Issue 1 Volume 58 Trinity News

PROVOST REVIEW: PATRICK PRENDERGAST & JOHN HEGARTY

OPINION 18

THE DEBUT INTERVIEW DAVA

OPINION 18 COLLEGE NEWS 5

COME AT THE KING Two

BOLLYWOOD DREAMS

TRINITY’S STARRING ROLE NEWS 2

SOBEL’S PERFECT HEAVEN

TRINITY NEWS

Alex Towers talks to Michael K. Williams

TRINITY NEWS Est 1953

Trinity to host BNP leader

Freshers’ Week: Trinity Hall kicks off the week’s events

Phil invite Nick Griffin to speak at Trinity Visit opposed by Union of Jewish Students Security concerns for same day memorial Manus Lenihan College News Editor

BRITISH NATIONAL Party leader Nick Griffin is due to speak at a Philosophical Society debate on 20 October, BNP Press Officer Simon Darby revealed on his blog last Wednesday.

Griffin is due to come to Trinity with a BNP delegation to speak in favour of the motion, ‘This House Believes Immigration Has Gone Too Far.’ The Union of Jewish Students responded to the news within hours and called for A rally took place at Oxford University where Griffin, leader of the far-right BNP, was also invited to speak college authorities to cancel the event.

The Socialist Party Society on campus will be actively opposing the visit and many societies organized on campus are likely to take similar positions. A Facebook page in opposition to the visit had several hundred ‘likes’ at the time of going to print.

The date for the event is also a matter of concern, as it is also the night of the memorial service for the

late historian RB McDowell. There are concerns that the planned protests against the BNP might compromise the security of the memorial service.

Trinity is not the first Irish university to invite a controversial character to speak. In 2009, historian and holocaust denier David Irving was due to speak to the Literary and Debating Society of NUI Galway. However, the event had to be cancelled due to widespread opposition to Irving’s visit. Amid a campaign that heavily criticized and opposed the society’s decision to invite Irving, campus management told the society that they could not guarantee the security of the event. A similar sequence of events greeted a proposed visit to UCC by Irving in 2008. The Phil also invited David Irving to speak in 1988, but had to hold the event offcampus due to protests.

According to the Union of Jewish Students, “Trinity ought to take heed from what has happened in the past when BNP members have appeared on UK campuses.”

The Union, which incporates Jewish student socieites throughout the UK and Ireland, comdemned the Phil’s decision to invite Griffin: “Publicity stunts such as these tear apart student Continued on page 2

John Porter and Manus Lenihan Staff Reporter & College News Editor

AS A new term begins with another slip in the university rankings for Trinity College, the re-introduction of tuition fees and other reforms are again being promoted strongly by college and national authorities.

In an interview with Trinity News published in this issue, Provost Patrick Prendergast argues decisively in favour of increased third-level fees, calling government funding a “disadvantage” and a “constraint”. This echoes comments made by the new Provost in the Irish Times as well as the arguments of his peers in other universities. In addition, Prendergast has called for extra government funding for science courses rather than a uniform level of support for all courses as is currently the case.

This is ahead of the publication of a report into Higher Education funding due this month, which Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn says will Irish universities face a “speedy and inexorable decline” unless radical reforms are adopted - Patrick Prendergast This week Trinity’s clubs and societies will be set up in Front Square in a bid to recruit new members, along with Calvin Harris’ performance last night. Photo: Donal Earls

High court challenge to grant reforms Kate Palmer and Fiona Ridgway Editor & Deputy College News Editor

THE UNION of Students in Ireland has been granted leave for judicial review to challenge grant cuts announced in Budget 2011.

The government reforms, which changed the rules governing how far a student must live from college in order to receive a higher rate of grant payment, will see some students face cuts of over 60% in their grants this year.

The USI mounted the legal challenge based on the expectation students had when entering college that the financial aids granted to them would not dramatically change, unless their personal circumstances did.

The High Court heard that current students could not legitimately have expected their grants to be cut to such an extent. In some cases, students will see their grant cut from €6,100 to €2,445 as a result of new boundary changes.

The qualifying distance is now 45km, leaving many students at a loss of nearly €3,500 for the 2011/2012 academic year. Previously, students

living 24km from university qualified for a full maintenance grant. Mature students were also automatically entitled to this grant. The government justified the proposals on the basis that public transport made it “more feasible to commute to college from long distances.”

Ruairi Quinn signed a pledge with the USI promising not to increase fees or cut grants According to the USI, the grant cuts announced in Budget 2011 affect approximately 25,000 students of which 7,000 approximately are mature students. The case for the change in adjacency rules was made on the basis that public transport has improved significantly in recent years. This does not however account for students living in rural areas that have no access to adequate public transport.

Leave for judicial review has been granted on an ex-party basis and the case is due to be heard in the High Court by Mr. Justice Parth on 7 October 2011. The USI has expressed, however,

Renewed push for fee hike

that they do not expect the case to be heard by then, but due to the urgency of the issue it hopes the case will be concluded before Christmas.

Three students are taking this case which, if successful, will result in the reinstatement of the full grant for all returning students who still qualify.

The USI, represented by Dublin based legal firm Mangan O’Beirne Solicitors, is supporting a number of the cases of a number of plaintiffs as part of its legal action. This includes one example where a student has “effectively been forced out of college entirely,” according to a USI spokesperson.

“The cut in her grant means she can no longer afford to live in Galway, where she studies – but public transport from her native Clare means she cannot make it to college until after 11am each morning,” according to the USI. USI President Gary Redmond said that the government encouraged school leavers to proceed to university, but that the grant cuts would force many to emigrate or even go on the dole.Redmond comments: “If this cut is not reversed many students will have

no choice but to drop out.

This is yet another example of disjointed government policies. While they claim to promote upskilling and building a smart, knowledge-based economy, the Minister for Education is threatening the future of up to 25,000 students.”

In February, Ruairi Quinn, the then Labour spokesperson on Education & Skills, signed a pledge with the USI which promised that it would not increase student fees or cut student grants if they were to form part of the “This is yet another example of disjointed government policies” - Gary Redmond next government. There are growing fears that the Labour Party will do a U-turn on its promise not to re-introduce third level fees and the reduction in grants do little to calm these fears.

Incoming first year students will not be affected if the challenge is successful, as grant cuts were announced before the CAO deadline.

determine his decision on whether to introduce tuition fees, despite a pledge made by Quinn to the Union of Students in Ireland not to introduce tuition fees.

With Prendergast warning of a “speedy and inexorable decline” in Trinity unless radical reforms are adopted, the college has fallen 22 places in the QS World University Rankings in two years, from 43rd in 2009 to 65th in 2011. The 2009 ranking was the highest Trinity has ever achieved. A college spokesperson at the time described the climb to 43rd as “an outstanding achievement [...] the challenge now for Trinity is to sustain and improve its position in the rankings.” This has not happened as Trinity fell back down the rankings as quickly as it climbed them, and with the range of challenges the college now faces it is likely to remain at around its former position of between 60-80 in the world rankings.

QS rankings, have been criticised by academics including Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick and Ian Diamond, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, for its overemphasis on the natural sciences as opposed to arts, humanities and social sciences.

Of the top 15 universities in the world according to the QS rankings, 11 are in the United States and 4 are in

Vol 58

Continued on page 2

Issue 1 20 September, 2011

2 NEWS WHAT THEY SAID

“We’re not supremacists, we’re white survivalists”

“This could be the biggest comeback in Irish political history”

“Live the Bollywood experience right here in Trinity”

“The Minister is threatening the future of up to 25,000 students”

“Universities face a speedy and inexorable decline”

BNP Leader Nick Griffin’s recent comments at an ‘American Friends of the BNP’ conference

David Norris’ comment on the Late Late show last Friday

Vice Provost for Global Relations Jane Ohhlmeyer expresses her support for filming on Trinity’s campus

USI President Gary Redmond in opposition to the government grant reform

Provost Patrick Prendergast speaking of the current funding crisis in the Irish university sector

NUMEROLOGY

Nick Griffin invited by Phil

60%

Of Irish students have had over €200 of deposit retained by landlords, according to USI research

€2,000 The cost of registering for a thirdlevel course in the Republic of Ireland

22 €90m

Places that Trinity has fallen since 2009, according to QS University rankings

Value of government shares held

by Aer Lingus, which it plans to sell

45km

The new distance from college required for university students to qualify for a non-adjacent grant, up from 24km

GET INVOLVED We’re always recruiting new writers, photographers, designers, copy editors and advertising executives.

To get involved, contact the editor of the section you’re interested in at firstname.lastname@trinitynews.ie

Continued from front page

communities and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus.”

In 2002, confrontations between anti-fascist activists and BNP supporters forced the Cambridge Union Society to cancel a debate on the motion ‘This house believes Islam is a threat to the West’, at which fundamentalist Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri was also due to speak.

St Andrews and Bath universities were forced to cancel similar events over following years.

Griffin has succeeded, however, in speaking at Oxford and in several colleges in the USA. He also

successfully spoke on the BBC’s Question Time in 2009 despite large protests.

The BNP is a far-right party which advocates voluntary but “firm” incentives for immigrants and their descendants in the UK to leave. It stands for the deportation of all illegal immigrants and immigrants who break the law. It opposes the “encouragement” and “promotion” of homosexuality.

Griffin was convicted of incitement to hatred in 1998 and tried on similar charges in 2006. He is on record for denying the Holocaust- using the term “Holohoax” in the nineties- and publicly making racist and offensive statements.

Griffin’s appearance on ‘Question Time’ was met with protests outside the BBC

His career on the far right goes back to his joining the National Front in the mid-1970s, but with his Cambridge background he is associated with a “new image” for the BNP which seeks to appeal to a broader audience than

was allowed for by the “streetfighting” roots of founder John Tyndall.

This has seen Griffin moderating and revising many previously-held racist positions since his election as BNP leader in 1999.

Fall in rankings blamed on tuition fees Continued from front page

the UK. On the basis of Prendergast’s argument, Trinity should look toward the American model, which often sees students paying $50,000 for a year’s tuition and leaving college with huge debts.

The UK is going along the same

line as fees in most universities are now £9,000 a year even though free third-level education was a principle enshrined in the UK system until 2003.

It is easy to envisage similar incremental fee increases here over the next few years. Experts say the third-level system in Ireland will need an extra €500 million in funding by

2020 just to maintain current quality standards, suggesting that hefty increases may be very likely if we accept the principle that students or parents should fund education personally.

However, it is uncertain whether the government plans on introducing fees for the next academic year. The Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn,

denied last August to the Irish Times that he has plans to reintroduce thirdlevel fees, but has also refused to rule out the return of fees since taking office.

Quinn has already ruled out an Australian-style student loan scheme, which was favoured by his Fianna Faíl predecessors.

BOLLYWOOD COMES TO TRINITY

EDITORIAL STAFF Editor

Kate Palmer

Deputy Editor Trinitynews.ie

David Barrett Josh Roberts

Manus Lenihan Fiona Ridgway Claire Acton National News Mairead Cremins International News Jack Farrell Nilgiri Pearson Molly Hamilton News Features Maya Zakrzewska Owen Bennett Business Paul McAufield Evan Musgrave Features David Babby World Review Aine Pennello Elly Friel Travel Maud Sampson Sophie Fitzgerald Science Anthea Lacchia Stephen Keane Opinion Michael Gilligan Sports Features Kate Rowan Sarah Burns College Sport James Hussey Shane Curtis College News

Printed at The Guardian Print Centre, Longbridge Road, Manchester, M17 1SL. Trinity News is partially funded by a grant from DU Publications Committee. This publication claims no special rights or privileges. Serious complaints should be addressed to: The Editor, Trinity News, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. Appeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland.

Trinity News is a full participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. This scheme, in addition to defending the freedom of the press, offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go to www.pressombudsman.ie

Filming begins in Front Square, while tourists and students look on. Some Trinity students were asked to help with organising the film crew

The magic of Bollywood has come to Trinity in force for the filming of ‘Ek Tha Tiger’. The stars, Actors Salman Kahn and Katrina Kaif, are renowned in India and the director, Kabir Khan, has won awards for his “edgy” directing style. Kaif was also voted sexiest Asian woman in the world by ‘Eastern Eye’ four years running.

Huge audiences in India will see Trinity College along with other exotic locations. Vice Provost for Global Relations Jane Ohlmeyer says

the film is “a great opportunity for us to increase our understanding of modern Indian culture and live the Bollywood experience here at Trinity,” as well as giving the college “a chance to showcase our magnificent campus.”

Ek Tha Tiger will be released to Indian audiences in June 2012.

Whether Irish filmgoers will get a chance to see Trinity as a backdrop for what will hopefully be an intense drama remains to be seen.

TRINITY NEWS

3 news@trinitynews.ie

USI campaigns unfair deposit return Hildegard Ryan & Ruairi Casey Contributing Reporters

RESEARCH CONDUCTED by the USI has shown that as many as 60% of students reported unfairly losing €200 of their deposits, with 40% receiving none of the money owed to them.

The USI are currently campaigning for the introduction of a deposit protection scheme, such as the models operating in the UK and New Zealand.

Under such a scheme, damage deposits are held by a third party and returned to the tenant unless the landlord has a legitimate objection.

As a result of the sleep-out, the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB) agreed to re-examine the possible implementation of a deposit protection scheme. The issue of the unfair retention of damage deposits by landlords has been highlighted by the Students’ Union recently.

On 25 August, the Students’ Union joined other universities from across the country in a USI-organised “sleepout” protest outside the Department

for Environment. The demonstration aimed to voice concerns about a growing trend whereby damage deposits are increasingly being treated as sources of income for landlords rather than guarantees of the maintenance of the lease.

Students’ Union Welfare Officer Louisa Miller has welcomed the talks as a positive step towards tackling an issue which affects many Trinity students. Miller advised students to focus on three main points when moving into new accommodation.

“Firstly, I would advise students to read their lease carefully and ask their landlords any questions they have before signing it. You should not feel pressurised into signing.

“Secondly, students should check online if their landlord is registered with the PRTB. “Thirdly, I’d recommend for all students to photograph their entire accommodation in the presence of their landlord before moving in. This is the most concrete form of proof in the case of any dispute.”

Junior Sophister James Rhatigan, from Tipperary Town, had a large portion of his deposit withheld during the last academic year: “We had an awful time last year. We were robbed twice and the landlord did nothing for us.

The state of the house itself was terrible and even though we spent two whole days cleaning it before moving out, the landlord still kept a grand of our deposit money cause of things she said were damaged. It’s a disgrace”.

Situations like this are not uncommon and the path to pursuing a deposit isn’t pleasant. Despite having made a complaint to the PTRB in May, Rhatigan is still awaiting a hearing on the matter.

The process of retrieving unfairly withheld deposits can be arduous. The PTRB currently estimates a waiting time of 5-6 months before a complaint will make it to a hearing, after which a report is issued to both disputants which either can appeal. Because of the length of this process, many students don’t bother to attempt reclaiming

their deposits – a fact well known to unscrupulous landlords. Those who persevere, though, have the numbers in their favour: in 2009, 75% of deposit money was at least partially refunded.

Landlords may only legally retain a deposit in the case of unpaid bills, damage to property, or failure to give proper notice before the end of tenancy.

The maintenance of a rent book is also important for students keen on keeping their deposits. The Students’ Union provides USI-issued rent books free of charge from House 6 all year round, which contain a comprehensive guide to tenant rights and obligations, as well as useful checklists and contacts.

Students with queries regarding their safety deposits or any other accommodation issues should contact the SU Welfare Office in House 6 of Front Square or the charity Threshold.

FOR MORE ON THIS STORY SEE NATIONAL NEWS 6

Hist break into quarter-finals at NUIG Manus Lenihan College News Editor

TRINITY STUDENTS excelled at this year’s European Debating Championships, held in NUI Galway.

The event, held over six days, came to its climax on 12 August when Historical Society team B, Catherine Murphy and Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, made it to the final, taking on Oxford, Durham and Cambridge on the motion that ‘This house believes that the State should pay reparations to women.’

Murphy was named top speaker in the competition, making national headlines. Ní Mhaoileoin wasn’t far behind, coming in third place on the speaker tab. Hist B broke to quarterfinals with the highest score of any team in the competition.

Discussion between the judging panellists raged on for four-and-a-half hours, almost four times the length of the debate itself. Hist SMC Adam Noonan, was that “the call could have gone either way.”

The panellists returned with a vote of six for Oxford against three for the Hist. The competition’s Chief Adjudicator was Ruth Faller, former Auditor of Trinity’s Philosophical Society.

“The result marks many firsts”, according to Murphy. She sees it as a breakthrough for women in debating, with a female team topping the individual tab, topping the speaker tab and making the final for the first time

Oxford won the overall competition, which was held in NUI Galway in the European Championships. Photo: Harry McEvansoneya

in the competition’s history.

For the Hist, it marks the society out as “one of the main debating institutions in Europe,” according to Auditor Liam Ó Néill. The Hist Auditor also points out that while King’s Inns won the European Championships last year, this year saw the best ever overall performance for Ireland.

Among 360 participants from 23 countries, Irish students dominated the competition, with two debaters from UCC and one from King’s Inns joining Ní Mhaoileoin and Murphy on the top ten individual speakers. UCD and UCC put in very strong showings, breaking

two teams and four teams respectively to the quarter finals. While competing in the familiar environment of NUI Galway was certainly a psychological advantage for Irish debaters, the number of Irish teams and institutions was the same as in any other year.

Murphy explains that Irish teams have begun to place a greater emphasis on formatted training, which English teams have been doing for quite some time. Ní Mhaoileoin and Murphy, who broke 5th at the World Championships in Botswana after Christmas, practiced twice a week together and twice more in practise debates with the other

Manus Lenihan

College News Editor

College News Editor

SHAKEN BY controversy but still buoyed up by apparent popular support, David Norris’ presidency is at the time of writing still dependent on whether the Trinity College Senator can achieve the required support from Oireachtas members. The Sunday Independent of September 11th claimed that the apparently probable support of several Fianna Fáil TDs had enticed Norris back into the race. Since then Fianna Fáil sources have cast doubt on the readiness of party members to support the Trinity Senator who rebuffed their overtures in a “dismissive” way earlier in the summer. With Independent TDs Finian McGrath and Catherine Murphy still refusing to return to the campaign, Norris remains short of the required nominations.

Norris’ appearance on the Late Late Show on Friday 16th shed a little more

20 September, 2011

Conan T. Barbarian dismissed from staff

COLLEGE AUTHORITIES were embarrassed and probably amused on Thursday 15 September when an unidentified hacker posted a profile picture and biography for “Dr. Conan T. Barbarian” on the English Department’s website.

Titled ‘Long Room Hub Associate Professor of Hyborian Studies and Tyrant Slaying,’ Dr. Barbarian is the author of a PhD from UCD entitled: ‘To Hear the Lamentation of Their Women: Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Zamoran Literature.’

His biography described him as having been “ripped from his mother’s womb on the corpse-strewn battlefields of his war-torn homeland, Cimmeria, and has been preparing for academic life ever since.

“A firm believer in the dictum that ‘that which does not kill us makes us stronger’, he took time out to avenge the death of his parents following a sojourn pursuing his strong interest in post-colonial theory at the Sorbonne.”

The profile was removed quickly, but not before several cached versions began circulating around the internet.

The profile has received media attention from several outlets including the Irish Times and Fox News.

College Spokesperson Caoimhe Ní Lochlainn said that the prank was most likely an “inside job rather than an instance of hacking.”

Manus Lenihan

RESEARCH

Hist teams. “We debaters work really hard,” says Murphy. “It doesn’t always look like it, but we do.”

The competition, which ran from 7 to 12 July, saw 360 debaters from “pretty much every country in Europe, and then some,” according to Murphy, go through a nine-round league of debates before narrowing it down to sixteen teams for quarter-finals.

Parallel competitions run for debaters who speak English as a first language and those who do not. The strong Irish and Trinity performance at this year’s event points to an exciting future for debating on campus.

Norris commences Celebrated author dies comeback campaign Manus Lenihan

IT PRANK

light on the matter with the Senator on the one hand appearing determined to stage what he said would be “the biggest comeback in Irish political history” but on the other hand saying that his re-entry into the race still “depends on the twenty signatures”.

Since the controversy over his letter for clemency for Ezra Yishak Nawi the Senator’s campaign has also suffered logistically. Key members of the campaign team have resigned and all donations have been refunded. Norris said on the show that “people who are politically canny rather than being motivated by humane ideals” would not have written the letter.

At least four United Left Alliance TDs, in the absence of a left-wing candidate emerging, have remained firm in their support for Norris.

Dublin North Central TD Maureen O’Sullivan remains his strongest backer. The Trinity College Senator has been a consistent frontrunner in polls, even after his departure from the contest.

AS TERM begins Trinity mourns the loss of one of its greatest scholars and most colourful characters, Robert Brendan McDowell, who died on 28th August 2011 aged 97.

A passion for reading and dedication to his subject area of modern history informed his engaging and amusing lecturing style. His knowledge of eighteenth century Ireland was considered unrivalled, with works such as his first book, Irish Public Opinion 1750 – 1800 making him a much respected historian.

Born in Belfast in 1913, the son of a tea merchant, he was a staunch unionist and took an Anglo-centric view of the history of Ireland. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institute and later Trinity College Dublin, achieving a BA in 1936 and a PhD in a remarkable two years.

He was Secretary of the Hist, later becoming Vice President, and was awarded a Gold Medal for Oratory.

His association with Trinity was long and committed. He became Professor of Modern History in 1945

and was elected fellow in 1951. He held the post of Junior Dean from 1956 – 1969, retired in 1981 as Professor of Oratory, and remained living on campus until the age of 94.

‘RB’, as he was known to many, became a legendary figure around Trinity. An eccentric character, it was not unknown to see him conversing with statues and he would be locked in the library overnight on numerous occasions after becoming engrossed in a book. He was extremely popular with students and peers. During his time as Junior Dean, when it was his job to sanction parties on campus, he would turn a blind eye when he arrived at a rowdy residence if supplied with pleasant conversation and good sherry.

Remembered for his warmth, wit and dazzling conversational skills, he could mix with any company, even making friends with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful when he met them at Desmond Guinness’ Leixlip castle. Many anecdotes surround him, for example the occasion when on a London street he spotted a former student, jumped into his car and declared, "Oh, Spearman, how very convenient. Ludgate Circus, please!"

College hosts 24th research conference AUSTRALIAN NOBEL Laureate, Dr Barry Marshall, charmed a Trinity audience with his speech on the ‘Future of Helicobacter Research’ at the 24th International Workshop on Helicobacter.

The event, which was hosted by Trinity College’s Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Medicine, Colm O’Moráin, attracted more than 300 international scientists.

The conference forms part of the School of Medicine’s tercentenary celebrations.

Highlights included details of the discovery by Professor O’Moráin and his research group which shows that eradicating the Helicobacter pylori organism leads to a permanent cure of duodenal ulcer.

Robert Noonan

CAO REPORT

Science courses in demand once more THIS YEAR again saw a dramatic increase in points for Trinity’s science, and technology courses. Trinity’s Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast, said the increasing demand for courses was in line with areas identified by the Government for growth and development.

There is growing demand for courses in engineering, mathematics and science, in which points for courses have risen overall, Dr Prendergast said.

Nationally and in Trinity, demand for courses has declined compared with the surges of the last two years.

Career experts have said that the increase in the student contribution fee from €1,500 to €2,000 this year may have been responsible for the decline in demand.

Una Kelly

4 COLLEGE NEWS

Lir Drama Academy opens its doors Hetty Hughes Staff Reporter

IN 2007 Trinity College Dublin closed its doors to aspiring actors and actresses everywhere by ending its undergraduate degree course in acting studies that had run for the past twelve years. The university cited “financial difficulties” as the reason behind the closure. However, suddenly, the acting course is back- with knobs on.

The National Academy of Dramatic Art, also known as the Lir Academy, has arrived on Trinity Campus, with teaching commencing 26 September 2011. From being an institution with no actor training available, Trinity suddenly has a whole new purposebuilt facility beside Grand Canal Dock.

And it is an impressive facility.

The Lir contains no less than three black box studios, two performance rooms, a dance studio, two dressing rooms, four practice rooms, a technical workshop and a café which we are promised will be a cultural cooking pot where professionals, the general public and students can mingle.

Students at the Lir are also students of Trinity College, their degree is awarded by Trinity and their fees are the same. They need the same minimum CAO points to enter and gain entry through at least two rounds of auditions. The only courses available at the moment are a Bachelor in Acting

and a Postgraduate Master in Fine Art (playwriting) but a Diploma in Stage Management and Technical Theatre is expected to begin in September 2012, whilst courses in Directing, Lighting Design and Stage Design are expected to commence in 2013.

However, students of The Lir will definitely be working longer and harder hours than current drama students at Trinity, with over thirty five hours of practice a week (in contrast to a Theatre Studies student’s twelve hours) although their degrees only last three years.

The Lir is already officially associated with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and its website assures us that all its staff “will have had extensive experience in the professional theatre and will continue to work in and maintain close contacts with the industry,” although an artistic director is yet to be appointed.

Current drama students appear united in their opinion of the Academy.

According to Junior Sophister Theatre Studies student Joan Donnell, “most of the class want a more comprehensive theoretical course with the opportunity to combine subjects through TSM.” This generation of Theatre Studies students seems to have fallen across a void of acting degrees, with opportunities being missed by as little as a year: “We missed the BA acting course and then two years after we

SS Prof Brian Singleton, Academic Director of The Lir, Danielle Ryan, Cathal Ryan Trust and Ed Kemp, Director, RADA in front of a computer generated image of the façade of The Lir, National Academy of Dramatic Art in Trinity College Dublin

start they open this place. Jealous. Not cool,” says Dayna McKiernan.

Speaking on behalf of the Cathal Ryan Trust, Danielle Ryan, described the new building: “It’s situated close to the exciting new cultural quarter of Dublin around the Grand Canal

Theatre.

“At night, we plan for The Lir to open its doors to the public and offer a wide variety of graduating performances, films, exhibitions, readings, and lectures,” Ryan said.

Prof. Brian Singleton of Trinity’s

School of Drama, Film and Music said the audition process for the acting course is open to everyone regardless of education of background. Singleton comments: “This is really exciting for us: a new academy, a new course, a new website, and a new building.”

LGBT rebrands to Battle for Kells continues be “more inclusive” John Tighe

Contributing Reporter

THE BOOK of Kells, a national institution and a must on the tourist trail around Dublin, has again become an object of contention between the town of Kells and Trinity College.

That it should be part of a vigorous dispute is nothing new- its history is a tumultuous one, the book having been stolen twice during its period of residence in Kells.

In fact, the first record that we have of it residing in Kells Abbey is when it was reported stolen in 1007 and eventually recovered minus its golden and bejewelled cover, under a sod. It is very interesting that Kells’ relation

SS The new logo for Q Soc, formerly Trinity LGBT which rebranded this week

Stephen Keane Contributing Reporter

SINCE ITS foundation in 1982, Trinity’s society for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) students and their friends has had several different guises, from Gay Soc to Trinity LGB to Trinity LGBT and this September marks another phase in its history as it makes the transition to Q Soc. The rebranding of the society, in line with previous rebrandings, seeks to make the society more inclusive and open to a wider spectrum of students who don’t necessarily fit within the L, G, B or T framework.

The society itself has been one of the most active societies in Trinity for the past number of years, holding at least one event a week and this year will see that continue along with several new initiatives from the society including the revival of a campaigns unit within the society as well as the launch of a new digital magazine for the society.

This year will also see the society being addressed by guests including Pav Akhtar and Barbara Hammer, as well as Patrick Wolf who is the toast of the musical world at the minute.

The reason for all this change is simple: times have changed for LGBT people in Ireland and the society needs to keep up with this change or runs the risk of becoming removed from the needs of those that it represents. This generation is the first decriminalised generation, those for whom homosexuality isn’t illegal, and

this has had a huge impact on current members’ needs; they no longer need simply to meet other LGBT students, given the fact that many of them are “out” long before reaching Trinity.

Instead the society needs to offer them something more and that’s what Q Soc aims to do in the coming year.

Given the diversity of the membership, offering something that appeals to everyone is a real challenge.

Given the range of events on offer, however, from film screenings to book clubs to activism to guest speakers and everything in between, it looks like something Q Soc will readily achieve in the coming year.

Another aspect of society life this year is the launch of QUAKE, a monthly gay-friendly night in the Grand Social which starts on Wednesday September 21st.

Once again the initiative is based on offering something new to members this year as well as offering something to the wider college community. The night is being run by the society with every cent taken on the door being reinvested back into the society to bring members even more throughout the year.

The LGBT society in Trinity has always had a place in college life and under its new branding of Q Soc, it’s looking to reaffirm its place and expand what it offers to its expected 500 members this year. There’s little doubt that times have changed for LGBT students in the college and this year it looks like the always malleable Q Soc will be able to meet those needs.

“Trinity College does not own the Book of Kells.

Our town is its natural and spiritual home” Kells Tourist Forum with the book has been defined by its absence from the town.

Recently the town of Kells has renewed its call for the book to be returned to its place of provenance.

The town would surely benefit from the tourist revenue this would bring in. One problem often cited is that the expenditure at the beginning of this

venture might outweigh the potential profit, due to the high cost of keeping the book in a sterile, secure environment, as well as the periodic conservation work that the book requires.

The Kells Tourist Forum argue that since it is an early Christian artifact it should be in an early Christian setting rather than in the very secular setting of Trinity’s long room.

Aidan Wells, chairman of the Kells Tourism forum, commented: “Trinity College does not own the Book of Kells; it is a national treasure and is owned by the people of Ireland. Our town is its natural and spiritual home.”

This is no doubt true as the Book of Kells is considered one of the world’s finest early medieval manuscripts.

By this logic, however, its home would be the island of Iona off the coast of Scotland on which it was illuminated and written. The people of Iona themselves claim ownership of the sacred text. The Kells crozier, meanwhile, resides in the British museum in London, and the town of Kells does not claim them. One possible reason for this was posed uncompromisingly in a recent letter to the Irish Times by former Trinity History of Art Professor Roger Stalley: the Kells Tourist Forum are looking for a quick and easy solution to develop the tourist industry instead of putting the hard yards in by developing what

they have in the town first.

In the letter (5th September 2011) Stalley refers to the current underdevelopment of the heritage trade within the town. He describes the incredible amount of historical artefacts that the town possesses, such as four ancient crosses; as well as St. Columba’s house, which still has The existing artefacts in the town of Kells are “not promoted and practically inaccessible” Prof. Roger Stalley its medieval stone roof. These sites are not promoted and are practically inaccessible. So the town of Kells could take advantage of more than just the book, although this would admittedly be a significant part. Such an apparent lack of interest in the conservation of its heritage makes Kells unsuitable at this moment for taking the book back.

Trinity, however, as an Irish institution recognised worldwide, has a duty to promote Irish heritage events or establishments to a wider audience and using artefacts within the Long Room Hub to promote day trips to areas of the country outside Dublin such as Kells could bolster what is a tourist industry in need of some serious investment.

Kader Asmel remembered Manus Lenihan College News Editor

AFRICAN NATIONAL Congress activist, NEC member and government minister Kader Asmal, who lectured in Trinity College for 27 years, passed away in June aged 76.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke in a tribute to Asmal of “the generations of academics and students he inspired, from Trinity College in Ireland to the University of the Western Cape.” As well as lecturing in human rights, labour and international law and presiding as Dean of Arts from 1980 to 1986, Asmal was a founder member of the British and Irish Anti-Apartheid Movements and became “one of the founding fathers of the Irish civil liberties movement”, according to the director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Mark Kelly.

A prolific writer on apartheid, labour law, human rights, Irish and Israeli/Palestinian politics and decolonization, and widely considered to be an intellectual heavyweight within the ANC, Asmal was described by former South African president Nelson Mandela as “Minister of all portfolios”. He resigned from politics in 2007 over the disbanding of an elite anti-corruption police force, the Scorpions, by politicians who had been investigated by the force.

Asmal’s memoir Politics in my Blood, published following his death, revealed to the world the hitherto untold story of the role he played from Dublin in facilitating contact between the Provisional IRA and the African National Congress. Asmal, through the Communist Party’s Michael O’Riordain, secretly contacted Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams to organize

military training for ANC volunteers.

In 1980, working through the same conduits, the IRA reconnoitred the Sasolburg oil refinery prior to its bombing by the ANC’s military wing.

Asmal recently revisited Ireland in February 2010 to give the inaugural lecture to the centre for post-conflict studies. His visit re-awakened memories of his stimulating, witty, irreverent lectures, which were on occasion known to go on for some forty minutes past the allotted time. Former students remember the concern showed by Asmal and his wife Louise for their interests.

A memorial event in Cape Town was packed to capacity with 1,500 mourners and the Irish presidency is due to hold a memorial in Dublin sometime early in the autumn. He is survived by Louise, their two sons and two grandchildren.

TRINITY NEWS

PROVOST SPECIAL 5 news@trinitynews.ie

No. 1 Grafton Street’s new resident As Trinity College ushers in its 44th Provost, Trinity News talks to John Hegarty about his tenure and to Patrick Prendergast on heading Ireland’s oldest university. Interviews by James Hussey

T

he position of Provost carries with it an onerous responsibility to oversee the development of the college and the delivery of the institution’s core mission. The Head of Trinity College since 2001, Dr. John Hegarty, has seen a transformation in both the university he represented and the world in which it is set.

“Well I think Trinity has changed in many ways. I would pinpoint three aspects in which this transformation is most visible. International change, local, community-based change and the renewed emphasis placed on creative arts and sciences. I think Trinity has a very strong presence on the international scene that was maybe not there before. You’ll understand that there was very little stock taken in ranking systems when I became Provost. In the course of the 10 years, when the world’s universities began to notice the rankings, Trinity has performed very well, mostly due to developments in research and scholarship at postgraduate level. Our results are due to the good tradition established here, the fact that we recruited really excellent academic staff, both teachers and scholars, and more importantly, attracted really terrific students.”

Another facet of Trinity’s improvement, according to Dr. Hegarty, is the college’s newly developed relationship with the city of Dublin.

Trinity College, from once being seen as an “island site” within the city, is now a collaborative and creative force for Dublin.

“The connection between Trinity and the rest of the world is another aspect that has changed, starting with the city of Dublin. I think the relationship between Trinity and its neighbourhood and the city has been completely transformed. It started with creating the position of a Community Liaison Officer in 2002. The purpose of that officership was to link with our local communities, especially on the Docklands side of the university. The relations with the local communities before were pretty poor, there was a lot of distrust. Trinity College was seen as inward looking, a place without interest in them. This was completely transformed in the last number of years.”

Dr. Hegarty could not help but comment that Ireland’s higher level educational institutions permanently seemed to be facing a funding crisis.

“When I became Provost, at the height of the Celtic Tiger when there was a lot of wealth, money and expectations across the country, even then we felt that there wasn’t enough investment in education. For the future, however, the university needs to re-examine how it delivers its mission. Can it be more efficient?

Can it work with other institutions, nationally and internationally?

Can it deliver courses jointly, using technology and the internet? It also needs to diversify its funding source, in particular. Trinity and the other Irish universities are too heavily dependent on the government for funding, which I think is unhealthy.”

Trinity’s future is about more than money, Dr. Hegarty acknowledges.

It will be Trinity’s graduates and research programmes that help the college maintain its illustrious standing amongst the world’s elite universities.

“Within Ireland, Trinity holds a special position because of its tradition, its commitment to high quality education and its international positioning. I think it has a special role to play in the future design and sustainability of the country. The way forward is paved by ideas, creativity

20 September, 2011

and imagination. That will all come from our students, it’s vital that Trinity continues the pursuit of a broad education, the development of the total person. It’s about knowledge, but it’s also about clear thinking, critical thinking, interaction with groups and finding solutions to problems.”

“I think the role of a university is, on a basic level, to ‘think the unthinkable.’

For example the Science Gallery is a completely new idea. The opening up of the university to its local communities has been a positive development. The opening of the National Institute for Intellectual Disability was a counterintuitive development for Trinity.

Prioritising what we do in research and re-examining how we do things, the much debated academic restructuring, questioning ourselves about what we do, why we do it and how we do it, these have all transformed the way Trinity is pointing to the future.”

In the serene surroundings of the Old Library’s Henry Jones Room, away from the hustle and bustle of snaphappy tourists, our interview draws to a close. The now former Provost of Trinity College is positive about the university’s future. His parting message combines the advice of “think big, constantly” to new Provost, Professor Patrick Prendergast, with the sentiment that he always felt jealous of Trinity students.

“I think the students are in a privileged position being in this university. This fantastic environment in the centre of the city, the international group of students, the societies and clubs, the incredibly rich community, I always thought, what a privilege to be part of that. I would say to students, especially looking to the environment in which we find ourselves, keep your minds completely open about

“The role of a university is, on a basic level, to ‘think the unthinkable’” the future. Take as much as possible from the community that is Trinity but also give to it. A community is only as rich as people make it. I would encourage students to stay flexible.

Keep your minds open. Even though the future looks pretty grim, it’s full of opportunities.”

F

illed with an uneasy sense of trepidation, I sit in the comfortable surroundings of the Provost’s office in House 1. The smell of newly painted rooms overwhelms the brightly coloured space. These rooms, despite modern veneers, are steeped in a history with which Professor Patrick Prendergast is now indelibly linked.

Special newspaper editions adorn the wall. My eyes scan the headlines, u n n e r v i n g sensationalism from centuries p a s t , “Provost dies after trying to quell riot”, flooding my mind as the d o o r opens.

Trinity’s

Former Provost John Hegarty congratulates Patrick Prendergast on his win last summer

new Provost stands before me, smiling and extending a handshake, immediately commenting on the ways people try to combat the smell of paint.

To escape the olfactory assault, we walk through the annex and into number 1, Grafton Street, the majestic house that is “a little different from a semi-d”, Provost Prendergast laughs. The mention of the interview excites a new focus, the challenge of heading Ireland’s oldest university in the environs of a rapidly changing world suddenly remembered as my questioning begins.

“Trinity has been through two World Wars, a Civil War, a change of jurisdiction into a new state; it has always been a university that adapts to, and with, the times. The country is in a crisis economically, we’re all too familiar with that, but my own ambitions, combined with the ambitions of many of the staff here, will see a way of responding to this.

Change must be a positive thing for the university, especially with regard to how we deliver our core mission of education and research.”

The reality of life in Ireland today seems to rear its ugly head in any conversation regarding progress.

Provost Prendergast, although pragmatic about the current situation, is hopeful that the importance of high quality higher education will win out.

“In Ireland in the 1980’s, we invested in higher education. That paid off in those early years of the boom where the economic expansion was due to the availability of committed, innovative and creative graduates. They were the ones that powered the economy at that time.

It may be said that we lost our way towards the end, but in the beginning it was about people, and that is why we m u s t

never take our eye off the importance of higher education.”

The fact that much of the financing of Irish higher education relies on the

“The onus should be on maintaining the college’s high standards, an increase of student numbers under constrained resources is not the answer” government is something Provost Prendergast sees as a weakness, not alone for Trinity, but one common to all institutions.

“Trinity is at something of a disadvantage in terms of global competition because of the constraints put on our income streams regarding student fees. The university is, however, exceptional at exploiting commercial opportunities. One need only look at the daily queues for the Book of Kells, and research opportunities to help fund our core mission of high quality education.”

“In the current climate, it’s very difficult to design a plan for all circumstances. I think you have to change in response to contemporary events, as opposed to contemporary events controlling your path and mission. I would like to see expansion in Trinity College but we can only expand and offer more places if the resources exist to do so. The onus should be on maintaining the college’s high standards; an increase in student numbers under constrained resources is not the answer.”

T h e tricky issue o f

expansion is one that Provost Prendergast feels Trinity has dealt with exceptionally throughout the years.

Expansion for the college is not merely a physical encroachment of space, but a virtual and metaphorical journey from within the walls, to the city and world around it.

“One of the things I would like to emphasise is that we shouldn’t see Trinity as full or Trinity as a place that ends at the railings that run around College Green, Nassau St., Westland Row and Pearse St. Recently, indeed when I was vice-Provost, we purchased Phoenix House on Nassau St. It is now being used as the Centre for Deaf Studies, and for the School of Communicational Sciences.

The changing face of Trinity has meant a transformation in the college’s strengths and weaknesses.

Infrastructural problems have been a constant issue over the last decade for the University of Dublin. However for the Provost, the college’s strengths far outweigh any conceived flaws.

“I believe one of our foremost strengths is our commitment to high quality undergraduate education.

We have a four year degree for undergraduates here, academic staff and students are committed to the academic experience. The excellent academic staff we have across our disciplines, people with globally acknowledged reputations in their respective fields, people able to command their subject on a global stage is certainly a great strength for Trinity. Our students are at the heart of our reputation, the courses we offer have high points and admission standards, that means we are assured of committed, excellent students.”

The conversation draws to a close and I am interested in Provost Prendergast’s personal view from House 1, his outlook on a college and its student body that continuously adapt while staying mindful of tradition and history.

The new Provost is not a man of flashy catchphrases or rhetoric; rather, his enduring message, passion and vision for the college has propelled him from Trinity undergraduate to college Head.

“As an undergraduate here in the 1980’s, I was convinced from the minute that I came through Front Arch, looking onto the squares and old buildings, that I was in the right place.

This is a great university with a global reputation and reach. As a student, you’re part of the university community with staff and, together, we will continue to make this a great university, a place that can effect real change in the world. You’re in the right place.”

6 NATIONAL NEWS nationalnews@trinitynews.ie

Rogue landlords remonstrated

IN BRIEF CAO

Lottery system for university places

Irish students protest to endorse tenant’s protection scheme Over 20 tents pitched outside the Department of the Environment Gardaí called to the scene but protestors stayed in camp overnight

THE SUGGESTION of holding a lottery for high achieving Leaving Certificate students to gain entry to the most popular college courses has been raised again. Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has said that he wants third-level institutions to think beyond the current system.

Aine Hyland, former VicePresident of UCC, stated that if such a system were to be introduced then students would not have an incentive to do well. This is despite the fact Ms Hyland proposed the initiative in a new report for the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Presently, a points based system is used to determine third level education places. Hyland proposes a different scheme in which anyone meeting a university’s minimum-entry criteria is entered into a draw. This could establish a more “equitable system”. It has been suggested students will have no incentive to work hard, as they may not get into their first-choice universities despite achieving high grades.

Ciara Anderson

Mairead Cremins

UCC

Contributing Reporter

IRISH STUDENTS staged a camp-out protest on 25 August calling on the Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan TD, to endorse a Deposit Protection Scheme.

The protest aimed to call attention to unscrupulous practices of rogue landlords. Union of Students in Ireland (USI) members pitched more than 20 tents outside the Department of the Environment. The Gardaí were called, however they agreed to let USI continue with their overnight protest.

Research by the USI uncovered that over 60% of students have had over €200 retained by landlords, while 40% of students have had their entire deposit withheld by landlords. The function of a security deposit is to protect landlords if the terms of the lease are not met, it should not function as income to a landlord, but insurance.

The Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB) in 2004 was established to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants and to run a tenancy registration system. Landlords are required to register each tenancy for a fee of €70. Seventy five percent of the cases reported to the PRTB are in relation to unfair deposit retention.

Many first-year students attempting to organise accommodation may not be aware of their rights in relation to tenancy and are at higher risk of being taken advantage of.

On August 15, the USI with the support of national housing organisation, Threshold, and the Department of the Environment, introduced a Rent Book and Accommodation Guide to offer students practical information on their rights and duties as tenants. The Rent Book also contains a petition regarding the Deposit Protection Scheme.

The USI President Gary Redmond has called on the Government to establish a Deposit Protection Scheme. The proposal would direct a third party agency, such as the PRTB, to hold deposits for the security of tenants.

This is seen as a cost-effective solution not only for students, but all tenants and would reduce the amount of cases referred to the PRTB. The Department of the Environment discussed the recommendation of stronger fines for landlords.

However, Gary Redmond responded noting landlords who disappear are unlikely to comply with fines therefore leaving students unprotected. The USI have held that an increase in fines would not be an effective solution and a Deposit Protection Scheme would

Students camped overnight outside the Department to pledge for tenants’ rights

eliminate the problem of unfair deposit retention.

Gary Redmond has noted the UK and New Zealand have introduced similar schemes to protect tenants.

In the UK, landlords are required to hand over the deposit to a third party agency or they must adopt an insurance scheme that will protect tenants in the case of a dispute. If a landlord fails to protect a tenants deposit, then they may be liable to pay three times

the amount of the deposit in court.

Current financial pressures on students including a larger registration fee and cuts to grant programs heighten the need for the Government to review and regulate deposit protection for students and tenants as a whole.

The Irish Times stated Minister for State Willie Penrose has asked the PRTB to review the concept of a Deposit Protection Scheme and is currently awaiting a response.

Cork researchers find minipill aids vision RESEARCHERS AND scientists lead by Professor Tom Cotter at UCC have shown that Norgestrel, an active component of the contraceptive mini-pill can prevent the loss of sight in mice that have degenerative eye conditions which usually lead to blindness.

When mice were given concentrations of Norgestrel it was shown that it prevented the loss of light detecting cells and the mice retained their sight.

Professor Cotter said: “The drug seems to work by stimulating the production of a protein survival factor called FGF from neighbouring cells in the eye and this helps the light-detecting cells to survive and the animals to see.”

This is a breakthrough discovery for the team of Scientists at UCC who have been given the opportunity to follow up this study and determine whether or not the drug could have the same effect on the eyesight of humans. Their research will continue in October funded by a grant from the Heath Research Board of Ireland.

Orna Lyons

UL

Book launched to uncover Morrissey UNIVERSITY OF Limerick commemorate songwriter Morrissey will release a new book consisting of essays edited by three UL lecturers to explain the true complexity of the celebrated singer songwriter.

Morrissey: Fandom, Representations and Identities examines the work of the icon who is an anti-establishment, outspoken figure. Morrissey used his music and his fame as vehicles for social change, singing and speaking out on a variety of issues including class discrimination and animal rights.

For UL they feel this venture strengthens its reputation in the analysis of popular culture. The book launch took place at ‘The Songs That Saved Your Life (Again) 2011: A Celebration of Morrissey.’

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TRINITY NEWS

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20 September, 2011

8 INTERNATIONAL NEWS

UK students face £9,000 fees in NI Fee rise for English, Scottish and Welsh students Stormont considering increase on 25,000 student cap Unionist community concerned for NI ties with the UK

Jack Farrell International News Editor

STUDENTS FROM the UK that hope to study in Northern Ireland look set to face potential tuition fees of £9,000 a year, the Stormont Government has been told.

The decision to raise fees for prospective students from England, Scotland and Wales comes after the North’s political parties took a united stance on refusing to raise fees for home grown students.

UK FEES: THE FACTS British universities are now allowed to charge up to £9,000 per year, up from the previous cap of £3,290 to students starting university in 2012.

The British government will continue to loan students the money for fees.

Graduates will start paying back their loans once they reach £21,000, up from the current threshold of £15,000. This will rise annually with inflation.

The lowest-earning quarter of graduates will pay less than they do now. But the highest earners will be liable for almost double what they currently pay.

Northern Ireland’s Minister for Employment and Learning Stephen Farry said he would now consider a “We want to avoid a situation where our universities just service a local market, but equally, we should not be seen as the cheap option” “modest increase” to the current 25,000 cap on student places in the region. The minister outlined the new fee structure in the first Assembly meeting since the summer recess. The new £3,465 rate for Northern Ireland students studying at home represents a rise only in line with inflation. The tuition fee has been raised from £3,290 to £3,465 for Northern Irish students pursuing higher education at home, this increase is only due inflation.

The minister justified his proposal by arguing that he wanted students from England, Scotland and Wales to choose studying in Northern Ireland for the correct reasons. “We want to avoid a parochial situation where our universities just service a local market, but equally, we should not be seen as a cheap option,” he said. “Consequently, tuition fees for students from other parts of the United Kingdom will be higher than for our own students, but no higher than what our students would have to pay if studying in

Queen’s University Belfast (pictured) has not yet set its fees for non-NI UK students, although may charge up to £9,000

England and Wales.” The two largest universities in Northern Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster, have not yet set the tuition fee for UK students for the academic year beginning in 2012.

Students from the Republic of Ireland, and the other European Union countries, will not be charged more for tuition. EU regulation means that they

must be charged at the same £3,465 per annum rate as Northern Ireland students.

“The decision by the Executive means I can confirm that we will continue to provide tuition fee loans for Northern Ireland students who attend university in any part of the UK,” said Mr Farry. “These loans will be available to cover the cost of the loan

up to a maximum fee of £9,000. I am sure that this will allay the concerns of many young people hoping to enter higher education in September 2012.”

The decision has caused controversy amongst certain sections of the unionist the community who believe that this move threatens the union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

UK universities asked to report Muslim students Students suspected of terrorism can be identified In reaction to attempted plane attack by UCL student Muslim students condemn policy as ‘Islamophobia’ Jack Farrell International News Editor

UK UNIVERSITY staff and student union officials have been asked to report Muslim students that show tendencies that could be interpreted as extremist.

This request comes four years after the initial launch of the Prevent Strategy by the British Home Office, which deals with home-grown terror-

ist threats. It was re-launched when it was discovered that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the ‘Underpants bomber’ who attempted to blow up a plane bound for Detroit in December 2009 had studied engineering at University College London.

In June this year, British Home Secretary Theresa May accused universities of being too “complacent” with regards to extremism. This demanded further measures, leading to the focus

on the university sector.

Islamic groups have condemned the recent actions of the Home Office, arguing that the latest development British Home Secretary Theresa May says universities have been “complacent” in allowing radicalisation to occur within the university sector

simply continues to promote the trend towards Islamophobia. In a press release by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in March, the president of FOSIS, Nabil Ahmed, said: “Nobody wants extremism on campus, and if somebody is advocating violence

against innocent civilians then report them to the police – but that is a far cry from turning our universities into monitoring grounds.”

The National Union of Students (NUS) released a briefing in August for universities summing up the Prevent Strategy, and argues that “the Prevent agenda is not about spying but supporting those who may be vulnerable to radicalisation and ensuring local communities are resilient to the violent extremist rhetoric. Prevent involves the identification and referral of those susceptible from embarking down the path to radicalisation.”

The NUS did however tell its members that they do not have to comply

The Federation of Islamic societies says the measure is a “far cry” from genuine efforts to target terrorism in the UK

with the authorities and give information on fellow students unless they are provided with a warrant. The University and College Union said that it feared that Prevent would damage the relationship between staff and students.

In the wake of this controversy a Muslim student received £20,000 in compensation from the Nottinghamshire Police after he was arrested for downloading the Al Qaeda Training Manual.

Universities unite for Libya Compulsory drug Poor economic situation in Libya means meany students may be forced to drop out Western governments’ freezing of Libyan assets led to lack of education funding Australian, US and Canadian governments have attempted to aid undergraduates

test for US students Nilgiri Pearson Deputy International News Editor

Nilgiri Pearson Deputy International News Editor

LIBYAN STUDENTS threatened by the lack of government education grants have been aided by universities across the world to continue their studies.

For Libyan students across the world, the withdrawal of funding from the Libyan state is threatening their ability to study degrees abroad. This is because the Libyan government has cut grants due to the recent civil war, which created a credit crunch in Libya.

The crisis facing many Libyan students this summer has eased thanks to a demonstration of solidarity on the part of universities around the world.

One of the first acts of western governments in the economic war against Muammar Gaddafi, which began before a single bomb was dropped, was to freeze all Libyan government assets.

This included funds normally deposited with foreign institutions to cover loans and scholarships on which most Libyan students depend.

With many universities already facing budget shortfalls of their own, it was unclear how students’ expenses would be met. With some institutions telling students they will not or are not able to provide financial assistance.

One university included a list of local food banks in a letter sent to students stating that it would be unable to provide any sort of financial assistance.

On the bright side, at the University of Newcastle in Australia, officials drew on a special emergency fund to help keep students afloat during the coming year. This was followed by a pledge of AUS $1.6m by the Australian government to ensure that 650 Libyan students studying in Australia can continue to do so.

In the United States, several

universities have indicated their willingness to defer payments for a year.

The US and Canadian governments have underwritten the Libyan-North American scholarship program.

Students have also rallied to help their Libyan peers. Food and financial donations have helped many stay afloat, particularly during the summer when it was unclear how much support from governments and the institutions themselves would be available.

It is clearly in the best interests of western governments, the students and the Transitional National Council, the current government of Libya, to have an educated class ready to help rebuild the country once the dust and cordite finally settles.

The TNC has already pledged to reform Libya’s own university system. In a war that has already sparked its own share of controversy it is promising that, whatever else, this simple fact has been acknowledged.

IF YOU had to take a drug test tomorrow, would you pass? This very question will confront all students at Linn State Technical College in the US state if Missouri this year.

Drug testing is common in many US schools. Athletes have been subject to random drug testing since 1998, as well as students involved in courses involving the use of heavy equipment.

Linn State’s drug testing policy is the first to explicitly cover all students, no exceptions. This has raised the ire of civil liberties activists, who say an all-encompassing drug testing system violates citizens’ rights against unreasonable search and seizure, Article 4 of the US Bill of Rights.

School officials acknowledge the novelty of compulsory testing for all students, but argue that it was developed after careful consultation with local business leaders who have already instituted mandatory drug

testing of their own, which in most cases more stringent than Linn’s. Most businesses that require employees to operate heavy machinery have a legal right to test. As Linn state is a technical college, it also possesses this right.

The test, which screens for 11 different drugs will most likely be subject to legal challenge in the near future. Although Linn State students who fail the initial test can “resit” after 45 days-clean and after having completed an online drug prevention course (for an $85 fee altogether).

Although this test is, according to Linn State, preparation for the “real world,” a fact acknowledged and accepted by Linn State students, constitutional rights remain paramount to opposition civil libertarians.

It is uncertain whether any student at Linn State will ever be tested. The US courts have traditionally been critical of such indiscriminate drug testing as it infringes upon the rights of individuals and this is almost certainly where the fate of Linn State’s particular program will be decided.

TRINITY NEWS

9 internationalnews@trinitynews.ie

Freedom of speech in Greek colleges at risk Universities have ‘sanctuary’ status for free speech State attempts to use 1974 legislation to override this Government wants focus on courses to help economy Frederik Rasmussen Contributing Reporter

IN LIGHT of student resistance to government policy, the Greek state is proposing rescinding the right of free speech without fear of prosecution from the nation’s universities.

Prime Minister George Papandreou and his government is once again on the verge of incurring the wrath of its population, and this time it is the university students and academics feeling the sting of the economic turmoil that has engulfed the country in recent years.

The government is attempting an overhaul of the universities in order to combat economic wastage of state funds in recent decades, including the large emigration of students pursuing university education.

Whilst every country is unique, this latest development in Greece has the markings of similar radical overhauls of the university structure in both France in 2009, and in the UK in 2010.

The reforms in France and Greece are certainly a response to universities that have experienced competitive stagnation in recent times, and for

which the State can no longer afford to carry the burden, not least in the midst of a global recession.

The consensus among critics of the latest initiatives argue that these revolutionary changes are the result of pressure from the international groups that are supporting the financial bailout of Greece, which include the IMF, OECD, the EU and the European Bank.

The Greek State is attempting to break the large influence held by partyled students groups. In order to combat the nepotism that has characterized the bureaucracies of these universities, the government is proposing the elimination of the status of universities as sanctuaries, whereby students and academics alike are granted free speech, without the risk of prosecution by the State. The legislation, in place since the fall of the military junta in 1974, will be replaced by a clause that will allow police to enter universities without permission from the Senate.

From a purely democratic standpoint, this is viewed as a serious step-back, as well as a worrying infringement on the sovereign status of universities. The government is

The Greek university sector is under threat as the government attempts to combat economic ‘waste’

attempting to introduce a greater influence on the part of the private business sector, which will have the responsibility of connecting universities to the marketplace, and assume several financial responsibilities such as student

welfare. Critics fear that this corporatist approach puts an uneven emphasis on business-orientated degrees, to the detriment of other academic courses.

Teachers’ associations have accused the government of mortgaging the long-term future of the country by

severely reducing the scope for reform in the future. More so, if the riots in France and London are anything to go by, this latest row between the State and its citizens could turn into another struggle for Papandreou and his government.

Student violence spreads across Egypt’s universities Jack Farrell International News Editor

BOTH PROFESSORS and students united in protest across Egyptian university campuses last week in an attempt to reform the higher education system with protests almost being constant since February.

As democratic revolutions have swept the Arab region in recent months it has been mirrored on the site of 20 Egyptian universities; protestors are seeking democratic elections for the appointment of university deans by the professors.

Under the Mubarak regime, university heads were appointed by the ruling regime and the fear is that if they remain in their position that they will maintain their connection with the former ruling autocracy.

These elections however, can only occur with the removal or resignation of all prior university principals. So far there have been 5 university principals that have resigned from their position, including Cairo University President

Protests have taken place at all 20 Egyptian universities

Hossam Kamel.

Moataz Khorshid, Egyptian Minister for Higher Education, has said that he does not have the power to dismiss

UCLA student joins Libyan revolution Jack Farrell International News Editor

WHILST MOST students spend their summer CV building or enjoying themselves, University of California, Los Angeles student Chris Jeon (21) decided that he would like to give a helping hand to rebel forces in Libya.

Jeon, a student of Mathematics, decided with only 2 weeks left of summer break that he wanted to join the fight against Gadaffi’s forces.

He booked a one way ticket to Cairo and then travelled by bus and train to Benghazi. In an interview with The National, an English language newspaper published in Abu Dhabi, Jeon said that he decided to become part of the rebel movement because it was: “The end of my summer vacation, so I thought it would be cool to join the rebels. This is one of the only real revolutions.”

His logic behind booking a one way ticket to a country that remains riven with conflict was that in the case of be-

20 September 2011

ing kidnapped he didn’t “want to waste another US $800.”

A photo published in The National of Jeon in a Los Angeles shirt surrounded by rebels became global news on September 2nd. It even took his parents by surprise as they were previously unaware of his travel plans.

The publicity gained by the image of Jeon had made him poster-boy of the brigade of rebels he had joined. Reports had suggested that his inexperience with firearms and lack of Arabic had led to his dismissal from the rebel forces, but it has been tweeted by Bradley Hope of The National that Chris Jeon was still a part of rebel forces.

“Last we heard, he was still a celebrated mascot of the rebels, going from brigade to brigade. But info is hard to get.”

This was later followed by the tweet “And one guy, who had never met him, told us in all seriousness that Chris wasn’t American anymore. ‘He’s Libyan.’”

the university principals and that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces is the only body that can do so.

In the months following the fall of

the Mubarak regime there has been much debate surrounding the role of universities in the new Egypt, with professors and students alike believing that universities can help speed up the democratization process.

They believe that a transparent and accountable higher education system will promote the values necessary to ensure the promotion and survival of democracy in Egypt.

There is, however, scepticism amongst state security officials and those in charge of the country’s transitional regime who fear that these elections will lead to the appointment of people who aren’t qualified for the role, which will inevitably damage the stabilisation of democracy.

These protests come at a time when all of Egypt’s governing institutions face massive scrutiny and there has been much debate over how the change from Mubarak’s autocracy to democracy should be managed; gradual or immediate?

As with many of the Arab nations, the governing institutions in Egyptian

society face a period of uncertainty.

The judiciary, security forces and legislature have been thrust into the spotlight as others observe and judge the “new” Egypt.

The transitional regime, led by the military, have recently been accused of simply being the same as Mubarak, repressing civil liberties and unable to control the people, as evidenced by the recent attack upon the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

“These protests come at a time when all of Egypt’s governing institutions face massive scrutiny” On 14 September a further protest was held on the campus of Cairo University against a rise in tuition fees and university mismanagement.

COMMENT ON: FREEDOM OF SPEECH

St Andrew’s student racism row Contributing writer Eugene Reavey talks about the recent expulsion of Scottish university students Samual Colchester and Paul Donnachie for their part in an anti-Israeli incident. Did their actions mean they deserved to be forced to forfeit their degrees?

Eugene Reavey Contributing Writer

SAMUEL COLCHESTER and Paul Donnachie hit the headlines recently after being accused of having committed a racist breach of the peace.

The two men, students at the University of St Andrews, rubbed their hands on their genitals before rubbing them on the Israeli flag. Mr Reitblat, the victim of this incident was left “devastated and violated.” The magistrate further condemned the two men for having consumed far too much alcohol, and for behaving in a rash and reckless fashion.

The two students in question further branded the victim a “terrorist.” The magistrate was of the opinion that this situation was so serious that it could not be dealt with by a fine. Mr Don-

nachie was sentenced to 150 hours and ordered to pay Mr Reitblat £300 in compensation. He was also expelled from his course at St Andrew’s University.

Clearly given the severity of the punishment handed down in this instance, serious questions must be asked about the precedent this sets down for future student protests.

The problem is that instead of simply having an opinion on Israel, they targeted a student who was on an exchange from the Jewish Yeshiva University in New York. Describing Mr Reitblat as a terrorist, was as Presiding Sheriff Charles Macnair declared “The part of your behaviour which I find most serious”. This behaviour despite being classed as a “protest” goes well beyond the realms of decency and once again raises the issue of bullying in universities. Renowned for being

arenas of debate and discussion, students often feel that they can do what they like within the confines of their university. Mr Donnachie has accepted that his actions went too far but that his behaviour had been a “legitimate, if misguided, form of political protest”.

Mr Colchester was not found guilty after being accused of urinating in Mr Reitblat’s sink.

It would be remiss, no matter how politically sensitive not to address the obvious question this case raises.

Would this case have made national headlines if the flag in issue was any other than the Israeli flag? If the two students in this case had rubbed their hands on an Irish tricolour and branded me a terrorist, would this have made the BBC News? Forgive me for evincing some scepticism on this issue, but I highly doubt it.

10 NEWS FEATURES newsfeatures@trinitynews.ie

COMMENT

Is there hope for a multicultural Eire?

Akash Sikka Contributing Writer

IT SEEMS apt that an article commenting on the state of Irish multiculturalism is being written by an undergraduate born in England but whose family hail from India. In fact, it could be argued that I represent the multicultural nature of British society.

I was interested to find out that a study in 2002 by the Mori Social Research institute highlighted that nine out of ten people believed that being British did not mean being white, yet does this extend to the Irish thought process too? Does a notion of Irish identity actually exist?

For the BBC2 documentary, The Story of Ireland, the Irish writer and broadcaster Fergal Keane interviewed President Mary McAleese and asked for her opinion regarding what it meant to be Irish.“What’s nice about Irish identity is that you don’t have to be both of those things (Gaelic and Catholic) to be Irish, and Irish identity can draw from many many many wells and we’re going to build between us an Ireland of tomorrow, and who can say what Irish identity can morph in to.” Although this may appear merely romantic optimism for the multicultural future of Irish society, McAleese’s sentiment is one encouraging to hear. Economic globalisation across Europe and the world has meant that the traditional barriers between respective countries and societies have been blurred and

“In Trinity there are several foreign students, it remains to be seen whether they will settle here” the notion of “nationality” itself is one that is constantly changing and open to discussion. One only has to look at Germany’s squad for the 2010 Football World Cup to understand that strict boundaries of nationality are no longer applicable; 11 members of a squad of 23 were eligible to represent other nations. In Ireland, 10% of the population is now born on foreign soil, children of workers who arrived in Ireland during its prolonged economic boom.

However, it cannot be denied that despite this statistic, Irish cities do not have the same cosmopolitan feel of its European neighbours. Although in the microcosm that is Trinity College there are several foreign students, it is clear simply by looking around that the vast majority of students remain Irish and Gaelic. It remains to be seen whether these foreign students will settle in Ireland and contribute to Irish society in the long term.

With the economic boom most definitely over and the €80 billion bailout now in effect, it would be reasonable to expect that further immigration into Ireland will decrease as employment opportunities become limited. Furthered from that, it may also prove to be seen that those who have recently inhabited Ireland from a different country may return to their homeland as their opportunities become restricted.

Nonetheless, Ireland has much to be proud of. Unlike in Britain and other European Nations, far right politics are yet to infiltrate the political sphere and multiculturalism and the influences of other cultures seem to have been accepted and assimilated into the Irish psyche. Compared to many European nations, Ireland’s population of 4.5 million is modest and its society may never become as diverse as other nations due to it’s weakened economy failing to attract immigrants. However President’s Mary McAleese’s words must be heeded in order to guarantee that the foreign cultures that inhabit this isle remain welcome which will ensure that Ireland’s future remains bright and one that embraces a changing, transient and increasingly multi-cultural world society.

State sale of Aer shares opposed Government plans to sell its 25% share in Aer Lingus, Ireland’s oldest airline, due to cost-cutting pressures Ryanair offered €375m for Aer Lingus shares in 2006 but unwilling to give €90m of the shares’ worth today Maya Zakrzewska-Pim Deputy News Features Editor

THE GOVERNMENT plans to sale its 25% share in Aer Lingus in response to pressure to raise €5bn by selling state assets. This is an increase of €3bn from the previously set target in the programme laid out by the EU and IMF, as a result of which it is considering the sale of its stake in the national airline company.

A final decision is to be reached by the end of the year, and although this action on the State’s account is not a sure thing, Transport Minister Leo Varadkar announced: “It’s certainly under consideration. [Aer Lingus] is definitely one of the candidates.”

Such a sale is made attractive by the landing slots the airline holds in Heathrow (London) and John F. Kennedy (New York). AirFrance is considered as one of the potential buyers.

Furthermore, personal interests come into play for others, for instance the International Airways Group (IAG, the merger of British Airways and Iberia).

A takeover from this airline would certainly grant its chief executive Willie Walsh some satisfaction, considering he had been forced to quit as boss of the Irish airline six years ago.

EasyJet is another candidate with more to gain than just the shares, as after the jibes of Ryanair, buying Aer Lingus from under its nose would be just retribution indeed. And EasyJet, only second on the list of European budget airlines, would certainly have less problems with sealing the deal than its rival, as both the EU Commission

Sinn Féin party members including Gerry Adams oppose the selling of state shares

and the UK Office of Fair Trading (UK OFT) are still against Ryanair making the purchase.

EasyJet may be seeking to gain too much from this purchase, however, as it seems Ryanair will not be at all worried by another airline buying off the State’s Aer Lingus shares. In fact, the company has announced that it would “welcome another financially strong airline/investor acquiring the Government’s 25% stake, which could then work with Ryanair and other likeminded shareholders to restore shareholder value”.

Despite having offered €375m for the Aer Lingus shares five years ago, Ryanair is unwilling to give even the €90m that the airline is worth now. The value of the shares have fallen by 80%; one share which cost €3 in 2007 now carries a price tag deeming its worth to be a mere 65 cents.

It seems that the deadlock that has lasted since September 2006 is about to be broken. Five years ago, Ryanair attempted to takeover the airline just days after the privatisation and launched the first of two bids for Aer Lingus.

However, this was blocked by the EU Commission. At the end of the day, Ryanair was left holding 30% of the shares, the State with 25%, and the employee share ownership trust (ESOT) with 14%.

The state and the ESOT has opposed any attempt of a Ryanair takeover, but now the ESOT shares have been divided between individual members. Ryanair itself is, however, being investigated by the British Office of Fair Trading at the moment, and does not exclude the possibility of selling its 29% of the shares, too.

Although the Irish airline has lost value over the last five years, it has announced that profits shall be made this year with an increase of passengers by 4.1% in August. Perhaps this will lead to a rise in the value of its shares, though whatever this value is next, the State’s announcement of the possible sales of its shares seems to be a first step to the eventual complete takeover of Aer Lingus. Whether or not this occurs will be left undecided until Christmas, but there are other matters to be considered.

For instance, if Aer Lingus is taken over, will the destinations and connections be kept the same, or will some disappear off the list of options altogether?

There are cities to which direct flights are only possible when you board an Aer Lingus plane, and were these to be eradicated, visits home for those of us who rely on the airline to see the family would become much more complicated and, I daresay, more costly.

10 years on, is 9/11 consigned to history?

It might be the decade anniversary of the infamous 9/11 attacks in New York, but Molly Hamilton says the West is still vulnerable to another tragedy, while Muslim and Western bonds remain uncertain ELEVENTH SEPTEMBER, Two Thousand and One. When spelt out like that, it doesn’t seem nearly as memorable. Write 9/11 on the other hand, and we immediately recognise the day that defines our generation.

I don’t think there was a single person who wasn’t shaken by what happened that day. The victims came from across 57 countries and of the nearly 3000 people who perished, six were Irishborn, and several thousand AmericanIrish were directly affected.

The American people were hurt, angry and fearful. The world sympathised with America, was on its side, and even the Taliban are reported to have been shocked by the atrocity. AlQaida terrorists had used the tools of a modern, “civilised” society; the internet, aeroplanes and open borders- to plan and execute their attack.

Crucially, America had the compassion of the Muslim world after the event, but within a month Bush was bombing Bora Bora in Afghanistan, the hideout of Bin Laden and his fellow fanatics.

Thousands of Afghans were forced to flee their homes in fear. The war on Afghanistan had begun, and less than two years later, pushed by the unholy alliance of Bush and Blair, the west was also at war with Iraq.

This ‘all guns blazing’ approach by the US in the Muslim world saw many Muslims abandon their natural empa-

Nearly 3,000 US flags make up the ‘Healing Field’ outside the Pentagon’s Memorial of September 11

thy with the American nation and all its consumerist trappings, and replace it with resentment and hostility. Innocent civilians were dying. It seemed that America regarded her perceived well-being as above the lives and freedom of Muslims.

The west was openly at war with Islam, and now Osama bin Laden’s call to young Muslims to come to the defence of their faith was justifiable. Extremism grew.

It is obvious that all across the world Al Qaeda has taken its hold. Even in the most westernised countries, from the UK and Germany to the US, there are groups and individuals allied to it.

It is a borderless, global movement with no structure; in here lies its power.

This stateless, self-organised terrorist group appeals to Muslims in an increasingly government controlled and restricted world. It is not an institution as such. No membership requirements are needed save shared beliefs (and a willingness to kill). It receives no large scale funding yet the fear and power it holds over the world is enormous and

terrifying. Bin Laden is dead, watched on by Obama as if he was playing Call of Duty (cue wild rejoicing in America).

The fact remains though that as long as the suicide bombers can be so easily recruited, the West will always be vulnerable to another spectacular attack.

The vicious circle of hatred between the west and the Muslim world continues, with Islamaphobia increasing in the west. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful citizens, whose lives are based on the Five Pillars of Islam, but a significant minority mean us nothing but ill.

There are plenty of people in the west, angry at past terrorist attacks, wars, immigration and other problems that are only too happy to use Islam as a scapegoat to society’s problems. In July, Anders Behring Breivik’s attack on a Norwegian youth camp killed 77 innocent people.

Hours before the attack he posted online a rambling manifesto outlining his extreme racist and Islamaphobic ideology. He claimed to be waging war on “Islamic imperialism” and to have

carried out the attack with the ultimate goal of reversing Muslim migration to Europe. Whilst he was obviously mad, scarily the ideology of hating Muslims not for their colour, but their beliefs, is a much more socially acceptable idea than being racist in the traditional sense, and you’d be surprised at how many people condone this elitist idea.

So ten years on from 9/11 we can’t consign the events of that day to folder marked ‘history’, to be pored over by academics and made the subject of endless theses and repeated documentaries. 9/11 is still affecting our daily lives.

Ireland has soldiers in Afghanistan (only seven it’s true) and although Dublin may currently feel safe, who can say that on a visit to London they won’t be a tiny bit nervous of the sight a Pakistani with a rucksack in a crowded tube?

Until the west starts to rebuild bridges with the Muslim world rather than remaining in conflict with it, we will all be looking nervously over our shoulder to the image of the tumbling towers.

TRINITY NEWS

BUSINESS 11

business@trinitynews.ie

The Jobless future awaits In light of the fallout from Steve Jobs’ departure from Apple, Patrick Mallam critiques the man attempting to fill his shoes.

S “The revolution in Apple products didn’t happen overnight, but was brought about by Steve Jobs’ no nonsense management style and a passion to create products that do what they say on the tin”

teve Jobs, some man for the one man.

We all know the story of Apple’s spectacular turnaround. A transformation from the mind numbing machines of the 80’s to the portable, luxury and innovative products churned out by what is now the world’s leading tech brand.

After pioneering Apple’s first user friendly PC, the Macintosh, a slump in sales led for an internal power struggle and in the mid 80’s after a disagreement with the board, Apple co-founder Jobs was ousted. Undeterred, Jobs went on to found NeXT Computer, a firm with a desire to create well engineered user friendly machines something Apple had originally set out to do, but struggled with during the Jobs hiatus.

After falling by the wayside in the PC market share battle, Apple came begging for forgiveness. 1996 saw Jobs return in spectacular fashion. Apple was struggling to make a profit and was intrigued by Jobs’ innovation at NeXT Computer. Jobs made a triumphant return to the company and the floundering tech giant rediscovered its roots in simple well engineered machines. The rest as they say is history.

We are now seemingly drowned in MacBooks, iPods, and iPads. Our lust for sexy consumer goods has caused Apple’s stock to soar, but many (particularly those in design) would argue they’re also very reliable products.

You’re still either Mac or PC - although the Macs are on the rise.

This revolution didn’t happen overnight but was brought about by Steve Jobs’ no nonsense management style and a passion to create products that do what they say on the tin. According to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt “Steve Jobs gave the best performance by a CEO in 50 years, maybe 100 years.

While Jobs resigned as Apple CEO, he is still Chairman of Apple, Inc.

He not only built Apple once, but twice.” After some 15 years at the helm

“Like Jobs, Google boss Eric Schmidt hasn’t stepped down, but moved up to the boardroom” many sing his praise, but a lengthy battle with cancer has forced this technology guru to retire his position as CEO of Apple incorporated, leaving some big, well-oiled boots to fill.

Enter Tim Cook, Apple’s former COO, and Job’s personal recommendation for the coveted position. Cook earned his stripes saving Apple oodles by outsourcing production costs. This helped the company reduce inventory levels and streamline its supply chain, dramatically increasing margins. This is a notable achievement but does Cook have what it takes to carry the company forward through the now

highly competitive high end technology market?

The answer to this question may be found in comparing Cook’s secession to previous ones in the tech industry.

When Ray Ozzie took over from Bill Gates as CTO of Microsoft in 2005 he said there was a huge urgency to move to the cloud. However his ambitions have not been realised, with weak leadership hindering the firm’s advancement. Cook has to prove he can put his stamp on the company when it comes to new ideas.

A more disastrous handover happened at AOL in the early noughties, when the failing dot com boomer looked to hand things over to Dick Parsons – an attorney with no tech experience expected to reverse AOL’s fortunes. Thankfully Cook doesn’t have to deal with a hospital pass like that, he’s taking the reins of a highly successful company, and unlike his predecessor he’s not expected to turn it around - just not to drop the ball.

Possibly the closest parallel to the Jobs-Cook scenario we see now, is the Schmidt-Page handover at Google.

Eric Schmidt, just like Jobs, hasn’t stepped down, but rather moved up to the boardroom to focus on the external relationships of the company. Cook and Larry Page are both in charge of well-built and fully tested machines.

Their only task is to make sure not to drive them home drunk.

Undoubtedly, challenges lie ahead for Apple and its new CEO. Ultimately it will be impossible to ascertain

“Cook has to prove he can put his stamp on the company when it comes to new ideas” Cook’s success in the short term. The fortunes of companies like Apple tend to be defined by long term strategies and as such, results, or dare I say failures, can only appear when it’s far too late.

Thank god Jobs is still in the background.

Smartphone wars: the battle for market share Deputy Business Editor Paul McAufield explores the hugely competitive market for smartphones and the challenges faced by firms vying for market domination.

G

adgets demand attention.

Like a Maserati, Smartphones have connotations of prestige and status.

Unlike a Maserati, however, they seem to go out of date quicker than you can pay for them, and pay for them you do.

With prepay smartphones such as Apples iphone 4, the HTC Desire S Blue and the Samsung Galaxy selling for over €400 it is no surprise that top technology businesses such as Google, Apple and Microsoft are all scrambling to grab a slice of this rapidly expanding multi billion euro software market.

Indeed, once having gained market share, they are desperate to maintain it.

According to recent survey results from Ofcom’s annual communication report, 37% of adults and a majority of student-age adults in Britain are “addicted” to their smartphones. Like cigarettes, such addiction guarantees future custom, however unlike cigarettes, brand loyalty is apparently nonexistent.

Herein lies the problem for software manufacturers and the source of such vicious competition. The average smartphone owner now changes phone every two years, meaning that

20 September, 2011

after only a brief period of time they are back in the market looking to

“37% of adults and a majority of studentage adults in Britain are ‘addicted’ to smartphones” throw their money at the most recent status symbol.

Of course the “cool” which the customer buys into is only present because of the company’s new innovations, friendly user interface, branding and

technological improvements.

These are the areas in which the war is fought.

Unlike the predictions of some

analysts, the smartphone market has not replicated that of the monopolized PC market all those years ago. Instead it has turned into fierce battleground where the giants of technology are fighting it out to have the next “big thing”.

In software, despite an early start from Apple iOS, it is Google Android that has increased market share exponentially since its launch in mid 2008, so much so that it is nearing 50 percent market share according to research firm, Canaly.

Even so, no dominant operating system has emerged. Now Nokia (hardware) and Microsoft Windows (software) have entered a partnership in an effort to gain a greater share of a market which is estimated will be worth $258.9 bn by 2015.

The demarcation lines between software makers and hardware makers too have become less distinct; Apple’s holistic approach to both hardware and software is a prime example of this.

Google’s latest acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 bn highlights further vertical integration in this market.

With the major empires such as Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry) and Microsoft investing billions of euro into R & D in a bid to stay in the fight what’s clear is that none of them will be dropping out of this lucrative market anytime soon.

Despite having to negotiate the vast and significant mine field of intellectual property and patents, each of these business empires are nonetheless willing to do so, often at considerable expense. Indeed this was a key motivation for Google in its recent takeover of Motorola. Motorola Mobility has in its arsenal 17,000 patents with 7,500 patents pending.

This is likely to benefit Google greatly in future developments, or at

least give them ammunition for when they get dragged into court for patent infringement. Already Google Android has been embroiled in litigation which has resulted in a top vendor of Android, HTC paying royalties for use of Microsoft patents. Oracle too is taking legal action against Google in a bid to hamper their growth and recoup lost revenue.

The net result of all this fierce

“The smartphone market has turned into a fierce battleground where the giants of technology fight it out for the next “big thing” competition is a significant benefit for the consumer; it brings about better products, greater innovation and faster improvements.

Though individuals who seek to acquire this status symbol may need a loan to cover what was meant to go toward college fees, they can still relax in knowing that what they possess is the result of billions of dollars of investment and countless hours of work by the best and brightest in this rapidly evolving market.

12 FEATURES

Bog bodies and Renaissance masters Karena Walsh takes a look at the forgotten treasures Trinity’s vicinity has to offer, as Dublin Contemporary 2011 aims to put the capital on the cultural map

A

As Valerie Keogh from the National Gallery of Ireland so aptly puts it, “Trinity College is bang in the middle of Dublin’s cultural quarter.”

Students at Trinity College are just a short walk from the National Gallery, the National Museum, the National History Museum, the National Library, No. 1 Merrion Square (Oscar Wilde’s childhood home), the Chester Beatty Library and the Douglas Hyde Gallery.

Besides this, The Irish Museum of Modern Art and Collins Barracks are readily accessible on the Luas line.

Yet it is very easy to forget about this prime location that we are so fortunate to be in. When we are trudging daily to and from lectures and lounging in the Buttery or the JCR before facing the library; our close proximity to Ireland’s creative hub slips us by.

So, what if, the next time you had a few hours to kill between classes, you ventured out to pass the time in one of these cultural institutions? What would you discover? Would it be of any relevance to you? Most importantly, would it be enjoyable?

Katherine McSharry from the Education, Outreach and External Relations Department at the National Library emphasises that the library boasts “a collection of treasures that are owned and paid for by the Irish public.”

It boasts over 8m prints, drawings, manuscripts and photographs, presenting us with a distinctive portrayal of Irish history and heritage.

Similarly, the National Gallery tells the story of Irish art from the early

“When trudging daily to and from lectures and lounging in the buttery our proximity to Ireland’s creative hub slips us by”

I, optimist?

As a new batch of Freshers arrive on campus, Features Editor Evan Musgrave reflects on the stench of optimism they drag in.

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ven the slightest flirtation with Trinity life fills an individual with a sense of the enormous historical and cultural significance of the college. Home grown pedestrians gawk alongside foreign tourists as they pass the impressive Neo-Classical front that dominates College Green, while the blue clock haunts Dame Street and steadily ticks through another century of academic brilliance. The student leads with the shoulder and thrusts through the crowd of hapless wannabes, everything in the student’s gait spells out “excuse me, I belong here”. In your first few lectures you’ll become acquainted with the superstar alumni who have passed through that arch, the list is simply glorious: Wilde, Beckett, Swift, Burke, Boyle, need I go

on? Who cares, I will; Ernest Walton, Bram Stroker, William Hamilton…

Mary MacAleese.

All these famous names who ooze out of the pages of our college’s esteemed history, who have created the very worldwide renown you now claim to be a part of, have rose to the peak of their profession, stood up and bellowed their will, and have in turn changed the times in which they lived in. All such figures are revered in the college for their contribution to Western culture; so what makes you think you ever have a chance of attaining even a slither of such respect? Look around at all the other students in your year; do you think they don’t all have the same lofty aspirations you first held walking in the dark shadow of Front Arch? Let’s face it, if you only wanted that piece of paper called a degree you’d have gone to

TN Two The National Library, a short walk from Trinity College, is just one of Dublin’s free attractions

17th century right up to the 1950s.

Moreover, it is home to the Yeats Museum and the Yeats archive which aims to demonstrate the artistic achievements of Jack B. Yeats. This is the most extensive collection in the world and utterly unique to Ireland.

With Dublin Contemporary currently in action, September and October are the most exciting months to visit exhibitions and events around the city. Often however, students express the opinion that they do not “get” modern art. In an essay on modern art for the Word of Art competition, Tony Suttle states how most people have a sense of confusion towards it. By not understanding it they feel inadequate in some way. Yet perhaps, if we took a step back from the conceptual idea and simply appreciated the visual, we would be more inclined to look at art in a favourable way.

There is a great opportunity to examine contemporary art alongside historic masterpieces with Dublin Contemporary showcasing at the National Gallery. Indeed, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and the Douglas Hyde Gallery (which is located within the walls of Trinity College itself) both pay particular homage to international and home-grown artists.

Nonetheless, if ancient artefacts provoke your interest more, the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street or at Collins Barracks could prove revelatory. It highlights the vast range of historic material on

display, including Roman figurines, mummified Egyptian cats and Viking weaponry. One of the museum’s most famous Irish relics is the Gallagh Man, a body from between 400-200BC that was found by peat cutters in excellent condition because the bog preserved it so well.

UCD. Like most of the rest of us, you’re here in Trinity in an attempt to leech off the fame of those great names who once studied here centuries before you were even born. When you received those magazines from The Phil and The Hist you probably automatically reckoned “I’ll surely run that society one day, I might as well, look at all the famous people who were in it!” It’s important you get the message early on – optimism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

If you’re entering college with the view that ‘the glass is always half full’, then you’re best to make that drink a pint, and down it, you delusional wimp.

As the themed SU weeks roll by – Career’s Week, Green Week, Health Week- optimism will be served up as the antidote to such stumbling blocks as mass youth unemployment, a worldwide financial crisis and the continuation of global warming. You’ll be reminded once again that students are collectively “the future”. As if the inevitable blow to your pride arising from the knowledge that you’re not in fact the next Oscar Wilde isn’t enough, you’ll be banded together under the banner of obscure optimism, branded alongside the likes of the smart kids from the Young Scientists Exhibition as the solution to all the past generation’s

problems – uniformly mutated snowflakes, falling in the height of Summer.

It doesn’t take an in-depth analysis of Candide to work out that directionless optimism is a destructive, hollowing force. This, I suppose, is the section where I depart from the exaggerated sardonicism that has characterised the article up until now.

It was Wilde himself who claimed that “the basis of optimism is sheer terror”. It’s not a scientific observation, we don’t know if he even really meant it. However it stirs up some thoughts on what type of optimism people choose to lead during their college years.

Unmitigated optimism is an option chosen by many first years, I was no stranger to it; it’s almost an automatic sentiment at having achieved entry to Trinity, and the pressure that goes with it. However, I now favour a more practical cousin of it; a healthy dose of cynicism. Optimism only has a real value when put up against your cynical side – you begin to equate one in terms of the other, exercising both is essential to a wholesome college life.

Optimism need not involve reciting palliative mantras on a daily basis.

Paying attention to the negative facts and harsh realities you learn through

“The museum displays Roman figurines, mummified Egyptian cats and Viking weaponry” The objects housed in the National Museum can be enjoyed by anybody.

It is certainly not necessary to have a degree in the History of Art in order to marvel and be swept away by the spectacle in front of you.

A point regularly overlooked is that admission to all of these institutions in Ireland is free. It is striking how we can travel to every European city, queue for hours to enter the main museums and galleries, pay on average €9 to see the works and all the while jostle with the crowds of tourists to get a better view.

In the meantime, it would take a simple stroll from campus to spend a relaxing and cost-free few hours soaking in Ireland’s very own cultural collections.

Even if the stresses and strains of college life give you little free time, you can always apply for a Reader’s Ticket

at the National Library. Here you will have access to an abundance of antiquated manuscripts together with online databases that could aid you in whatever essay or dissertation you are working on.

On top of all this, you would be able to study in the Main Reading Room, arguably the most beautiful room in Dublin.

On a final note, although you may get irritated by the throngs of tourists who flock into Trinity, it is worth remembering that the college is home to The Book of Kells.

This book is celebrated the world over for its lavish artistic decoration and visited by more than 500,000 people annually. In addition to this, we are all aware, of Trinity’s catalogue of famous alumni - Beckett, Stoker, Swift, Wilde - who radiated flair and talent and went on to achieve worldwide success with their creative works.

Everybody was born with an imagination. It is what separates us humans as a species from the rest of the animal kingdom. If you were to allow yourself the opportunity to spend time in the company of emotive art, whether from this tiny island or further afield, it may prove an invaluable experience.

You may even be inspired.

FOR MORE ON THIS STORY SEE TRINITY NEWS Two 6-7

experience need not dampen your optimistic outlook, rather, it teaches a realistic viewpoint and allows one to reassess or reboot your goals. A workable optimistic viewpoint can accommodate setbacks, provided the goals you set are achievable. It is often considered that what distinguishes an optimist from a pessimist is not how often they find themselves in adverse situations, or how serious these situations may be, but how they respond to adversities.

A recent article in the science section of the Irish Times (“He who dares wins”) argued that overconfidence is an asset in the workplace, claiming that “having too much confidence in your own abilities is an absolute advantage and increases the probability of success”. An inflated sense of our own abilities indeed can be advantageous – it encourages one to take risks, and risk takers will attain more resources and develop success before those who don’t. An over-inflated sense of selfpride, can be catastrophic, and lead to severe emotional difficulties.

Writing a preachy article may indeed be a perfect example of an inflated sense in my own abilities. Submitting this to The Guardian however, would be pure hubris.

TRINITY NEWS

13

features@trinitynews.ie

Suffer in silence, Somalia

Hugh O’Doherty addresses the passive response of the media to the continuing deaths from starvation in the Horn of Africa. What will it take for us to sit up and listen?

A

t the precise moment that I sat down to write this article, there was no article on the Irish Times website homepage or world news page of that same site about the escalating famine in the Horn of Africa, primarily Southern Somalia.

There was, however, a Somaliabased news item that concerned itself with a Danish family being freed by Somali pirates having been held since February of this year. The New York Times website on the same day was the same – no homepage or world news page article about the famine, but a story on the freed Danes made the editorial cut.

Let there be no mistake about it: the story of the freed hostages is worthy and of great importance, but what is clear is this: the non-death of seven Danish people is more important to us than the real deaths of thousands upon thousands of Somalis every day, most of them children.

One of the ways in which we, potential donors to international aid organisations, manage to convince ourselves that we are powerless to help is by believing the myth that drought is the cause of this famine. This is a falsehood.

The causes are almost entirely anthropogenic, caused by human factors such as war, corruption and

“Western donors ought to know that without dealing with political and religious problems, they will be asked to give more again”

religious fundamentalism. Drought, flooding or bad harvests are the causes of famine and its associated starvation and mortality, or so we are told. But that is rarely, if ever, the case.

Media coverage and political responses to famine – and Somalia is no different – usually portrays famine as a natural disaster. However, natural events are not so much a cause as a catalyst of famine.

Al-Shabab, the Islamist fundamentalist group that governs – or more correctly, oppresses through a deliberate policy of mass death – large swathes of Somalia. The group is now blocking the attempts of secular NGOs who are trying to get food and medical supplies to millions of people who are presently at the point of no return.

Al-Shabab has reached an unsurpassable level of callousness by actually becoming an agent in bringing about famine. While Western donors give aid, as well they should, they ought to know that without dealing with the political and religious problems that have exacerbated or caused this present famine, they will be asked to give more again when the next one comes around, as it inevitably will. Until we care enough to try and understand what is going on, this is as sure as the sun rising in the morning.

When one considers that the escalating levels of starvation are almost entirely caused by humans and not by nature, as well as being perpetrated by one group upon others, the situation becomes more like Rwanda in 1994 all over again, with a slow wasting death awaiting victims instead of the point of a machete.

This time, however, we do know what is going on and we do have the resources to tackle it, but we just choose not to. We may want to help Somalia and Africa, but we can’t do so without learning about it. We can’t learn about it without demanding news about it.

News won’t be published unless we demand it.

The Somali disaster has received a small amount of media attention in Ireland

What makes Somalia unique is that the West has close to absolutely no economic or strategic use for it. There is no commodity to extract or even a central government to coax, nor is there much of a formal economy to speak of.

If Africa is the continent that the rest of the world doesn’t care much for, then Somalia is the country within Africa that nobody cares for. The traditionally great powers have no further use for the place. It can be left to rot and crash.

It must be noted that we cannot blame newspapers, news websites and other media outlets entirely for their lack of coverage. Editorial decisions are usually arrived at after two questions

are asked: will I get sued, and will running this story make money?

We, the people, are the ones primarily to blame. When a story about a handful of alive Danes is far more important to us than a story about potentially millions of acutely malnourished Somalis, we have reached a very sad and potentially dangerous place.

It should not go unmentioned that, contrary to the Irish Times and New York Times, The Globe and Mail – Canada’s national newspaper of record – had an entire section on the famine linked from the homepage on the same day that the other newspapers carried

no news at all on the issue. This meant that after one click, no less than ten articles directly related to the famine were available to readers of that site.

There is hope.

“What makes Somalia unique is that the West has almost no economic or strategic use for it”

Old dogs are forever up to new tricks People who time may have forgotten but who haven’t forgotten their time - David Babby examines our relationship with the classic irritable pensioner, and asks whether we should be doing more for Ireland’s elderly generation

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t. Vincent de Paul’s Older People’s Commission report must be one of the most important reports in the country to repeatedly discover nothing new.

This month, the news is as bleak and unexpected as ever: the greatest problem experienced by the elderly in Ireland is loneliness.

Do you feel guilty yet – or should you? Because I’ll tell you this: from my time volunteering this summer in a French old folks’ home I shall leave unnamed, I suspect the oldies left behind may very well deserve it.

That sounds harsh. I turned to other students who had volunteered with the elderly both abroad and in Ireland to put me in my place. It’s a hard one to judge, what people have done or what has happened to them for them to end up alone. Everyone is acutely aware that we only ever hear one side of the sob stories we have all become immune to (we have to).

I receive a terrific anecdote that dramatically demonstrates the potential scope of such duplicity: a devoted volunteer of the sweetest old lady in her ward at the nursing home confronts her children after her death as to why they never visited.

The frail, delightful old angel had been an abominable mother with psychiatric problems who never even bought Christmas presents.

The consensus seems to be that only the children can know whether they “deserve” to be alone.

But “deserving” is beside the point.

It’s easy to be cruel referring to faceless old ladies who are sad in their dank living rooms (And just to clarify, I do not really believe mean old ladies should be left outside in the proverbial blizzard). Anyway it’s too comforting to believe that only the ones who deserve it end up alone – life itself is much meaner than mean old ladies.

But, for the hell of it, let us look solely at these mean ones – the ones

“I’m speaking of the monsters trapped in a time warp: the intolerant, the homophobic, and the racist” 20 SEPTEMBER, 2011

who don’t deserve to be abandoned but kind of do. We feel bad for them because that could be us some day – this sympathy is hollow and useless.

We need to try and view them as a valuable source to ourselves Selflessness springs most easily from selfishness after all.

There are 690,000 people on the island of Ireland who are over 65.

Needless to say, the vast majority of this group is perfectly nice – think of a really old version of you; they’re not a different species after all. But let us here focus only on the horrible ones – the ones, perhaps, most likely to stop receiving visitors. I’m not talking of the cutesy eccentric heroine of the Jenny Joseph poem ‘When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple’.

I’m speaking of the monsters trapped in a time warp: the intolerant, the homophobic, and the racist. By being in their company, they’re not lonely – but what have we got to gain?

Any true fan of Mad Men should be spending free time with mean old people, not just because they’re the mean sixties old people grown up.

To my mind, Daniel Mendelsohn who attacked the show in The New York Review of Books accurately describes the appeal of the show – the

simultaneously allured and repelled “Oh look how bad they are!” – but does not succeed in convincing us why this is bad in itself. “For a drama (or book, or whatever) to invite an audience to feel superior to a less enlightened era even as it teases the regressive urges behind the behaviours associated with that era strikes me as the worst possible offense that can be committed in a creative work set in the past: it’s simultaneously contemptuous and pandering.” Such a feeling, as astoundingly patronizing as it may sound, is the appeal of spending time with truly ignorant old people – we get to revel in how much better we are.

However much more than being a reminder of how far we have come, they remind us how easily we too could tip into ignorance, that we have grown up in an environment that – and this is proven by their very presence – is flawed and intolerant and that, therefore, we are flawed and intolerant too. We are not instinctively open-minded

and understanding – we are, in fact constantly fighting our own intolerance, our inner mean old bag.

14 WORLD REVIEW

Revolution, revolt and reform From riots and natural disasters to scandals, this summer was packed with compelling stories happening across the world.

While their days on the front page may be over, the consequences are not. Aine Pennello goes through the top 10 highlights: OSLO ATTACKS Covering Breivik’s trial

SYRIAN REVOLT The more things change...

SOUTH SUDAN On the road again

Terrorism is so often associated with Islamic fundamentalism that when an assailant gunned down 77 young attendees of a political youth conference in July in Oslo, Norwegians found themselves taken aback to find the massacre’s culprit a native of privileged upbringing.

The aftermath has sparked fierce debates at a time when Norwegians are going to the polls for local elections.

Immigration, integration, and Islamization were the three evils of Anders Behring Breivik, outlined in his 1,500-page manifesto recovered in the wake of the attacks.

A major newsmaker in Norway as his case heads for trial, debate is rampant over how much coverage the media should allow Breivik.

In the meantime, the feeling in the country is one of determination to defend democracy and openness.

“Something good can grow from the experience of evil, a desire to show compassion,” said Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

A protracted popular uprising in Syria against the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad in March of this year continued throughout the summer, taking on the form of a bloody ritual of protest and suppression. So far over 2,000 people have been killed. Assad, whose father massacred 25,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982, has shown no qualms in using tanks and soldiers in regular offensives against insurrectionary areas. Yet unlike other Arab regimes, the Syrian elite has shown little sign of cracking with only scattered reports of defections in the army’s lower ranks. On the other hand, a stunning feature of the events in Syria has also been the resilience of the protesters. Areas that have experienced successive deadly crackdowns continue to see demonstrations. Considering the stamina of both sides so far, the final outcome is really anyone’s guess but more deaths are almost certain.

International pressure has built up on the regime but has so far been indecisive.

The Republic of South Sudan, the world’s newest country after its secession from Sudan on 9 July, is relocating its capital.

While the new government currently sits in Juba, the country’s largest city, overpopulation, lack of water facilities and room for expansion have caused officials to begin the process of relocating the capital to the more centrally located city of Ramciel. Inhabited by almost two million people, less than 60% of Juba’s residents have access to safe drinking water.

Lack of water in other areas of South Sudan has led to clashes between tribes. At least 600 people were killed and 900 injured in Jonglei as tribes compete for water and grazing areas for cows, highly valued for marital exchanges.

A territory that can scantily lay claim to being a state, Somalia has been ravaged in recent months by what has been described as the worst draught in the region in sixty years. But suggesting that natural causes are principally to blame for the suffering of an estimated 12 million people is to ignore the reality of the situation in the east African region. The scene of brutal war between the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government and armed Islamic militias combine with the internecine rivalries of the myriad Somali clans to hamper virtually any form of development.

Recent weeks have seen rebel insurgents lose the capital of Mogadishu to allied forces. But there are fears that the withdrawal may result in a stronger grip on the countryside, which is where the real effects of the famine are being felt. Rarely has the international community felt so helpless as NGOs can do little but stand on the sidelines as devastation unfolds.

FAMINE IN SOMALIA The darker forces at work

The worst rioting seen in Britain in decades erupted in the Tottenham area of London on 6 August, lasting several days and promptly spreading to other areas of London as well as other British cities including Manchester and Birmingham.

The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government acted quickly and with force to stabilize the situation while the courts dispensed tough prison sentences.

Although some balked at Prime Minister David Cameron’s claim that the riots were mere criminality and had nothing to do with class or income inequality, most British citizens seemed to support his quick and heavyhanded response.

Syria and other Arab Spring countries whose governments have been plagued by protests for reform gave much coverage to the riots.

LONDON RIOTS The UK’s Arab spring?

News Corp. offered CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch and son James Murdoch $12.5 million and $6 million bonuses respectively at the end of their fiscal year in early September. James Murdoch declined his bonus in a statement to News Corp. citing the recent UK phone hacking scandal.

“While the financial and operating performance metrics on which the bonus decision are not associated with this matter, I feel that declining the bonuses is the right thing to do.

I will consult with the Compensation Committee in the future about whether any bonuses may be appropriate at a later date,” he wrote. His father accepted the bonus.

UK PHONE HACKING Media scandal continues

STRAUSS-KAHN Home sweet... Home?

After three and a half months of court hearings, imprisonment and house arrest, former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned to France early this month with wife Anne Sinclair at his side.

Although the 62 year-old was ultimately cleared of rape charges, Strauss-Kahn did not receive a warm welcome home.

First lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy said she “simply detested the macho reactions. I’m not particularly on the side of women, but when women are diminished and attacked I feel a sense of solidarity”.

It remains to be seen whether Strauss-Kahn can make a comeback and run for the French Presidential elections in 2012 as planned.

Although the U.S. Presidential elections are more than a year away, it seems jostling Republican nominees are only too eager to see who will go head-to-head with President Barack Obama in 2012. So far the main contenders include Tea Party supporter Michelle Bachmann; associate minister and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, Herman Cain; politician and author Newt Gingrich; former ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman; U.S Congressman Ron Paul; Governor of Texas, Rick Perry; businessman and former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney; and lawyer and former Senator, Rick Santorum. Rick Perry is currently in the lead with 36% of Republican voters describing Perry as their first preference, giving him a 19% lead over 2nd place candidate Mitt Romney but it’s still early days yet.

Sarah Palin continues to avoid questions from the “lame-stream media” about whether or not she’ll run – all the while keeping everyone curious with bus tours, events and her new documentary, ‘The Undefeated’.

US ELECTIONS On your marks...

US NATURAL DISASTERS Tornadoes, fires and Irene

The U.S. was hit hard by an usually high number of natural disasters this summer. The town of Joplin, Missouri is still in the process of being rebuilt after one of the deadliest tornadoes left complete destruction and 159 dead late May. Forest fires in Arizona raged from May to June, burning over 469,000 acres. Senator John McCain provoked outrage by saying “there is substantial evidence that some of these fires are caused by people who have crossed our border illegally,” a comment for which he still refuses to apologise.

In August, an earthquake originating from Mineral, Virginia was felt along the entire east coast – one third of the nation – from Atlanta, Georgia to Chicago and New York City. During that same week Hurricane Irene brought storm surges of up to 2 metres causing flooding from North Carolina to Vermont. The hurricane, which was as big as mainland Europe, caused 45 deaths and millions of dollars worth of damages.

In an effort to reduce costs, NASA retired its space shuttle program this summer after 30 years of service and 135 missions. The last NASA space shuttle was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on 8 July.

The shuttle retirement will allow NASA to focus on targets further a field including expeditions to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by the mid 2030’s.

The White House and NASA have since turned to the private sector, funding private firms to build competing aircraft capable of bringing U.S. astronauts into orbit. California-based company SpaceX is the first of these private company successors. SpaceX’s Dragon space capsule is planned to make its first launch on 30 November and will carry cargo to the International Space Station.

NASA’S SHUTTLE Space missions privatised

TRINITY NEWS

15 worldreview@trinitynews.ie

Divided, they fall In an examination of American party ideologies, Niall O’Brien looks at how timehonoured political differences are spelling trouble for the US economy

F

“Republicans hold fast to the notion that only decreased spending can stabilise the economy.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a premise that Obama must accept in order to move forward”

or US President Barack Obama and the American economy, this summer was anything but relaxing.

And as Congress prepares to debate the President’s new $450bn Jobs Initiative, the months ahead look set to be equally trying.

The uncertainty plaguing the US economy became dire this summer with the unfolding of the debt-ceiling crisis. An eleventh-hour deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, concluded

by Republicans and Democrats on July 31, allowed the United States to narrowly escape the danger of an imminent default. The crisis was used by both sides of the House of Representatives to showcase their alternative priorities, with the run up to the eventual deal typified by each party blaming the other for their intransigence. However, the resulting dithering and theatrics came at a heavy price for both parties and nation. Although the United States avoided economic catastrophe, any hope that the move would stabilize confidence in the economy was immediately dashed when ratings agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded the United States from its prized AAA rating to AA+.

Further bad news for Washington arrived this month in the form of the latest unemployment figures, revealing a stagnant national unemployment rate of 9.1% and zero new job creation for the month of August. Another headache for all incumbent politicians are the results of a new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll which revealed that a majority of Americans – 54% – would vote out every single member of Congress, reflecting an immense dissatisfaction with how the political system is responding to the challenges.

The starkness of this figure has forced the political parties to turn towards a more effective response to the situation.

Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, one of the Republican frontrunners to contest the Presidential election against Obama in 2012,

Hard times for President Obama

was the first to offer a solution by announcing his plan to cut the deficit and stabilize the economy. It contained many of the same Republican touchstones of decreased taxation, lower regulation, and the repeal of Obamacare. It was at least a more serious plan from the GOP with a sense of long-term feasibility.

On 8 September, the President unveiled his own plan to a joint session of Congress. Entitled ‘The American Jobs Act,’ the plan contains almost $450 bn worth of incentives with an aim to getting the nation back to work. It was a powerfully delivered speech and the plan itself was more ambitious than previously predicted.

“The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities,” he said.

“The question tonight is whether we’ll meet ours. The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy”.

And yet a mindfulness of these very political divisions was present everywhere in his speech. With the chaos of the debt-ceiling crisis still fresh, Obama preempted lengthy debates and objections by insisting several times, “You should pass this jobs plan right away”. Yet object they will and, as the official opposition, they will feel it their duty to do so.

To this conciliatory proposal, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner gave a

lackluster response. “The proposals the President outlined tonight merit consideration,” he said. “We hope he gives serious consideration to our ideas as well.” It is a sign that before this bill is passed, Republicans will endeavour to put their own stamp on it, possibly even damaging the bill’s ideology and workability. More than anything else, Obama’s speech highlighted how broken the U.S. political system is and how desperate he is to work through it to address the country’s economic crisis.

However, Democrats who wish to prioritise the 14m unemployed Americans – 6m of which have been unemployed for 6 months or more – will still feel the President’s bill falls short. A more ambitious stimulus plan with a heavier emphasis on mass job creation, such as the $787 bn stimulus plan of 2009, and a more liberal and relaxed approach to bring down the deficit would probably be more favourable. The reason why finding solutions has become so intractable in Washington lies in the major gulf in how the two opposing factions view the problem as well as in the power they both wield. In regards to the latest unemployment figures, Boehner stated that “private sector job growth continues to be undermined by the triple threat of higher taxes, more failed ‘stimulus’ spending and excessive federal regulations.” While many analyses show that the first stimulus package,

containing one-third tax cuts did prevent rising unemployment and falling economic growth, Republicans hold fast to the notion that only decreased spending can stabilize the economy. Unfortunately, this seems to be a premise that Obama must accept in order to move forward. Well aware that no US President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been re-elected with the unemployment level above 7.2%, Obama is desperate to tackle the unemployment crisis in order to assure his political future. After all, this is his fight to lose.

Optimists may take heart that Republicans are showing more interest in compromising with the Democrat Party, hinting that they may support some of the proposals. But Obama’s bill will please too few people in the long run. While the language coming out of this speech and Washington is one of compromise and a willingness to put differences aside, in reality both parties are keeping their eyes on the forthcoming elections and still clinging tenaciously to the view that their approach is the right one.

Such a rift between the two parties can only hinder the administration of the tough, logical and dispassionate action the American economy so sorely needs to recover.

Meanwhile, whether right now or a little further down the line, it is the American people that must suffer.

And they are clearly getting angrier about it.

Why we live in a planet without a pilot Eleanor Friel discusses the lack of global governance and power in a world increasingly in need of more centralised direction

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ver half a century on from its creation, the United Nations has yet to reach its stated aim of bringing all nations of the world together, based on the principles of well-being, justice, and human dignity.

With ongoing conflicts worldwide, most notably in the Middle East and Northern and Eastern Africa, our planet is no closer to being a tranquil utopia than it was back in 1945. What was projected as being the guardian of international peace, a virtual bastion of legitimacy and authority over all nation-states, is often seen as a confounding bureaucracy of assorted bodies, of which only the Security Council seems to hold any semblance of real power among the international community. But the international hierarchy is shifting. Britannia does not

20 September, 2011

rule the waves, nor does the European Union. Ravaged by distressingly polarising political infighting between Republicans and Democrats, as well as grave federal debt, America’s clout on the international scene these days is being hampered by domestic woes.

This begs the question: if world power is globally dispersed then why is this not reflected in the structure of its supposed governing body?

The case for expanding the permanent membership of the Security Council is fraught with controversy.

While it may seem that the forum should reflect the growth of emerging nations, the values and policies of these nations cannot be overlooked.

The argument for admitting Brazil, China, India, and South Africa carries some clout when viewed from economic and demographic perspectives. But unlike the case

for Germany and Japan, this raises delicate questions. Mexico’s former Foreign Minister, Jorge Castaneda, asserted in a recent interview that their admission may undermine important international agendas, “Brazil, China, India, and South Africa are not just weak supporters of the notion that a strong international regime should govern human rights, democracy, nonproliferation, trade liberalization, the environment, international criminal justice, and global health.” Castaneda continued, “They oppose it more or less explicitly, and more or less actively — even though at one time most of them joined the struggle for these values.”

There are those of the opinion that that the UN has withered since its inception. Such criticisms have come from the inside as well as the outside. In a recent interview, former UN UnderSecretary-General James OC Jonah

showed himself to be a profoundly disappointed man. A highly educated Sierra Leonine recruited into the system by some of the leading lights of his time, 47 years later he has little praise for the institution. When Jonah got on board in 1963, he says young men and women of his generation looked ahead to booming development worldwide, and an optimistic and effective UN that would function as a guiding, international civil service to be proud of.

Even if the UN succeeds in reforming itself, it is difficult to imagine a forum capable of assuming global governance in a universe growing increasingly uncertain.

Indeed there are those who predict that far from the multi-polar worlds of the past, or the unipolar present, we’re marching toward an apolar world where scales of power are all relative.

No one will control the system because its variables, be they economic, demographic, social, or environmental, will become too numerous and too

complex. The challenge for global governance, they say, doesn’t consist simply of attempting to preserve a precarious equilibrium. Rather, the real feat henceforth will be preventing fierce competition from degenerating into confrontation.

For global cooperation to advance, any realistic observer will look at the situation from the position of individual states and what they have in mind.

One thing is certain: only a vast collective of nations is capable of producing incontestable international legitimacy. The capacity of legitimate governance to make real inroads in world decision-making will only be realised if the UN can work in tandem with bodies such as the G20 and NATO, and not as an inferior alternative.

But let’s not be mistaken here, nothing can and nothing will advance without the willpower of states. which play to their own interests.

The ideal government of the world remains a utopia.

16 TRAVEL travel@trinitynews.ie

The Athens of the north Travel Editor Maud Sampson tells us why the home of the Fringe is much more than Dublin with a different accent

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t doesn’t get any more exotic than Edinburgh. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Edinburgh isn’t foreign. It’s basically a Scottish Dublin.’ but during the month of August, Edinburgh is one of the most exciting places in the world.

Where else would you see a man in a leotard singing an aria and rapping but the Royal Mile? That is not to say it is not worth visiting the city outside of the world famous Fringe Festival in the summer. The Scottish capital always has plenty of things to see and

“It is no coincidence that J.K. Rowling started to write the adventures of the most famous wizard in the world in Edinburgh” do, which makes up for its dubious climate, and ensures it lives up to its rather grand nickname.

It is no coincidence that J.K. Rowling started to write the adventures of the most famous wizard in the world in Edinburgh, or that Sherlock Holmes hails from this beautiful city.

One Day, the summer’s most anticipated Hollywood blockbuster,

may have contrived scenic shots of young lovers Dexter and Emma roaming through the Old Town of Edinburgh, but in this case the camera doesn’t lie, and much of Edinburgh’s centre really is as charming as it appears on screen. So charming in fact, that UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site.

The centre can be roughly split into two parts- the Georgian New Town to the north of Princes Street and the medieval Old Town to the south.

Princes Street itself is a slightly grotty long shopping street of every high street brand you can dream of.

George Street, parallel to Princes Street in the New Town, is less busy and shopping there is more upmarketthink expensive high street and designer. Along and just off George Street on either side is an array of places to eat of all price ranges, from cheap and cheerful sandwich shops and cafes to more expensive eateries.

This area is one of the best to go out in.

Dotted between the shops are bars and clubs, just below ground level.

If mainstream and chart music is your thing then you will be well catered for here, with plenty of cheap drinks and deals, particularly during the week. For all the “edgier” people out there then the Old Town has an abundance of pubs and clubs around the Cowgate and the university which have a grungier, alternative feel.

Edinburgh castle has a history to rival the best anywhere

The Old Town contains most of the traditional tourist “sights”.

From Princes Street walk two minutes up the Mound to the National Gallery of Scotland. Well-worth a visit, with great exhibitions, permanent and

“Edinburgh Castle has one of the most magnificent settings in the world, high upon an extinct volcanic plug” visiting, of which many have a free admission- always a plus! The Royal Scottish Academy is next door, and often has big blockbuster exhibitions.

The historic Edinburgh Castle has one of the most magnificent settings in the world, high upon Castle Rock, an extinct volcanic plug.

Its jutting position provides a postcard perfect backdrop to the centre of town and Princes Street Gardens, a central park great to relax in and full of

Jordan’s Wonder Kate Millett Contributing Writer

THE HASHEMITE Kingdom, more commonly known as Jordan, is in the centre of the Middle East and has a mainly Muslim population. Although

“Petra continues to be the main tourist attraction of the country, and has even had its own successful role in an Indiana Jones film” the traditions of the country as a whole are largely based the Islam culture, as a young person living in Amman, the capital city, I find that people’s immediate prejudices about the country can be very wrong.

Culturally Jordan is buzzing.

Activities can vary from exploring the spice and antique “souks” in Amman, to scuba diving in the Coral Gardens of the Red Sea. Petra continues to be a main tourist attraction of the country, and has even had its own successful role in an Indiana Jones film.

From the Greek word meaning “rock”, Petra is an

archaeological wonder literally built out of the valley face. During the sixth century it was the capital city of the Nabataeans, then it became the

people if the weather is warm enough.

The Castle has buildings dating from the twelfth century (the oldest in Edinburgh), and its significance should excite all you historians- Mary Queen of Scots gave birth here to James VI of Scotland and I of England. It holds the Crown Jewels of Scotland (bling diamonds in their most regal state), as well as the Stone of Destiny.

The Castle is at the top of the Royal Mile, a hub of activity during August’s Fringe Festival. Edinburgh’s equivalent of Temple Bar, it is worth a walk along for its cobbled streets and “quaint” feel.

However, forgive the burghers of Edinburgh for the overpriced ‘tartan tat’ tourist shops that line it. If you haven’t time for the slightly contrived Royal Mile, then the Grassmarket just to the south has a world famous vintage shop, and overall is a more authentic retail experience with yummy cafes dotted around.

Just up the hill is Greyfriar’s Kirk, where the famous Scottish folk tale of Greyfriar’s Bobby originates from. Head past the university (don’t stop though- it is nothing on Trinity

College) and down from here is the controversial Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood. Decide for yourself whether it’s an architectural beauty, or just hideously vulgar. It’s worth a look at on your way to one of the must-do’s of Edinburgh- climbing Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park. As well as a panoramic vision of the city, it’s a great way to orientate yourself.

If the climb seems a bit steep, then on the way back into town go up Calton Hill- easier on the limbs and still a great view.

Edinburgh is a great size- unless you are particularly lazy you don’t need to take public transport to take in the sights. You can do the standard open top bus tour found in every major city which is an easy way to familiarise yourself with the place, but after that walking is the best (and cheapest) way to get around. The centre has all types of accommodation from hotels to cheap hostels. Whether you go for the Fringe Festival, Hogmanay or just a casual break, Edinburgh is a refreshing treat.

Dublin with a different accent?

Rubbish, but go and decide for yourself.

residence of Bedouin tribes. Now it is an attraction in itself, although there is definitely nothing simple about it.

I have been to Petra three times since living in Jordan and it never fails to astonish.

The Dead Sea is another famous attraction. People worldwide pay ridiculous amounts of money for the

“Explore the spice and antique ‘Souks’ in Amman, Scuba dive in the Coral Gardens”

“Jordan is not an oppressive, conservative Muslim country” Dead Sea products which promise “flawless, ageless skin.”

Visiting the Dead Sea not only supplies you with as much free “mud” as you could ask for but also t h e

incomparable experience of “floating.”

Its salty waters prevent anything from living in it, and the salt gives the swimmers the sensation of bobbing along the surface of the sea, which has proved an irresistible selling point to tourists. Resting 400 metres beneath sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth.

Another gem is the desert Wadi Rum. This is the perfect weekend break, going for camel rides through the desert during the day and camping with the Bedouins at night. However Sex and the City 2 lied.

The Bedouins have an ancient culture in which respect for one another is central. Living here has given me a taste of what the true Jordan is like. It is not, as many people would imagine, an oppressive, conservative Muslim country.

As one of the few stable countries of the Middle East, the people of Jordan are welcoming, fun loving and generous people, and the country has so much to offer.

TRINITY NEWS

SCIENCE 17

science@trinitynews.ie

When will the whale wars end?

TECHNOLOGY

Tiny PC fights cancer

Science Editor Anthea Lacchia explores the murky waters that surround whaling

S

ilence descends as the seamen wait. Then, suddenly, a stir and blow of air; a fin emerges from the black water. Whaling has always been under the international spotlight and even more so since July, when the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) annual meeting sparked tension between pro- and anti-whaling groups.

Pro-whaling groups walked out of the meeting after Latin American nations tried to force a vote on a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the south Atlantic. This meant that no decision could be reached, and many items on the agenda, such as how to prevent deaths of whales by collisions and how to limit noise in the oceans, could not be discussed. These items would have to wait until next year.

Researchers at MIT and ETH have developed a biocomputer that can target cancer at a cellular level. A synthetic circuit made from a small gene network, the computer is programmed to detect five molecular markers characteristic of a cancer, and then target and destroy the abnormal cells.

Testing has so far only been carried out on cultured human cells where the computer was used to treat a sample of cervical cancer. Although still far from use in humans, scientists are confident that this system could be used for highly specific cancer treatments in the future. The next step will be to use the circuit to build diagnostic and therapeutic tools for tests on an animal model.

“Sea Shepherd turned to tactics like hurling rancid butter” General safety at sea is another issue that needs addressing, as clashes between environmentalists - usually Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd members - and Japanese whalers, often turn violent. During its campaign in the Antarctic, Sea Shepherd has turned to tactics such as hurling rancid butter or entangling propellers. The battle between whaling ships and conservationists intensified last February, when confrontations with Sea Shepherd activists forced Japanese whalers to recall their fleet. What would Melville have said of all this?

Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986, having agreed to a global moratorium. However, there are three grounds on which a country can object to the IWC moratorium. First, permits may be given to indigenous groups for subsistence food: this is the case of the Alaskan Inupiats. A country may otherwise formally object and declare itself exempt from the moratorium: as is the case with Norway. Lastly, a nation may issue scientific permits and continue to hunt and sell meat to consumers, under the pretence they are conducting valuable research. This is the case with Japan, which claims it catches mostly Minke whales, not classified as an endangered species.

Despite a worldwide ban on commercial whaling, about 1400 large whales are killed each year. Australia and New Zealand have always been among the countries most strongly opposed to whaling.

Why should we save whales? They

ASTRONOMY

Burgeoning black hole

Whaling controversy: Anti-whaling protestors in Japan

are highly evolved animals with complex social lives. Their calls, directed at one another, echo around the ocean’s expanse. They are intelligent and sensitive mammals, air-breathing animals that feed their young on their mother’s milk.

Blue whales are the largest animals to have ever existed. Intrinsic value of the animal aside, if the oceans were whale-free, would humankind be adversely affected? According to the Sea Shepherd Conservation group, whales are an important carbon store in the marine ecosystem. The slaughter of

“Saving whales is not only beneficial for the individual animal, but also for the planet” whales, the Group says, plays an important role in releasing carbon into the atmosphere, thereby adding to

global warming. This carbon would otherwise be sequestered into the deep ocean upon natural death. Dr Andrew Pershing, from the University of Maine, describes whales as the “forests of the ocean.” Thus, saving whales seems to be beneficial not only for the individual animal, but also for the planet.

The manner in which culling is carried out is critical, since the method of killing can cause pain and distress or it can lead to a quick death. The technology used in culling whales has changed very little since the 19th century: from earlier harpoons containing black powder, whalers are now using penthrite grenade harpoons.

The modern harpoon is a lasersighted cannon, with a lance carrying a thermal grenade. The tip of the lance pierces the whale’s skin and releases a charge of penthrite that burns at more than 2,750°C. The shock waves from the combustion are the cause of death. The animals are then winched to the whaling boat and their final state of awareness is not fully understood. It is hard to determine when exactly a whale is dead, partly because of cetacean adaptations, such as the ability to lower its

heart rate by 50-80%. One thing is certain: a whale that is shot but not killed will sustain massive injury and severe suffering. Sometimes, harpooned Minke whales revive as they are being reeled in. In some cases, veterinarians on board try to ensure that death hap-

“A whale that is shot but not killed will sustain massive injury and severe suffering” pens as fast and painlessly as possible.

Basic welfare principles that should be applied to whaling, as they should to livestock animals, include stress-free handling, an effective process causing immediate unconsciousness and guarantee of unconsciousness until death.

Sadly, the desire to appease the appetite of human consumption supersedes welfare considerations.

Wild, wonderful beasts of the oceans, must we fight over your meat?

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory have discovered a galaxy with two super massive black holes at its centre only 160 million light years from our own. This is very small in astronomic terms and is the closest the phenomenon has been observed. The galaxy had previously been thought to contain only one black hole, but a long exposure from Chandra revealed a second. The black holes are likely to be the remnant of a collision with another galaxy in the distant past and give key insight into how galaxies and black holes grow.

Scientists were surprised to find the second black hole, however it would have been impossible to detect had it been much farther away.

GENEOLOGY

Finches: Looks matter Scientists at in Aberdeen have found that female finches tend to produce healthier children the more attractive their fathers are. The same was found when both mates were given other eggs. It is thought to be the result of the psychological effect of the male’s attractiveness on their mate rather than hereditary factors.

ZOOLOGY

Woolly rhinos existed

A short history of (nearly) everything Glenn Moynihan Contributing Writer

BILL BRYSON has undertaken an unusual and brave challenge in stepping out of his comfort zone and writing A Short History of Nearly Everything, which delivers, quite literally, exactly what it describes.

Bryson ventures on the longest journey of all - how we arrived from the Big Bang to the dawn of civilized man. Resulting from a moment of inspiration the author had on a flight, this book delivers a brief but comprehensive story about the scientific landmarks that helped explain the laws of nature.

As with all journeys we start at the beginning, and by this we mean the very beginning. Bryson begins his voyage at the birth of the Universe and from there takes us through the formation of stars, planets, climates and, ultimately, life itself. He explains, in layman’s terms, the incomprehensible scales at which Mother Nature works and how, over billions of years, our existence evolved.

Bryson’s account is told through connected anecdotes that describe

20 SEPTEMBER, 2011

Bryson’s bestseller has sold over 300,000 copies in the UK

the often bizarre and humorous circumstances surrounding the breakthroughs in science that don’t get a mention in tedious school books. It has the refreshing quality of being an enlightening and achievable read to virtually anyone that is lost among most books of this genre, which assume some level of previous knowledge.

After reading this, you might be inspired to pick up those dusty old school

textbooks.

However, at times the book suffers at the hands of its content and can get bogged down where there is no juicy story accompanying the more factual content.

In these passages, Bryson attempts to portray the material in as interesting a way as possible but, alas, they do not command the same attention.

Bryson relishes in the human drama

that paved the way to discovery and in some cases the drama eclipses the subject matter!

The tone is bright with Bryson’s usual chipper tone and he writes at the comfortable pace of a relaxed dinner table conversation.

He makes no attempt to hide the astonishment and wonder in his words and delivers his findings with a “look what I found!” enthusiasm that gives his book a charming quality. Hardcore scientists may find his tone a little patronizing at times but this is easily overlooked, as the wider audience will appreciate Bryson’s unassuming manner.

Why do volcanoes erupt? Where did the oceans come from? How did life begin? And most importantly: how do we know? These are some of the questions answered between the pages of this book.

We take for granted the severe rarity of our existence in this Universe. We inhabit the only planet known to harbor life, so it seems logical to know how we got here. A Short History is a must read for anyone who feels a spark of curiosity about the world around them.

Geologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles have announced the discovery of a new fossil species of woolly rhinoceros in the Tibetan Plateau. The fossil, dating back to 3.6 million years ago, was recovered from an assemblage discovered in 2007 and is believed to be ascendant to woolly rhinoceros found across Europe and Asia during the last Ice Age. The discovery confirms the origin of the woolly rhino; geologists now think it evolved at high altitudes at a time when there were no ice sheets around the Arctic.

It was then perfectly adapted to spread out into the harsh conditions of the Ice Age as the climate cooled.

It is also believed that the origins of many more of the megafauna from the Ice Age could be explained this way.

Stephen Keane, Deputy Science Editor

18 OPINION PROFILE DAVA SOBEL

Sobel’s science

Illustration by Sinéad Mercier mercier-long.blogspot.com

Science Editor Anthea Laccia talks to journalist and award-winning writer Dava Sobel on her visit to the Science Gallery

F

“I just had one of these mystical moments and I think a lot of people might laugh at that, but that’s also who I am”

rom science journalist to awardwinning writer, Dava Sobel hasn’t failed to make an impact in the field of science writing. More recently, Sobel charmed Dublin audiences during her visit to Trinity College’s Science Gallery to promote her new book: A More Perfect Heaven.

The Paccar theatre was packed for the occasion. Following a slide show about the book, the author engaged in a lively Q&A and book signing. Sobel is perhaps best known for Longitude, the enthralling account of Harrison’s mission to solve the longitude problem, but she has also written the acclaimed titles Galileo’s Daughter and The Planets. Sobel tells of why she chose Copernicus, the renaissance astronomer, as the subject of her new book.

Copernicus revolutionised the scientific world with his theory that placed the sun at the centre of the universe. He was convinced

by Rheticus, a young german mathematician, to publish his new theory. In A More Perfect Heaven, an imagined conversation between Copernicus and Rheticus is presented as a play in the centre of the book.

“Copernicus is the beginning of it all, a time when the Universe got turned inside out,” explains Sobel.

“I’ve always been interested in him, having learned how he was talked into publishing his crazy idea. I was very interested in that process, how this young person Rheticus found him and talked him into it. It just seemed so unlikely; and then the more I learned about that situation the more unlikely it was.”

Sobel admits that writing a play was a challenge: “It was horribly difficult, because it was such a departure from what I normally do, but writing the non-fiction part felt much more comfortable.”

When asked whether she enjoys conducting the research for her books, Sobel animatedly replied: “I do, I really do. It’s a lot of fun. I got to see Copernicus’ original manuscript in Poland. It’s in a temperature and humidity-controlled safe and is taken out very rarely, so it was a real privilege.”

Sobel writes about science a clarity and capability that allows the reader to

understand complex concepts. “I would not pretend that I really have mastered Copernicus’ mathematics because he was using 16th century spherical geometry. I’ve read all the translations into English of his book, but it’s not at all clear.”

So what is Sobel’s key to successful science writing? “In order to be a good science writer, you have to be a good writer, which I think a lot of people overlook. You have to like to write.

Many people don’t; I meet them all the time. You have to like to learn about new things and probably the hardest thing is being able to ask questions about things you don’t understand, without feeling that the person you’re interviewing will get upset with you.”

And of course, she is adamant about going back to the source: “I always ask the person to read the story or at least parts of the material, because you’re going to make a mistake. There’s no way you can get it from that one interview. If you make that scientist look ridiculous, he or she might never speak to another reporter again.”

When asked what advice she would give to students who aspire to become journalists, she says: “To write as much as possible. Personally, I think writing letters is a good practice; nobody does it anymore.”

The transition from reporting for the New York Times to writing books was welcome to Sobel: “I really like having the time to go into subjects in depth and having more freedom to choose topics. However, I don’t think I could be doing this if I hadn’t been a reporter at the Times. That experience really opened everything else up to me.”

Is life as a full-time science reporter working for the Times as exciting as it sounds? “I used to say after you’ve said you’re a reporter for the New York

Times it’s all down hill from there!” Sobel laughs. “Because it was very stressful and there was always a deadline. It was mayhem. I wasn’t even on the main news floor, but even just at the science department all kinds of things went on. It was a steep learning curve.”

Sobel appears calm and collected, yet extremely friendly and engaging throughout our conversation: “I’m very fortunate to have two children.

It’s probably the greatest experience anybody can have and they also kept me very clear when Longitude became such a huge success and I was caught up in a great flurry of activity. And of course, none of this made any impression on my children. They wanted dinner and clean laundry!

And it was really important to keep that focus, that yes, the world is making much of you, but you’re still a mum.”

Research involves a lot of travelling, but Sobel enjoys it: “The church where Copernicus was a canon is still standing. You can see his altar and it really helps you, because if the people you write about are dead for centuries what is there to connect to? Being in the places they went to can make a big difference.”

Sobel then goes on to describe herself: “I like to think I’m very

logical, but have a ridiculously illogical side. Sometimes things strike me in an emotional way and I think that actually helps with writing because to take on a book project, you really have to be in love with it.

It’s a long time to sit alone in a room!” To explain what she means, she is kind enough to share a personal and moving anecdote: “The second time I visited the church in Poland someone had come in and put flowers on every altar (there are about sixteen altars).

My parents had a kind of romantic joke about the colours purple and yellow and every now and then I see these colours and it just reminds me of them. Well, the flowers on Copernicus’s altar were purple and yellow and they were the only purple and yellow flowers in the whole church. I just had one of these mystical moments and I think a lot of people might laugh at that, but that’s also who I am.”

When asked whether she is optimistic about the world in general, she laughs: “These days? Sometimes I think the planet is tired of us and that the change in the weather is just what we deserve.”

Sobel’s next piece of work will tell the story of a group of women who were hired by the director of the Harvard College Observatory to be human computers. In fact, “a computer used to be a person who did the mathematical work. These young women would all go on to extremely distinguished careers including becoming the first female director of an astronomical observatory.”

By now I have run out of time and I conclude by asking how it feels to have an asteroid named after you. The answer is modest, just like her: “That feels pretty great, but it really comes down to knowing somebody who discovered an asteroid. I mean, it’s an honour: people like Neil Armstrong have asteroids named for them. But there are also many pets named Fluffy and Spot that have asteroids named for them, because their owners were asteroid discoverers! It’s a fun thing.”

Campus leases in direct conflict with college values Michael Gilligan Opinion Editor

U

niversities will lose their way if they put commercial activities ahead of the education of students. So wrote the new Provost, Patrick Prendergast, in an article recently published in The Irish Times.

The commercial activities referred to were, of course, aspects of the college that most undergraduates are unfamiliar with: researchers “at the frontier of their disciplines” whose work gives rise to “commercially exploitable technologies”.

But there is another area of college life – seemingly banal in comparison but not wholly unrelated to this idea – where Trinity annually places commercial activities over the education of its students. This is the

exploitative system of on-campus leases. Each year from May 23 to September 16, Trinity College opens its doors and allows visitors the opportunity to rent a room during their stay in Dublin. In many ways, this is an excellent initiative. It shows off Trinity’s historic campus, offers tourists a quaint, authentic stay in the heart of Dublin and inevitably helps improve Trinity’s reputation abroad.

However, to facilitate this, the college’s primary role as an insitution dedicated to the education of its students is thoroughly compromised.

One of the results of this enterprise is the shortening of student leases, which begin mid-way through Freshers’ week and end on May 12, or two weeks before the exam period is officially over.

To add insult to injury, students are financially incentivized to leave before the 12th or face a charge of roughly €20 per day. If I had lived on campus last

year, this would have meant paying over €200 simply to finish my Sophister exams.

From a myopically capitalistic point of view, the choice is simple: why allow all students to stay when visitors will pay more than triple as much (single suites cost over €70 per night)?

Even a former employee of the Accommodation Office (who wishes to remain anonymous) recognizes the inherent unfairness of the leasing system. “It’s just to squeeze more money out of the students. The Accommodation office is run like a business and, unfortunately, they earn a lot more from tourists.”

For the lease to start mid-way through Freshers’ week, it only involves a minor disregard for reason and common sense to forgive them.

Most students who live on campus are, after all, Junior and Senior Sophisters with a minimal interest in the alcohol-

fueled and sycophantic ordeal that is Freshers’ week. But it is also true, considering the application process, that most of these students have an active involvement in college life. Many of them recruit at the various stands in Front Square and will pay the money to be there from the start of the week. It’s still exploitative, but at least it remains extra-curricular.

During exam time there is much more than societies at stake. Exams are a measure of what students have learned throughout the year, and therefore a measure of the success of the university. For many arts courses, where there are no Christmas exams, the summer exams constitute a significant percentage of the overall result.

The Accommodation Office has been allowed keep rents so high because demand still exceeds supply.

But it has the power to charge students

exorbitant rates to finish their exams only because it sells to a captive market: stressed students who are pigeon-holed into paying because to move apartment would put their education in jeopardy.

In his article, Prof. Prendergast guarded against the “pumping out of fully formed campus companies.” If I can be forgiven for over-literalizing the original meaning, it would seem we have an efficient and overly profitgeared business operating right here on campus. One whose only concern for students’ exams is directly related to the amount of profit which can be gained from them.

Prendergast was right, commercial activities should never take precedence over the education of students. And if his article were to stand as a manifesto for his tenure as Provost it would surely guarantee, among other things, that leases were extended to cover the entire exam period.

TRINITY NEWS

19

A return to the race?

opinion@trinitynews.ie

THIS TOPIC IN HISTORY

Jean Sutton reflects on her experience as an Irishwoman living abroad and the circumstances which led to her involvement in the Norris presidential campaign

M

UST YOU go?”

Harold Pinter spoke these three singularly romantic words to Antonia Fraser the evening of the 8th of January 1975.

Married, a mother with another life and world on her mind, she nonetheless replied “No, it’s not absolutely essential.” And thus, with his fateful asking and her relaxed reaction, something wonderful began.

Two people fell in love.

“When I hear about people wanting Mr Norris back I think of the people he disappointed and restored cynicism” “Must you go?” The question has captivated and dogged me since I first stumbled upon it. I even had my own manufactured “Must you go?” moment only weeks ago. I was in Vietnam for the summer visiting my boyfriend.

Knowing my misty-eyed inclination towards the story, he wrote the phrase

on a large piece of paper and handed it to me. I was already on the way to tears but that scripted question sent me over the edge. I became a hot, boiling mess, attracting stares from citizens and concerned airport officials.

Unfortunately, I did have to go.

There was the matter of my parents.

And college. And my home country.

I had missed the place. Whenever such patriotic feelings surface I am surprised by their sincerity. I had spent the last academic year in Canada, almost steeped in my Irishness. In light of November events and my NAMA ignorance I felt myself duty bound to become somewhat knowledgeable on what was going on back home.

My mornings were based around croissants, TheJournal.ie, Twitter and The Irish Times. I gorged on news. Is our country falling apart? Who the hell is Georgia Salpa?

This addiction to headlines and opinion columns fired up again during my Vietnamese summer. Only instead of monetary and economic confusion I was watching something far more frail and human unfold. I saw a man get eaten up.

In July David Norris’s presidential campaign ceased to be. However recent reports are suggesting otherwise.

Before discussing a resurrection I

David Norris pulled out of the presidential campaign in July

want to be honest. I supported David Norris despite never warming to him.

I thought he had something of the annoying cousin about him at debates when I heard him speak. But he got my vote on a cold February afternoon.

I was bundled up on a crowded bus between Toronto and Montreal relying on fleeting WiFi. I got upset reading a resurrected story about Enda Kenny making a joke with the word ‘nigger’ in it. Next thing I was submitting my details to volunteer with the ‘Norris for President’ campaign. That sequence of events suggests my primary motive in getting involved was to cancel out some racism by electing a gay human rights activist. Maybe it was. I thought David Norris would be a symbolic choice like the last two Presidents. I wanted to “do the right thing” and say in a few years that “Yes, I actually helped canvass for him.”

Then all that happened.

And now there is speculation that Mr Norris is contemplating a return to the race. I don’t think anyone believes he will or can mount a triumphant comeback. And even if he did I know

I won’t be handing out flyers in a rainy Thurles. I haven’t the heart or the will to do so. Nor do, I’d venture, the mass majority of those who previously supported him.

I feel awful for not mentioning the victim of his ex-lover’s crime, shamed that it wasn’t the arrogant tone of his letter that dulled my enthusiasm.

My scramming reason was closer to home. It was the recollection of emails I received from regional coordinators in the early summer. Brimming with positivity, they are heartbreaking to recall. There was a real pride and hope present. Confessions like “This is the first time I have ever got involved in politics! David has inspired me.”

When I hear about people wanting Mr Norris back I think of the people he disappointed and restored cynicism to. I think of the people I never got to meet and work for and I can’t go back.

Should anyone talk to and sympathize with Mr Norris at a dinner party in the very near future try not to stoke flames, no matter how phoenix-like you want them to be. Steer clear of the speculative Pinteresque question.

State funding of private schools must end GM O’Malley Contributing Writer

I

T’S THE start of college.

A new beginning, a fresh start and many more clichés besides. You’re sitting with a group of newly-acquired acquaintances. All the usual subjects of conversation have been exhausted: names, courses, what everyone’s getting for Christmas, whether anyone is considering getting drunk tonight. But aha! of course, we’ve forgotten the most vital question of all: “So, what school did you go to?”

The question will fall on the conversation like a lit match on a pool of petrol. Suddenly, everyone will light up and spout excitedly, as they proudly reel off a list of Jesuit orders and merciful convents. Eventually, the winner will be declared: he who graduated from the finest, most expensive establishment and he will reign supreme over his poorer inferiors.

All exaggeration aside, this above scenario is a common occurrence in Dublin social circles, where your choice

of secondary education can speak volumes. Alumni of Ireland’s feepaying schools hope that the fees they pay for their education are but a small price for the inferences of pedigree and prestige as they namedrop their schools in conversation.

However, one important detail about ‘private’ fee-paying schools in Ireland has been long overlooked, that they are not actually private or independent at all; in fact they are heavily state-subsidised. Ireland is one of the only countries in the world where the taxpayer pays the salaries of teachers in private schools. Private schools in Ireland currently avail of over €100m in state funding each year, before the students’ parents contribute a further €100m. The subvention of parents’ fees is used to boost the school’s range of services and facilities, and provide additional extra-curricular activities and state-ofthe-art facilities.

Another carefully-disguised fact is that many of these schools have highlyexclusive, selective enrolment policies, to ensure ‘undesirable’ students are not given the opportunity to haunt

their hallowed hallways. Children of foreign nationals, those with learning disabilities and other marginalised and disadvantaged students are among those routinely denied access.

There is no doubt that these institutions of privilege have produced some fine politicians and leaders who have contributed greatly to Irish society. On the other hand, the rot of affluenza associated with some of their over-privileged alumni has been welldocumented in the press, as we saw from the “Rock Boys Run Riot” debacle on the Trinity ski trip last January.

In recent weeks the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) called for the withdrawal of state funding from fee-paying schools. They claim these schools

“Many see private schools as the last bastion of the elite” are engaged in “educational apartheid” and are calling for an audit on their admission policies, which they claim exclude migrant children, Travellers, and those with special learning needs.

In 1966, Donogh O’Malley, then Minister for Education, introduced a scheme of free secondary education, in attempt to ensure equality of access to all in Ireland. This was a huge boost to the country and was a positive step towards creating a classless, upwardly-mobile society. Now that Ireland is increasingly moving towards a meritocracy, particularly with the introduction of blind selection CAO process for third level entry, many see private schools as the last bastion of the elite, a last-grasp attempt to buy some superiority. I personally have no qualms with people seeking to purchase privilege in this manner, so long as they bear the entire cost themselves, and do not ask taxpayers to subsidise it.

Long may they continue their exclusive enrolment policies, provided they pay the price from their own pockets. Just like private fee-paying schools in the UK are run as profitable businesses, Irish fee-paying schools must resource themselves. This will ensure the taxpayers’ money can be focused on where it is direly needed in the education system: on the most underfunded, disadvantaged schools.

Trinity News, Vol. XIII No. 15 Thursday 28 April 1966 Archives are fully searchable at trinitynewsarchive.ie

The Black and Tans were victims of British policy WE ALL know of the reputation of the Black and Tans in the War of Independence in 1920 and 1921 and to this very day they remain a potent symbol of hated British rule in Ireland.

But who were the Black and Tans?

It is a question I have asked on many occasions without a satisfactory reply.

It is a question that historians have been studious to avoid. In the absence of historical inquiry we have been left with yet another myth to add to the growing store of myths about Ireland, and no doubt these myths continue to bring comfort to many.

Hence the myth (for myth it is) that the Black and Tans were jailbirds and criminals. And the myth (espoused by the great F.S.L. Lyons) that they had been brutalised by the Great War. How else to explain such savagery?

20 SEPTEMBER, 2011

Sadly the explanation lies closer home in the bitterness of a guerilla war

A VIEW FROM NEW SQUARE

GERALD MORGAN

fought on one side by ambushes and assassinations and on the other by reprisals. The resulting descent into anarchy and terror faced many good and decent individuals on both sides with terrible moral dilemmas and personal tragedies.

This reality is vividly presented in Denis Johnston’s silent film, Guests of the Nation (1935), for the captured British prisoners (and particularly the sergeant), who are shot in reprisal for the execution of captured Irish prisoners, emerge as affable and even kindly figures who strike up a bond of friendship with the two Irishmen ordered toguard them.

We can now thank a Canadian historian, Professor David Leeson, for introducing the brutality of historical fact to shed a welcome (if disturbing)

light on this important matter. The Black and Tans were recruited for the most part from the working classes in London and the Home Counties.

They were in a sense the victims of British policies in Ireland founded (as so often) on the mistaken British belief (or pretended belief) that opposition to British rule in Ireland was itself the work of criminals and gangsters rather than of Irish patriots. Hence insurrection in Ireland (unlike in Libya in 2011) was a matter for the police (the Royal Irish Constabulary as it then was) supported by the Auxiliary Division (the Auxies), not for the British Army (as in Easter 1916). The alternative to the army was a British conciliation of the desire for Home Rule (voted for in the General Election of 1910). But sadly the Great War had

swept aside the reforming Liberals and the Irish Parliamentary Party under Redmond and left entrenched their intransigent enemies in the Coalition led by the ambitious Welshman, Lloyd George, supported by the Ulster Scot, Andrew Bonar Law, with another Welshman, Sir Hamar Greenwood, as Chief Secretary for Ireland. These are the men who determined British policy for the worse in 1920 and 1921, and it has taken a visit by the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II herself, to the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square on 17 May 2011 to set our feet more securely on the path towards lasting peace.

gmorgan1066@gmail.com

20 EDITORIAL

HEAD TO HEAD: CAO TRENDS

TRINITY NEWS Est 1953 towards some revival of the collegiate spirit, which modern conditions tend to discourage

t

AUSTERITY EDUCATION WON’T SUSTAIN OUR COLLEGE THE HALCYON days of Hibernian education are well and truly over. The erstwhile acceleration of Irish universities in the eyes of the world – all for a fee of less than €1000 – has halted in the face of austerity. With students facing a registration fee of over double that in 2008, the latest QS rankings reveal that educational standards are nevertheless in overall decline. As the importance of university funding slips in the minds of government ministers, so do our institutions’ reputations.

Just 2 years have passed since Trinity College was ranked among the global top 50 elite universities. Now, the effects of funding cuts and a recruitment moratorium are evident. Admittedly, a fall of 16 places according to the QS rankings might not appear to be a radical symptom of falling standards. However, it indicates a wider malaise among Ireland’s fiscally-challenged universities.

The government has been naïve to assume that educational standards will remain high if the funds are not forthcoming.

Trinity, with its selective intake and long history of academic excellence, is no exception. Provost Patrick Prendergast attributed lack of funds to the downward movement in rankings for Ireland’s universities. Trinity, he says, receives just 66% of that available to the university’s counterparts in the UK. Speaking to the Irish Times, Prendergast commented that Irish education faces a “speedy and inexorable decline, unless the funding crisis is addressed by introducing fees for those who can afford to pay.” Once UK universities start charging up to €9,000 a year for a degree course, our universities will certainly be ill equipped to compete.

Prendergast’s comment, while inexplicit, represents a growing sentiment in the university sector: Ireland needs fees. In this climate, it seems, tuition fees are the only option to sustain higher education funding.

There must be a viable alternative to the current situation facing students in Ireland. Undergraduates live in the worst of both worlds: they must pay fees (by another name) of €2,000, and the measures to aid payment are inadequate. Most students will be required to pay this money upfront. Even UK students, some of whom will face debts of £50,000, will not be required to pay a penny until they earn over £21,000. For some, this may mean never paying their student loan. In all cases, any remaining debt is cleared after 30 years.

While the incoming British fee system seems comparatively astronomical, the government could learn an important lesson from education policy across the sea.

A system in which every student, regardless of family income, is entitled to a student loan, is unequivocally fair.

It means that both poorer students and those that would not normally qualify for financial aid are not faced with an immediate bill for their studies.

The government and student population have been playing an ongoing game of tug-and-war on the fees issue: one attempts to implement the ineffable measure, whilst the other postulates and protests until the former’s concerns for re-election give way.

Now is the time for decisive action: a sustainable education funding system that treats fees fairly and honestly.

The status quo simply cannot uphold quality education.

Instead of invoicing its students, the Irish government needs to invest in them. It’s time for our leaders to scrap the electioneering and implement the inevitable.

t Whilst silly season may not have matched up to its name in the global news this summer, its end marks the commencement of another year of student publishing. This includes another volume of Trinity News which I am delighted to be editing in its 58th year.

More avid readers may have noticed on this page the text below our newspaper’s name calling for a “revival of the collegiate spirit, which modern conditions tend to discourage.” These are the words of Anthony Bolchover in this newspaper’s first editorial. Written in 1953, Bolchover’s observation nevertheless remains apt.

“University education is all about a profound personal enrichment” KATE OLIVER

STRIP AWAY all the optional extras - prestige, parties, a heady dose of pretentiousness - and it becomes apparent that university education is about personal enrichment. For those who opt to study practical, career-oriented subjects, that’s material enrichment in the shape of solid job prospects and a well-trodden career path.

But choosing an arts degree means enrichment in a more profound and personal sense.

An arts degree exposes you to things which you might never have otherwise experienced: ideas which you would never have been able to formulate, books which make you feel in ways you couldn’t have imagined before, authors and lecturers who challenge you to understand them and engage with them. And while all this is going on and your brain is being crammed full of new concepts and theories, you’re surrounded by other people undergoing the same experience whose views and reactions will be hugely influential in shaping your own.

Even the way you learn is different: instead of learning off details or becoming au fait with choice facts, you have to actually engage with the material you’re being bombarded with and ask “Why?” Analytical thinking is clearly tremendously valuable. It’s relevant to any career you can think of, but it also has implications for everyday life. The ability to engage with and interrogate a text, whether that’s an image, the written word, a film or a piece of music, is easily converted into the ability to question the world around you. A degree in science or engineering may equip you with the pragmatic analytic ability to break down cells or analyse the construction of bridges, but how often do you need to do that in your downtime? How well will it equip you to navigate your interpersonal relationships, assess the messages the media is sending you, or to formulate a personal code of right and

wrong? Life is made up of so much more than cold hard scientific fact, and an arts degree provides you with ways of evaluating and handling that complexity.

All of that is certainly wonderful, but it’s also difficult. Critical reasoning is hard. It is much easier to just sit down and watch another episode of ‘Gossip Girl’. That’s why it’s worth studying arts within the structure of a university. No one would ever say that people who haven’t done an arts degree can’t understand literature, appreciate great art or are inherently incapable of a high level of critical thought, because it simply isn’t true; but it is true that these are skills which are difficult to acquire and require practice. Unless you’re Blair Waldorf, you’re going to have to get a job after you graduate. You will eventually have to think about things like project management or patent development or R&D, but there are virtually no other circumstances in which you will be forced to write 2000 words about whether Aristotle was a misogynist (which, for the record, he was). You will eventually acquire the practical qualifications which enable you to get some sort of job, because you’ll have to - and as a university graduate, no matter what your degree, the odds are already slanted in your favour - but you won’t ever again be forced into a familiarity with Marxist criticism of Jane Austen. Once you’re on the career ladder, it becomes much less likely that you’re going to get off it in order to immerse yourself in Wittgenstein.

It’s so saccharine and clichéd to say this but it’s during our college years that we mould ourselves into who we’ll be as adults. With that in mind, it seems short-sighted at best to eschew becoming familiar with the culture which surrounds you and inculcating yourself with a capacity for reflection, in order to get a little bit of a head start making money.

“In your spare time you can be a Proust reader while sipping wine” FÉIDHLIM MCGOWAN

THE FOLLOWING statement seems to be taboo: “Students should choose a course that will give them the best chance of getting a good job.”

It’s just common sense. What is the point in getting a degree if all you are qualified to do at the end of it is open beer bottles with your teeth?

Future earning potential shouldn’t be the only factor in choosing your course. If it was, we’d all be doing, perish the thought, Actuarial Mathematics.

We’ve all heard the following advice from a career guidance teacher at some point: “Follow your passions”. However not all students have sufficient genuine interest in their “favourite” subject to justify studying it for four years at the expense of other courses that may prove to be more beneficial in the real world. Of course it’s worth pursuing an arts degree if you are truly passionate about the field and are willing to put in the work to get a 1.1 or a 2.1. But if you’re one of the many students whose real interests lie outside the realm of academia and you want to go to college anyway because it’s the “done thing”, why not pick something a tad more employer friendly, like undenominated Science? You’ve got nothing to lose really. The current CAO trends confirm this drift towards more career-focused courses. No one is suggesting students around the country suddenly want to be biologists when previously they craved the bright lights of Sociology and History. No, they’re simply playing the percentages in the game called “pick the right course” like an out half does in rugby.

It’s true that nobody can perfectly predict where the jobs will lie in the future. Ten years ago not many would have believed architecture would one day be on the degree blacklist. We can, nevertheless, make a pretty good guess.

Cloud computing, nanotechnology and renewable energy systems are just some of the next big things. No prizes for guessing what sort of degrees those sorts of companies will primarily be looking for. Maths graduates have always

had a wide range of prospects. Health Science graduates are in high demand worldwide. On the other hand, there is a dearth of viable job opportunities for those with arts degrees. Fancy a spot of teaching? If so, get in line. Thousands of others have the same idea. And you can’t jump the queue unless you’re an inter county GAA player.

Choosing a career-orientated course and getting a “proper education” (i.e. learning to think for yourself, broadening your horizons etc.) are not mutually exclusive. The librarian in the Usher won’t kick you out if she finds out you really study Theoretical Physics. In your spare time you can be a closet Proust reader or deconstruct Jane Eyre while sipping wine if you so please. Or have a look at the Broad Curriculum and see if there’s any foreign language that take’s your fancy. There’s plenty of ways to stay in touch with your more creative side if your course choice seems a bit uninspiring.

It’s not as easy for students in arts-related courses to foray into the more technical fields.

Public libraries don’t stock the equipment necessary to examine human DNA, and any unauthorised cadaver examinations will result in, at the very least, being defriended by the undertaker on Facebook.

Lastly, no article on education would be complete without a mention of emigration. Let’s face it, 50% of us (at least) will probably end up shipping up for Boston or Brisbane. So when deciding what to study here, it might be worth keeping in mind the fact that some degrees travel better than others. It’s hit or miss whether an arts degree will prove an advantage overseas.

While a degree in French will obviously go down well in Quebec, the local mining companies will be equally impressed by your monoglot friend’s Earth Science degree.

In short, follow your passion, or else do something useful. And if your passion happens to be calculating insurance premiums, well then you’re really on to a winner.

TRINITY NEWS

21 letters@trinitynews.ie

LETTERS

Letters should be sent to letters@trinitynews.ie or to Trinity News, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. We reserve the right to edit submissions for style and length. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Trinity News.

LETTERS@TRINITYNEWS.IE

PROVOST’S WELCOME TO NEW AND RETURNING STUDENTS Dear staff and students The Provost, Dr. Patrick Prendergast, invites all new and returning students to attend a special welcome event where students will have the opportunity to hear about the campus, curriculum and life at TCD. Come and meet the Provost and hear about the Trinity student experience as you embark on the next exciting stage of your personal and educational development.

Patrick Prendergast Provost, Trinity College Dublin

A QUESTION OF PERSPECTIVE Madam – OUT FOR a stroll in the countryside the other day, a realisation hit me just as one hit Sir Isaac Newton all those years ago.

I liken my eureka moment to Newton’s not because of the potential scientific value to human society it possesses, but because it too was triggered by the thud of a falling apple hitting turf. Not ten feet from me, it was rather a loud reminder that despite all the warnings of economic hardship clustered in our newspapers like September blackberries, life perhaps isn’t so hard. Because despite having no money (I am a student after all), that thunderous ‘thwack!’ made me feel for the ground-dwelling grubs at this time of year; the beetles, ants and snails for

whom the trees above become heavily loaded and cocked cannons with sights trained directly at them. At least we don’t have apples the size of Zeppelins falling on our heads, or spiky conker shells like giant sea mines pounding the earth as we wend our way to lectures, work, or the pub.

Or spiky conker shells like giant sea mines pounding the earth as we wend our way to lectures, work, or the pub. Despite having no money (I am a student after all), that thunderous ‘thwack!’ made me feel for the grounddwelling grubs at this time of year; the beetles, ants and snails to whom every tree above becomes a cocked cannon with sights trained directly at them.

Plus, if we can beat Australia in the World Cup, things can’t be too bad.

Yours, etc.

G. Comstock Co. Meath

THE BULL Madam – IT IS with great pleasure that I can introduce Trinity College’s newest publication - The Bull.

The Bull, inspired by the Wall Street Bull, is a beacon of financial optimism, a publication written by Ireland’s next generation of leaders on the stories that matter. The Bull, is Trinity’s first student financial newspaper, released monthly and will circulate 3000 copies, free of charge, to the student and staff body.

It is expected to be particularly popular among the 2,000 students studying economics and business here at Trinity.

The Bull will offer students an outlet to express and explore their interests in investments, finance and the macroeconomy. The broadsheet will include college news, national and

international news, and a section on the financial markets. As well as news related articles, the newspaper will include a spread on career advice and another on student’s personal finance.

The name, ‘The Bull’, is derived from the famous Wall Street Bull, and also the aggressive optimistic bull market phase in a business cycle.

The paper is primarily aimed at students with a keen interest in economics and finance but also strives to accommodate those not familiar with the often tricky technicalities of the subject. The Bull is a non-profit publication and is operated on a voluntary basis.

If you wish to get involved please do not hesitate to e-mail thebull.tcd@ gmail.com.

Yours, etc.

Damien Carr JS BESS

Is it fair to say public debt is a scourge on society?

“AUSTERITY”, “CUTBACKS”, “fiscal realignment” – these have become the buzzwords of public discourse since the global economy plunged into freefall in early 2008. Indeed, debt reduction and the imperative to balance federal budgets have become unquestioned aims of governments in the developed world. Yet, for someone not wholly familiar with the intricacies of the dismal science, the uncompromising desire by governments to slash and burn might seem slightly absurd.

It is often spun in the media that high public debt is a scourge on society, a shameful situation and anathema

to economic health. What is often overlooked is the why in this argument.

Why is high debt so precarious?

Perhaps it is time to explore this puzzle in depth, and find out exactly why the age of austerity is a necessary evil.

High debt in itself is not undesirable.

The composition of debt can raise serious concerns for policymakers.

Simply put, much of the debt currently being run up by developed nations takes the form of dead weight debt.

This is debt that is incurred but does not create any meaningful asset or spending which may contribute paying off the debt in the future. This

is opposed to productive debt which brings about some future social benefit, such as borrowing to spend money on improving infrastructure.

Superior infrastructure boosts economic growth which in turn can diminish debt burdens in the future.

Yet as previously mentioned, a sizable chunk of government deficits is attributable to dead weight debt, primarily in the form of public sector pay and pension spending. In this context, cutbacks are imperative.

There is no gain to be made in borrowing now to fund wages and entitlements which are no longer

affordable. Such a state of affairs is unsustainable in the long term.

Borrowing of any description “crowds out” the private sector. In order to fund a deficit, governments must borrow money from banks and other lending vehicles. Unfortunately however, there is an opportunity cost of such borrowing. When government borrowing increases, interest rates will invariably rise and private sector individuals and firms will be unable to borrow sufficient funds. As a result, private sector investment will fall and demand will be suppressed as borrowing costs increase.

On a more profound note, there is an ethical argument behind the need for debt reduction. By sustaining public debt, society is making the decision to enjoy a higher quality of life at the expense of future generations. For it is not current taxpayers who will bear the cost of such decisions. The youth of today will be forced to endure higher taxes and diminished public spending to pay off the debt of their parents.

Surely one cannot hold the view that it is fair that those who were only partial beneficiaries of borrowings should have to fund their repayment?

Owen Bennett

A play in the Bay Above: Robert Woods and Charles Wilson, authors of ‘Botany Bay’

OLD TRINITY PETER HENRY

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his university marked its 300th anniversary in 1892. The collegiate spirit was at a high point: sport was thriving, the social life was good, and women had not yet been admitted. That July, a week of celebrations was held in Dublin, and it is one small part of that week to which I turn my attention.

On Thursday, 7 July, at 8pm, a dramatic performance was held in the Gaiety Theatre. The main event of the night was a performance titled The Rivals. This was preceded by a delightful student play, Botany Bay. Imagine Botany Bay before excessive lighting became an unfortunate feature of the college’s quads and you will understand why that square was considered a particularly lawless area.

Students, hidden from authority by the dark, were able to have an especially good time unhindered. This infamy led to the 1982 undergraduate drama being set in the Bay. The play is short and the plot simple. Two cousins, Arnold and Giles Keys, live together in Botany Bay. Each plans to host a drinking party in rooms on the same night, each expecting the

20 September, 2011

other to be out of town. They both enlist their booze-sodden servant Grimes to organise the event. And Grimes is happy enough to allow a clash to happen without intervening –

but while accepting each student’s tips.

(In college in the late 19th century, a party was known as a spree. And college servants, who ministered to undergraduates until the 1960s, were

known as skips. Skip, it is believed, is a fusion of the words for student servants in Oxford and Cambridge: scout and gyp respectively.)

So the Keys brothers’ skip connives with both youngsters, more concerned with wooing Mrs Larkin, another college servant.

The separately organised sprees are eventually forced to join together, and plenty of fun ensues when a mock Junior Dean arrives on the scene – followed by the real JD. The Records of the Tercentenary Festival of Dublin University says that in Botany Bay “the ways of Fellows, Students and Skips were smartly portrayed.” Referring to the barbs aimed at the college dons in the play’s poetry, the official record says of the 7 July production: “There were some hard enough hits; but ‘there was no offence in it’, and the farce went off successfully.”

Botany Bay was written by Robert Woods MB and Charles Wilson BA. The author of Student Life in Trinity College, Dublin, Henry Hinkson, was kind enough to include drawings of the pair in his book. Woods played the imposter Junior Dean in the original production, and Wilson played the real thing.

Perhaps DU Players will one day organise a production of Botany Bay.

It would certainly be entertaining. It may never be put on again, but Woods and Wilson’s work can be read at trinitynews.ie/oldtrinity.

NEOLOGISMS – but only when necessary. “Provostial” was preposterous, to the Students’ Union’s newspaper’s shame. May it never again appear in Trinity News.

Perhaps both newspapers could unite to oppose the use of the Americanism “campus”. It was never used by students here to refer to Trinity College until the 1970s, as a quick search at the invaluable trinitynewsarchive.ie confirms. Why an ugly thing like “oncampus accommodation” has almost ousted “college rooms” is difficult to understand.

LILLIPUT Press will next month publish a compilation of reminiscences, Trinity Tales: Trinity College Dublin in the Seventies, edited by Kathy Gilfillan (BA 1972). It promises to be a good read if it is anything like its 2009 predecessor, which covered the 1960s. Together, the two decades saw a lot of change at Trinity – not always for the better.

pehenry@tcd.ie

22 SPORT FEATURES sportsfeatures@trinitynews.ie

THE COMMENTARY BOX

The pinnacle of pink CLUB COLOURS are an age old tradition.

The concept of the awarding of club colours stems from the rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge, and their inaugural boat race in 1829. At this event the two colleges defined their rowing squads by the hue of their attire: dark blue for Oxford, and light blue for Cambridge. These colours became synonymous with the colleges and are still the official colours for the annual Boat Race to this day.

Trinity College also operates a system to acknowledge its premier sportsmen. Within this university ‘The Pink’ is the colour awarded to those who excel in their sporting field. The Pink to Trinity sportsmen and women is designed to correspond, although not exactly, to the Light Blue of Cambridge and the Dark Blue of Oxford.

Pinks are awarded on individual merit, which is generally assessed in terms of representative selection or external achievement. Thus, to achieve a Pink award an athlete must be playing at the pinnacle of their game both within and outside the college.

Regular national representation, or an equivalent level of achievement, must be met to win a Pink in most sports. The names of those nominated for a Pink are put before a committee of captains that decides who has achieved the paragon of sporting awards in Trinity.

There have been many famous recipients of the Pink award. Irish cricketer Ed Joyce received his in 2000, while Irish and Lions rugby player Brendan Mullin was awarded his in 1984. Inter-county hurler and founder of The Alan Kerins Project, Alan Kerins, was presented a Pink in 1999, while Irish Paralympic Gold Medallist and opera tenor, Ronan Tynan, was honoured in 1988.

The high standards and exhaustive criteria associated with the Pink ensure that the absolute cream of Trinity sporting culture is awarded this supreme accolade. Their commitment to sport within the college and outstanding achievements in their other sporting endeavours are a great credit to themselves, and a great benefit to sporting life in Trinity.

James Hussey, College Sport Editor

All black fever sets in Writing from Auckland, Kate Rowan discusses two of New Zealand’s rugby stars that have captured the imaginations of the World Cup hosts for very different reasons

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here is no escaping the Rugby World Cup in Auckland. Everyone you meet engages in some rugby banter. Age and gender are no barriers to this obsession. All rugby related conversations seem to turn to talk of the tournament favourites and home team; The All Blacks.

Despite being consistently ranked the number one team in the world by the IRB rankings system, New Zealand have not taken home the Webb-Ellis Cup since the inaugural tournament in 1987. So, with the World Cup on their doorstep and a squad jam-packed full of talent, the Kiwis expect their team to win.

With this expectation comes media obsession to keep the public happy and some players have taken hold of the country’s imagination more than others.

The All Blacks are beloved but like most teams there is a love-hate figure for the fans and even more so, for the press to become preoccupied by.

The man who steps into this role is Sonny Bill Williams.

The centre is a former rugby league player and parallel to playing rugby he is pursuing a professional boxing career. He is of Samoan decent on his father’s side and converted to Islam in 2008, becoming the first ever Muslim All Black.

Williams is a prodigiously talented player who unfortunately has had some bad press off the field including trouble with alcohol. However, more recently the Auckland native’s drawn out contract negotiation with the New Zealand Rugby Union have not endeared him to the public.

A few months ago there was a poll asking Kiwis who they would rather see leave the country; Williams or the emperor penguin Happy Feet who was found stranded on Wellington’s Peka Peka Beach. There have also been countless jokes about the penguin replacing the star in the All Blacks line up.

Sonny Bill has continued to stay centre stage despite not being seen as regular a starter for

The All Blacks’ infamous Haka has been performed in all of New Zealand’s matches since 1906

Graham Henry’s side thanks to his shirt-sleeve becoming ripped off during the All Black’s World Cup opener against Tonga leading to him to having to squeeze into a form fitting replacement in front of a wolf-whistling Eden Park crowd and the world’s cameras. For four days running images of this incident and stories related to the player made the front pages of the New Zealand Herald.

This frenzy led one Kiwi pundit to jokingly exclaim, “When will we ever stop objectifying the guy? The media and the women of New Zealand have turned the poor bloke into a lust object! He must feel so violated!”

With a two try performance as a replacement out of position on the wing against Japan, Williams has turned the discourse back to rugby affairs with many journalists wondering if he should be selected as a starter?

Occupying a very different place in the hearts of New Zealanders is the All Blacks captain and open side flanker Richie McCaw. Anytime you mention him to a Kiwi, there faces light up and fondly say something in the lines “Ah, Richie is the real deal, he is such a leader, and the rest of the team don’t look the same without him.”

Everyone I have spoken to refers to him by his christian name alone as if they are referring to a neighbour’s son or a friend’s older brother. Mind you images of the South Islander are omnipresent in his native land, so I suppose seeing that much of him would make you feel as if you really knew

him!

McCaw would seem to have universal appeal and transcends being simply a great athlete. He is a symbol of national pride and features not just on the back pages, but also on the covers of arts and cookery magazines.

Kiwis pride themselves on being down to earth and getting the job at hand done without too much fuss and they would seem to see their captain as embodying this despite his large salary and the massive amount of media coverage he receives.

On the cusp of winning his 100th cap and becoming the All Black’s first ever centurion, it is interesting to note that McCaw’s international rugby odyssey in fact began in Dublin almost a decade ago when he won his first cap in Lansdowne Road as a twenty-one year-old. When he captained the All Blacks in the Aviva Stadium last November he spoke very fondly of the old ground and the memories it held for him.

On this last visit to Dublin I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the post match press conference with McCaw and the flanker exuded an earthy charisma. Add this on top of what an imposing player the Canterbury Crusaders man is and his status in the Land of Long White is obviously deserved.

Kiwi hopes will be high that both McCaw and Williams, along with their All Blacks teammates can become heroes and end a 24 year long wait for the return of the World Cup to rugby’s spiritual home.

In defence of Ulster’s indefensible tactics Conor Bates explores the tactics employed

by Ulster teams in Gaelic football and explains why they are negative for the game

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n a Sunday of sport that offered Manchester United beating Arsenal 8-2 and Sebastian Vettel winning the Belgian Grand Prix, I can think of at least two sporting events I would rather have watched than Dublin crawl past Donegal into their first All-Ireland Final since 1995. However, as a Dubliner, there was only one fixture that I would be indulging in that day, and despite many predictions that this would be “a terrible game of football”, I settled in for 70 minutes of agonising joy.

These insights were tragically correct.

As a Dublin man, I am a tad biased, but the majority of blame for this dour encounter should be apportioned to Donegal, and the cynical, restrictive style of play that northern teams bring to the GAA. Historically, northern teams have been unsuccessful in the football championship.

The first northern team to reach an All-Ireland Final were Antrim in 1911, 23 years after the establishment of the championship. In that affair they were demolished 6-6 to 1-2 by a

superior Cork team. It was in 1933 that Ulster finally claimed a championship when Cavan beat Galway.

In 102 championships between 1887 and 1990, Sam Maguire only travelled to Ulster 7 times, with 5 of these going to Cavan.

In the early 1990’s Ulster stumbled upon a formula; a four-pronged style of play consisting of blanket defence, liberal hand-passing, extreme physicality and time-wasting. This canon has been devastatingly potent, as Ulster teams have won eight championships since 1991.

The blueprint for the recent northern success stems from this four-pronged approach.

First off, the hand-pass tactics of the north have turned the Ulster

championship into a large scale version of handball. The element of the “cutting pass” and the ability to pick out a man 30 metres away with a long punt have all but disappeared from the province. When pressed by better footballing teams, northern sides become easily flustered in possession and merely resort to the hand-pass.

This reduces the natural speed and flow of possession and can make for a truly tedious 70 minutes, but plays directly into their ethos of hampering the pace of the game.

In keeping with stemming the flow, time wasting is becoming a serious issue within the GAA. Again, it has been noted by RTE pundits that the prevailing culprits are the Ulster outfits. When an Ulster team gains a lead these days, it appears they automatically activate their shut-out mode: killing the game with frees and lying on the ground for excess amounts of time when they are fouled.

Donegal used these tactics to their advantage in this year’s semi-final, and successfully wasted ten minutes of the game, but once they fell behind again, the play-acting stopped; proof of the shut-down tactic’s application.

Unnecessary, extreme physicality is also spoiling our national sport.

How many times do we see players

make darting, off-the-ball runs only to be bodychecked or pulled down?

The playmaking element of the game is removed when the culture of brawn and roughness is used to combat brains, style and skill. Obviously, football is a tough game, and hits are hard. Illegal tackles and reckless off-theball fouls are ruining the game. Unfortunately, again, the northern teams are the most prevalent perpetrators.

Lastly, is the blanket defence. The 6-2-6 formation of the GAA has been compromised.

The attacking options of many sides have been thwarted by a team with 8 or 9 men in defence.

Nothing has killed a game as effectively as this one strategy, and the northerners are the inventors and experts of this playing style. As long as they keep implementing this ideal, which is so fundamental to their game, then GAA will become boring, and more difficult to watch.

The obvious defence for the northern style of play is that the football championship is a result based affair; if you don’t win you’re out, and this is how they play. They are entitled to play the way they want within the remit of the game. They are defending the indefensible. Gaelic football is this island’s sport, and we hope for the best from our players every Sunday. I wonder how many of the 81,436 fans at Croke Park felt that they got their money’s worth?

I’m glad that this year’s championship was between Kerry and Dublin. They are purveyors of true football, and with a record amount of titles between them, they are proof that these negative and constraining methods of play can be outdone by skill, determination, creativity and passionate football.

TRINITY NEWS

COLLEGE SPORT 23

collegesport@trinitynews.ie

Dean and Union President talk sport In a Trinity News exclusive, College Sport Editor James Hussey talks to the new Dean of Students Amanda Piesse and Students’ Union President Ryan Bartlett on their plans for developing the sporting community within Trinity.

AMANDA PIESSE

RYAN BARTLETT

“Funds for sport and fitness are absolutely fundamental in Trinity College”

“Sport is not as prominent as it could be in Trinity, the connection could be stronger here”

“Sport is something that has always been there for me,” says Dr Amanda Piesse, the new Dean of Students, in her first interview since taking up her new position. “I’ve gone from Under-14 West Midlands Fencing champion to playing hockey in St. John’s College, Oxford to running the Dublin Marathon with Trinity Takes To The Streets (TTTTS). Sport has provided a background to much of my life.”

Dr. Piesse is acclimatising to her new role in college life as we speak in her office in the English Department.

“I met with various college bodies during my first full week as Dean of Students, and there are a number of interesting ideas that emerged from these meetings. Possibly the most exciting of these is an “integration development” programme along the lines of the Gaisce programme for secondary schools. This would incorporate academic, sports, social and recreational skills into a college wide awards scheme. The Provost has already expressed an interest in this and with the help of various organisations in Trinity College, we will look to establish this idea.”

Sport, Dr. Piesse believes, should have a more personal feel, something that could increase numbers participating at all levels for the college. In her meeting with DUCAC, the Dean of Students felt that the overwhelming message to emerge was one of a “sports for all” facility in Dublin University.

“The amenities in the Sports Centre are second to none. There is a feeling with some students however, that you have to be an elite athlete to fully benefit from these facilities. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as there is universal accessibility for students.”

The new Dean of Students is keen to address the problems of finance and the funding of sport in a university environment. Sport, health and fitness are, for Dr. Piesse, integral to the enjoyment and experience of college life.

“Funds for sport and fitness are absolutely fundamental in Trinity College. It may sound clichéd but a mind really works best in a healthy body. This development of one’s body can only be helped by the availability of resources. Sport and fitness are all about learning one’s limits and capabilities.

Self-motivation is also one of sport’s most important characteristics, a life lesson for all. I cannot justify the importance of maintaining sport’s funding too much.”

“I feel my potential role in changing sports in Trinity is as a facilitator for students to have their opinions heard. In my capacity as SU President I can enable people involved in sport to change their respective areas for the better.”

Ryan Bartlett settles into the surrounds of his office in House 6 as I pose questions about the Student Union’s role in Trinity’s sporting future. The new President’s campaign drew much support from the sporting sectors of the University of Dublin last March, with his captaincy of the college’s water polo team an integral formative experience for life in student politics.

“First year was a real baptism of fire with the water polo team. We had a game on the Saturday after Freshers’ Week. In an intervarsity environment, I was quite literally thrown in at the deep end! First year was a great year to get involved in sport however and I joined Trinity GAA too.

I tried hurling for about five minutes before realising football was something in which I could immerse myself. I played for the intermediate team last year alongside my involvement with water polo.”

The conversation moves to the status of sport in Trinity, specifically the strengths and weaknesses of college life for athletes involved with a team or merely interested in staying fit.

“I feel that sport is not as prominent as it could be in TCD. Whereas in UCD and other universities, sport is intertwined with daily student life, the connection could be stronger here.

Those involved in sport in Trinity are passionate, talented and dedicated however, so the platform is there to build that connection for the future.”

The issue of funding is one that cannot be ignored in the current climate, and Ryan feels that investment in sport is money well spent.

“From an outsider’s point of view, it appears that little is invested in sport in Trinity and that the college consistently punches above its weight in intervarsity competition.

The money comes from the students however, and the development of community - the coming together of Trinity’s student body through sport - is the kind of support network we need in the college.

Investment in sport leads to savings in other areas, healthcare in the college to name but one.

Its importance is something that cannot be overstated.”

Trinity’s Noble Art has us hooked Edward Fitzgerald DUBC Captain

COMMENT

Is this Trinity Hockey’s comeback coach?

Freddie Hill

THE UNIQUE atmosphere provided by a fight gives a boxer a new appreciation of their physical capabilities as well as their mental capacity to persevere when things get tough, important skills for life in Trinity and outside the college walls!

Under the guidance of coach Dan Curran, a former international standard boxer for Ireland, students at Trinity have enjoyed great success in the Junior and Senior Irish Intervarsity Championships. This includes a 7 year winning streak in the Seniors Intervarsity between 2004 and 2010. Normally, the season finale is the Colours’ match against UCD, in which the difference between our two institutions quite literally smacks you in the face. The ultra-modern but incredibly bland student centre of Belfield contrasts sharply with the regal surroundings of Trinity’s Exam Hall. Dublin University installs a ring under the chandelier and portrait of this college’s founder, Elizabeth I, for the annual event.

Regardless of venue, the atmosphere at Colours is always amazing and for the fighters it represents a chance to become a hero in front of their class and friends.

In over a decade of coaching the team, Curran has become adept at turning complete beginners, as most are when they join, into capable pugilists.

The club is not only for students with an aggressive streak however, but also those who just want to keep fit. The non-contact fitness sessions based around boxing technique require no prior knowledge and have become enormously popular; every Monday, Wednesday and Friday you will find the Ancillary Hall crammed full of students of both sexes being put through their paces - it is not always a pleasant experience but much better than watching 24 hour news whilst on the treadmills of the gym.

Trinity students first took up the ‘Noble Art’ at the turn of the 20th century, after codification

20 September, 2011

Men’s Hockey Captain

The 1952 Dublin University Boxing Club

of the rules by the Marquess of Queensbury. Just as the fortunes of boxing has ebbed and flowed, D.U.B.C has experienced its fair share of ups and downs. A glance through the Trinity News archive reveals that the 1950’s was a golden age for the club; regularly making trips to fight Trinity’s sister universities of Oxford and Cambridge whilst also dominating the British and Irish Universities and Hospitals Championships, being crowned champions 8 years in a row.

The ‘British and Irish’ has not been fought since 2008, but needless to say the Trinity team came home as champions. The matches against Oxbridge faded out during the Troubles but have been revived, most recently in 2009 when Trinity hosted Oxford in the Exam Hall. The modern age has also seen important positive developments; women were barred from taking part but are now actively encouraged by the club. After completing

a Triple Crown (Juniors, Seniors and Colours’) in 09/10 the club suffered a reversal of fortune and ended 10/11 trophy-less; the primary objective for the year ahead is to restore some pride and win these titles back.

Dublin University Boxing Club is proud of its connection to Welterweight silver medallist of the Melbourne games in 1956, Fred Tiedt (after whom the Colours’ Trophy is named). After his retirement from the ring he became coach at Trinity for many years, was awarded an honorary degree from the University and was also inducted into the highly secretive for elite sportsman, the Knights of the Campanile.

Whilst Ireland, Dublin, and Trinity may have changed over the last 100 years, boxing, thanks to its timeless appeal has survived in the college.

Once in the ring, nationality, politics and economic wealth become irrelevant.

AFTER THE heartbreak of a last-minute Division 1 playoff loss to UCD at the end of last season, Dublin University Hockey Club went on a soul-searching mission this summer.

Little comfort was found in the aftermath of that game as the DUHC legacies of Craig Moore, Henry Butler, Chris Tyrrell and Ian Gorman came to an end, bowing out gracefully after a combined stint of 15 years service.

After spending the summer searching for a coach, with Portuguese coach André Villa-Boas rejecting us citing budgetary restraints, the team is very happy to welcome another treblewinning coach into the fold, from Monkstown, Billy Evans.

In pursuit of new players, the squad went worldwide on a scouting mission, scouring continents for the best up-and-coming talent.

Early signs suggest positive reinforcements with Connor Montgomery and Steven Nolan, both provincial representatives, signing up.

Cian Speers, sports scholar and a past Ireland under 18s captain, takes on the role of First Team Captain with aplomb and an abundance of experience.

As the oldest hockey club in Ireland and with esteemed alumni representing the very best of Irish hockey, DUHC has a proud heritage and looks to continue that history as they strive for promotion this season. Training takes place in Three Rock Rovers Hockey Club, Grange Road, on Mondays 8.30-10.30 and Wednesdays 6.30-8.

A new addition to the hockey club this year will be Indoor Hockey that will take place in the Gym on campus on Tuesdays and Fridays and we would encourage everyone to come along to that.

SPORT

collegesport@trinitynews.ie

Irish and Scandinavian glory for Trinity Dominic Gallager Rugby Correspondent

IT VERY nearly didn’t happen for Trinity. After scintillating wins against Blackrock, Terenure and Navan, by a combined score of 143-12 in the group stage, Trinity lost to Old Belvedere 12-5 in the semi-final of the Leinster Championship. In doing so they had failed to qualify for the Irish championship, the VIIs season was over.

As the team huddled together against the rain on the windswept Terenure pitches, Copenhagen seemed very far away, physically and metaphorically.

Consolation speeches were just beginning to find their rhythm when a man in an IRFU coat poked his head into the circle and casually asked if the team would like to take Galwegians place, who had just pulled out, in the All Ireland tournament. Trinity had been given a second chance. Game on.

Trinity’s path to European glory did not run smoothly. The All-Ireland tournament was scheduled for the 21st of May, right in the middle of exams.

Undaunted, Trinity’s young guns applied themselves to training, sensing a gathering momentum from within.

Unlike rugby at XVs, VIIs is tailor made for students. Its onus on pace and fitness, as opposed to physicality, suits a younger and lighter player.

The students snatched hours away from their books to sprint sets of 200 metres around the cricket pitch. The experience of coach Tony Smeeth, who had formerly coached VIIs in USA, greatly helped.

Led by captain and USA international Scott LaValla, Trinity burst out of the blocks on tournament day. The strategy was simple. Kick the ball very high from the kick-off and wait for Scott to catch it. Promptly recycle the ball to the opposite wing where Niyi Adeolukon, sadly absent from the Denmark trip, would invariably run round his man and score beneath the posts.

Trinity cruised through the group stages, disposing of Queens University before overcoming City of Derry 21-7 to reach the final. Here they encountered Old Belvedere with the opportunity to redeem themselves. Tries from Collie Moore and Ciaran Wade helped see Trinity’s brand of free flowing rugby

RESULTS: Trinity – 31 Susie’s – 21 win the day 28-12.

By winning, Trinity earned an all expenses paid trip to Copenhagen for the Scandinavian VIIs Open on the 13th and 14th of August. The tournament consisted of 25 teams from all over Europe, with 4 matches of fourteen minutes for each team on both the Saturday and Sunday.

The long hours of summer training served Trinity well, and the teams hit the ground running. Their first three opponents in the group stage were dismissed with a blistering array of fleet footed attacks. Trinity defeated Wexio from Sweden 43-0, Ali Baba from Germany 34-0 and Erritsoe from Denmark 59-0. Colin MacDonnell stepped into the role vacated by Scott who was engaged in World Cup preparations with the USA Eagles. McDonnell’s ball winning ability allowed Trinity to dominate possession, permitting playmaker Dave Fanagan to conduct play, Sonny Bill Williams-esque, from midfield.

Elsewhere in the tournament, Susie’s Exile’s, an English team who were well known and feared on the VIIs circuit, were crushing teams.

They had played in 20 competitions around Europe that summer, winning, amongst others, Ireland’s main VIIs tournament at Kinsale. The stage was set for an almighty clash in the final group game.

Trinity played like men possessed.

Knowing that Susie’s would waltz around them if given space, they competed like demons at the breakdown. The Exile’s had never seen anything like it, a team used to playing champagne rugby had been dragged kicking and screaming into a dogfight.

The students however, could conjure up their own magic when needed.

Ariel Robles danced in from 50 metres for the opening score. Not amused, the Susie’s 6ft 3” captain, Darragh Kiely, began throwing himself around with attitude in an attempt to unnerve the younger players. An impervious Trinity side responded in kind.

Dominic Gallagher burnt his man to score in the right corner and captain David Joyce barreled his way through a

Photo by Peter Wolfe

seemingly non-existent gap, bouncing two players and handing off a third, for a fine score. Trinity won 15-0.

On Sunday Trinity were grouped with the RAF Spitfires and the Moldovan and Latvian national teams with first place progressing to the final.

A blossoming Trinity side, however, was never going to be contained.

Moldova were put to the sword 40-0

“Trinity started well with Ed Barry conjuring a try out of nowhere on the right wing” while Latvia succumbed 28-7. Latvia had looked dangerous in the opening minutes but after Michael McLoughlin chased down a 70 metre break by their winger, Trinity reasserted themselves.

Pip Blake exploded off his trusty right foot to sprint 80 metres for a try and the students were in control again.

The RAF Spitfires were a sterner test. Trinity went behind for the first

time since their loss to Old Belvedere as the Spitfires capitalized on a clever chip over the top. It was then that Neil Hanratty put the team on his back and started making hard yards. He ran in two tries from way out, Joyce grabbed another and Paddy Lavelle finished with aplomb from the half way line as Trinity won 28-7.

The final was against Susie’s Exiles who were intent on revenge. They had flown in an Australian squad member from London the night before hoping some fresh legs would make the difference. Trinity started well with Ed Barry conjuring a try out of nowhere on the right wing. More success followed as Neil Hanratty claimed his 9th and 10th tries making him the top scorer in the tournament. The first try came from a brilliant chip and chase

by McLoughlin, who collected the ball before offloading.

Susie’s Exiles weren’t finished however. The unpredictable nature of VIIs means any game can turn in a minute. A tiring Trinity side shipped 3 tries in rapid succession to go behind 21-19 with minutes remaining.

Veteran wing (24) Shane Hanratty reacted. Deceptively fast in the Rupeni Caucau mould, Shane cut through

the line and dashed 70 metres to shift the momentum. A few phases later Gallagher crashed over from a Blake offload to regain the lead.

Ariel Robles was next to lay waste to the opposition. Hounded by defenders he outwitted them and broke deep into the Exiles’ half. The ball was spread wide from the ensuing ruck and Ed Barry collected it 30 metres out, in space. The crowd held its breath and the exhausted teams watched in hope.

Barry wrong footed one, then another defender, stumbled but regained his balance, accelerated and dived. Glory for Trinity, 31-21.

“The unpredictable nature of VIIs means any game can turn in a minute” Trinity will play Cambridge University on Wednesday 21st September in College Park. 2nds play at 3pm, 1sts play at 5pm.

Trinity soccer storm past AUL in friendly TCD defeat Athletic Union League side 2-0 in pre-season friendly Goal-scorers O’Shaugnessy Connolly put Trinity firmly in the lead Conor Bates Staff Writer

THE WAKE of Hurricane Katia provided very blustery conditions for Trinity’s first pre-season soccer friendly against an Athletic Union League representative side. DUAFC would use this game as an important chance to prepare for their competitive league fixtures as they had the freedom to experiment for 90 minutes.

The game opened at a frantic pace, with possesion moving rapidly from end to end. In the 3rd minute, striker Dermot O’Sullivan found himself through on goal, only for play to be brought back for an earlier free kick.

The A.U.L. side played in some high crosses but these were met with forcible headers from Trinity captain Conall O’Shaughnessy.

The game began to settle down around the 10th minute, with both sides gaining more control on the ball and becoming more composed in their all-round play.

Trinity displayed excellent discipline shortly after when they stepped up perfectly to trap the opponent offside. The ball found

its home in midfield as the friendly progressed with Shane Daly playing well in an attacking role and Michael Clancy performing admirably on the wing.

The main outlet for Trinity’s probing attacks was lone striker O’Sullivan, but Trojan defensive work kept the home team out. In truth, both defences were putting in sterling efforts, and Trinity got their first chance for ten minutes, when Connor Bobbett’s header was saved by the A.U.L. ‘keeper.

“The game opened at a frantic pace, with possesion moving rapidly from end to end” On the half hour mark, Trinity sprung a break from a loose ball.

Winger Clancy collected the ball and crossed into the box. The ball was cleared for a corner. Clancy took the corner himself, and his well struck

cross was powered into the net by centre-half O’Shaughnessy and Trinity took a 1-0 lead.

The remaining 15 minutes of the half saw few chances for either team as the possession, once again, became bogged down in midfield. With the last move of the half Trinity proved their discipline again in catching A.U.L. offside.

Trinity used the half time break to make wholesale changes in the team and the new-look side created some incisive chances, however, stern defending by A.U.L. meant their endeavours ultimately led to nothing.

Early in the second half Trinity were put under a period of sustained pressure for the first time. In the 52nd minute a header was saved easily by substitute goalie Colin Power. A minute later Conall O’Shaughnessy made a sliding block to prevent any further progress.

Centre-back Bobbett also made a great tackle, as Trinity weathered the storm of their opposition’s attacks.

On the hour, Trinity made their 5th substitution, with Frank Wilson coming on in the attacking midfield position, replacing Shane Daly. Wilson had an almost immediate impact

producing a lofted cross from the right hand side which drifted wide.

Trinity responded to their opponents’ pressure with some creative passages of play, including one Messi-esque piece of skill by Connor Hynes.

“The game descended into a battle in midfield with both teams fighting for possession.”

In the 70th minute, Wilson picked up the ball on the right flank and immediately released a curling through ball to find James Connolly, who had moved from left-full to left wing.

Connolly took control of the ball, beat the last man, and as he burst into the box, struck the ball low past the onrushing keeper and into the bottom right hand corner. This expertly dispatched shot put Trinity two goals ahead with only 20 minutes left to play.

Once again, the game descended into a battle in midfield with both teams fighting for possession. For

the remainder of the game the two sides struggled to create any forward momentum as their respective defences held firm.

Chances were few and far between as the contest drew to a close. Frank Wilson made a solitary break through which proved fruitless, and late subs Liam Ware and Lloic Briand combined for an attempt on goal which was saved easily by the A.U.L. goalie.

This encounter was not a vintage match by any means. The contest stagnated in the middle for long periods and flowing play was hard to come by.

Trinity Captain Conall O’Shaughnessy spoke with the Trinity News after the game.

“Overall I think it was a really good exercise. Obviously it was our first game of the season and we were a bit sluggish in the first 20 minutes but once we got the first goal we were comfortable.

A lot of new lads got some muchneeded game time so there will be a lot of competition for places this season which bodes well. The real stuff starts on Saturday in the league but we’re happy with the win and clean sheet.”

Trinity’s commitment and sharpness were high throughout the whole match, and in the end this win will be a good starting point for what looks like a very promising season ahead.

TRINITY NEWS