As lightning strikes St. Peter’s Basilica, God calls Paul Curley. #Curley4Pope Welfare Officer Dami Adebari’s ‘Captain Condom’ campaign is far from flaccid, as Ku Klux Klan Soc is submitted for consideration to the SocsBox. SU President Paul Curley uses BizzSoc reputation as leverage in his bid for Pope 2013. Having updated his LinkedIn Profile to reflect his work in SU Services he is now ready to run the largest corporation in the world. #Curley4Pope The inaugural Information Technology and Chemistry Ball is launched: the ITCHY Ball.

Increased numbers of students presenting to the Health Unit with cases of Election fever, Ball bunions and SHAG week mouth ulcers.

Paul Curley admits he would be happy to sweep any crisis of morals or faith under the carpet, and will stop at nothing until he is granted the Papacy. Meanwhile nobody is talking about Conor Stitt and Dami Adebari’s love child. #Curley4Pope Cloakrumour writers attempt to get #Curley4Pope trending in Traditional Print Media.

@sin_news

NUI Galway Memes

by Conor Stitt

Sports writers wanted.

Sudoku

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Book 3

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