Trinity News, volume 61, issue 1

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

1

Vincent de Paul (VDP) members recruit students at the freshers’ fair in Trinity Hall on 13th September. Photo: Kevin O’Rourke Photo: Samuel Verbi

Medical students denied entry into West Bank Trinity volunteers detained for questioning in Tel Aviv

F Lia Flattery Senior Reporter

our Trinity medical students were refused entry to Palestine’s West Bank this summer, Trinity News has learned. The two male and two female students, who have asked to remain anonymous, were to travel to the West Bank in late June with Medical Overseas Voluntary Electives (MOVE), a Trinity-based charity that facilitates third year students wishing to complete a one-month placement abroad during the summer.

The students had intended to carry out their placement in the Al Hussein Hospital in Beit Jala, a suburb of Bethlehem located in the West Bank. The hospital is run by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), a charity which, according to their website, hosts “volunteer teams of surgeons and other medical personnel to treat patients and train professionals at local hospitals in the Middle East.” Our source explained that, prior to their trip, the four students contacted the PCRF about completing their elective with them and they agreed to take them on for placement. In the months leading up to their departure, the students worked with MOVE to raise funds for the hospital in Beit Jala.

Arriving in Tel Aviv in the early hours of 1st July, the students were stopped by airport customs officers who queried the purpose of their trip. “We told the truth,” our source said. In a letter to the students, seen by Trinity News, the PCRF confirmed that they were coming as a “non-political humanitarian relief group.” According to our source, he and

his fellow students believed this would be sufficient proof of their motives. He said that it was routine practice for the PCRF to have foreign surgeons or doctors visit the hospital to carry out procedures or train the local staff.

However the letter “aroused suspicion” among the customs officers and the students were led away for questioning. “We were put into a side room,” he said, “We probably spent about an hour in there. And we were called one by one for five to 10 minutes each just to give our details, our name, address, phone numbers, what our purpose was, what our parents’ names were and then we were sent back to the room.”

The volunteers were then led into a second waiting room, where one of the male students was taken away and questioned individually for, our source estimated, “45 minutes to an hour.”

According to our source, this student was seated in a room with a two-way mirror and was subject to aggressive questioning with “a camera in his face.” His interrogator identified himself as an employee of the ministry of the interior and told the student that he was a “human lie detector.” He was questioned extensively about how the members of the group knew each other, his personal views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their purpose for travelling to the West Bank and why they had chosen to volunteer in Palestine instead of in an Israeli hospital.

“He just wasn’t happy with the fact that we were going to a Pal-

estinian hospital,” our source explained. He wemt pm to describe his own interrogation: “He wanted to know everything about me parents do, if I am a member of any anti-democratic groups, and whether I was politically active… what my hobbies were.” The government official was trying to “get us to admit that we were going to Gaza, which of course we weren’t.

You can’t get into Gaza via Israel, the border’s closed. You’d have to go via Egypt. We’d no intention of going to Gaza… He was just trying to provoke us, just trying to make us say something incriminating so that he could deport us.”

The reason behind this treatment became clearer to the volunteers when the official told them that the three Israeli teenagers who had been kidnapped in the West Bank on 12th June had been found dead just hours before their flight had landed.

“That kind of explained why we were treated like that, there was a heightened tension and the man was quite obviously very emotional and passionate. He had obviously been affected by it,” our source said.

Eventually the official told them that he did not want to deport them and that instead he would give them a one-week visitor permit for Israel, under the strict conditions that they would not enter the West Bank or separate as a group. He went on to stipulate that the students would not be allowed back into the country for a year and that if ever they did return to Israel it could be for tourism only and not

for volunteer work.

On being let through to the arrivals lounge, our source told us of how he and his fellow volunteers “sat around… trying to decide what to do. We were very disappointed.” They sought help from the Irish Embassy, who made an appeal to the minister of the interior on their behalf and organised accommodation for them. By Thursday 3rd July, having heard nothing back from the minister and, realising that a response was unlikely over the weekend, they decided to return home with their elective unfulfilled, arriving back in Dublin the following day.

Reflecting on the experience, our source explained that he felt they had simply tried to enter the West Bank at an unfortunate time. “He was trying to make out that we were wrong to go to the West Bank,” he said of his interrogator, “I think if we had arrived a few weeks earlier before those boys had been kidnapped then it wouldn’t have been a problem... even if we had arrived the day before.” In previous years, other third year medical students have successfully volunteered in the West Bank and were successful, our source explained. “We didn’t expect it at all based on the experience of the people who had gone before,” they said. On their return all four students managed to find alternative placements in Ireland.

Inside

DAVID MITCHELL TALKS ABOUT TWITTER, POSTMODERNISM AND HIS NEW NOVEL, TN2 BOARDS THE STAR FLEET INTERNATIONAL AND WE SHOWCASE UP-ANDCOMING NCAD DESIGNERS.

>>

Alicia Lloyd interviews rugby star Ailis Egan.

Dylan Lynch explains the chemistry of a fresher’s body.

Dr. Tom Healy looks at solutions to forced emigration.

Daire Collins reflects on student life in Iran.

Sport - p.24

Science -p.18

Comment -p.12

Features -p.9

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

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News

What They Said

“ “ “ “ “ People ask me what the best thing I learnt in Trinity was.

Easily the fact that the Chaplaincy does free Nutella sandwiches on a Tuesday.

Timetable is up.

Apparently I have a grammar lecture at 8pm on a Sunday. #Trinity @Tinnocentboy

@andgoseek

I only moved into trinity halls 3 days ago and already it looks like my room has been hit by a bomb.

Does anyone else get really excited watching the pizza delivery tracker?

@evadiminutive

@Ailbhee_

Y’know when your timetable has you down for SIX HOURS A WEEK and you’re like ‘They must have forgotten something’ and they haven’t. #English @NaoiseDolan

Big stars due to visit student societies

E Fionn McGorry Deputy News Editor

gyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy, Nobel prizewinning economist Robert Engle and cyborg artist Neil Harbisson are but some of the guests that the Philosophical Society will be hosting this year, while gender theorist Judith Butler and Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams are among those visiting the Historical Society.

Various societies’ freshers’ publications, which have been made available in a digital format by the Central Societies Committee (SCS) and the respective societies, reveal the names of some high-profile guests who will be receiving awards from Trinity societies this academic year.

British critic AA Gill, American venture capitalist Peter Thiel, astronaut Chris Hadfield, musician Pete Wentz, and author Daniel Handler, who publishes under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket.

Discussing the diversity present in the list of those receiving awards, Phil president Sarah Mortell said that “the crux of why we invite speakers is to create a platform where students can engage with incredibly successful and inspiring people.” She added: “I feel a great responsibility to cater to all of our members, from House 6 to the Hamilton. As opposed to broadening the society activities, I hope this will increase the number of engaged members.”

Phil

Hist

The University Philosophical Society’s Philander magazine announced the impending visits of a wide variety of guests, including comedians Amy Poehler, Simon Amstell, and Steve Coogan,

Auditor of the College Historical Society, Michael Coleman, confirmed to Trinity News that the Hist will be presenting several awards this year, in a list that was also published on the Hist’s Fa

cebook page. Kaushik Basu, the Chief Economist of the World Bank, and Thomas Piketty, author of the income-inequality bestseller Capital in the 21st Century, will be visiting the society, as will Artemis Fowl Author Eoin Colfer.

Former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese will be making a return to Trinity when she addresses the Hist, having served as Reid Professor of Criminal Law. Martin Sheen, who played her fictional American counterpart Josiah Bartlett, in the West Wing, will be returning to Ireland having visited many times, and having studied at NUI Galway in 2006.

Speaking to Trinity News, Coleman said: “We’re lucky to be in a university that has societies with such pulling power…Being able to draw on the prestige of the Hist, and I’m sure it’s the same for the Phil, was certainly a huge advantage.” Mortell echoed these comments when she referred to the

IFUT makes the case for state funding of higher-level education

“responsibility” she feels, describing the Phil as a “society with not only history and prestige, but a damn good recent record,” and acknowledged the support of her society’s council, sponsors and the CSC.

SoFia While the Phil and Hist may be Trinity’s oldest societies, one of Trinity’s youngest societies, the Society for International Affairs (SoFIA) will continue to host high-profile diplomats this.

The Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland, His Excellency Ahmad Abdelrazek, will be addressing SoFIA members during the first week of the teaching term.

Law Soc Dublin University Law Society’s hosting of illusionist Derren Brown at their inaugural meeting at the end of Hilary Term appears to have begun a trend of presenting awards to guests not engaged in the legal profession. Alongside UK Supreme Court Judge Lord Neuberger and Human Rights

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While the Phil and Hist may be Trinity’s oldest societies, one of its youngest, SoFiA, will continue to host high-profile diplomats this year.

lawyer Amal Alamuddin, the guest list published in the magazine LawShock includes Love/ Hate actor Aidan Gillen, Game of Thrones writers, Trinity alumni DB Weiss and David Benioff and actress Gwendoline Christie.

Players Dublin University Players will host several Irish personalities, with chairperson Donal McKeating stating that in Michaelmas Term the society will host comedian David McSavage, theatre and film veteran Barry McGovern, What Richard Did actor Jack Reynor, and actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon, perhaps best known for his role as Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted. All of these recipients join an illustrious list of people who have received awards from College cocieties in recent years, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, actor Pierce Brosnan, and human rights lawyer Cherie Booth QC.

Freshers’ mailout cancelled Fears over possible breach of data protection laws

National student-teacher ratio dropped from 1:18 to 1:24. in two years

T Liam Hunt Staff Writer

he Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) has called for increased investment in higher education as a way to drive economic growth in a new report submitted to a government working group tasked with loking into the issue of higher-level funding.

The report says it is “imperative” that the state invest in education and calls for education to be prioritised in the same way as capital spending, as a means to facilitate economic growth.

It states that the government should consider it a “a source of pride that we have higher than ever participation levels in higher education” but noted that the quality of third-level education would come under increased pressure if the “underfunding” of the sector is not addressed. It also counselled against what it labeled the “lack of political will” to deal with the problem.

Since the recession the budgets of Ireland’s third-level institutions have been cut dramatically.

Trinity suffered a cut in its grant allocation of 22%, UCD 25%, St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra 25%, UCC 21%, NUI Maynooth 18%, Mary Immaculate Limerick

18% and NUI Galway 16%.

The report also points out the drop in staff numbers as a result of budget cuts since 2008, noting that in 2008/9 there were 4,795 academics and 89,650 students in Ireland. However, by the year 2010/11 this had decreased to 4,426 academics while the number of students had increased to 106, 448. As such, in the space of two years the student-teacher ratio nationally dropped from 1:18 to 1:24.

The union has dismissed the idea increasing student charges, citing “compelling international evidence suggesting that this is a very dangerous option in view of the negative effects on participation levels.” Among the evidence referred to is a Canadian report from 2005 which concluded that “enrolment patterns by socioeconomic background changed substantially in Ontario, [following] tuition fees increases.” Also referenced is a UK study from 2011 which found that a £1,000 increase in fees resulted in participation decreasing by 3.9 percentage points.

IFUT has also highlighted the fact that higher education is not

as reliant on public funding as might be assumed. According to the report, 50% of capital investment in higher education in 2005-2008 came from private sources.

The state should take on greater responsibility for the funding of higher education, as an economic imperative that will drive long-term growth in the Irish economy, the report concludes.

It notes that during the recession of the early nineties, Finland increased spending on higher education as a means to combat the economic downturn. It calls for the Government to come up with a similar “visionary approach to our crisis.”

T James Wilson News Editor

he annual mailout by the College’s societies sent to incoming first years last week was cancelled at the last minute due to financial and logistical concerns.

In recent years, Trinity’s two debating societies, the Phil and the Hist, have co-operated with a number of the College’s other societies to send specially-designed publications detailing their plans for the upcoming year to incoming Junior Freshman students.

However, in an e-mail sent to the heads of the societies concerned, president of the Phil, Sarah Mortell, cited the late arrival of several society publications for not proceeding, having estimated that, as a consequence, most students would have failed to receive the package before moving into Trinity Hall on 12th September.

Furthermore, several societies that had previously committed to taking part in the mailout, pulled out with little notice, leaving the venture financially unviable.

The run of bad luck failed to end there, with changes to the College’s registration system meaning there were no longer the resources available to print labels with incoming students’ address-

es. Further attempts to overcome this problem, by the College and the Strategic Development Officer of the Central Societies Committee, Joseph O’Gorman, were abandoned due to fears that data protection laws might be broken in the process.

Fears over the same data protection laws had earlier prevented the Students’ Union from proceeding as planned with its mailout to incoming students.

Instead, the societies’ publications have been made available to new students and the public in digital format online by the CSC. It is uncertain whether the mailout will resume next year.

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

3

News

College brings in outside help to tackle accommodation crisis Flyer drive only manages to secure an extra 200 beds

A James Prendergast Investigative Correspondent

flyer drop to 20,000 homes on the outskirts of Dublin by the Students’ Union’s accommodation advisory service appealing for digs has so far resulted in only 200 additional beds, as the SU hires an external company and an additional staff member to deal with the ongoing accommodation crisis, Trinity News has learned.

1,592 students have contacted the service since August 5th compared with only 890 in the same period last year.

In an email to Trinity News, SU Welfare Officer Ian Mooney said “Since August 5th we’ve opened our Accommodation Advisory Service (AAS) on the ground floor of House 6. The service is there to offer experience and advice on how best to go about searching for accommodation in Dublin, landlord / tenants information and guidance on living in Dublin”.

He continued, “The service is open every year but we needed extra resources pumped into it this year to deal with the increased demand. We talked to the head of the Accommodation Office in Trinity and he managed to obtain extra funding from College to bring in an external company, College Living, to assist us, particularly with international students. They brought along expertise, but more importantly they brought along beds too.”

In a statement to Trinity News, College said that, “The advantages of having College Living involved are that they directly operate some student accommodation, they have significant linkages to landlords and other agencies in the private market

and they are fully licensed by the Property Services Regulatory Authority.”

Ian Mooney said that College had so far committed to paying ¤500 of the cost of the flyer campaign and that he is awaiting news as to whether they will cover the balance. College was unable to provide specifics about the level of extra funding provided to hire CollegeLiving and the extra staff member.

AAS co-ordinator, and former SU Welfare Officer, Orlaith Foley told The Irish Times that students should expect to pay ¤450-¤650 for rent in Dublin, though she said very few students have found accommodation for only ¤450. She advised landlords to charge ¤80¤120 per week for digs, or up to ¤140 if meals are provided. A recent Bank of Ireland survey found that the average cost of sending a student to third-level institutions in Ireland was ¤13,000 per year while the average grant is only ¤3,025, falling from ¤3,250 in 2010-2011. These grants will not be available until mid-October and Greg O’Donoghue, VicePresident for Welfare of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), said students may have to rely on interest-free loans from banks.

TCD Finance, the loan scheme operated by Bank of Ireland to help students pay the Student Contribution, has an APR of 7.5%, compared with a rate of 8.73% at AIB. Some Credit Unions offer loans at much lower rates but often require significant savings to have been accrued beforehand.

Accommodation rates on campus are rising 4% this year, compared

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The advantage of having College Living involved is that they direcly operate some student accommodation, they have significant linkages to landlords and other agencies in the private market.

to 13 % at UCD, 9% at Griffith College and 3 % at DCU. In the past year, rents in the capital have risen by 15%, and by 17.2% in the city centre. The number of properties on the market in Dublin in August 2014 was 40% lower than a year earlier.

In July, it was revealed that College was considering the construction of student accommodation on the site of Oisin House on Pearse Street, currently occupied by the Department of Social Protection. The site is designated for student residences upon expiration of the department’s lease at the end of the calendar year.

Ian Mooney said that himself, Orlaith Foley and the SU president, Domhnall McGlacken-Byrne have been doing “many interviews with various national media newspapers, T.V. stations and radio stations highlighting the importance of finding a longer-term solution to the current accommodation situation in Dublin as well as informing students across the country of the services available to assist advise them in finding accommodation and also to remain calm and offer some basic advice in searching”.

In an article on the property website Daft.ie last month ,McGlacken-Byrne called for “stimulatory reform of the building regulatory environment” and criticised the government’s Construction Strategy 2020 report, for mentioning the word ‘student’ just once.

Ireland fares well in OECD report Unemployment rates for young people still well above EU average

I Clare Droney Online News Editor

rish women with degrees earn 90% more than those without a third-level qualification, according to the Education at a Glance report recently published by the the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). [DATE] For men in Ireland the earnings premium linked to a third level education is 69% when compared to the earnings of men who have not obtained a third-level qualification. Notably, the earnings advantage for individuals in Ireland with degrees is significantly higher than the OECD average of 62%.

The study, which analysed the education systems of the 34 OECD member states and several partner countries, also found that 100% of 5 to 14 year-olds in Ireland were enrolled in education in 2012. 93% of this group were expected to complete secondary school, compared to an average rate of 84% across the OECD. The 2014 report found that graduation rates in Ireland vary according to gender, with an upper-secondary graduation rate in 2012 of 95% for women compared with 92% for men, and a university graduation rate of 52% for women, and 39% for men.

While Ireland ranked thirdhighest for educational expenditure per student, below Canada and the United States, public expenditure on educational institutions represented 6.2% of Ireland’s GDP in 2011. This is slightly above the OECD average of 5.6%.

This figure placed Ireland below other members, such as the Scandinavian countries where public expenditure on education was between 6.8% and 8.8% of GDP in 2011.

In the Country Note for Ireland, the report found that teachers in Ireland are “well paid” by OECD and EU21 standards. In response to these statistics, Niall Murray, Education Correspondent for the Irish Examiner, commented, “Irish teachers are among the best paid but work longer hours and with some of the biggest classes in the developed world in return.”

While Ireland ranked highly in some areas, the report also highlighted the underperformance of the Irish education system in other areas. According to the report, unemployment rates in Ireland remain high in comparison to other member countries. The study

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Irish women with degrees earn 90% more than those without a thirdlevel qualification.

found that the proportion of young people in Ireland who are neither employed nor in education or training (NEET) is “well above average for EU21 and OECD countries.” As recently outlined by Tom Healy, director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute, in his article “Youth Labour Market Still in Recession” Eurostat data shows that the NEET rate in 2013 among Irish 18- to 24-year olds was 20.5%, placing Ireland 8th in the EU for this measure.

WHat i’m really THINKING Anonymous

We asked two students to give an honest account of recent thoughts.

Student at graduation This hat is ridiculous. Wandering around Front Square in gowns...

Well done Trinity, fighting the stereotype since 1592. Right now, embarrassment the overriding emotion. It’s nerve-wracking, filing up the steps in front of all these people (trying not to trip on this fucking gown and mill myself on the way). Paraded like a show-dog at Crufts. Now listen to yourself. Talk about first-world problems; an existential crisis brought on by a stupid hat and a bit of paper.

The real test, though; that will come after the ceremony. When you have to unleash your parents on your class, resigning yourself to the inevitable cringe-worthy anecdotes, waiting for the first, terrifying dad-joke. A weird rolereversal, as we watch on as our parents play nicely with the others. Hopefully.

Who is this ceremony for? Our parents? As a validation of their investment, the money they’ve sunk into our – my – education.

For the Provost, for the administrative junta? A new crop, another batch off the production line, four years in the making, four years swelling their coffers. I’m not sure it’s for us, anyway, this thing.

I never really did get all this bollocks, to be honest. Although maybe there’ll be free drink afterwards. Hope so.

Making us march up to the front in groups, but not the

groups forged with the others in my class over the space of four years, forged through solidarity, all struggling through together.

We are now organised by grade – first to go up are the Firsts, followed by the 2.1s, 2.2s, Thirds – this is a ceremony to break down those bonds of solidarity, imposing a new class system in its place, one defined by cold percentages.

Well, I suppose we were always told that college was meant to prepare us for the wider world.

And speaking of getting out into the wider world, what is there for me there? And where – how many of us will stay here, in Dublin, in Ireland? How many will leave? To London, to New York, to anywhere with the promise of “prospects”.

Of course, I won’t have that problem. I’m sure there’s a million jobs out there which require an in-depth knowledge of medieval poetry and what can only be described as a mediocre grasp of the French language. These are skills employers are crying out for.

And, at this point, you doubt – your choices, yourself, whether it was all worth it. Would I have been better off doing this, or that?

This is obviously a brilliant time to be having these thoughts.

Everyone else seems to have an idea of where they’re going. So, where now?

The privileged depressive “I’m a bit mad, sure. But I’m not actually crazy, am I?” “Anyway, what have I got to be depressed about?”

I asked myself both of those questions when I was struggling with depression. Even more when I was then diagnosed borderline bipolar. I have all the trappings of privilege so unjustly and automatically afforded to white, male, educated middle class westerners. I could bathe in that horrible soup of privilege. I interrogated myself about my moods as often as I heard people pontificating about the second question. Indeed, if I had ¤1 for every time someone purposely or accidentally questions the existence of mental health I could bathe in coins instead of privilege-flavoured water.

Here’s a thought. It isn’t my fault that I’m bipolar. It isn’t a choice that I make to struggle with my mood sometimes. It isn’t

me indulging in my feelings too much, or spending my easy existence “thinking too much”. I’m not “broken”, and I don’t need “fixing”. Each one of us is thrown in the deep end of a swimming pool as cold as the water we’ve recently taken to drenching ourselves with, and expected to swim to the other end. That’s life. On the way, it throws Experience with a capital “e” in our faces.

We’re expected to cope. Noone prepares you for it. No one can. My experiences (small “e” now - confusing, I know) are very different to yours, and quite beyond anyone else’s total comprehension. My reactions are no less legitimate than yours.

Just because I’ve had an easier life than most doesn’t mean that I can’t struggle with my mental health. Next time you feel like voicing your confusion at what some people could possibly be “a bit sad about” check yourself, and don’t.

UCC students give up the booze New scheme allows students to live in alcohol-free accommodation

M James Prendergast

ore students at University College Cork are opting for alcohol-free housing this year, one year after the scheme was first introduced.

This year 24 students will be living in “dry” apartments, a rise from 6 last year. Eight of the students are Irish while the others are from France, Germany, Denmark, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Australia, Austria and Canada.

At the launch of the alcohol free scheme last year, UCC Students’ Union president Paddy Haughney said: "There are students from over 80 countries worldwide studying in UCC with different cultural and religious backgrounds, and alcohol may not appeal to these students. "[The scheme] will also appeal to students in their final year and postgraduates who would prefer

the quieter surroundings of an alcohol-free area," he added.

After serious anti-social behaviour during Fresher’s Week in 2009, the university launched the Student Community Support scheme which involves students policing students in the early hours of the morning.

The university’s alcohol action plan, known as the “Health Matters” initiative, won the top award at the Irish Healthcare Awards last year. Under the plan, local residents, students and Gardaí cooperate to help reduce alcohol-related crime and anti-social behaviour. The plan has also involved the installation of gardamonitored CCTV in the campus area and the use of an online educational tool that has been completed by 13,000 students.

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24 students will be living in "dry" apartments.

The university has also launched a pilot scheme for 24 students called “Living Learning Community”. Students with similar academic and social interests will live and learn together “in an environment that aims to encourage well being, and social and academic engagement,” according to a report in the Irish Examiner.

Verdi Ahern, the Academic Year Services Manager at UCC Campus Accommodation told the paper that students “will explore the richness and diversity of the Irish language and culture through poetry, dance, music and literature, as well as trips to the Dún Chiomháin Kerry gaeltacht.”

Tuesday 16th September 2014

TRINITY NEWS

Features

6 Daire Collins reflects on the contrast between Irish and Iranian student life.

p9

Face of the student movement Catherine Healy sits down with Laura Harmon, president of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) to talk strategy, resistance and what it means to be the first female head of the national student movement in 20 years

Credit: USI Photo: Catherine Healy

Q.

You’ve called the first national pre-budget rally in three years for 8 October. Did you feel there was a need to change tactics after last year?

A. Well, we were mandated by our members to have a national event this year. But it is going to have a different tone, a more positive message this year. We’re calling it a ‘rally for education’ rather than a protest. There’ll obviously be a strong political undertone in that we'll be highlighting the need to protect student supports, which is our key budgetary ask.

But we're also going to have civil society groups joining us for the first time. Trade unions like IFUT and SIPTU have confirmed their full support of the campaign, and we'll also be reaching out to youth groups. So it won’t just be about students – it's a broader societal campaign.

Q. Would you say the regional protests of last year were ineffective?

Catherine Healy Editor

A. I think we were quite effective last year. Our main goal was to protect the student maintenance grant, which we managed to do.

That was largely as a result of strategic lobbying. But I do think that the national event will maximise student involvement.

Q. Some students would rather see the USI move away from political activism and protesting, and focus on service provision.

What would you say to them?

A. We’re hoping that this year’s rally will draw in people that might not traditionally be inclined to protest. But I do think that protesting and political activism are important, and complement each other in many ways. There are some people who won’t engage with the lobbying process otherwise. I do also think that the action itself needs to be proportionate. If the grant is cut next month, we might need to look at other actions.

Q. Your co-operation with IFUT is interesting in that the USI has often spoken out in the past against high salaries in the thirdlevel sector. Is it important to you to show solidarity with academics and staff in universities?

A. I think it's very important that staff and students try to work together. In some cases, there can be conflict between college authorities and students. But I think it's very positive that we have groups like IFUT involved in the campaign. They share our vision of education as a public good, and I think their involvement will send out a strong message that we have a cohesive movement.

Q. The USI often talks about education as a public good. What kind of concrete steps can you take to improve equality of access to third-level education?

A. Protecting student supports is key to maintaining equality of access. The grant works out at about 84 euro per week. That’s far less than the price of rent in any part of the country. I know the HEA is formulating a new national access plan and that’s something that we’re hoping to contribute to. The difficulties facing mature students can often be overlooked as well. That’s why we’re holding a convention for mature students in early October. We’re also planning to work with organisations like Pavee Point to improve access for members of the travelling community.

Q. How can you protect student supports while maintaining the quality of third-level education?

Does the scarcity of resources mean that one challenge threatens the other?

Q. What kind of actions would you consider if that were to happen?

A. No, I don’t think so. The sector as a whole is underfunded. We need far more state investment in education. I think [third-level funding] is going to be a key issue in the next general election in 2016. Our view is that education must be publicly funded. We’d strongly disagree with any notion that student numbers should be capped.

A. That would be something for our members and national council to decide.

Q. Your recent pre-budget submission focuses on protecting the student maintenance grant.

Do you think it’s no longer feasible to argue for free education?

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You do have to question why there wasn’t a female president for so long.

A. Our campaign will be focused on protecting the grant and backto-education allowance. Ruairi Quinn already said that the student contribution charge will be 3,000 euro by 2015. It’s a prescheduled increase by the government, so it wasn’t a surprise when Jan O’Sullivan said that she would go ahead with the next annual increase. But we disagree with it rising, of course. Ireland now has the second highest fees in Europe after the UK. We’ve moved from free education to the second highest fees in Europe in 20 years. I don’t think many people are aware of that.

When Ruairi Quinn spoke at our conference last year, he admitted that the student contribution charge is essentially a tuition fee. He said we were now allowed to call it that. Our position is that the charge should be capped at 3,000 euro. We believe there'll be an opportunity then for a new government to start reducing it in line with economic recovery.

Q. Are you disappointed with Labour's performance in government?

A. I’m disappointed with the government as a whole. I was disappointed with Minister Quinn rowed back on his promise not to increase student fees. The government broke that promise. I’m disappointed with the way in which the government is treating young people in general. But they’ve an opportunity now, as the economy recovers, to start prioritising education again. That’s what’s really going to see us through this crisis.

It’s absolutely vital that we keep graduates in the country.

Q. How do you think students will be affected by the budget?

Do you think the grant is likely to be cut?

A. I think it might be. It all depends on what the budgetary adjustment needs to be. We’ve heard different figures thrown around.

Local lobbying will be very important in the next few weeks.

I’m hoping the government will realise that student supports have been cut in successive budgets.

The maintenance grant has really

been pared to the bone. We can only do our best and put the pressure on.

Q. How effective do you think the USI has been in protecting students’ interests since the start of the recession?

A. I think it would be very interesting to see how different things would be now if the USI didn't exist. I certainly think that things would be a lot worse for students.

We need to take into consideration that we’ve faced one of the greatest economic recessions in this country for a significant number of years. Of course, every sector was going to be hit by cuts.

Various USI presidents differed in their approaches, but I’m confident that the direction we’re taking now is significantly better.

We’ve more credibility as a union.

We’re not just going out and saying what we want. We’re trying to engage with public representatives in a more meaningful way.

Q. You seem to be saying that the USI was less credible in the recent past. One example that comes to mind is the reaction of some students to the breakaway protests of 2010. Are you referring to these kind of events when you talk about a lack of credibility?

A. No, I’m talking about our lobbying strategy. I think it was very impressive that they managed to mobilise so many students in 2010. There was a significant amount of student engagement back then. People were very angry at the time. Of course, the president of the USI condemned those breakaway groups, but we’ve since apologised to them.

They were quite obviously peaceful protesters.

Q. UCD’s disaffiliation from the USI in 2013 must have been a huge blow. What can you do to convince UCD students to return to the national movement?

A. It was very disappointing. I was equality and citizenship officer [of the USI] at the time. We’ve since met UCDSU and invited them to the march for marriage. We hope to invite them to the rally for education as well. The best thing was can do is to keep that relationship

open. It’s up to UCD students if they want another referendum. I do think the USI is in a stronger place now than two years ago. I think - I hope - that we’re seen more positively.

Q. So you think the USI is seen in a positive light by students more broadly?

A. Broadly, yes. There is still some scepticism. There's also a huge lack of awareness, I think.

That’s something we acknowledge. We’ve made efforts this year to reach out to more students. We’ve bringing back ‘The Voice’, our quarterly student magazine, which will be distributed on campuses. We’re planning to distribute 30,000 freshers packs with information about our work. We’ll also be running a poster campaign. We’ve had significantly more media coverage of our work so far this year. We’re bringing back our activist academy, which we haven’t had in a number of years.

The marriage equality campaign will engage a lot of students as well. It’s something the student population as a whole feels quite passionately about. I think we’ll be able to show that student voters can come out in large numbers for that referendum.

Q. You’re the first female president of the USI in 20 years. Is that important to you?

A. It’s something a lot of people highlight. You do have to question why there wasn’t a female president for so long. I hope my election can help female students. It sends out a positive message. There is an obvious disparity in gender representation in student unions. That’s why we’re working with Women in Election to promote greater female participation in student politics. Women sometimes need to be asked to run a number of times, while their male counterparts mightn’t need that much support.

But I never felt treated any differently because of my gender.

There are root issues in society as a whole that need to be tackled. A lot of it can come down to confidence.

Illustration: John Tierney

It's all Greek to me Rachel Fleming ensconces herself in the nebulous world of the American Greek system.

B Rachel Fleming Contributor

efore I spent ten weeks living in a small liberal arts school in Northern Illinois, everything I knew about collegiate Greek letter organisations had been learned from Legally Blonde. The possibility of meeting people who belonged to fraternities and sororities didn’t even cross my mind when I signed up to live in student dorms for the summer So, somewhat unsurprisingly, when the first person I befriended at a party referred to the other girls in the room as her ‘sisters’, I almost laughed in her face.

Similarly, when the boy who lived down the hall from me explained that he followed a code of honour, justice and courage, in accordance with the values of his fraternity, I thought he sounded like a pretentious twat.

Throughout my first few weeks in America, I struggled to take Greek system and and its sons and daughters seriously, assuming that there wasn’t much more to them than secret handshakes and depraved ‘keggers’.

History Greek letter organisations have a long history in America, with the first one founded in 1776.

Students had a burning need to express and debate opinions that were frowned upon by college administration and many believed that the existing faculty-regulated literary societies had failed to provide topical debate. Though

this was the Greek system’s purpose at the outset, the function of these organisations changed as the needs of the student population did, and now the focus of each society varies. Some are heavily philanthropic, others focus on creating potential business networks, and some are closer to the original literary societies from which they were founded, holding regular debates.

Social life The most important function however seems to be a social one, with the majority of students that I spoke to admitting that they joined Greek organisations primarily to make friends. One individual I conversed with explained that by joining a sorority enabled her to branch out socially.

“I played soccer in high school” she explained. “So most of my friends were into sport. When I joined my sorority, I met so many different types of people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise.

Some of those girls have become my closest friends, even though the only thing we originally had in common was that we both belonged to the same sorority.”

Although there were three fraternities and five sororities in the college in which I lived, none of them provided housing for their members, as some of the chapters in larger schools do. It has a significant effect, as another sorority sister explained when recount-

ing the differences between her and her brother’s Greek system experience. “The atmosphere between the Greek societies was very different [in his school], because they provided housing for their members, so if you weren’t involved in one, you were kind of excluded from everything that went on in the houses.

Here, the organisations don’t have houses so even though people join Greek societies to make friends, they socialise outside of them too. It’s a lot harder to do that when you’re living with the members of your society. I suppose it makes for a closer group but I would think that it definitely prevents you from making friends in other places.”

The activities of Greek organisations also varies hugely from college to college with some focused on more hedonistic and, perhaps, Bacchanalian pursuits.

All Greek societies are founded on values such as “honour” and “courage”, but for your typical American student, upholding these traditions can seem somewhat less important than the possibility of procuring alcohol. While this attitude is understandable, given that under-21s are barred from most nightlife, it does undermine the validity of Greek organisations as a whole, rendering the whole thing extremely hypocritical.

This is especially true given the elitist nature of these societies. In the case of the more philanthrop

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The boy who lived down the hall from me explained that he followed a code of honour, justice and courage in accordance with the valuable of his fraternity

ic or intellectual organisations, it’s slightly easier to understand why committees would prefer to limit membership to those who have demonstrated their willingness to dedicate time and effort to a cause, but when a charter’s focus seems to be reenacting Animal House, what are the values that determine admission? Chugging ability? With the increasing prevelance of hazing rituals within Greek organisations, initiation rites and tests are often more dangerous and degrading than this.

Elitism This is the point where the social element of Greek organisations stops becoming harmless fun and begins to create an exclusionist climate based off dubious values.

It can be argued that all Greek organisations are elitist, due to the selective nature of their membership, but a group of people selected for their willingness to raise money for charity are far less likely to inspire severe FOMO in non-members than one which has been selected based off how fun they are to drink with.

It’s no secret that in the age of information overshare, in which every night out is documented with excessively long Snapchat stories and Instagrammed cocktails, being “up for the craic” is one of the most valuable traits a college student can have. Gaining admission into an organisation which selects only the most ‘fun’

students as its members must feel like a badge of honour- equally, getting rejected must be a hard blow to take.

The value attached to extroverted traits by both members and non-members thus increases and grants a large degree of power to those in the society. A closely knit group of extroverted students could very quickly become an intimidating force on campus and create a negative and hostile environment which impinges on everyone’s enjoyment of student life.

It’s easy to see why a student arriving at college would chose to get involved in Greek life; I now understand its appeal. A society which centres on having fun and creating friendships while upholding virtuous ideals seems like a great way to integrate into college life. However, the question of whether these selective systems are solely positive still hangs in the air, with the possibility that these are creating intimidatingly powerful group of elites making it a much more complex question.

Plague on our houses In the wake of the West African Ebola outbreak, Venina Kalistratova charts the history of pandemics and biological warfare.

T Venina Kalistratova Contributor

he year is 430 BC, the setting is Athens. The Athenians find themselves immersed in the Peloponnesian War, facing a double threat: besieged in its own territory by the Spartans and ravaged from the inside by a silent killer, which has been filling its temples with decrepit corpses.

Thucydides is perhaps the first direct witness of a plague to put in writing his experience and that of his fellow citizens, documenting phenomena which would go on to echo throughout history.

According to the historian, the so-called "Plague of Athens" generated economic difficulties as the loss of population put severe strain on agriculture and commerce. The confrontation with human mortality also prompted rampant lawlessness and civil disobedience. The risk of contagion itself prevented many Athenians from looking after the sick, instead dumping them on the street or in the temples - ironically only exacerbating the problem - or hurriedly burying them in massgraves.

Superstition superseded religious piety amongst the population and there was a sense of Sparta's onslaught being reinforced by the gods. The impact of disease on social and religious behaviour was also documented during the worldwide pandemic best known as the Black Death. Many experts have vied for the Athenian Plague to be identified as the Ebola virus, which would be plausible given

the intense commercial contact between Africa and Greece via the Nilotic settlements. The three week incubation period of the both the Ebola and the Marburg virus also seem to back up this hypothesis.

Ebola The year is 2014, and West Africa faces the largest ever outbreak of Ebola virus affecting Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Congo. By August 24th, the number of suspected cases has risen to 3069, with 1552 death. By September 6th, the plague has already affected 4,293 and claimed 2,296 victims, due to the tardy and lax implementation of quarantine measures.

Panic spreads through the population as caregivers realise the potential risk of being infected through direct contact with the victims, due to the way Ebola spreads through body fluids. Funeral rites are often disregarded, with many left to die on the streets. On August 8th, a cordon sanitaire was established in the area between the vague frontiers of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The closure of the boarders, however has proven even more disastrous for the already devastated economies of the countries affected. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and a United Nations spokesperson has reported the almost twofold increase in

hopes for the future of Ebola af fected patients.

prices of some basic food items due to the increasing demand and decreasing supply.

Failure to act Even though Ebola has been rampant through the Western part of the continent for the better part of this summer, little or no measures have been taken, and organisations such as WHO or even the UN have failed to provide a coherent answer against the pandemic, which could possibly have been ended had there been a more active international cooperation. Independent humanitarian aid organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières or Samaritans, however, have stepped in to offer help to the countries affected, often at the cost of their own members' lives.

On August 12, the Ebola virus claimed its first European victim, Father Miguel Pajares, a Spanish missionary who contracted the virus in Liberia. In spite of being repatriated to the Hospital Carlos III in Madrid a week earlier, and being treated with the experimental drug known as ZMapp, he ultimately lost his battle with Ebola. This experimental treatment, however, has also been offered to other patients such as the British nurse William Pooley, who successfully overcame the virus in August. Its efficacy in humans has not been fully proven, yet the studies carried out on other primates give great

Biological warfare Pandemics have evolved together with humanity and have shaped its history to an extent larger than we can even imagine. Few would be aware that biological warfare was actually a Medieval invention; in 1347 when the Black Death was ravaging the European continent, the Mongols besieging Caffa (in Crimea) had the idea to catapult plague victims and corpses over enemy walls as veritable disease grenades. A similar military tactic was adopted by the Japanese airforce during WWII as an airplane flying over the Chinese province of Chekiang released a cargo of rice and wheat filled with rat fleas carrying Yersinia pestis, responsible for many of the plagues in history (6th c AD Justinian Plague or Black Death itself ).

Often resorted to but always vehemently denied, biological warfare has become the mistress of modern day warfare. Though the volatility of this approach has been contested, with some refusing to acknowledge the potential for this tactic to backfire and affect both aggressor and victim, pathogens easier to control or engineer such as the Bacillus anthracis have become the staple of biological warfare.

Human population, livestock or crops can be targeted. It is Illustration: Reed Patrick Van Hook noteworthy that individuals his-

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Few would be aware that biological warfare was actually a medieval invention

tory have often found a way to use such plagues in their benefit yet entire nations cannot work together to control or eradicate them. A good word has to be said for pathogens, as they are not always the enemy: the fact that their evolutionary process is strongly linked with that of other species makes them the right carrier for gene research and therapy,prevention or treatment of cancer and even the control of harmful organisms in both medicine and agriculture.

But are we prepared for pandemic outbreaks? Zombie thrillers, contagion films, Godzilla and alien invasion flicks constantly put humanity to test, and yet invariably there is a happy ending, not without the help of the latest Hollywood hunk or a last minute "Chekhov's gun". Reality, however, reveals that in spite of all the fictional trials we are still not able to deal with a large-scale disaster. Ebola is not the problem of a nation or a continent; in a 21st century firmly rooted into a technological and cosmopolitan Zeitgeist, Ebola becomes a global problem.

Tuesday 16th September 2014

TRINITY NEWS

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The moveable feast Conor O'Donovan reflects on his fraught and formative - yet fleeting - residence in France.

Illustration: Natalie Duda

S Conor O’Donovan Contributor

omewhere along the southern wing of the Musée d'Orsay's niveau médian, some of Eugene Carrière's work hangs alongside that of his fellow symbolists.

Though not as immediately gripping as some of the more famous Impressionist pieces on show, it does have a certain resonance.

Carrière is apparently known for his sepia-toned or monochrome style. Despite this, I found his rendering of the Place Clichy by night quite true to life, particularly as I entered said place from the Pigalle direction, heavily sedated, and with my arm suspended in a sling. His suggestively nebulous forms sprang to mind, even if it was broad daylight at the time. At the very least, the thought kept the rising ache in my newly injured shoulder at bay.

It had been nine days since I had made for Paris to complete the same Residence Abroad Requirement that had taken me to the south coast last summer. My failure to maintain a steady income then had left a chip on said shoulder. In E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, the author describes the difference between a round and flat character: the former being a character who changes over the course of a narrative, the latter being who doesn’t.

Returning to France with unfinished business, I was determined to leave this latter category, to which I believed myself to be relegated (After all, how could the narrative arc mastery of the French language by a plucky TSMer be completed if the main character couldn’t get a job in France?) I would no longer be a person in stasis, unable to learn from my experiences and therefore bound to repeat them. This time would be different: the email confirmation of work in the Loire Valley, however voluntary, made this progression seem feasible.

I gathered what cash I had left from the various, and variously lucrative, part time gigs I'd had in and around campus, plus some substantial parental funding, and looked forward to an improving week in Paris.

Talking the talk Thankfully, there was one thing I had learned during my tour of the Riviera and its environs: I

began to understand the importance of spending time in France in order to ‘talk the talk’. "Excuse me, my postillion has been struck by lightning" reads one, once no doubt hysterically funny, example of abstruse phrase book specificity. Firstly, the word postillion has sadly fallen out of everyday use due to a fall in demand for full time carriage drivers. More importantly, such fastidious, and ultimately impossible, preparation for the habitual seems completely redundant in tutorials where one can spend up to five minutes chewing a sentence over, or even remain completely silent.

It is only when living in France that it becomes apparent that a single busy afternoon presents up to a hundred compromised postillions, each of which must be delicately explained or interpreted swiftly, if their wellbeing is to be ensured.

My first reminder of these difficulties came after only twenty four hours: on my way out of the hostel I asked Aurélie, the cool concierge, if she’d seen my sunglasses. Some subtly misplaced inflection, or my failure to mention the glasses had been misplaced, led Aurélie to concede they were a very lovely pair and that she wouldn’t mind some herself. While these small misunderstandings add up to a creeping sense of failure, there are also unexpected instances of encouragement. As a student whose performance in oral exams felt, at best, deceitful, I was refreshed by the number of Parisians who deemed my level of French sufficient. "If I am speaking French, that is always a very good sign" one of my new friends remarked, in English.

Not all reinforcement is this positive though, as I learned after having the misfortune to inadvertently photographing a waiter as he came into shot. "Do not photograph me when I am working" he exclaimed, in French. After examining the photo, I had to admit it was most likely his work attire that prevented him from dominating the shot as he would have liked.

Despite the odd moment of linguistic tension, my stay went by innocuously enough, which might explain my panic on the penultimate evening. The last two nights I had become a regular in

the lobby and had built up an impressive, hostel-wide array of acquaintances as a result: there was the Argentine duo that consistently worked their way through several cartons of wine each day; the trio from Austin, Texas with whom I'd visited various spots recommended by returning Erasmus muckers (Oberkampf etc.); and the man from Birmingham who preferred Granada. Despite all of these new mates,

Hitting the town I was now eager to hit the town again, but the Texans had gone to Versailles and the popular choice in the lobby was a ticketed Montparnasse pub-crawl.

At ¤35, a selfie in the precise spot where Hemingway may well have vomited (had Fitzgerald not surreptitiously offered his satchel), seemed a bit dear. Happily, the Argentine duo had decided they'd spilled enough red wine on the white marble steps into reception and were rounding up a group to check out some haunts approved

by Aurélie. What I envisaged was a semi-sophisticated night out in Paris. What unfolded was, in fact, an incredible evening; a procession of apparently spontaneous and increasingly hilarious events.

While the night was outrageous fun and the streets of Paris provided a better backdrop than Athy or Carrigaline, I was only in Paris a week and I wondered if was I now missing the point somehow. The feeling diminished as we made our weary way home and the Haussmann grid revealed a surprisingly labyrinthine potential, and it wasn’t long before it was time to retire. The following day I decided four hours of sleep was probably the going rate that morning and made for the Louvre. After a full day of perusal, which encompassed some strikingly mute Sumerian sculpture and Louis 16th’s multi-story teapot, I took a long meandering walk in a ceremonial farewell, of sorts, to the city I had wandered through over the past nine days.

Hours later I was back in the Louvre in slightly more surreal circumstances, contending the crowds in the Grande Galerie. It was, literally, a nightmare. The true nature of the situation only became apparent when I fell

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At ¤35, a selfie in the precise spot where Hemingway may well have vomited (had Fitzgerald not surreptiouly offered his satchel), seemed a bit dear.

from my bunk and hit hostel’s oak floor, shoulder first. “Mate, that wasn’t you hitting the floor was it?” asked an Australian roommate I’d befriended that morning upon finding me. I replied it had in fact been my postillion. The joke didn’t go over, but he fetched ice from reception all the same.

Violent dreams run in the family and on an unprotected bunk I guess I was asking for it.

After an unsuccessful attempt to sleep it off, I suggested to Aurélie that she call me a SAMU, the French equivalent of an ambulance. That is, if that was what she thought was the done thing around here. I presumed I’d misunderstood the kind SAMU driver when he enquired as to the means by which I would pay the 180 euro call out fee. Five minutes later we were standing, my arm tucked into my t-shirt, at a resolutely unyielding ATM. Having cut a deal with the driver for pretty much everything I had left, I was looking over my X-Rays with an increasingly solemn doctor. A broken clavicle, the same injury my grandfather supposedly sustained wrestling his brother at a similar age. “T’es devenu un somnambule alors!” I was informed by a fellow patient. My Grandfather had also been asleep at the time of his injury, which makes him a slightly more advanced somnambulist than myself.

Things began to progress avec une telle vitesse as it became apparent I might have been heavily concussed. I was extensively examined and found to be in surprisingly good shape. The report even went so far as to conclude, much to my parents’ amusement, that there was no alcohol in my system. “Your French is excellent” offered the nurse who fitted me with a cast (which was subsequently denounced by the triage staff at Cork University Hospital).

I then bid my fellow invalides farewell and I was at large once again. It had been twenty minutes by the time I had sharpened up enough to negotiate the hasty Western Union transfer wired by my parents/parrineurs. I then made my way out to Charles de Gaulle through a sequence of Tramadol-induced hallucinations.

By the time I had finished an inadvertent tour of Terminal 2

it was almost time to board back over at Terminal 1. It was in the triage room back in Cork that I realised, with a wave of remorse breaking in between those of nausea, that I was still yet to join the French workforce, voluntarily or otherwise.

Lessons I began to wonder if I had learned anything from the experience. At first, my mind ran sullenly over the role external forces had played: the French Department did not allow students to travel to France for a full year as Junior Sophisters, and that the TSM office stipulated the somewhat inadequate Residence Abroad Requirement as the alternative. I was not proud of this response and a sudden flurry of very adult thoughts intermingled the next wave of nausea: my own time in France was my responsibility and if I wasn’t going to spend time to engaging with the powers that be in order to address the ways in which students feel restricted by the Erasmus program, I had to work with what I was given. Ultimately, I should have gone in my Senior Freshman year.

This apparent emotional growth all seemed a little too tidy, however. All of these revelations seemed a little obvious, the conclusion a little too easy. I began to wonder if this was a genuine life experience or just another good story I had spoiled by forcing a rather trite moral resolution. Had I been spared a genuinely improving experience, and two weeks hard labour, by a bone broken in humorous circumstances? Would I have suffered an even more serious, power tool related, injury in the Loire Valley as a significant portion of the family would like to believe? Did the location of the accident invest the incident with a certain unwarranted charm?

Did an affirmative answer to any of these questions doom me to further Fosterian flatness of character? Would I ever learn? At any rate, I looked into my empty wallet and was thankful that I at least had an alternative currency upon which I could dine out over the coming months.

Tom Healy looks at the challenges facing new graduates, and offers possible alternatives to forced emigration.

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Reflections on Iranian student life In the first of a series of articles, Daire Collins reflects on the incredible contrast between Irish and Iranian student life.

W Daire Collins

hen one thinks of Iranian students, the first thing that springs to mind is 1979; the year of the “student driven” Islamic Revolution. The US Embassy in Tehran was invaded, and 55 American consulate staff were held as hostages for 444 days. It was an international crisis which did ineradicable damage to President Jimmy Carter’s popularity, and set the tone for Iran’s international position for years to come.

Time moves on, but our image of Iran remains fairly stagnant, entrenched by the West’s depiction of power-hungry Islamic extremists.

The last ten years have been hectic for those in Iran, beginning in 2005 with the disastrous reign of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A deeply unpopular and belligerent president, through his influence the country’s Western relations became increasingly strained with every passing year, leading to Iran ultimately being completed estranged from the wider world. So where do Iranian students lie now? If they aren’t the Qu’ran thumping, zealot descendents of the US embassy attackers, what is life for them like?

Religion

Multimedia Editor

Religion permeates every sphere of life in Iran, and universities are no exception. Whether it be private or public, students can feel the ubiquity of the state-sanctioned religious interpretations.

Every morning upon entering university, students are subjected to appearance checks by Basiji, or religious trainees. This is to ensure that every student is complying with the Iranian religious standards for dress, which entails a special type of hijab for women and little to no makeup. Their

strife may soon come to an end, however; the state is beginning to relax religious laws. A type of detente is taking place, as the government attempts to placate a generation of angry young people, who have grown weary of political oppression.

This has led to students taking each written law with a pinch of salt, unconcerned with strict adherence. It has now become more common and acceptable for unmarried women to be seen in public with men who are unrelated to them. While this has always been done in practice, police dole out punishments more frequently; verbal warnings, however, are still frequent. University cafes and restaurants remain segregated, with students retreating to the courtyards to eat with friends of the opposite sex. Segregation is even imposed in the lecture hall; compulsory religious and sexual education classes are taught by and for only women or men.

These classes are graded, so it is possible to fail. These tests serve to determine whether each student has successfully been indoctrinated with the moral teachings surrounding conversing with unrelated members of the opposite sex, and whether they have been discouraged from using contraception when married.

This practice follows in line with Iran’s complex and confusing application of its strict religious laws. Currently, the government seems opting for a more pragmatic interpretation, in an attempt to stem the wave of antigovernment action. This action reached a climax in 2009 with the Green Revolution, a largescale demonstration decrying the political victory of Ahmadinejad.

Talking to students, it was clear that any projection of the anti-

Illustration: Natalie Duda government sentiment was only possible if the University administration agreed to it. In the case of one student, their University head wholeheartedly supported the protests and accommodated for mass student action on campus. However, these demonstrations led not to a change in government, but to a harsh crackdown, imprisonment and the death of some protestors.

Last year, things began to change. Ahmadinejad was defeated in a general election and Dr. Rouhani took over, widely seen an intentional move by those in power allowing a relatively liberal candidate to win. Under Rouhani, the use of the religious laws has relaxed and life for students seems to have improved minorly.

In every other sense, during the past year, life for Iranians has been as hard as ever. The inter

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Religion permeates every sphere of life in Iran, and universities are no exception.

nationally imposed penalties and embargos has crippled the internal market for goods and the price of standard produce has dramatically increased.

Politics For now, anti-government sentiments in university are resigned to notice boards, where leaflets are pinned under the cover of darkness. The recent Draconian crackdown and the older generations memory of the execution of 100,000 people in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution means that politics, while constantly the topic of debate, rarely attracts students to publicly pledge allegiance to opposition parties. The only political image being represented on campus is the government perspective, with hardline religious students promoting Is

lamic holidays and encouraging others to a take more active role in Islam.

The complexities and intricacies of Iranian life are incredibly different to discuss and describe in a mere short article. Life is difficult, and the state oppressive. People’s experiences differ so much that its almost impossible to gain a well-rounded understanding what it is truly like.

Undoubtedly, however, the freedom of speech that we in Ireland may take for granted would be like gold dust in Iran, a world of things unsaid and inalienable rights denied.

Not in my name Michael Lanigan looks at the JewishAmerican reaction to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

O Michael Lanigan Online Features Editor

n 29th July, the Israeli consulate in midtown Manhattan played reluctant host to a large act of solidarity with the Palestinian people. This non-violent gathering provoked enough of a reaction when twenty-six demonstrators - including the Jewish political scientist Norman Finkelstein - lay down on the crossroads, obstructing traffic.

Almost instantly, a line of police advanced, each brandishing a fistful of plastic cuffs to mute the disquiet. As a result, the area surrounding 41st and 42nd street on Second Avenue was strictly monitored by police in the following days, with barriers erected restricting pedestrian access, while the Israeli flag vanished with haste.

Two day later, a similar expression of anger occurred in Washington outside the Israeli embassy, with a number of Jewish protestors calling for the recognition of Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal. These people also ended up detained, this time, for simply refusing to leave when told to by the authorities.

Dissent From this sprang the important factor of Jewish dissent to Israel’s action, which received scarcely any coverage in America’s media outlets save for The Nation.

Instead, such groups came up against the argument that their case for Palestinian justice was but a minor fraction of Jewish opinion, while the vast majority apparently believe the Gaza assaults to be a just battle between ‘Good and Evil’. That last quote came from an op-ed published in the Algemeiner on September 1st New York Times’ entitled The Holocaust Blood Libel by Irwin Graulich, an Israeli motivational speaker.

In said article, Graulich launched a scathing attack on such Jewish voices, but in particular, a group of 327 Holocaust survivors and their relatives for taking out an advert in the New York Times that lamented the ‘extreme racist dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli society’.

The inspirational Zionist sought to diminish their claims, first by pointing that only 14 actually had genuine experience in the concentration camps, while 26 were either babies, or too young to appreciate the event and true meaning of Zionism.

Following this up by labelling them ‘traitors’, he then proceed-

ed to add to the notion that Zionism and Judaism are a single entity. The observation being wholly counterproductive to safety, since it continues to stoke the flames of the crisis for both Palestinians and the apparently self-hating Jews living outside Israel, now enduring a new onset of antiSemitic attacks across Europe at present, regardless of their actual political viewpoint. These violent mobs have been able to use such vicious rhetoric to strengthen their case, while mobilising under the guise of pro-Palestine organisations, exploiting vulnerable Muslim lower class opinions, particularly in France.

Conversation This came up in a conversation that I had with an Israeli friend who had recently returned to New York, following a lengthy stay in the city of Acre, bringing to my attention the scale and detrimental effect of this reaction. We met up at a bar in Manhattan’s lower east side, which is an area densely populated by Hasidic Jewish families, quite a significant number, I might add having taken to the streets to air their grievances against the Knesset, brandishing signs stating that they stand with the Palestinians.

My friend was clearly distressed as she described how her gentile friends often addressed her as if she were a Netanyahu sympathiser and though she expressed her profound adoration for the country, the recent turn of events left an underlying cynicism in her every word. Of course, she said, it was heartbreaking to learn of the ever-mounting body count in Gaza, but there was a tendency by many to discount the deaths on one side, weighing the two in opposition, as opposed to counting each and every life in and of itself.

Explaining what she meant by this, she told me that one of her close friends had been amongst the +70 IDF soldiers killed during the ground assault.

France Following this up, she said that in France, another group of her friends had found themselves with little other option than to migrate to Israel as a new wave of right wing thugs were thriving in this global political climate, reviving anti-Semitic thought across the country with relative ease.

Apparently, in Paris there were signs outside cafés reading “No

Jews”, while similar occurrences have been reported in Belgium since early August. On a more worrying level, this has escalated from discrimination into fully-fledged attacks with the firebombing of synagogues in Sarcelles, Paris; Bergische in Wuppertal and the daubing of swastikas on Jewish shops in Italy. These misrepresentations of the Palestinian cause, in the case of France are stemming from neo-Nazi grassroots organisations that provoked the French government to outlaw protests, due to the rise in fascist slogans and chants appearing at antiIsraeli rallies. The issue seems to have sprouted from disillusioned and marginalised Muslim areas of society, which do not necessarily hate Israel, but are reacting against Hollande’s government by any means possible.

With such sections of French society inflamed and manipulated

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A line of police advanced, each brandishing a fistful of plastic cuffs to mute the disquiet.

by hard-line right wingers, it heralds another repeat of oversimplified historic misinterpretation echoing back to when Hitler was able to exploit the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini during the initial mass migration of Jewish people to Palestine in the 1930’s and 40’s. In much similar a fashion, former Front Nationale and outright Neo-Nazi organisations have been able to exploit a mood, giving credence to the notion that all pro-Palestine voices are therefore antiSemitic and ergo, anti-American.

If there is anything that can be taken from this situation, then it ought to be the fact that the mobilising anti-Semites do not hold any interest in the well-being of Palestinians. Instead, their ambition is to oust vast swathes of each local Jewish population, much to the approval of Israel’s Zionist supporters, which in turn gives further justification for expan

n into Gaza and the West Bank.

This is the casting of more petrol onto the bonfire, keeping the vicious circle going on ad infinitum.It has the potential to aid the decimation of the Palestinians in the process, while turning Israel furthermore into the very thing that motivated them to found a safe homeland, wherein the term Nazi, the Knesset is in the process of outlawing, which is certainly going to be convenient in the coming months.

Tuesday 16th September 2014

TRINITY NEWS

10

Editorial Student media must not lose its edge

I

Catherine Healy Editor

n October 2005, details of the first documented instance of US-funded military research in an Irish university were uncovered by an Irish newspaper. Between 2002 and 2004, it was revealed, College had received funding from the US Air Force for a research project on self-organising wireless networks that could potentially have been used by US forces in remote areas of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The news was met with broad criticism from political parties as well as youth groups, and went on to be raised as an issue in Leinster House. It was a major investigative story broken not by a national media outlet, but by Trinity News, College’s independently-run student newspaper.

Student newspapers are unrivalled when it comes to uncovering instances of undue influence, financial impropriety and discrimination in the third-level sector. The most obvious reason for this is the insight of our network of on-the-ground contacts and reporters. As our coverage increasingly extends beyond campus walls, however, our most important asset is our editorial independence.

Trinity News was not afraid to publish details of the firing of award-winning journalist Gemma Doherty by Independent News and Media in October 2013 after she revealed that penalty points had been wiped from Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan’s driving record. Along with The Phoenix, we were the only Irish media outlet to document her treatment at the hands of Stephen Rae, editor-in-chief of the Independent titles and former editor of the Garda Review, the official magazine of the Garda Representative Association (GRA).This is just one example of how we have tried, in recent years, to hold people in po-

sitions of power and privilege in wider society to account.

We are proud of this tradition, just as we are proud that our college-orientated coverage has generated much debate in recent months on campus over crucial third-level issues such as privatisation.

Student media faces new challenges too. The decline of advertising revenue and recent cuts to publications’ funding from College has left us with fewer resources than previous years. But, as our focus increasingly shifts to online coverage, our role as the fourth pillar of student democracy remains the same.

It is our responsibility to ensure that student voices are, if not listened to, at least heard by corporate-minded university bureaucrats as education becomes increasingly commercialised in the third-level sector. This academic year will be a critical period in mapping out the future of College. The launch of a new fiveyear strategic plan in October will outline the university’s direction until 2019, and, if events of recent months are anything to go by, its values will be neo-liberal, geared toward the idea of education for economy rather than education for society.

Cuts to student services, the opening a new office for “corporate partnership and knowledge exchange” and the announcement of plans for a new business school to drive “entrepreneurial culture” are all testament to College’s increasingly techno-bureaucratic vision of our university since the beginning of the last academic year.

Strong student voices and opinion are needed now more than ever. We accept this challenge as another academic year begins.

Let your voice be heard

T

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Our responsibility is to ensure that student voices are, if not listened to, at least heard by university bureaucrats as education becomes increasingly commercialised.

Matthew Mulligan Editor-at-Large

hink back to that sunny day in August that has led almost all of you to be here clambering around the society stands, figuring out where the Academic Registry is and generally having a ball. On results day, the media and political landscape is more focused on young people and their lives more so than any other time during the year. Smiling student faces are wheeled in front of cameras and microphones to talk about hard work, hopes for a good future and the ever looming Smart Economy. Maybe you were on the front of a newspaper, or were held up as an example of how education reform is working? The day after you’re a college student, and you’re old news; a statistic lost in the grant system, a figure off the dole queue and someone who is entering third level education at a time where the voices of young people are drowned out by shinier, less problematic stories.

Don’t let your voice be drowned out. Use all of the opportunities granted to you during this brief part of your life in Trinity. Activism, media, and student politics are all places where you can make a difference and be heard.

You are starting life in an institution unequivocally woven into the fabric of our capital city and just as the city surrounds us, so too do the instruments of our country’s politics. You will see the ugly, grey faced monolith which houses the Department of Health jut up from between the Dining Hall and the GMB. Your professor will end his Introduction to Economics lecture on a Wednesday morning and proceed to make the ten minute stroll up to his seat in the Seanad. Almost every protest and demonstration that happens in Dublin will snake through College Green on its way to nearby government buildings.

The drums, whistles and chants

will temporarily break the idyllic silence of Front Square; you will be reminded of where you are and wonder why you are absent on the march.

Lend your ears not to the PR executives and former TDs who sit in a cozy circle with their newspapers on the Sunday morning radio shows, but to the stories being told by young people all over our city. Find the communal creative spaces where art is developing and performers infuse their real experiences into what they do. Look at how they tell the emigration tale, how they talk about those who have had to leave. They saw their friends and family working for the minimum wage, living in dilapidated flats and having to solely eat beans at the end of every month. They know the real stories of economic migration behind the Irish Times headlines of “adventure seekers” and four out of five emigrants having employment.

Those who now walk in the corridors of power in our country were once bright young Freshers who sauntered through the same archway as you did and took stock of everything on offer. They signed up for the youth wings of their parties, joined student publications and took up student union politics. Remind them of the vigour and passion they’re convinced they had at your age. Make yourselves as visible as they were and keep your convictions. Don’t be complicit in letting the electoral register and weekday voting be weapons against students. Resist attempts to weaken campaign groups and student media. Object to being left out in the cold when decisions are made regarding student life and accommodation and supports and be vocal about your lives and experiences. Leave the gate open for everyone to come through.

Fail, succeed, try again

D D. Joyce Ahearne Deputy Editor

isregard all advice that is directed to you as a “student”. It’s a trap.

Being a “student” does not make you someone different from who you were in sixth year or who you’ll be after you’ve gotten a degree.

“Student” is not a period set aside to tick boxes. If you hope not to be living in squalor in ten years, why would you want to do it now? If you hope not to be living with your parents in ten years then why go home every weekend? You don’t live at home anymore. College is not a five night sleepover before you really move out. Get a Christmas tree for your flat. Wash your own clothes. This is not your first go at being a “grown up”. That’s not how time works.

College is not four years to “do student” to be followed by an undetermined period in which to “do work”, or worse, “do adult”.

Life is not divided into phases in which to do child, do student, do work, do marriage, do parenthood, retire, garden, die. Fortu-

nately that’s not how time works.

Time is all one big go.

But what college does give you is more time than you probably had before to explore and think.

And it gives you a place, people and information to do it in and with. College gives you time to think about life, where it’s taken you thus far and where you want to take it next.

College gives you time to try and figure out what’s good for you and hopefully you can keep that up for good, not just for four or five or six years. Use your time here to try things, fail, succeed, figure out what works for you and then try to make the rest of your life as much like that as possible.

Realise that these are not the best years of your life. That’s bullshit fed to you by those who aren’t enjoying life anymore and who want to curb you once you enter their world.

College is not a prescribed period allowed to young people to get all their thinking and drinking out of the way. Don’t waste

time making these the best years of your life as if it’s all downhill from here. It’s not. Time doesn’t go down. Try to make the best of life period, it’s all the best years.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy college because of how you live and what you do while you’re here. If you learn anything it should be that when you stop being a “student” you’re not going to change wholesale. What’s good about college is what’s good about life, there’s no distinction.

Don’t just do something because you’re a student and in ten years you don’t stop yourself from doing things because you’re not a student. Don’t spend four years being 21 and then the next 30 being 51. What’s good’s good, baby.

Activism, alcohol, drugs, learning, debate, discussion, whatever you’re having yourself, do not end with your degree. There is not a finite amount of knowledge or wine in the world, thankfully. It’s all one big go. Enjoy.

Ireland the most unequal nation in Europe for students

I James Bennett Contributing Editor

rish students are among the least financially independent in Europe, according to recent statistics from Eurostudent. The EUsponsored organisation, whose stated aim is “to collate comparable data on the social dimension of European higher education”, has published a report that examines the financial situations of students across Europe. According to the report, titled “Evolving Diversity”, the average Irish student receives 69% of their total income from their family, with 20% coming from work and 11% from the state.

Portugal is the only country that surpasses Ireland in terms of students’ dependence on their families, with Portuguese students receiving 72% of their total income from their parents. In Eastern Europe, parental financial contribution is minimal, with the dominant source of income being the student’s own job. In Slovakia, the average student receives 8% of their total income from family, with the remaining 92% coming from their own employment.

The survey also examined the importance of the state as an in-

come source for European students. State support is dominant in Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK and Finland. The average student in these countries receives more than 40% of their income from the state. State support of students in Sweden is the highest, with an average of 63% of income coming from government funds.

The report also provides statistics on inequality. While the statistical model of calculating averages across all students in a country is useful for a broad assessment of the state of higher education, it fails to account for differing gross income levels among students. Eurostudent calculated the extent to which the richest 20% and the poorest 20% of students deviated from the median student income. These statistics showed that Ireland is the most unequal country in Europe for students. The top 20% of students in Ireland have an income that is 88% higher than the average.

The income of the bottom 20% of students is 66% lower than the average. Sweden is the most equal country for students according to these statistics, with the richest students being 33% above the av-

erage and the poorest 17% below.

Inequality in higher education in Ireland recently came into focus again when the Higher Education Authority (HEA) published figures that showed rates of progression to third-level across different geographical areas and social groups. The discrepancy across the counties was relatively small, with averages staying between 40% and 60%. However, there were staggering gaps between the Dublin postcodes. 99% of school-leavers in Dublin 6 went on to higher education last year, while in Dublin 10 the figure was 16%. The children of farmers are the most likely social group to enter higher education according to the HEA statistics.

Labour minister Jan O’ Sullivan, who was given the education brief in July’s cabinet reshuffle, has said tackling inequality in higher education will be her main priority. Speaking to the Irish Examiner in August, she said that she would like government to “compensate where parents don’t have the resources at home or they don’t have the tradition of moving through the education system.”

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Catherine Healy D. Joyce Ahearne Naoise Dolan Matthew Mulligan James Bennett Daire Collins Natalie Duda Kevin O'Rourke Mariam Ahmad James Wilson Fionn McGorry Clare Droney James Prendergast Eva Short Michael Stone Michael Lanigan William Foley Conor McGlynn Fionn Rogan Dylan Lynch Aidan Murray Luke McGuinness Alicia Lloyd Gavin Cooney Louis Strange William Earle A'Hern, Charles Croome Carroll

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Trinity News is partially funded by a grant from DUPublications 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

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Comment

Will Foley castigates the critics of Che Guevara merchandise, and makes the case for those who spread the revolution through the mechanism of capitalistic reproduction itself..

p.15

Illustration: Natalie Duda

Bridging the arts and sciences divide

Ryan Connolly suggests that the gap that separates the two sides of campus is not as broad as it might seem.

T Ryan Connolly Staff Writer

he first time I was really struck by the divide between the arts and sciences was during a Leaving Cert Physics class. Our teacher was curious to see what we were hoping to do after secondary school, so he asked the class what courses they had applied for. Almost everybody in the room was hoping to do Science or Engineering, with one or two going into the health sciences. I was the odd one out who wanted to do English. Almost everybody in my school who wanted to go into the humanities stayed away from the sciences, except for the few who studied Biology because they thought it was an easy A. For all of its flaws, the one thing I think the Leaving Cert does well is give students the choice of so many different subjects in very different fields, so that a student could be doing a combination of, say, Spanish, Latin, Chemistry, Religion, Economics and Metalwork, provided their school offers all of those subjects. But it seemed like people for the most part chose subjects that led them into their particular course, often because their parents wanted them to study something ‘useful’ for the degree they wanted to do.

At Trinity the divide between the two areas was even more apparent, with lecturers often joking about how arts and science students were not meant to be mixed. The split is nicely symbolised by the Arts Block and Hamilton being located on opposite ends of the campus.

Why do we have this divide between the Arts and Sciences

at third level, compared to the students of previous eras? One issue is that there is now simply too much knowledge for one person to learn. Whereas once upon a time there could be a ‘Renaissance man’ like Leonardo Da Vinci who could become an expert in engineering, anatomy, art and more besides, there is now too much specialised knowledge available in each discipline for one person to be an expert in all of them. A student cannot study everything there is to know in multiple areas of knowledge, and so they must choose to focus on a particular subject. But this does not mean that a student can’t have a basic understanding of a variety of fields.

Education geared toward the workplace Another issue is that modern university degrees have become much more geared toward preparing students for the workplace, rather than being primarily centres for the advancement of knowledge and learning for their own sake. Whereas in the past the university was the preserve of a small, educated elite who were perhaps more inclined towards academia for its own sake, nowadays it is seen as an almost essential rite of passage to finding work in a crowded and competitive jobs market. A large portion of job training in our society has shifted from apprenticeships and other forms of on-the-job experience towards university degrees, with the result being that those

degrees now have a narrower focus.

Subject crossover But is this narrowing of focus and division of the various areas of knowledge necessarily negative?

I would argue that it is. In literature it is important to have at least some level of understanding about other areas of knowledge in order to comprehend any given book. To fully appreciate books written centuries ago it is necessary to know something about the history and cultural milieu of the time in which they were written; subjects like philosophy and theology have a huge bearing on the literature of the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment, (to give just two examples), and the scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century had a major impact on the literature of that era.

All knowledge is interconnected and each area of study impacts on all of the others. Atomising knowledge into a large number of distinct subjects and creating a further divide between the humanities in one corner and the sciences in another gives us an artificial view of a world neatly separated into distinct, unrelated categories, a world which bears no resemblance to the one in which we actually live.

A university should aim to educate students and give them the tools to understand the world better. If students had more of an opportunity to study various different areas of knowledge at third level, they would be better

placed to appreciate other disciplines and perhaps gain new perspectives and insights on their own specialty area by seeing how it relates to other branches of academia. They would also be exposed to new ideas and new ways of thinking that they would not necessarily come across in their own discipline, and would hence be able to gain a better understanding of the world around them.

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Creating a divide between the humanities in one corner and the sciences in another gives us an artificial view of a world neatly separated into distinct, unrelated categories.

A science student who took history classes might gain new insight into the real-world consequences of scientific research, whether it be the positive effects on society of the discovery of penicillin and vaccines or the incredible destructive power of chemical and nuclear weapons.

By taking literature classes they might see how science impacted the popular imagination in earlier eras, and indeed how science has in turn been influenced by the ideas imagined in science fiction.

An art, film or literature student might derive inspiration for a new work by studying the incredible intricacy and beauty of the natural world through science classes. And studying a new language always has the benefit of being able to engage with academic research from other parts of the world, whether in the sciences or the humanities. These are just a few examples.

International lessons Many liberal arts degrees in the US start out their programs like this, offering a wide array of subjects from both the humanities and sciences in the first year or two and allowing students to narrow their range as they go through college, eventually to focus in one area. This system has its disadvantages, such as the longer length of time it takes to specialise in an area, but it also has the benefit of giving students a more comprehensive education and giving them the opportunity to sample different disciplines

and to see where they might like that specialty to be. To be fair, Trinity and other Irish universities have made efforts to address this, offering the chance to take a module in another department through the Broad Curriculum program, but it is still only a limited amount of interaction with a different department.

There is probably not a huge appetite amongst the college leadership to make more radical changes to the way college functions, given the cutbacks taking place and the current culture of university being seen as a springboard to get into the workforce, but that needn’t hold students back. There is no reason why a science student can’t pick up and read a Shakespeare play, a Dickens novel, or a book about medieval history; and likewise an arts student can always try and give a popular science book a read or pay a visit to some of the Science Gallery exhibits. There might not be a degree on offer for doing so, but nonetheless it’s worth trying something new. Universities might keep science and arts students in their separate boxes, but they can’t confine our curiosity and hunger for knowledge to one small specialty – unless we allow them to.

Educated to emigrate Tom Healy looks at the challenges facing new graduates and offers possible solutions to forced emigration.

C Tom Healy Contributor

ollege has traditionally been seen as a passport to a well-paying job.

Until the 1980s, third level was seen as the privilege of fewer than half of school leavers. The Leaving Certificate was a passport to many employments, from the civil service to the banks, to companies like CIE and ESB. Today, a higher education qualification at degree level is the minimum entry requirement to many soughtafter jobs.

You know that the labour market has changed beyond all recognition when postgraduates join the ranks of thousands applying for the first stage of a temporary clerical officer position in the civil service. Recruitment to posts such as third secretary or administrative Oofficer are severely restricted as the ban on any significant recruitment stays in place.

Graduate emigration

A story was recently carried in the media of 18 qualified teachers in the Donegal Gaeltacht parish of Gaoth Dobhair who have emigrated – 13 to Qatar and the rest to Australia.

In the private sector there are opportunities for some graduates in new and up and coming sectors and occupations such as information and communication technology, and in some areas of

business, finance and technology.

Signs of a recovery in construction, especially in large urban areas, suggest a recovery in demand for graduates in some disciplines.

However, overall, the picture still looks depressing, with echoes of the late 1980s. The choice for many is between emigration or assimilation into the ranks of the new precariat reliant on sometimes questionable internships, low pay, below-their-skill jobs and lack of hours or progression. Estimates by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show a heavy concentration of higher education graduates among those emigrating.

Yet, the CSO estimate a significant (and rising) number of higher education graduates among those immigrating into Ireland (and these are not likely to be mainly Irish nationals returning from a stint abroad). The fragile economic recovery that can be observed is having a different impact across different regions, groups and age-brackets.

Employment started to recover significantly in 2013 but to everyone’s surprise, perhaps, it benefited some of the following: the selfemployed, males, persons over 35 years of age, agriculture and hospitality/tourism related businesses. All very welcome even if

subject to some statistical estima tion reservations.

Precarious work In the meantime, many young highly qualified Irish men and

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The choice for many is between emigration or assimilation into the ranks of the new precariat.

women will be forced to emigrate because of a lack of job opportunities. Many emigrate not only because there is a lack of employment but because there is a lack of sustainable well-paying jobs in the areas in which they have studied and qualified.

If Ireland needs a break from austerity with some pay-back then we should think about targeting quality training, employment growth and inclusion at the younger end of the labour market. The gradual reduction in jobs seekers’ allowance to 100e per week for new entrants to the live register under the age of 26 in successive budgets sends out troubling signals. Does it suggest that Ireland is no country for young people who cannot find work or useful education and training?

Let’s hope that some of those qualified teachers from Gaoth Dobhair will return some day to teach a new generation the foundational skills for how to run businesses, banks, public services and the political economy differently.

Dr. Tom Healy is the director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute.

Illustration: Maria Kavanagh

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Comment

13

Votes speak louder than clicks

Dee Courtney asks students supporters of marriage equality for more than passive support. really mind whether marriage equality passes?

Voting is a hassle for some people – getting to the polling station, taking time out of their day, and what if it rains? Simple, everyday things like rain and traffic decrease turnout, particularly with an issue that affects a minority of the population. I’ve spoken to quite a few students who believe in marriage equality, but aren’t registered. Students could be a big help to passing this referendum, but they are far less likely to vote than older people. Some of that is down to referendums being scheduled on weekdays, when students studying away from home can’t go back to vote, but that didn’t apply to the Children’s referendum and turnout was still abysmal.

Importance of voting

T Dee Courtney Staff Writer

his piece won’t try to convince you that, assuming you vote in the marriage equality referendum, you should vote yes. I’m sure most Trinity students are already convinced. It’s not enough to agree with the Yes side: you also need to actually vote. The Journal.ie’s polls say the Yes side has the vast majority of people’s support.

You may think that means we shouldn’t be worried, but they thought the divorce referendum would pass by a landslide. Support plummeted at the last minute because the No side made people afraid for society. They scared people with questions of land and tax law, but also with the idea that divorce would irreparably damage the public good of marriage. Undecided voters were scared into thinking it was too big a change, something that could uproot their lives. We may all think marriage equality is a sure

thing, but that attitude could cause problems.

Difficult referendum Referendums are hard to win in Ireland. Why? People are afraid of change. The status quo suits them, especially if they themselves aren’t affected by the lack of rights for LGBT families. It’s easy to be swayed by statements like ‘Marriage works. Why redefine it?’ Marriage does work for the people we’re talking about, and many of them don’t know any LGBT families.

When every piece of news and media you see depicts marriage as something for men and women, when every family you know is a straight one and when people are making subtle suggestions thatl esbians are worse for children than straight parents, it’s easy for you to be ignorant of the facts.

The No campaign are well fund-

ed, well used to dealing with campaigns, and they have the idea of ‘normality’ on their side.

LGBT families Most of the arguments I hear against marriage equality have little to do with people thinking gay people don’t deserve to get married; it’s far more common to hear things like ‘I just don’t think it’s fair on the kids.’ People aren’t aware of the fact that children from LGBT families are fine, and why should they make themselves aware? Equal representation of both sides in the media means they’ll get plenty of opinion pieces that back up the biases they already have.

It’s easy to sway undecided voters at the last minute; look at the Children’s Referendum, an easy win that became narrow towards the end when people panicked at the idea that it might make things

worse for disabled children or undermine families. People panic at the last minute and vote for what they know. Government involvement can also break a referendum campaign when people are unhappy with the current state of things. Every political party will use marriage equality to get votes, but they may end up damaging the Yes campaign if people view marriage equality as something Enda’s poisonous, elitist government is trying to force on them.

Of course we can win. We just need to remember what we’re dealing with. The No side have their issues as well; as Panti Bliss wisely said in Trinity last year, they have no emotional truth on their side. I have no doubt that we have the majority of Irish people on our side, but how much do most people care? Does the average person who ticked the ‘yes’ box in the Journal’s poll really

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They have no emotional truth on their side.

The No voters will get out and vote, because they believe that a Yes will affect them negatively.

But Yes voters, amidst the polls and campaigns, will believe the referendum will pass, and then why should they bother voting?

One vote won’t make a difference, and it will pass anyway. If enough voters think like that, we could lose.

If you care at all about the result of this referendum, don’t get complacent. Register; it’s easy. The SU will be having several drives throughout the year. And vote.

Your vote does matter, because this isn’t as sure as you think it is.

And why should you care? Do you have any LGBT friends? Friends who parents are LGBT? I guarantee you this matters to at least some of them. And even if you don’t, you should want Ireland to be more equal. Equal rights for families means more children are better off; it means schools have to become more welcoming and it means a better society.

This isn’t about trying to convince you that the Yes side is right; I’m trying to convince you that you need to vote. Imagine if the referendum didn’t pass and we had to wait another four years, maybe more, for a government to decide it’s time for another. There are other issues that LGBT rights advocates need to focus on: youth homelessness, bullying, transgender rights. Failure to pass this referendum means putting these issues off more; it means more time for families without adequate protection. Don’t let that happen.

Register and vote.

A different form of nationalism?

Ahead of the Scottish independence referendum on Thursday, John Porter examines the Scottish separatist movement in the context of other nationalist groups, and asks what really distinguishes the so-called ‘progressive’ movements from the reactionaries.

I

n two days Scottish voters will go to the polls to decide on a “once in generation” referendum. Until very recently there was a reasonable consensus that the Scots would vote No by a relatively narrow margin, which was reflected in all major polls. The 51 - 49 “Yes” prediction in a YouGov poll, published in the Sunday Times, quickly eroded this consensus, and, indeed, caused some real panic in UK financial and political circles. The pound slumped to a ten month low against the dollar, and the leaders of the three main parties in Westminster all travelled north for some emergency campaigning.

Key issues

John Porter Staff Writer

The debate on Scottish independence has been both impassioned and turgid at the same time, turgid because the debate has often settled onto a handful of questions, to which no one knows the answers: currency, oil revenue, nuclear weapons, EU membership. I am not saying these issues aren’t incredibly important, but that often those arguing on either side tend to go around in circles because they can’t give any answers. For this reason I will not repeat what has been said a thousand times before, but instead highlight some concerns that I believe are important, but which by and large have been absent from the discussion on Scottish independence.

Scotland is not the only locality in Europe with a major movement pushing for national independence. The Catalan and Basque movements are well known, but there are also calls for independence in some Italian regions. In March 2014 an un-official and non-binding poll of eligible voters in the region of Veneto, in which Venice is the capital, demonstrated tremendous support for liberation from Italy. 89.1 percent of those who voted, and 63.2 of all eligible voters did, cast their ballot for independence.

The government of Catalonia have announced that their ref-

erendum on independence will be held on Sunday 9th November this year. As in Veneto and in contrast to Scotland, this regional vote will not be recognised by the central government. In fact, the Spanish government have frequently asserted their desire to block any efforts at referenda by the autonomous regions.

Parallels We can draw parallels between these various movements, and the parallels become particularly striking when you consider the Catalan and the Scottish example.

Both sets of nationalists tend to present themselves as more enlightened and caring than their counterparts in the central government. In both the Catalan and the Scottish cases the regional, semi-autonomous governments, have enacted legislation of a more socialist nature, or at least you could say legislation that is more orientated toward social justice, than is the case in London or Madrid. Both the SNP and the CiU (Convergence and Union) have taken a stance against the austerity measures being implemented in the rest of their countries. For Scotland this has meant greater public spending per head than the rest of the UK. Likewise the Catalan regional government has refused to meet the 1 percent deficit reduction demanded by the Partido Popular in Madrid. Thus, both national movements and the parties leading them have positioned themselves as alternative versions to the neo-liberal ideologies dominating Europe and the world currently.

This has been possible due to another similarity. Both Scotland and Catalonia are prosperous regions. Tax revenue per head in Scotland is nearly £2,000 more than the UK average. Catalonia is one of the four autonomous communities that contributes the most to the state coffers; the others being Madrid, Valencia, and the Balearics. (A Catalan nationalist would point out that

three of the top four were Catalan speaking regions.) There has thus emerged a sense of injustice that both Scotland and Catalonia, as wealthy regions, are being shackled by the taxation and policies of political parties and institutions that many believe are alien to their national character. You will often hear Alex Salmond point out what the Scottish people have to fear if they remain in the Union – “another Tory government”.

Progressive?

In taking such a stance Scottish nationalists have been lauded by many left leaning commentators in the rest of the UK and Europe.

A number of articles have implored the Scots to get out while the going’s good, the authors seemingly unable to understand why anyone, apart from the super-rich, would willingly remain a part of the United Kingdom as it currently exists. I would query this progressive nationalism. If Scottish nationalists were truly concerned about the austerity measures of another Tory government, why are they willing to abandon those UK citizens living in less economically developed areas, such as, North East England, Wales, and my regional home, Northern Ireland?

Likewise, why are Catalan nationalists willing to leave the poorer Spanish regions, like Andalusia or Extremadura, to the mercy of the Madridistas? Can nationalists have it both ways? Can they claim to be concerned with all people in society and in the same breath say they are willing to abandon the poorest members of their current society to political parties they have repeatedly lambasted as being right-wing and reactionary?

Perhaps this is a harsh criticism, but it is a reminder that national movements require large helpings of collective selfishness and self-righteousness.

A comparison to the nationalist parties in Catalonia is what the SNP wants. It wants to be considered alongside “progressive”, leftleaning movements, and most

especially wants to be seen as redressing a historical wrong, i.e. conquest and cultural hegemony.

They do not want to be compared to UKIP. When UKIP had such outstanding success at the European elections Alex Salmond was quick to paint the party as an English one, and as essentially alien to the Scottish character, despite the fact that they won 10 percent of the vote north of the border.

Tapping into fear It is at least worth imagining, however, that UKIP and the SNP are part of the same phenomenon. They are both nationalist.

The SNP obviously are Scottish nationalists, and UKIP, whilst claiming to be a British party, in their cultural terms of reference should probably be described as English nationalists. Both parties have tapped into a widespread an

ger around the perception that the political system is broken; that politicians are distant and don’t speak for the average person; both parties perpetuate a fear and distrust of the centre for political advantage.

In the case of the SNP the central government of Westminster is the enemy, and with UKIP the EU government and EU bureaucracy are the main focus for vitriol and anxiety, although the Westminster establishment also receives explicit and implicit criticism. If you listen to the rhetoric deployed by Nigel Farage to justify leaving the EU and that used

by Alex Salmond to justify leaving the UK you would very much struggle to notice substantive differences. The essential message that recurs is “we are a separate people and can no longer be tied down by a Union that has no ben efits”.

Evidently there are substantial differences between the SNP and UKIP, and I realise I am setting myself up for scorn and venom even by making the comparison.

I simply wish to highlight some of the hypocrisy and sanctimony that is apparent when commentators opine on particular versions of nationalism. The Scottish and Catalan nationalist movements are allowed to present themselves as progressive and forward looking, whereas UKIP is lambasted as reactionary and dangerous.

Perhaps this is fair, but, don’t forget that it’s a short step from a liberating, broad-minded nationalist movement to a backward-looking intolerant one. Rarely have nationalist fervour and self-righteousness proven good bases on which to construct a state.

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Comment

Fionn Rogan takes us on a trip through New York’s singular streetscape, and hints at the good that underlies the gruff exterior.

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Ice bucket critics should chill out Liam Hunt tells us why we should not be swayed by the internet begrudgers, and instead focus on raising money for research into motor neurone disease.

w

Liam Hunt Staff writer

Photo: Catherine Healy e’re all terrible narcissists. Our lust for the validation of a Facebook “like” has gone so far that we have co-opted previously valuable charity campaigns in our constant search for the next trend that puts us at the centre of positive attention. It might dismay you to learn that I’m talking about the MND ice bucket challenge. In that case, you’ll be glad to know is that I’m going to spend the rest of this article telling you the above is horribly misguided.

Known as ALS in the States (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), Motor Neuron Disease is a neurological illness that attacks nerves in the brain and spinal chord. In the weeks since the MND Ice Bucket Challenge began, the Internet has been filled with people dumping ice-cold water over their heads. As of 29th August 2014 total donations have broken the $100 million mark, sourced from 3 million donors worldwide.

In the same period last year, the MND association collected $2.8 million. The campaign has been an undeniable financial success; indeed it may prove to be the definitive charitable social media success of a generation. I for one very much hope that it does.

Across College, groups have been taking up the challenge. Trinity’s leading neurologist, politicians and staff have drenched themselves in support of the IMNDA in late August. This newspaper was a proud participant itself.

Reaction However, despite the incredible projects and services that have been enabled by this influx of donations, the naysayers still circle.

The familiar grating calls of carrion-bird journalism that seeks so desperately to find the holes in the latest trend ring out surprisingly loudly across the internet.

This writing may well have the Challenge in its sights, but all the shots fall far wide of the target.

Slate’s Felix Salmon fires off a

salvo on the efficacy of donation.

He highlights the $100 million invested in MND research since 1985 which has produced, in his estimations, little or no gain. In fact, the opposite is true. In April of this year the Harvard Stem Cell Institute published encouraging findings on possible new therapeutic medication derived from patient stem-cells. Salmon also seems to ignore a glaring explanation for the lack of advancement in MND treatment, namely the lack of interest from big pharmaceuticals.

Developing new drugs costs billions in R&D, but MND represents a tiny base to sell product to (around 5,600 cases are diagnosed in the U.S. annually). The US government funds a so-called ‘orphan disease’ program to subsidize companies to develop treatments for neglected diseases like MND in recognition of this.

If MND organisations have the ability to do basic research, it may also encourage drug companies to develop MND treatments.

Moreover, Salmon’s concerns that there is no scope within the MND research community to capitalise on the influx of funding are poorly founded. Professor Orla Hardiman is Clinical Professor of Neurology in College. Along with members of her internationally renowned team of researchers working on identifying the causes of MND she took up the challenge some weeks ago. On the subject of the funds raised, she writes, “International consortia for MND are making great strides, and the funds generated will be put to good use within these consortia.” However, a breakthrough would have “huge ramifications for all types of neurodegeneration - including the commoner forms such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease.” Far from being ineffective, the money raised thus far has the potential to change the course of research into and treatment of a raft of diseases which inflict such

terrible suffering on so many.

Opportunity cost is the next line of attack for detractors. Salmon writes about a kind of “charity cannibalism”, but it is difficult to see how this is occurring. The challenge has clearly captivated a new demographic of largely younger, more technologically savvy donors and has done astonishing well as a result. Indeed, it isn’t really clear what Salmon’s problem with the challenge specifically is. Of course there is a finite amount of money available for donation; charities operate in a capitalist framework, for good or ill, and when looking for donations they are by definition competing against other causes.

Regardless, it is never good practice to cite opportunity cost as a barrier to investing resources in alleviating human suffering.

Why? Because it ask us to quantify suffering itself. Is a corollary of the argument presented that the MND should abandon all palliative care provision because there are more “efficient” ways to use its resources? Charities exist across a spectrum of advocacy, and we should be grateful for all of their work. The idea that we shouldn’t attempt to alleviate the suffering of people with MND because it is inefficient should leave an repulsive taste in our mouths.

Slacktivism?

Unsatisfied with feeble attempts to question the efficacy and legitimacy of the campaign, Arielle Pardes of VICE widens her scope to target internet activism in general. She lambasts it as a farce, an exercise in “pretending we care” because it’s “trendy”. We must thank her for reminding us that “social problems continue even after you stop hash tagging about them”. In discussing the red equals campaign that swept across Facebook immediately before the Supreme Court debate in the US on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), she writes

“Yes, DOMA was upended. No, it wasn’t because of your Facebook photo.”

This alludes to a bizarre misunderstanding of the value of social movements within social media.

Social media is an exercise in branding, in constructing a digital identity to present to a world where so many do the same. The value of being able to identify with a cause online is clearly of massive value, both to campaigners and those affected by a given issue. Imagine how encouraging it is being gay and seeing 3 million people across the world wear a badge proudly displaying that they believe in you. The social media face of charities and movements obviously don’t claim to solve social problems, but that doesn’t mean they are without value.

Pardes then raises the problem with people’s motives for donating. She attacks the rampant “narcissism” that she sees lurking beneath the surface of the campaign. Even if Pardes is right, what the challenge represents is MND campaigners identifying a means to encourage donation (narcissism) to the tune of $100 million. In the face of that kind of financial success, motives are irrelevant.

However, narcissism doesn’t rule here. The genius of the challenge is that it ties social validation to philanthropy. It is great that people think giving is the coolest thing going. Long may it continue; charities can imprint philanthropy into the social identity across the globe with just a few words of a challenge. That’s wonderful.

Moreover, Pardes seems to misunderstand the value of protest and identifying with a cause in a democracy. She tells us that we had no impact on changes to gay marriage policy. Does she think that the political will to pursue policy outcomes condenses out of thin air? Political will in democracy is born of social pressure,

and that pressure is ours to create. Smash against the glass walls of the State, rattle the bars and they’ll listen because they have to; cover the internet in the Red Equals sign and they cannot but take note.

Awareness While the ice bucket challenge is not a political campaign it benefits massively from the awareness raised. Questions have been raised about how much the challenge really is working for MND. Pardes points out that many videos don’t mention ALS at all.

I agree with Slate’s William Oremus that the challenge is not a perfect means to spread awareness. I too would much rather the 3 million people had donated and read a 5 page leaflet. The problem here is that wasn’t ever going to happen under the status quo.

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The genius of the challenge is that it ties social validation to philanthropy.

The campaigners have made it possible for their message and cause to reach millions, albeit imperfectly. Awareness isn’t just a buzzword that charities hide behind when campaigns don’t go well; it makes an enormous difference to peoples’ lives. If the challenge means that even one MND sufferer has a better life experience because strangers now have even a cursory understanding of the challenges they face, it was a resounding success.

The internet sages we’re battling are keen to tell us that we should volunteer our time, or campaign for MND if we really care. Until several weeks ago no one knew what Motor Neuron Disease was, and it is quite difficult to campaign for something you’re not aware of. Thanks to the challenge many people now are, and more widespread campaigns are now possible.

So let the normal practices of charity get singed. Let viral campaigning have its moment in the light. Let it show off. Don’t begrudge MND organisations for identifying our narcissism as a mechanism to get donations, and exploiting it to the tune of a $100 million success. Don’t let the internet sages fool you; in an age of social branding MND campaigners have shown us that its possible to make philanthropy all the rage. Professor Hardiman called the challenge “inspired” and she’s quite right. More than that, it has been a revelation. Keep plunging under icy cold water with zeal, safe in the knowledge that you’re making thousands of lives that little bit better.

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

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Misremembering a pointless war Neil Warner challenges those who seek to paint the First World War as a noble conflict, and warns that the lessons of history should not be so readily forgotten.

I Neil Warner Staff Writer

t is one of great clichés of historical interpretation that our perceptions of the past are very often more a reflection of the present than they are of the past itself. For this reason, debates about and memories of historical events (especially ones of enormous magnitude and symbolic significance) are often much more useful for what they reveal about the contemporary world in which they take place than they are about the original event itself.

The bicentenary of the French Revolution, in 1989, ended up becoming much more about unfolding events in Eastern Europe and intellectual attempts to bury Marxism than about anything that actually happened in France in 1989. The centenary of the American Civil War, in the 1960s, was inescapably caught up in the civil rights movement of the era. The centenaries of the independence movement in Ireland that will take place in a few years’ time will say much more about contemporary Irish politics, north and south, than about what materially took place in the country between 1916 and 1923.

downplay the significance of the massive waste, destruction and loss of life which it caused. This is evident, for example, in the change in tone surrounding Remembrance Sunday. World War II veteran Harry Leslie Smith wrote last year that November 2013 would be the last time he would wear a poppy, due to the change in atmosphere in the past ten years’ , from one of solemn remembrance to a celebration of the war itself and, indeed, of military conflict as a whole.

In all of this narrative basic, glaring and long-acknowledged aspects of the conflict are brushed under the carpet with remarkable audacity: the fact that Britain itself did not have even universal male suffrage in 1914, while Germany, though utterly undemocratic in many other respects, did; that their ally in the east was the hardly liberal and enlightened regime of Tsarist Russia; that Britain defended its entry into the war on the basis of the rights

Legacy

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But there can perhaps be few better and more relevant examples than the current contest that is taking place in Britain about the nature and legacy of the First World War, and the very dangerous attempts in certain parts of the UK establishment, among others, to rewrite the futile conflict of 1914 to 1918 as some kind of ‘just war’.

Not only have there been clear attempts this past year by the current right-wing UK government and the likes of Michael Gove and David Cameron to paint the First World War in a more noble light than it has conventionally come to have, but this year’s events seem symptomatic of a wider project in Britain to rehabilitate the war – to present it as a worthy fight for democracy with parallels to Britain’s role in the Second World War and by implication to

Laissez-faire capitalism is again dominant both ideologically and in practice and, like in 1914, remains seemingly irresistible at least in the immediate future.

of the Belgians after they had been committing genocide in the Congo; and that whatever universalistic goals any government had at the outbreak of the war were utterly irrelevant in the new world that had been unintentionally and bloodily forged by 1918, after the loss of millions of lives including the lives of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers and soldiers from Britain’s colonies.

Relevance All of this is wrong in and of itself in terms of the insult it does to history, and to significance of the lives lost in the war. But what makes these developments particularly worrying is that I do not think that this should be seen as merely an attempt at historical revisionism driven by nationalist wishful thinking. Rather, it may be a reflection of the direction in which Western society and politics as a whole has been going.

While the militarism which dominated European culture in 1914 and which helped lead it to war has thankfully for the most part not returned, in many other senses that world is much closer now to the way it was in 1914 than it has been at any stage in the last 100 years. The globalised economy in which we currently live is often said to be most comparable historically to the similar extensive integration of the international economy in the decades before the First World War. Laissez-faire capitalism is again dominant both ideologically and in practice and, like in 1914, remains seemingly irresistible at least in the immediate future in spite of growing tensions and dissatisfaction.

As a consequence, society now faces soaring wealth and income inequality that is increasingly compared to the ‘gilded age’ of the decades before 1914. Even more significant parallels are evident with respect to politics.

As in the era before the war, this economic system is supported by and in turn consolidates an increasingly oligarchic and ema-

oligarchic and emaciated political culture within a formally democratic system.

Party politics In the party political system, contemporary social-democratic parties have come to take on a role eerily reminiscent of early twentieth century liberals –ideologically confused, fractured and directionless, and possibly facing the same fate of increasing ir-

relevance and detachment from the most relevant developments in their societies. In the meantime, the absence of effective opposition contributes to a general conservative electoral hegemony within a broadly disenchanted body politic.

As the mass-based democracy that rejected the values of the World War I era fade, it is not surprising, then, that the same values which helped to justify the war at the time are coming

to regain some of their lost appeal among a similar ruling elite.

The utterly elitist and imperialistic politic of the UK and the rest of Europe 1914 can at last be once again plausibly presented as symptomatic of “democracy” because accepted conceptions of “democracy”, as reflected in our society and economy now, are again coming to resemble the shell-like façade it was at the beginning of the 20th century.

Wear it with pride

William Foley castigates the critics of Che Guevara merchandise, and makes the case for those who spread the revolution through the mechanism of capitalistic reproduction itself..

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On a Tuesday night in the summer I tried to paint a train bridge that spans Portobello Road in West London with posters showing the revolutionary icon Che Guevara gradually dribbling off the page. Every Saturday the market underneath the bridge sells Che Guevara t-shirts, handbags, baby bibs and button badges. I think I was trying to make a statement about the endless recycling of an icon by endlessly recycling an icon. People always seem to think if they dress like a revolutionary they don’t actually have to behave like one.” Thus spake Banksy.

Criticism

William Foley Comment Editor

As usual, the celebrity graffiti artist (who now makes a living selling “street art” to rich people) was not being quite as subversive or as original as he thought. Banksy’s point has been made many times by sneering conservatives, superior liberals, and not a few snobbish leftists. The criticism has been so often repeated that it has become part of the Guevara tshirt cliché itself. The charges are threefold: those who buy Che tshirts are fakes – faux-revolutionists who think that buying a shirt is a substitute for actual political action; they are also hypocrites or patsies – they either ignore or are ignorant of the fact that Che merchandise is manufactured by profit-seeking capitalists, the very people that Guevara regarded as class enemies; and, finally, they are naïve or callous, neglectful of the Argentinian revolutionary’s bloodthirsty desire to liquidate his opponents.

In this article I’d like to rebut these charges. I won’t linger for long over the third accusation – that Guevara was a sort of Marxist berserker driven into murderous frenzies by his hatred of the bourgeoisie. To refute this properly would require a longer column.

All I’ll say is that the use of political violence is not something which is always and in every situation wrong. Any even partly-honest person will admit that there are certain historical situations, or at least certain hypothetical scenarios, in which it is justified.

So I don’t think it was unethical to use guns to overthrow a dictator, as the Cuban revolutionaries did, but I think it would have

been politically preferable to base the military force on an organised labour movement.

the free development of all.”

This story is, of course, only a personal anecdote. There aren’t any statistics on the number of people who have bought Che tshirts and subsequently became socialists. Still, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that others may have followed the same path.

The prevalence of Guevara’s image has almost certainly inspired people to find out who he was and why he did the things he did – in short, far from being politically empty, it has served a certain propaganda purpose for the cause that Che and his fellow revolutionaries espoused.

First encounter Anyway, now that we’ve set aside the historical question we can consider the other two charges in a semi-unified manner. As you might have guessed, I own a Che Guevara t-shirt. I don’t wear it much anymore – not because I’m embarrassed about it, but because it’s a bit old and tattered now and has a big hole in the back. I bought it around seven years ago in a depressing and charmless tourist town near Barcelona. At the time that I bought it, I might well have been considered the very person that the t-shirt-despisers have in mind when they picture the average Che-merch consumer. I was very politically naïve and had only the faintest idea of what the words capitalism or communism denoted. I also had, at best, a very foggy notion as to who the guy with the beard and the beret was.

(In my defence, I was fourteen.)

Back in Ireland, I wore the tshirt to the swimming pool one evening. I used to go there every week to do lifeguard training.

The training was dull but I had a friend who also went there who I liked to talk to while we were togging in and out in the dingy changing rooms. My friend was, at the time, a rampant supporter of Fine Gael (though later on he crossed the tracks and joined Sinn Féin). So when I wore the Che t-shirt to training one day, he accused me of being a commie. I had considered myself, in a vague way, a sort of leftist, though certainly not a communist. But he kept calling me one and striking up arguments about it so, naturally, I decided to look up this Che guy and investigate the ideas that he stood for.

This (in a stylised way) is how I became a Marxist. I read about communism, looking for answers to my swimming pool sparring partner’s arguments. Soon I began to see, in a vague way, what the problems of capitalism were, and how they could be solved by socialism – not the totalitarianism of Stalin and his successors, but the free and democratic society that Marx and Engels advocated, in which “the free development of each is the condition for

Capitalism

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Marx frequently denounced those “utopian socialists” who held that capitalism could be superseded by creating a communist microsociety within the confines of a bourgeois state.

But even if this is conceded, will the critics still not say that it is hypocritical for self-professed socialists to buy into what has effectively become a consumerist icon, a big, profitable brand, just like the Nike swoosh and the golden arches? This position ignores an obvious fact: that we live in a capitalist society and pretty much everything we buy is made in a capitalist production process. Unless she is to decamp to a desert island and sustain herself on roots and berries, a committed socialist cannot simply live outside of capitalism.

Marx was all too aware of this and frequently denounced those “utopian socialists” who held that capitalism could be superseded by creating a communist microsociety within the confines of a bourgeois state. Marx knew that capitalism must be overthrown form the inside, and he thought that this process would occur by seizing onto, and pushing to their revolutionary conclusion, certain “contradictions” generated by capitalism. For example, one such major contradiction is that, with the growth of capitalism and the expansion of the capitalist production process, more and more people are sucked into the working class, thus creating an ever greater mass of oppressed persons itching to cast off their fetters. Therefore, Marx says in the famous manifesto, what the capitalist class ultimately produces “are its own grave-diggers.”

Living as we are in a capitalist society, we must buy clothes that are made in a capitalist production process. So why not buy

Illustration: Sarah Morel clothes with the likeness of a revolutionary icon, a robust “brand” with the power to penetrate the popular consciousness with a radical political message? There’s no reason why political radicals should feel ashamed about wearing a Che t-shirt. In fact, it’s not

the t-shirt buyers but the capitalists themselves who are the dupes. In their heedless pursuit of profit they have become unwitting propagandists for their class enemies, producing another shovel for their own gravediggers.

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Luke McGuinness offers dating tips for those on the Hamilton end of campus.

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Lessons from New York Fionn Rogan takes us on a trip through New York’s singular streetscape, and hints at the good that underlies the gruff exterior.

W Fionn Rogan Online Comment Editor

atching a man kiss a tiny dog paw, the rest of the dog clutched closely to a woman’s breast as an elderly Chinese woman struggles across the street with three gargantuan bags of waste plastic bottles balanced on a pole slung across her shoulder seems to expose New York as the finest caricature of itself. I have difficulty imagining any other city that could so comfortably play home to such a surreal image. Each character in this bizarre vignette seemed perfectly oblivious to the surreality of the moment. Whatever about kissing a dog’s paw or collecting plastic bottles at age 80 as a means of income, it’s the fact that these two worlds, poles apart, can occupy the same space and time so peacefully and without question. Other than location, there is most likely nothing that links the existence and experience of each New Yorker present.

Some might reason that this is the magic of New York, the secret to its allure. People are attracted to the multiplicity of human existence that the city plays host to. If something happens, it most likely exists in New York, or soon will. An app that allows you to order doggy toys and treats that’ll be delivered weekly to the door of your two-bedroom/two bathroom prewar flat in Chelsea? Old hat, the signs are already being taken down from the subway to make way for the next new thing that the rest of the world might see in three years, and New York will tire of by next week.

Hardness I landed in New York 1st June. I’m currently writing this piece midway across the Atlantic, homeward-bound, having spent every

single day of the last two months battling my way through the streets of Manhattan. Even seasoned New Yorkers would advise that this is a foolhardy thing to do.

I wrote recently that while I recognised that I would have to develop a hardness to thrive in the city, I hoped to retain an essence of the softness of my Irishness for when I returned. That I have now taken to clenching my fists till I feel my heart beat in the palms of my hand to prevent myself from screaming the bumbling tourist foolish enough to cut me off out of it would suggest that perhaps I have failed to do so. New York has left its mark, and that worries me.

New York is perhaps the greatest city in the world but I would be wary of describing it as a good city. Good as in fair. Equal. A healthy humane place to live. It is certainly a spectacular city. It’s a spectacle beyond doubt. What you see in New York you will probably never witness again. The incident described above between the elderly woman and the dog-kissers illustrates this perfectly.

Inequality Any properly functioning society would deem it unacceptable for an elderly woman to be forced to collect rubbish either to earn an ncome or bolster an existing income too meager to survive on.

The fact that this happened within feet of two wealthy hip New Yorkers sipping six dollar coffees and kissing thousand dollar pure-breed dog’s toes exposes the deep vein of inequality that snakes through the city. I saw this peculiar scene on Prince Street, just off Bowery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A strange space where one side of the road

offers an array of assorted boutiques and cafés offering $200 vintage t-shirts and six dollar cappuccinos and then on the other side stands one of the city’s largest homeless shelters, its footpath littered with the human detritus of damaged and impoverished people. It’s a strange and uniquely New York image, and perhaps you can un derstand why I am worried to see the city rub off on me.

And while I feel my criticism of New York is well founded I would be wrong to offer just that. I have witnessed some of the most graphic poverty and explicit

inequity I have ever encountered within the five boroughs of this city. But it would be amiss for me not to mention the moments in which I witnessed the most beautiful and pure acts of humanity too.

New Yorkers are not renowned for their easy-going attitude. It’s rare for them to entertain any form of delay or inconvenience to their day yet there is a gruff friendly helpfulness to them too.

New Yorkers are hard people; products of their environment but there are moments when a whisper of their softness pokes through their crusty urban ar

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New York has left its marks, and that worries me.

mour. Feeling an entire train carriage lift as a soft smile plays across each sour morning face coaxed out by an elderly man and a two year old girl coming to a special agreement and shaking on it through the handrails is a special thing that cannot be replicated.

New York as a city can be a tough place to live but I would never write it off. New Yorkers, as individuals, are inherently good people and they will, I hope, some day see that their city reflects their goodness too.

My beef with vegan sceptics Naoise Dolan describes the critics, concern trolls and weirdly defensive meat zealots that feel the need to comment on her vegan lifestyle.

W Naoise Dolan Online Editor

hen you are vegan and are about to meet lots of non-vegans, prepare for their thoughts and feelings. What they lack in prior consideration, they’ll make up for with their conviction that you Need To Hear This Right Now. You’d think it would occur to people that something they thought of thirty seconds after meeting you is probably something you’ve also thought of over the course of your months/years of veganism.

You’d be wrong.

This is amplified at times like Freshers’ Week when everyone is so utterly sick of the where-areyou-from-what’s-your-coursehow-are-you-liking-Trinity-so-far scene that they will leap on anything else one could plausibly talk about. Enter you, a person with dietary preferences they can at least pretend to be curious about for a bit. Try to be patient.

First comes the caveat: “I’m sure you hear this all the time, but …”

Are they actually sure you hear it all the time? If they are, then why are they saying something you’re certain to find redundant? If they’re not sure, are they hoping you’ll interrupt them and say “no, that’s actually a really new and interesting consideration”? For me, the verdict is arrived at by asking myself whether a) I’ve had a coffee in the past three hours and b) I like the person - and because it’s me, the answer is almost invariably a) yes, and b) no. This levels out to a neutral response. You can

make your own criteria, I’m sure.

The part of the sentence following from “but” is where you can start grouping them into Good Conversationalists or Annoying Conversationalists. You’ll know if they’re a Good Conversationalist because this guide will start to feel superfluous, i.e. they’ll be good at conversation to the extent that you can just freestyle it.

Proceed as normal. Conversely, you can tell they’re an Annoying Conversationalist if they start to become really, really annoying.

Here are some common variations you’re likely to bump into this Awkward Mingling Week.

The concern troll “Aren’t vegans really deficient in Vitamin Whatever? You know, the one that only comes from animals?” Don’t bother engaging.

Your fidelity to the facts of human nutrition will only disadvantage you when you’re up against this jargon-conjuring, malnutritionmongering pedant. They will make up minerals mid-argument, then accuse you of being deficient in same.

They also spend just as much time nagging their omnivorous friends about all the things they’re unlikely to be getting enough of.

That’s them - just trying to help.

The idea that you might be better-informed than they are about your own nutrition won’t have crossed their mind. They’re too

busy checking you for signs of anaemia.

The special snowflake This person thinks you’re great, but they could never be vegan themselves. Depending on how honest they are, this will either be because they lack the willpower or because they just need meat/ dairy/whatever. No, they haven’t heard this personally from a qualified dietician - they just feel it somehow.

And they just want you to know that if they could possibly be like you, they would, so you’re not allowed to regard their diet as less ethical than yours.

The what-about-this-canyou-eat-this This one has trouble identifying moral versus culinary distinctions. For them, the question of whether you should eat dairy belongs in exactly the same category as the question of whether that means milk chocolate is okay, or bread made with milk is okay, or milk made with milk is okay.

To truly understand your veganism, they need to go through every single animal-product-containing food item they can think of and ask you ‘What about x?’, just to be sure. Tip: do not let this person cook for you, and hope for their sake that they’re not doing a language or any other course that

rewards the ability to identify patterns.

The but-you-buy-otherbad-things The more sophisticated ones will point to other forms of animal cruelty that you endorse with your consumer behaviours. The bog-standard edition, and the one you’re more likely to bump into, will be happy with pointing out that you’re still living within the capitalist system, ergo your clothes/books/laptop were probably unethically produced somewhere along the supply chain, ergo you are a worse person than they are because you engage in fewer unethical practices but are unable to opt out of the entire spectrum of commercial exploitation. Go figure.

The weirdly meat zealot

defensive

Your lifestyle is an attack on theirs. Only one of you is leaving this conversation alive, and it won’t be you, you puny tofumunching disrupter of The Natural Way Of Things. There are two theories on this person. And they’re not mutually exclusive.

The first is that they’re self-centred and cannot imagine people making choices for reasons not to do with them. Clearly, the prima

“

The more sophisticated ones will point to other forms of animal cruelty that you endorse with your consumer behaviours.

ry reason you’re vegan is to make them feel attacked, so fighting back against you is the only way to remain consistent with their hunt-or-be-hunted conception of how humans should operate.

Nine times out of ten, them actually trying kill their own dinner would result in them becoming something else’s, but they don’t like to dwell on that.

The second (and they won’t like this one at all, not one bit) is that people react with hostility when others have done something they want to but can’t bring themselves to. You are the change they want to see in themselves.

Deep down, they know veganism is the healthiest, most ethical lifestyle, but it’s difficult at first and they’re too lazy to attempt it. Is this true of all Weirdly Defensive Meat Zealots? I have no idea, but I do know it’s loads of fun acting like it is. “There, there, dear. Let it all out. I’m not a bit offended - I know that deep down, it’s yourself you’re calling a Tree-Hugging Quinoa Wanker.”

TRINITY NEWS

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Science

Science in Brief Dylan Lynch

Mystery of Death Valley’s ‘sliding stones’ has been solved Death Valley, located in Eastern California’s Mojave Desert is the lowest, driest and hottest place in North America. For years, large boulders have been known to move across its surface with little or no explanation. Hundreds of deeply engraved trails have been found all over the desert, almost always with a huge rock sitting at the end of the track. Until just two weeks ago, this strange occurrence had gone unexplained.

However, Dr. Richard Norris from Scripps Institution of Oceanogra-

phy and his crack team have just published a paper concluding that the cause of the Death Valley stones movement is due to ice.

The cracks in the desert floor fill with water during the winter and form ‘floating ice’. Then on sunny mornings, the ice melts and light winds push small sheets of this ice, which in turn collide with the boulders. The boulders can move for up to 16 minutes propelled by these ice sheets, leaving tracks in the soft damp mud below.

Illustration: Natalie Duda Illustration: Natalie Duda

Chemistry of a fresher’s body Dylan Lynch explains the science of adrenaline and hangovers

T Dylan Lynch SciTech Editor

he transition to university from secondary education can be monumental in a young person’s life; old friendships break down while new ones form, you find new interests and uncover more about yourself than ever before. Many visible changes can occur but let’s look at what’s going on behind the scenes in a freshman’s body; let’s get molecular.

It’s your first day of college life. The front square is packed with society stalls and other new students like you, and the entire situation can become a little daunting. Although it might feel like you’ve eaten half a kilo of butterflies and they are fluttering around your stomach, what’s actually happening is caused by adrenaline.

Adrenaline Adrenaline, otherwise known as the ‘fight-or-flight’ hormone, is a catecholamine (a certain class of carbon-based compound) and it is currently restricting the flow of blood to your stomach in response to the several society membership cards being fired at you. Thankfully you find an old school friend and go to grab a big steamy cup of everyone’s favourite crystalline stimulant, caffeine.

Caffeine starts to counteract the adenosine receptors in your body, reducing blood flow to your internal organs and fighting of the sleepiness caused by last night’s Netflix binge. Fast forward to your first night out on the town with your college course, and you have decided to hit the nearest club. As the tunes begin to drop, so do the tequila shots. Alcohol is

one of the most common ingested substances in Ireland with your average young adult, aged 18 to 25, consuming the equivalent of 10.73 litres pure alcohol. per year, according to 2013 data. Your body tackles alcohol by metabolising it into a compound called ethanal, and then changes it again into ethanoic acid – the main constituent in vinegar. This is the reason why we say a bottle of wine has gone ‘bad’ when it tastes like vinegar; the ethanol in the wine has been oxidised to ethanoic acid by the oxygen in the atmosphere!

By the time all of the new pop songs have been played (and somebody has requested the Macarena), you spot someone you fancy from across the floor. Again the adrenaline starts to pump, but you pluck up the courage to go talk to them. If you play your cards right, you might end up with a huge influx of the hormone oxytocin in your bloodstream. When a situation becomes a little R rated, this little neurohypophysial (meaning it comes from a specific part in the brain called the posterior pituitary gland) hormone causes pair bonding, sexual arousal and has a key role in orgasm. It is also closely related to the formation of trust between mammals; studies have shown that when remembering a negative event, humans who received intranasal oxytocin doses shared more emotional details and stories with more emotional significance.

Hangovers The next morning hits, and so does the hangover. Stumbling

from bed, you opt for good old aspirin, a compound originally discovered in willow bark by the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates. This small molecule known chemically as acetylsalicylic acid begins to suppress the production of prostaglandins and thromboxanes, two classes of chemicals which cause fever and pain in animals. Not satisfied with just aspirin, you use the oldest trick in the book to cure a hangover; the big greasy fry up.

Although some people argue that there’s no cure for a hangover other than lots of water and rest, there is substantial evidence that the full English breakfast works wonders. Speaking ahead of the International Alcohol Hangover Research Group, Professor Richard Stevens of Keele University says the carbohydrates in a full English will help restore depleted glucose levels and lessen the effects of the hangover; “One of the mechanisms of the hangover is to do with glucose metabolism and not having enough blood sugar. (the full English) probably does work because there are lot of carbohydrates in that meal. And that will restore depleted sugar levels.”

Stress For our final snapshot, let’s go forward to the week before your exams. Including adrenaline and (probably) a ton of caffeine, your bloodstream is full of cortisol. Cortisol, often sold as hydrocortisone, is a powerful steroid hormone which is released in response to stress. Cortisol actually redistributes energy to the regions of the body which need

it most in tight situations, so this little helper is pushing glucose to your brain as you scribble down the last few pages of notes on model organisms and fungal reproduction at three o’clock in the morning.

At the same time, another hormone is fighting to drag you to bed. Melatonin (not to be confused with melanin, the primary determinant of skin colour) is a hormone found in plants and animals which helps regulate your circadian rhythm; a sort of “human biological clock” that last roughly 24 hours and tells your brain when to sleep. Caffeine can only suppress adenosine (the ‘drowsiness’ chemical) for so long before you collapse into bed.

Having fought off your body clock for a week or two, the exams are over and you can breathe a sigh of relief. A hormone called serotonin that regulates both mood and appetite begins to flow through your blood stream and your stress levels finally start to decrease. A new wave of relaxation and repair hormones are released through your system in response to psychological stress.

The first year of college may be over, but your body chemistry never stops changing and adapting.

All of these changes will repeat themselves in the future, but hopefully with more serotonin and less caffeine next year!

Ebola takes lives of five top research scientists working on paper together A ground-breaking paper titled “Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak” was due to be published in the well-respected journal Science on August 28th through Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria but unfortunately the day before it was due to be released online, five of the 50 scientists on the re-

search team fell victim to the disease and died. As of August 28th there have been 3,069 suspected or confirmed cases of EVD across West Africa, resulting in 1,552 deaths. The names of the deceased research scientists are as follows; Mbalu Fonnie, Mohammed Fullah, Sheik Humarr Khan, Alice Kovoma and Alex Moigboi.,

NASA announces plans for space launch system

The space launch system is the world’s most powerful exploration rocket, and it will be ready for its first test launch in November 2018 according to NASA officials. It is designed to take mankind further into space than ever before. “We are on a journey of scientific and human exploration that leads to Mars,” NASA Administrator Charles Boden said in a news release on August 27th. It is

hoped that the first manned flight of the SLS, named EM-1 (Exploration Mission-1) will take place in either the year 2020 or early in 2021 with the intent of visiting an asteroid in deep space. The total cost of producing the final SLS product is estimated to be $12 billion.

What you need to know about Ebola

U

nless you have been living under a rock for the past six months, you will have heard ofthe Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak.

This outbreak began in Guinea (West Africa) in December 2013, but was not detected until March of this year. This outbreak of EVD is the most severe in terms of human fatalities since the virus’ discovery in 1976 by Belgian doctor and microbiologist Peter Piot and as of Friday 5th 2,097 out of 3,944 reported cases. of September, the death toll stands at

What is ebola?

Dylan Lynch SciTech Editor

EVD is caused by the virus Ebola, the sole member of its species Zaire ebolavirus and the most dangerous of the five viruses in the genus Ebolavirus. It has an extremely high case-fatality rate of 83% on average, meaning that 83% of the people who contract the disease will not survive.

Thankfully due to advances in modern medicine, better sanitation and a faster response rate the fatality rate for the 2014 outbreak has fallen to 52%.

The symptoms of Ebola Virus Disease are very similar to those of Malaria and Influenza, and it is spread by coming into contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. The average time it takes for symptoms to appear after contracting the infection (known as an incubation period) is eight to ten days and symptoms usually appear flu-like in early stages but soon progress into

vomiting, diarrhoea and impaired blood clotting. If an infected person does not recover, death due to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) will occur between seven and sixteen days after the first symptoms, usually on days eight or nine of infection.

The current situation Although the 2014 outbreak began in Guinea, it soon spread to surrounding Africancountries and reports began to flood in to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Fears that the virus would spread to other continents have been running high in the past number of weeks, with one particular incident involving a doctor returning to the UnitedStates causing widespread panic.

However there are no current suspected or confirmed cases of EVD in the United States or Ireland. There are numerous reasons why the outbreak has been so severe in the African continent. Many of the areas where infection has been reported do not have any running water of soap to help limit the extent of transmission. Other factors also aid the transmission of Ebola virus, especially certain death customs such as ritually washing the body of the deceased.

To limit the spread of EVD to other continents, the CDC has issued several Level 3 ‘Red Alert’ Warnings which limit nonessential travel to locations including Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

dures are also currently being practiced in most countries around the globe. There has been a lot of sensationalised news surrounding the outbreak in recent weeks,particularly one piece citing a scientific paper claiming that it is possible for Ebola to be transmitted via the air. Although claims of an airborne Ebola virus caused alarm amongst most news readers, they are completely false.

In the study on which the paper was based, a pen of piglets with Ebola was housed in the same room as an unaffected group of Macaque monkeys. Even though the pigs had no physical contact with the monkeys, the Macaques contracted Ebola. However the actual reason that this happened was due to mucous and water particles which the pigs produced and shed/spat, which carried the virus through the air. This does NOT constitute airborne capabilities and it was concluded that physical contact with infected bodily fluids is necessary for Ebola virus transmission.

Progress The 2014 outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease has greatly increased research efforts to enhance our understanding of its pathogenicity and also to find a cure. Monkeys infected with EVD were given a novel vaccine by leading pharma company Glaxosmithkline and up to five weeks after vaccination they are showing no signs of infection. These find-

popular journal Nature Medicine, come two days after the World Health Organisation released a statement that preventative treatments could be available to medical aid workers in West Africa as early as October. Scientists are hoping to begin human trials with the new monkey-tested vaccine shortly. Phase 1 trials are going to be carried out in the Jenner Institute in Oxford, while the National Institute of Health will be running parallel phase 1 human trials in the United States.

An experimental drug called ZMapp has been reported as having ‘cured’ two health workersof EVD in recent weeks. This compound is being developed

by Mapp Biopharmaceuticals in California and was administered after a blood transfusion from a survivor of EVD was given to Kent Brantly of the Samaritan’s Purse humanitarian organisation, nine days after he fell ill with EVD himself. Nancy Writebol, one of Brantly’s co-workers was also treated in the same way.

Writebol and Brantly were released from hospital on August 21st infectious risk. However, it is undetermined when human clinical trials will be carried out, as trials will be carried , as Mapp Biopharmaceuticals had released a statement saying their supplies of the drug are currently exhausted.

Should you worry?

So at this stage you may be wondering: is it time for Irish people to start

“

Is it time for Irish people to start worrying about Ebola? Short answer: no.

about Ebola? Short answer; No. Seasonal outbreaks of Ebola have been reported since the virus’ discovery and there have never been any confirmed cases anywhere in Ireland.

The chances of the disease reaching our shores are very slim, as every single passenger boarding planes in West Africa is being checked for any symptoms by the World Health Organisation. There is also no direct transport route from West Africa to Ireland, so an infected individual would have to go unnoticed through several checkpoints before reaching us. Not to mention that our healthcare system is quite advanced compared to that of Sierra Leone’s and the possibility of EVD coming this far and taking hold is very low. Speaking to Pat Kenny on Newstalk earlier this month, Dr Darina O’Flanagan of Ireland’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) said: “We’ve been preparing for the possibility for a long time. The risk is very low, but because it’s a very dangerous pathogen we’re ready”.

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Science

Dating tips for scientists Luke McGuinness offers romantic advice to students on the Hamilton end of campus

Illustration: Natalia Duda

L

ove is, rather unromantically, little more than a complex biological process, drawing from fields including evolutionary biology and neuroscience, and involving substances such as oxytocin, the chemical responsible for many of the experiences associated with love. With this in mind, three ways of using science to (maybe) increase your chances in the dating game were rounded up:

Maths is sec(c) Luke McGuinness Online SciTech Editor

For those of you who have decided to seek out the perfect person through the use of online dating sites, the sciences of behaviour and statistics are here to help. According to Dr Hannah Fry from University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, you are actually better off to have a picture on you online profile that doesn’t hide your natural flaws, those things you think will put people off contacting you.

This is because, as she explains in her TED talk titled the “Mathematics of Love”, the more you divide the vote on how attractive people think you are, the better a chance people contacting you think they have. In contrast, if everyone thinks you are incred-

Illustration: Natalie Duda ibly good looking, less people will put in the effort to join the perceived mass of potential lovers vying for your attention. In short, Photoshop is not your friend in this case.

Additionally, for those who can relate to the title of this section, perhaps you could take after Peter Backus of the University of Warwick. Back in 2010, he modified the Drake Equation, the equation that estimates the number of highly evolved civilizations that might exist in our Galaxy, to calculate how many potential girlfriends there were for him in the United Kingdom.

Titling his paper “Why I don’t have a girlfriend”, he came up with the surprisingly low number of 26, meaning that his chance of meeting one of these women on a night out was only 100 times greater than finding an alien civilization with which we can communicate. Ironically though, Backus got married last year, so there is hope for us all yet.

Hey baby, what’s your blood type?

Not so much a Western world phenomenon, but a belief widely held in Japan states that your

blood type determines your personality. The belief is so strongly held that a Minister in Japan resigned in 2011 following remarks that were deemed to be insensitive and hurtful. In an address made following his resignation, he blamed his blood type for the outburst, as type B’s are thought to be selfish and individualistic according to popular belief.

By extension, it is thought that your blood type can indicate which other blood types you would be most compatible with in terms of relationship potential.

Similar to star signs, there are a number of dating sites based solely on your blood type. DatebyType.com is one such site, promising “Type to type, we get it right.” The site also offers home blood testing kits, in case potential clients don’t know their blood type. So just be aware that, if Tinder just isn’t cutting it for you, and if quasi-science is your thing, there are always alternatives.

You had me at ‘hello’ For those of you not ready to go online just yet, fear not, science can still help you. There has been a surprising amount of research done into why we bother with

pickup lines at all, and which lines in particular are likely to increase our chances of getting accepted. In 1986, Chris Kleinke conducted two studies, the first asking respondents to rate lines for men approaching women, and the second for women approaching men. They found that innocuous lines are the best bet for men approaching women, in order to avoid coming across too strongly, and to protect the ego in case of rejection. Women have it slightly harder, needing to use direct lines to ensure that the man gets the message that they are interested in meeting them, but not so direct that they are wrongly thought to be overly promiscuous.

As for particular opening lines, the best rated for approaching women were innocuous with “Hi” and “Hi, my name is… ” ranking highest, with 60% and 59% of respondents respectively labelling them as excellent. As for things to steer clear of, “I’m easy, are you?” was scored as terrible by 83% of respondents, while “You remind me of a someone I used to date” did similarly poorly. Admittedly, things might be a little different now as the study was conducted almost 30 years ago, but some things never change - “Is that rea

“

Women have it slightly harder, needing to use direct lines to ensure that the man gets the message that they are interested in meeting them.

Space whiskey to land on earth for testing Aidan Murrary tells us about a one-a-kind hooch soon to fly in from space.

W Aidan Murray Deputy SciTech Editor

hisky that has been orbiting the planet for the past three years is scheduled to arrive backon earth for testing in Kazakhstan on September 12. The experiment is being carried out by Scottish whisky giant Ardbeg, in conjunction with the Houston-based company NanoRacks LLC. NanoRacks are a commercial organisation focused on transporting payloads into, and utilizing the benefits of, low-earth orbit for research purposes. They have placed 30 small satellites into low-earth orbit as of March 2014, and already have contracts for fifty more and memorandums of understanding for a further one hundred. Between sixty and eighty satellites are planned to be deployed in 2014, the largest of which is fifty-three kilograms.

According to Ardbeg, this oneof-a-kind hooch has been orbiting the planet 15 times a day on the International Space Station (ISS) at 17,227 miles per hour. NanoRacks had flown seventy payloads to the ISS as of February 2013 and has since been contracted for another eighty.

Research Ardbeg’s aim is to examine the differences in the whisky maturation process when comparing the earth’s normal gravity with that of the micro-gravity the vials experienced.

Twenty four vials containing 6 ml of their whisky and some charred oak have been orbiting earth in the International Space Station since September 2011 after being launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, in a Soyuz rocket.

A control identical to its astronautical brethren has been kept in the

Ardbeg’s distillery on Islay. The two sets of samples are planned to be brought to laboratories in Houston, Texas, for examination.

Marketing Not to miss out on the unique marketing, Ardbeg’s director of distilling and whisky creation, Dr. Bill Lumsden, was quick to point out that “this is one small step for man but one giant leap for whisky.”Buzz Lightyear even got a reference. “We hope to shine new light on the effect of gravity on the maturation process but who knows where it will lead us? It could be to infinity and beyond.”

Though overall, Dr. Lumsden seems optimistic with the direction this experiment could take.

“The team hope to uncover how flavours develop in different gravitational conditions – findings which could revolutionise the whisky-making process.”

Precedent While Ardbeg may lay the claim to the only booze distilled on a space station, it is not the only unusual alcohol to make the news in recent months. Back in June, a stoneware bottle dating from between 1806 and 1830 was discovered on the F-53-31 shipwreck, also known as the Glazik, in the Gdańsk Bay off the coast of Poland. Originally designed to contain the famous “Selters” water, the sealed flask was tested to see if any remained. Through preliminary experiments, the researchers discovered that the bottle instead contained a 14 percent alcohol distillate, which they believe to be either gin or vodka

that has been diluted with water.

The 30 cm bottle is believed to have been manufactured in Ranschbach, Germany, which s around twenty-five miles away from the Selters water springs.

Discovered one thousand years ago in the Taunus Mountain region in Germany, Selters has been supplying high-quality carbonated water which is often referred to as “fluid treasure.” Selters is one of the oldest types of mineral water to be found in Europe, and it has been claimed that even just a few sips of the liquid can have many health benefits and boost strength.

The search of the wreck was led by Tomasz Berdnarz, an underwater archaeologist employed by the National Maritime Museum. According to Berdnarz, this 200-year-old liquor is still drinkable. As he told the Ministry of Science and Science Education of Poland, “This means it would not cause poisoning. Apparently, however, it doesn’t smell particularly good.”

At the beginning of July, the two-century-old bottle and alcohol were sent to the J.S. Hamilton chemical laboratory in Gdynia for further testing, with the results expected shortly.

Similar caches are uncovered from time to time, such as eighteen sealed bottles of 282-yearold, 145 proof Royal British Navy ration rum, which were each appraised to be worth roughly $20,000 (¤15,485 approx.) by Sotheby’s of New York. While exploring a Spanish colonial wreck which sank off the coast of Florida in 1733, Dale Clifton, now of DiscoverSea Shipwreck Museum in Delaware, found a crate of thir-

ty bottles of the rum, eighteen of which were drinkable.

Sadly, the space whisky won’t be available for commercial use just yet. You will just have to make do with boring terrestrial whiskies for now.

lly your hair?” was rated as terrible by 89%.

Finally, a more recent experiment conducted in 2010 again looked at different ways for men to approach a woman. This study found that cute-flippant and humorous lines still ranked quite poorly, but it also included an extra category – third party introduction, something along the lines of “Róisín, this is my friend Ronan.” This category performed best out of all, demonstrating that the age old position of wingman has a basis in scientific fact.

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Let them eat insects - the World Bank approves How long with it be until we can order a Bug Mac?

W Turlough Heffernan Contributor

ith the population of the world expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, it should come as no surprise that efforts are already underway to determine just how humanity will go about feeding so many people.

Obviously, agriculture has been a key factor in the development of human civilization and it will continue to be a vital industry.

The World Bank even claims that growth in this sector reduces poverty more effectively than growth in any other sector. Unfortunately, given their environmental impact, our current agricultural practices are unsustainable.

Farming already poses a more serious threat to biodiversity than any other human practice so the solution to feeding our growing population will not be to simply increase the extent of farming.

Instead, it will be incumbent on us to modify our behaviour and to adapt to alternative food sources.

The United Nations have already proposed that we should start replacing the meat in our meals with insects. Admittedly, this sounds like something straight from I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! but the arguments in favour of the idea are certainly sound.

Nutritional value For instance, insects contain more protein per kilogram than any other food as well being great sources of calcium, zinc and iron.

Insects are far easier to raise than cattle, requiring only 1/10th as much feed, 1/12th as much water and 1/12th as much land. Their production results in less greenhouse gas emissions and they can be fed using waste products such as animal blood.

They might even be acceptable from a gustatory perspective as it is possible to grind them down for use in burgers and sausages.

One New York restaurant already offers “Grass-Whoppers” so it’s surely only a matter of time before a “Bug Mac” becomes available.

Environmental concerns We have seen that incorporating insects into our diets could allay environmental concerns but it could also assuage ethical worries. Anyone who has watched a video showing the state of factory farming at the moment knows that countless animals around the world are kept in genuinely appalling conditions. In contrast, insects don’t share the same problems with being kept in proximity to one another. It almost sounds like an impossibility but this process could truly be both more efficient and more ethical.

Given all of these advantages, why have we not already started adding larvae to our lunchboxes?

Well of course, we find the very idea stomach-churning. However, it is important to remember

that our revulsion at the notion of chowing down on caterpillars and crickets is largely the result of a Western bias – 2 billion people already consume insects on a regular basis in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The most disgusting food I’ve ever seen myself is a Sardinian cheese known as casu marzu which contains thousands of maggots. I wasn’t brave enough to sample that particular delicacy but if it had been a choice between either the maggot infested cheese or an insect burger then I’d have chosen the burger even faster than my sister would sprint out of a room at the sight of its contents.

Cost Another barrier is the cost. All things being equal, the production of insects for foodstuffs would be far cheaper than the production of meat is today. However, as a consequence of our cultural aversion to insects, there is virtually no infrastructure available to allow us produce them on a large enough scale. This, along with the absence of the same kind of subsidies that are placed on conventional meats, means that insects are actually prohibitively expensive to buy at the moment with one kilogram costing around 120 euro.

In Ireland, as in many other countries, there are also multiple regulations which will have

to be overcome before we begin to see bugs intentionally on our supermarket shelves. It is somewhat ironic that many regulators do permit a certain level of insect pieces to make their way into our foods but having insects for dinner is of course another matter entirely. No matter how much economic and environmental sense it makes for us to swap beef for beetles, it’s fair to say that a pretty strong advertising campaign is called for. People will have to be convinced to eat insects for the taste and parents will have to be reassured that they shouldn’t feel guilty for serving them up to their kids. There have already been attempts made to rebrand certain insects as “land shrimp” or to refer to them as “mini-livestock”.

Many entomophagists, the term given to those who eat insects as part of their diet, like to make the point that there isn’t much of a rationale for abhorring insects whilst simultaneously treating shrimp, prawns and caviar as delicacies. Some even describe how lobsters and crabs eat faeces and dead animals whereas grasshoppers eat salad. Whether or not this approach will be successful remains to be seen but I would certainly expect that we’ll be hearing a lot more from these entomophagists in the future.

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Sport

Alicia Lloyd interviews rugby star Ailis Egan.

p24

FRESHERS’ GUIDE TO CLUB LIFE College sports clubs make their pitches

Rifle

Fresh from the success of running the 2nd annual ‘Founders’ league’, the only outdoor summer target shooting league of its type in the country, D.U.R.C. is hitting the ground running with a great fresher’s week schedule. You will find a fully manned stall in front square all week long where you can learn all about the club and the sport of target shooting. During fresher’s week you will have the chance to chat to the club’s range officers and athletes, including recent international competitors who will be more than happy to fill you in on their experiences with the club and target shooting in Trinity.

Following Greshers’ week you can shoot for fun or to train for competition in two disciplines any night of the week, six to 10pm, by signing up using our online booking tool at durifleclub. com/booking. There will always be range officers on duty to make sure everything runs smoothly and offer any advice you may need to improve your shooting.

Your first detail is even free! And after that you only pay for the ammo you shoot, we supply all necessary equipment and no experience is required.

If competition is your thing be sure and sign up for our Novice colours squad and you’ll get one

Hiking

Ladies’ Boat

Rowing as a competitive sport has been in existence for over 2000 years, and the thrill of racing continues to attract millions of people worldwide to the water to train for domestic, international and Olympic competition, and also purely for recreation and to keep fit.Although many people may only have encountered rowing in the context of the Oxford, Cambridge boat race, Ireland has a large and competitive rowing scene, of which Trinity’s rowing clubs DULBC (for the ladies) and DUBC (for the gents) are a prominent feature.

Rowing has been described

by Forbes as one of the healthiest sports, combining low impact cardiovascular fitness, strength and significant skill. What Forbes doesn’t mention is that rowing, especially university rowing, and particularly in Trinity, is great fun. Unlike many university sports societies, the vast majority of students who join DULBC or DUBC during Fresher’s week have never rowed before, meaning all so called “novices” start on an even playing field.

Our novice group trains and races together throughout the year. Freshers race mainly race against beginners from other universities in eights, fours and single sculls, leading on to national competitions by July. Through a combination of sessions on the water on the Upper Liffey

in Islandbridge, as well as “fun” circuits and rowing machine sessions, all novices are ready to race by the end of Michaelmas, and compete in a full season of regattas, which continues into the summer. For those less sportily inclined, but who still love being on the water, tactically minded coxes to steer the boats are crucial, and are always needed.

For more experienced athletes, the DULBC senior and inter squad is highly competitive; holding university championship titles in the 8+, 4- and 2x, as well as fielding 6 athletes to represent Ireland at the Home International regatta and 2 at the World University Games.

There are multiple club trips away during the year to compete at Irish regattas and larger UK competitions such as London Metropolitan and Henley Women’s Regatta, as well as a senior warm weather training camp to the Barcelona Olympics rowing venue in southern Spain.

There is also a very busy social scene, including the famous Halloween Massacre, the more traditional Club Christmas Commons and many a post training/regatta impromptu night out or in. Rowing is a sport for everyone and a great way to meet new people and learn a new skill, with the help of fan-

night a week of training from one of Ireland’s top coaches to prepare you for the Intervarsities and Colours competition against UCD after Christmas.

DURC is the college’s second largest sports club whose members hold countless accolades and nationals records. So, if you’re looking for a relaxing half hour at the on-campus range after lectures, the challenge of national level competition or just a unique experience, DURC has something for everyone.

American Football

Trinity Hiking is a relatively new society, but in spite of that we have a huge number of members (over 800 last year). Hikers are free to join us on any of our weekly trips, which take place every Sunday. We tend to hike around the mountains of Wicklow, as well as having a few weekend trips to places further afield: the Mournes, the Comeraghs, Kerry, Connemara etc. This year we’re even planning a trip to Wales.

We have easy hikes a few times a year, which only require a pair of runners, but we also have more intense hikes (the views make up for it) for a bit of a challenge. The social aspect is an important part of our society: we have a large number of international students as well as a mix of undergrads, postgrads and staff. We have nights out and navigation workshops every month or so, as well as our infamous “pub hikes”. We hope to see you on the mountains with us soon. coaching staff, top range equipment and a crowd of enthusiastic like-minded rowers! Come talk to us at our stand (decked out in pink and black) under the campanile during Fresher’s Week, or check out our Facebook (DULBC) or twitter @DULBC1976.

Hockey

Trinity College’s American Football team has grown year-onyear since its inception in 2008.

Performing at the highest level in the 2014 season, we reached the final and appeared in the Shamrock Bowl, only to be narrowly defeated in a 0-7 loss to the Belfast Trojans. This year the club hopes to make another appearance but take home the win, a first in club history. American Football is a rapidly growing sport in Ireland with new teams appearing each year. Trinity has one of the best, if not the best team in the country right now.

We have a place for everyone – due to the specialized nature of playing positions, we look for all players and we need big guys and small guys.

Zero experience is required, we don’t expect anyone to have played previously or even follow or have knowledge of American football. We provide the opportunity to understand how the game is played and to learn the skills to perform your positional

roles. We also provide equipment to new players so no need to worry about financial commitment.

There is also an active social element to the club, with our annual Super bowl party, run in conjunction with Trinity Ents, along with various nights out throughout the year. American football is an exciting and explosive sport and we would encourage anyone to at least give it a try, regardless of experience, and come out to training or one of our meetings early in the year.

We accept new players yearround, as the regular season only begins mid-way through second semester, and the College Bowl is contested in November against teams from UCD and University of Limerick. Any of our players will tell you it is an extremely rewarding sport and our club will offer you some of the best fun you will have in your time in Trinity.

So you’re in college now, what are you going to do about it? Any friends coming into University with you are most likely thinking the exact same thing . How will I know where to go? Who do I ask? What societies do I join?

We had the exact same thoughts when we started and of course we wanted to make new friends as fast as possible. We did the whole freshers thing of joining every society from the Phil to the Baking Society. There was only one that we joined again the following year.

Trinity Hockey Club is the oldest Hockey Club in the country but most likely you don’t really care about that. What you want to know is what the people are like and most of all what the Socials are like. DUHC feels like a family, with rooms on campus there is always a place for you to chill out, play Fifa or just eat your lunch. We were all embraced like

like we had been in the club for years. From first years to masters students there is no judgement, no Regina George. Who cares if the only time you played hockey was in PE class. If you can show up on match day, or even just show up to the after party, then we want you. We want to enhance everyone’s University experience and we want to keep meeting new people. We have a brand new pitch, our own training facilities and of course many trips and themed nights- all of which are coupled with the girls club (Wink Wink Nudge Nudge) You can find us during freshers week or just email hockey@tcd.ie and we will be happy to get you set up with a whole new chapter.

TRINITY NEWS

Sport

Swimming

Surfing

Snow

“A perfect water polo athlete can be best described as having the over-arm accuracy of a baseball pitcher, the vertical of a volleyball player, the toughness of a rugby and hockey player, the endurance of a cross-country skier and the strategy of a chess player”.

Considering this quote one would expect a water polo player to be a chiselled, intelligent and attractive specimen. So as you sit there in the GMB, young fresher, eating your fourth slice of Nutella on toast, washing it down with the most sugary coffee ever synthesised by man and considering whether it would be bad form to go for your third burrito of the day; are you at your physical peak?

Regardless of the fact that none of the current brood of swimmers and polo players looks anything like the image of the person you now have in your head, we are willing to be upstaged by the po-

It’s a cold Saturday afternoon in Lahinch and you’re huddled round the fireplace of a small pub, laughing with friends, old and new. Your hair is salty and wet and there is definitely sand between your toes (and other places). You’ve just emerged from the cool waters of the Atlantic having caught your first ever wave and the feeling is indescribable.

Trinity’s Surf Club has been ferrying the college’s bravest students to the west coast year-round for many years. The most popular destinations have been Lahinch (Co. Clare), Bundoran (Co. Donegal), Strandhill (Co. Sligo) and Banna (Co. Kerry). We’ve also been known to venture abroad to warmer waters.

This year, the club is planning to expand in many ways. Surf Sail Salmon (SSS) is our first event of The dust has settled, the rain clouds have emptied and the sun rays now begin to peak through the smog still hanging over from June’s era of discontent; you’ve made it onto the memory sodden grounds of this university and chosen to follow a path of illumination for the next few rotations of this celestial body around the sun. Yet whatever that road may be, one thing is always unavoidable: winter is coming.

Ever since the honourable Ned Stark uttered this now memeinfected phrase, individuals have come to fear the unavoidable grip of the east wind and the knowledge that the Berkeley library will be a tomb for many unfortunate souls. But do not fret upon this piece of foresight, for there is hope to be found for those that seek it. From the misty mountains of Wicklow to the cold sloped marshlands of Edinburgh to the Alpine wildernesses of the Gauls; one finds the grounds upon which those who’ve given over to way of the snow can discover true enlightenment.

You may ask if I can provide pertinent reason towards why you ought to join the Snowsports clan, but a true answer already lies in the hearts of the chosen.

The call of the Horn of Helm Hammerhand has sounded in the deep and these months will soon fade into forgetful nothingness of 9am’s, coursework and the dreaded whale-song of midterm exams; do not forsake the chance of light at the end of Michaelmas’ dark tunnel. Join for the tales of futures past that you shall tell and remain for the fellowship that you shall find.

tential Greek god or goddess that lies within you. Water polo and swimming is probably the quickest and easiest way for you to unleash that inner topless Snapchat/Instagram fiend, giving updates on your six pack to people who couldn’t care less.

Despite the compelling argument proposed above we should probably convince you further to join our team. We are one of the oldest and most popular sport’s teams on campus with a wide range of members, from competitive swimmers to those looking to keep fit, to those amongst us who just want to learn how to swim a bit better. Unlike many other sport’s teams in Trinity we train on campus five times a week in Trinity’s very own six lane pool. We pride ourselves on being as inclusive and social as possible, this is helped by the fact that the men’s and women’s teams train together and that the

the year -- taking place the first weekend of term. Held in collaboration with our friends at the Sailing Club, SSS has been a massive hit in recent years.

It’s a camping weekend with the option of taking part in either surfing or sailing lessons in the morning and having the beach to ourselves in the afternoon. Everybody is well looked after in the evenings with plentiful entertainment, all within a lovely marquee (nice and dry!). It’s a great weekend away to start your year off with excitement and an abundance of craic. Buy your ticket for SSS at the Surf Club’s stall in Front Square during Fresher’s Week!

The biggest excitement for Trinity Club this year is the reintroduction of the International Surf Trip, scheduled for Reading

the men’s and women’s teams train together and that the team is comprised of over two dozen nationalities. The sessions don’t always finish when we leave the Sport’s Centre either, often enough we can be found having a few post-training drinks in The Gingerman.

If any this interests you or you have more questions please feel free to call down to one of our training sessions, find us in Front Square during Fresher’s week or email the club at duswim@tcd.ie.

Week in February. The schedule is still being finalised but to give you a clue: think exotic, think warm waves, think outside the continent. As we do every year, we’ll take part in the Surfing Intervarsities. This past year we had a winner in the Women’s Novice with visiting student, Ali Leonard, and a second place in the Men’s with Paddy Gaynor, now Secretary of the club. Details of this year’s competition have not yet been released but we are certain to build on previous years’ efforts.

Trinity Surf Club has lots to offer -- we urge everyone and anyone to get involved. To become a member of the club or just to chat to committee members, call over to our Freshers Week stall in Front Square all week. Hope we’ll see you there.

Equastrian

The Dublin University Equestrian Club, sometimes referred to as the Trinity Riding Club, has an approximate membership of 120 students annually, all of whom are somehow drawn to the horse.

We cater for Equestrian athletes of every variety, from the “Happy Hacker” to the elite performers.

Every year DUEC sends riders to compete for their University Internationally as part of an Irish squad. Amongst our esteemed members, past and present, we count London Olympian Natalya Coyle, Irish International Show jumper Nicola Fitzgibbon, and dual European Young Rider medallist Melanie Young.

What is unique about the Equestrian Club is the relationship we have with our friendly rivals. We often share our many club events with other Colleges, even the dreaded UCD, giving everybody a chance to build up their social network. I believe they call it diversification these days.

At the business end of things, DU Equestrian competes in 2-3 competitions annually, to which we send two or more mixed teams of four; several individuals, and a healthy host of supporters, cheer leaders, and general mischief makers. First up is the National Tetrathlon Championships in November, hosted this year by the UL Equestrian Club. “Tetrathlon” might sound like a made up word to most of you, but it is in fact derived from the Ancient Greek words “Tetra” meaning

agonisingly close second to UCD last year. Grrrr). We normally commence training in late September to leave plenty of time to shed any unwanted holiday weight.

All of this serves merely as a warm up for the National Intervarsity Championship held in February every year. 300 students, 80 horses, 15 colleges, 3 competitions, 3 nights, 1 hotel.

Trinity played host to this gargantuan affair last year with phenomenal success. This year we pass the torch on to a UCCCIT joint venture. A lot of things happen at Intervarsity’s, leaving those who remember scarred for life and those who don’t with an acute dosage of “the Fear”.

Throughout the year lessons are run once a week at a discounted rate in Brennanstown Riding School, Bray. These are ideal for anybody who has had to leave their beloved nag at home and wants to keep up to scratch with their riding. All equipment is available at the riding school, and they offer lessons for riders of every ability. Furthermore all horses are provided by the host University for our competitions, making them more affordable for students.

So whether you count yourself as a seasoned equestrian, more of a hobby horse, or somebody yearning to fulfil a childhood fantasy, DU Equestrian is the club for you. Sign up in front square during Fresher’s Week for what promises to be the ride of your

TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 16th September 2014

Sport

Cal Gray reports on the Six Nations tournament so far and Ireland’s dream win over Wales last weekend. p.21

Breaking new ground Fresh from Ireland’s recent success in reaching the rugby World Cup semi-finals, Ailis Egan speaks to Alicia Lloyd about what it’s like to play the women’s game

I

Alicia Lloyd Sport Editor

reland beat the All Blacks this summer. It’s not what you think.

The women got there first. That said, I don’t think there is any point in wasting column inches here attempting to compare women’s rugby with the rugby that is played by men. Same sport, different game. One is professional, one is amateur. One has substantial financial backing, one has significantly less. One is established, one is emerging.

While the Irish ladies forge their way in the old world that is the sport of rugby, they undoubtedly grasped the attention of the nation when they beat the four time world champions in the first ever meeting between the sides. The quality of rugby on display during this summer’s World Cup was at the highest level ever seen by this amateur sport.

Despite the subsequent, disappointing performance against England, the girls in greens’ display of organisation, sinew and courage is something that we should be proud of. They played a game remarkably more intelligent than the Black Ferns. Above all, what’s clear from talking to Egan is that they had the unshakeable belief that they could go all the way- they were intrepidly daring in their approach to the New Zealand game, without ever seeming audacious. This was evident in their domination of the breakdown and in the way they forced so many New Zealand errors. The Black Fern’s head coach, Brian Evans was quoted as saying that the Irish girls “outmuscled us”, which says it all really. The mentality of this Irish team is fascinating. These women convey a mind-set that mirrors a professional outfit. Their determination evidently disregards their amateur status. These are the women representing our country.

Inspiration Ailis Egan, Ireland’s starting tighthead prop, as a graduate of Trinity is a rugby player that we can proudly claim as one of our own.

She credits her Dad and Trinity as having first sparked her interest in the sport. Having signed up to a few sports clubs in first year (Freshers take note), it was rugby that had her “hooked” after one training session with the girls. She specifically mentions her fondest memories of playing with Trinity as matches in college park, especially on a sunny day, followed by a huge session in the Pav - a quintessentially ‘Trinity’ image. I ask her how she was attracted to the menacing place that is the front row. During her Trinity days, she actually spent most of her time

at number eight or in the centre. However when former Irish hooker Yvonne Nolan told her that Ireland was in need of a few props, Egan jumped at the chance to fulfil the definitive goal- representing her country.

As a girl writing about rugby, I have never played the game. Any knowledge I claim to have comes from the “complex art” that is being a supporter. It’s all about observation. Discussing rugby with Ailis then makes for intriguing conversation. She offers genuine insight into the old sport of rugby and a candid account of life as a woman whose time revolves around the game. I’m interested to know how highly Egan values the use of analysis in rugby, considering the emphasis that is now afforded to its use both in the professional men’s game and in the women’s set up. While Ailis credits it as a vital part of the game, she offers curious insight for those of us that don’t play, in stating that it is important not to overly rely on analysis. “You play your best rugby by playing what is in front of you, ‘heads up’ rugby.

You cannot be too programmed as teams adapt from game to game and we have to remember that they have been analysing us”.

In the wake of Ireland’s stunning win over the Black Ferns, captain Fiona Coghlan honoured the back-room staff for the game plan they put in place. Head coach Philip Doyle has evidently been hugely instrumental in the success of the team while also having a manifestly influential role in the mind-set that the girls cultivate. Doyle stepped down after the World Cup due to his business commitments and Egan draws attention to the void that he leaves to be filled- “He will be a massive loss as he has put in place the structures that have enabled us to get into the top four in the world”. Ailis emphasises how she will miss his involvement on a personal level, Doyle having been pivotal to her development as an elite rugby player- “From a personal point of view I will definitely miss him. He gave me my first cap, took a chance on me and allowed me to develop into a prop on an international stage. I owe him a lot.”

Subsequent to his resignation, Doyle was vocal about the IRFU’s need to build on recent success by perhaps appointing a professional coach, which I’m intrigued to learn is the case for many of the world’s top nations. Why don’t we follow suit? By vocalising this matter Doyle has surely stipulated that the demands of the game now require a full time coaching packet. Above all, this summer’s

World Cup has demonstrated and indeed verified the elite level to which teams now play on the international stage. I ask Ailis about the extent to which she finds the demands of the game have increased since she first began playing. She specifically cites England, New Zealand and Canada as having set the bar very high.

“Strength and conditioning as well as skill levels had to improve drastically to compete with the top teams in the world, and now that bar has risen again. I personally enjoy the challenge and want to get the maximum out of myself and the squad, and we have yet to reach our potential.”

“

They have broken down enough barriers in the past few years to allow them to convert any negative publicity into a discussion about what’s really important to them - their ability as rugby

Targets The fact that Egan believes that the team have not fulfilled their full potential is a promising indicator of budding goals and of further success yet to be attained.

There is always work to be done.

The England game acts as evidence of this fact. It wasn’t just the defeat to our Auld Enemy that was hard to take, but the lack of performance from what looked like a completely different team to the side that had beaten New Zealand. England were good, but worse than that, Ireland allowed them to be good. Their complete domination was a bitter pill, destroying our hopes of a world cup final.

The girls by no means shirk responsibility, though. Their subsequent improvement against France, despite the result, was something they could be proud of, further proving the strength of their mental resolve. I wondered how they were able to move on mentally from such a lamentable performance. Ailis admits that it was very tough but is succinct in her description of how the girls put it behind them- “We were very honest with each other after the game, addressed the areas that needed working on and supported each other” Inevitably, there are some other questions, questions which are truly a different subject matter, that arise when talking about women’s rugby. This appears to be the plight of women’s sport, the unnecessary cross to bear, thrust upon female athletes. Discrimination, misconceptions, fallacies, judgement- are these part and parcel of playing an ‘old boys’ type sport? Is it ever just about the game? Or has the day come for us to move on and agree that male and female athletes are treated as equals? When it comes to the press, all evidence to the contrary I’m afraid. Just last week, I was put out to see an

to the contrary I’m afraid. Just last week, I was put out to see an article in the Irish Times about Caroline Wozniacki’s momentous achievement of reaching the US Open semi-final with the words in the title “hell hath no fury like a top tennis player scorned”. The article accounted for her return to form since her infamous split with Rory McIlroy. Evidently, she can’t win a major quarter final without it being attributable to her love life. McIlroy managed to win two majors this summer without Wozniacki getting any of the credit. I don’t deny that Caroline brings some of this on herself, talking publicly about the split so frequently in terms of sport.

This shouldn’t set the standard for female athletes, though.

Equality still needs to be pushed to the fore, to the top of the agenda.

Nowhere does this become more apparent than in the context of an article about women’s rugby that caused quite a stir this summer.

Niamh Horan’s maladroit piece for the Sunday Independent drew attention to the fact that there are still people, journalists in particular, who are willing to create fallacies. Horan asserted that she was going to “shatter” our “misconceptions about women in the sport” of rugby. What misconceptions Niamh? She then proceeded to divulge the shocking revelation that some of these women even wear make-up.

Discrimination I don’t play rugby but as a supporter serious about the sport, I’m insulted. I don’t think any of my fellow supporters have ever considered these so called misconceptions in the first place. So I asked Ailis, a person who truly matters in this debate, if first of all, this article was even on her radar? Of course it was. This issue is so prevalent in the world of women’s sport that it can’t be ignored. When asked if she was insulted by the article, Egan gives a remarkable answer. “I think it was a poorly researched and written article that in no way reflects women’s rugby in Ireland. But yet it generated a fair bit of publicity for us in a good way, as people then commented on our professionalism, athleticism and commitment- all the attributes that we are proud of and that we want to be recognised for.”

Ailis’ comments are evidence that these women have broken down enough discriminatory barriers in the past few years, to allow them to convert any negative publicity into a discussion about what’s really important to them - their ability as rugby play-

a changing.

I also asked Ailis if she felt as though the girls were afforded not just the support but the respect they deserve from their counterparts in the professional game. She immediately puts this to bed however and dismisses it as a point of interest- “Personally I don’t look for recognition or respect from our counterparts.

The respect of my team mates means an awful lot more”. It is worth noting, that publically, a lot of high profile male players were hugely helpful, with their wide fan base, in gaining support for our girls in green.

Finally, I wanted Ailis’s perspective on the physicality of the sport, an issue that is ever gaining momentum. I wondered whether she had ever felt as though she was jeopardising her health for the sake of rugby- a question I would also like to ask the likes of Brian O’Driscoll. It turns out that her worst injury occurred while playing for Trinity, when she ended up with a broken leg and a dislocated ankle. She simply replies however, that “injuries are never a real consideration”. A true warrior then, a true rugby player.

Our now eminent women’s rugby team have emerged as a redoubtable force on the international stage. Who knows what the rugby gods have in store for Egan and her comrades. When asking what she would like to achieve above all else as a player of the women’s game, I was somewhat hinting at the idea of being a role model for female athletes. Egan however, answered in purely rugby terms. “I have achieved a lot already, probably to be honest more than I ever dreamed. But in the next three years I would like to see Ireland win the Grand Slam again and win the World Cup in 2017”. Perhaps for Ailis Egan, paving the way for women in something that has long been done by men, breaking old ground, is not the priority. It’s simply all about the rugby.