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STAR WARS AND SUPER SPIES: IS COLD WAR II HEATING UP? JUSTIN FEDOULOFF, FEATURES P11
JAMIE BURKE, WORLD REVIEW P16
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Michaelmas term, Week 10
Student Centre moves closer; issues remain
Issue 4, Volume 54
Plans abound but funding still absent
Halls future doubtful High Court planning appeal reinstated
Funding problems and disagreements over managements structures yet to be resolved
CAOIMHE HANLEY COLLEGE NEWS EDITOR
DEIRDRE ROBERTSON STAFF WRITER Plans to turn Luce Hall into the new student centre have taken a step closer to completion with the decision to proceed to architect’s drawings and a planning application. However, according to members of the Luce Hall Planning Committee, it is as yet undecided what exactly will be included in the building. Meanwhile, funding for the project is still in doubt, with the €250000 needed for the planning and design process being taken from the Nurse’s Education Capital Grant. In summer 2006, the Luce Committee requested funding from the Capitation Committee - which funds the Trinity Publications and Students’ Union, amongst others - but they were denied. According to Students’ Union President Andrew Byrne, 66% of the cost of this project will fall on students while College will contribute the remaining 33%. These figures will also determine the allocation of space in the building. It has been suggested that the
funds will be raised by two levies. One will pay for the building and the second for upkeep. This is similar to the €70 levy that was introduced in October to pay for the new Sports Hall. The Trinity Association have also been approached by the Luce Committee with requests to make raising money for the new centre a high priority. However, it is seen as unlikely that any one major donor will be found. In the case of the Sports Hall, a large donation was secured from business man Dr Martin Naughton. The management of the proposed Centre is still seen as the “major stumbling block”. The College’s Strategic Plan states building will be student-managed however individual areas may vary from this. The Students’ Union President Andrew Byrne has pointed out the proposed café as one exception. This will be run by College Catering. Another area of contention is the proposed bar and venue. The Students’ Union has expressed as strong interest in running this,
Left: Original plans for the conversion of Luce Hall dating from 2001. Above: Students’ Union President Andrew Byrne and Dean of Students Prof Gerry Whyte both of whom will be central to the progression of the Student Centre project. Photos: Mark Carroll, Martin McKenna, Michael Ronson
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No extra security for College Park despite “serious risk of injury” to students Crowd control issues last summer have highlighted shortcomings of current system STAFF WRITER College’s Executive Officers have decided not to appoint additional security staff to monitor the Pavilion Bar and College Park, despite recommendations to do so by the Sites and Facilities Committee last June ,which express a “real risk of a serious incident in College Park with adverse publicity and insurance implications.” Instead of following the recommendations of the SFC to hire extra security, a “risk assessment” has instead been taken, compiled in consultation with the Pavilion Management, the Department of Sport, College Security Managers, Junior Dean and the College Safety Officer. This summer, instead of extra security present at all times, there will be “resources made available to facilitate the introduction of a combination of
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control measures which include the employment of additional safety/security stewards to work at the Pavilion and the use of professional, external event managers on specific evenings when large crowds are anticipated”, a college source has said. The peak times in question are the early summer months of May and June, and around exam times, when the lawns of College Park are used as an overspill area for the Pavilion Bar, as well as a general outdoor recreational area. The SFC recommended that preventative steps be taken for student security by appointing additional part-time security staff. The SFC recommendations came amid a series of crowd control issues last May and June which led to the construction of iron railings along the pathways to the Pav, movement restrictions on campus and early and varied bar and grounds closing times. It was hoped that the introduction of
additional security staff would allay the need for such ad-hoc measures in the future. During the SFC meeting of 5 June 2007 a memorandum issued by the Facilities Officer Noel McCann was circulated to those present. In this memorandum McCann expressed concerns about “the issue of crowd control in College Park”. The minutes from this meeting state that “the committee noted the real risk of a serious incident in College Park with adverse publicity and insurance implications”. The committee went on “to recommend to Executive Officers the allocation of funds amounting to €45000 for the proposed additional part-time security staff required at peak times in College Park”. It was, however, noted by the SFC Bursar, Prof. D. C. Williams, that “Executive Officers • Continued page 5
Crowd control issues lead to request for extra security provisions. Photo: David Molloy
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Kevin Brazil discovers Dublin’s food revolution • Paul Earlie reviews Martin Amis The art of pornography examined • Catriona Gray meets the Stereophonics 6
Caira Bar rett on the art of por nography
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Kevin Bra zil examin Dublin’s food revo es lution
Cover Ilustration of Paul Piebinga courtesy
JOHN CALLAGHAN
A decision taken by Mr. Justice Fennelly of the Supreme Court to allow Mr. James Kelly to reinstate his appeal to the High Court against The Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the University of Dublin, Trinity College and Dublin City Council on 15 October may affect the future of Trinity Halls in Dartry. Kelly has been engaged for a number of years in legal proceedings seeking, entirely without success, to have declared invalid a decision of An Bórd Pleanála granting planning permission to Trinity for the development of the student residences at Trinity Hall. While the development has long since been completed, Kelly has been embroiled in legal dispute for the past seven years. On 7 November 2002, Kelly instituted the present action by plenary summons in the High Court. In this action he seeks an order directing the rehearing of his judicial review application. Effectively the relief he seeks in the action is an order setting aside the order of Justice McKechnie, who refused Kelly leave to appeal the awardance of planning permission for the Trinity Halls development. In the plenary summons, Kelly pleads that Justice McKechnie, in refusing the application for leave, had referred to the location of boilerhouse facilities proposed by the developers. He alleges that college had misled the High Court during the hearing of the leave application. The misleading is alleged to have consisted of the fact that the developers had submitted “certain architectural plans and drawings” relating to the development showing that boilers would be installed in certain places identified as plant rooms. However, Kelly claims that the college failed to acquaint the High Court with the full facts of an application, as it had also made for “the location of some of the aforesaid boilers in the basement of one of the aforesaid buildings to another section of the then Dublin Corporation namely the Fire Prevention Section.” The entire substance of the case pleaded by Kelly is that the order of Justice McKechnie, refusing him leave to apply for judicial review of the decision of An Bórd Pleanála granting planning permission, should be set aside because it was procured by the single act of alleged misleading mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Justice Murray, sitting in the
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Michaelmas term, Week 10
CollegeNews The Numbers Game
66% vs 33% Percentage of student funding versus College funding for the proposed new Student Centre
€250,000 Money needed fro the planning and design of said Student Centre, taken from the Nurse’s Education Grant
€2000 Money raised by the Slave Auction as part of Trinity Med Day
€620 Bidding record at said Slave Auction, set by Biosoc Chairperson Rabia Haydar.
€270,000 The Provost’s new salary
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He said, she said
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“Well done to everyone” Provost, on hearing of Trinity’s jump in the world university rankings.
Student Centre moves to planning and design stage • Continued from page 1 as the centre will hopefully host Ents activities. However, the Students’ Union don’t actually own the necessary bar license. The College currently holds two bar licenses indirectly. An Interim Report from 2001 suggests using one previously designated for use in Goldsmith Hall, while the license of the now-defunct Buttery is also an option. A new Student Centre has been on the building agenda of Trinity for over seven years. Goldsmith Hall was originally built as a student centre, but after numerous difficulties, this purpose had to be abandoned. The Bar license acquired for Goldsmith’s Student Centre could possibly be used by Luce Hall, but it is owned by a body called the Goldsmith Club rather than directly by the College or Students’ Union. The original plans included an events venue, café, bar, administrative offices, meeting rooms, a shop, a games
room, multi-faith areas and prayer rooms. A further suggestion was to build accommodation for TAP students, but this has been scrapped due to shortage of space and noise considerations resulting from the inclusion of the venue. The Student Centre will hold both College and student-run events, but it is unclear how this will be managed. In his campaign last year, Ents Officer Ed O’Riordan told Trinity News he would “ensure the establishment and successful running of an on campus student bar and gig venue in what is now Luce Hall”. He intended to ensure there would be an event on in the student centre every night of the week. Previous meetings of the Luce Hall Planning Committee have seen protests that the area allocated to Ents events is too small. However, it is believed that the enlargement of this area would necessitate the removal of the Botany Department from the building. Speaking to Trinity News, another
member of the Luce Committee says the plans for the centre’s ,development are still “very vague” with this most recent meeting adding little to the detail of the previous plans. The Students’ Union will move into offices in Luce Hall and Central Societies Committee say they will consider moving some of their space. Trinity Publications say they will remain in House Six. The Botany Department currently housed in Luce Hall - may have to find an alternative location, but the bio-resources unit will remain. Some staff are also lobbying to save the squash courts. However, it has been noted by some that there is less available space in Luce Hall than has been “allocated in theory” to the above parties. The Luce Hall Planning Committee has based its plans on an investigation of similar centres in University College Dublin and Dublin City University. The Luce Committee is responsible for deciding what will be
included in the centre. It is a subcommittee chaired by the Bursar and attended by the Dean of Students, the President of the Students’ Union, a CSC representative, the Director of Sport and the Director of Buildings. Byrne says of the recent meeting that it was decided that “ all the original spaces planned are to go ahead with the exception of the accommodation, as that would have prevented us from using the gig venue late at night.” The Director of Buildings has described the target programme outlined as “optimistic”. A planning application has yet to be submitted, but an outline drawing drawn up in 2001 shows two floors of the building dedicated to the student centre and the rest to “Science”. Planning permission is being sought to extend the building and add more windows. Once the plans have been submitted and approved, the project is timetabled to take 18 months to complete.
“that’s why we have a small stand, so we can move it”. Joe O’Gorman, in answer to the Sites and Facilities Committee’s rebuke of Trinity Tours for obstructing Front Arch. “Very vague.” A member of the Luce Hall Planning Committee describes the plans for the new student centre. “No longer academics and administrators, but rather strategic leaders and managers who are required to assess opportunities and risks against clear strategic priorities and to take decisions with far reaching implications”. Submission by the university heads and the secretaries, registrars and bursars on their new corporate roles “If they don’t have proposals that they’re happy with, no proposals will be brought forth because I’m not going to redraft for the sake of redrafting.” Education Officer Bartley Rock speaks out against beaurocracy “Trinity needs to get its house in order and, only if there is spare capacity, can Trinity then look to increasing student numbers. Restructuring and cost reductions need to take place first. To increase student numbers now would be a race to the bottom.” Education Officer Bartley Rock Trinity needs an SU run bar. At the moment DUCAC is being funded by all students regardless of whether they are sporty or not. If we had a similar set up to UCD (a bar with a one thousand capacity) we could do so much more for students while keeping their money in the College working for them. And you know if I was running it, it would make a fuck load of cash! Ents Officer Ed O’Riordan
The Cobblestone Reduction Programme will see wheel-chaire friendly paths disect Frpnt Square allowing better access for all students. Photo: Michael Ronson
Editorial Staff
Cobbles to be wheel-chair friendly
Editor: Gearoid O’Rourke editor@trinitynews.ie Deputy Editor: David Molloy deped@trinitynews.ie Business Manager: Conor Sullivan buisness.manager@trinitynews.ie Copy Editor: Nick Beard copyeditor@trinitynews.ie Photographs: Martin McKenna photos@trinitynews.ie College News: Caoimhe Hanley collegenews@trinitynews.ie National News: Lauren Norton nationalnews@trinitynews.ie International News: Kasia Mychajlowycz internationalnews@trinitynews.ie News Features: Eimear Crowe newsfeatures@trinitynews.ie Society News: Conor McQuillan socities@trinitynews.ie Features: Sam Hannaford features@trinitynews.ie Opinion: John Lavelle & Kevin Lynch opinionanddebate@trinitynews.ie World Review: Peter Doherty worldreview@trinitynews.ie Travel: Andrea Mulligan travel@trinitynews.ie Business: Danielle Ryan businessandcareers@trinitynews.ie Science: Sebastian Wiesmair science@trinitynews.ie College Sport: Jonathan Drennan collegesport@trinitynews.ie National Sport: Felix McElhone nationalsport@trinitynews.ie Sport Features: Connel McKenna sportfeatures@trinitynews.ie Graphics: Mary Lohan graphics@trinitynews.ie TN2 Editor: Catriona Gray Film: Conor O’Kelly Music: Carolyn Power Fashion: Ciaran Durkin Books: Paul Earlie Theatre: Polly Graham Art: Caroline O’Leary Edibles: Beth Armstrong Endnotes: Ailbhe Ni Mhaoileoin Website: Brian Henry
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Thanks to: Joey Facer; Pat Morey and College Security; Caoimhe and Sally-Ann in the Communications Office; Peter Henry; Fionn McLaughlin; Ed O’Riordan; Daithí Ó Malley; Nicholas Moustache; Daire Hickey; Daithi MacSithigh; Emer Graoke; David Adamson; Jenny Ryan; Rosscrea Express; and everyone in Midland Web Printing. This publication is funded by a grant from DU Publications Committee. Serious complaints about the content of this publication should be addressed to: The Editor, Trinity News, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. This publication claims no special rights or privileges.
ADAN LARRAGY STAFF WRITER Trinity’s Front Square is to be made wheelchair-accessible under the “Cobblestone Reduction Programme” approved by the Site and Facilities Committee meeting of 8 May 2007. A smooth-paved pathway at least 1200mm in width (the minimum required according to Trinity’s Physical Access Working Group) will provide ‘access to the entrances of buildings in Front Square. The pathway will also run into the centre of the Square itsel,f where it will continue alongside the north side of the Old Library. The College has not yet applied for planning permission from Dublin City Council, as the college’s architects, Michael Collins Associates, upon the advice of a conservation architect “who
suggests that discussions should be held with Dublin City Council prior to a planning application being lodged” given Front Square’s historic significance. The discussions are investigating the impact of the proposal on Front Square. Consultation with the City Council is ongoing and a planning application is due to be lodged later this month. College received planning permission for “the provision of removable wheelchair access ramps and balustrades and associated works to entrance steps at East and West Theatre entrances, East and West Chapel entrances and entrances to houses no.’s 1, 4, and 6 (total 7 no. ramps)“ in September 2007. The provision of wheelchair accessible pathways will complement this development. Two options were presented but “Option B”, in which diagonal pathways
crossed Front Square, was “strongly opposed” by the Grounds and Gardens Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the SFC, “due to concerns over safety, in particular with regard to bicycle traffic”. The aesthetics of the plan were also strongly opposed. The first option, A, is now being pursued. The programme was first discussed by the SFC in November 2005, prompted by the Disability Act of the same year. Section 25 of the Act states that “a public body shall ensure that its public buildings are, as far as practicable, accessible to persons with disabilities”. Though Trinity may not be legally required to provide access, speaking to Trinity News, Deputy Director of Buildings Pat McDonnell said that it is “in the spirit of the Disability Act” to provide wheelchair accessible access. Mr. McDonnell described the aim
of the programme as being “to keep the character of Front Square with the provision of smooth wheelchair accessible paths”. The estimated cost for the development ranges between €720000 and €905000, depending on the quality of granite used in the programme. This is the only material felt to be feasible by the SFC, as ‘the architects… have advised that planning permission for this scheme is unlikely to be granted unless granite paving is used’. However, funding for the project has yet to materialize. In February 2007, the Bursar reported to the SFC “that he will revisit previous discussions he has had with… Trinity Foundation about the possibility of the allocation of necessary funds for this project from Dormant Funds account”. If planning permission is granted, the next step will be raising funds.
Former Trinity law lecturer takes on Hanafin CAOIMHE HANLEY COLLEGE NEWS EDITOR Former Trinity College constitutional law lecturer Gerard Hogan forms part of the senior counsel team of Frank Prendergast Jnr, who is taking a High Court action against the Higher Education Authority, the Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin and the Attorney General. The case is been taken by 20 yearold student Prendergast, from Blackrock Co. Dublin, as he is seeking to have the quota on the number of
undergraduate medicine places allocated to EU students overturned. If successful, this could have serious implications for the way the CAO system operates and will completely change the entrance to medicine in Trinity. His legal team, which also includes former Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell SC, will argue the defendants acted unlawfully in forcing Irish universities to “drastically reduce and limit” the number of medical places for Irish citizens “in an arbitrary and unlawful way”. The team feel that nonEU students are “permitted to obtain
scarce places in institutions offering undergraduate courses in medicine denied to Irish citizens”. The documents lodged to the court state that Prendergast obtained 550 CAO points when he repeated his Leaving Certificate this year. However, this was not good enough to gain entry as an EU student to any undergraduate medicine courses in Ireland. Prendergast then applied for a place as a non-EU student, but was refused despite being willing to pay the significant tuition fees, numbering in the tens of thousands, associated with this. Prendergast claims that by giving
preference to overseas students, the Department of Education and the Higher Education Authority are acting unconstitutionally. Essentially he is arguing that as an Irish citizen, the Government has a duty to provide for his education first, ahead of any foreign national. His legal team are due to argue that allowing foreign students an easier path to the course simply by paying money is prejudicial and contrary to the Constitution and the 1971 Higher Education Act.
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Michaelmas term, Week 10
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CollegeNews New faculty deans to be elected AOIFE GRIFFIN STAFF WRITER The latest band of restructuring within the College’s administrative and support services will come into effect on 1 January 2008, when the soon-to-be-elected Deans will take their place at the head of the new three faculty structure within the college. These new faculties will be; the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Engineering and Health Sciences. Eligible nominees for the position of Dean are those full-time staff members that have achieved professional status [either associate or chair] and who have demonstrated the necessary leadership in the fields of administrative duties, research and teaching. These nominations are then considered by the Faculty Executive Committee, chaired by the Provost, who then decide if the nominee, elected by staff within their own faculty, are eligible to run for Deanship. Rejected nominees will be given stated reasons as to their ineligibility. For a candidate to be successful, at least 70% of their final vote must come from academic staff with the other 30% being made up by the collective votes of undergraduate and postgraduate student reps, research staff, support staff. Successful Deans will then hold the Office for a term of five years, with a possible re-election of three years if deemed fit by the Faculty Executive Committee.
This restructuring has come about as a result from a common consensus that the current system is failing to fully support the college alumni. The decision to restructure was reached through a Working Group, established by the Board, which is compromised of representatives from the Board itself, as well as Council, the Heads of School Committee, the Deans’ Committee and the student body. The tri-faculty model is deemed to be the most suitable in terms of greater efficacy both economically and in terms of administrative prowess. The presence of three faculties instead of 24 individual schools provides a far more coherent distribution of the College budget, ensuring accountability and regulation of funds and resources. This model will also reduce administration costs by removing unnecessary layers of processing that have developed within the schools Worries that the restructuring would lead to loss of representation for the students have been met with the provision of three student faculty convenors. They will be attending the University Council (chaired by the provost) with the assistance of three deputy convenors that shall also attend the council, but without the power to vote. Ballot papers for the election of the new Deans will be posted via the college’s internal mail system on the 19 November, with a deadline of the 5 December for their return. Ballot counting will commence on 6 December and the new Deans will officially take up their positions on the 1 January 2008.
Trinity Halls challenger • Continued from page 1 High Court, judged that “None of the elements of any alleged fraud are stated other than that certain matters were not disclosed without indicating on what basis the failure to disclose constituted a breach of duty as to amount to a dishonest or fraudulent concealment.”
However, in 2006 Kelly was informed that Justice Murray was the brother of a partner in the architectural firm Murray O’Laoire, which had designed the development at Trinity Halls. Kelly lodged a complaint to the Supreme Court, on the basis of Justice Murray’s objective bias. On 15 October, the court decided to allow Kelly to reinstate his appeal to the High Court.
MED Day slave auction NIAMH NIMHAOILEOIN STAFF WRITER Over €2000 was raised by a Slave Auction held on Friday evening as part of Trinity Med Day. The event took place on the crowded steps of the Pav with stand-up comedian Dave McSavage presiding as MC and auctioneer. All proceeds went to the students’ chosen charities; the High Risk Breast Cancer Clinic in Tallaght Hospital, the Intensive Care Unit in St James’ hospital and the Trinity Access Programme. Other Med Day events included a comedy gig, an afternoon sports day and a night out in The Purty Kitchen. The Slave Auction surpassed the huge success of last year’s Bachelor and Bachelorette Auction, with a remarkable increase in the amount raised. Both groups and singles were invited to sell themselves and the winning bidders earned the chance to
have their prizes at their disposal for a day. Among the many lots were a group of anatomy demonstrators, “The Policeman and the Gimp” and “Biosoc Queen”, Rania Haydar. The services offered to bidders included “a scenic walk around Dublin”, a surface anatomy lesson, Asian cooking, pole dancing, working in the fields and the everpopular “anything you want”. Despite a somewhat tentative start the crowd quickly got swept up in the auction atmosphere. Due perhaps to the MC’s insistence that “your parents are rich now and you’ll be rich too when you’re doctors” and “It’s all for charity”, last year’s record of €270 was broken early on with a €281 bid for second year Aoibheann Flynn. The bids continued to climb with the cheers getting progressively louder as the €300, €400 and €500 marks were reached and exceeded. The auction concluded with a frenzied bidding war over Biosoc Chairperson Rania Haydar, who was
sold for €620, the highest bid of the evening. After the auction, Libby Ennis, a Senior Sophister Medicine student, shaved off her hair in support of the charities. She spent the previous week collecting donations to “save or shave”. The consensus was to shave, but not before Dave McSavage auctioned off the chance to shave her head, raising an additional €60. Following this, there was a comedy gig in the Edmund Burke Theatre, hosted by John Colleary and featuring Willa White, best known for his appearance on Des Bishop’s Joy in Da Hood and Damian Clark, an Australian comic whose show I Dare Ya is to be aired on RTÉ later in the year. Earlier in the day, the 2FM Roadcaster was on campus, with DJ Dave Redmond providing a musical backdrop to the afternoon’s inflatable fun and games, including sumo wrestling, bungee running and pillow fighting.
Win 2 pairs of tickets to Erol Alkan on Saturday December 8th with We Do Music and TRINITY NEWS To win, answer the question, “Name 5 bands that Erol Alkan has remixed”? Email your answers to competition@trinitynews.ie before Saturday December 15th, with the subject line “Erol Alkan”. Winners will be contacted by Email, the Editor’s decision is final.
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Michaelmas term, Week 10
CollegeNews News Trinity ranked 53rd in world Briefing CAOIMHE HANLEY COLLEGE NEWS EDITOR
Freshers Co-op now showing The annual DU Players Freshers’ Co-op started showing yesterday following a month of rehearsal. Starring your friends and classmates it is the biggest night in the DU Players calender. Trinity News caught up with one of the show’s producers David Adamson who had this to say: “Let the heavens resound and all the earth sing out in rejoicefulness! That magical moment is finally upon us! That’s right, chickens, it’s finally the week of The Freshers’ Co-op” The show is on at 8pm every evening until Friday. Tickets are €4 on the door. Look out for an in-depth look behind the scenes of The Freshers’ Coop in the next issue of Trinity News.
TES Internship Networking night At 7:00pm on Tuesday 13 November in the Davis Theatre of the Arts Building, the Trinity Entrepreneurial Society will be hosting an internship networking evening. The evening entails brief presentations from firms such as Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernest & Young and Deloitte on internships opportunities. The presentations will be followed by a food and drinks network reception at 8:00pm in the College Historical Society Conversation Room of the GMB. The goal of this event is to give Trinity students an opportunity to network and ask questions of perspective employers in areas such as investment banking, accountancy and consultancy. All the internship programmes on offer for the evening will vary in terms of length and responsibility. However, every single internship program will be designed to give penultimate year students an opportunity to experience the day-to-day work life in one of the above employer’s organizations before considering a career with them upon graduating.
Trinity has been ranked equal 53rd in the world in the latest Times Higher Education Supplement world university rankings, sharing its place with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. This is the highest ranking Trinity College has ever achieved, up 25 places on last year’s world ranking of 78. Trinity also ranked 13th in Europe. In achieving this position, Trinity College has overtaken other prestigious institutions such as the London School of Economics, the University of Washington and St Andrew’s in Scotland among others. Trinity is the only Irish university to make it into the top 100 world universities, with University College Dublin our nearest competitor, within the top 200.
The THES world university rankings lists the worlds top 200 universities measured on research quality, graduate employability, international outlook and teaching quality. Trinity scored a total of 76.9 overall, out of a possible 100, which was achieved by world number one, Harvard University. However, when the results are broken down, Trinity is revealed to have performed remarkably well in certain areas. Trinity received higher marks for number of international faculty members than any of the top four ranked universities. With a score of 77 for percentage of international students added to this, Trinity is a highly cosmopolitan university in comparison to its international competitors. The college also received an important boost for its graduate community, receiving 92 out of a
New Pav to be wheelchair inaccessible
possible 100 for graduate employability. Trinity’s peer review score was also relatively high at 80, meaning the college has received significant validation from its competitors. However, in contrast, Trinity performed poorly in quality of research, receiving only 58 marks out of 100 for citations per faculty. The Provost Dr. John Hegarty has welcomed these results, saying, “There should be a strong sense of pride that College has achieved this place. It is a tribute to the talent, scholarship and hard work of all our academic, administrative and support staff and students. Well done to everyone”. This achievement has moved Trinity closer to the goal set by the Provost of reaching a world top 50 ranking within the next few years. According to the Provost, “Our ambition was to build on our reputation as Ireland’s number one
STAFF WRITER Following a presentation to the Site and Facilities Committee last Tuesday, it has been advised that planning permission for a proposed redevelopment of the Pav without wheelchair accessibility will be sought “as soon as possible”. While it had being planned to extend the Pavilion at first floor level at the expense of the current balcony area in order to provide “universal access” to wheelchair users and those with restricted mobility. However a proposal by architectural firm Arthur Gibney & Partners which provided this access has been turned down by the SFC owing to “serious reservations” that the “established symmetrical architecture” of the current Pavilion building would be compromised. As it stands, one of two previously approved schemes is being submitted to City Planners, neither of which includes the provision of a lift for wheelchair users. It has been suggested that the decision to expand the area of the Pav was taken in light of a previous application rejection by Dublin City
Council planners. In a meeting involving the Director of Sport, the Architectural Services Officer and the Chair of the Pavilion Bar it was made clear that there was insufficient space inside the Pavilion Bar to accommodate a lift and accessible toilets without extending the building. While it is has not been made clear at this stage what the likely cost of the project is set to be, DUCAC, which had originally agreed to contribute to the funding of the project, had been approached to cover additional costs of a universally accessible Pavilion in what would likely have been a “more expansive scheme”. Students have already expressed concern over the planned redevelopment. There was already heavy criticism on campus two years ago when a refurbishment which was undertaken attempted to modernize the building’s interior yet ignored cramped toilets and a lack of wheelchair accessibility. The recent removal of the bar from the Buttery would also mean that, should the Pav be closed during the building work, then College could be without any student bar for a period of up to two years.
with our improvement in the rankings, which includes international recognition from academics and employers. It is our hope and intention to maintain that position.” For the purpose of compiling the rankings, over 3700 academics from around the world were surveyed concerning the research quality of the university and their views accounted for 40% of the score. In addition over 730 international employers in a recruiter review were surveyed concerning their views on graduate employability, which accounted for 10%. The other half of the marks were made up of teaching quality, which was measured by staff: student ratio (20%), research quality (20%), which was gauged by the university’s citations of major papers and international outlook, measured by international faculty staff (5%) and international students (5%).
Homophobia, homosexuality and homogenity at the Phil KASIA MYCHAJLOWYCZ NEWS REPORTER
BRENDAN MORAN
university and be among the top 50 universities in the world. We are indeed very pleased to have almost achieved that in a relatively short period of time.” The Provost went onto say “such a high ranking is an outstanding achievement for a university in a small country, competing internationally with much larger and better-resourced universities. A university’s reputation is built on the ability and performance of staff and students. The fact that we ranked so high relative to the resources available is a reflection of the very high calibre of students seeking entry to Trinity, the high-quality research produced by Trinity College researchers and the calibre and dedication of all our academic, administrative and support staff. Our strategic priorities are aligned to the highest academic values, as well as to the national goals of social, cultural and economic vibrancy. We are pleased
The University Philosophical Society questioned whether Ireland is a gay-friendly society in a debate last Thursday. Prominent members of the Irish gay community, including Labour Senator Dominic Hannigan, Trinity students Kiera Finlay, Cearbhall Maguire, John McGuirk and Jonathan Wyse, and conservative political commentator Richard Waghorne discussed both sides of the issue. Avoiding a polarized showdown, the Phil placed gay activists on both sides of the table. This lead to some confusion as to whether the proposing and opposing teams did, in fact, disagree, but promoted a debate which focused on the history of and the present status of gay and lesbian Irish citizens. Kiera Finlay discussed both legal landmarks in the struggles for gay rights to be recognized in Ireland and her own personal experience. She highlighted the invisibility of lesbians in the gay rights debate and in laws concerning
homosexuality, and bravely spoke of her experiences being bullied in school, showing that discrimination and “non-friendly” attitudes still do prevail with some people in Ireland. Senator Hannigan told the audience it is now “the norm” for Irish people to accept homosexuality, but stated that there was always “room for improvement”. His party has twice attempted to have civil unions for homosexual couples enshrined in Irish legislation and have twice been shot down. To convince the audience that Ireland was indeed a gay-friendly place, Richard Waghorne lambasted the gay rights movement for moving from “securing gay rights to eroding natural differences”, creating a world that he predicted in twenty years would discriminate against Catholics as a result of gay activism and lobbying. Ailbhe Smith asked, “Is it friendly to anyone seen as different?” Gays and lesbians are just two of a long list of people discriminated against in Ireland, she said, which also includes people of colour, aged people, the traveling community, and those with learning,
intellectual and physical disabilities. Speaking with humour and emphasis, she described through survey data collected in Ireland on a host of issues and experience the inequality that is “deeply embedded in this country”. The government’s denial of civil union, and indeed marriage in name and deed, to homosexuals, for Ms. Smith, only highlights this. “We are clearly not considered as citizenly [as heterosexuals].” Even Mr. Waghorne’s fellow proposing speaker Chris Robinson, of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network, disagreed with him, claiming that Mr. Waghorne was “painting a paranoid future”.Though admitting to agree with “almost all” of the opposition, Mr. Robinson was perhaps more optimistic about what he called the “basic decency in the Irish character”. As a civil servant working with thousands of people in Ireland to combat homophobia and promote equality in schools, he said he “never received anything but approval and welcome”. The debate was decided in favour of the resolution by a small number of people, with the majority abstaining from voting.
Your View What would you like to see in the extended Pav being mooted by DUCAC? Compiled by: David Adamson & Conor Sullivan
Sarah Joyce
Sam McMullen
John Donaghy
JF Drama & Theatre Studies
JF History & Political Science
JF Medicine
I’d like to see a cinema where we could watch loads of cool movies. Some squishy bean bags would be nice too, along with a heater. All we need really is somewhere comfortable to sit and relax.
I’d lie to see a proper SU bar like there is in every other university. Somewher that is cheaper and bigger than the Pav. They should put on proper sport on the TV’s too not Golf and SkyNews.
Hannah PartisJennings
Aerandir Baiza JF English
JF english & History A suitable place to nap in between lectures would be nice, with somewhere to get sweets and cold drinks. There should be somewhere with cheap, decent quality food and a better bar than the Pav.
Somewhere to stage gigs would be good like there is in UCD. Somewhere comfortable to sit down an drelax too possibly with some TVs.
I’d like somewhere that sells chocolates and some couches for sleeping on during the day maybe with video games. It should also be open at the weekends. There should be places to check your email too.
collegenews@trinitynews.ie
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CollegeNews Bertie’s pay rise boosts Provost’s earnings too DAVID MOLLOY DEPUTY EDITOR The Provost is due to receive a pay increase of €43105, bringing his total salary to €270000. A recent report by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector has recommended a substantial increase in the salaries of university heads across the country. It is the same report which has drawn recent attention in the national media as it will increase the Taoiseach’s Salary by €38000. The Provost currently earns €226895 as his normal salary. The new rise represents a 19% increase. When these salary changes come in, Dr Hegarty will earn the same amount as Brian Cowen, TD, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance. The salaries of professors in the college will rise between €6215 and
€7806, depending on their current salary on a pay scale (a 5.5% increase on all amounts). In the case of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, this will increase academic salaries within that school by over €60000. The pay increase also applies to secretaries, registrars and bursars, who will see a smaller increase from €161,347 to €169,000 (4.7%). However, the other positions will see a far smaller rise, with professors receiving a 5.5% rise and the secretary, registrar and bursar receiving only 4.7% more. Both the university heads and the secretaries, registrars and bursars made a submission to the review body, claiming they had “increased demands on them as well as a growth in the complexity of their work” and that they are “no longer academics and administrators, but rather strategic leaders and managers who are required to assess opportunities and risks against
clear strategic priorities and to take decisions with far reaching implications”. While the review body accepted that this was true for both university heads and the secretaries, registrars and bursars, they granted the heads a much higher pay rise, saying that while these individuals are entitled to a higher salary than university professors, they should be significantly less than the university head “to reflect the ultimate responsibility of the Head”. The review body also noted in its report that “the salaries we recommend for heads of universities are higher than those we would propose if there were a different recruitment market” because of the need to attract talented workers to the position from overseassomething they did not feel applied to the other college positions it reviewed. Recent reports in the Sunday Tribune and other national papers highlighted the existence of “unauthorised” payments made to some
university heads in excess of their recommended salary. At the time, College spokesperson claimed there were no such “top-up” amounts being paid to Dr Hegarty in his position as Provost. The review body stated its position as follows: “the levels of remuneration we recommend in this report are intended to represent total remuneration for the posts concerned and no additional payments should be made.” The review body also included a recommendation that in cases where a residence is provided for the head of a university, 10% should be deducted from the recommended salary, unless the residence is used “to a significant extent for official purposes”. Last year, Trinity News had the Provost’s house valued at a rental cost of €25000- €30,00 a month. While the Provost holds a number of functions there each year, it is unclear what
The Provost’s annual wage will increase by over €40,000 per annum. Photo: Matt Pitt constitutes significant official purposes. The salaries of university professors are linked to the salaries of assistant secretaries in the civil service. This link has been maintained, despite objections from professors’
representatives that such a link is no longer relevant. With over 400 posts of professor in the country, these changes represent at least €2486000 of extra payments.
Student numbers to increase while HEA funding falls CONOR SULLIVAN STAFF WRITER
Brian O’Beirne, Registrar of the Phil who scored the highets speaker points at the UCD IV. Photo: David Adamson
Trinity triumph at UCD debating IV MICHAEL RONSON STAFF WRITER Both the College Historical Society and the University philosophical Society had great success at the recent UCD Debating Intervarsity. Shane Farragher and John Moriarty speaking on behalf of the Hist won the competition outright while Brian O’Beirne, Registrar of the Phil scored highest on speaker points. Jonathan Wyse and O’Beirne scored the highest points as a team, though lost out in the final, while
Christopher Kissane and Josephine Curry of the Hist finished second and fourth respectively. This continues a run of good form for Trinity teams at the UCD Intervarsity following last years victory by the Hist. The competition took place over the course of two days in UCD. Hundreds of debaters took part with teams flying in from Oxford and St Andrews. The UCD Intervarsity is one of the biggest in Ireland and the second biggest in Dublin after the Dean Swift Trinity Intervarsity organised jointly on an annual basis by the Phil and Hist.
Safety issues in college park
As part of a plan to reduce the college’s deficit, the Board of Trinity College plans to increase student numbers by 500 in the long term to 11500, as agreed with the government in the National Development Plan. However this will mean cuts in funding for Trinity over the coming years as the Higher Education Authority allocates funding for universities according to the number of students in each university. It was stated at Board that there seems to be a disconnect between government policy, which is seeking an increase in the quality of education, and the HEA which is implementing with a model that seeks to increase student numbers without taking issues such as quality into account. The effect of this has been to increase competition for a fixed amount of funding. There has been strong opposition to large increases in student numbers across college. The Students’ Union is opposing this and the Board is on
have previously declined to allocate special funding for additional security”. This is an on-going issue that has been developing over recent years. In a Grounds and Gardens Advisory Committee (a sub-committee of the SFC) on 19 June 2006, almost a year prior to these most recent recommendations, the Facilities Officer had already raised concerns. He stated that “there was a major issue with controlling the very large crowds on College Park on certain nights during the early summer months, particularly around examination time. He would be conducting a review of the procedures with the Director of Sport and the management of the Pavilion Bar with a view to identifying what additional measures were required to bring more control to bear on this problem”. Later in the same meeting, the difficulty of the situation was noted for “a small team of security officers on duty at any one time with a variety of other tasks to fulfill. As stated
collegenews@trinitynews.ie
earlier in the meeting, the stewarding requirements for College Park for the busy summer period will be reviewed in light of this year’s experience.” Instead of following the recommendations of the SFC to hire extra security, a “risk assessment” has instead been taken, compiled in consultation with the Pavilion Management, the Department of Sport, College Security Managers, Junior Dean and the College Safety Officer. This summer, there will be “resources made available to facilitate the introduction of a combination of control measures which include the employment of additional safety/security stewards to work at the Pavilion and the use of professional, external event managers on specific evenings when large crowds are anticipated,” a college source has said So, it seems that for the present the ad-hoc security measures of last year, with the proviso that extra staff can be called upon, “on specific evenings when large crowds are anticipated”, are awaiting us come summer.
instead would bring in some efficiencies of scale, with less bureaucracy and lines of communication. He stated that he believes that Trinity has a wide range of student services that aren’t coordinated properly Other parts of the Strategic Plan to reduce the college’s deficit are plans to double the number of PhD students over the next five years. There was opposition to this at board since many PhD supervisors are already working at full capacity and that younger staff are working under “extreme pressure”. It is also planned to increase international students, win more philanthropic funding and reduce costs where possible. It is planned that all these issues will be examined in each individual school, and a report on this presented to board next term. In the most recent year for which comprehensive student numbers are available, 2005/06, Trinity had 10000 students (15% of all students) and was third only to University College Cork and University College Dublin with 11,400(17% of students) and 12,700(19% of students) respectively.
Proposals to reduce size of Students’ Union Exec DEIRDRE LENNON
• Continued from page 1
record as stating that increases would pose “a serious and unacceptable risk of a reduction in quality of teaching, research, and the student experience”. In order to reduce the deficit, the College’s plans for reform include the creation of a Chief Operating Office, in order to provide better planning of administrative services in College than at present. Speaking to Trinity News, Bartley Rock, Students’ Union Education Officer, said “Trinity needs to get its house in order and, only if there is spare capacity, can Trinity then look to increasing student numbers. Restructuring and cost reductions need to take place first”, Rock continued. He stated that to increase student numbers would form part of a “race to the bottom”, something that is opposed by both the Union and the Board. Rock outlines a proposal of his own to establish an office that would amalgamate all the pastoral services for students (such as Counseling, Health Care, Tutors and so on), as an example of where savings could be found. This wouldn’t involve any funding cuts, but
STAFF WRITER Students’ Union Education Officer Bartley Rock has proposed that a Constitutional Review Group be set up to investigate further changes in the makeup of the Students’ Union. Rock hopes that by streamlining the size of the Union Executive Committee, the power of this body to affect change will be considerably increased. Though unconfirmed by Rock himself, two separate sources on the Students’ Union Exec have told Trinity News that the positions of Irish Officer and Environmental Officer may be considered for removal. Speaking to Trinity News, Rock
has said “I want to look at the Constitution in its totality and review how we want things to function. I think there’s always room to make things more efficient.” In fact, it will be the decision of the Constitutional Review Board to look at how the power structure of the union, and within it, the Executive, works. If it is seen to be running effectively, no changes will need to be made, but an overview of every aspect is required. This decision to establish the group will be subject to the approval of the Students’ Council, which will be voted on at the next meeting. The Review Committee will consist of nine people, eight of whom have voting rights. It is recommended by Rock that the President sit on the
committee, as well as three Faculty convenors and a TSM convenor. A member of the Electoral Commission will also be present, to act as an impartial judge, prevent conflict of interest and to give an opinion on whether the interpretations will work or not. Their recommendations will then be made by the second week of Hilary Term and, if they do not feel that any changes should be made to either the Constitution, the Executive Committee or within the Union generally, then no modifications to the structure will take place. According to Rock,“If they don’t have proposals that they’re happy with, no proposals will be brought forth because I’m not going to redraft for the sake of redrafting.”
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NationalNews Pay freeze for Cross university Campus heads over illegal salary NUIG top ups NUIG to host two hundred aid workers at Irish Aid Conference National University of Ireland Galway will host Irish Aid’s Third Level Conference “Development’s Futures”, from 24-25 November 2007. Minister of State for Overseas Development, Michael Kitt TD, will officially open the event, which will be attended by some 200 practitioners and academics working in the field of international development and development education. The keynote address will be delivered by Michael Edwards, Director of the Governance and Civil Society Program at the Ford Foundation, one of the world’s leading philanthropic foundations. Other speakers will include award-winning journalist Palagummi Sainath of The Hindu, who has been described as “the conscience of the Indian nation”. An exhibition of his photographs on the theme of “Women & Work in Rural India“ will go on public display in conjunction with the conference. The conference aims to improve links between different sectors of the development community, with an emphasis on the importance of research to educators, practitioners and scholars alike. Over 80 papers reflecting the latest research and practice in development education and in international development issues will be presented over the two days of the conference. Panel sessions will also take place on topics including HIV/AIDS; Crisis and Conflict; Education Policies in Africa; NGO Partnerships for Poverty Reduction; Gender Perspectives; Environment; Volunteering and Food Security. Welcoming the announcement of the conference, Minister of State Kitt said, “This conference is part of Irish Aid’s commitment to promote development education in universities and other thirdlevel institutions in Ireland. I am confident that it will facilitate contacts and networking between both third-level development education practitioners and academics working in the field of international development.” According to Conference Convenor Dr. Su-ming Khoo, Department of Sociology and Political Science, NUI Galway, “This event will give international researchers, educators, practitioners and activists an opportunity to explore what the future holds for development. There is an onus on third-level institutions to engage with the development issues and support organisations and individuals to advance development cooperation through research and knowledge sharing.” Tegan Artho-Bentz
LAUREN NORTON NATIONAL NEWS EDITOR University presidents at University College Dublin and National University of Ireland in Galway came under national media scrutiny this week for what Minister for Education Mary Hanafin described as “unauthorised allowances on top of their approved salary levels.” The allowances, which flout national pay policy, came to light in a review body report on top public sector pay, which was highly critical of the arrangements.It ordered a pay freeze for the presidents involved until the allowances are withdrawn. The top-up allowances mean some university presidents “are being paid more than we believed to be justified”, the body said. The Higher Education Authority has confirmed that it knew extra payments were made to the two presidents of NUI Galway and UCD. However, extra allowances are not permitted under this pay policy, unless approved by the Ministers for Education and Finance. UCD confirmed its president, Hugh Brady, has received an unauthorised annual allowance of €12000. “Our understanding is that this allowance is to be subsumed within the
increase recommended by the review body,“ a spokesperson said. However, such a move would put UCD on a collision course with the government review body which warned that unauthorised allowances must be “withdrawn” before pay increases are approved. A NUIG spokesperson said its president, Iognaid O Muircheartaigh, is not currently in receipt of any allowance, but the spokesperson was unavailable to comment on unauthorised allowances since 2001. The review body recommended the
UCD President receive a 19% increase, bringing his official salary to €270000. The NUIG president is to enjoy the same €270000 . . . a 30% increase. Officials at Minister Mary Hanafin’s department are known to have raised concerns about other perks to senior university staff, including company cars, bonus schemes and contributions to personal assurance plans. None of these benefits are permitted under national pay rules. The review body report stated the recommended salaries for university heads “represent the total remuneration
for the posts concerned and no additional payments should be made”. Several universities, and the Higher Education Authority, now face scrutiny about who authorised the payments. Making headlines were details of remuneration packages for academics including salaries above 240000 euros. According to Trinity’s Monthly Salary Scales of 1 June 2007, full time professors at this institution receive almost half that sum at €133267. Under the Education Act, universities are legally obliged to stick
to national pay policy. Government approval is necessary for exemptions in exceptional cases, generally to recruit academics with an international profile who earn a higher income abroad. In response to queries last week, the Trinity Provost and the Dublin City University President confirmed they had not received any top-up allowances. “I have not been in receipt of any payment or allowance over and above the review body’s decisions, either now or at any time since I became president of DCU”, Ferdinand von Prondzynski said.
Catwalk battle kicks off in UCC EMMA GOUGH UCC EXPRESS The search to find University College Cork’s next top model begins in earnest this week as ten students compete to be crowned king or queen of the catwalk. As part of the competition, which is the brainchild of the UCC Journalism Society, five boys and five girls will battle it out over the next five months to claim a prize that includes €500 cash, beauty products and a three-month contract with Cork-based modelling agency Lockdown. The JournoSoc’s magazine, Motley, will publish a photoshoot every month for the next five months, in which the models will be pictured in a variety of themed shoots, under the direction of two Lockdown models, Vivienne Kelly and Emer O’Sullivan. The deciding vote will rest with the students of UCC. Students can vote online at the magazine’s new website, www.motley.ie. The theme of this month’s shoot was “Babes in the Wood”, to coincide
with the beginning of the ball season in UCC next month. Motley’s lifestyle editor Kathy Freeman said the desire to do “something different” was the motivation behind the competition. “Cork really has everything to make a ball very special and we were so glad to be able to bring together everyone involved to show how great you can look for your college ball this season”, she said. The first shoot took place on the grounds of the Maryborough House Hotel, where the girls modelled dresses from new Irish website estyleme.ie, while the boys wore suits from Morley’s Suit Hire and Black Tie. Meanwhile, in keeping with the fasion theme, the Law Society recently raised over €18000 for Action Breast Cancer at their annual signature fashion show. Clothes from various outlets around the city were showcased by students and models from Assets Modelling Agency. The night ended with a display of garments from the new Ernest Perryman collection.
Andrew Mills and Anna Timony compete to become Cork’s next top model. Photo: courtesy of Ida Holdhus
Student money being used to service New Bar debt LOUISE GLEESON UCC EXPRESS Student money is being used to service a debt of thousands of euro accrued by UCC’s Club Áras (New Bar) after a dispute over rate payments, it has emerged. Due to the legacy of a High Court Decision on a rates dispute
between Áras na Mac Léinn (Student Centre) and Cork City Council, which resulted in the payment of €200,000 in arrears to the council, the New Bar has experienced a significant period of insolvency. This debt is being underwritten this year and next by the policy board of Áras na Mac Léinn, to which students contribute funds via a percentage of
their capitation fee, so the bar can still operate. The financial accounts for 2005 show a deficiency of €102,565, a deficit which lessened to €47,254 in 2006. However according to Students’ Union (SU) president Kris McElhinney this is a clear indication that “something is going wrong somewhere” and the Students Union members who sit on the committee are not involved enough to
know where the problem originates. “The committee has not met in the last seven years and obviously that is going to cause problems,” he said. Club Áras secretary and general manager Donnchadh Ó hAodha stated that the only reason for the deficiency is the payment of unexpected licensing fees to the city council and without that the bar is in fact making a profit.
“While there is a technical deficiency, it is being underwritten by Aras Na Mac Leinn, the deficiency is down to the legacy of the licensing issue,” he said. “This should be fully paid off by 2008 by which time the bar will again be making a profit. In the last two years but for the payments to the council the bar would have been showing a profit.”
nationalnews@trinitynews.ie
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InternationalNews Student stood by as British house mate murdered
The Global Campus UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DE VENEZUELA Chavez sparks student protests
MONIKA URBANSKI STAFF WRITER On Friday 2 November, British exchange student Meredith Kercher, 21, was found dead with a deep cut to her throat in her house in the city of Perugia, Italy. According to The Guardian, Meredith Kercher arrived in Perugia, a town popular for foreign students, for her third year of a four year European Studies degree at the University of Leeds. She shared a room with three other female students, none of whom said they were home the night Meredith was murdered. Police went to her home to return a mobile phone, which was one of two that had been found by an elderly woman living nearby, and were let in by two of her flatmates who had just returned. After finding blood strains on the floor, they broke down the door of Meredith’s locked bedroom to find her lying dead in her bed, covered by a duvet. The Italian police are trying to piece together her final hours. It is believed that she visited some friends to watch a film and left alone to return to her own house at 9 pm on Thursday. Photographs posted on the popular internet social networking site Facebook show her at a Halloween party in Perugia the day before. According to the Telegraph, the police considered that she may have known her killer or even met him at that party and focused its inquiries on a “narrow” field of suspects. The post-mortem revealed that she was killed with a small penknife. Luca Lalli, Chief Forensic Science Officer in the case, added: “I can confirm that Miss Kercher may have been sexually active before her death, but it was definitely not a rape”. Fingerprints found on Meredith Kercher’s mobile phone were examined.
Facebook funeral
80000 people lead by university students marched on Venezuela’s Supreme Court last Wednesday to protest President Hugo Chavez’s proposed constitutional changes that, if passed by voters, would abolish presidential term limits and give the president control over the Central Bank. Masked gunman were waiting for the peaceful student protesters, however, and ambushed them on the Universidad Central de Venezuela’s campus upon their return from the march. According to photographers for the Associated Press, “at least four gunmen” were seen opening fire on the protesters. Students then surrounded the building where the gunmen were hiding, setting fire to benches around it and knocking in the windows. More gunmen on motorcycles arrived later, terrifying students and standing in the doorway while people fled the building. In a televised address, Justice Minister Pedro Carreno blamed the students themselves and the university for the violence, as stated in an Associated Press article. “We want to urge the media to reflect, to stop broadcasting biased news through media manipulation, filling a part of the population with hate,” he said. Demonstrations were held in a half dozen other Venezuelan cities, some erupting in violence, with students throwing rocks and police returning fire with plastic bullets. President Chavez came into office in 1998, on a platform of antiimperialism and democratic socialism. Chavez claims he is moving the country towards a “21st century socialism”. Kasia Mychajlowcyz
The Facebook group “Nobody should die in his/her Erasmus (Meredith Kercher RIP) has raised some eyebrows in the media and on the website itself. One concerned Facebook user started a Discussion Topic on the group’s web page, asking “Is This Right?” and writing: “I must appeal to those who find this site an outlet to their grief. Is this really the right way to do it? There is plenty of support within the uni [University of Leeds, Meredith’s and the writer’s university]. Does Merediths friends and family agree with a facebook group? [sic]” adding that “No one should be killed for saying no.” One reply to this post was from a woman from the University of Michigan in the United States, who wrote: “I agree that this Facebook group is a sentimental gathering for people to share their thoughts and pay respects from different parts of the world.” The group is open to anyone with a Facebook group whether they knew Meredith or not. At the time of writing, the group had 1,297 members from around the world.
Last Tuesday, The Guardian announced that the British student died fighting off a sexual attack, and on the same day, Italian police arrested three people that were in connection with her death. Arturo de Felice, the Perugia Police Chief, stated at a press conference that officers had arrested the victim’s 20 year-old American flatmate, Amanda Marie Knox, the American’s 24 year-old boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and a Congolese barman, 38,
A photo of Meredith Kercher taken shortly before her death. identified as Lumumba “Patrick” Diya. New information came to light again last Thursday as Amanda Knox admitted to being in the house with her boyfriend Sollecito, and that Meredith was in her bedroom with Mr. Diya. In a shocking confession she made to police, obtained by the Times, Knox says: “Patrick [Diya] and Meredith went off together into Meredith’s room while I think I stayed in the kitchen. I can’t remember how long they were in the bedroom together, I can only say that at a certain point I heard Meredith screaming and I was so frightened, I put my fingers in my ears.” Sollecito claims not to remember what happened, but maintains that he was not in the house at the time of the murder, while Diya yelled “I didn’t do it!” at the time of his arrest. Friends paid tribute to Meredith Kercher through a torch-light
procession in Perugia, and also through Facebook, where someone created a group entitled “Nobody should die in his/ her Erasmus (Meredith Kercher RIP). A posting on the group’s webpage from a person identifying herself as Shiraz Engineer and a former classmate of Meredith’s at her school Old Palace School of Whitgift, reads: “That’s amazing, look how many people are on this group! Meredith would be touched - I knew her, and she was beautiful, funny and charming. AMANDA KNOX SHOULD ROT IN HELL.” One of the last things Meredith Kercher did was write this message to a friend: “I’m having a good time, thanks, it’s starting to get really cold now, but the chocolate festival is on at the moment, so a good excuse to drink a lot of hot chocolate.” She was planning on going home for her mother’s birthday last Friday.
Students “abandoned” by college in rural Ghana ARLA SHEPHARD THE DAILY UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Investigations are still underway regarding the alleged mismanagement of the Jackson School of International Studies summer abroad program in Ghana this past August. Seventeen students traveled to a rural village in the northern part of the West African country to study sustainable development and modes of empowerment. As it turned out, conditions weren’t what they had expected. “We were essentially left out there to fend for ourselves,” said Senior Sophister Andrew Rakestraw, a program participant. Problems arose early on when students realized they were living nearly five miles away from Programme Director Linda Iltis, according to several students who requested to remain anonymous for legal reasons. Another issue was the availability of food, the quantity and quality of which were sacrificed due to a shrinking
budget. The value of the United States dollar had dropped since the time the budget was set in March. “The amount of money they had to offer us wasn’t enough to feed us”, said one student who asked to remain anonymous. “An average breakfast was small, maybe an 11-inch loaf of sugar bread split between seventeen people and a small bit of peanut butter.” Students felt equally discouraged over the lack of academic engagement. Several claimed that Iltis was not involved in the education of the students and rarely supervised any lectures. “We were extremely frustrated,” Rakestraw said. “The lectures were irrelevant to what we were studying and [they were] poorly delivered”. Discontent culminated in the sicknesses several students developed. Of the seventeen students, twelve became ill. They claimed their illnesses were improperly handled by the program directors. “When people were sick, they weren’t given proper attention,” Senior Freshman Madeleine McKenna said. Another participant said at least one student became sick every other
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day. Because of the severity of their illnesses, some of which included malaria and Dengue fever, eight students were emergency evacuated out of the country and nine chose to stay and travel on their own accord. “I realised I needed to get out of there because I wasn’t recovering from this sickness and it was primarily from the lack of food,” said another student (who also asked to remain anonymous) who had been sick for nine days. He recovered as soon as he received treatment in the United States. Upon their return, the students filed a formal complaint to the UW’s International Programs and Exchanges Office to receive their funds back — including tuition, airfare, immunization and visa costs. A formal investigation conducted by a neutral third party within the College of Arts and Sciences is underway, UW spokesman Norm Arkans said. “Their goal is to have results by the end of the quarter,” he said. The Jackson School of International Studies said it hopes this situation won’t affect future study abroad programs in developing
countries. “We hope we can continue going to all the different parts of the world, including Africa,” said Anand Yang, director of the Jackson School. “We’re aware that some countries are risky. We also want to make sure that the health and safety of our students are guaranteed.” McKenna said this experience will not deter her from studying abroad in the future, but it will encourage her to do more research on any programs that interest her. “I was never scared to go there”, she said. “It makes me sad that this misled program could limit other opportunities.” Rakestraw was impressed at how his fellow students handled the situation in a “non-emotional” and “diplomatic” “We knew there was a possibility of getting sick”, he said. “We knew there was no electricity and no running water. What we hadn’t expected was the mismanagement, the lack of educational opportunities, and the restriction of our food. … This group of students was the most tenacious group of students I have ever encountered.”
JOKELA HIGH SCHOOL School shooting in Finland kills six students and two staff Six pupils, the school nurse and the headmistress were gunned down at Jokela High School in Finland last Wednesday by 18 year old Pekka-Eric Auvinen, shocking a nation where the crime rate is low and gun posession is the third highest in the world, after the United States and Yemen. 56% of Finns own a gun, according to the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. Auvinen then turned the gun on himself, dying later in hospital, reports Reuters. The tragedy has raised issues in the usually-quiet Finland not only about lax gun regulations, which allows teenagers as young as 15 to own a gun, but also about the disconnected young people of commuter suburbs like Jokela. The Times characterised Jokela as “a commuter culture where fathers rarely see their children and where communal dinners are a thing of the past” and the students of Jokela High School as “the lost children of the suburbs”. Many of the students of Jokela High School slept in the church after the shooting, and one student interviewed by the Times said “I want to be with the others, not with my parents.” “The high school is what glued the young people to the community”, a case worker at the church told the Times. “Now, they can’t trust it any more. That’s the true meaning of this tragedy”. Kasia Mychajlowycz
TRINITY STUDENT FROM ABROAD When Trinity News asked me to compare my French university in Strasbourg to Trinity College Dublin, I knew the task would be difficult. First of all, how can you compare a little provincial French university with the jewel of the Irish culture? When you come for the first time to Dublin and you see Trinity, you have to fall in love immediately. The architecture, the atmosphere: if they could talk, every stone would tell you a story. Considering that, I am trying to do my best to explain to you the main differences between the two colleges. I think the most obvious aspect is the teaching staff. Teachers here are more available to students. When you ask a question to a lecturer,they actually might be able to answer it, and for the same price, might give you a smile. In France you don’t exist for a lecturer, you don’t belong to his narrow world until you’re fourth years, at least. At Trinity, it is all about interaction. When you are in a tutorial, you form a circle with the tutor and the course becomes a discussion, a debate. In my own country, the teacher is in front of you, and the lectern is there in order for you to understand the respect that you owe them. However, I am pleased to say that in France, we learn a very good methodology. Well, it is a clever but rigid way to organise your thoughts. Here, the most important thing is learning, no matter how you do it. It has a really positive aspect but, in my opinion, a little of framework would not hurt . Finally as we all know know , a year at university is not just about studies. Life on campus, I have to say, is so much better at Trinity. I am not even sure we can talk about a campus in Strasbourg. Here you have so many societies with so many events- it is amazing. I personally love the College Historical and the University Philosophical Societies where you can think about politics. My only regret is that students at Trinity are sometimes not so concerned about that kind of subject. My advice to the students of Trinity is that you have to be critical, you have to protest! But you know, I am French, what can I do for it… Claire Ricard University of Strasbourg
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EIMEAR CROWE NEWS FEATURES EDITOR Trinity Hall is the most expensive type of student accommodation provided by Trinity College. The basic residential fee for single rooms in the modern residential blocks in Halls is approximately €4850 for the academic year. This makes it more expensive than College’s most costly on-campus accommodation, which includes rooms in the Graduates’ Memorial Building, Front Square, Botany Bay and Goldsmith Hall. Rooms in Halls are also more expensive than rooms provided by any of Ireland’s major universities, including University College Dublin, Dublin City University and the National Universities of Ireland. Given that the average cost of student accommodation in Ireland is higher than that of other European countries, this makes Trinity Hall one of the most expensive university-provided student accommodations in Europe. Trinity Hall is situated on the prestigious Dartry Road in the Dublin suburb of Rathmines and lies approximately 2.5 miles from College. It was originally acquired by College in 1907 to serve as residences for Trinity’s female students, who were not permitted to take up residences on campus until the late 1960’s. Today, Halls consists of three original Victorian Houses, a sports hall, Cunningham House and three more recently built residential blocks. It primarily houses Junior Freshmen and, according to its website, aims to provide a “soft landing” for such students who are new to University life. To aid this “soft landing”, all students are allocated one of 13 “Wardens” who are also resident in Halls. These Wardens are either members of College staff or senior postgraduate researchers who both patrol the grounds of Halls to ensure that regulations are not breached and serve as the first port of call for any difficulties that residents may encounter. As well as Wardens, residents are also served by the Junior Common Room, a committee which is the student representative body for Halls and aims to provide a “community spirit” by organising a range of social events throughout the year. Compared to the other universityprovided student accommodation in Ireland, Trinity Hall is unique in its efforts to provide this “soft landing” for new students. While these efforts are undoubtedly beneficial to students facing the daunting first months of college life, many residents also feel that such efforts create a “boarding school atmosphere” and make life in Halls feel rather constricting. For example, in the Trinity Hall Handbook, residents are told that “to avoid the transmission of noise, you are strongly advised to keep speakers off the floor and away from internal walls”. One resident told Trinity News that he and his flatmates had been advised by Wardens to “go to bed” at 11pm on numerous occasions and said that while such a “curfew” was understandable around exam time, it “makes no sense at this time of the year, when people are trying to settle in and get to know each other”. He feels that this issue was compounded by Halls’ regulation which, up to very recently, prohibited any more than eight people in a flat at any one time: “it’s pathetic…if they could bring back the Victorian regulation that insisted on maintaining a distance of three inches between men and women, they would!” Adrian, a Junior Sophister two subject moderatorship student who lived in Halls for both his Freshman years also shared his experience of
living in Halls with Trinity News: “I found it great in first year. Beginning university could be a really isolating and lonely experience, but living in Halls makes it so easy to get to know people – you can literally knock on any door and make friends.” However, he said that during his Senior Freshman year he felt that he had “out-grown Halls” and that he was being somewhat “babysat” by Wardens. In particular, he had a problem with the “quality assurance inspections” carried out on rooms once a term: “it’s a complete invasion of privacy. They also insist that you take any posters off your bedroom walls. For the money we pay to live there, we should at least be entitled to decorate our rooms as we wish…we pay a deposit at the beginning of the year so there is absolutely no need for the room checks”. In response to claims that such a “boarding school atmosphere” resides in Halls, Trinity College Students’ Union Welfare Officer Úna Faulkner stated that “The Wardens are there for the safety and security of the student population who reside in Trinity Halls. The transition from school to college can be very difficult for a lot of students and the Wardens are there to ease that transition. I have never had any complaints about them or their presence in Halls, they are trained to a very high standard and any feedback I have ever received about the Halls Wardens has always been very positive”. However, JCR President Sam Chappatte admitted that he was “fully aware that residents don’t always see eye to eye with the Wardens.” He added that the JCR exist to “act as their go between and have been working hard this year to negotiate as much free rein as possible…our biggest victory to date has been the extension of 8 to 12 ‘guests’ allowed in an apartment.” Other problems residences have with Halls reside with the inefficiency of the Accommodation Office. It can take weeks for appliances such as cookers and showers to be fixed, with students often having to report problems with such appliances twice before they are seen to. In response to this complaint, Chappatte said that he was “aware that some maintenance is taking longer than expected” and that he “will be addressing this in my next meeting with the head of the office”. Some foreign students resident in Halls have found the Accommodation Office particularly unhelpful. One Canadian student told Trinity News her experiences of merely being given an unreliable map to Halls by the accommodation office on her arrival in Dublin: “When I finally arrived at Halls after being lost for an hour in the suburbs of Dublin thanks to the ‘handy’ map, someone at reception told me I couldn’t move in a couple of days early, although my room was empty…then I offered to pay and all the doors were opened to me….I learned that with Trinity administration, and especially with Halls, people listen to money, not the students”. In response to this, Faulkner stated that “if students want to move in early, they naturally have to pay for it…I cannot comment about the map or directions that the student was given as I have not seen the map, though I do understand the anguish that she must have gone through finding her way around the Dublin suburbs!” It is also felt by some that the price range of accommodation in Halls does not reflect the differing standards of accommodation. The price difference between the older Cunningham house and more modern rooms in Halls is approximately €20 per week. However, the more modern rooms have en-suite toilets and showers, while in Cunningham House, up to seven
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accommodation in some parts of Trinity Hall, such as Cunningham house (pictured below and left) is known as the Ghetto by students because of its poor living conditions. Photos: Emer Groake
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students have to share the one shower and toilet. Furthermore the common rooms/kitchens in the Cunningham House are extremely small, have to be shared by 14 students and, according to one student, are “badly in need of renovation”. When asked about this issue, Faulkner stated that “I have not had any complaints about the discrepancy between Cunningham House and the modern rooms in Halls, and therefore I cannot comment.”
A final problem residents have with Halls is some of the extra charges that are imposed upon them. On top of the basic rent paid, residents of Halls also have to pay a utility bill. This bill includes a mandatory €40 subscription fee for the JCR which goes towards the organization of social events. However, some students feel that, thus far, they have not seen this money put to good use by the JCR. One resident said that the JCR was “not a hugely visible
How the cost of Trinity Hall compares Residential fees for Trinity Hall: Cunningham House – approx. €3,880 per academic year Modern single bed rooms – approx. €4850 per academic year Residential fees for On-campus: Standard on-campus single bed rooms – Rubrics, New Square: approx. €3800 per academic year Modern rooms – Pearse Street: ap-
presence in Halls” while another student told Trinity News that “I haven’t had any contact from them whatsoever…they could really have done loads more during and following Freshers’ Week to get people to know each other a little more.” In response to these complaints regarding the scarcity of JCR events, President Chappatte told Trinity News that the JCR “has a clear objective this year: we want to fix our sights on quality rather than quantity”
prox €4190 per academic year Modern rooms – GMB, Front Square, Botany Bay, Goldsmith Hall: approx. €4526 per academic year. Other Universities: UCD – ranges from €3,320 – €4,650 per academic year DCU – ranges from €3,780 – €4,070 per academic year NUI Maynooth – ranges from €3,230 – €3,990 per academic year
and added that regular poker nights and hip-hop classes will be organised in the coming weeks. He also expressed that he “would like to use the opportunity to extend an invitation to Trinity societies to work with the JCR in running events in Halls this year. The Dance Soc, Hist, Phil, Cumann Gaelach and Netsoc have all taken a lead so far.”
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SocietyNews Five bridges, five boroughs, and twenty-six miles KEVIN DOCKRELL EOIN CONWAY DAVE POWER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS The Trinity College Cancer Society was essentially set up with the intention of providing fun, enjoyable events that can raise funds (and awareness) for a very worthy cause. But nowhere did it mention blisters, cramp, chaffing, bleeding nipples or walking like John Wayne for a fortnight, all of which were integral parts of this year’s New York City Marathon! Our training began in April, when a slight measurement error on Google maps resulted in us running eleven miles instead of the three we had planned. Even at that early stage, we knew the marathon itself would be a piece of cake...! The training resulted in a huge lifestyle change for six months (naturally with a few slip-ups along the way) - five days training a week, as well as a new high-carb diet. On top of this we were forced to regain the self-control that we so happily lost after four years of living the student dream! Initially this meant opting for ten pints instead of twelve, then just spirits and no beer (which we could somehow justify), then no booze at all, and ultimately not going out in the weeks approaching the big day... At the risk of sounding clichéd, these sacrifices were definitely worth it we raised in excess of €21500 with money still pouring in as we wrote this.
The generosity and support of our friends and family was incredible and is something that we are very grateful for, and without getting too soppy, it really was a great source of motivation something that kept us going during training and the race itself. Back in March, Kev’s mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. Call it a kneejerk reaction, but we figured it was as good a time as any to undertake a challenge like this; the race itself was near the four year anniversary of the death of Una Slevin, mother of CancerSoc founder and last year’s Auditor, Rory McGowan, which was the predominant reason why the society was set up in the first place. So with all that in mind, we set off for the most memorable weekend of our lives. Friday 2 October – Arrived at the Helmsley Hotel on 42nd St and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan where we would be setting up camp for the week. If we were any more central, we would have been staying in Central Park! Saturday 3 October – We went against all advice telling us to stay off our feet and decided to see a bit of the city. New York is amazing at the best of times, but marathon weekend is ridiculous! There really was such a buzz about the place. Everywhere we looked, we saw people in running gear and tshirts of hundreds of different charities. The enormity of what we about to do only really sank in at the pre-race party that night. There was a huge pasta party, live music, fireworks displays and we got to meet people from all around the world who we would be running with
the following day. The butterflies really kicked in, so we retired for an early night to prepare for what lay ahead! Sunday 4 October – RACE DAY. We got our wake up call for 5:15am and decided to crash the French national team’s breakfast buffet. We somehow got caught and were landed with a bill for US$88 for a couple of bowls of cereal and a muffin – not the best start to the day! We hopped on the coach and got down to the track for about 8am. We were really taken back by the carnival atmosphere. People weren’t lying when they said it’s one of the biggest sporting spectacles in the world! As the start approached, we grabbed a last-minute bagel, sports drink and lubed ourselves up and were then called to the start line. The marathon itself was brilliant. The first eight miles really flew by, mainly due to a typically enthusiastic American crowd which was fantastic the whole way around. The Irish flags and gospel choirs kept us going when the miles got tough, as did all the high fives from kids. Some of the posters were funny too, which helped keep our mind off the fatigue we were feeling. “Finishing is your only fucking option”, “It’s Cental Park or bust, baby”, “In my eyes, you are all Kenyans today”, “Thou shalt meet thy God soon” and “Support our troops” were the ones that stood out! We also wrote our names on the tshirts we were running in, which worked well for Kev and Dave, however, the name Eoin caused a bit of confusion so they just reverted to “Go Irish” for him! Locals were very helpful too and provided invaluable advice. One
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Members of DU Cancer Soc join thousands of other athletes in the New York Marathon. Photo: Pabo76
gentleman sitting on his porch in the heart of the Bronx offered us this piece of advice “Enjoy the view, but don’t come back at nighttime, ya’ hear?”. This was quite funny, until we realised he had a gun on his lap - needless to say we picked the pace up a bit after that. The marathon route took us over five bridges and through the five boroughs of New York. The views were spectacular at times, when we had the energy to raise our heads! Once we hit Central Park, we knew the end was near, and emotions were running high. At this stage the crowds were about ten people deep and noise was deafening. We crossed the line and somehow managed a smile for the photographer at the end. It’s hard to describe the feeling as you finish, but it really whets the appetite to run again and experience that feeling again.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: DU Gamers Auditor: Eoin Dornan, Junior Sophister Philosophy and Political Science. Membership: 237. Established: 1978 (formerly Board Gamers Society) Aims of the society: Gamers is dedicated to playing all sorts of games, whether they're role playing games, card games, war games or your classic board games. One of the main purposes of the society is to provide a link between the members and the Irish gaming community. They organise trips to conventions around the country, where Trinity Gamers can meet others from far-flung places like Cork and Sligo. Their society room is one of the most active on campus, with members using it every day. Gaming is a very social hobby and Gamers' aim is to provide a centre for gaming in Trinity. Facts and Figures: Only 45 out of 237 members are girls, this works out at about nineteen percent of membership being female. As far as Gamers know, there has only ever been one female Auditor and few committee members are girls. This year, no girls sit on the committee, last year there were two, and before that the secretary was the only girl (on committee). However, of the active Freshers in the society, a “good amount” are girls. Regular Events: Gamers committee is very active this year and their aim is to host at least one event a week. Depending on the success of these, they may run more of them. They intend to run draft tournaments of “Magic: The Gathering”, a highly popular collectible card game. As well
as this, role playing nights have proven successful already this term and they will be repeated throughout the year. They also have some fairly spectacular war games events planned. There will be posters for these events, so be sure to keep an eye out for them, and if anyone would like to be added to the mailing list about weekly events, they can send an email to trinitygamers@gmail.com. Gamers’ society members also attend a weekly games evening in Cassidy's pub on Westmoreland Street, which is run by another games society called the Irish Gaming Association. Plan for 2007/2008: They have a few plans for some extraspecial games throughout the year. They're teaming up with Dublin University Internet Society to present a Wii sports and Twister tournament in the next few weeks, and thanks to a very active and dedicated committee, they can promise that anyone looking to relax and have fun on campus will be able to head to the nearest Gamers event. The plan is to expand their profile on campus and make sure the society continues to do so in the future. Greatest moment in society history: Gamers is similar to a tribe in that they have a rich oral history, much of which has never been recorded and is therefore prone to wild exaggeration and is used primarily as a method of educating new members. As for documented history, they claim to have won the Best Medium Society Award in 1995, a feat which they hope to repeat at this year's Awards. However, it takes little investigation to see that it was Dublin University Jazz Society who won the Award in 1995, so Gamers wish to change their greatest moment to “stealing a plaque and convincing themselves that they’d
won for over ten years”. Website: One of the best websites yet! Clearly this society is run by a bunch of nerds, but a bunch of nerds who know how to write a website and include jokes that you shouldn’t find amusing, but your inner geek will always laugh at. From the home page, you can follow links to view the society’s room where there is another link giving you very detailed directions to this room – either the creators are genuinely worried about people finding their room, or they have such a great sense of humour that they give you three detailed maps with directions! They manage to insert humour in a way that’s not full of in-jokes or trying to be cool, perhaps because they simply don’t know how to be cool, and it’s easy to navigate. They give details on the games they love and there is a discussion forum in order to leave your comments. In addition, the Leprecon [their annual convention] website is updated regularly and also a Gamers delight! Verdict: Definitely a website to look at and a society to think about joining! What to look forward to: This year, Trinity Gamers will once again be hosting their annual convention, which is called Leprecon. Leprecon this year is taking place at the end of RAG Week, on 29 February, 1 March and 2 March. The whole weekend is dedicated towards running special events, hosting tournaments of war games and card games and showcasing some of the best writing and games-mastering talent that Dublin has to offer. Leprecon 28 was a huge success and they plan to do even better this year. The website for the convention is www.leprecon.ie.
Literary Society launches book club TOM MORRISON-BELL CONTRIBUTING WRITER Ever found yourself going home to read for your course and realised that the last thing you want to be reading is an 800 page tome of obscure philosophy, for example? (feel free to insert any mundane course reading of your choice here). Yes, I’m glad. It’s all very well for those English students who go off to read largely enjoyable and accessible books and it actually counts as work, but this isn’t the case for the vast majority of Trinity students. This year’s Literary Society is offering a way out. No, no suicide, which is often much maligned, but a book club (not necessarily the easier option). Its main aim is to get those of you who find that, because of
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college pressures, you no longer read novels even though it’s something that you mean to do. It’s easy to feel intimidated by the sheer number or titles or genres you could read. Should you read the classics or bestsellers, American literature or gothic? Obviously the answer is whatever you enjoy, but we want to offer a space where people can get together to discuss a chosen title, completely informally and with no pressure for high literary discourse. The book club offers this. It is open to all students, even English Studies students if they want to get involved. The titles are democratically chosen, i.e. there’s a vote on what book everyone wants to read as a group and then everyone’s given a month to (hopefully) finish the book. There are two meetings a term, which may not sound much, but given other reading people have to do, it should be plenty.
What we really hope to get are good discussion groups going, with people not feeling intimidated but willing to offer any views they have on the book, no matter how silly they think they are. On top of all this, we are even subsidising the books so you won’t be expected to pay the full whack! For the next group, we’re reading The Gingerman by J.P. Donleavy, which was published in the mid 1950’s. It tells of the adventures of Sebastian Dangerfield a feckless, hard drinking Irish American student supposedly attending Trinity College, but in fact, spending most of the time womanising and drinking in the many pubs and bars he frequents in and around Dublin. If you’re interested in joining the book club contact Tom on morrisot@tcd.ie or Clare on dohertce@tcd.ie.
Tuesday 13th November. Yoga: Classes every Tuesday and Wednesday, 12pm. Suitable for beginners and more advanced. Room 50, Atrium. Trinity St. Vincent de Paul: Refugee Homework Club in Phibsboro, meet 5.15pm at Front Arch. Trinity Arts Workshop: Pottery and Ceramics every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 6-9pm, €4 for each 90minute session, Goldsmith Hall. Gamers: Introduction into war games 6-10pm, The Atrium. Falun Dafa: Exercise classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7-9pm, Room 50, Atrium. No experience necessary. Juggling: Practice, Tuesdays, 7-10pm for all types of juggling, Goldsmith Hall. An Cumman Gaelach: Ciorcal Comhra, 7-9pm, Seomra a hocht, The Atrium, Tuesdays. Chess: Friendly games and some coaching, Tuesdays, 7-9.45pm in the Maths Seminar Room 2.6, School of Maths. Trinity Arts Workshop: Life Drawing Classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, €4 for 2 hours, materials and instruction supplied, 7-9pm, 191 Pearse Street. Progressive Democrats: Scrap the CAP evening, 7pm till 12am, GMB. Entrepreneurial Society: Internship Networking Night, 7-10pm, Davis Theatre, followed by a reception in the GMB. Players: The Freshers’ Co-Op: “Bang!” every night this week at 8pm, Players’ Theatre. Japanese: Kendo Classes every Tuesday, 8-9.30pm, Ancillary Hall, costs €20 for a whole term. Wednesday 14th November Trinity St. Vincent de Paul: VDP Day! Throughout Campus from 9am. Sfsoc: Film, The Big Lebowski, Arts Building, 6pm EngSoc: Kingspan speaker, Parsons Building, 6pm The Hist: Debate “This House Believes That Euthanasia Should Be Legalised”, GMB 7.30pm. Thursday 15th November Yoga: Classes 5.30-7pm, Thursdays and Mondays, suitable for beginners and more advanced, Regent House. Trinity FM: Live Broadcast, 6-10pm, tune in to 97.3 FM. Japanese Society: 6.30-7.30pm, language classes for beginners and intermediates in Arts Building, rooms 5039 and 4084, respectively, every Thursday. Cost is €15 for the term. DUISS and Politics: Film, Michael Collins, Emmet Theatre, 7 to 10pm NetSoc and Gamers: Wii and Twister Tournament, 7-10pm, Goldsmith Hall. The Phil: Debate “This House Believes Would Legalise Drugs”, GMB 7.30pm. Friday 16th November Trinity Arts Workshop: Life Drawing Classes, €4 for 2 hours, materials and instruction supplied, 10.30am-1.30pm, 191 Pearse Street. Capoeira: Classes 4-5.30pm, Fridays, in Regent House, €3. EngSoc: Galway trip leaves 6pm Sfsoc: Film, Transformers, Arts Block, 6pm Afro-Caribbean: Drumming Classes in Regent House, Fridays, 6-7pm. Joly Geological: Joly Dart Challenge, meet Museum Building 7pm. Dance Society: Classes Fridays, Regent House, 7.30-9.30pm. Saturday 17th November Trinity Arts Workshop: Pottery and Ceramics classes 10am-11.30am, 12.30-2pm, €4 for each class, Goldsmith Hall, every Saturday. Sunday 18th November Trinity St. Vincent de Paul: Kids Club every Sunday, 1-5pm, corner of Pearse Street. Monday 19th November Trinity FM: Broadcast week, from 9am until midnight, tune it at 97.30 FM. Tuesday 20th November Tuesday events as usual. DUISS and FLAC: International students’ rights talk, 6pm, Emmet Theatre Wednesday 21st November Gamers: Role Playing Games night, 6.30-10pm, 5034 Arts Building. Thursday 22nd November The Phil: Debate “This House Believes the Media is Failing the People”, 7.30pm, GMB. Friday 23rd November Friday events as usual. Saturday 24th November Orchestral: Concert, Elmwood Hall, Belfast, 7.45pm Choral: Concert, Augustinian Church, Galway City, 8pm.
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Michaelmas term, Week 8
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Pillars of society Students are always encouraged to get involved in College, but what rewards can you reap for your extracurricular escapades in Trinity? SIOBHAN MCCAULEY DEPUTY FEATURES EDITOR Aside from the Foundation Scholarship Examination awards or Schols, with which we are all familiar to some degree, one of the perhaps lesser talked about, yet equally valid awards ceremonies in Trinity is the Trinity Annual Fund Student Awards which take place in Trinity term. The Trinity Annual Fund is the title given to the accumulation of financial donations received by the college from its graduates. Each year, a certain portion of these funds is allocated in the form of student awards. These awards are unique in that they seek to reward those who contribute to college life through extracurricular activity as opposed to through academia alone. The official purpose of the Trinity Annual Fund Student Awards is to recognize “student contribution to Trinity life”. Such contributions are gauged in accordance with the student’s active participation in college life outside the academic realm i.e via sports clubs, societies or other aspects of college life. Each year, two students are selected and presented with a prize to the value of €2000 each. The awards are open to all full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students who have made “an outstanding contribution to college life during the past year”. In addition to receiving the prize money, successful candidates are also viewed favorably if applying to stay in College residences (campus/Trinity Hall) for the following year. The application process is relatively simple. Each applicant must fill out an application form detailing his/her involvement in the extracurricular, the specific challenges they have encountered along the way and how such involvement has ultimately impacted on their leadership, team building, organisation and communication skills. In addition to this, the application form must be accompanied by two nomination forms. Nominations can be made by either staff or students in Trinity, but may not, of course, be made by the applicant him/herself. The closing date for the submission of nomination and application forms is 5pm on Friday 11 April 2008. In the weeks following this deadline, the candidates who are to be invited for interview by a judging panel are shortlisted. The said panel is made up of the Vice Provost, the Junior Dean, the Dean of Students, the Director of Alumni, as well as various representatives from Central Societies
Committee, Dublin University Central Athletics Committee, Students’ Union, Graduates’ Students’ Union and Trinity Publications. The two winning candidates are selected in this manner. Last year, there were a total of twenty four nominations for the award. Out of these twenty four, five finalists were shortlisted and subsequently interviewed by the panel. Simon Masterson a student from the School of Histories and Humanities, and Emma Clarke from the School of Medicine were eventually declared the winners, and their achievements recognized in a ceremony held in May of this year. The Provost, who was speaking at the ceremony, stated: “in addition to keeping pace with their studies, these students undertake a daunting level of extracurricular work which is of immense benefit to the Trinity community. All five finalists have made an outstanding contribution to College life and this award commends them for their efforts in enhancing the Trinity experience for their fellow students.” Masterson was selected on the basis of his steadfast dedication to helping the underprivileged and promoting volunteering amongst Trinity students. Founder of the Trinity Volunteer Opportunities Forum - a collaboration between the four bodies within college involved with volunteering (Dublin University St. Vincent dePaul Society, Trinity Suas, Voluntary Tuition Programme and the Student 2 Student Network) - and Chairman of Trinity Voluntary Tuition Programme, he was constant in his encouraging of students from all faculties to be generous with their spare time by volunteering and thereby promoting the spirit of volunteerism across campus. Masterson was also a member of the RAG Committee last year, which happened to be the most successful Trinity RAG week, raising just under €10000. As for Emma Clarke, she too was paramount in her involvement with the extracurricular aspects of college life. A deaf student herself, Clarke did not let such an obstacle stop her from getting involved. She played a major role in the setting up of the National Deaf Needs Assessment project. The DNA is a national project which aims to increase the numbers and retention of deaf students in third-level education. Believing that the transition from second level to third level for deaf students was the most difficult, Emma took it upon herself to organise the first-ever summer school for deaf students entering third-level education. In total, over fifty students benefited from this exploit. This informal network led to many students finding
the additional support and resources they required to actively participate in third-level education. Emma was also the Chair of the Dublin University Sign Language Society and worked to increase the membership of deaf and hard of hearing students, to raise general awareness amongst the student body about deaf issues and to promote and increase the usage of sign language. The fact that the Trinity Annual Fund Student Awards rewards students for their achievements outside the academic sphere, renders the scheme highly attractive, in large part because of its accessibility. The need for recognition of student contribution to college life has come to the fore in the past three years in Ireland with a variety of extra-curricular based reward initiatives (similar to the TAF awards) being undertaken in other Irish universities across the board. In the University College Dublin Quinn School of Business, for example, a recent initiative (January 2006) called the “Community Engagement Awards” has been put in place. This extracurricular award was proposed as an incentive for students to become more active in the wider campus community, and on the basis that “in today’s business environment, more and more employers recognise the need for employing rounded and multi-skilled individuals who are actively engaged in the broader society in which they live and work”.The prizes for such community engagement are similar to those bestowed upon Trinity Annual Fund Award winners – the main accolade is the Dean’s Community Engagement Award and entails a cash prize of €1500. In addition to that, there are two awards for runnersup of €500 each. Also the community organisations in which award-winning students are/were involved each receive a cash award of €500. On a similar note, Dublin City University has instrumented an innovative awards scheme called the “Uaneen module” which has an original slant. This scheme differs from the Trinity Annual Fund awards in that students are rewarded for their extracurricular activities in credits as opposed to monetary benefits. Such credits are internationally recognized under the European Credit Transfer System for a variety of non-academic activities that can range from the sporting, political, and creative to the community and social. The European Credit Transfer System is a standard for comparing the study attainment and performance of students of higher education across the European Union and other collaborating European countries. DCU is the first third-level institution in the Republic of
Ireland to reward extra-curricular activity in such a manner. The esteem which such extra-curricular activity is likely to gauge in the eyes of potential employers is most pointedly underlined by the interesting fact that it is the Irish employers’ union Irish Business and Emploters Confederation that works with DCU in the facilitation of these awards. Although there is, no doubt, a certain attraction in a money prize which both the award schemes in Trinity and UCD offer, the DCU idea of accrediting merits which will be recognized within the spectrum of the EU is undeniably appealing. In this respect, the awards scheme in DCU is highly pragmatic. As is the case with several aspects of university life in DCU, the emphasis with the Uaneen module is on the practical and the orientation towards the vocational. It is geared towards making the transition from third-level education into the workplace as smooth and as easy for the student as possible. It is also innovative in its incorporation of an EU based initiative into Irish university life – an initiative which would be advantageous to university graduates especially those seeking employment on the Continent for example. The Uaneen module is also more comprehensive than the award schemes offered by both Trinity and UCD, in that not only is it open to all final year students, but any student who successfully completes the module is awarded merits according to the amount of extracurricular activity undertaken. Thus it is an award scheme with a difference, which has the potential to reward a larger number of students than either the Trinity Annual Fund award scheme or the UCD-run Community Engagement awards. In this regard, it is an idea which Trinity could definitely look at implementing in the future. The offering of such award schemes for extracurricular activities in recent years signifies a move by universities to recognize that college life should be a more all-encompassing experience than academics alone. A growing trend towards more hands-on and practical type initiatives as can be seen in newer universities such as DCU, for example, is indicative of the modernisation of university life. The Trinity Annual Fund student awards is a step in the right direction, by all accounts, and a clear indication by the College that student involvement outside the academic sphere will not go unnoticed. Further information about the awards is available on the Trinity Annual Fund Student Awards webpage tcd.ie/Alumni/support/taf_awards.php.
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TRINITY NEWS
Michaelmas term, Week 10
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GamingExcellence
Successful innovation in the gaming world does not necessarily mean the complete overhaul of a commercially and critically acclaimed title. Justin Fedouloff argues that polishing a product can be a highly viable alternative to revamping in the pursuit of gaming satisfaction. JUSTIN FEDOULOFF CONTRIBUTING WRITER A little over a month ago, the world witnessed the single most successful entertainment launch in history. Within the first 24 hours of entering the market, Halo 3 amassed greater takings than any Spiderman film, any Harry Potter film or even Lord Of The Rings; to be specific, the game took in US$170 million in its first day and over US$300 million in its first week. Now, we can go on about comparing cinema tickets sold for ten dollars a pop with games sold for seventy, but let’s be fair; no game has previously ever even come close to challenging the might of the good old summer blockbuster. Sure enough, the gaming media did what they do best in such situations; they collaborated and analysed the game until nothing was left which had not been assigned a number between 0 and 10.0. They consequently threw this information to the fans so that they could wage war concerning whether or not IGN.com was correct in awarding an overall rating of 9.5 rather than 9.6. The process was nothing that gamers of this generation are not used to, it simply took place on a scale previously unknown. However, I am not here to argue numbers with any professional critics. My worry is a little more troublesome: I believe that the industry as a whole, not to mention us as consumers, are beginning to miss the point of this whole gaming thing. There is much dispute over whether or not Halo 3 is or is not in any way, or is not sufficiently, innovative. It is with this unnecessary and corruptive constant craving for innovation within the industry that I take my case against. The original Halo was lauded for its innovation of the shooter genre, both generally and with respect to its physical state, being an under-the-TV console using a controller rather than the traditional keyboard and mouse. In fact Microsoft had exactly this in mind when, having seen the game demonstrated at the Macworld Conference & Expo in 1999, they purchased the developer, Bungie Studios, in 2000. PC enthusiasts may now proceed to revel in the irony that what is now considered the greatest game of all time was originally going to be released for the Apple Mac. The praise it received was well deserved. The game managed to become the first shooter to be perfectly executed using dual analogue controls (a necessary restriction for gaming consoles) and introduced some more subtle elements including “disposable” weapons, which had large ammo clips but could not be reloaded. But then a curious thing happened. Halo became a massive hit, singlehandedly guaranteeing the viability of the Xbox, Microsoft’s risky venture into the console business. It is still said that
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were it not for Halo, the Xbox 360 would not be in existence today. It became the flavour of the season; every other shooter became known as either a “Halo Killer” or a “Halo Clone”, depending upon its relative success. Then Bungie did what any sensible developer would do with a hit title: they made a sequel. Normally this is the point at which people who think they know better start raving about how sequels ruin innovative ideas and make them repetitive. This is where I believe there is a point that is being missed. Some consumers expect a sequel to be as “innovative” and “different” as the original whilst others want only the same again, but with advanced and developed graphics. On the other side, the developer is concerned that their sequel will be received coldly by a public who see it as too repetitive, too similar to the original. They thus panic and seek to reinvent their series with each new edition. In the end, Halo 2 was released with all the obvious enhancements in place: tweaked graphics, an updated physics engine, new weapons and vehicles and, of course, online multiplayer through Xbox Live, which was not in place at the time of Halo‘s release. A few curveballs were also thrown, such as the fresh new ability to wield two weapons at once, playable antagonists and a rather abrupt cliffhanger ending on the scale of the average season finale of Lost. It marked a notable change from the epic race through an exploding ship that, at least, concluded its prequel. Some of these changes were received more positively than others; the mere presence of online multi-player excited the masses just enough to ensure that Halo 2 became the most popular game on Xbox Live until the release of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 two years later. However, the same masses were less than impressed by the short single-player campaign and its abrupt and sudden “ending.” With a desire to keep everyone sufficiently content to continue handing over their cash, Bungie seemingly went into the development of Halo 3 with a slightly different attitude. They concentrated on polishing up their existing product rather than applying major alterations. In addition to the usual tweaks, modifications and testing which went as far as a public beta release - Bungie worked on other features which, whilst not relating to game-play as such, would to some small but significant extent, heighten player enjoyment. The result was an absence of “ooh look, he’s holding two guns at once!” and the introduction of nifty features such as Forge mode, in which the player can go into an existing multiplayer map and fully customize the placement of weapons and features therein; they can then save and share their creations over Xbox Live.
Bungie learnt their lesson and successfully completed their trilogy without reinventing their game twice over. So does this success negate the need for innovation within gaming development departments? Not necessarily. Square Enix’s (formerly Squaresoft) Final Fantasy series is one of the longest running series in gaming. Now on its thirteenth “main” release (excluding the spin-offs, sub-series etc.) and still going strong, Final Fantasy is a series that has succeeded primarily because no two games within it are related or in any way similar. There are various iconic Final Fantasy “trademarks” which raise their heads repeatedly throughout the series, mainly those irritating (though practical) Chocobo creatures, characters called “Cid” who construct airships and some recurring magic spells. However, in terms of gameplay elements, character advancement, artistic and musical direction and even storyline, each game is individual and distinct from the others. Only once to date has there ever been a sequel to a main Final Fantasy game (the aptly named Final Fantasy X2) and even that saw several radical gameplay changes, though the storylines were linked and the art direction identical. There also exist numerous series that have survived on the basis that each edition has been identical in execution to its predecessor, differing only in elements of its storyline and content. One obvious example of this strategy proving commercially successful is Nintendo’s monster hit Pokémon. In each Pokémon game, players adopt the role of a “trainer” who must adventure out into the world with the purpose of taming and raising an assortment of wild creatures, the titular Pokémon. Through exploration, adventure and the battling of other trainers, players endeavour to become the best Pokémon trainer in the world. Their “innovation”, as such, is limited, but the game’s legacy lives on through a popular string of titles with no major differences between them, bar the increasing number of Pokémon available for the trainer to seek out and capture. All of these games show, if nothing else, that there is more than one correct way to handle the continuation of an “innovative” idea. But is it even necessary for new ideas to be innovative? Consider the original “Sonic the Hedgehog” for the Sega Megadrive.
Originally created by Sega to provide a mascot that could compete with the iconic Mario, it turned out to be, in reality, not that different to its rival. In fact, the only real difference between Mario and Sonic during the time of the much-reminisced-upon mascot war was Sonic’s tendency to be a great deal faster than his Nintendo rival. Sony’s variation was simple but, in practice, became highly significant as to the players Mario and Sonic represented the two extremes of the platforming genre. This would prove that an innovative idea does not lead to a bad game either. As developers continue to develop and players continue to play, all sorts of interesting ideas come out of the woodwork. The most recent game to be considered as “innovative” by the gaming press would be Portal, one third of developer Valve’s “Orange Box”, a collection of games. Portal has the appearance of a first person shooter, but in fact, rather than shooting at enemies, Portal puts players in control of a device that can shoot
portals; shoot two portals, step into one, come out of the other. From this one wild idea flows a tidal wave of possibilities: what happens if you place a portal in the floor and a portal in the ceiling above it, and jump in? What will your average physics engine make of a crate that rolls out of a portal on the wall and into a portal in the floor and back again? Portal is a good example of what we typically mean when we talk about “innovative” games, and has understandably gained a large following in the gaming community following its release. But it must always be remembered that any of these ideas can also work in reverse. While Blinx: The Time Sweeper for the Xbox gained favour for its (then innovative) use of tools that manipulate time, its sequel attempted to further innovate with the mixing of time controls and the addition of “space controls”, an idea that could not be taken in any meaningful direction and ended with outright laughable ideas, such as a “space control” that consisted entirely of throwing a banana peel on the ground. Understandably, the sequel failed for these and other reasons. Mega-publisher EA has also taken heavy criticism over many of its “official” sports titles, most notably Madden, the American football simulation, which has been criticized on the basis that each annual edition is identical to the last, differing only in graphical detail and minor roster changes to reflect the developments in the NFL each year. This all goes to prove that innovation is not the only option in creating a great game and also does not necessarily guarantee a game’s quality. In some cases innovation proves successful, while in others, it proves detrimental. What matters most is, of course, the ability of the developer to know what each unique situation calls for and to understand the vital difference between creating a new title and creating a sequel. There is no “formula” for creating a good game that works in any context. There’s a time and a place for innovation, and so too is there a time and place for releasing something very similar to its predecessor. The next time I hear someone trash-talking Halo 3 for not being “innovative”, I may consider telling them that it is not supposed to be and that anyone who thinks it is are simply deluding themselves. However, with that said, making a game more enjoyable without actually changing it? That’s quite innovative, actually.
TRINITY NEWS
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Michaelmas term, Week 10
InProfile The journalist who became the news Charlie Bird has been insulted, sued and punched on his way to becoming Ireland’s most recognisable journalist, writes Nigel Alexander
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hroughout the past 25 years, wherever there’s a major news story, there’s Charlie Bird. As RTÉ’s Chief News Correspondent, he has become one of the most recognisable figures in Irish journalism and helped shape news broadcasting in RTÉ, despite failing his Leaving Certificate. In his 2006 autobiography entitled This is Charlie Bird, he details his life on the front-line of major news reporting. Looking at his experiences, it becomes apparent that if he’s not in the right place at the right time, then he’s there very shortly afterwards. Bird was born in Sandymount, Co Dublin in 1949. While at school, he became enthusiastically involved in debating and though he also showed interest in English and history, he did not excel in his studies, admitting in his book that he was “a bit lazy”. He failed maths in the Leaving Cert and, as a result, never got the opportunity to go to university. As is plain to see, this didn’t hinder Bird, who actually described it as a “great personal motivator.” As a youth, Bird became heavily involved in left-wing politics. At the height of this activism, he was arrested by the British army in Derry for taking part in a protest march against Bloody Sunday. Fortunately he was released after about an hour in a cell. He eventually decided, largely due to the circles that he was in, to pursue a career in the media. This put an end to his days of political involvement. He
Evelyn Tent
managed to get a job as a journalist for the Leitrim Observer, but lasted only six weeks. Showcasing a glimpse of his future journalistic ability to handle rejection, he kept on trying. He followed on from this by becoming a researcher for RTÉ’s current affairs programme Seven Days. It would be the beginning of a lifelong career with the Irish broadcasting network. His first big story came with the Stardust fire in north Dublin in which 48 youths died while celebrating St Valentine’s Day. Over the following years, his profile was gradually raised with a series of milestones in his career. These include his first major international story: the imprisonment of Father Niall O’Brien and the Negros Nine in the Philippines. Later came his first international news story that didn’t involve an Irish angle. This took the form of the hijacking of a Kuwaiti Boeing 747 by terrorists which ultimately ended up in Algiers. In Algiers there was a huge media presence with the BBC alone boasting twelve people on the site. RTÉ had one. To make matters worse, Bird had no equipment for any kind of recording. It was only thanks to the BBC allowing him use its satellite phone that any reports were able to be sent back to Dublin. It wasn’t uncommon for RTÉ to rely on this kind of generosity back then. The standard policy was to give other news agencies a bottle of whiskey as a sign of goodwill and then hope they
would let RTÉ to use their shots. Today, Irish politics seem synonymous with Charlie Bird. He appears most content at the plinth outside Leinster House, probing politicians about various aspects of their personal lives. Since rising to the top of his profession, he has covered most of the major political stories in Ireland. These include the election of the first female and non-Fianna Fáil president, Mary Robinson, the controversial Haughey years and Bertie Ahern's initial campaign for Taoiseach, which was personally covered by Bird. The opposition at the time complained that he was reporting on Bertie too favourably compared with how John Bruton was being reported. However, Bird denies that doing his job too well could have had any significant result on the outcome of the election. For over a decade, Bird was RTÉ’s only contact with the Irish Republican Army. Many important IRA statements, including their initial cease-fire and their eventual decommissioning, were delivered to the world solely through him. He was also able to conducted an exclusive interview with Jim Monaghan of the “Columbian Three” shortly after Monaghan was smuggled back into Ireland. Covering significant events from around the world is also part of being Charlie Bird. He has covered both Gulf Wars, the Asian tsunami, the genocide in Rwanda, the earthquake in Pakistan and Nelson Mandela’s campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, to name but a
Sex, Sex, Sex… darlings, it is all you seem to do these days. Poor old Beta Bar Boy Dave Byrne has been seen hopping around College. Alas, ladies, the Duracell bunny is out of action these days on strict instructions from his doctor. But fear not, he can still receive oral sex: see Facebook for details: “The Dave Byrne Needs Head Appeal”. Another young boy on the JCR just hasn’t been able to keep it in his pants after reaching the ripe old age of 20. Only recently he and his “Daddy’s a diplomat” ex-girlfriend rekindled their romance, only for her to find that she wasn’t the only one spending time in his bedroom. Boys… please! But when it comes to virility, one College administrator has been putting us all to shame. The old dog was spotted ambling the streets with his new flame, a sultry Slav half his age, and their beautiful newborn sprog. Congratulations, darling! I shall have the flowers sent round to you. I daren’t deliver them in person lest I fall victim to your stern faced, middle-aged charm. Speaking of charm it seems good old Uncle Joe O’Gorman of the Trinity Tours Empire has run into a number of problems. Since his return from the Chinese missions, College has told him it is no longer acceptable to harbour so many homos under Front Arch. It seems those poor Trinity
few. Thankfully, as the years have gone on, RTÉ have become as up-to-date as any other news service from around the world. The days of using a bottle of whiskey to try and trade for footage are long gone. Bird’s later career has been more and more geared towards investigative journalism. He has exposed many individuals and organisations, but the story that he considers the most rewarding of all was his investigation into National Irish Bank. This eventually led to a report exposing the bank for encouraging customers to evade tax and adding extra charges onto customer’s accounts. Bird and George Lee, RTÉ’s Economics Editor, won Journalists of the Year Awards in 1998 for the investigation. Despite this, Fianna Fáil’s Beverly Cooper Flynn took libel action against Bird and farmer James Howard for alleging her involvement in the NIB scandal. It was taken all the way to the Supreme Court, but what became Ireland’s longest ever libel case eventually went the way of Bird and Howard. Thanks to his high profile, Bird is occasionally the subject of the news himself. Last year, during the Love Ulster riot in Dublin, a small number of men attacked him before undercover gardaí came to his rescue. The first attacker was reported to have shouted “Charlie Bird, you’re an orange bastard!” Obviously they knew nothing about him.
Tours boys have nowhere to go when it rains on their parade. Tragic. I just hope those designer sunglasses will keep the rain out of your darling eyes. And as for his beloved CSC, well, there have been one or two problems concerning two gentlemen in particular. One made our delightful Chair cry. Sophie, darling, it’ll all be ok… you just go put on some Bach and swig on a bottle of Bolli’ and Uncle Joe will try and get rid of this mess for you. As for messes, well, the toffs who created Piranha! this year did no justice to its masthead. Where once the humour was borderline racist, it is instead a steaming pile of, well… a lady shouldn’t swear, but essentially, it’s not worth the paper its printed on. These boys need a good lesson in bitching. Perhaps they should come round to my place for tea. The good Tim “No Puffs” Smyth(e) has been cantering around college more quickly as of late. Rumour has it that Tim has a very special guest, “one of his own”, as someone said. It seems all his poppy-wearing as of late hasn’t gone unnoticed and it is likely that a very senior British politician may be visiting the GMB. Who could it be? Well, Tony’s off to play war in the Middle East and Gordon’s a bit busy, what with all this election nonsense the Tories are talking about. John Major perhaps?
A Bird’s life Born in Sandymount in 1949, Bird began his career working on pirate radio stations. After spending several years as a researcher for RTE current affairs programmes, he joined the RTE news team in the late 70s. For years in the 1990s, he was involved with documenting and reporting on the movements of the Provisional IRA, including witnessing first hand the ceasefires and the divers machinations of the peace process. Bird covered the National Irish Bank story (tax evasion), reported on both Gulf Wars and the release of Brian Keenan in Syria. He was awarded an honourary doctorate from UCD in 2002. Attacked in the Dublin Riots (Feb 25th 2006) he spoke of his personal experience, including being called an “Orange Bastard”, on RTE News that evening.This led to his criticism by the Sunday Times, ever the standard of journalistic integrity, for making “himself the story”.
Back to House Six for a moment. Andy “Carpet“ Byrne has apparently been addling for a second term in office, as, well, there is a new batch of first years next year. Two other darling students have begun their campaigns already and the SU really isn’t happy with an Iranian in charge of USI. Poor Andy just wants to be loved, but it seems our friend in USI isn’t too fond of boys who shop in Topman. Politics is terribly trivial, though, and resident abortionist Ivana Bacik has been having her wicked way in the Seanad recently. Our new Senator is getting to grips with the task in hand and last week tackled her first major issue “the fishing of cockles”. Oh darling, please. Could you not find something more exciting to entertain us. And finally, Evelyn can never end without mentioning her dear friend Dean Stokes who’s continued her tirade against unhygienic students. Obviously you lot aren’t fit to boil a kettle, or that’s exactly how my darling friend Emma feels. The good Dean has banned kettles and all food cooking implements for fear that a student may be poisoned. Oh, this fits in perfectly with her policy of cake sales not too often, or you may jut kill someone. Darling, it’s all just a game to you isn’t it?
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TRINITY NEWS
Michaelmas term, Week 10
P13
Opinion&Analysis Driving test reforms are sadly long overdue Forcing provisional licence holders to drive accompanied will take dangerous drivers off the roads at last FELIX MCELHONE STAFF WRITER
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he fallout from Minister Noel Dempsey’s attempt to reform the provisional licensing system was swift. The Minister’s decision to give four days notice to drivers on a second provisional licence before banning them from driving unaccompanied sparked anger from many quarters, including students, many of whom were affected by the change in regulations. Noel Dempsey’s announcement was ill-judged and he was forced into an embarrassing u-turn wherein affected drivers now have until 30 June to either pass their test or risk a €1,000 fine in the courts for driving unaccompanied after that date. Minister Dempsey’s shock announcement has had a positive effect, however, encouraging provisional drivers to apply for and start preparing for their driving test. Contrast his decision with that of Sylvester Barrett, the then Minister for Environment, who was faced with a driving test backlog in 1979. Mr Barrett took a somewhat different approach, granting an amnesty to anyone who had failed the driving test twice.
The response of many students driving on provisional licences to Noel Dempsey’s original announcement was motivated largely by concerns surrounding the driving test backlog in Ireland. On 2 October, the day when the initial proposals were announced, the average waiting time for a test in the Republic was 29.1 weeks. In Northern Ireland the average is four weeks. The Government aims to provide driving tests “on demand” or after a maximum wait of ten weeks. How can the Government claim to provide a driving test “on demand” if applicants have to wait two and half months for one? The rationale behind the current situation, whereby a driver can drive unaccompanied on a second provisional licence, but not on a first provisional, or a third or subsequent, must also be examined. If a learner driver passes a theory test, gains a first provisional licence and waits for two years, they are able to apply for a second provisional licence. Farcically, they are now able to drive unaccompanied entirely legally without having passed a practical test. After a further two years, if a learner driver hasn’t
passed a driving test, they move on to their third provisional licence and are supposed to be accompanied by a full licence holder. The distinction is completely arbitrary and illogical. Waiting times for driving tests have been unacceptably lengthy in Ireland for many years. Why then, has there been no concerted effort by students to seek to have the waiting times reduced? Widespread concern about crime has resulted in a vast increase in Gardaí resources, so why has pressure not been brought to bear on the government in relation to a situation that is affecting many students? The only group to have attracted widespread media attention on the issue before the last fortnight is Macra na Feirme, the young rural people’s group, hardly a major influence on the lives and opinions of Trinity students. The most obvious answer to the evident apathy of students towards long waiting lists is that there is simply no need to pass a driving test to be able to drive alone. If you are able to drive unaccompanied on a provisional licence either entirely legally or
with only the risk of a caution, there is no need to be concerned about the driving test backlog. There are approximately 280000 drivers who are on either a first provisional licence or a third or subsequent provisional licence. Last year, 4500 people were charged with either driving unaccompanied or driving without “L” plates. Of those, 3000 cases were struck out because the summons wasn’t served by Gardaí or an order wasn’t made by the judge. Others had their cases thrown out in court as legislation is unclear as to what penalties should be imposed. The Union of Students in Ireland recently called for better public transport options to enable students to be less reliant on their cars. The current situation where you can drive unaccompanied, without passing a test or fear of hefty penalties, encourages car dependency amongst students and the sooner it is ended, the better. The issue of poor public transport options for students is perhaps best illustrated with reference to third level colleges outside Dublin. Students in Letterkenny Institute of Technology, for example, often have no option but to drive to college and it is the likes of them who will be most affected by reforms of the provisional licensing system. Minister Dempsey’s reforms are welcome and should serve to finally encourage learner drivers to undertake a set of formal driving lessons in order to prepare for a driving test and to sit one with a reasonable chance of success. Many students who have invested time and money in preparing for and successfully passing their driving test, will be happy that their decision is finally paying dividends. For others, 30 June is an ominous date in the future, after which the scandalous situation surrounding the provisional licence in Ireland will finally be consigned to history.
Prestige of Pinks damaged by award to eight sailors Restoring Club Colours would promote excellence in sport, while maintaining the rarity of the Dublin Pink, argues Peter Henry
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ublin University Sailing Club can boast of eight new Pinks this year – members who have been awarded University Colours for their outstanding sporting performances. That a whole team from one club took half of all Pinks awarded in 2007 degrades the ostensibly prestigious award. However, Trinity’s world-class sailors are not to blame. Pink was introduced as the University’s colour in 1927 in an attempt to imitate the Blue system at Oxford and Cambridge. Not everyone was convinced that such an award was necessary – as a University with one college, the distinction between Club Colours and University Colours would always be difficult to define. The current rule require competition for one’s country in order to be eligible for proposal. Crucially, they stipulate that Pinks will be awarded “not principally on a team basis, but on merit”. It is necessary that candidates be considered for the award on their own merits – not on their participation in a team, no matter how successful. This year’s contravention of this fundamental aspect of the award has taken away from the value of the award. Pinks from previous years were individually vetted and chosen for their outstanding achievements. Whole teams were not given Pinks for winning this or that event, no matter how prestigious the event. Awarding Pinks to a whole team is against both the spirit and the letter of the award. The Sailing Club cannot be faulted – the club had an unprecedented win at the Student Yachting World Cup, which should be celebrated and highlighted. The
Pinks The University Colours, or Pink, is the highest honour that Trinity confers on its sportsmen and women. It is designed to correspond, although not exactly, with the Light Blue of Cambridge and the Dark Blue of Oxford. Pinks were first introduced in 1927 by Terence Millin, a former Captain of the Football first XV. Pinks are awarded to student club members who have excelled; usually externally or through representing their country. The Captains’ Committee, meeting twice annually, adjudicates nominations from clubs. Pinks are entitled to wear University Colours, a scarf of plain pink, a tie, dark blue with a pattern of crowned pink harps and a blazer,for which the design has sadly been lost.
permanent officers and staff of the Dublin University Central Athletic Club can be blamed for not providing enough information and guidance to the captain electors, who were not informed that University Colours in this University is not a team award. The Captains’ Committee, one of five in DUCAC, elect new Pinks twice a year. Unfortunately very little information is given to the captains on the candidates. In fact, the captains – most of whom
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were not familiar with awarding Colours, as their own clubs do not make the award anymore – were told that the sailors’ applications were “open and shut cases”. The individuals were not presented on a case-bycase basis; rather, their membership of the College’s World Cup team was considered sufficient. Many of the new sailing Pinks have other notable achievements, and some of them would have been eligible for the award if they had never travelled to France for the Student Yachting World Cup. It detracts from University Colours as an award and from each individual sailor’s award that their other achievements were not taken into account. It is also difficult to blame the College captains. They are given the difficult task of judging who is eligible and who is not. In order to make a reasoned decision, they need to be furnished with information on the candidates. At the first meeting last Hilary term, nothing was given to the captains prior to the election meeting. It is hard to avoid concluding that some people in DUCAC want to control the outcome of the meetings by not supplying enough information for the captains to make their own decisions. Did the rugby team notice how a whole group of people was being pushed through for the award without discussion? Half of their first team was proposed at the second Hilary term meeting (yes, the rules say a winter and a summer meeting, not two meetings a few weeks apart from each other – a minor deviation compared to the real problem). They weren’t successful, but maybe they considered it worth a try. It wasn’t only the award en masse to the
sailing team which hurt the prestige of the award this year. One (also excellent, but ineligible) sportsman was given the award based on what could have been if he wasn’t busy doing something else. Giving out Pinks based on “ifs and buts” does nothing but decrease the value of the award. However, clearly someone in DUCAC felt this person should get the award – a reasoned and informed decision by the captains might not have produced the desired result. Members of individual clubs could be forgiven for taking advantage of the award of Pinks, especially when they have no Colours award of their own. Most clubs have abandoned or forgotten their own system of awarding Club Colours. Captains should consider reintroducing the old Colours system into their clubs – most likely your club has its own Colours tie and scarf and Club Colours is worth promoting as an award. This would provide a competitive incentive in individual clubs while increasing the status of the higher award of Pinks. Captain electors should be more careful who they vote for – and they should demand to be supplied with the details of each applicant, to be considered on his own merits, well in advance of each meeting. That way, if you meet someone with a Pinks tie, you can be confident that he was chosen by the Dublin University captains – not as part of a group application, or because someone in DUCAC directed that he be chosen – but as a result of an informed and reasoned debate. Peter Henry is a former Editor of Trinity News (2006/2007). He is currently researching his first book: a compendium of the ties, scarves and blazers of Trinity College.
Varsity Talk Sameena Velshi
Farce and nonsense at Phil Islamic debate or the second time in three weeks a guest speaker at a University Philosophical Society debate expressed his regret in attending and declined to engage in future debates at Trinity College. The debate to which I am referring (debate being a term I use loosely) was “Islam and the West” on 25 October. The speakers found the facilitation lacking and the student speakers misrepresentative. One alluded to the debate as a media stunt. The motion on the table in the Islam and the West Debate was “That this House Believes that Islam is Incompatible with Western Liberal Society”. This, perhaps the defining question of our generation, was left unasked and made a farce of. I felt nothing more than paralysis as I listened and expected a debate of democratic competence. Instead, what I experienced was a democratic failure. The proposition consisted most notably of Omar Bakri Mohammed, who participated via video message, and Anjem Choudry. Mr Mohammed can only be classed as a radical Muslim cleric who attracts widespread media coverage in Britain. Among other insensitive statements, he has been known to glorify the 11 September bombers as the “Magnificent 19”. He did not attend the debate, having been denied a visa – instead he sent a video clip. Mohammed spoke articulately about why he felt Islam as a way of life could not “co-exist under other political belief”. He provided his own interpretation of how the Qur'an says one should live his life and what being a Muslim entails. Mr Choudry’s comments, however, were more unsettling. He attempted to illustrate the point that liberal western democracies are failures by quoting statistics related to crime and poverty. His comments were met with catcalls and several unanswered points of information until he and the entire proposition left the room. The opposition consisted of academics, imams (spiritual leaders), a statement from the Muslim Students Society and an uninformed orator. Dr Ali Al Saleh spoke with regard to the motion, urging the global community not to associate Muslim fundamentalists with the entire faith. The third speaker for the opposition engaged in childish rhetoric with the members of the proposition by first calling them “nutters of a faith”, then asking them to “have some respect” followed by an articulate “shut up”. Sheikh Shaheed Satardien, who condemned the standard of debate, spoke poignantly, disagreeing wholeheartedly with the comments of the proposition and expressed his desire to engage in structured discussion on the motion. The organisers of this debate must have expected the outcome that prevailed. Mr Choudry has been invited to participate in debates at Trinity College for four years running. The Chair of the House for last year even delivered a well-prepared statement which entertainingly chastised Mr Choudry for his past habits of alcohol consumption and school day naughtiness. Although this information may have been necessary in order to humanise Mr Choudry, the display further disgraced the concept of intelligent, learned debate. However astounding I found the comments of the proposition, and at times the opposition, listening is admittedly the only way toward understanding the root of the anti-Islamic sentiments that litter today’s media. It would have been preferable to hear the thoughts of a diverse group of Muslims, rather than one man accompanied by his attempt at a terrorist cell. Considering there are four main branches of Islam and over 30 different sects, it is likely that both sides could have been better represented. Surely it would have been possible to find liberal, conservative and radical Muslims who are either for or against the motion. A definite answer to the question at hand will likely never be determined, however constructive thought and the exchange of ideologies is the only way to decrease hatred between two societal groups, whoever they may be. Perhaps steps should be taken toward upholding a standard of debate that is so often suggested to be at par with Oxford and Cambridge. At the moment, the only remnant of debating I recognise is the incessant ringing of a handheld bell indicating the end of another spectacle.
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Michaelmas term, Week 10
Opinion&Analysis Face It’s all fun and games until Off someone invades Russia
with Joey Facer Careers Week sounded like a good idea. I particularly liked the sound of the talk entitled “What Can I Do With My Arts Degree?”, though the thought of an hour spent listening to a resounding and elongated “sweet f-all” was too off-putting to make me attend. In fact, I am quite baffled by my inability to have attended even one Careers’ Week lecture. Future? What future? This steady refusal to accept facts – graduation happens, soon – astounds me. So I reasoned out in my own time the future possibilities of employment. As far as I can tell, there are five categories of job that I will synopsize hereunder. The first to come to mind, as an Arts-Nearly-Graduated, is what I would call the “Cop-Out Job”. By which I mean entering the Civil Service, in any area, on any level. Yes, the kind of job our parents secured without trifling away four precious years of life and still managed to enjoy financial security and bring us up well. Teaching included, of course. (Can someone explain to me why I could possibly need a degree in French to teach to fifteen year olds le chat, la fenetre? What a waste of four years.) On the plus side of the Cop-Out Job, despite a measly starting salary, is that said salary will increase as you stick it out. Pen push for forty years as a Civil Servant and it will be just like you made a positive career move to begin with. Plus the pensions, as older folk keep telling me, are ecstatically good. Moreover, it’s next to impossible for them to ever get rid of you, which means if you excel in mediocrity, this could be a life-line, lifelong job for you. Next, we have the “Highly Paid, Sell Your Soul Cop-Out Job”. A degree is essential, which is heartwarming, but the work is debilitatingly mindnumbingly unthinkably horrendous. In addition, the chances of the job being in any way related to what you just spent four years (or, eight weeks leading up to May) in the library for are admittedly minimal. I’m thinking merchant banking, property development, Wall Street (Harcourt Street): faceless corporations willing to fork out reputedly indecently large salaries in exchange for your soul. This job will render you impossibly dull in all conversation, and probably is highly inducive of mid-life crises. Still, if you want to have your meat and two veg and eat it, this is the option for you. Thirdly, we have the apostolic jobs, the “Calling Job”. Otherwise known as the “Degree-Specific, Highly Paid but Highly Stressful Totally Non-Cop-Out Job”. Little Jimmy High Achiever will be leaving College and launched neatly into the field of medicine or law. Both of which fulfil heretofore unchecked criteria: both highly paid and satisfying, enough to put a smile on the new graduate’s face. Just thinking about spending an afternoon saving lives or defending the faith should make many an undifferentiated “Arts” student wish they had opted for these noble vocational degrees. Fast forward five years, though, and you are likely to find a career-obsessed overworked shell of a human being, whose broken record is increasingly “if only I had the time, I’d love to…” Most likely to get a divorce, have a heart attack and forget the names of friends and family before middle age, the risk factor of this option is enormous. Of course, there’s always a golden pot at the end of the rainbow for some: the “Follow your Dream Job”.This is the one your parents would rather you didn’t pursue, but that you have dreamed about since your more innocent days. This category includes acting, writing and academics, and is generally one you’ll have to try really hard to justify as a genuine contribution to society. In invariably involves rubbish pay and absolutely no job security, however, it does restore your faith in humanity somewhat to see those individuals saying: I know it’s a one in a billion chance it’ll be me, but it might be me! Sadly, a life of pennilessness and disillusion awaits these brave young things. Finally, we have the area into which I predict many of my contemporaries will step: the “Confused Young Graduate Job”. Fresh out of exams, having missed all further education deadlines and not wanting to settle into a job for life of the second rate, confused graduates everywhere leap off to some exotic foreign places, intermittently working in the local Superquinn or (even better) McDonalds, convincing themselves they’re “too young to settle down.” So what can we do to combat these evil five? Trinity College Dublin, whilst not great on the pastoral care front generally, does offer a department geared towards our future employment prospects. Sometimes a friendly one-on-one with a guidance counsellor can be a more inviting prospect than the idea of sitting through lectures of limited relevance. My solution? Gentlemen, opt for cushy, safe, boring but well-paid jobs. Ladies, go forth, conjugate, propagate. Traditional, tried and tested, perhaps it is time to focus less on work and more about family, people, and relationships. Which is my current “get out of the library free” card. There’s always a fallback position. And six months until exams. Real world, brace yourself.
Conal Campbell “When I was little I would pray to God for a bike. Then I realized He doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness”. Evan Maguire. I failed the driving test again. People talk about corruption like it’s a bad thing. He could be €200 richer and I could be rid of those horrible L-plates. “How would you manually test your brakes on an even surface”, get real. Most times I encounter a Junior Freshman at a door or in a tight space in the library he/she
says “sorry” for some reason. You should all just toughen up and stop being afraid of the older kids. I really miss getting “a boost”. When you’re 8 years old you regularly need to get help climbing a wall. I’m going to get one just for nostalgia sake in a nightclub smoking area some night when it’s so late I don’t care if I get kicked out. What I don’t miss from 1991 is facecloths. A small rag used to lather your face. Boggles the mind really. If I spend €3,000 on a television I want a remote that I can ring like a mobile phone when it goes missing. What is it about The Panel that I don’t get? They should set up border controls along the Pale with guards instructed to arrest any student leaving Dublin under who hasn’t seen every episode because boggers are fanatical about this crap. Every single one of the panellists has the bad comedian’s curse of thinking that a joke that was funny in an every-day situation when it was off-the-cuff deserves a laugh when used prêt-aporter. Can’t stand waiting to use a PC to do academic work and seeing someone writing
drivel to their girlfriends on Facebook or Bebostalking hot girls. Ban it during peak hours. I hate reading details of the resignation of the USI President or any other hack throwing in the towel because politicking has made his/her position unenjoyable. Student politics tends towards fratricide for the simple reason that it is utterly trivial. Hackery is essentially a hobby (the SU Education Officer and Welfare Officer are the only people who I can see as having important work to do) that one should look back at 10 years later as having been great fun. Spooks has started back on BBC1. Some episodes are better than others but still it’s by far the best drama on TV. The Simpsons is better than Family Guy and American Dad and all these new animated series because it was a very integrative humour. Old / young, liberal / conservative, American / European; you didn’t have to be a prissy 16 year old from New England to genuinely enjoy the humour. There is nothing worse than watching people force themselves to laugh at references they don’t get “Haha it’s funny because Karl Rove is Bush’s brain”. Shut up, you had never heard of Karl Rove until you saw him in
animated version. I was forced to take a 6am train last week. Whatever about the prevalence of the Polish language during the daytime in Dublin, Polish is definitely the de facto language of Dublin at that time of the morning on public transport. Lonely Planet last week named Ireland the friendliest destination in the world. I can certainly see why they would think so; our national personality characteristics are really a blessing. It’s a shame tourists get to see the stuff we get up to on Westmoreland Street at 2am on a Saturday night. Madam, - I think we should avoid general elections. The economy seems to deteriorate seriously after each one. - Yours, etc, Irish economists are like a man standing on Sandymount Strand declaring that the tide is going out and one will be able to walk to England by the end of the day, then, later claiming that the tide is coming in and O’Connell Street will be submerged under water within hours. “Do you know we have to graduate wearing black?! I’m going to write College a strongly worded email because black is NOT my best colour,” Una Travers SS BESS.
How to fund fourthlevel education Attracting private-sector investment in campus companies is crucial if we are to establish a knowledge-based economy, argues the former Minister for Finance who abolished college fees
RUARÍ QUINN TD LABOUR SPOKESPERSON ON EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
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ost students in third-level colleges are at the beginning of their adult lives and so will experience a world transformed by a process of globalisation which is unknown to my generation. To survive and prosper in that new environment, there is a view that Ireland must move up the value chain of economic activity and become a knowledge based economy. The competitive pressures from a globalised world economy after the Doha round of world trade talks is ultimately resolved, means that Ireland will have to remain brighter, sharper and more adaptable than before if we want our current high cost of living to remain competitive in the new world economy. The strategic response to this challenge, by Ireland and the rest of Europe, is education. We need to seriously invest in our education system, but particularly third-level. While primary and secondary education have many issues about which I could comment, I want in this article to concentrate on the third- and fourth-level areas of education. Ireland spends less than the average of OECD countries on education as a percentage of our GNP. We need, over a short period of time, to increase that progressively
to 50 percent above the average education spend of OECD countries. Of that increased spend, a substantial amount should go into the third level sector which has the bulk of our research capabilities. I agree that our universities are under-funded, but I do not share the view of some, who argue for the return of third-level fees. I was the Minister for Finance, who along with Niamh Bhreathnach as Minister for Education, abolished third-level fees in 1995. It removed a real cost to many middleclass families who still had to finance their children while they were at college. But it also removed a glass ceiling on the aspirations of lower-income families who never saw or imagined that their children would go to university. It has had the same affect on third-level as the removal by Donough O’Malley on second-level fees back in 1966. Our secondary school system needs more resources and nobody suggests that this should be achieved by the reintroduction of secondary school fees. So how do we invest more in our education system if we want to prepare the foundations of knowledge-based economy which will keep us in the manner to which we have become accustomed? In addition to increasing the taxpayers
funds for the third-level, we need, in my view, to devise ways of attracting private capital into our college campuses. The activity generated by Science Foundation Ireland will, over the next ten years, create a new generation of PhDs and skilled graduates. I welcome this government initiative, but I fear that there is no coherent strategy to deal with its implementation. As things stand, we run the real risk of educating our successful postgraduates for emigration unless we fund their post-doctoral activity. The fourth-level sector, that includes campus companies which have the capacity to commercialise primary research exploration and discovery, is one of the routes to a knowledge-based economy. But brains need cash and we now have to create a new relationship between the laboratory and the labourer. We have to switch the Irish investment appetite from Bulgarian residences to bio-medical research. The risk factor is probably the same, but for most Irish investors, an apartment in Bulgaria looks a safer bet and besides, they don’t have the knowledge how to invest in a campus company. One change that we could make is the following: at present our pension funds are debarred from investing in risky or
speculative stocks and shares. Why not change it so that 5% of pension funds can be made available for an investment fund in campus companies? Each pension contributor could tick an optional box authorising 5% of their pension contribution to go into that risky fund. In return, they could get an enhanced tax deduction which would eliminate the real cost of their 5% contribution. The positive side would be that they would share in the intellectual property rights of any research that struck gold. The value that could accrue from successful companies or intellectual property rights to campus companies’ inventions would flow back to the investors. They would also generate the continuous activity of researchers and maintain the level of academic excellence in our third-level and fourth-level sectors. There are many other ways in which we could channel or encourage capital to flow into this sector. Yes, it is more risky than some forms of property investment, but its return is more valuable if we want to make Ireland a successful knowledge economy. There have been great developments in our education system in recent times. The primary function of education is to educate and develop our young people. However, developing and expanding our fourth-level areas of education is an essential component on our journey to a knowledge economy. Twenty years ago, the fantastical idea of making Dublin an International Financial Services Centre was proclaimed. There were many sceptics at the time, but you find none among the 16000 people now working in the revitalised Dublin Docklands area. It has all happened within the lifetime of young students who will sit their first year exams next spring. Nothing is impossible to those who dream and everything is achievable to those with clear ideas and determination. Ruairí Quinn, TD, is the Labour Party Spokesperson on Education and Science. He is a former Minister for Finance (1994 – 1997) and Labour Party leader (1997 – 2002).
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Issue 4, Volume 54 Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2 www.trinitynews.ie
A student centre for Trinity? The issue of an impending student centre has been long-debated by countless committees and glossed by even more agendas. Along with the removal of the Buttery Bar in 2006, many contend that student societies have been relegated to obscure corners of the campus, and the lack of a hub of student activity is seen by some as a grave fault in Trinity’s otherwise shining countenance. In times of yore, students encloistered in the ivory Trinity turrets may well have known the campus crannies of society rooms and events held in strange nooks would have been well-attended; however now the modern vibrant Dublin city may hold a more enticing prospect for student down-time. This means that Trinity falls down where many other campus universitys excel: in providing a centre where students, and only students, can gather and grow more cohesive as a student body. Various College committees would have us believe that the key to these troubled student activity times is to create a space for student societies where they can dwell together, hence making the student identify such a place with extra-curricular high-jinks. However, all forthcoming propositions have found such a centre located far from the “centre” of College. Indeed, Front Square, which so impresses the tourists, could be set to become an administrative centre should such plans to vacate House 6, which is beside Front Arch, come to fruition. Whilst resources and funding are clearly required to increase the vibrancy of student involvement, should the answer to this necessarily be to clear an area far from the original College itself, far from many students daily routes? Surely this has the potential to decrease student activity. Indeed, many would contend that Trinity College already has several hubs of student activity: the CSC in House 6 along with the SU and several society rooms, the Atrium and the GMB all attract a good number of interested students from year to year. Perhaps the funding could be better spent, therefore, on improving these “centres” we already have, and highlighting their appearance to students. In addition, the separatedness of these hubs, it can be argued, adds greatly to the individuality of the societies. Would the Hist/Phil debacle be the same if they did not share a building? And would Players produce such excellent shows if they weren’t enclositered in their own building of pure Play? And would Sci-Fi Soc have that grungy appeal if they were not in a musty top corner of House 6? Trinity offers some of the country’s best and oldest societies, each with its own individual sites and indiviual outlook. A student centre will homogenise student acitvity, and make them about as interesting as a Cadbury’s Milk Tray. All in one place, but barely differentiated.
Our mental health Mental Health Week looms, and like any other week supported by the Students’ Union we should look forward to being bombarded with all things related to it. This particular week must be handled in a slightly different manner however: depression and suicide should not be thrust at us as sport and condoms are during Health and Shag Weeks respectively. But with increasingly worrying statistics on suicide, and with over 400,000 people in Ireland suffering from depression according to Aware, perhaps it is an issue which necessitates making people uneasy over, particularly in relation to our own College. The College Counselling Service, with which two thousand students a year come into contact, is seriously understaffed. Although all the counsellors are professionally trained and qualified for the positions they hold, still with only eight in total to deal with over fifteen thousand students in Trinity, they cannot be expected to be providing an adequate service. At the service, you are initially offered a four session course in counselling, with each session an hour long, which can be extended to eight sessions if you and your counsellor consider it to be appropriate. However, few would disagree that some problems cannot be solved in eight hours. Is it for those students to request to re-attend counselling, thus forcing another student on the waiting list to hang on even longer for a session? Or must they accept that their time is up, and find another way to cope? The options for anyone in Ireland suffering from a mental health disorder are limited. Whilst College attempts to provide a service, it is similar to the rest of the country in falling worryingly short of its aims.
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Accurate facts key to a clear understanding of GSU resignation Sir - While I appreciate your effort to shed some light on the tumultuous Graduate Students Union AGM of 24 October (“GSU treasurer resigns at controversial AGM,” issue 3), a number of inaccuracies in your article may lead to even more confusion. GSU President Alessio Frenda’s letter to the University Record (6 November) clears up some issues but also obscures others. While many of the issues are rather technical, the details matter because they speak to the larger point that unions need to follow open democratic procedures and respect the will of their members. Ruth Pe Palileo was elected GSU Treasurer last June. On 11 July, the GSU’s Executive met, and because of the concerns Mr Frenda explains in his letter, the Executive voted its preference that she not serve in the post to which she was elected. She resigned the next day, 12 July, the first day of her term in office, not at the AGM. She was not ‘required’ to resign on the 11, as your article puts it; while the Executive’s vote was, in my mind,
inappropriate political pressure, the decision to resign (and if so, when) remained Ms Palileo’s. Nor did she “renounce to take up the position”, as Mr Frenda puts it. As Electoral Commission Chair, I certified her election back in June, and to my knowledge, she has since made no effort to decline or renounce it. In any case, the GSU’s Constitution contains no provision for position-renouncement, while it does contain a specific procedure for resignation, which Ms Pe Palileo followed on 12 July. In her resignation letter of that date, she calls herself “willing and able to fulfill this role [GSU Treasurer], and believe[s she] would have done so capably and thoroughly”. It’s worth noting that Ms Palileo served as the GSU’s president last year and ran on a platform of organizational reform. The GSU’s Constitution only allows the Executive to fill an elected office on its own authority only if the post “is not filled in Trinity Term”. It was the Executive’s claim that Ms Palileo’s election did not amount to the post being filled that drew my concern. My motion sought to clarify that the
political pressure brought on Ms Palileo was inappropriate and that the Executive exceeded its authority in coopting someone else to fill the post to which she was elected. It also contained a censure clause against those Executive members responsible for this decision, a clause I offered to remove at the AGM. You write that the motion did not pass, which is a bit misleading. No decision on it was taken: it was ruled out of order by the chair and the AGM never had an opportunity to debate, discuss, or vote on it. Instead, the chair requested that it be reworded and brought to the GSU’s Extraordinary General Meeting on Tuesday 13 November (6pm, same room). Hopefully the issue can be clarified and settled there. It was disappointing to me that members were not given an opportunity to learn about and discuss their Union’s actions—which, after all, are being carried out in their names. Yours, etc. Joshua Edelman Chair, GSU Electoral Commission
Affiliated institutions treated only as an opportunity to gather votes Sir - Looking back on my three years as a student belonging to both Trinity and Marino College, the affiliation between the two seems to be stronger on paper than in practice. There was an annual visit to Marino by the Trinity Students’ Union to collect student votes. This appeared to act as a means of bumping up their votes with a “minority group” rather than interest in representing Marino as an affiliated college. Apart from this yearly visit, no other Trinity authority made the 15 minute journey to Marino and Trinity publications were not delivered regularly; some not at all. On the one day a week that we had
lectures in Trinity we were confined to the Arts Building, only venturing into three rooms over the course of three years. Many Trinity students remain unaware that teacher training is offered through Trinity. This made it difficult to integrate into Trinity student life and making friends outside the teaching degree was next to impossible. Social events were difficult to attend as compulsory lectures in Marino clashed with club and society meetings. During Freshers’ Week, we were restricted to only one day we could attend, and other social facilities such as the bar, and sport grounds were offlimits for most of our degree. Luckily Marino
was well equipped with a church as a venue for our social enjoyment! In order to improve the TrinityMarino affiliation, I would suggest that college officials develop a better awareness of the needs of Marino students in regard to the schedules and the availability of Trinity facilities and services. Further opportunity to partake in Trinity’s social life is key in improving this affiliation. Yours, etc. Grainne O’Connor, B.Ed.
The rooms of Edward Ford, a murdered Junior Fellow, were in the third upper window from the left. His ghost can sometimes be still be seen emerging from the door of number 25. Photo: Martin McKenna
Trinity's fellow murderers As far as the internal history of Trinity College is concerned, the eighteenth century may well be termed the “Times of the Troubles”. In the constant riots and disturbances which took place in College during that period, at least two fatal incidents occurred – the shooting of a Fellow in 1734 and the death of a Provost at an earlier period from a blow by a brickbat. In whatever light these occurrences were regarded at the time, they seem peculiar enough to merit some attention at the present day. Edward Ford, a Junior Fellow, occupied rooms in number 25 over one of the two passages through the red-brick building which then formed the only means of access to what is now the New Square. He appears to have acquired a considerable amount of unpopularity in College, and accordingly, on 6 March, between 12 and 1 o’clock at night, a body of students collected for the purpose of breaking his windows. Ford, however, in anticipation of such a proceeding, had provided himself with a pistol, loaded with large shot, and the window-breakers were received with a discharge from this, which wounded one of their number, though the greater part of the shot lodged in a tree. The students promptly retired to their rooms, and having provided themselves with firearms, which seem to have formed a necessary part of one’s College equipment in those days, returned to the scene of action. The affair had, by this time, attracted attention, and some Scholars living in the
house, had entered Ford’s rooms and endeavoured to persuade him not to go to the window again; but he, not daunted, was opening the sash to fire a second time at his assailants, when he received two shots in the head and body, and fell, mortally wounded. Four students were arrested on the next day and the Board engaged counsel to prosecute them for murder. The feeling in Dublin, where the affair naturally caused a considerable amount of sensation, was all in favour of the accused students and against the authorities of College. We read in contemporary letters that the prosecution was very unpopular, “especially amongst the ladies, who were astonished at the barbarity of undertaking so cruel a persecution against the Sons of Gentlemen, suspected only of a frolic!” “In many companies where I was present”, writes a contemporary, “while the warmth of this debate lasted I could not but fancy the question was not whether the killing of Mr Ford was a fault, but rather if it were not advisable the young gentlemen should proceed and put half-a-dozen more of the Fellows out of the way; at least, whether it would not be proper that every twelvemonth the College should be refreshed with some new discipline of this kind”. No doubt a great deal of this feeling was due to some of the accused belonging, as we learn they did, to important families in Ireland, a fact which told for a great deal in those days. Nevertheless, for some
months a proclamation of Council appeared regularly in the Dublin Gazette, offering a reward of £300 for information which would lead to the conviction of any of the culprits and another £300 for the arrest of Mr James Dee, who had apparently decamped from College on the night of the outrage. In addition to this, the Board offered rewards of £150. But no information was forthcoming, and Mr James Dee remained safely “on his keeping” in his native wilds of Limerick, so that eventually the accused were put on their trial, and the last we hear of the whole affair is a brief notice on 12 July in the scanty Dublin press of those days, to the effect that “four young gentlemen, Scholars of our University, who were on trial for murder, were yesterday acquitted.” HL Murphy in TCD: A College Miscellany, March 17th, 1906.
“It must be recorded that his ghost, dressed in wig, gown and knee-breeches, is said to walk by the side of the Rubrics at dusk. Those who have seen him declare that he emerges slowly from the door of his old chambers at number 25, walks more briskly in the direction of Botany Bay, and then fades into the darkness.” From Constantia Maxwell’s History of Trinity College, Dublin (1946) Compiled by Peter Henry
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WorldReview
Star Wars and Super Spies: Is Cold War II heating up? JAMIE BURKE STAFF WRITER It is difficult for this generation with our array of eastern European travel destinations to remember the days when an ideological conflict of global proportions threatened to bring the reign of man on this planet to a bleak end. With events unfolding in recent months concerning the poisoning of an exKGB spy on British soil, apparently by Russian agents, and current proposals by the Bush Administration to build an antiballistic missile defence system in Russia’s neighbours Poland and the Czech Republic, one could be forgiven for stocking up on food rations and heading to the nearest underground bunker. So should we fear a return to the Cold War? Russia has always viewed itself as a key player on the international stage and, with a landmass twice the size of the next largest country Canada, this claim seems fully justified. Russia was the country to produce the first socialist revolution, to turn the tide against the Nazis in WWII and the first country to send a human into space. In reflection of these events, the Russian people have also regarded their role in international affairs as being one of extreme importance. The perception that the USSR “lost” the Cold War, a view that was largely reinforced by politicians of the “victorious” West, deeply affected the Russian psyche. With North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation membership being recently extended to the Russian border due to countries such as Lithuania and Latvia joining its ranks, it is not difficult to see why Russian politicians are complaining of a western policy of encirclement. One of Russia’s arguments with the West centres on the actual existence of NATO. If the Soviet Union is no more and the Cold War is over, what is the need for such an institution to exist? In spite of the political standoffs, we are unlikely to see a return to the openly hostile relationship between East and West. Russia may be reasserting itself on the international stage, but there is no need to be handing out iodine tablets just yet. First, the Cold War was defined by a conflict between two opposing ideological forces, capitalism and socialism. The world was split into two camps. Nowadays, however, it impossible to take such a black and white
approach. The second reason is money. The Russian economy has come around to embracing its old foe capitalism with open arms. Russia’s economy grew at a rate of nearly seven percent last year and it is expected that it will earn at least US$160 billion in oil revenues alone this year. In 2006, Britain, the country with which Russia is currently having a diplomatic standoff, invested $7 billion in the Russian market. In an interview with the BBC in June of this year, Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor of Russia in Global Affairs stated that, “It (Russia) perceives the outside world as an enormous market where every country competes for a share. It is a young and terribly aggressive, ruthless, unceremonious kind of capitalism, but it is guided by profit”. Sounds a lot like the economic policy pursued by its nemesis of old, the West.
Who’s playing? Putin of Russia: Ex-KGB posterboy whose dislikes include elections, pesky former spy playmates and free speech.
Bush of America: Geriatric GI-Joe. Putin might be a bit pacier, but he hasn’t got Bush’s imagination. Big Star Wars nerd.
Brown of Britain: Professional grump turned major world leader. Like Putin, not a fan of elections. Comes complete with artificial eye.
Jaroslaw Kacynski of Poland: Homophobe punching above his weight.
Russia perceives the outside world as an enormous market where every country competes for a share.
“ ” “ ”
Ghosts of dirty A who’s who in America’s war laid to rest
Presidential race
KEVIN BRESLIN WORLD REVIEW EDITOR
A week is a long time in politics and, in the cutthroat world of the United States Presidential race, a year is an eternity. So who are the current crop of hopefuls and what are their chances of being here come
November 2008? With the latest Gallup poll finding George Bush to be less popular than brussel sprouts, the Democrats could be forgiven for thinking that success in next year’s election is a forgone conclusion. But
while Hilary Clinton is storming to the Democratic nomination, she is seen elsewhere as a highly divisive figure with many doubting she has the cross- over appeal needed to carry her to the White House.
Hilary Clinton (D)
John Edwards (D)
John McCain (R)
Still leads most polls and last month pulled in US$10 million more than her closest Democratic rival Obama. With a talent for performing well in debates and the eternally popular Bill by her side, she is seen by many Democrats as the best chance for victory and her nomination has a dreary sense of inevitability to it. However, she is reviled by many on the other side of the political fence and, in a country where swing voters win elections, Clinton may need to work on her cross-over appeal if she is to claim the ultimate prize.
Shocked the American public when he did not withdraw his bid despite his wife being diagnosed with cancer, Edwards is currently lying third in most polls. Too far behind to be seriously considered a contender this time, he is still extremely popular in the Southern states, and will most likely end up being the Vice Presidential candidate with whoever wins the race out of the big two.
This former prisoner of war was the most popular Republican during most of Bush’s presidency with a record of bipartisanship agreement and moderate views. He has fallen back in most polls, however, and at 74 years of age, many doubt if he is physically capable of taking on the responsibility of the most powerful job in the world. As with the previous race, McCain may have peaked too soon.
Rudolph Giuliani (R)
Mitt Romney (R)
Barack Obama (D) After outperforming Clinton financially in the first half of the year and with the ringing endorsement of the hugely influential Oprah Winfrey, Obama’s bid would seem to have a strong momentum. Seen as a more approachable, accommodating figure than Clinton and with a record of voting against the war in Iraq, a fact that could become increasingly important as the situation worsens, Obama’s chances hinge on how he performs in the all-important primaries.
Currently leading the polls on the Republican side, Giuliani made his reputation as the zero tolerance, no nonsense Mayor of New York City in the 1990’s before going down in folklore as one of the heroes of 11 September by taking an active role in the city on the day of the attacks. Doesn’t match Clinton in the all-important fundraising stakes, but is extremely popular and if he manages to play the 9-11 card at the right times, he could be the Republicans’ best chance.
This Utah Mormon has become one of the surprise packages of the election race. Young and charismatic, he has the personality to win over some of the swing voters and with an endless supply of money (he is a multimillionaire), he has what it takes to compete on a national level, but his religious views are already attracting controversy and the last thing the Republicans need to be associated with is another candidate whose religious views become his overriding feature.
ISOLDE MURPHY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Last month’s sentencing of a former Roman Catholic police chaplain marks another milestone in the ongoing judicial process of reparations for Argentina’s socalled Dirty War, in which over 30000 citizens disappeared without a trace in the period 1976-1983. The families of victims were finally able to celebrate the due process of justice, having waited over 20 years. The sentencing of Fr Christian Van Wernich on 7 counts of murder, 42 counts of abduction and 31 counts of torture is illustrative of the success of the investigation into war crimes committed during the period and is indicative of a process spanning continents as offenders are tracked and extradited from countries as diverse as Austria and the United States. The so-called “Dirty War” was initiated by the seizure of power by the militant right wing AAA, lead by Colonel J Videla with the aim of eliminating all left wing opposition using whatever means necessary in a process of National Reorganization. In the cleansing that followed, 30000 people were arbitrarily taken from their homes and were detained, tortured or killed by the military junta. The detention centres were notorious for their brutality, using practices such as torturing children in front of their parents to illicit confessions and implications. Also common was the adoption of orphaned children by leading party members, which has resulted in a generation of Argentines searching for their true identities. The long process of bringing those responsible to justice was complicated by a series of amnesty laws passed by the junta
The detention centres were notorious for their brutality... torturing children in front of their parents...
during the transition back to democracy with the explicit intention of exonerating all those connected to the purported crimes. In the face of severe opposition from the military, Congress was finally successful in overturning these laws in 2003, which paved the way for the current batch of trials. These trials have seen the individuals responsible sentenced to terms of up to 640 years in prison. The sentencing of Fr. Von Wernich is indicative of the gradual process of bringing those responsible to justice. However, with more than half the cases of “desaparecidos” still unsolved, it will be a long wait for those families whose loved ones fell foul of arguably the darkest period of Argentine history.
worldreview@trinitynews.ie
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WorldTravel City Breaks STRASBOURG
TOKYO
L I V I N G
DOMINIQUE ENGLISH TOKYO I would be the first to admit that jumping on a plane to Japan with no friends or even any experience of living alone was probably a somewhat naïve choice to make. It was probably just a whimsical gap year notion of obtaining “life experience”, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. And in fact the majority of foreigners you are likely to meet there will tend to have some unifying desire for either escape or an utter change of life. (Or they like manga- it’s more or less parted along those lines.) A word of advice though: give up trying to get your head around that place. Everything you find in Japan seems riddled with contradiction: both new and old, both liberal and highly conservative, both welcoming of foreigners and afraid of our influence, people leading both entirely secretive lives while flaunting everything so extrovertly. Then there’s the culture shock which, trust me, works both ways. Westerners and foreigners in general are still a relatively new occurrence in Japan. The various areas of Tokyo I spent my time in were all outside of the centre, in what I suppose you could call the suburbs, (but any image of quaint residential areas sprawling for miles with gardens and parks should be far from your thoughts). A simple walk to the station in the morning would be followed by dozens of watchful eyes.
Ikebukuro at night. Ikebukuro is one of the busiest places in Tokyo, with over one million people passing through its main subway station daily. Photo: diebmx
Quite literally, people stop and stare. An English girl I knew even had people fall off bikes while trying to get a better look at her. Just take a deep breath, smile, look innocent and your many strange quirks will be forgiven. As a general rule, it is extremely hard to get a foothold in Japan if you want to do anything more than travel. Even student visas can be hard to obtain. This is the typical catch-22 that I went through, as did everyone else in my position: without a visa it is impossible to get a job, but without a job you can’t get the necessary sponsorship for your visa. The chicken and the egg. So where to begin? A little tip from the inside: apply for a student visa or, depending on whether your nationality is eligible, then try to get a working holiday visa and fly over to Japan in person. Once you’re there, scout for jobs and present them with your visa: both student and working holiday visas can make you a legal employee. In some cases just turning up arrogantly with a travel visa in all your native-tongued glory will work, as teaching English is about the only gap in the market we can fill. Interestingly it sometimes doesn’t even matter if you speak English as a first language. Often you find people of Asian origin who have grown up in English speaking countries and speak it fluently will be rejected in favour of a white skinned other-language speaker because they simply don’t look like English teachers. Once you have a job and are actually in the country, employers are so
keen to keep your rare kind that they will usually be happy to sponsor your stay. There are, of course, potholes along the way and the ones to be most careful of are the large language teaching companies promising “free company flats” “fantastic salary” and a “friendly environment”. There is no such thing as a free lunch. NOVA and GEOS are usually best avoided (by most accounts) that I’ve heard, as the hours are usually ludicrous and rather than keeping you in a fixed place, you can be sent to five schools in one day, all in different areas of Tokyo. This may not seem too bad, but when it can take up to two hours to travel from one side to another, this becomes quite a hassle. If you’re interested in seeing modern Tokyo up close and personal, there are a few things you can do and places you can go to give you a good vantage point. One part of modern culture that has sprung up recently is the internet café culture. For a minimal price, you can rent out your own cubicle with a fancy new computer and accessories such as a flat screen TV, DVD player, chair/beanbag/sofa depending on how much you want to pay. But you don’t just go there to check your e-mails. Many “salarymen”, as the white collar workers are called, have taken to sleeping in these places, as it’s cheaper than renting out an apartment. So to cater for this, you can also buy food, drink, pillows, toothbrushes, DVDs and lots of porn. Go there late at night and the place is teaming with drunk men laughing and shouting over their cans of beer, or the next morning,
and you find them slumped over the keyboards. Of course you have to try Karaoke. The key word to know here is “Nomihodai” meaning “all you can drink”.When it’s late at night and you’re all completely wasted, you have no idea how fun screaming into a microphone can be and how easy it is to convince yourself that yes, you can sing. Probably the best way to break the ice ever. During the day, there are so many places you can go that it’s impossible to name them all, but a brief summary of the best would be: Harajuku (yes, Harajuku girls do exist), Shinjuku, Ginza, Shibuya (very big, lots of shopping, best karaoke and people watching), Akihabara (electric city) and Disneyland. Or one of my personal favourites, Kamakura – the ancient capital of Japan and now home to some of the best temples you’re likely to see. It’s also known as the most relaxed/child friendly area of Tokyo, by the sea and all. At some point in their lives, anyone with any interest in other cultures should spend time in Tokyo. The most common excuse for people to go and spend a month there is as part of a language course and hundreds do exist where you learn the basics, make friends, go on trips and generally have fun. Being there for five months meant enough time for teaching (Japanese kids are adorable), hanging out and taking a language course. Go there, have fun, go back and have more.
Colourful history in our smallest city JIM DOHERTY KILKENNY It may be Ireland’s smallest city, but Kilkenny’s charm and vibrancy rivals that of anywhere in the country. The city centre oozes history: narrow medieval lanes meander between high streets and the majestic Kilkenny Castle dominates the skyline, maintaining a tangible, perennial link to the city’s rich past. The streets bustle with an offbeat artiness spurred on by the magical pastiche of Norman, Tudor and Elizabethan architecture, and by the buoyant peal of shoppers delighting in the wares on sale in the city’s antique and curio shops. Kilkenny Castle is a must-see on any visit to the Marble City (nearby marble reserves were exploited to the max in the past). Originally a Norman keep, the castle has been renovated several times since its construction in the 1220’s. Home to the Butlers, the Dukes of Ormonde, in the 1640’s, the castle acted as headquarters for the Confederation of Kilkenny, a royalist psuedo-parliament pushing for Catholic supremacy in Ireland. Today, the castle houses an art gallery and the interior is open to visitors. The extensive grounds offer respite from the stirring shopping streets, and its scenic pathways straddle the Nore. St. Canice’s Cathedral is another impressive Norman treasure in the city. One of the finest examples of early Gothic
worldtravel@trinitynews.ie
architecture in the country, it stands on the site of a monastery reputedly founded by St. Canice in the sixth century. A wellpreserved round tower dating to the ninth century stands beside the cathedral, a remarkable juxtaposition of very diverse expressions of Christian worship, but both possessing something fundamentally Irish. High Street’s seventeenth-century “Tholsel” is notable not only as a guildhall, or its modern function as city hall, but is on the spot where Petronella de Meath was burned for heresy and witchcraft in 1324. Petronella was maidservant to Dame Alice de Kyteler, a local noblewoman who, following the death of four husbands and other apparent strange occurrences, was accused of leading a coven of witches and warlocks. Most of the group managed to evade being executed, including the ringleader herself who escaped to England the night before her planned chastisement. One of the more curious chapters in Kilkenny’s history, Petronella’s demise reflects the city’s ostensible medieval penchant for witch-burning: several other burnings are reported to have taken place up into the seventeenth century. There is a decent choice of eateries in Kilkenny. If one can spend that little extra, I personally recommend Café Sol on William Street. At peak times, both day and night, there may be a queue for tables- surely a healthy sign! The interior is chic but cosy, the menu contemporary and well thought out. The desserts are especially delectable and you’ll be hard
pressed to find a more refreshing beverage than their sparkling elderflower juice. On the Parade, adjacent to the castle, is the very well respected Italian restaurant Rinuccini. Though less hip than Café Sol, this restaurant has its own elegant romance to offer. For those with a tighter budget, the Pantry on Kieran Street provides a relaxed atmosphere and adequate cuisine. There is also the Pennefeather Restaurant upstairs at the Book Centre on High Street: the quaint bookishness of the shop below lends its own charm to the café. Paris Texas, on the other side of the street, is very popular with locals. Informal and lively, the venue offers live music on Sunday nights. John Street, on the other side of the river, is home to Langtons, a chic art deco restaurant and bar which doubles as a nightclub on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The interior architecture is imaginative, imbuing the venue with jazz age elegance and sophistication. If you find yourself in Kilkenny and in the mood for “puttin’ on the Ritz”, then Langtons is for you! Most B&Bs in Kilkenny range from around €30 to €45 per night per person sharing. A comprehensive website for this is www.kilkenny-bnb.com. The most popular hostel in the city is the Kilkenny tourist hostel on Parliament Street. This Georgian townhouse offers self-catering rooms with laundry facilities and there is no curfew. Prices start at €16 per person sharing.
The bridge between Latin and Germanic culture Two kilometres from the German border, but definitely French, and most importantly Alsatian, lies Strasbourg, a hidden gem in the heart of Europe. After spending an Erasmus year there with various visitors, as well as many weekends with the Erasmus grant to spend, I know what it’s like to be a tourist in Strasbourg! The time of year is one of the first things you should consider before booking your trip. Christmas time, with the renowned Christmas markets in Alsace and Germany, is the most expensive but most exciting time to visit. The markets run from late November until late December. With vin chaud (hot mulled wine), chocolate covered waffles and other deep fried delicacies as well as tarte flambee (a mixture between a thin pizza and an omelette, with crème fraiche, bacon and cheese layered on top), you’ll be spoiled for choice. The markets themselves will not cover all your shopping needs, as decorations, trinkets and candles are the most common goods on offer. The pedestrian square, Place Kleber, is home to a magnificent 30m Christmas tree which sparkles with blue lights. It is necessary to book accommodation at Christmastime well in advance, as hotels are booked out months before. The town’s only hostel is near Germany, three kilometres out of the town, so a cheap hotel is the best place to stay if you’re on a budget. From personal experience, Hotel Pax is a family-run, traditional Alsacian hotel just beside Homme-de-Fer (where the four tram lines intersect) and is a lovely place to stay. Another time of year to consider visiting this multicultural town is during the one week per month that the European Parliament is in session (check www.europa.eu for the plenary session dates for the year). Again hotel prices hike up as the demand increases and you may need to book in advance. Taxis are a rarity during those weeks as MEPs, translators, assistants and journalists descend on the city. By contacting your local MEP in advance, access is usually given to view the inside of the Parliament and to hear the debates from the viewing gallery. Outside of these peak times, Strasbourg is still a joy to visit. Anytime from April to September is a great time to visit with the good weather usually guaranteed. The advantages are cheaper accommodation, fewer crowds and a chance to discover the real Strasbourg. The tourist office is on Place Kleber and a three-day tourist pass costing eleven euros is well worth it (www.ot-strasbourg.com). Included in the price is access to the museums, the chance to rent a bike for a day and a free boat trip. Strasbourg’s museums range from the chocolate factory (a bit of a trek but quite cute) to the Museum of Modern Art, the Alsacian Museum and the Fine Arts Museum. Strasbourg is a UNESCO world heritage site, as its city centre is an island. Thus, there are no tourist buses, but the hour-long boat trip around the town is a great way to see everything from the Parliament to the Ponts-Couverts. Possibly the best way to see the city is to rent a bike. Despite being someone who cannot take her hands off the handlebars to indicate where she is turning, a year on a bike in Strasbourg did not actually prove difficult. There are cycle lanes everywhere and pedestrians are second-class citizens in comparison to cyclists! If you are staying longer than two or three days, a day trip to Germany is a good option. Trains at the weekend in Germany are cheap, and if you’re travelling in a group of four or five, a weekend train ticket will cost €25 for everyone. The baths in Baden Baden (Caracalla or the more expensive Friedrichsbad) are a real treat. Some of the baths are outside, and even if it’s snowing, you can splash around in the heavy, hot and relaxing thermal waters. A day trip to the Black Forest is also a good idea, especially during the carnival in February. For the kids and adults alike, the Europapark, the second most popular theme park in Europe after EuroDisney is a terrific day out (europapark.de). Whether a stop on your interrailing trip, a weekend away or a night away from Paris, Strasbourg is the place to go. Aisling McNiffe
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Business&Careers
The credit ARNAUD CHOUCROUN CONTRIBUTING WRITER Subprime crisis? Securitisation crisis? Liquidity crisis? These are names you have heard in the news when you got back from your summer vacation. However, you did not quite understand the whole story and you’re starting to worry now that this financial crisis will hurt your purchasing power of income. Well, it might be too soon to say so but, first of all, here is an outline of what happened and why it happened. First, a subprime crisis. Between 2004 and 2007, the United States Central Bank has done nothing but increase interest rates (from 1% in June 2003 to 5.25% in August 2007). Furthermore, in the United States after a steady growth in real estate price, it started to decrease in 2006. Last year, due to the increase in those interest rates, borrowers who had contracted subprime loans (high interests loans made to people having a bad credit history or a low income) could not make their monthly payments
anymore. Since those homeowners had contracted a mortgage, banks started to foreclose their homes. The large amount of houses banks have to sell has contributed more to the drop in real estate prices and banks lost money when they sold those homes because they did not meet the amount they lent to the borrowers. That is how the credit crunch started. Second, a securitisation and hedge fund crisis. Nowadays, stocks are not the only products traded on the stock market. Currencies are, as well as interest rates, options to buy stocks, options to buy a product in x amount of years and also products such as mortgage back securities. After a homeowner gets a mortgage, the lending institution sells the loan to a Wall Street firm where it is repackaged with other loans and sold to other investors as a mortgage-backed security. The problem was that fear about defaults in the subprime mortgagebacked market has spread to any subprime loan (including auto loans, common credit and corporate debt). People thought that all those mortgage-
backed assets products were all related to subprime mortgages and thus, they stopped buying all of them. Moreover, concerns raised towards ratings agencies (such as Standard & Poors or Moody’s) that gave good ratings to these mortgage-backed securities, but were, in fact, unable to measure potential for large-scale default. Hedge funds lost money too. Some hedge funds were greatly in demand of assets backed funds by subprime loans because they offer higher yield due to the high interest that the borrower pays. When assets started to depreciate, subprime hedge funds nearly lost their whole value in a few weeks. Third, a liquidity crisis. Fearing a general slowdown in banks’ activities such as financing and investing, a serious crisis of trust has gained those banks that decided no to lend anymore to each other. The Northern Rock case illustrates very well the consequences of this turmoil. NR borrows on a short-term basis and lends on long term. They usually borrowed their short-term money from United States institutional lenders who
runch
became nervous about lending to mortgage banks following the United States mortgage crisis. NR was in a difficult situation because they still had to lend money for long-term mortgages they agreed on and they could not rely on small amounts deposits made by individuals. That is when NR asked for help from the Bank of England, which is their lender in last resort. NR has so far borrowed £21 billion from BoE. To curtail the impact on economy, central banks have taken the decision to inject large amounts of liquidities. However, will it be enough to contain the ripple on the entire economy? The good news is that America’s equity markets are still higher than
they were in May. If this crisis resolves itself as fast as the one in 1987, we have the right to be optimistic. The Fed has listened to the market and has cut its interest rates by 0.50% in order to stimulate the economy. The bad news is that we read every day in the paper that banks have made huge losses in their third quarter earnings and they’re currently firing large amounts of employees. Unlike in 1987, this crisis is centered on debt, not equity, and is more complicated to isolate because of securitisation. If rates at which banks lend money to each other remain high, the loans they will make to companies are likely to be more expensive, therefore companies will have to charge the consumer. This crisis should not make us think that stock markets should go back trading simple products as they used to. I believe that the new stock market with all its new techniques to convert loans, interest payments, etc. has allowed more people and businesses to gain access to credit on better terms. Yet we do have lessons to learn from this current crunch.
The Recruitment Agency The trials and tribulations of finding a job through a Dublin recruitment agency. JAMIE BURKE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Transport 21 moving at a snail’s pace DANIELLE RYAN BUSINESS&CAREERS EDITOR Two years ago, the government launched a €34 billion infrastructure plan called Transport 21. Since then, nearly every major project involved has missed its completion deadline or is currently delayed. Not that anyone is particularly surprised. We already have a record of building things too late, too big or not big enough. Port Tunnel, anyone? I doubt the delays are having a detrimental effect on anyone’s life, but for once, it would be nice to be given realistic completion dates instead of these improbable and overly optimistic dates we’re used to hearing. Projects currently delayed include the Luas extension from Connolly to the Dublin docklands, the Luas extension from Tallaght to Citiwest, the commuter rail service to Middleton, the M3 motorway and the Navan rail link. The Portlaoise train depot and the M50 upgrade were both due to be completed this year and both have missed their completion date. It seems that when we actually do finish something on time, that we have to overspend by 100% of the original cost estimate or we don’t use it to its full potential. Although
it didn’t cost more than originally planned, the most expensive piece of infrastructure in the whole country, the Dublin Port Tunnel, is still operating way under capacity. The Department of Transport tells us that the original timetable was drawn up to set challenging targets and was actually only written when many of the projects it mentioned were only in the first stages of design.“Designed to set challenging targets?” they say. Well, we know that designing the city’s infrastructure is challenging, no one said it was a piece of cake, so why not set realistic deadlines, then? The absence of sufficiently integrated transport might be annoying some of us on a daily basis, but it’s also having a huge effect on Irish businesses. These inadequacies are affecting the competitiveness of the country and it’s about time things started moving a little faster. A huge number of businesses outside Dublin face rising delivery costs because of traffic delays. Our population is growing faster than any other in Europe. We need to make sure we’re working at optimal pace and using the resources we have effectively as the population continues to rise. Nobody is expecting miracles, just maybe some realistic deadlines and slightly higher levels of efficiency.
I’ve been unemployed for a while now. The last few months have been sweet; nothing beats getting up at 12 and watching re-runs of KnightRider. The only downside to this lifestyle is the occasional bout of boredom and Harvey Norman ads. I need a job and not one that involves standing outside Tower Records trying to swindle 12 Euro a month out of some OAP who doesn’t have a bank account. So I’ve turned to the recruitment agencies. Most of you when you graduate and are in your search for employment will come across them at some point. Make no mistake; the recruitment
agency is the subversive evil in our society, almost in the same league as Roisin Ingle. Not quite, but almost. The problem with recruitment agencies is that their market in Ireland is unregulated. Which means that for their agents it’s like Baghdad out there. The majority of recruitment agents will actually step over their two dead grandmothers to get you employed before another agent does. It doesn’t matter if you can’t do the job because they won’t enlighten you beforehand to what it involves. Last year one agency thought that my politics degree and experience as a postman during the festive season would equip me with the skills and knowledge to build NTL’s new website. I sat at a desk in NTL’s office for three hours, played minesweeper, ate
complimentary custard creams and was then told to leave. Associated with this problem is that any Tom, Richard or Harry, who say they are an agent, can potentially take the CV you sent them or download it from a recruiters database, mess around and make it look similar to one thrown together by someone like Donald Trump. Lying on your CV is a wicked idea; in fact I highly recommend it, but being made look employable as a person who lives in a gold apartment in Manhattan is dodgy and can make you appear like an idiot to potential employers. As shown with the example above. Be wary of two other things. When you finally meet with your recruitment agent he or she will usually start off by saying “we don’t treat our ‘clients’ as just
a CV, we keenly listen to them”. Rubbish. If you scan around their office you will invariably see a chart with the names of all the other ‘team players’ that work there and recruitment sales figures beside those names for the month. Commissions, bonuses – that’s what they are after and you are just another random individual who needs a job. They will also talk about how great your ideal job prospects are, especially under their ‘professional guidance’. You are not God’s gift to the Irish economy so chill out my friend. My advice is to not let them rattle you, take your time, look at your options and hope that you make the right job choice. And if you haven’t, just quit.
PetroChina hits $1 trillion DANIELLE RYAN BUSINESS&CAREERS EDITOR PetroChina has become the world’s first company to be worth over US$1 trillion, underling the recent boom on Chinese markets. PetroChina passed Exxon Mobil out on Monday 5 November (its first day of trading in Shanghai) when the value of its shares nearly tripled and its value as a whole jumped to US$1 trillion from US$456.6 billion. PetroChina is the country’s largest oil and gas producer. The company is a unit of the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. Investors have been warned of an eventual bursting of the Chinese market bubble, but so far, they’re not listening. It’s the value of PetroChina’s shares in Shanghai added to those in Hong Kong and New York, plus the shares owned by the government that amounts to over US$1.1 trillion compared to Exxon Mobil Corp.’s US$488 billion. This performance by PetroChina was predicted. “PetroChina’s return to the A-share market is a result of the Chinese economy’s fast growth and surging energy demand. PetroChina’s public offering will bring renewed energy to domestic capital markets and
Workers erect signage for a new PetroChina station in rural China. Photo: www.petrochina.com also provide an important investment indicator”, the firm said in a statement. Although PetroChina now holds status as the world’s most highly valued company, this does not necessarily mean stronger profitability or productivity than all its competitors.
Revenues have soared but the company has been struggling to boost production in some of its aging oil fields. It has also struggled with the everwidening gap between state controlled prices for oil products and climbing world crude oil prices.
PetroChina might now be the highest valued company in the world, but it doesn’t even make it into the top 50 companies in the world in terms of earnings, which no doubt is raising questions about the sustainability of the Chinese stock boom.
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TRINITY NEWS
Michaelmas term, Week 8
P19
Science&Technology
Attack from Space! Blackouts, interference, and static: what causes it all?
John O’Reilly
LUKE MAISHMAN
3 SKYPEPHONE
STAFF WRITER The frustration of no mobile phone signal. The unexpected darkness of a power blackout. The snowstorm of static as the television broadcast is interrupted. All irritations that just heighten stress in what is for many an already hectic lifestyle. Can nothing be done to prevent these pains of modern life? One cause of such technical breakdowns comes from further away than most of us would have thought. Coronal Mass Ejections originate in the Sun more than 147 million kilometres away. These huge, travelling clouds of plasma and magnetic energy occasionally strike Earth as they speed away from the sun. If an ejection breaches the Earth’s magnetic defences, it can zap satellites with enough radiation to short-circuit their systems and send charged, energetic particles into the Earth’s atmosphere. These breaches, combined with the magnetic storms in the magnetosphere even when the ejection is deflected, make collisions with Earth damaging affairs. A CME strike can result in disrupted radio transmissions and phone signal, cause damage to satellites and electrical transmission lines and cause power outages (blackouts). The damage can be far worse than the inconveniences that many of us experience: As far back as 1859, the effects are recorded; on 1 September the telegraph wires in both Europe and New England shorted out after a CME strike. The resulting fires and confusion caused havoc and far-reaching damage. In 1989, the HydroQuebec Power Grid blackout in Quebec, Canada cost two power companies more than C$30 million between them and left six million customers in the cold and dark for nine hours. C$500 million in satellite insurance claims between 1994 and 1999 were a result of space weather such as CMEs. But what is a CME? It is all to do with the sun’s magnetic field. Unlike the Earth, which has a solid, rigid surface, the equatorial regions of the sun spin faster than the poles. Hence the solar magnetic field is gradually wound up like a huge elastic band. As we all learned in primary school, what happens if you twist an elastic band too far? It snaps! These eruptions are like the whiplash of the sun’s magnetic field as it snaps. The life of the average CME begins in the solar corona, the outermost layer of the Sun and the site of a lot of magnetic activity. The magnetic field carries plasma with it, out and away from the sun. The expulsion can extend to be as large as 30 times the size of the sun even once they pass Jupiter. Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections have been detected even by the Voyager spacecraft at the edge of the solar system. These things are huge! After its birth, an eruption may drift slowly, almost dreamily, away from the Sun. This is the pre-acceleration stage and is characterised by a slow rising motion. The second part of the CME life-cycle is a period of rapid acceleration away from the Sun. It reaches a maximum velocity at the end of this stage, which may be as fast as 2,700 km/s! An average speed for CMEs, based on SOHO/LASCO measurements between 1996 and 2003, is 489km s-1. For some of the slower “balloon” discharges, the second stage forms their whole existence; they accelerate slowly but continuously throughout their flight. After its energetic youth, the average ejection is happy to settle down and head for the stars, continuing at a near constant velocity away from the Sun. This is the end of the story for most ICMEs, as the vast majority have no affect us on Earth at all, merely sailing off into interstellar space. When an ejection hits the magnetosphere of the Earth, it buffets it into a comet-like shape, squashes the sunward side of the magnetosphere and causes the magnetic field on the other side of the planet to extend like a
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Tech Specs Phone carrier takes Skype mobile Mobile operator 3 has struck a deal with popular internet telephone service Skype, bringing its free and almost-free calls to mobile phones. The resulting Skypephone will function the same as a regular 3G phone (with sms, calls, video-calling, internet etc.) but has a dedicated Skype button for inexpensive calls / chat on the go. Embracing Skype is an unusual move for a mobile service provider, whom traditionally earn their revenue from expensive mobile calls. Comparing the cost of regular service with Skype’s sheds light on this; to call the US with 3’s cheapest rate is 30c a minute versus Skype’s 2c; an over 90% saving. The introduction of this phone marks the shift away from per minute call charges to data-based billing by service providers, with data already offering mobile operators a greater margin over voice calls. With this, people will pay for the amount of data consumed (including Skype traffic etc.) in a period as opposed to minutes of talktime. Skype currently has 246 million registered users of its service, and if even a fraction of these decide to port their calls to a mobile phone from a pcs, the takeup will be extremely strong. 3 are using the new system to increase marketshare in its eight operating countries (UK, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland). Quality of service over Skype isn’t perfect and dropped connections etc, as many of you may have experienced, do happen. Overall quality will increases with development, much like the current mobile network when it first started. With this announcement we can expect Skype features to be implemented in more handsets and be available with other carriers in the future, and as Google enters the mobile-phone arena with its own platform, Android, we should expect to see its own Google talk application performing similar moves. The Skypephone has yet to released in Ireland, but is in the advanced stages of introduction; expect it here before Christmas with a sub €150 price tag; those who can’t wait should look to Nokia’s N73 and E65, both already Skype-compatible but not as complete a solution as the official Skypephone.
Regions (layers) of the sun The Core – 200,000 km radius, approx. ¼ the total radius – Roughly 15 million Kelvin (the hottest region) Radiative Zone – Overlays the core – extends from 20% to about 70% of the total radius Convective zone – Overlays the Radiative zone – Comprises the outer 29% of the solar interior Photosphere – Overlays the Convective zone – The visible edge to the sun, emits the light we see Chromosphere – Overlays the Photosphere – 3000 km thick cloud surrounds the visible sun – Only visible (to the naked eye) during a solar eclipse Corona – Overlays the chromosphere – Temperature can reach 2 million Kelvin – Only visible during a solar eclipse
Wavebob comets tail. Even when the ICME is completely deflected by the magnetosphere, there is still a backlash of energy as the night-side magnetic “tail” reconnects. This energy is dissipated in the upper atmosphere, leading to the unusually strong aurora also known as the Northern and Southern Lights (aurora borealis and aurora australis respectively). Jason Byrne is a postgraduate student in the School of Physics Astrophysics Research group. He is working on CMEs in our very own University of Dublin. Holding a BA (Mod) in Theoretical Physics (from Trinity College Dublin), he is working with NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre on Solar Astrophysics. An ex-member of Players and the Badminton Club, Jason once wanted to be a film star before his true calling lured him in. The work he is doing now aims to provide better understanding of solar ejections and so reduce the resulting (infuriating!) interruptions. Jason himself studies ejections close to the Sun – That is within thirty solar radiuses. To put that in perspective, one SR is about 110 times the radius of Earth and Earth is well over 2000 SRs from the Sun. He specifically aims to better determine the characteristics of CMEs, such as their speed, how big they grow and how much their intensity drops off within this close range of the sun. Other researchers at Trinity study the discharges at greater distances from the Sun and investigate other solar activity. “Image processing to highlight data” is the core of Jason’s research. Since most of our knowledge of CMEs comes from visual observations and photos, better methods of interpreting this data will lead to more
Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) as they can be constrained by 3D satellite imagery. Note how the cone that marks the rough outline of the plume increases in size from left to right as the solar eruption expands from the sun. Image courtesy: Jason Byrne.
understanding of the solar eruptions themselves. He explains that the images he receives contain a lot of interference or “noise”, reducing the quality of the picture. The photos must be taken from space for there to be any hope of a good picture, but this carries its own price: cosmic particles and solar energetic particles sleeting through space strike the delicate recording instrument (chronograph), causing much of the disturbance in the images. The images that Jason works with come from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory spacecraft. SOHO is the older; a joint project between the European Space Agency and NASA, it was launched in 1995. It orbits the Sun 1.5 million kilometres sunward of the Earth, an excellent vantage point for the inspection of the solar corona as well as the solar wind and solar oscillations. However SOHO takes only 2D photos, making it difficult to tell in which direction the ejection is travelling. The STEREO spacecraft (a more recent NASA undertaking) are specifically designed to create 3D images of solar activity. There are two STEREO satellites orbiting at approximately the same distance from the Sun as Earth, one ahead of the Earth and one behind. Like our two eyes, these two satellites can cooperate from their separated viewpoints to create a clearly 3D image (think of those red and green lens 3D glasses). Jason uses several techniques on the photos that he works with. Multiscale image processing can be thought of as a lot like a 2D version of signal processing, which is used a lot in the music industry. “I write codes to filter images”, he tells me, explaining that the different pictures often have very
different intensities. This biased image intensity is caused by the inherent noise effects of taking photos in space (cosmic particles, etc) bias of the detector itself and flaws in the instruments. Jason aims to normalise sets of images so that they have similar underlying levels of intensity. This allows better comparison and examination; piece by piece, the jigsaw is fitted together. As more and more of the true nature of these space monsters is revealed, so we are better protected from CME-induced technological crisis. In the end, it’s all part of space weather forecasting: allowing us to better protect the network of satellites, communications and power supply cocooning our little planet on which we are all so dependent.
Volunteers needed for MoCap Do you remember Sophie Joerg from our first issue research on motion capturing and animation techniques? As part of her research, she is looking for volunteers to watch and judge different animations and for people to wear those fancy motion-capturing suits to record new motions. Rewards are ten or twenty euros book vouchers, depending on the length of the task. If you would like to participate, feel free to write an email with your name, gender, year of birth and course to sophie.joerg@cs.tcd.ie.
Irish firm making waves in blue energy market Wavebob, an Irish company based in Maynooth but operating worldwide, has been harnessing energy off the Galway coast with their unique wave energy convertor since March of last year. The “Wavebob” device (the company and product share the same name) is essentially a buoy (more specifically, a self reacting point absorber) that automatically adjusts to the size of the waves it is experiencing; this maximises the amount of power it can produce through its internal hydraulic pistons, which is then transferred to the onshore national electric grid. The current prototype being used is built to 1/4 scale and, while producing electricity is not connected to the national grid, at full-scale, each Wavebob buoy will be capable of producing one megawatt of electricity, enough for roughly 1000 homes. Andrew Parish, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, explains that this is a huge leap forward for renewable energy production in Ireland. “As an island in the middle of the energetic Atlantic Ocean, Ireland can be to wave-energy what Saudi Arabia is to oil. The more we exploit this unlimited natural resource, the better it will be, not just for the global environment, but also for the Irish consumer's pocket", he recently said. The Irish Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources, Mr. Eamon Ryan, has pencilled 500 megawatts of ocean energy by 2020 into his strategy and, as the first Irish company to obtain energy from the sea, the Wavebob device is positioned to contribute significantly to this.
TRINITY NEWS
P20
Michaelmas term, Week 10
SportFeatures
Colossal Calzaghe ready to gamble in search of legacy CONNEL MCKENNA SPORT FEATURES EDITOR The opportunity to retire undefeated at the end of a long career in top level mainstream sport is perhaps the preserve of the boxer. That said, only those of the very highest calibre can justifiably consider this even a remote possibility. In defeating Mikkel Kessler last Sunday, Welshman Joe Calzaghe has moved closer than ever towards this preposterously magnificent feat. Calzaghe, the now-undisputed world champion of the super-middleweight division, has long been considered an outstanding boxer, but with recent “bigfight” showings, he has moved towards the level of greatness. His conclusive win over Kessler has arguably confirmed him to be the greatest supermiddleweight of all time (although Marvin Hagler would contest that), and surely now there are no more foes for him to vanquish at this weight, no more ways in which he can reinforce his supremacy. As he reflected, the triumph over Kessler confirmed his legacy also. Calzaghe’s showdown with Kessler pitted him against arguably the toughest opponent of his career. For the Newport man’s 43 – 0 (31 KO’s) professional record, Kessler could respond with one almost as statistically impressive in 39 – 0 (29 KO’s). For Calzaghe’s long-held World Boxing Organisation title, Kessler could show his own World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council belts. Crucially, many thought, the Dane, at 28, was seven years Calzaghe’s junior. This is not to say that Calzaghe was the underdog, but nobody within boxing was in any doubt before this matchup that these were, by some distance, the two best supermiddleweights in the field. The fight in which Calzaghe triumphed took on a somewhat surprising form, as Kessler began with great purpose, but tired, allowing his older opponent to finish the stronger. While Calzaghe had spoken pre-fight of his belief that the Dane’s style would suit him – Kessler is not renowned as a brawler – his view
was not supported by events in the ring until around mid-fight when he had managed to arrest his opponent’s early ascendancy, by which time the Kessler uppercut was proving particularly incisive. With his trusty jab keeping Kessler’s big right hand at bay, Calzaghe was able to work himself back into the fight. It is testament to Calzaghe’s mental toughness that he recovered parity in the battle and reflective of his incredible stamina that he should turn it in his favour in its final third, when to the casual observer, the younger fighter may have been expected to come to the fore. Time and again, we are reminded that it takes more than just ability to be a great champion and Calzaghe is a wonderful example of that. By the final round another of his ace cards – his experience – proved its worth within the WBO Champion’s arsenal as he held off the desperate last efforts of Kessler, who had no option but to look for the knockout he, by then, needed in order to triumph. The work he had reserved for rounds 7 – 11, though, ensured that the triumph was Calzaghe’s, as was the glory of confirming himself as the finest modern exponent of his trade at this weight division, perhaps the finest ever. At ten years, he is the longest-reigning current world champion in boxing, while his latest successful defence – the 21st - has equalled the divisional record. His 44 professional bouts unbeaten render his record within five of that of Rocky Marciano, which suggests what elevated company this remarkable champion is now close to keeping. Five-weight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. is, by common concensus, king, but Calzaghe must now more than ever have a case for being considered the best pound-forpound fighter in the world today. If Calzaghe is to be mentioned in the same breath as Mayweather, and more pointedly, a legend like Marciano, then his greatness had best be quantified. The statistics speak for themselves, but as always, the real story can only be garnered when looking beyond them. Calzaghe’s career is a tale of relentless
victory, and one punctuated by some memorably great victories. His coronation as WBO Champion came against Chris Eubank in 1997 after the retirement of Steve Collins. Although Eubank was, by then, past his best, the bout is remembered as an entralling one, with Calzaghe, taken the distance for the first time by a high-calibre opponent, winning comfortably on points. Of the 21 defences, two outside of last week’s are best equipped to portray the talents of a special fighter. The first of these was in 2003 against Byron Mitchell, a former WBA champion. In the second round, Mitchell became the first man ever to put Calzaghe on the canvass, but the Welshman responded sensationally by replying in kind within the parameters of the same three minutes. The fight was halted, and was the one which really exposed Calzaghe to the American public who watched with greater interest when he went toeto-toe with Jeff Lacy, the man memorably dubbed the “mini Mike Tyson”, three years later. Calzghe’s victory, achieved with clinical utilisation of his greater speed, was doubly important, uniting as it did his WBO and Lacy’s International Boxing Federation titles. The classy, comprehensive defeat of Lacy was a quite brilliant riposte to the those who expected the highly-regarded American to rob Calzaghe of his crown, the basis for this view being that the champion hadn’t tested himself against a prime fighter since overcoming Mitchell. If there is one criticism to make of Calzaghe’s tenure as supermiddleweight champion, it is perhaps that he hasn’t take the Hatton–like career path of accelerating ascension and has wasted too many bouts on uninspiring opponents when he could have been building on notable victories like that achived against Mitchell. The appointing of opponents, though, is not his depeartment – disposing of them is – and in defeating both Lacy and Kessler in the space of 18 months, Calzaghe has answered this small query in impressive and timely fashion.
At 35, Calzaghe has stated his intention to fight on for a further twelve months or so before going out, he intends, at the top. He could manage that now, sure, but in his words, he still has “a couple of goals to achieve”. This, of course, means stepping up to the light heavyweight division and retiring as a two-weight world champion. This ambition demonstrates where on the list of achivements Calzaghe places his cherished unblemished record of 44 professional bouts undefeated. A source surely of deep personal pride, it still ranks behind belts and reputation. In making the step up, Calzaghe may be risking the chance to become only the fourth-ever champion boxer to retire undefeated, and place himself, in that respect, at least, on the same pedestal as Marciano. A perceptive realist, though, Calzaghe is aware that he needs to take a big American scalp before his retirement if he is to get the credit he believes he is due across the Atlantic. For Calzaghe this seems to mean fighting one man above all – the great Bernard Hopkins. Long a middleweight, Hopkins now operates in the light-heavyweight division, and is the current holder of the International Boxing Organisation and National Boxing Association belts. A real veteran at 42, Hopkins says he wants the fight, but the suspicion remains that privately he is worried about Calzaghe’s potency and his hand will have to be forced. Frank Warren, Calzaghe’s promoter, will need to offer an attractive package to the Hopkins camp, who reputedly pulled out of a 2003 bout at the eleventh hour, with financial disparities the root of the problem. For Calzaghe’s part, he knows that Hopkins is a fighter whose pound-forpound reputation has been secured in defeating weighty names such as Oscar de la Hoya and Felix Trinidad. The scalp of Hopkins would do similarly for Newport’s finest, and give him, potentially, a spectacular swan-song in Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium. Calzaghe has never been one to rest on his laurels and ambition, as well as magic, still resides within him.
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TRINITY NEWS
Michaelmas term, Week 810
P21
SportFeatures
O N S T R I K E E E IK R K T S I N O R T ON S G I V E U S S S U E IV G U E GIV OUD R D U E S S S E U E D R U O U OUR
N O P A Y Y Y A P O N A P NNOO P L A Y Y Y A L P A O N L P NO It is time GAA players were given their dues as strike threat becomes reality CONNEL MCKENNA SPORT FEATURES EDITOR The Gaelic Players Association on Friday performed the inevitable and voted in favour of strike action on all inter-county competitive competition for the 2008 season, but the timing was their move was well–calculated. The players have thrown the gauntlet down, but there is a large enough window of opportunity available to the parties involved in what is fast becoming a crisis to rectify the current mess. The involved parties other than the GPA are, of course, the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Irish Government. It is the failure of these two larger bodies to find common ground on the issue of player grants that has lead to the GPA taking this drastic course of action. The players are as undesirous of a strike as the GAA and the fans nationwide, but they, quite correctly, feel as though they are the current victims in the game of cat and mouse that is ongoing above their heads, and their response was unanimous. If a count of the ballots was ever needed, it was perhaps only to force home to us the solidarity of the players on this issue. 95% of those who voted, voted in favour of the motion, with only 58 of the 1281 who returned ballots returning them in the negative. There was really no need for the vote to be verified. Cork’s all-star hurling goalkeeper and GPA Chairman Donal Og Cusack underlined the strength of the “yes” vote he delivered to the assembled media by stating the players “remain resolute that we will carry out our strike action should the impasse continue indefinitely.” GAA men on strike? Unthinkable. But then these are new times in Gaelic Games. Men like Donal Og and Dessie
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Farrell and Kieran McGeeney, who flanked their chairman in The Westin Hotel on Friday, are no longer only men of the GAA, but men of the GPA also. With the formation of their “union”, the country’s gaelic footballers and hurlers signalled their intentions to no longer remain loyal and obedient lap-dogs to the autonomous GAA. In case no one has noticed, the organisation that was formed by Michael Cusack in 1884 to help preserve the national and cultural identity of Irishmen has, in modern times, been helping also to preserve the financial strength of certain Irishmen, but not those who contribute on the field of play. One may shudder to think what Cusack would make of his namesake’s announcement on Friday, but then what would he make of a GAA and its denominational county councils that can regularly justify charging £10 into games such as an Antrim senior hurling club final? The GAA is now a big money institution, which is of great value to the economy, so how long can we expect the players, the very people who are responsible for its continued and growing prosperity, to proceed in making sometimes obscene personal sacrifice without the help of the very coffers they are boosting year on year? Many of these players are working forty-hour weeks to support their families and then training three times a week at two-hour sessions. Then, there is the now-extended nature of the Championship and National League season to consider, as well as club commitments. As the GAA has correctly pointed out, the proposed grant scheme was conceived by the GPA in conjunction with the Government. The now infamous sum of an annual five million euros Government grant was provisionally agreed upon with the GPA and the GAA putting forward in
April its joint proposal on how the money should be distributed. Despite their proposals appearing to be of sound reason – 25% would be donated to a “national player welfare scheme” with the remainder set aside to cover those “out-of-pocket expenses” of the intercounty player (transport costs, medical costs, equipment and facility costs, even dietary costs can be cited here), thenMinister for Arts, Sport & Tourism John O’Donoghue rejected them out of hand, with the Government’s cause for concern being that the GAA was not taking onto itself the responsibilty for this distribution of funds. The GAA’s view is that a Government agency such as the Sports Council should administrate on this matter, dealing directly with the GPA. It is here that the current impasse finds its source. The GAA is, at pitch level at least, an institutionally amateur organisation, and those at Croke Park are steadfastly against grant-aiding their own members, seeing it as they do, as a serious infringement on the Association’s ethos and tradition. Important words in Ireland, those. The grants bodies such as the Irish Rugby Football Union and the Football Association of Ireland receive from the Sports Council are in beauracratic line with the grant for infrastructural investment which the GAA already receives. Crucially this money is intended to aid the Association, and not its individual members, which is where it would differ from any player welfare grant. Some could accuse the GAA of being, again, the dinosaur here, were it not for a further complication in the distribution scheme favoured by the Government. Under Government proposals, the GAA would grant the aid, in full, from its own financial clout, with the collateral being that the grant it will receive for infrastructural
investment will be enlarged as a consequence. Not only is the GAA being expected to forego, perhaps, its most fundamental princple, but it is being expected to do so without any legislative insurance that its increased grant will be fully reflective of its proposed increased financial undertaking. Governments are rarely clear on anything, but this way of dealing blatantly reflects all the characteristics of what Bertie Ahern might call “smoke and dagger” politics. Anyway it’s a mess all of the Government’s own making. It is difficult to find a satisfactory reason for the Government’s evasiveness on this matter. Why can’t it, through the Sports Council, deal directly with the GPA? Perhaps it would find it difficult to justify such a public outlay to what remains a fledgling organisation, one which was only this year officially recognised by Croke Park, but I feel the endorsement of such a suggestion would be to concede too much credit. Perhaps it simply intends to keep the GAA grant scheme in line with those offered to other sports. In any case, there seems no reason why the Government cannot make legislative its proposed restructuring of its grant scheme for the GAA. Mobilisation of a strike would be more hurtful to the GAA than to anyone, so the Government is in a position to now push the Association further towards accountable responsibility for the distribution of a player welfare grant. If it is to succeed in this, though, the financial aid must be made transparent and should be divided into two distinctive grants – one specifically for the Association and one to be distributed by the Association to the GPA or its inter-county level members. It shouldn’t be any more difficult than this to place the ball firmly in the court of Croke Park.
Any right-thinking person would surely concede that the GAA will be acting merely as the middle man amid such a process, and its hands should not be seen to be dirtied by looking out for the best interests of its athletes. Really we would do well to remember that the welfare of these athletes is the real issue here. These dedicated players deserve some financial assistance in serving their counties, their fellow countymen and women and the GAA. These players do much to bankroll the GAA, they are central to the spectacle and absolutely central to the Association’s marketing campaigns (indeed, only in the last number of years were elite players such as Colm Cooper and Dan Shanahan, whose images adorn billboards nationwide, permitted to benefit personally from image rights). This is not intended to do a disservice to the great work Croke Park and RTÉ have contributed over many years to help develop Gaelic games into something beyond the parochial, but no players, no interest. The players have rejected any notion that they are chasing pay-forplay style benefits and they should not at this stage be subject to such malevolent mutterings. They simply want their great personal expenditure and sacrifice to be subsidised. Consider this reflection from John Troy, an Offaly all-star hurler in 1999, a week before a Leinster final against Kilkenny, “We’re taking this match awful seriously. We’re training three times a week now and some of the boys are off the drink since Tuesday.” That was less than ten years ago and it’s time our country’s more modern players, amateur in status but often professional in deed, were given the respect, the thanks and the assistance they deserve. The time is still available, the authorities must use it.
TRINITY NEWS
P22
Michaelmas term, Week 10
SportingLegends Former Boat Club Captain becomes World Champion James Lyndsay-Fynn is one of the most promising prospects in world rowing. Since winning the World Championships in Munich, he has now set his sights on Olympic Gold. The former DUBC Captain talks to Gabriel Magee
O
n 2 September, at the World Rowing Championships in Munich, former Dublin University Boat Club Captain James Lyndsay-Fynn gave Trinity and DUBC reason to celebrate. At that regatta he put his name in the history books among the great Trinity oarsmen of the past by becoming world champion in the GB Lightweight 4. I had the opportunity recently to sit down with James and talk about his rowing career so far, as well as his time with the Dublin University Boat Club. James was born in Ireland but educated at Eton College where he was first introduced to rowing. He came to Trinity in 1995 after a gap year and decided to join the Boat Club, though he admits that he was slightly overweight and out of shape at that stage. I asked him what brought him back to rowing after a year out and he recalls that it was the atmosphere at the club that got him back into the sport. He says, “When I arrived down at the boat house in Freshers’ Week, there was a great atmosphere, an open bar, attractive female rowers and coxes - what more could you want?” In his first year, James made his way up the ranks and into the senior squad. By the end of the year, there were nine men left for eight seats. It was through hard work that he won the final seat in the senior eight that year and they went on to win the Intermediate Championship of Ireland. In 1996, James was an integral part of the senior eight that went all the way to the semi-final in Henley, losing to the eventual winners, Yale. It was around this time that James began to consider a rowing career beyond Trinity. The results in the Trinity senior eight showed that they were rowing at a very high club standard. He also dabbled, with some success, in the international scene in various combinations. However, elected Captain of DUBC in 1998, he found his plate more than full just trying to meet the demands of the captaincy and his college work in addition to full time training. He admits that his rowing suffered because of it, but has no regrets. In fact, he lists being Captain of DUBC as one of his highest achievements. When asked how he felt that DUBC helped prepare him for what was to come, he told me that “DUBC had and still has great club spirit, the coaches and older members instilled discipline, team work and rugged determination and appetite for training. I used to shiver with nerves in my 4pm lecture before the six lap run of College Park on a Monday evening, it taught you to push against your other crewmates and your own time - the clock never lies”. After college, James initially had success on the international scene. He was a member of the Irish lightweight quad that won a bronze
argues that it has many benefits that are often overlooked. He explains that he had “secured a job with Bank of America in a time when very few employers were hiring. It was my rowing career that opened the door for me as many others had better work experience and qualification.” But it wasn’t long until the competitive streak that had been honed at DUBC once again came to the fore. Initially James says that “I completely devoted myself to the new job and found it a challenge to start with and had little time to train. But in 2004, I watched the final of the lightweight fours where Ireland finished sixth in a crew with people that I was pretty similar speed to in the single scull or ergo - this is when I thought perhaps I could give it another go. The job was becoming more manageable and I could get out on the river in the dark in Putney and clock up about 20 miles a day on the bike commuting.” The next year, 2005, he rowed in the UK trials once again and came second in the single scull. That performance earned him a place on the UK squad in the lightweight double. His partner in that boat was Mark Hunter and together they finished fourth at the World Cup in Eton, sixth in the World Cup at Munich, and went on to win the B final at the World Championships in Japan. They also won the Double Sculls Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta that year. The duo built upon this success in 2006, winning a bronze medal at the World Cup regatta in Poland and placing eighth in the World Championships in Eton. The lightweight double was consistently improving and was quickly becoming one of the flagship boats for the UK team as the Olympics approached. James performed well once again at the UK senior selection trials, finishing third among lightweights. However, despite this, he was taken out of the double that he’d put so much into and placed into the lightweight four. The four steadily improved throughout the year with the addition of James. In the World Cup series this year, they took bronze at Linz, silver at Amsterdam, and gold in Lucerne, which gave them the overall World Cup title for the lightweight four category as well. After these performances, they were confident coming into the World Championships, but not cocky. At the World Championship, they continued the steady progression they had displayed all year, making it to the final as expected. Lindsay-Fynn recalls that in the final race the Italians were off the line like dogs off the leash while the Canadians were going full tilt as well. This put the UK boat in third place at the 500m mark, which was unfamiliar territory for a crew that had not been lead all year. By 1000m they were in fourth, though the field
“ ” The College authorities need to invest in sport as much as they do in academics. Employers recognise sporting excellence as well
medal at the World Championships in 1999. He also won the Home International in the quad for Ireland in 2001. However, it was at this time that James decided to make a dramatic change. For any international level athlete, there is a large amount of sacrifice in both personal and professional relationships. To achieve anything at that level, you must be intensely focused and driven. This means that these athletes must sacrifice a career, personal relationships or sometimes both. James realized the implications of this and he says that he didn’t want to be over thirty without prospects of a career or long term security, so he essentially quit international rowing and moved to London to start his career with Bank of America. This must have been an unbelievably difficult decision, for at that time, it surely must have seemed that he was giving up on rowing. He says, “I wanted to take control of my own destiny and become financially independent to the rowing authorities and catch up my peers who were already well into their careers.” With that in mind, he took 2002 and 2003 off from rowing and focused on establishing his career. However, rowing is a funny sport. Despite the pain and sacrifice, for those of a competitive nature who like to push their own limits, there is rarely anything that can equal it. It is not surprising then that James eventually turned up at London Rowing Club. However, he continued working as well: once again balancing the demands of both sport and work. But his experience in the working world had shown him that sport is not necessarily a hindrance to a career, in fact, James
was close, with a little over a second separating the top four. With 500m to go, gold was still up for grabs. I asked James what went through his mind with the finish line approaching and he says that “Having been lying in fifth at one point, we passed the last 500m mark with three crews that I could see were just behind us, but not coming back - I thought bronze minimum, let’s work on silver. With 250m to go, we had the French under control too. From then on, I knew the Italians were ahead, but I could not see their boat, did not dare take a look as I knew it was going to come down to the wire. I put the head down, started counting sets of ten strokes, the crowd of 10000 was roaring from the grandstand, the rate was rising to 40 strokes a minute and legs and lungs were on fire. We crossed the line and I did not know who had won till it came on the score board a moment later.” The score board read Great Britain and Lindsay-Fynn and company had become World Champions. Like many other oarsmen before him, he lists his time at DUBC as one of the keys to developing not just his rowing skills, but also those things that have made him so successful: a dedication to hard work, a passion for success, the ability to balance the demands of sport and work. But more than that, James was emphatic that the traditions of the Boat Club also instilled in him a pride and love for the club and the college. It’s why he wore his DUBC senior blazer when he collected his Henley medal. It’s also the reason that some of his best friends are
those he met at DUBC. I asked James what he thought the key to Trinity producing more athletes of his calibre is. His reply, without hesitation, was that “The College authorities at Trinity need to invest in sport as much as they do in the academic side, as employers recognise sporting excellence as well. Sports clubs need to attract talent perhaps with scholarships. They also need to have the facilities and infrastructure when people arrive such as fulltime coaches and enough equipment. I think DUBC has done well to compete with its peers, but has managed to do so mostly through the good will of old boys coaching for free and giving money to the club every year to buy equipment. Perhaps the Irish Sports Council should also be investing in university sport to develop athletes for 2012?” It is clear that he sees the opportunity he received at DUBC as vital to his current success, but is worried that the college has lost its dedication to sport, meaning that those students now coming to Trinity won’t have the same opportunity he had. Nine years after he captained the club, he is still passionate about DUBC. It is this same passion that has driven James Lyndsay-Fynn to World Champion status, and, hopefully, Olympic Champion in Beijing. Considering the importance that James himself places on his sporting experience at Trinity, one question remains: how will Trinity be able to produce more exceptional graduates like Lindsay-Fynn if it fails to recognize the role in eduation that clubs like DUBC play?
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TRINITY NEWS
Michaelmas term, Week 10
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CollegeSport Students defend world sailing crown in France LOUISE DOBBYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Dublin University Sailing Club was one of the two teams representing Ireland and defenders of their World Champion Title in the Student Yachting World Cup at La Rochelle, France last week. The team consisted of John Downey, Osmond Morris, Katie Hamilton, Davie Carr, Kieran Little, Geoff Tait, Chris Clayton, Lisa Tait, Simon Rattigan and Claudine Murphy. Amy Wickham and Louise Dobbyn took up the mantle of team managers. These Trinity students were selected for their outstanding performances in sailing at regional and national levels, and for their stanch dedication and commitment to the Dublin University Sailing Club. Last year, Trinity College Dublin was selected to represent Ireland at SYWoC 2006. Due to their inspired performance, they were crowned World Champions. This momentous achievement was a historic moment in Irish sailing. The team received worldwide recognition and praise for their accomplishment, including the prestigious Pinks award from Trinity College. This diary is a day by day record of the event. Saturday, 27 October The day began with boat allocations as each team charted a Grand Surprise. Typically Trinity drew the shorter end of the straw and our boat left much to be desired. The opening ceremony of the 27th Student Yachting World Cup was held in the beautiful City Hall, where each country was presented with their flag. Later that evening, the competition really began to spice up at the crew’s dinner where each country prepared a national dish to be sampled. Originally we had intended to serve brown bread and smoked salmon. However, due to forces beyond our culinary control, we lacked the all important brown bread for this delectable dish. Accordingly we drained all our resources to create a “traditional Irish drink”,Tip and Down. For those of you unfamiliar with this beverage, it consists of a shot of butter scotch Mickey Finns, shreaded smoke salmon, a brussel sprout, lemon and topped off with whipped crème. Not exactly delicious, but it was amusing to watch the different nationalities crumble
Get Squashed WITH
under our peer pressure to drink it! Sunday, 28 October The first day of racing, however due to very light weather, the third race was abandoned. Scotland took the lead with Trinity finishing eighth.
Hit a ball off a wall
Monday, 29 October Much to the delight of fourteen teams ,but to the dismay of the miniature Japanese team, strong winds prevailed. The competition began to heat up as the teams battled against one another, resulting with Portugal in first place, followed closely by Switzerland in second and Cork Institute of Technology in third. Tuesday, 30 October The teams faced the biggest physical challenge yet; three races in the day and a six hour night race. It became evident that CIT, Switzerland and Portugal were going to dominate the racing. Trinity had two strong starts and excellent speed on the first upwind leg however minor spinnaker complications lost them pivotal boat places. CIT achieved a consistent two seconds and a third. The Swiss, with their unrivalled downwind speed, achieved two fists, but were pushed over the start in the second race. The Portuguese had a disappointing performance but still remained in third place overall. Trinity stood in sixth place. The night race took the teams under the Pont de Re and to the north side of the Re island. Competition was strong, especially between CIT, Portugal and Switzerland. CIT rounded the windward mark second with the Swiss 15 boat lengths behind. Trinity remained in the upper half of the fleet. Wednesday, 31 October A late start was enjoyed by all. The day consisted of two races; a “banana (windward, leeward) race” and a long trip to Fort Boyard, then back to the harbour. CIT again materialized as a force not to be reckoned with as they achieved two commendable firsts. This cornerstone day of racing shaped the event for a highly exhilarating conclusion as both the Swiss and CIT were in grasp of the coveted cup. Trinity performed well, earning a strong sixth. Not to be defeated by our result on the water or the numbing sensation of our legs, Trinity hit the social activities of that night with full force. The organizers arranged crepes and kebabs in the city at the race village. This was followed by a drumming dance which was very
entertaining for the first five minutes. Twenty minutes later our attentions and enthusiasm began to stray. Fortunately, as it was Halloween, there was a stand with pumpkin carving. Thursday, 1 November This was an incredibly significant day of highly competitive racing. Trinity commenced with a flawed start to the day as it was discovered moments before the race that the spinnaker sheets were badly frayed and required immediate attention. However, Trinity had a strong start and upwind leg, but the speedy Swiss and the consistent CIT were unbeatable. The racing was an intense battle for first place among these two teams. CIT proved invincible in the first two races. However, fighting the strong winds and huge stakes at risk proved too much for CIT’s boat, resulting in a broken mainsheet block, robbing them of first place in the event. CIT’s dreams of the world title were dashed by this devastating blow. Switzerland thus would be crowned victorious, though there was still one
Dublin University Sailing Club in action on the water. Photo courtesy of DU Sailing Club.
more day of racing. A toga party ameliorated dampened spirits. Beds were stripped of their sheets and trees were raided for branches as all team members paraded about in Roman glamour. Friday, 2 November The final day of racing resulted in the Swiss being crowned World Champions 2007. CIT came in second place, followed by Portugal in third place. Ireland came away with a satisfactory sixth place. However our greatest achievement was the crowing John Downing and Katie Hamilton as Mr and Mrs SYWoC. These prestigious titles bring great pride to the team and confirm that all the training and dedication to the event was not in vain! Trinity would also like to extend a special mention to CIT for their endeavours. Thank you to all our sponsors, without their support our participation in the event would not be possible. Ronnie Murphy was a huge asset to the team and responsible for the incredible sponsorship proposals.
Trinity Ultimate humbled in Cork CONOR JAMES MCKINNEY & KEVIN TIMONEY CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Ultimate Frisbee Club sent two mixed ability teams to the 2007 Cork Open, who finished eighth and thirteenth overall. Trinity 1, captained by Andrea Fagan, had the worst of the draw, with an opening game against Bologna La Fotta. Ian French’s hard-running set the tone for the morning. The breakthrough came after half an hour; the game deadlocked at 4-4, Trinity held their nerve to score on the break and Italian resistance crumbled like the Roman legions on the Trebbia. The 8-4, setting them up well for an encounter with the much fetted “Johnny Chimpo”, twice Cork Open champions. Chimpo were quick to establish an early lead. A tactical switch to front-up marking allowed Trinity to blunt their attacking edge. Chimpo won 13-5. After one win and one loss, an automatic top eight finish was at stake in the final group game against Dublin City
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ROBBIE WOODS
University. Trinity 1 had the quality -see new additions Arvil Nagpal and Willis Bruckermann – to win, 9-7. David Misstear, an Irish international, was the heart and soul of the Trinity effort until a late ankle injury forced a substitution. Captain Fagan scored the winning point. Trinity 2 evenly split the first day scoring two wins and two losses. Their first opposition, pick-up side Ego, went ahead after uncharacteristic mistakes from Dublin University. Down 6-2, Trinity battled hard. Intelligent cutting and resetting from Sam Miller-Little and Alexandra O’Connell brought proceedings to within a point at 7-6 before Ego claimed their eighth score and the game. After this disappointment came an inexperienced Unversity College Cork 2. Trinity eradicated some of their earlier errors and won comfortably 13-2 before lunch. The opening minutes of the second’s third game against Dublin Institute of Technology, Rickard equalised after plucking Tommy O’Connell’s pass from the air. Darragh Gleeson and Ben Sweeney, inspired, upped their game and Trinity pulled away to record an 8-4 win. Ultimate deLux provided the toughest game yet. In a spirited
match, they established an early lead of 5-3, before effective use of swing offence gave Trinity a 6-5 advantage. When time expired two points later, the one-point cap came into play, Trinity were 7-6 down. deLux scored late to finish top of the group. Trinity 1 began their Sunday campaign with a tough quarter-final against “Last Minute Dropout”, a UCC alumni team. Their experience was too much; Trinity were beaten 105 and sent straight into a match against Ultimate deLux. Nagpal and Bruckermann utilised dump and swing offence to great effect, and the likes of French, Finola Shannon and Clive Curley ran long until they dropped, Trinity seemed to have this game won at 9-7. DeLux, however, held their nerve and came back, 9-10.The final match, against an experienced UCD 1, was lost 9-7. Due to the seeding anomalies of an 18-team tournament, Trinity 2 played no crossover, meaning a highest possible finish of 13th. On Sunday morning they lost to “Belfast Ultimate Giants” by a single score, but beat UCD 2 13-1. A 135 victory over UL gave Trinity 2 a disappointing 15th place finish overall.
Playing any form of sport on a cold, grey and sodden afternoon is something that most people will shudder at the thought of. Most Trinity students know the feeling of trudging off a wet pitch covered in mud and freezing on another wet Irish day. However, not all sports require you to sacrifice yourself to the elements. So the next time it rains, why not come and pay a visit to a different corner of campus, the old Luce Sports Hall, the home of the four courts of the Dublin University Squash Rackets Club, where you can enjoy competitive sport without having to battle the weather! Situated in the heart of Trinity, training or games are easily accessed after lectures. Squash is not a particularly hard game to understand. Essentially somewhere along the line in the early days, someone must have decided that hitting a ball against a wall sounded like fun. From there it developed into a fully-fledged game where two players rally on a box shaped court and continue hitting a small soft ball against the wall until a player is unable to return a shot or makes a mistake (e.g. hits the ball out or hits it after its second bounce or onto the floor or the tin at the front). One of the best things about squash is the great things it can do for your fitness levels. It can be very physically demanding and, in one hour of squash, a player may expend approximately 700 to 1000 calories, which is significantly more than most other sports. Another of the benefits of squash is the proximity to your opponent on court, meaning that it tends to be a more social sport than tennis or alternatively more of a battle if your opponent becomes angry! Don’t worry though, squash players really are a friendly bunch and there’s a great welcoming atmosphere during training sessions. The Squash Club in Trinity has a rich history having been set up in the mid 1930’s and boasts many fantastic players, including Joyce Lavan, the first woman to have been awarded a Pink, as well as various international players of each sex. Aisling Blake, a former Captain of the club, is currently playing professionally and is ranked 39th in the world. The record of the club at the Irish Intervarsity Tournament is unrivalled, with both men and women winning it many times. In fact the men have held the trophy for a quite remarkable ten years in succession and remain the top university side in the country. The Squash Club have even won the Irish Club Championship on a number of occasions. Previously the club has enjoyed a coaching session with Jonah Barrington, one of the greatest squash players of all time and the father of the modern professional game - and a student at Trinity himself in the late 1950’s, where he, in fact, started to play squash! There is a plan for a similar event to take place in March 2008. Our Club coach, Elvy D’Costa, has been with us since the mid 1980’s and is one of the most highly qualified coaches in the country. As well as training DUSRC on a weekly basis, he is the coach of the national women’s team and trains several of Ireland’s brightest young squash talents. Having coached in Trinity for many years, he is used to dealing with upwards of a hundred beginners a year. It would be difficult to find a coach with more experience coaching players of every standard. He runs dedicated times for players of all standards and members can turn up to these sessions at any time during the year. The club runs four men’s and one ladies’ team in the Leinster leagues playing every week. There is also the annual Colours Tournament, this year taking place in University College Dublin on the 24 of November, and the Intervarsity Tournament, occurring in Galway on a weekend in February. We are also in the early stages of organising a tour to Cambridge for January 2008. At these events and after league matches, we hit the pubs with as much passion as we hit the squash balls and they tend to be great nights out. For more information on how to get out of the rain and become a member of the Squash Club and how to get on one of our teams, see our website at www.squash.tcdlife.ie, email us at squash@tcd.ie or head around the side of the Luce Hall and find out more from our noticeboard.
TRINITY NEWS
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Michaelmas term, Week 10
CollegeSport The Team DUFC V GREENISLAND
Photo: Martin McKenna
Brave Trinity fall to classy Belfast Harlequins DU FOOTBALL CLUB: BELFAST HARLEQUINS RFC:
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JONATHAN DRENNAN COLLEGE SPORT EDITOR Having barely started their AIL account, Dublin University Football Club were faced with the daunting task of hosting Belfast Harlequins. In blunt terms, this match was David v Goliath. Youthful exuberance matched against hard-nosed professionalism. Enjoying a roster of nine Ulster players and a former South African Currie Cup player, Harlequins appear to look slightly out of place in Division Two. However, with home advantage and a resurgent pack led by revitalized flanker Eddie Molloy, a win for DUFC was certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility. Before kick-off, a major concern for DUFC was a discernible size difference between the forwards of both teams. However, after an early penalty, DUFC managed to create a surging
scrum that appeared to rock their Northern opponents lead in the front row by former Trinity stalwart Niall Conlon. Relying on a fierce work ethic and bravery, the DUFC pack managed to keep a bigger Harlequins outfit at bay for most of the opening quarter. While the forwards were distinguishing themselves at the coalface, the backs also showed sparks of brilliance. After fielding a high ball near his own line, full-back Paul Gillespie showed great presence of mind to send centre Eoin Fleck sprinting through the Harlequins’ defence, only to be tackled into touch. It would be difficult to fault the industry of DUFC at the start of the game, though they sustained a rather high penalty count from the referee and conceded an early penalty, which was kicked over by Harlequin’s fly half Niall O’Connor. Indeed the contest between O’Connor and Johnny Watt at fly half was to provide some of the most enduring moments of the game. Buoyed by the kicking game of O’Connor, DUFC were forced to live
off scraps of possession at times. However, their tenacity was rewarded with a try, which came against the grain of play. Starting from his own half, winger Killian Stafford kicked dangerously into the Harlequins 22 and, combining brilliantly with prop Eoin O'Cuilleanean, went over to score in the corner. Watt converted a difficult kick to create an unlikely 7-3 lead to send the crowd into raptures. Unfortunately after enjoying a purple patch of play with the DUFC backs constantly threatening their Northern counterparts, a try was conceded to create a one point deficit at 7-8. However, despite failing to find touch on occasion, Watt’s place kicking remained exemplary, kicking a difficult penalty to create a 10-8 lead that lasted until half time. In the closing moments of the half, DUFC were undoubtedly in the ascendancy, bullying a bigger pack around College Park with Max Cantrell and Eddie Molloy deserving credit for an enormous appetite for work. Behind the pack, Captain Joe Burns was in inspirational form, instinctive kicks and
sniping runs constantly frustrating and confusing his beleaguered opposite number. However, after an exemplary performance in the first half, DUFC were faced with the daunting task of facing a supremely conditioned outfit that were evidently angered at their previous ineptitude. After the free running rugby of the first half, a sudden rainfall led to a war of attrition amongst the forwards. After a sustained effort from DUFC, Belfast Harlequins scored an opportunist try that highlighted their class, which had previously been absent. Defensive confusion amongst the backs and missed tackles led to an easy try that came totally against the run of play. Unfortunately after bravely holding out against Harlequins bravely for the majority of the match, DUFC looked haggard in the last quarter of the match. While it would be difficult to fault the industry of DUFC, it was evident that the tide had turned with Harlequins running wild at a beleaguered defence. A highly
entertaining game had turned into a frustrating spectacle in a matter of minutes. In the closing minutes, Ulster centre Darren Cave scored a try for Harlequins despite protestations that Volney Rouse had held him up over the line. With the score at 22-10, the game had ceased to be a real contest, with Harlequins in the complete ascendancy as the final whistle blew. Winning against Belfast Harlequins was always going to be a gargantuan task, regardless of home advantage. Director of Rugby Tony Smeeth will be disappointed at the failure to get a valuable bonus point, but he will be able to take many positives out of this contest. Despite conceding size and experience in many departments to Harlequins, DUFC managed to match their Northern opponents for much of the game. If you are a gambling man it would be a safe bet for Belfast Harlequins to win Division 2 outright, but certainly don’t count DUFC out of the promotion stakes either.
15
Paul Gillespie
14
Shane Hanratty
13
Volney Rouse
12
Eoin Fleck (Richard Brady 35)
11
Killian Stafford
10
Johnny Watt
9
Joey Burns (Eddie Hamilton)
1
Graham Murphy (Tristan Goodbody 50)
2
Ben Cunningham (Alan Mathews 68)
3
Eoin O'Cuilleanean
4
Scott LaValla
5
Max Cantrell (Luke Mantle 65)
6
Eddie Molloy
7
Marc Lynch
8
Richie Morrow
MAN OF THE MATCH Max Cantrell Second row Max Cantrell's contribution to the proceedings was exceptional. Often at the heart of his team's defensive and attacking efforts, he combined a mammoth appetite for work with exemplary play at set-pieces. Often the unsung hero for DUFC, Cantrell's bravery and skill typified a student side that have the ability to beat anybody.
London calling for Dublin University Boat Club ROBERT SWIFT CONTRIBUTING WRITER Every year in early November, some of the greatest oarsmen and women in the world come together in London to compete in what is the largest four-man rowing event on earth. The Fours Head of the River, as it is proudly known, attracts athletes with World and Olympic medals under their belts, and a total of 540 crews took part in this year’s assault on London’s punishing tidal reach. When four men take to a boat, the skill level required to maintain a steady craft is far greater than in the signature boat of university rowing, the VIII. Combine this with the wide stream, narrow flow and meandering course, and you get some idea as to why this is
a major event on the world rowing calendar. This goes some way to explaining why Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Clubs use this as a major trial event for the oarsmen that they will select for the Boat Race in April. It seemed only fitting for Dublin University Boat Club to join them. Senior coach Mark Pattison sent two boats, a coxless four and its sculling counterpart, a coxless quad. The importance of skill in the discipline of sculling has been impressed by all top level coaches in recent years. DUBC’s sculling pedigree, however, is not strong, and the decision to send a quadruple sculling boat was testament to the hard work put down over the last two years by the senior squad to develop these skills. Due to the nature of overseas entries to the Fours Head, the two Trinity boats
were forced to enter the Elite categories of their respective boat classes. Not an obstacle – you might think - for a club that needs to set its sights high if it is to form one of the fastest VIIIs in the country, come the sprint season. However, consider that the quadruple scull was invited to start number six in a field of more than five hundred crews, and that it was being chased down by a boat containing, among others, James Lindsay-Fynn: Trinity alumnus and reigning World Champion. Needless to say that as the squad arrived in London, there was a slight sense of intimidation which was soon quashed by the determination to rise to the challenge and show that not one Trinity oarsman was out of his depth amongst such opposition. A slight glitch in the quad’s preparation came shortly before the start, when they were pushed
IT AIN’T EVER OVER WHAT NEXT FOR JOE CALZAGHE? SPORTS FEATURE, P21
out into the fast-slowing stream and collided with a boat from an eminent London club. While no injuries or penalties were suffered, this could have signalled the end of the race before it had even begun. Undeterred the crew pulled in and were helped to fix their boat by a keen boatman preparing to watch the race himself. On a stretch where steering a good course has as much to do with the result as anything else (if you have ever watched the Oxford-Cambridge duel you will know what I mean), it was up to bowmen Joseph Calnan (Captain) and Robert Swift to keep the Trinity boats in the stream and call the progress markers for the sake of the other crew members. While the quad (having to start late due to repair work) were counting off schoolboy boats as they overtook them, the four were engaged
in a tight tussle with a Cambridge crew that kept the blood boiling for the duration of the course. A quadruple scull is considered a faster boat than a IV, and so it was no surprise when the quad finished in a time of 20:23.73, ahead of the IV in 20:43.17. These times did, however, put Trinity up amongst the best rowing universities in the UK and there will be some battles fought when the squad travel over for the VIIIs Head in March. In a season where the senior squad can afford to take no prisoners, this was a promising start on a challenging and unfamiliar course. When the time comes for the winter training camp in Spain, you can be sure that every squad man will have to fight tooth and nail for their place in the rankings and the boats that race in the New Year will have a point to prove.
THE CREWS Elite Coxless IV: Joseph Calnan (bow, steers) Henry Tindal Eoin MacDomhnaill Sean Osborne (stroke) Elite Coxless Quad: Robert Swift (bow, steers) Eoghan Kerlin Peter Heverin Gavin Doherty (stroke)
THINGS ROWING WELL FROM BOAT CLUB TO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: JAMES LYNDSAY-FYNN TALKS ABOUT HIS CAREER P22 collegesport@trinitynews.ie