Trinity News Issue 3

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College claims “de facto” entitlement to extra pension Jason Somerville Staff Writer

COLLEGE STAFF are being paid more generous pension plans due to out-dated regulations on pension entitlements.

Up to ten years can be added to an employee’s service at the discretion of the College authorities, thereby qualifying staff for higher pension packages. This is putting further pressure on an already stretched College budget.

A report from the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General found that, while the award of added years is discretionary in nature, this discretionary power has always been exercised in the favour of employees that meet the criteria and remain in service to retirement.

Such regulations have become “de facto entitlements” the report concluded. On average, three years of service per retiree was added to staff service at Trinity College between 2007 and 2009.

In 2009 academic staff, whose pensions are higher, had an average of 1.71 years added to their service of 33 years, compared with a 2.72 year bonus for non-academic staff working for 26 years.

In a statement to Trinity News the College stated, “Added Years are an integral part of the overall Master Pension Scheme benefits structure. Employees have historically been informed in all pensions communications with the College that they could expect to receive discretionary Added Years on

remaining in service to retirement”.

The statement went on to say that “In light of historical communications with College employees, the term ‘custom and practice’ was used in the current tense to highlight to the C&AG the difficulty that would ensue were the exercise of the discretion to change subsequent to the transfer of these discretionary powers to the Ministers at the end of 2009 when the pension fund transferred to the State”.

In 2005, a new system was introduced to bring the University’s pension system in line with public sector norms. However, with 55 percent of employees still registered for the old pension scheme, the number of years added to the service of employees will remain at the discretion of the College’s Trustees.

According to the report, “in the past, when an employee with prospective short service joined the pension scheme it was the practice of the College, with the agreement of the Trustees, to grant additional years at that stage.”

This practice has continued over the past few years despite a contracting budget. In response to a query over whether staff were informed on entry that they would receive added years, College stated that “it was College practice to exercise the discretion and award Added Years to pensionable employees”, but that the years were only awarded provided that the employess stayed in service until retirement.

The bulk of funding for pensions Continued on page 2

Mock Wedding raises awareness of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights

SS And the brides wore white. Pictured above from left to right: Síofra McAllister, Jeff Walsh, Darren O’Gorman, Stephen Keane, Laura Condell, Rachel Dobbins.

The ceremonies were conducted on the steps of the Chapel by Ronan Hodson. Photos by Anita Finucaine

Mairead Cremins Staff Reporter

AS PART of the Central Societies Committee’s Fourth Week celebrations, DU Amnesty International in association with Trinity LGBT organised a mock wedding. Three couples exchanged vows on the Chapel steps on the 21 October. The event was supported by the CSC. According to Jane McGowan, President of DU Amnesty International, the purpose of this was to highlight Article 16.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states:

“Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.

They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.”

Three couples participated in the event, a gay couple, a lesbian couple and a heterosexual couple. It was organised by these two societies to call attention to the issue of gay marriage.

The event drew a large crowd, with approximately 100 people in attendance in Front Square.

Secretary of Trinity LGBT, David Doherty said that the crowd included a scattering “of bemused students

and passers-by” who watched the spectacle with curiosity.

The wedding reception was held in the Elizabethan Rooms in House 6, where all involved had cake and refreshments. Trinity TV also filmed the event.

Doherty said that “once one got over the novelty of there being two suits or two puffy white dresses together, the message was really driven home that any two people of whatever gender or sexuality should have their love recognized by law.”

“Civil Partnership is a compromise which the LGBT community both in Trinity and around the country is not content with” he added.

No date set for solution to College network problems Caitriona Murphy College News Editor

INTERNET USERS across campus have been facing a severely delayed service over the last two weeks. The internet and email service, which is provided by IS Services has been “We ask users to stick with us over the coming months.” –John Murphy, Director of IS Services on the problems with the network. continuously disrupted, with users complaining of slow and disconnected internet connections. Both wired and wireless services have been crashing across campus, and student dissatisfaction has peaked as no deadline has been announced for a solution.

In an email sent out to students on Thursday evening, John Murphy, director of IS Services, apologised to students for the “frustration” caused, stating that “The College network is complex and supports many different types of network access”. He informed students that an action plan has been put in place, and that a restoration of service was the “number one priority”.

An action plan has been put in place that includes liaising with other IT professionals and visiting students who are having problems to review their computer configurations.

However, as of Thursday, the IS Services team were still working to identify the root cause of the problem, and a solution had not been identified. No date was given for the recommencement of service.

Students’ Union President Nikolai Trigoub-Rotnem said he would be “raising this with the Chief Operating

Officer next week. We will need to talk about the funding provided to IS Services.” However, Murphy told Trinity News that “The current problem of network slowness is not directly related to funding for the network infrastructure”.

However, he did speculate that should budgets be cut and the number of students continue to rise, “there will be issues with performance”. He also stated that ‘The real problem is the challenge presented by the Employee Control Framework where staff are not being replaced.”

The network currently supports 25,000 users in over 23 different locations, including off-campus sites.

In the last few years, the network has been upgraded and the number of wireless access points increased.

Upgrades being carried out on web proxies could also be contributing to the problem.

This is the second time that IS Services has come under fire in the past month. Two weeks ago, a hoax email “I will be raising this with the Chief Operating Officer next week.

We will need to talk about the IS Services funding.” was sent to many Trinity students from a false helpdesk email address. The email told users that they must provide all logins for the College network and email or their access would be revoked.

The hoax was sent from an email that is very similar to that of the IS Services helpdesk.

IS Services sent out an email shortly after warning students that it had been a hoax, and that any student who had submitted their details should come to the helpdesk immediately.

IS Services also blocked any further inbound and outbound responses to the address. Murphy stated that IS Services did not receive any reports that any staff or students were tricked by the scam.

Murphy also confirmed that computers removed from the Arts Building had been upgraded and would be reinstated next week. He stated that by the end of the year, he expected 9000 students to be connecting, despite the difficulties occurring at the moment.

IS Services have said they are committed to keeping students and staff informed of developments as they occur by email, on their website (isservices.tcd.ie), and via twitter (twitter username @TCDISServices).

IS Services apologised for the delays that had been caused by the network problems, and Murphy stated that “we would ask users to stick with us over the coming months.”

Vol 57

Issue 3

2 November, 2010

2 NEWS THIS FORTNIGHT THEY SAID

“If you want a sustainable program, “For decades we work with just assumed religions” porn was recession proof’ Steve Javers of the Adult Video News, on the economic crisis and porn.

NUMEROLOGY

$30,000 The amount offered for Paul the Octopus by a Spanish conglomerate

97

Number of retirees who received Added Years on their pension from Trinity

11/10

COMPILED BY CAITRIONA MURPHY

“It really is making me sick to my stomach” Steph Fleming, Welfare Officer, reacts to the economic situation of some students living off the grant.

Martin Palmer, Director of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, highlighting the link between religon and the enviornment at the Godfrey Day Memoral Lecture.

Added years to pensions Continued from front page

comes directly from the Colleges’ core budget, and so the practice of adding years to employees’ service to qualify staff for higher pensions has diverted resources away from education and research.

Of the 152 retirements that took place between 2007-2009, 97 of these were awarded Added Years.

Such practices are not unique to

Trinity. All seven Irish Universities were found to operate similar de facto entitlement schemes.

Discretion to award added years will now be excercised jointly by the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance as a result of the findings published in the report.

Work is currently underway by the Accounting Officer to identify all sets of circumstances where de facto entitlements arise.

TRINITY TAKE TO THE STREETS AT DUBLIN MARATHON

Bookies’ odds on Patrick Prendergast for Provost

€7 29%

Weekly budget for a student living off the maintenance grant

Approval rating for Nicolas Sarkozy after the retirement age reforms in France

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RUNNERS FROM Trinity Takes To The Streets took part in the Dublin Marathon last week to raise money for college programs.

Now in its second year, TTTTS 2010 kicked off with an alumni event, “Pimms in the Pav. The event calendar for the year so far has included the Flora Mini Marathon, the Donegal Marathon, a TCD Team Challenge Triathlon Relay, a TAP Barn Dance & Harvest Feast in the Dining Hall, and of course the Dublin City Marathon.

All funds raised go directly to the Trinity Access Programmes (TAP), the National Institute for Intellectu-

al Disability (NIID) and the Student Hardship Fund. This support is a vital lifeline for many students facing acute hardship and adversity during these years.

So far, TTTTS has raised ¤110,000 this year. The Dublin Marathon was their most profitable event so far, with over 50 participants. If you are interested in taking Trinity to the streets in your local area, contact info@trinitytakestothestreets.ie Pictured are Miriam Allik, Stephanie Holt and Roisin McGrogan.

Caitriona Murphy

“I would be very wary of the idea of leaving the single currency”

“Security were being bitches”

Dan O’Brien, Economics editor for the Irish Times, reflects on the talk of leaving the euro.

Kevin Byrne of the SU Oversight Commision, commenting on the Class Trip.

One of the rooms was damaged, despite extra security measures.

Ian Paisley visits Trinity exhibit Kate Palmer Deputy Editor

Dr Ian Paisley’s visit to the Long Room of Trinity College went almost unnoticed among Trinity’s population.

Now Lord Bannside, the DUP leader met with President Mary McAleese at a discreet opening for the “1641 rebellion” exhibition.

The two politicians greeted each other before a select audience of academics and diplomats, including representatives from the Irish National Library and National Gallery, as well as members of the embassies of France and the UK. The focus of the event was the 1641 Depositions, witness accounts recorded during the 1641 Irish Rebellion. Testimonies from both Protestant and Catholic victims document the reported crimes by Irish insurgents during the rebellion.

The detailed accounts have recently been brought into the 21st century in a new online archive put together by investigators from the universities of Dublin, Cambridge and Aberdeen.

“It is such a valuable thing to have access to this unique collection of witness testimonies” Speaking at the event, McAleese commented on the controversy that continues to surround the Deposition: “The events of 1641 have been the subject of considerable dispute, with wildly divergent accounts in both the Catholic and Protestant historical narratives”.

McAleese described many perceptions of the event as “skewed”.

The Depositions document the experiences of approximately 90,000 people during the Rebellion.

The testimonies record the alleged crimes committed by Irish Catholic

insurgents, including torture, assault, stripping, imprisonment and murder.

One of the best-known depositions was

by Eleanor Price, whose five children were drowned at Portadown Bridge: “Those that could swim and come to the shore they either knocked them in the hands & so after drowned them, or else shot them to death in the water.”

Iconic images of the atrocity still adorn Orange Order banners.

Their politics may be different, but “Here lie tragic stories of individuals. This too is a dark story of our land.” – Dr Ian Paisley Paisley and McAleese stood united in the project to recover the historical narratives of the Rebellion. Talking of the divisions in Ireland, McAleese said, “As we try to reconcile, to be good neighbours, friends and partners across those sectarian divides, it is such a valuable thing to have access to this unique collection of witness testimonies from some of those who experienced the terror and horror of those tragic times.”

Speaking in a hushed tone, Paisley told the audience: “Perhaps the most telling aspect of this material is that it bears witness to the scale of the wrongdoing, while at the same time individualising it. Here lie tragic stories of individuals. This too is a dark story of our land.”

Paisley continued, “To learn this story, I believe, is to know who we are, why we have had to witness our own trouble, and why we live in a divided island. May we really learn what this exhibition can really teach us”.

The Ballymena native raised a few laughs as he finished: “In the words of Lord Carson, who was a great man; he was well known to Trinity and to this city. What did he say? He said God save Ulster.”

STUDENT UNION COUNCIL REPORT #1

First Council meeting highlights student poverty Aine Pennello Staff Reporter

SABBATICAL OFFICERS at this year’s first SU Council painted a grim picture of the economic realities facing some students.

“I want to tell you a story about a girl who rang our office two weeks ago,” said USI Eastern Area Officer, “If the grant gets cut by ten percent she will be living on six euro and thirty cent.” –John Logue John Logue. The girl, a recipient of the student maintenance grant, lives on

seven euro a week, “because of how low the grant is and because of the situation that we’re in” said Mr. Logue.

“If the grant gets cut by ten percent she will be living on six euro and thirty cent.” Mr. Logue insisted the situation was not unique, and suspected a number of students experiencing similar hardships.

SU Welfare Officer, Steph Fleming, was quick to defend Logue’s point, citing the growing number of students who, too cash-strapped to afford lunch or breakfast, have come to the Welfare Office in search of spare goodie bags handed out regularly on campus containing miscellaneous food items such as Crunchies, Doritos and Pot Noodle.

“I can’t believe there was a student

in my room who actually needed that,” Fleming said. She also said she had received students with an array of financial worries, from those in need of a five-euro loan to buy a sandwich “It’s not a ‘maybe’. [If the grant is cut these students] absolutely won’t be here next year.” to those unable to buy food, skipping breakfast and substituting a cup of a tea for lunch. “It really is making me sick to my stomach,” Fleming said.

With one in every two students now receiving maintenance grants, and talks of the government increasing the registration fee by up

to 100 percent, sabbatical officers argued that many students will not have the means to stay in college if the grants are cut. The USI also expects the Government to cut student maintenance grants by ten percent in this year’s budget, which is another cause for concern among the sabbatical officers. “It’s not a ‘maybe,’” Students’ Union Education Officer, Jen Fox, stated, “They absolutely won’t be here next year.”

While student protests last year were heavily concerned with the rise in the student registration fee, sabbatical officers said the grant cut proposal will play an equal role at this year’s march on November 3.“This is not an anti-fees march,” said Fox. “This is anti-grants cuts.”

TRINITY NEWS

3 news@trinitynews.ie

PUZZLES COMPILED BY CONOR O’TOOLE

THE GREAT TRINITY NEWS WORD SEARCH

UNLIKE MANY word searches of the past, this puzzle has left the confinements of the ruled grid of yesteryear and spread itself throughout the newspaper. All the words from the “Easy” section are located in the headlines and subheads (or decks, as they're know in the industry) but the “Hard” words could be anywhere. The “Extra Hard” section is comprised of series of letters that are also somewhere in the paper, but with all punctuation and white space removed.

I, Conor O'Toole, am also guaranteeing the prize of dinner with me in a restaurant of your choice to

whomever first completes this word search. Completed entries should be delivered to the Students' Union front office in House 6, care of Dáire McNab. Easy Anybody Crystal Diwali Impact Isabelle Ivory Only Reform Shambles Sprees

Sunny Surge Wallaby Hard Actually Aftercare Alliance Chiming Colonial Destabilization Moustachioed Phoenician Predominantly Ramifications Scleral Shedding

Students’ Unions prepare to march Aine Pennello Staff Reporter

“EDUCATION NOT emigration” was the message at a protest meeting open to students in the Hamilton Building last Tuesday. At the meeting, Students’ Union President Nikolai TrigoubRotnem and former President Cónán Ó Broin were quick to criticise the Government’s potential plans for Ireland’s college education system.

The protest to take place tomorrow is, according to Trigoub-Rotnem, “Our one opportunity to show that students care about their future. The protest is part of our campaign to stop education cuts, along with lobbying politicians, voter registration and the Tell Your TD website.’’

With the government preparing to cut €15 billion in the budget this December, the Union of Students in Ireland’s expectations are set for a

Extra Hard alcine anun earein erwh ineke jonst kagre orunfor resrersho sesal unit

Meningitis cases found in Dartry Meadhbh McHugh Deputy College News Editor

TWO STUDENTS from Trinity Hall in Dartry were recently admitted to hospital with suspected meningitis.

Residents of Halls received an email from Brendan Tangney, Warden of Trinity Hall, on the 17 October to warn them of the outbreak in the Halls community and to caution students to be aware of the symptoms of meningitis.

Meningitis is the inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord. It can be caused by either a viral or bacterial infection, the latter of which is significantly more serious and can be life-threatening. It can be infectious. Symptoms include severe headache, nausea or vomiting, joint, limb or muscle pain, fever, a stiff neck, discomfort in bright light and/or a rash that does not disappear when you press on it.

Tagney did not comment on

“Our demonstration has to be the largest demonstration that the country sees” – Cónán Ó Broin 100 percent increase in the student registration fee and a ten percent cut in student maintenance grants.

While some have used the Students’ Union’s official protest page on Facebook, “Trinity Students’ Protest!

Education not Emigration!” to accuse the Union of exaggerating such figures, Trigoub-Rotnem stated that they are sticking to the facts. “We’re not making up these figures,” he said, “They are a reality”.

Co-ordinated by the USI, a national march against the Government’s cuts will take place on November 3 at 12:30 pm.

The march, students were told, is three-fold in its objections. With the introduction of tuition fees “not on the agenda,” said Trigoub-Rotnem, the movement’s first objection is to any increase in the student registration fee.

Secondly, sabbatical officers at this year’s first Students’ Union Council argued that many students would not have the means to stay in college

Thwart Cash Nikolai Rehn

SS Students attending last year’s Student Union protest against full college fees, where it was estimated that under 150 attended.

Next week’s protest will focus on registration fees, and the USI hopes to attract over 20,000 protesters.Photo by Yuliya Bespala

if maintenance grants are cut by ten percent. And lastly, with one hundred Irish people emigrating every week, Trigoub-Rotnem said the protest aims to raise awareness of graduate unemployment – a growing problem, which “the Government is not taking seriously”.

The march, described by Ó Broin as the “centrepiece” of the anti-cuts campaign, is hoped to attract up to 20,000 students from across the country “from Letterkenny IT to IT Tralee”.

Starting from outside the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square, the march will move south across the O’Connell Bridge and pass by Trinity College, ending outside Government Buildings on Merrion Square.

In an effort to rally Trinity students to the cause, Ó Broin described Trinity College as “the linchpin” of the protest in terms of its reputation and city“The introduction of full tuition fees is not on the agenda” – Nikolai TrigoubRotnem centre location. He hopes to see five to six thousand Trinity students take to the streets on November 3.

“Our demonstration has to be the largest demonstration that the country sees in the run up to the toughest budget the country’s ever seen,” said Ó Broin.

Trigoub-Rotnem is also anticipating

a large attendance at the protest judging from the turn-out at the protest meeting last week and feedback from students.

“We’re expecting over 20,000 students from all around the country.

Last week we had a protest meeting where about 100 people turned up.

We’ve had info stands around College and will be doing banner painting on Monday in House 6 and Tuesday in Halls.”

Trigoub-Rotnem said the SU is also planning a voter registration next week to get the message across that “students are not just going to shout loudly, but will actually use their voting power.”

Students who wish to take part in the march are asked to meet in Front Square at 12:00 pm on November 3.

“Students should contact a GP or the accommodation office immediately if they have any symptoms.” whether the suspected cases in Halls were of viral or bacterial meningitis.

The JCR Welfare Officer in Dartry, Stephen Garry, has urged students to “be vigilant and to always err on the side of caution in these situations.

We would hope at this stage that the worries end there, however with almost 1000 students living in such a close community there is always a risk.

Students should contact a GP or the Accommodation Office immediately if they are suffering any of the common symptoms.’’

The two students admitted to hospital in Halls have received treatment and are not in danger.

Damage after class rep training “not as much as last year” Aoife Crowley Editor

A HOTEL room belonging to a member of the Students’ Union’s Oversight Commission was damaged at Class Rep training.

Oversight Commission member Kevin Byrne told Trinity News that he wasn’t involved in the damage personally, but his room at the Bracken Court Hotel in Balbriggan “was the party room. It got completely trashed.”

According to Byrne, “people were running around naked”.

He stated, “People kept coming in and they were getting kicked out by the security. There was loads more damage, blood on the wall Jen Fox told me afterwards.”

He guessed the cost of the damage

2 November, 2010

to be “not as much as last year, maybe €3,000”.

Education Officer, Jennifer Fox, accepted that there was broken furniture in one room, as well as broken lamps and stained carpets, but dismissed Byrne’s estimated cost of damage. She stated, “I haven’t heard from the hotel to claim any damage costs, I don’t imagine I will because it is normally something they “Security were being bitches” – Kevin Byrne would do quite quickly, when I paid in the terms of the contract there was nothing about paying for damages.”

After last year’s Class Rep training,

where the Students’ Union paid over €3000 in damages to the Carlton, the sabbatical officers made increased security a priority. Byrne noted that members of security took alcohol off a number of students and poured it away.

He stated that this “made a lot of people angry”. “People were really annoyed, and the extra damage happened because of this.” He went on to state that “security were being bitches”.

Communications Officer, Tom Lowe, denied hearing of any damage, stating “The line is that we haven’t heard anything. If and when we receive complaints from the hotel, we’ll look into it.”

The fact that Byrne‘s position as a member of the OC makes him a figure of some authority was not of concern, according to Lowe. He pointed out

that the hotel rooms were shared, and so the room was not Byrne’s sole responsibility.

A respondant to a SU survey of this year’s class reps commented, “I think “I haven’t heard from the hotel to claim any damage costs, and I don’t imagine I will.”

– Jennifer Fox this was a far better behaved training this year”. This survey also found that of the 128 respondents, four out of five thought this year’s event was well prepared and organised, although a quarter did not state that the event was beneficial to their role as class rep.

The Bracken Court Hotel declined to comment on the damage.

SS The Bracken Court Hotel

4 COLLEGE NEWS news@trinitynews.ie

OPEN ACCESS

College Research to hit the web

Plane sailing at Trinity Conor Dempsey Staff Reporter

TRINITY IS adopting a policy similar to some of the greatest universities in the world such as Harvard and Stanford by saying it will make all its scholarly articles available to the public online. The service will be provided free of charge and it is hoped that it will broaden access to the College’s research and scholarship.

The Dean of Research, Dr David Lloyd has said that this is a move that will place College at the forefront of academic institutions worldwide that are pioneering the move to open access. “Knowledge must be accessible widely if its benefits are to impact on society. This policy means that the institutional supports will be in place to assist our researchers in making their work freely available,” Lloyd said.

The College Librarian, Robin Adams, has said, “TCD’s Open Access policy is an opportunity for the Library and TCD researchers to work together and promote the research output of our university, so that the Irish public and international research community can be aware of the important work undertaken by our scholars and scientists.”

The College’s TARA repository was developed in 2006 with the support of the research committee and has since benefited from funding under the HEA Structural Innovation Fund (SIF). The Library will work with the Dean of Research and his Directors of Research Forum to oversee implementation and determine a workflow for adding content to TARA. It is likely thousands of articles published by College staff, students and alumni each year will be added to TARA and be freely available through search engines such as Google.

A TEAM of Trinity scientists, led

by Dr Gerard Lacey of the School of Computer Science and Statistics, have developed a new detection and warning system for aircraft.

The system is designed to reduce the number of on-ground accidents involving aircraft.

Bigger aircraft and congestion at airports have led to a spike in collision rates. According to the international Flight Safety Foundation, on-the ground damage to aircraft can cost an estimated $10 billion worldwide.

Wing-tip collisions alone can cost up to $5 billion a year.

College was approached in 2006 to look into the issue by an Aer Lingus

pilot, Captain William Butler, who expressed concern over the risks of aircraft collisions. He was then introduced to Dr Lacey and his team via Enterprise Ireland.

The project, named WingWatch, hopes to reduce these risks and costs. It was developed through collaboration between the Graphics, Vision and Visualisation group and the Aircraft Psychology Research group in Trinity College, who were concerned with how pilots could be warned of the dangers, without being distracted. ‘’It’s basically a parking sensor for an airplane,” said Dr Lacey. ‘’The pilot would no longer have difficulty assessing the proximity of nearby objects. Cameras will be mounted in strategic locations around the aircraft

Harry Potter star charms Players

Mairead Cremins

FUNDRAISING

Aine Pennello

Meds go Mad for St James Hospital TRINITY MED Day will be hitting the streets next week to for their annual fundraiser, which this year will feature rodeo bulls and a bachelor/ bachelorette auction. This year the society will be raising money for the Burns Unit in St James’ Hospital and colorectal cancer screening in AMNCH, Tallaght. Money will also be raised for the Cancer Care Fund in AMNCH and for a Trinity Access Programme Scholarship.“After five years of medical school, we will have taken up enough of our patients’ time, energy and sometimes patience, that to spend one day a year giving something back is something we look forward to every year,” said Med Day Chairperson, Conor Broderick. A new addition to the Day’s events is a headto-head cycle from Mizen to Malin Head in one day. Since its inception eight years ago, Med Day has raised €500,000 and this year they plan to raise an additional €60,000.

If you would like to support Trinity Med Day 2010 and these worthy causes, log on to www.tcdmedday. com to make an online donation and keep an eye out for the students in their bright yellow Med Day t-shirts as they take to the streets on Friday 5 of November 2010.

Caitriona Murphy

and advanced image processing software is used to find objects and measure their 3D location around the aircraft.

“We then calculate if any of the objects are on a collision path with any part of the aircraft. If they are we provide the pilot with a warning”. This allows the pilot to immediately take corrective action avoiding any damage to the aircraft.

Though developed to address problems in the aircraft industry, the technology could also be applied to other large vehicles in medicine or in media increasing the commercial opportunities The system was tested at Dublin Airport this month, and a video of the test will be available online at www.wingwatch.com.

Staff Reporter

CORK NATIVE Fiona Shaw, perhaps most widely known for her role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, charmed students with her comic personality at an interview with DU Players President, Dr Amanda Piesse, last Thursday.

Slouched into a giant armchair and sucking on a sweet, Shaw humorously passed comment on Piesse’s opening biography of her, accusing it of being pulled from Wikipedia, a source, the actress said, which “also gets my date of birth wrong”. Shaw set the record straight however by firmly stating she was born on July 10 1958, not 1956.

Speaking about her training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, the actress remembered herself as “less than cool”, wearing Fair Isle sweaters

at a time when punk was in. While Shaw admired the talent of her predecessors, she joked that her own class was “particularly undistinguished, which may have led to my success”.

Aside from her role in Harry Potter, Shaw has also worked in film and television, including appearing in My Left Foot, Jane Eyre, Persuasion, and Gormenghast.

While Shaw had little to say of her role in the Harry Potter films, she reminisced greatly on her early theatre career. With a history of performing comedic and Shakespearean roles, the actress’s quick wit and love of language came as no surprise.

Still able to quote complete stanzas of Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium” from her childhood memories, it was Shaw’s lifelong love of poetry that led her to Shakespeare.

“Rhythm is the key to the

unconscious,” said the actress who gave students a quick demonstration of Elizabethan English performed in the rhythms of national languages.

“The Americans head for the noun,” said Shaw, “‘To be or not to be that is the question’”. While “ the Indians speak on six beats”, explained the actress, “so their tendency is to say, ‘To be or not to be that is the question, man’”.

On a more serious note, when asked which of her performances she most enjoyed, the actress recalled the title role of Hedda Gabler.

“I really thought I understood her,” said Shaw of the character, which attracted much attention from male viewers. “I got letters from men saying, ‘I feel like Hedda Gabler,’” said the actress. “I think its fantastic when you feel that you can represent not just your own gender but something about the human consciousness, particularly as a woman”.

However the production never made it to America, for which Shaw continued to express regret.

In answering questions from the audience, Shaw advised students not to be afraid of ignorance, “because nobody knows everything”. Remembering her audition for RADA, Shaw cited the example of witnessing two fellow auditionees doing press-ups. “And I thought,” said the actress, “maybe that’s what I should be doing”.

Shaw was awarded a honourary membership to DU Players amidst great applause, receiving flowers and a framed ticket of the event.

In November 2010, Shaw will be starring in Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan.

TCD researcher discovers a new “mystery tree” Una Kelly Staff Reporter

A NEW species of tree has been discovered in the Honduras by Dr Daniel Kelly, senior lecturer in College’s School of Natural Sciences.

While it is not a rare occurrence to find new species of plant in tropics such as these, this “mystery tree” was so unique that it deserved its place as a whole new category in the family tree of plants.

The discovery was made while Kelly was the leader of a survey exploring the rainforest vegetation in Cusuco National Park in Honduras.

“However, it was surrounded by plenty of other species that at the time were equally unknown to us. Also, the tree had no flowers or fruits to help identify it. So it was a long time before we unravelled the relationships of the mystery tree,” he says.

Specimens were studied at the Natural History Museum in London, the Missouri Botanical Garden and Southern Illinois UniversityCarbondale before genetic tests confirmed that Kelly’s new tree was a whole new category in the sandalwood order of plants.

It has been named Hondurodendron urceolatum and the findings were recently published in the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Cusuco National Park is a diverse region in the tropics, but like so many areas of the shrinking rainforests is under threat from illegal logging, hunting and massive forest clearance.

Kelly points out the importance of maintaing these forests: “Who knows what other mysteries are still hidden in those still extensive but steadily shrinking forests?” The professor believes the discovery will provide a “flagship species” for the park. “Having a genus from nowhere else in the world is something to use to impress on the authorities and visitors the importance of the site.”

Kelly’s finding has sparked an enthusiastic response with congratulations being received from his colleagues in College and botanists all over the world.

“One colleague described it as a once in a lifetime experience,” he notes, “though I’m not ruling out future possibilities.”

Central Bank Governor opposed guarantees Mairead Cremins Staff Reporter

CENTRAL BANK governor and Trinity lecturer Patrick Honohan has defended a statement he made in 2008, where he said that the blanket guarantees and open-ended cash injections into banks are wrong.

In September 2008, Honohan submitted a report to Brian Cowen, which was based on a study of 40 banking crises and was published during his time at the World Bank. In the report, Honohan stated, “Countries that used policies such as liquidity support, blanket guarantees and regulatory forbearance did not recover faster. Rather, liquidity support appears to make recovery from a crisis longer and output losses larger. Thus, it appears that the two most important policies during the containment phase

are to limit liquidity support and not extend guarantees.” He also pointed this out at a lecture held on campus in October 2008.

Contrary to his findings, the Government then proceeded to guarantee the banks. In an interview given last week, Honohan announced that “the guarantee has indeed proved to be costly. However, given the situation that had developed ... it was too late to avoid an extensive guarantee”.

Honohan has written extensively on the Irish economy, and was appointed as governor of the Central Bank to lead the country out of the present crisis.

At an Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) seminar on globalisation, held in conjunction with Trinity last Thursday, Honohan said that joining the euro should not be viewed as a primary cause of the credit

bubble. “Latvia and Iceland, which are countries comparable to Ireland, were outside the euro-zone but they are dealing with fiscal crises every bit as “The guarantee has indeed proved to be costly.”

-Patrick Honohan bad as here – if not worse,” he said.

“Joining the euro did allow the banks to borrow huge amounts of capital on international markets at low interest rates, helping fuel the bubble, but the currency also provided an anchor during the crisis,” he continued.

Honohan then turned his attention to other factors: “We had three failures in policy when it came to adjusting to being in the euro. There were regulatory failures for sure, but there

was a failure to keep wages under control as well as an over-reliance on volatile tax sources which dried up when the boom ended. If we had kept the income tax rates at higher levels then that would have been a good way of dealing with the issues”.

Also present at the seminar was Dr Philip Lane, who is a professor in Trinity. He echoed the sentiments expressed by Honohan when he said that the economic problems would only be exacerbated if Ireland left the single currency.

“The disruption caused if we left the euro would be enormous. The Government would have to implement severe controls on our currency, which is unthinkable given how globalised our economy is. As well as this, high interest rates would inevitably follow, which would cause huge problems, so it would not be helpful at all,” he stated.

TRINITY NEWS

5 news@trinitynews.ie

SKYPE, TWITTER & WORLD BANK

Communication is key to the future Staff Reporter

“The other experts echoed Dr. Lin in mentioning Mandarin and Hindu as being vital languages in this new world.”

Freya Findlay

AND FINALLY...

What are the Odds?

SS Clockwise from above: Jack Dorsey, the brains behind Twitter, the Chief Economist of the World Bank, Dr Justin Lin, and TED founder and Skype founder Niklaas Zenstrom. Photos by Martin McKenna

what seemed most vital, in their minds was a desire to learn and to have new experiences, Similar sentiments were also expressed by entrepreneur and cofounder of Skype, Niklaas Zenstrom, who urged the assembly to court new experiences and remain passionate, informed and innovative. He suggested to students to set up a business while in college, as an “extra-curricular activity”, expressing the kind of attitude he expects the protagonists of success stories to have.

To be employed tomorrow, it seems students will have to embrace the world today and as Jack Dorsey, the brains behind Twitter, pointed out, that has never been easier.

Twitter, conceived out of an intense fascination with human beings and social interactions, connects people

€3 million in grants awarded to College Meadhbh McHugh Deputy College News Editor

NANOSCIENTIST PROFESSOR Jonathan Coleman has been awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starter Grant of €1.5 million.

The awards, given to 300 top scientists across Europe, recognises scientists working on research with major potential, providing encouragement and funding to develop cutting edge technology.

Professor John Boland, Director of Crann, the TCD and UCC based nanoscience research institute, said, “These awards are only made to Europe's top scientists and it is great recognition of the work being done

by Professor Coleman and his team to develop next generation materials.

It is vitally important for Ireland's competitiveness that we continue to attract these awards and this kind of funding from academia as well as industry. Ireland has built up its expertise in the area of nanoscience which is globally recognised, as evidenced by the increasing number

2 November, 2010

Religion could save the world RELIGION IS the key to helping the environment, revelealed the Director of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, speaking at the Godfrey Day Memorial Lecture. Martin Palmer was invited to College by the DU Far Eastern Mission to speak on “The Chinese Communist Party, Daoism and the Environmental Future of China.”

In it he spoke about the real situation in China and the role of faith groups in enviromental issues. The Alliance of Religions and Conservation helps 11 world faiths develop environmental and conservation projects worldwide.

Palmer stated that he is often asked why he works with religions, in particular Daoism, instead of the government and his reply is that as the Communist Party is a very dramatic short-lived dynasty, which is quietly fading out: “if you want a sustainable program, work with religions.”

Religion in China has become more and more popular and fashionable and even old festivals have been reinstated. 26,000 Daoism temples are now solar powered and as Daoism leads the way, believing that the excess of consumerism is not part of keeping the ying-yang balance, Palmer hopes that Christianity will follow suit.

Mark Davidson COMMUNICATION AND innovation were the themes of the day at a talk given by the Chief Economist of the World Bank, Dr Justin Lin, Skype founder Niklaas Zenstrom, TED curator, Chris Anderson, and Jack Dorsey, the brains behind Twitter.

Sandwiched between the talks were two panel discussions, analysing the opinions and answers of some of the brightest lights in Irish business.

The topics discussed were varied, but a clear message and theme was seen throughout. One thing all the speakers were in agreement about was that the future is bright and full of opportunity.

The opening speaker, Lin, described the rapidly changing modern world, expressing sentiments that were to be echoed many times that morning. He envisioned a more egalitarian future, and noted that eleven of the fastest growing economies since 2008 are nations of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Lin described a future driven by knowledge, communication and intellectual curiosity, a future where wealth and prosperity would be spread across cultures and across the globe.

Interviewer Karen Coleman asked Dr. Lin to speculate on Ireland’s future and the recession. He advised that the key to a fruitful future lies in trusting global growth, lowering borders and restrictions, and in embracing multiculturalism and multilingualism.

The next theme of the morning picked up by the panel was that of embracing diversity. “Go where the growth is”, was the prevalent advice to the graduates of tomorrow, as the group of business leaders envisioned an economic recovery driven by a global, mobile workforce of educated, keen communicators.

Knowledge of languages and cultures will be vital to employers as markets diversify and spread to new continents and language bases. The experts echoed Lin in mentioning Mandarin and Hindu being vital languages in the new world. However,

ENVIRONMENT

of international research grants we are attracting. Ireland is beginning to take a globally recognised leadership position in Nanoresearch and scientists of the calibre of Professor Coleman are critical to building our reputation in this area.”

The research grant is based on Professor Coleman's work with graphene and his team's novel method of splitting graphite down into individual layers of graphene, used to make stronger and lighter materials.

Incorporated into any product that uses plastic, they could make composites which are stronger, lighter and more environmentally friendly than their pure plastic counterpart.

Professor John Donegan, Head of the School of Physics commented, "The School is rightly proud of his achieving the ERC award and we fully expect great new science will arise from this research".

Professor Coleman is one of two Trinity researchers to receive the ERC grant. Dr Daniel Kelly also received €1.5 million for his work on stem-cell based therapies for Articular Cartilage Repair.

across cultural and geographical boundaries. Launched in 2006, over 100 million users now post an average of 65 million “tweets” a day.

The final speaker of the day was TED curator, Chris Anderson. TED, a global set of conferences dedicated to “ideas worth spreading”, was established in 1984.

Attendance to the TED conferences is not cheap, with annual membership costing ¤6000. However, the key to TED’s success is their online presence.

Talks can be viewed for free on their website, or downloaded as podcasts from iTunes.

All speakers emphasised a bright future ahead for those who are prepared to take risks. To borrow the words of Lin: “We are entering a new era, an era of a multicultural, global village.”

COMMUNICATION CHEATNOTES

•

• •

•

No. 1

Grafton St countdown to the election

WITH ELECTIONS in April drawing closer and potentials still waiting to declare their candidacy, their reluctance could be fuelled by the enormity of the task ahead.

The challenges facing Ireland’s oldest university are no doubt great, but then again, so is it. With a motivating and qualified skipper, Trinity and her crew could be broadly reaching for a finish line ahead of the best in her class.

The 44th Provost will inherit a limestone “Christina”, steeped in history and tradition but without the steam to leave her rusty Greek shipyard. The main issues the next provost will face are sourcing sustainable funding, as well as maintaining and providing national leadership.

College funding is a contentious issue at the best of times. Currently funding is provided by the state with contributions also by students through the registration fee, returns on intellectual property of the College, alumni contributions

Skype was founded in 2003.

By 2009, it accounted for 13 percent of all international calls. It has over 521 million users.

Twitter has a projected revenue of $150 million for 2010.

Users can only post messages of up to 140 characters. This format lends itself to “live tweeting”, where updates are posted as events unfold.

Some notable Tweeters include @barackobama, @ladygaga and @trinity_news

WITH 150 days to election day vigourous betting has already begun on who will be the next resident of No. 1 Grafton Street.

At this early stage, it’s difficult to call favourite and many potential contenders have yet to declare their candidacy, Currently, one prominent Trinity academic, Patrick Prendergast, has confirmed his candidacy and another looks likely to do so by the deadline of twelve noon on the 6 December.

At this stage, many pundits suggest that it is a two-horse race between Colm Kearney and Patrick Prendergast, both well-known Trinity professors. Paddy Power is putting Prendergast as the frontrunner at 11/10, followed by Jane Ohlmeyer at 11/8. Dermot Kelleher and Colm Kearney both have reasonable odds at 4/1 and 8/1 respectively while Prof Ferdinand von Prondzynski is the bookies’ wildcard at 33/1.

Mark Moore

AS A second candidate throws his hat into the ring for the upcoming elections, our columnist casts his eye over the issues that will face the 44th Provost, and wonders whether it may be a poisoned chalice

and philanthropic organisations.

With state funding set to be cut and student fees reintroduced, the current funding model is under threat. An alternative system works in Oxbridge and US institutions.

Here, the alumni donate proudly and generously to their alma mater.

Trinity’s Alumni have yet to donate on this scale.

Despite being the country’s top research institution, returns on intellectual property have not been able to plug the shortfall. The other option, to introduce student fees would cause huge resistance. This

is made obvious by the impending student protest which makes clear the Students’ Union’s view on this option. An incoming provost could easily drown in this shallow pool of money.

As well as book-keeping, the Provost has a responsibility as the premier academic leader in the country. Trinity needs to provide national leadership on issues from economic recovery to sustainable development.

We are facing a brain drain and the country is looking to our universities to enable graduates to contribute to an Irish economy. In order to do this the college needs to grow in a responsible, sustainable fashion.

The next Provost will have to spear-head resourcing, planning and management of this model for the decade to come. These complex leadership issues demand a confident, determined and unwavering belief in the College and its potential.

6 NATIONAL NEWS nationalnews@trinitynews.ie

New report highlights drop-out levels

Mathematics scores and scientific or technical courses. Three out of every five students who received a D1 in Higher Level Maths dropped out after first year. One in four students would drop out after first year if they did not receive a pass in Higher Level English.

Points in specific subjects are the best indicators of course progression.

The study found that points achieved in Maths are the strongest indicator of third level progression. Those who achieve 60 percent and above are most likely to continue their studies. High achievement in English was another

significant indicator.

Overall presence at courses offered by both institutes of technology and universities was studied, and it emerged that Irish universities have a drop out rate of nine percent. Female students were seen to be marginally more likely to progress than males, and students from families of professionals were twice as likely to graduate as those students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

There was also a clear difference in drop-out rates across the different kinds of third-level education. While just under one in ten enrollees dropped out of Level 8 courses, a quarter of students studying Higher Certificate and Ordinary Degree courses at institutes of technology drop out.

Of all students in ITs, one in five left before second year. This compares to the UK dropout rate of 7.4 percent in

maintenance grants and the effect of State cuts on the ability of students’ to continue in third-level education.

The USI comments, “High dropout rates in third-level education are inherently reflective of an inefficient system, but compounding this issue is the millions that are spent on students who will never graduate.

These statistics also serve as a threat to colleges that are facing penalties of reduced funding if they do not meet specified targets”.

Now the country waits for the finding of the Hunt Report chaired by economist Dr Colin Hunt. So far, the group has stated that increased funding is necessary as well as the possible introduction of third-level fees.

11% 8%

9% 9% 9% 7%

6%

Other

“There is a mismatch between the skills required ... and the competencies of students enrolling.”

Trinity had the lowest recorded drop-out rate, at eight percent.

This is in line with the finding that Leaving Certificate results have a direct effect on drop out rates, as Trinity also had the highest proportion of students with above 550 points.

Below are the drop out rates by field of study in Trinity.

In keeping with the findings across the board, Computer Science has the highest drop-out rate of all disciplines, nearly twice that of Education.

A spokesperson from the Computer Science Department was unavailable for comment at the time of going to print.

Computer Science

“High dropout rates in third-level education are inherently reflective of an inefficient system.”

DROP-OUT RATES IN TRINITY

Engineering excl. civil

Annual Report of the Higher Education Authority 2009

Science

A NEW report issued by the HEA outlines a direct correlation between Leaving Certificate scores and students continuing third-level education.

The findings show that a student’s prior education attainments are the main influence on whether the student remains enrolled in their course. Students who achieve points in the 350-400 range have the highest drop-out rate, whilst those with the highest Leaving Certificate points are most likely to progress to second year.

Students in profession courses such as Medicine and Law were the least likely to drop out, with just two of every 100 dropping out of Medicine.

The connection between Leaving Certificate results and continued study is most pronounced between

2007 and in the US, where one in three students fails to obtain a degree.

Computer science had the highest non-attendance rate at 29 percent.

The report comments: “The prior attainment in Mathematics of new entrants to Computer Science is low considering that similar mental skills are required across both disciplines”.

In response to this statistic, the HEA said, “There is a serious mismatch between the skills required to successfully undertake a higher education course in science and technology with the competencies of students enrolling on such courses.”

The Union of Students in Ireland has reacted to these statistics by renewing emphasis on student

Business, Law & Arts

Staff Reporter

At university level, the report found no significant differences in non-progression odds across age groups and by gender.

It also noted that, statistically, at university level receiving a grant does not have a significant impact on whether or not a student will progress.

Healthcare

Ciara Anderson

FOCUS ON: TRINITY’S RESULTS

Education

ffHEA report finds Computer Science has highest drop out rate, Medicine students have the lowest drop-out rate ffTrinity take the most students with Leaving Certificate results of 550 points and above, the report revealed

Taoiseach makes calls for austerity measures Alex Canepa Staff Writer

LAST WEEK Taoiseach Brian Cowen stated before the Dáil the need for fiscal austerity measures. Cowen and the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, maintain that aggressive front-loading would significantly strengthen the country’s balance sheets in the coming four years.

The fiscal budget has unsettled members of the USI, which claims the Government plans to increase the Student Charge to €3000 next academic year. The Union is fronting an “Education not Emigration” campaign in protest against government cuts.

According to the proposed budget, the specifics of which will be unveiled in the coming weeks, the government plans a budgetary adjustment of ¤15bn over the next four years in an effort to reduce the fiscal “Joan Burton claimed that Cowen was “adverse to new ideas, and to changes”, and that Ireland needs “realistic, fresh hope”. deficit and restore confidence in the Irish economy. Cowen has revealed the budgetary adjustment will largely take the form of direct public sector cuts.

The new round of proposed cuts comes on the heels of a meeting between the Finance Minister and the EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, in which Rehn expressed the need for Ireland to reduce its budget deficit from its current 14.4 percent to 3 percent by 2014 in order comply with EU rules. It is likely that an official budget will be unveiled after Rehn visits Dublin in early November to discuss specifics with the cabinet and opposition leaders.

Lenihan told journalists on Tuesday last that the projected deficit reduction assumes

an annual growth rate of 2.75 percent. The Minister went on to note that a proactive attempt to improve Ireland’s balance sheet would not only bring Ireland into compliance with the EU Commission, but would assure international credit markets of Ireland’s solvency and fiscal security.

Minister for Tourism and Sport Mary Hanafin noted that no department would be immune from cuts, even going as far as to indicate that reductions in child benefits were possible. The Government’s proposed cuts accompany the UK’s controversial and highly publicised austerity measures in which the new coalition government plans to cut £81bn (¤93bn) over the next four years. Although the UK cuts have not taken full effect, some economists have warned that drastic government cuts might produce a double-dip recession.

However, this claim is refuted by strong numbers coming out of London. This week showed better than projected financial sector growth in the UK (Moody’s, Standard & Poor), strengthening the case made by Fianna Fáil and the British coalition government for the efficacy of austerity in the face of recession.

Cowen’s proposed cuts are not without critics. Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore, has accused the Government of not furnishing all available data and budget projections to the opposition during recent briefings, and commented on a significant “lack of information” regarding the specifics of the cuts and how they would numerically reduce the deficit.

In a more general attack, expressing much of the opposition’s frustration, Labour Party spokeswoman Joan Burton claimed that Cowen was “adverse to new ideas, and to changes” insisting that the people of Ireland need “realistic, fresh hope that turns this economy around”. The final budget is expected in early November, after Commissioner Rehn’s visit and the continued negotiations between the Government and the opposition.

TRINITY NEWS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS 7 internationalnews@trinitynews.ie

Parisian pension protests escalate

COMMENT ON: TRINITY ABROAD

On her year out in sunny California, Kate Kennnedy writes about life in UC Berkeley.

Aine Penello Contributing Writer

On Tuesday 19 October, three hundred French students barricaded the road at the Place de la République in Paris, chanting and throwing bottles at police. Objecting to the government’s proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, students as young as 15 have joined the nationwide demonstration movement.

If signed into law, the pension reform will come into effect in 2018 and will raise full pension payment rights from the age of 65 to 67.

“It’s impossible to think of working that long,” 15-year-old Julie Allard told the BBC at Tuesday’s protest.

16-year-old Cassandra from Bel Orme High School made a similar remark at a protest in Bordeaux as she told reporters, “I don’t want to die at work”.

Students are also concerned about the worsening effect such pension reform will have on youth unemployment and the poor if older generations are forced to hold onto their jobs for an extra two years.

“It’s hard enough to get jobs

already, so they will make people work longer and do nothing about youth unemployment,” student Florent Soubier explained.

While demonstrations have been ongoing since September, it is only in the past month that students have joined trade unionist protests. This includes three national protests on October 12, 16 and 19, each of which were attended by 3 to 3.5 million people, according to union estimates. However there has been much uncertainty surrounding these figures, with French police reporting much lower estimates of 800,000 to 1.2 million, while the General Confederation of Labour estimated that over 5 million people have attended the protests, roughly equivalent to eight percent of the French metropolitan population.

For some of the younger partakers it is their first protest, with media outlets reporting high school students shouting at police only to retreat excitedly to their friends. Other students, such as 16-year-old Victor Colombani, have demonstrated a more serious approach to the issue.

“The government is trying to ruin

all our prospects,” said Colombani, President of the National Union of Student. “Extending the age of retirement means reducing almost a million jobs for young people. We call for a fairer reform that takes into account years of study and periods of forced unemployment for young people.”

With his approval rates at an alltime low of 29 percent, Nicolas Sarkozy has defended the pension reform as necessary if future generations hope to receive any government pension.

The reform is also part of a number of measures to counter the country’s growing deficit. However with polls indicating 70 percent of the public in favour of the strikes, the French government appears to be fighting an unpopular battle.

Up to 379 high schools were closed or barricaded by students on 19 October to encourage peers to take to the streets in protest. Students closed Turgot High School in Paris Thursday morning, October 21 following a student union vote. The students sat in the middle of the street, blocking traffic while some sang songs and chanted slogans as

police looked on.

While this and other student protests including a 4000 strong march in Paris remained peaceful, there were numerous clashes between students and riot police in Lyon on Thursday, 22 October.

Police used water cannon and tear gas as students threw bottles and overturned cars. A 16-year old student almost lost an eye when police used rubber flash-ball pellets to disperse a protest in the Parisian suburb of Montreuil.

President Sarkozy, who condemned the clashes as “scandalous”, said rioters would be “stopped, tracked, down and punished, in Lyon and elsewhere, with no weakness”. According to The Guardian, 1400 youths from the ages of 14 to 20 had been arrested by 20 October.

So far, 1200 of France’s 4300 students aged 15 to 18 attended the demonstrations France’s second largest high school union. Although the bill is due to be signed into law Wednesday 27 October, experienced trade unionists are hopeful the actions of student protestors will make a difference.

Language curbs spark student unrest Monika Urbanski Staff Reporter

AT LEAST 1000 students took to the streets of China’s western Qinghai province last month in a rare protest against curbs on using their language in schools. The protests were caused by educational reforms already implemented in other parts of the Tibetan plateau, which order all subjects to be taught in Chinese and all textbooks to be written in Chinese, except for Tibetan language and English classes.

Protests like this by groups such as Free Tibet are commonplace outside China but rare within the country’s borders.

The protests spread around other Tibetan communities and finally reached Beijing on October 22 demanding “Equality of People, Freedom of Language”. According to the Los Angeles Times a witness who did not wish to be identified said 200 to 300 students participated in the two-hour protest at midday in Beijing, after which the president of the university and teachers called them into classrooms and asked them to write out their complaints in Chinese.

“Chinese law says that ethnic minorities have the right to study their mother tongue first in school, that’s why the students are angry,” says Xiong Kunxin, a professor at the Central University of Minorities in Beijing. As a source told Radio Free Asia, a major concern for Tibetans is that “if this plan is implemented, many Tibetan teachers will loose their jobs, and many Chinese will gain

2 November, 2010

jobs in their place.” The widespread protests over language reveal the deep resentment for policies formulated by the Han, China’s dominant ethnic group.

The protests all remained peaceful and students returned to their classes shortly after the protests, although it was reported by the Tibet Post International that twenty Tibetan students were detained by Chinese authorities following protests in several counties in Amdho region, eastern Tibet. China following the first demonstrations. Police and plainclothes security officials were stationed at several bilingual middle schools and high schools.

Nevertheless, hundreds and possibly thousands of students marched in peaceful protests.

Exiled students have also lended their support. In solidarity with the Tibetan school students’ ongoing protest in Tibet, over 655 Tibetan students from three major schools of Bylakuppe staged a Candle Light Vigil protest against the Chinese government’s new restrictions.

A senior student gave an introductory speech and stressed the need to support the protests in Tibet by the exiled school students.

Filmmaker Ngwang Choephel completed “Tibet in Song” after spending six and a half years in prison following his arrest by the Chinese government for espionage.

The subject of his film is the native music of his homeland and claims that from the 1950s China’s communist regime has sought to eradicate Tibet’s

indigenous culture.

Support like this is important for the students marching against the changes to the educational system.

The Dalai Lama himself continues speaking to students all over the world, promoting the 21st century as

the “century of dialogue”. The October protests have been the largest in Tibetan areas since thew March 2008 uprising.

But unlike those protests, these have been peaceful and are hoped to remain that way.

I ADMIT my research exclusively involved the weather report when packing for my year abroad at Berkeley University in California. On arrival I was told Berkeley is home to the Free Speech Movement of 1964 and the state’s award winning frozen yoghurt.

Nicknamed “Bezerkely” for its radicalism it lives up to the bohemianism the other states associate with Northern California. Twenty minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge, “The Berkeley Bubble” is a campus university that swallows the town and splits its residents into three categories.

First you’ve got your hipsters. Yes – the empty frame-wearing, fixiebike-riders are not only exclusive to East London. They sip their soya milk clutching the newest David Edgar novel, avoiding the sun and balancing a banjo.

Next come the athletes-by-day and Fraternity-menaces-by-night. These scholarship Sportsmen enjoy their VIP queues in the stationary shops, private tuition and pick of the sorority’s crème de la crème. Dressed in “Cal” sports gear they have decks of collectible cards with their faces on them, and they tear through the cafeteria’s roasted chicken like it was the Day after Tomorrow. Finally, there are the hobos. The homeless, overwhelmingly friendly panhandlers of Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley’s main street that offers everything from hair-braiding to foot-binding. Ray Charles hobos will perform a ditty for a dollar outside the Asian Ghetto (Berkeley’s answer to Harcourt Diner) while harbingers will compose a poetry slam for you by the time you return from class. Whether a grimy tree-hugging eccentric, a tree-trunk-thighed quarterback, or a free traveller pushing a booze-filled trolley, the citizens of Berkeley all have a common thought on their mind this October: Prop 19, the legalisation of Marijuana.

On 2 November the State of California will vote on whether to legalise various marijuana-related activities, thus allowing local councils to regulate and impose taxes on these activities. It proposes that adults can to grow up to 25 square feet of cannabis and possess up to an ounce.

My handbag is overflowing with flyers I’ve been fed with over the time I’ve been here and the average conversation will eventually lead to repetitively listing the pros and cons of discussion-topic-dictator proposition 19. 113 million dollars is spent on marijuana in the US every year despite the 40 billion dollars used to prevent the use of it. Legalising it will allegedly solve the mountains of debt California has accumulated.

Nevertheless, the best argument I have heard in the three months I have been here now, came from a young, moustached man squatting in one of the “Co-Ops”, or community houses.

When I asked him what he thought about the proposition he answered, “Well if Gary Johnson is for it, so am I! ‘Whatya talkin’ ‘bout Willis? Man, I love that guy.”

Gary Johnson is the former New Mexico Governor and not the child-star Gary Coleman from Diff’rent Strokes.

Come 2 November whichever category of Berkeley resident you fall under, the law is in your hands.

Although perhaps there is hope: California Governor Schwarzenegger said that the legalisation of pot would make California a “laughing stock.”

This comes from a man who got knocked up by Danny De Vito.

8 NEWS FEATURES newsfeatures@trinitynews.ie

Recession continues to put children onto the streets Virginia Furness Staff Writer

Youth homelessness soars as new figures report that nearly 800 children were in need of emergency accommodation last year. Up to a quarter of these children were under 12.

Figures compiled by the Health Service Executive recorded 785 children were homeless in 2009. Of these, 705 were from Dublin and 80 from other parts of Ireland.

Although many take refuge in emergency hostels and other temporary residential services, a large number are at significant risk, sleeping rough on the streets and bedding-down in hospitals and Garda stations.

Despite significant investment from both the Government and private charities to tackle the problem of youth homelessness, numbers have risen sig-

nificantly since 2004 when the number fell to 495 following the launch of the Irish Government’s policy: “Homelessness – An Integrated Strategy” in May 2000.

From this the Homeless Preventative Strategy was launched in February 2002 with vision that: “By 2010, long-term homelessness and the need for people to sleep rough will be eliminated in Dublin.”

Figures suggest, however, that this vision is yet to be realised. “Counted In” the most recent periodic assessment of homelessness, which was conducted by the Homeless Agency, recorded 2015 homeless people in the Greater Dublin area.

Children are equally at risk. Figures show that over the past three years, numbers of homeless children have reached significant heights with 800 in 2008 and 831 in 2007.

The recent downturn in the economy is thought to be one of the major causal factors behind such an increase. The Dublin Simon Community, which was founded in 1969 by a group of Trinity and UCD students and works to prevent and address homelessness in Dublin, identifies poverty, housing “This is about children’s lives. They have to have their needs met or they will be damaged” shortages and the high cost of private rented accommodation as three of the major factors leading to homelessness.

Youth homelessness is frequently linked with these causes of adult homelessness which result in whole families being unable to find or afford appro-

priate accommodation. However, it is often the case that children are forced out alone from an unstable or abusive home.

The Health Service Executive’s Youth Homelessness Strategy identifies domestic violence, neglect and parental illness as several of the factors which cause a child to leave home.

Drug and alcohol abuse as well as mental instability are also highlighted as key problems.

Research suggests that a lack of funding, combined with limited staffing in the voluntary sector is making it very difficult to tackle the fundamental problems of homelessness. Short-term solutions such as drop-in centres and soup kitchens, though invaluable, simply cannot address the problems faced by the lack of suitable and affordable accommodation.

Focus Ireland highlights the need for

aftercare: “When the term in care ends, every effort should be made in helping the young person re-integrate into their community”.

Ineke Durville, president of the Irish Association of Social Care Workers, told The Irish Times that many of these children had very complex needs which require more support and structure. “This is about children’s lives.

They are young for a very short period of time and they have to have their needs met or they will be damaged.”

Health authorities highlight that an emergency fostering service has been established to ensure accommodation can be sourced at any time of day and night yet for the quarter of homeless children under the age of 12 is this a likely or a viable solution? Lack of awareness or an inability to communicate is likely to prevent this option from being a working, immediate solution.

Is it time for a change of prescription?

Ireland is one of only two countries in the EU that doesn’t have emergency contraception available over the counter. Has the time come to re-examine the situation?

Rachael McKeown Contributing Writer

Emergency contraception is called emergency contraception for a reason. Women who want to obtain the morning after pill but fail to do so may end up with an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy.

And while family planning, contraception and sex have been hot topics in Ireland for decades, interestingly, there has been very little progress in facilitating easier access to something as crucial as emergency contraception.

Ireland is one of only two countries in the European Union that doesn’t h a v e e m e r g e n c y contraception available over the counter, yet a

2006 survey concluded that 52 percent of men and 42 percent of women believe that the morning after pill should be available. Why isn’t it?

There are two very opposing sides to this debate. The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU), that represents 1800 community pharmacies in Ireland, have sought to be able to offer their customers an over the counter service for emergency contraception and their desire to be licensed to sell emergency contraception is more than just a question of financial gain for the pharmacies.

Research by the Irish family planning association (IFPA) has shown that alarmingly, almost 50 percent of women obtaining the morning-after pill do so outside the optimal 24-hour time frame. The Cathal Brugha Street clinic conducted a study in 2008 finding that 54 percent of women took the morningafter pill within 24 hours, a staggering 35 percent took it between 24 and 48 hours, and 11 percent took it after 48 hours or more. Despite the fact that it is licensed for 72 hours, emergency contraception is at its most effective within the first 24-hour period and after that its effectiveness declines by the hour.

Critics argue that the entire point of women having to go through a GP is so they will receive proper counsel and have their options explained to them.

The IPU however argues that Irish

pharmacists have the skills to provide women with this appropriate advice.

In order for the morning-after pill to be sold over the counter it is up to the drug companies themselves to apply for an over-the-counter license from the Irish Medical Board, yet they continue not to do so. HRA Pharma, which

A 2006 survey concluded that 52 percent of men and 42 percent of women believe that the morning after pill should be available. Why isn’t it? distributes Norlevo, one of two contraceptive morning-after pills sold in Ireland, said that they felt there simply wasn’t enough demand. Bayer Schering Pharma who manufacture the second, Levonelle, said they had no plans to seek an over-the-counter license as they believe that despite its prescription-only status, access to emergency contraception was not limited in Ireland, a statement that perhaps many

women will dispute. In the vast majority of cases, women need an emergency appointment at the weekend, when GP offices are closed, not at the favourable hour of a weekday morning. Women must then resort to trying to get an appointment at significantly more expensive weekend clinics.

Critics have argued that easier access to emergency contraception will encourage unhealthy sexual behavior, yet in the United Kingdom there is no evidence of this. According to the British Medical Journal, there has been no increase in use of emergency contraception since its introduction as an over-the-counter pill.

This polarised debate on whether emergency contraception should be available without prescription is likely to rage for a long time. Many are of the belief that having a GP as a vehicle to emergency contraception is both antiquated and another symptom of “ripoff Ireland”. Others feel it in the best interest of women’s sexual and reproductive health to discuss their situation with a licensed medical doctor.

In reality, whether the morning after pill will become readily available without prescription will depend on the Irish Medical Board and whether it will ever allow the pharmaceutical companies to obtain an over-the-counter license.

Animal cruelty exposed by bizarre wallaby abuse Manus Lenihan Deputy News Features Editor

Mystery surrounds a bizarre incident of animal cruelty that occurred at a thirtieth birthday party in the Clarion Hotel in West Dublin in mid-October.

A video, circulated on Facebook and played on RTÉ news on Tuesday 19, showed a knee-high marsupial on a crowded dancefloor, being manhandled and thrown around, before a party-goer grabs the struggling animal and pretends to have sex with it – all while the theme song to “Skippy the Bush Kangaroo” blares from speakers.

“You know how the Irish people drink.

They can see anything” – Scholl This video and the testimony of staff and party-goers are among the only sources of information we have on the incident. The animal, believed to be a wallaby or else a very small kangaroo, is widely reported to have died follow-

ing its ordeal. Whether this rumour is true, and what exactly it died of, is in dispute. Some say that the animal was fed alcohol and died as a result. Leaving aside drugs and drink, speculation that the shock of the loud and crowded nightclub environment might have been enough to harm the animal seriously was backed up by the DSPCA. The Metro furthered in a headline the unconfirmed rumour that the marsupial was killed by ecstasy.

The animal was brought into the party either in a box or on a leash, and by one account, it was brought in the first place because Australian Super Circus Sydney had no monkeys. The circus was pitched just 500 metres away from the Clarion hotel. The circus’ owner, Alexander Scholl, insists that both of his wallabies are alive and well and that he would never let them go clubbing. Scholl went on to suggest, on RTÉ’s Liveline, that the animal might in fact have been a man in a kangaroo suit. “You know how the Irish people drink,” he said, “they can see anything.” His second explanation is that the partygoers could have gotten the wallaby anywhere.

This is true. To traffic and abuse exotic animals is in fact quite easy in Ireland. A cursory look at the pets section of donedeal.ie shows us a pair of infant bearded dragon lizards for sale for €60 and, a bit higher up the price range, a pair of dingoes for €1250. While dogowners need a license in Ireland, owners of exotic animals – some of which, including wallabies, are bred within these borders – need put up with no such regulation.

Scholl’s brother Martin is on trial in England for drugging two dogs, and questions have been asked about Scholl’s circus before, notably when, in Antrim in 2007, an elephant died mysteriously and was incinerated before the police could examine the body.

A new angle was thrown on the story on October 24 when the Irish Mail on Sunday published a picture from last year of Scholl in a club holding a wallaby. Scholl’s wife Yvette insisted that the whole wallaby incident had been an attempt by animal rights activists to smear the circus. Scholl himself, however, stuck to the “man in a costume” explanation, which is sounding less convincing with every photograph.

TRINITY NEWS

SOCIETY 9 society@trinitynews.ie

COMMENT

Climb me to the moon Christine Shields Society Editor

OVER THE bank holiday weekend, the DU Climbing Club brought around 40 eager members off to the Burren in County Clare for a spot of climbing.

We were all lumped on a coach at 6:00 pm, and spent the four-hour-long journey eating Dip Dabs and Shocker bars, playing “Flames” and other games reminiscent of our schooldays, and plotting how to win the comfiest caravan with the largest beds and water which wouldn’t taste like mould.

Fanore Caravan Park is actually featured in “Father Ted”. You remember the episode where they all go on a summer holiday and Father Noel Furlong (played by Graham Norton) freaks them all out with ghost stories? Well, it’s the same gorgeous old caravan park, still alive and kicking, especially after the Climbing Club hit it!

As usual, the freshers’ caravan was the party caravan (unbeknownst to the innocent freshers, of course), and we all happily trooped there after dinner with bottles of trusty Buckfast and gin to avail of the usual Burren climbing trip drinking and game-playing.

“Moods” featured a fair bit – a game where you randomly pick a sentence and a mood from two piles, then repeat the sentence whilst in that mood or scenario. One unfortunate critter had to act out “giving birth to a horse” whilst repeating “my daddy loves me”, a rather hilariously unfortunate combination.

There followed a game of Twister, with the unusual twist of playing with the mat on the table top. Some were sweetly concerned for their own and everyone else’s safety, but the climbers, chiming in unison, said they were well able to leap like gazelles around a spindly table-top, and it was nothing to hanging by your pinky from a knife-sharp cliff edge with the wind roaring, rain spilling, rope stretching and muscles straining.

“As expected, we had the lot: inebriation, nudity, pandemonium, shifting, scoring and dance moves which will, hopefully, never again resurface.”

However, the weather over the weekend was surprisingly delightful! For the Burren, which is usually bombarded with horizontal rain and (no joke) gale-force winds, it could even be described as heavenly. Two gorgeous, cloud-free days and one slightly colder final

The headaches were considerably worsened by the traditional celebration of the change of hour to Greenwich Mean Time, which always falls on the weekend of the Burren trip, with an epic midnight countdown, much banging of pots and pans and generally more consumption than usual of our choice of poison.

It is an unspoken rule that anything unusual which happens in this extra special witching hour remains strictly within the walls of the caravan wherein it occurred, and must never be spoken of or referred to again. As expected, we had the lot: inebriation, nudity, pandemonium, shifting, scoring and dance moves which will, hopefully, never again resurface.

The following morning, you can imagine everyone’s aghast, pale faces when we realised that the hour had not changed, we were one weekend early, and that our licentiousness and revelry were completely and utterly alien, unjustifiable and therefore inexcusable. We hung our heavy heads in shame and continued with the climbing. The trip home featured “Mrs Doubtfire” (in DVD form) and many happily exhausted, climbed-out climbers.

Diwali to delight Trinity’s students Udai Dhamija President, TCD Indian Society

THIS YEAR, the Indian Society aims to entertain and charm its members, indulging them with the cultural diversity and excitement of India through a whole host of celebrations and opportunities. This Michaelmas term, the Indian Society will be collaborating with the South East Asian Society to celebrate the traditional Festival of Lights, Diwali, in November.

This festival is based on the epic story of the ancient Ramayana, and is extremely important in Asian communities, especially those which have roots in and around the

2 November, 2010

Indian subcontinent. Ram, one of the major gods worshipped by Hindus, is an avatar of Vishnu, who is also important in Mahayana Buddhism. The religious festival celebrates the return of Ram and Sita from exile to Ayodhya, after a long war concerning the return of Dharma to the world, and the return from captivity of Sita from the hands of Raavan in Lanka. Their return was celebrated by the lighting of the city with diyas (candles) paying tribute to Sita, the avatar goddess of Lakshmi.

People today celebrate the festival by lighting their houses with candles inside and out.

They perform Lakshmi puja (a Hindu prayer), opening all doors and windows so that the goddess can enter the house. The goddess Lakshmi has particular associations with wealth and fortune, hence the warm welcome offered to her by those who worship.

The festival is somewhat like the Christian Christmas, as Hindus exchange gifts and meet up with family and friends to enjoy the illuminated night sky. Fireworks have long been a part of the celebration (sadly not in Dublin, though), as has the tradition of people playing cards and gambling.

Our societies decided, in celebration of the festival, to provide students with a two-day experience of Diwali. The first will fall on 4 November, the eve of Diwali, as we host an event in Messrs Maguire beside O’Connell Bridge, where there will be food and refreshments. Both societies are focusing on creating and strengthening Trinity’s sense of community and encouraging students from all walks of life to come together and generally have a

Despite an innate distrust of “going to things”, MARK WALSH dabbles with raw fish and wasabi sauce, before throwing his sushi-making towel in the bucket

I HAD the best intentions for this issue. I said I’d be a good little social diarist, and that I’d go to loads of things. The problem with going to things is that most things are shit. So I chose the one that seemed the easiest and required the least effort: I went to a DU Food and Drink Society sushi-making night.

I’ve been watching that Karl Pilkington show, “An Idiot Abroad”, where they send him to places he desperately doesn’t want to be. It’s really good. So I chose a sushi event because I had never eaten sushi before, and I thought it’d be better if I attend things that I’m not entirely comfortable with.

I wasn’t quite sure what sushi actually was. I’d heard it was raw fish, which obviously made me uneasy. I also did not know how to use chopsticks.

Everyone was due to meet in Regent House at 7:00 pm. There was a surprising number of people there. A lot of them seemed to be Erasmus students.

I assumed that perhaps they attend a lot of events as a way to meet people. But maybe it’s just that sushi is more popular in other countries. Who knows?

I was waiting to talk to the girl organising the thing, so she could tick my name on the list. I ended up standing uncomfortably close to a girl I didn’t know during this waiting period. I decided to be a nice guy and start a conversation with her – without any sort of sexual motivation. She was a Ger-

Climbing Club held their annual trip to Ailladie in the Burren during the bank holiday. Photos by Claire Hardy and Søren Kristian Jensen

day consituted perfect climbing conditions.

I myself was unable to climb at Ailladie owing to a very nasty burn I received on all the fingers of my right hand from leaning on a very hot electric hob (ever the epitome of intelligence, me), so I had to settle for watching from below the miracle that is climbing, marvelling at the skill and patience of the more experienced climbers (they are practically mountain goats) and smirking slightly, despite my own complete lack of skill, at the rather more ungraceful attempts of others trying to scale the vertical mass of slippery, slimy, sharp, cold limestone.

Due to my unfortunate little accident with my fingers, and headache after the Saturday night Hallowe’en party, I remained in and around the caravan park on Sunday, daring to venture only so far as the beach, where I and three others built a town of sandcastles and went for a swim in the freezing Atlantic Ocean.

Suffice it to say that this succeeded in purging us of the horrendous hangovers we had all obtained from the fancy dress Hallowe’en party the previous night.

This Charmless Man

“The festival is somewhat like the Christian Christmas, as Hindus exchange gifts and meet up with family and friends to enjoy the illuminated night sky. ” good time. We’re also working with the Cards Society to host a poker tournament, where some of the money gained goes to charity (the charities we have chosen are Flood Relief and Save The Tigers).

On the next day, 5 November (the day of Diwali), we plan to host a Lakshmi puja which all are welcome to attend, and there will be a movie afterwards.

So far this year, the Indian Society have had an Indian banquet night, with a tasty Indian buffet, and an hilarious chilli-eating competition with prizes. We also kickstarted our monthly Indian cinema night with the movie “Three Idiots”, one of the highest grossing films of all time in Bollywood.

This November we plan to celebrate Diwali in style, as well as Eid (a Muslim celebration), kabadi (India’s old national sport) and henna classes to which all are welcome.

If you like the sound of any of these events, or would like to get involved, contact Udai Dhamija at dhamijau@tcd.ie

“I read the following: ‘Costume IS compulsory (we will attack you with face paint and worse if you come unadorned in Rocky Horror getup).’ No thanks, mate.” man girl on Erasmus, studying business and something else. I got excited because I do business, so we were probably in some of the same classes. Surely we were. Nope! There are six business options. The three I do were the three she didn’t do. So then my friend arrived, and German girl’s friends arrived, and we never spoke again, and we never will. It’s for the best anyway. I’d only have accidentally done some sort of Basil-Fawlty-style “war” joke and there’d be a huge fight and some form of violence. I know enough people anyway; I’ve too many birthdays to attend as it is.

The sushi night cost five euros. There was fancy soup aplenty: two choices, salty and spicy. Naturally I chose salty, because I really love salt. There was also tofu in it. I was excited at this because I’ve always wanted to try tofu ever since I was a child and watched the cartoon “Doug”, in which there was a song called “Killer Tofu”, sung by “The Beets”.

We were then ushered around a guy who told us all about sushi and how it’s made. It was actually quite interesting. As interesting as a relatively boring subject can be made, anyway.

A few things were passed around for us to examine: a roll of sushi, and a big bowl of wasabi sauce.

When the sushi roll made it back to the guy, he remarked how nobody had eaten any of it. Of course we hadn’t eaten any of the thing! It had been passed around and handled by God knows how many people. Did he really expect someone to just bite a chunk out of it before passing it on to the next person? Wasabi sauce is minging. People say it smells awful, but tastes fine when mixed in with the sushi.

I’m not sure I buy into that.

After the demonstration, people were asked to go up in groups of four to make their own sushi. There were 60 people there, so it would have taken a long time for everyone to get a go at making their own.

Naturally, I left. Going home to watch “The Inbetweeners” is way better than sitting around like a chump in the vain hope of making some of my own sushi.

Overall, it was a nice evening. Probably would have been better if they’d allowed less people, so everyone could have had a turn and it wouldn’t have been so packed. Everyone involved in Food and Drink seems to be really lovely and nice, to the point that it makes me feel guilty about just being a normal amount of nice.

I was also invited to a “Rocky Horror Halloween Party”, by DU Food and Drink and LGBT. I was considering attending, and was reading through the Facebook event page. Then I read the following sentence: “Costume IS compulsory (we will attack you with face paint and worse if you come unadorned in Rocky Horror get-up).” No thanks, mate.

So, instead of dressing up like a bell-end, I stayed at home and wore rubbish old tracksuit bottoms and was really comfortable all night. Living the dream.

See more from Mark at www.walsho.net

10 FEATURES INTERVIEW

Q&A with the JCR

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or many students, both residents and non-residents of Trinity Hall, the purpose and exploits of the Junior Common Room (JCR) is somewhat of a mystery. Yes, their logo appears perpetually emblazoned across flyers for nights out, but what else, aside from organising debauched trips to clubs does this strange entity involve itself with? What does the 40-euro tariff that all Hall residents are required to pay go towards? And how do you go about getting involved with it?

There is no one better placed to answer these questions than current JCR President, Plunkett McCullagh.

McCullagh, a 20-year-old economics and maths student born and educated in Omagh, took up the reins of the JCR this year. When we meet he appears to have his eyes firmly on the ball, and from talking to Halls residences also seems universally popular – no mean feat given the breadth of his brief.

How did you first get involved with the JCR? For me, it started with music. I’d always been involved with music at school and in college and I wanted to get involved with developing the musical facilities in Halls. A few of my friends were also running, so I thought I’d have a go. Running was a harder process than I imagined, but I learnt a great deal and would encourage others to get stuck in.

“If getting elected to the JCR was all about popularity, these things wouldn’t have got done.”

What do you say to people that see JCR elections as a mere popularity contest?

I’d say that, although obviously the amount of friends you have helps in the campaign, Halls residents aren’t stupid and expect there to be more substance. I got elected on a threepoint manifesto which promised to develop the music room [completed with €18,000 of investment over the summer], introduce a “Halls Has Got Talent” competition and a musical. I’m proud to say we’ve achieved all three. If it was all about popularity, these things wouldn’t have got done.

How easy has it been to implement the changes you wanted to?

Very difficult. Quite rightly there is a rigid structure and there are lots of hoops to jump through before finance can be secured. First you’ve to get the Warden’s approval, then that of the Accommodation Office, then the Buildings Office. It’s time consuming and frustrating and to be honest could do with being streamlined.

How much money does the JCR receive and how is it spent?

The main aim of the JCR is to make people’s time in Halls as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. Unlike in the past, each resident must make a mandatory €40 donation at the start of the year. This gives us a budget of around €38,000, of which around 25 percent is spent on organising events and the remainder spread over the sports, welfare and music budgets. I personally think that the tariff is at the perfect level at the moment; I feel that, with all the stuff we organise, residents get extremely good value for money and those who complain aren’t getting involved enough.

students a lot. Having an open and frank dialogue between the JCR and the SU means not only that nights out don’t clash, but also that we can come together on issues that matter to students. Just as a student, I think that the website, emails and leafleting from the SU have been class.

What is the JCR’s relationship with the Warden and Assistant Wardens like?

It’s definitely a working relationship.

I’ve been living in Halls for long enough to have made quite decent friends with some of the Assistant Wardens; but with Brendan [Tagney, the Warden of Trinity Hall] it’s more about compromise. We realise that residents will suffer if we don’t get along so do our best. Every member of the JCR is a volunteer and pays full rates to live in Halls. Do we get special treatment? No, definitely not. I got fined €50 for hosting a party last year: not even the JCR is above the law!

What is the JCR’s stance on the forthcoming funding protests?

JCR and I are 100 percent behind the SU’s stance. I’m not naïve enough to think that cuts don’t have to be made and I’m definitely of the opinion that if you want something you have to pay for it, but all too often students are seen as a soft target, which is short-sighted to say the least. In collaboration with the SU we’re organising a placard-painting evening in Halls today, so that students can come and find about the cuts and get ready for what is going to be a really productive protest on Wednesday.

What kind of relationship does the JCR have with the Students’ Union Ents crew?

This year the relationship has been very good which has benefited

What are the positives and negatives about being on the JCR? Of course, it’s very time consuming.

I’ve taken a sabbatical because I didn’t think I’d be able to juggle my

own academic studies and the college experiences of the one thousand residents in Halls. But the positives far outweigh the negatives. I’ve learnt a huge amount about running an organisation, developed my people skills and made a load of great friends in the process. In my opinion, getting involved with JCR or the SU is the best way to truly experience college life.

Finally, if you could change one thing, what would improve Halls and College?

I’d try to change people’s attitudes towards getting stuck into things. Of the one thousand residents in Halls, perhaps only two or three hundred regularly attend our events. It can’t be because we’re not putting on the right events because those who do come all seem to have a great time, I think it’s just that people can be quite reserved.

I came to Trinity not knowing a single person and the only way I made friends was by throwing myself into loads of activities.

As the Warden says, “The friends you make at college are the ones who’ll come to your wedding, divorce and funeral.”

COMMENT

Sex, drugs and rock and roll? How passé Isabelle Darcy examines the changing definition of acceptable behaviour expected from rock stars and lead singers

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hat is it that unites the founding fathers of rock (Jagger, Hendrix, Plant and others)? Is it that they were all extraordinarily gifted musicians? Is it that they are all hopeless perfectionists? Is it, as one psychologist suggests, that they all descended from Aztec artists? Probably not. In my opinion, the unshakeable foundations of any of yesteryear’s rock stars was an unrelenting desire to entertain and stimulate an audience.

In almost all cases, this was achieved

through what US military generals would term “shock and awe”: they set their guitars on fire, they swore at policeman, and Keith Richards even snorted his dead father’s ashes. For decades, the bands that were producing tremendous music produced havoc in equal measure. The phrase “rock ’n’ roll” rarely appears without the preface of “sex, drugs and…”.

But this seems to have changed. Gone are the days when a lead singer would perform an entire concert while lying down owing to intense hallucinations, and (perhaps more importantly) gone are the days that the crowd would cheer as he or she did so.

Developments in the music industry itself are the first port of call when trying to lay blame or give thanks for the shift in the rock paradigm.

Firstly, with the expansion of online music networking (MySpace and others) and the drastic reduction in sales of physical, legal records, musicians wanting to make a buck or two have been forced to sign to big labels such as Sony and Universal whose promotion departments (and

hence tour resources) and better online catchment make them the best way to make money out of making music.

This is detrimental on many levels but most importantly it means that artists must abandon any onstage or offstage naughtiness and focus purely on making profitable records, lest they be discarded into the toxic receptacle of rockers past; by today’s standards, a band is doing exceptionally well to reach a fourth album, while the recently deceased Gregory Isaacs released nearly 500. With this in mind artists yearning for bigger bank balances have been forced to toe a more conventional line. Self-proclaimed “saviour of rock music” and part-time musician, Jared Leto (of angry crooners 30 Seconds to Mars), is one example of the fickle nature of today’s so-called rock stars. Leto, who once sang of his devotion to music and contempt for commercialisation, is now a global ambassador for those purveyors of fine underwear, Calvin Klein.

It’s important to note at this point that this seismic readjustment in the behaviour of rockers and our attitudes towards them applies only to those who claim to be rockers (Kings of Leon, Muse, Radiohead and others) and not the saccharine-sweet, glossymagazine dwelling, purity-ring wearing teenagers that fill the role of “pop stars”. Over-managed, undertalented pop stars have always existed,

but in the past they existed entirely separately of their musically gifted, emotionally tormented cousins. This is no longer the same Justin Beiber and Myley Cyrus are signed to the same management company and record label as Kiss.

On a personal note, this summer a friend invited me to attend the gig

“Gone are the days when a singer would perform an entire concert while lying down owing to intense hallucinations.” of a new British band named “King Charles”. The concert was all that was to be expected from a relatively unknown act; the lighting was rubbish, the club (devoid of the smoke and narcotics that characterised such gigs in the 1970s) was at best dank and the sound quality was so full of reverb that I thought my phone was going off every two minutes. Not a particularly memorable evening, apart from one moment of controversy when, as the

gig concluded, the lead singer Charles Costa deliberately put his foot through the bass drum with the parting line, “That’s rock ’n’ roll.” Collectively, we in the audience silently replied, “No, that’s just stupid,” and began filing out in relative silence.

Rewind 50 years and a similar audience would have delighted and rejoiced at the sight of a band trashing their musical tools. Indeed, a gig at the Railway Hotel in north London by then-rising rockers The Who was described by the London Evening Standard as “a momentous occasion in musical history” on the back of Roger Daltrey smashing a guitar through the snare-drum skin.

This is puzzling. At what point in the history of rock ’n’ roll did smashing instruments and being rebellious become so frightfully uncool? And, further still, is it possible to suggest that all rock ’n’ roll behaviour, both onstage and offstage, has also sunk to this lowly status?

Maybe the answer is that the classic stunts of televisions being thrown out of hotel windows and week-long drug binges simply don’t shock and impress us as much as they used to. Maybe we, as a rock-admiring nation, care less about the smashing up of drum sets and brushes with the law. Maybe we’re just more MySpace than mosh pit.

Maybe it’s just that for us, Generation X, it’s all about the music (man).

TRINITY NEWS

11 features@trinitynews.ie

“The perfect storm” hits porn Jamie Lynch looks into the problems the porn industry is facing, and if there are enough measures in place against the spread of AIDS

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recent study by a conglomerate of German universities has found that, due to rapid proliferation of online content and wider sexualisation of society, compared to ten years ago the act of watching pornography has become “alarmingly casual”. This may seem unsurprising to many. It is difficult to spend any time online without coming across an ad that promises to “boost the size of your manhood” or a pop-up declaring “hi, I’m Jenny, and I really want to meet you”. But all this might just be about to change as the porn industry, worth a reputed $14bn last year, finds itself on the brink of collapse.

I n the early and midnoughties the porn industry was at its

zenith; five of the top 100 websites in the US were online porn portals and profits were significantly higher than that of conventional cinema . However, since 2005 the adult industry has been effected by the same issues that have effected mainstream Hollywood, chiefly online piracy. Users are able to browse the internet and find enough free porn to, in grim terms, ‘satisfy their needs’ without having to pay high studio prices. This problem was largely overcome by studios starting their own websites and selling their content at reduced prices (à la iTunes). But since then the recession and industry scandals have left porn barons facing

“It is hardly surprising that a performer was able to slip the radar whilst HIV positive. ” what Steve Javors of Adult Video News describes as the “the perfect storm”. “For decades we just assumed porn was recession proof”, he says, “but taking the economic climate, online piracy and recent revelations into account and this could be an industry on the edge” The revelation that seems to have pushed porn to the brink is the news last week that one adult performer, known only as Patient X, has tested positive for HIV and may have infected as many as 20 fellow performers onscreen. The news has not only shocked and disgusted the porn-viewing and non-porn viewing public, but it has also rocked the

industry itself with two of the main studios Wicked Pictures and Vivid Entertainment suspending production indefinitely. Jennifer Miller, a former porn star who runs the Adult Industry Medical Centre, says “we are in a state of panic, there’s plenty of alarm”.

For many it is hardly surprising that a performer was able to slip the radar and continue acting in adult films whilst HIV positive. And it’s easy to see why. Laissez-faire US-wide industry regulations state only that “actors should be sexually tested at least once every thirty days” and make no statement on the use of condoms on porn sets. This “consensual” attitude towards the use of “barrier protection” whilst filming pornography has for many years riled health advocates, with the body the AIDS Healthcare Foundation slamming the current methods as “highly irresponsible, even dangerous”.

Aside from Patient X and his/her unknown victims whose fate have already been mortally sealed, what are the likely consequences for the industry itself? Will society’s unquenchable thirst for pornography dissipate in the knowledge that the people they are watching may well be carriers of life threatening diseases?

In most people’s opinion, no. “The main attraction of pornography is that it is remote”, says psychologist Anne Burrowes of Boston University, “viewers can watch and enjoy explicit sexual acts without the trauma of being involved. They don’t want or need to know what issues the performer might be facing. It is a one-way, onedimensional relationship”.

Many are hoping that the industry will do what it failed to do in 2004 when another performer, Darren James, unwittingly contracted and spread HIV to several fellow porn stars. However, it seems unlikely that it will use the recent scandal as a spring board to cleaning its’ act-up. Not only does the use of condoms onscreen “severely diminish the viewer’s audio-visual experience”, according to one director,

“According to psychologist Anne Burrowes, the main attraction of pornography is that it is remote.” but it is also deemed unnecessary by actors themselves. Indeed, one porn actor, who performs under the name Magdalene St. Michaels, when interviewed by the BBC remarked “At least everyone in the industry is tested regularly. There’s always going to be a slight risk to what we do - but it’s a calculated risk and we’re all aware of it”. To many, a “slight risk” seems an understatement.

All of this aside, it could be two weeks before all the potentially infected know their fate. Surely for them and their loved ones it must be the longest t w o weeks of their lives.

OBITUARY

Psychic Paul: Sleeping with the fishes

Psychic Paul wowed pundits, players and spectators with his World Cup predictions over the summer. Thomas Spencer reports on a life cut tragically short

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aul the Psychic Octopus, who had a 100 percent success rate at predicting the outcomes of World Cup football games earning him epithets such as “the oracle octopus” and “the eight legged prophet”, has sadly died aged two at Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in Germany. His passing has stimulated an outpouring of grief from football enthusiasts and animal lovers across the world. From Ghana to New Zealand fans have been shocked and saddened with Spain’s El Mundo newspaper declaring him “el verdadero héroe de la Copa del Mundo” (“the true hero of the World Cup”).

Paul was hatched in January 2008 at the Sea Life Centre in the southern British town of Weymouth where he spent the first year of his life in relative solitude– only discovering his psychic abilities after moving to a sister centre

in Germany. It was here that keepers nurtured his talent for predicting the future. “Paul had something special”, remarks Head Keeper Karl Lauss, “we couldn’t tell what it was, but when you looked him in the eyes you could tell that Paul was gifted”.

His meteoric rise to fame came with the 2010 World Cup when he accurately predicted every single game of the tournament by selecting one of two objects placed in his tank. It was this extraordinary gift, paired with what Reuters describe as “a wonderful personality” which endeared him to people across the globe.

At one point Paul’s fame and talent were held in such high regard that a Spanish conglomerate, headed by fisherman Manuel Pazo, offered $30,000 to bring him to Spain sparking a diplomatic crisis between Spain and Germany. Indeed, following accusations of betrayal by the German

“Paul had something special. We don’t know what that something was, but if you looked him in the eyes you coud tell he was gifted.”

2 November, 2010

SS Paul the Octopus: Gone, but not forgotten

newspaper Westfälische Rundschau, the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, committed to sending a team of bodyguards to protect Paul, while the environment minister, Elena Espinosa, said she would push for Paul’s protection under EU conservation laws “to ensure that Germans do not eat him”.

To the disappointment of fans across the world, Paul officially announced his retirement after the final game of the World Cup with a spokesperson for the Sea Life Centre stating, “He won’t give any more oracle predictions – either in football, or in

politics, lifestyle or economy. Paul will get back to his former job, namely making children laugh.”

Paul died peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday October 26th and whilst he is not survived by any direct descendants, a film directed by Chinese director Jiang Xiao is due to begin filming in 2011. Currently under the working title of “Who Killed Paul the Octopus”, the film centres on one of the many unsubstantiated conspiracy theories surrounding Paul’s passing. Trinity News’ thoughts and prayers are with all octopuses at this difficult time.

The impact of the AK-47 on the world

Nick Mason Contributing Writer

THE AK-47 (Kalashnikov Automatic Rifle) is the most widely used automatic rifle in the world. Its highly distinctive shape and wooden stock, combined with its prominence in television and film, has earned it epithets such as “the Coca-Cola of warfare”. Every year the AK-47 is thought to be responsible for over 200,000 deaths, more than the total death counts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The AK-47 started life as the brainchild of Mikhail Kalashnikov, a part-time engineer and former soldier who, having been injured in World War Two, set out to refine the Soviet war machine. He dreamt of an infantry weapon which combined the rapidfire capability of a sub-machine gun with the close-range accuracy of a rifle. Kalashnikov and his assistant Aleksandr Zaytsev developed the AK47 (named after 1947, the year of its invention), which was adopted as the Red Army’s primary weapon in 1949.

Since then, the AK-47 has brought bloodshed and grief across the globe.

The UN estimates that 20 percent of

“Every year the AK-47 is thought to be responsible more deaths than the combined fatalities of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs” the world’s 500 million illegally held weapons are from the AK family. The keys to the rifle’s success are not only its low production costs, but also its light weight and its reliability in all conditions. Above all, the AK-47 owes its success and availability to the irresponsibility of Russia’s leadership who were (and, evidence suggests, still are) happy to trade containers of rifles for political alliances, resources and power. Even in the United States, the weapon is so popular and accessible that one second hand car dealer, Mark Muller of Max Motors, ran an offer where AK-47s were given free with cars costing more than $300.

But what is the future of this terrifyingly efficient weapon? Knockoff copies of the AK-47 (such as the Chinese Type-56 rifle), twinned with the durability of the original model, means that the era of cheap guns is far from over. Taking into account the fact that over 250,000 new AKs were produced last year, many are now arguing that governments should focus more attention on stemming the flow of infantry weapons than of nuclear weaponry.

On the prevalence and body count of his invention, Kalashnikov remarked, “It is not the designers who must ultimately take responsibility for where guns end up; it is governments who must control their production and export”. Perhaps it is time for the world to face up to the threat of the deadliest man-made weapon of all time.

12 WORLD REVIEW

A dark blue dawn for Sweden

Left and below: Protesting the Sweden Democrats’s election to Parliament on the 20th of September this year. Right: A member of the Sweden Democrats listens to a speech during a rally. Bottom left: Sweden Democrat party leader Jimmie Åkesson Erna celebrates their election.

Siri Bjørntvedt looks at the surge in support for right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism in one of the most liberal democratic societies

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“They are in government in Hungary, Switzerland and Italy, and in parliament in the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Greece.”

weden has long been considered to be among the most open and liberal social democracies in the world, and in 2005 the Guardian deemed Sweden the most successful society the world has ever known. Now five years later an extreme right-wing party, the Sweden Democrats (SD) is on the rise, winning a staggering six percent of the vote in the general election in mid-September.

The SD, a party which has publicly stated that Islam is the biggest threat facing Sweden since Hitler, and claims that multicultural societies have never succeeded in any part of the world, now has 20 representatives in the Riksdag, the Swedish Parliament. In the aftermath of the election questions have been raised: is SD’s breakthrough the only logical conclusion of an open and liberal immigration policy which has allowed 100,000 immigrants to enter every year or is Sweden yet another country being swept by the dark blue wave of racism and Islamophobia?

Fredrik Reinfeldt will stay on as Prime Minister of Sweden. Even though his centre-right coalition did not win a majority in the Riksdag, Reinfeldt can stay in office with a minority, as long as the majority does not vote against him. Both the coalition of Reinfeldt and the opposition lost

CLOSER TO HOME: THE BNP AND THE INP IN QUOTES •

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• • • •

“I want to help stop the immigration which is destroying this and every other white nation in the world.

Then I want to see that deadly tide turned.” “[Islam is a] vicious faith that has expanded from a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago... now sweeping country after country before it, all over the world.”

“Yes, Adolf went a bit too far.”

“Wir mussen die juden austrautten!

[We must exterminate the Jews]”.

“We’ve had uncontrolled immigration hoisted upon us and were never consulted about it.”

“The dirty Jew that lives next door to the parents was in her garden today with a hose washing the patio, there’s a f*cking water shortage!

And people wonder what Herr Hitler had an issue with.”

NICK GRIFFIN OF THE BNP

DAVID BARRET OF THE INP

votes in this year’s election, and the biggest winner was the SD. They are now at least theoretically holding the balance of power in the Riksdag between the two main coalitions.

This leaves Reinfeldt somewhere between relying on the Green party and appealing to individual opposition party representatives, which might prove a daunting challenge. However, if that fails, the SD could prove to be a dangerous ally or a paralysing enemy.

The Sweden Democrats were founded in 1988, rooted in the neo-Nazi organisation “Keep Sweden Swedish” (Bevara Sverige svensk) and from the beginning there was a considerable overlap between the SD and various neo-Nazi groups. While none of the current SD leaders have any connections to any neo-Nazi groups, many early leaders and prominent figures were closely connected to neoNazi groups. In the municipal elections in 1991, 1994 and 1998 SD candidates in several cities were known members of neo-Nazi groups. Robert Vesterlund, a felon and leader of two neo-Nazi

Violence in Istanbul: a Turkish culture clash?

Jean-baptiste Carrere reports on the clashes between Western culture and Islam in Istanbul, centering around attacks on art galleries IT DOESN’T look very good for the 2010 European Capital of Culture when artists get beaten up with clubs on an exhibition night, but this is what happened in Istanbul last month.

Gangs trashed three art galleries and injured several guests.

Tophane, where the attack took place, is a traditional and impoverished neighborhood in the centre of Istanbul.

In recent years it has been experiencing gentrification: artists are settling in, galleries are opening, and even the Modern Art Museum was moved there.

This phenomenon has consequences for the neighborhood: prices are rising, and the new arty crowd does not share the values of the traditional Muslim residents.

Moreover, the recent decision of the mayor of Beyoglu, the district encompassing Tophane, to destroy numerous derelict buildings – some inhabited – has created discontent among the lower classes.

On the night of 21 September, three galleries organising a common exhibition were attacked simultaneously by gangs carrying clubs, knives, shattered bottles and

tear gas. The number of attackers was estimated to be about 40. Two of the galleries were trashed and both hosts and guests were targeted. Several sustained minor injuries, and five were seriously hurt but all were in deep shock. The victims reported that

“It was the work of extremist Muslim groups that operate in Tophane ‘sending a message’ against the gentrification of the area.” the attackers were shouting about the consumption of alcohol in the street, which became the first clue as to the cause of the attack: drinking on the street is considered a sign of disrespect by the Muslim locals.

Bari, who works at Gallery NON, does not believe it to be the main

cause. This young man, who recently graduated from university, received tear gas in his eyes and was clubbed in the ribs. According to him the drinking did not trigger the attack. “It was too well organized,” he said. “They must have planned it for a long time”.

He is convinced that it was the work of extremist Muslim groups that operate in Tophane “sending a message” against the gentrification of the area. “It happened in New York, it happened in London, now Istanbul has to deal with it. And it’s not doing good so far,” he declared.

Indeed, the gap between the new residents and the local people is widening and the attack did not attract a lot of sympathy towards the new crowd. Ibrahim, who works in a restaurant next to Gallery NON said that “Tophane is a good place, a safe place” and that the artists “had it coming”.

Istanbul is the European Capital of Culture for 2010. The events of September may lead to questions about the stability of the city, especially considering Turkey’s aspirations for EU membership. Indeed, even though Ankara is the political capital, Istanbul is the actual face of modern Turkey.

Do these attacks reveal conflicts lying beneath the surface of Turkish society between tradition and innovation? At the very least Turkey should be concerned by the growing cultural gap between its citizens.

TRINITY NEWS

13 worldreview@trinitynews.ie

organizations was an active member of SD between 1993 and 1995, and was even chairman of the Sweden Democratic Youth, though under a false name. Over the last couple of years SD has attempted to distance itself from skinheads and streetrioting, and claims to be a respectable party. However the SD campaign video was banned from the mainstream media, as it featured an old lady racing burqa-wearing women for government money, while the voice-over claims that “you can slam the brakes on pensions or slam the brakes on immigration”.

The ad is on YouTube with over 45,000 views.

One of the most striking features of SD’s breakthrough is the unevenness of their electoral gains; they were strong in some pockets in the south, but barely marginal in the north. One SD stronghold is Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city with a large immigrant population. The city has had a tough year, with multiple riots and gang violence, not to mention it has been terrorised by over 40

separate shootings, mainly targeting immigrants. Most of the shootings took place in or around Rosengård, where about 80 percent of the city’s immigrants live. And it is in the Almgården area, which neighbours the Rosengård estate, that one in three voted for SD. Sjøbo is another SD stronghold, where they won 15.85 percent of the vote. The small municipality became almost synonymous with racism and opposition to immigration when it passed a ban on accepting more refugees. This ban which came about through a referendum was in place until 2001. Far from being the norm, these two municipalities stand in stark contrast to SD’s failure in the North, as they failed to get any representatives elected in ten constituencies.

While some claim that Sweden had reached a “Muslim breaking point”, Sweden is not singular in embracing radical right-wing populist parties, with an overtly anti-immigration stance. Radical right-wing populist parties are gaining ground all over Europe, and they are in government in Hungary, Switzerland and Italy, and in parliament in the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Greece. Geert Wilders, the controversial leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, has been on trial for incitement to hatred and discrimination, having said that “the Koran is the ‘Mein Kampf’ of our time” and that Islam is out to destroy Western civilisation. However, in the Dutch elections this summer his party won 15 percent of the vote and in Italy the anti-immigrant party Northern League, which talks of eradicating the Roma people, is Italy’s fastest growing party. Most worryingly these parties and movements seem to influence the political debate and other parties, as seen in France when President Sarkozy expelled Romanian Gypsies, and Germany Chancellor Merkel stated that the idea of multiculturalism has failed.

The election in Sweden has proven that even in one of the most open and liberal social democracies in the world an extreme right-wing party can take root. Only the future will tell if SD will be able to exert any political influence and whether it will be a permanent feature. One indication might be the Skoleval, which gives students between the ages of 13 to 17 the opportunity to cast a vote before they can legally vote: the SD won 13 percent of the vote nationwide. The future might be very dark blue in Sweden.

Equality or discrimination?

With the release of the 2010 gender equality index, Lauren Shaw considers the consequences of political party quotas in Western nations

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he Global Gender Gap Report, published by the World Economic Forum has shown “a strong correlation between gender equality and a country’s prosperity and economic competitiveness.” The report, which combines five years of data examines the gap between men and women

“The reality was in fact a cynical and fundamentally patronising treatment of women.” in economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment.

Once again the Nordic countries top the list with Iceland remaining in first position since the last report in 1999 and second and third position going to Norway and Finland respectively. Out of the 134 countries included in the report the greatest inequalities between men and women were seen in Pakistan (132), Chad (133) and Yemen (134). The co-author of the report Ricardo Hausmann has stated that “Progress will be achieved when countries seek to reap returns on the investment in health and education of girls and women by finding ways to make marriage and motherhood compatible with the economic participation of women.”

It is, however, difficult to say how this investment could be achieved in countries marked by instability, violence and regional confrontations.

Even in developed countries such as the UK (15) there is still work to be done. While it ranked highly in the categories of education and health, there is a great disparity between men and women in political empowerment and economic participation. In fact, the UK ranks 78 in the area of wage equality for similar work.

If it is true that gender equality and a county’s prosperity are linked, should a policy of positive discrimination be imposed in the UK and Ireland? The report points out that in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, political parties introduced voluntary gender quotas in the 1970s leading to a large number of female political representatives. Sweden has one of the highest percentages of women in parliament (47 percent). The other Nordic countries also rank highly and have the same positive record when it comes to women in ministerial level positions (Iceland 45 percent, Norway 53 percent Finland 63 percent, Denmark 42 percent, Sweden 45 percent).

However, the idea of imposing positive discrimination to increase female participation in politics and the workplace could in fact fail in its mission to promote gender equality.

Firstly is opens up the possibility for a more able man to lose out on a job or promotion in order to achieve quotas. Secondly, it devalues the achievements of women who may be seen to have reached a certain position on the basis of their gender rather than through personal merit. Take for example the “Blair Babes”. These were the women that New Labour pushed to the front of their election

campaign. The idea was to promote a New Labour agenda of gender equality.

The reality was in fact a cynical and fundamentally patronising treatment of women. In the Labour party, eight women were voted into Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet. This appears to be a sign of a changing attitude until it is highlighted that under the new rules introduced by Labour this year, MPs were required to pick at least six women and six men for the shadow cabinet. Even when women do make it in politics they are often faced with discrimination and sexist remarks.

“it is not enough to push women into positions of power in order to satisfy a statistical requirement.”

Therefore, whether it be Blair’s Babes, Gordan’s Gals, Cameron’s Cuties or whatever title is chosen for the Miliband harem, it is not enough to push women into positions of power in order to satisfy a statistical requirement. Rather, greater education and a change of attitude are necessary so that the genuine achievements and potential of women are recognised.

COMMENT

No end in sight for Rwanda or the Democratic Republic of Congo Lauren Shaw takes a look at the situation along the borders of Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda where blood minerals fought over by rival rebel groups, and analyses the UN’s recent accusation of genocide in Rwanda

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ast week an attack by armed rebels on a peacekeeping mission was condemned by the United Nations Special Representative to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Roger Meece. Peacekeeping operations have been in full force since this summer’s attacks when, despite appeals to the UN for protection, over 200 villagers in the Democratic Republic of Congo were raped, with victims ranging from elderly women to a onemonth-old baby boy. These atrocities were merely the latest in what has been a complex and blood-soaked history for the Congolese people. Survivors

“The report claims that the army embarked on a “relentless pursuit and mass killing” of Hutus who had fled to the Congo. of the attack have blamed the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) rebel group which is led by those who fled to the Congo after carrying out the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

2 November, 2010

A British MP has claimed that the best solution is to appeal to Rwanda for military support, but this solution seems unlikely. A recent leaked UN report has accused Rwanda of wholesale war crimes including possible genocide during the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report claims that the army embarked on a “relentless pursuit and mass killing” of Hutus who had fled to the Congo. Rwanda’s first invasion of the Congo (known then as Zaire) in 1996 was to search for those responsible for the Rwandan genocide who were using the UN refugee camps as bases from which to continue their war against the Tutsi led government .

The victims of the invasion were often women, children, the elderly and the ill that were butchered with hoes and axes, bayoneted or burned alive. These attacks are reported as “systematic, methodical and premeditated”.

Accusing the Congolese government of supporting the Hutu rebels, Rwanda invaded again under the guise of national security, but greed and selfinterest took over as the conflict descended into the mass plundering of the Congo’s minerals. While the fighting officially ceased in 2003 the exploitation of the countries natural resources continues with the Congolese army and rebel groups such as the FDLR

controlling the mines and using acts of violence like the recent rapes as a way to suppress the population and maintain their control. While these acts of

“The fact that pieces of the Congo are found in our homes, workplaces, and even in our pockets shows that the West must take some form of action to end the injustice.” brutality ought to receive full attention and media coverage from the West’s influential nations, the sad reality is that these nations are benefitting from the Congo’s resources. Apart from gold, the Congo exports cassiterite (used in laptops), coltan (mobile phones) and wolframite (light bulbs). Many international companies who get their supplies from the Congo directly or indirectly pay the army or rebel groups, with almost none of the profits going to the Congo’s treasury.

The fact that pieces of the Congo

are found in our homes, workplaces, and even in our pockets shows that the West must take some form of action to end the injustice. The complexity of the issue means the international community must bring Congolese nationals into the discussions with the intention of re-establishing the Congolese state before the reformation of the mining industry can be achieved. The US should put pressure on its allies Rwanda and Uganda, to whom it gives aid, to cease the destabilisation and looting of the Congo. And perhaps, most impor-

tantly, Western nations must pay greater attention to where their resources are coming from and companies who continue to purchase blood minerals should be held accountable. As Global Witness, an international NGO that works against natural resource exploitation, has said “The illicit exploitation of natural resources in [Congo], and the accompanying serious human rights abuses, would not have taken place on such a large scale if there had not been customers willing to trade in these resources.”

TRAVEL 14 travel@trinitynews.ie

West Africa now open for business

After decades of turmoil, the only visitors the West African region received were either there for exploitation or aid. But now, tourists like William Clowes are making their way in, and finding out just how ready countries like Liberia are for tourists

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he soldiers’ eyes are glazed and the uniformed men are unresponsive. They appear full of malice and lack the kindness commonly afforded strangers. It could be alcohol, it could be drugs. Given that their colleagues have spent the last hour rummaging through our putrid backpacks with a diligence they otherwise adopt only for the extortion of their kinsmen, irony makes me suspect drugs. Now they want our money. Ordinarily this would not be a significant challenge, but in this instance they grasp our passports. They hold automatic weapons and they hold the power, a petty but nevertheless absolute power.

Having just crossed into Guinea, after passing through Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone, we, two school friends and I, have encountered corrupt authority for the first time. Actually this is disingenuous; this is the first instance in which the authorities have tried to extort “us”, the white men. For unfortunate ordinary West Africans, petty corruption, in the form of endless backhanders to policeman and soldiers, seems as everyday as eating and sleeping. Guinea, the former French colony and source of the river Niger, is in a state of political limbo as it fretfully nears the completion of a transition from dictatorship to democracy

which has been marked by sporadic outbursts of violence. It is possible that this uncertainty (elections have recently been delayed indefinitely) and the recent recourses to violence prefigure this kind of opportunism: formerly unspoken boundaries are temporarily dissolved.

Yet in a clichéd and possibly naïve fit of selective observation, my joyride along the West African coast has given me a cautious sense of hope… and, what’s more, I felt safe. In Ghana this was no surprise. It has been for a long time peaceful, attractive to foreign investors (Vodafone and Barclays are ubiquitous), and lauded by Western

“My joyride along the West African coast has given me a cautious sense of hope… and, what’s more, I felt safe” leaders as a role model to its continental brethren. But where is the fun in that?

Our youthful, bravado-fuelled, “Blood Diamond”-informed minds were fixated upon the countries to its west.

The Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone cling to the Atlantic coast and

project to the passing mariner an image of unspoilt loveliness. Yet the jungles, beaches and rivers that comprise great swathes of these countries are the setting for a recent history of horrifying brutality and factionalism. It would be irresponsible for me to comment on what Ivoirians refer to euphemistically as “the crisis”, given that we only visited the south of the country and saw very little evidence of its legacy. Also, if I am honest, I spent most of my time in Sierra Leone on the beach. Even so, it is almost as rash to remark upon events in Liberia, but I will. I only spent a couple of weeks in the country, but did get an impression of the upheaval by passing through the inescapable aftermath of such wanton and enduring destruction. For a time we viewed the only too visible impact of the pillage. For a time we heard the stories of those affected by the violence.

Before Taylor’s young men with guns left their mark on Harper, Liberia, it was a handsome city of colonial-style mansions and of astonishingly numerous and magnificent churches. It still is, but the buildings are wounded, either pock marked by machine gun fire or disembowelled by rocket launchers.

Where before the well-to-do would have descended the impressive stone steps, now a number of families may live on one decrepit floor and make the

best of it. It seems to the passerby that Harper now sustains itself on a diet of tinned food and NGO assistance. One of Liberia’s largest cities, it survives without a central electricity or water supply. The buzz of erratic generators

“For West Africans, petty corruption, in the form of endless backhanders to policeman and soldiers, seems as everyday as eating and sleeping. ” gives the nights an unwarranted impression of activity. It is isolated too, severed from the rest of Liberia by a road so muddy and impassable that only two-wheeled transport dare attempt the journey.

It was in Harper where we happened upon the most frank and personal exposition of the country’s recent afflictions. A young man, who worked at our hotel, took us under his wing. As he guided us through his hometown – churches, communities at work, a practising football team, and other staples of collective life – with unsettling

lightness, almost jocularity, he revealed horrors: how one day, upon receiving news that Taylor’s killers were on the move and their town was next on their merry and murderous march, the entire town fled for the Ivory Coast. Taylor was gunning for the government barracks in Harper, and any civilian who remained would be – and was – butchered. I outline these events swiftly and dispassionately because that is the way he told them. Perhaps some of this apparent light-heartedness is selfdefensive, a reluctance to fully contemplate the absurdity of such power pursuits. It is no surprise that an alleged rallying call of Taylor’s presidential campaign was, “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him”.

This captures my impressions of Liberia in a single stroke – inconceivable abuses of power that eventually confront an unwavering resoluteness. I am being sentimental and unqualified again but in the end it was a steadfastness that we, the “white men”, shared in our confrontation with Guinean authority. After 20 minutes of our most stubborn and monosyllabic French (“Non… pourquoi?”) and a final flourish (“Tu est la raison que les touristes ne viennent jamais ici”), the Guinean highwaymen-in-uniform, baffled by rare opposition, handed back our passports.

The Great Ruins of Zimbabwe With Zimbabwe’s political, social, and economic situation in shambles, places like the Great Zimbabwe ruins are being left forgotten to the travel world, but there is still so much to be experienced, writes Daniel Waller

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he Great Zimbabwe ruins lie some 27 kilometres outside Masvingo. Dense labyrinths of vast walls sown over a hundred acres of granite hill and valley, the ruins hold forth an austere grandeur. Imposing and mysterious, they bear an aboriginal epic quality which, mated with a nebulous association with goldsmithing, has found patronage in the likes of King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and Prester John.

Now it is the kingdom of the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, and visitors are few and far between. The site’s entrance attendant spotted our car down the length of the entrance road and although he did not move or raise his hand, we could feel his eyes reeling us in. Inside the reception, sat in a frozen bubble of khaki light, were three further personnel with the disconsolate air of a family of moulting turkeys. A moustachioed woman accepted our payment and issued our passes with the mandarin calm of the under-enthused. Parked,

THE ORIGINS DEBATE In contemporary Zimbabwe’s Government of National Unity, parties, agendas and legislations overlap each other in a single venn. This strange process of intercalation stalks too the history of Great Zimbabwe, with early white settlers, the Rhodesian government, and the queer contemporary crack-pot layering over the ruins the histories of Phoenician, or Arab (or further far-fetched) architects.

Great Zimbabwe was built and inhabited between AD 1000 and 1500 by a people indigenous to south-central Africa, an elite group who developed within the later Iron Age cultures of Zimbabwe. About the midfifteenth century Great Zimbabwe yawned into eclipse as the Mutapa empire waxed, though it has never been totally abandoned or destroyed.

we sat in a strange mist whilst a bearded woman under a thatch roof radioed for our guide, Joseph. Clever, witty and good-tempered, it was easy to like him.

He spoke rapidly and confidently, with great charm, marking his sentences with stabbing motions of his walking stick, as though he were going to impale a star. He told us he was called to give a tour of the site perhaps once a week; we had each paid two US dollars in addition to our entrance fee for the tour. Such is the terminal state of Zimbabwe now.

Joseph explained we would proceed first to the Hill Ruin, and then to the Great Enclosure, and then launched into a breakneck history of the site, and the derivation of the name Zimbabwe.

It was clear that here he liked to linger and discourse, finding etymology as pleasant as a shade tree (Zimbabwe is a Shona word usually taken to be a contraction of “dzimba dza mabwe”, or “houses of stone”).

The Hill Ruin dominates Great Zimbabwe to the north – a bony ridge of bare granite 300 feet high, capped by

a mass of boulders that fall away to the south in a sheer unbroken cliff. It loomed above the surface of the mist like the brow of some leviathan lifted just above the surface of the water. As we climbed the ancient path, fog slid out from the banks of stone like a broad black tongue, and out of the invisible marched shadowy standing stones, for the hill is crowned with walls and capped by turrets and sacrificial monoliths. Everywhere they sprang up in the pale mist, cowled like monks in a vertiginous diversity of outline. The sky was a scleral grey and cast such a weird light that every colour was intensified. Each lichen that grew from the walls looked like a live, green nerve.

On the opposite side of the valley, like some coiled snake shedding its chevron-patterned skin, stands the greatest structure of Great Zimbabwe, the Great Enclosure. The largest single

prehistoric structure in sub-Saharan Africa, its outer wall is over 800 feet long, and sometimes 17 feet thick and 32 high, and capped with monoliths and a two-line chevron frieze. Inside the eastern curve is built a solid conical tower, 30 feet high, and patterned and beautiful as a serpent. Behind this great phallus a round red moon rose idly, and the world might have been shedding its skin.

As we left, we paid our dues in the compact museum, accommodating the Zimbabwe Birds, and populated with bored caretakers and the site’s only other visitors that day: four Frenchmen. Having tipped as extravagantly as we could, the road from Masvingo of course bore out a cunning speed-trap and a delighted policeman. He was grinning shrewdly and his eyes held a malevolent promise of unwanted friendship.

TRINITY NEWS

SCIENCE 15 science@trinitynews.ie

Is there anybody out there?

Eoin Flavin Contributing Writer

THE ANNOUNCEMENT last month of the discovery of the first potentially habitable planet outside of our solar system (exo-planet) generated a huge amount of excitement within the astronomical community. The findings of the research team, led by Professor Stephen Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz and R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, contend that the position of the planet, in relation to the star which it orbits, places it in right in the middle of the star’s so-called “habitable zone,” in which temperatures are ideal for the existence of liquid water on its surface and on which life such as is found on Earth might arise.

These findings were examined in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. The analysis carried out

by Vogt and his team was based on 11 years of observations taken from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, combined with observations from a rival astronomical team based at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. While not being able to observe the planet directly, its existence can be observed by measuring the slight gravitational pull the star receives as the planet orbits it. As Mario R. Perez, Keck program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington stated, “Keck’s long term observations of the wobble of nearby stars enabled the detection of this multi-planetary system.”

A previously discovered planet in

“The chances of life on this planet are almost 100 percent.”

IN BRIEF: THE TEAM’S DISCOVERY THE PLANET orbits a red dwarf named Gliese 581, one-third the mass of our sun and about onehundredth as bright. It is officially designated Gliese 581g, though it is unofficially known as Zarmina’s planet, after Vogt’s wife.

Four planets had previously been discovered in this planetary

system, with another two postulated to exist.

The team roughly measured the mass of the planet as being three to four times that of Earth and orbiting in just under 37 days. It is probably a rocky planet with a definite surface and enough gravity to hold onto an atmosphere.

MATERIALS SCIENCE

planet are almost 100 percent.”

However, doubts were cast upon the team’s findings by a second team of astronomers who claimed they could not detect the planet in their data. In an attempt to confirm the existence of Gliese 581g, a group of astronomers led

by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland conducted a follow-up investigation. Both teams analysed some of the same data and employed similar methods. This latest research did not investigate any of the data gathered from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, concentrating only on the set gathered from the observatory in Chile plus additional measurements from the same one. Given that Vogt and Butler’s team concluded that measure-

ments taken from both telescopes, each of which employs a different method of measurement, must be combined to reliably detect the six planets orbiting in the Gliese system, ignoring the Keck data is quite puzzling.

As these latest findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, it is hard to know what to make of the new findings and Vogt is standing by his team’s results. What is clear though is that despite the as-of-yet unconfirmed status of Zarmina’s planet, the research carried out by Vogt is the latest in a series of giant strides towards demonstrating that life may exist elsewhere.

200 years on: A profile of Robert Mallet

Rumbling through the ages Deputy Science Editor

SS The railings surrounding College still bear the Mallet family name. Photo: Anthea Lacchia

ROBERT MALLET, born in Dublin in 1810, was an inventor and geophysicist, and is often remembered as the father of seismology, the study of earthquakes.

Mallet attended Trinity College, beginning at the age of sixteen, where he studied Natural Sciences. During his time as a student he travelled widely and by 1826 had completed his first tour of Europe. After graduating in 1830, he joined his father’s iron foundry business in Capel Street, Dublin City, where he helped manufacture the iron railings that surround College to this day. If one looks closely at the railings along the Nassau Street gate, one will notice that the railings bear the Mallet family name at their base.

Mallet was interested in all aspects of natural history and engineering.

He experimented in metallurgy and, among other endeavours, was involved in improving a new Dublin and Kingstown railway.

During his many travels, Mallet visited Chamonix, France, where he became fascinated with the mechanisms in which glaciers flow down mountain slopes. Around the same time, Louis Agassiz was making his observations on glaciers and developing the concept of an Ice Age.

to travel to Italy to observe the effects of the 1857 Neapolitan Earthquake.

Among his many other scientific enquiries and experiments, he tried to measure the local increase in temperature which accompanies brittle failure. Some of Robert Mallet’s collections are still housed in the Department of Geology in College.

Mallet was one of the best known scientifc minds of his day and was presented with many awards and distinctions throughout his career, among them elevation to the Royal Irish Academy, and the Royal Geological Society of Ireland, of which he would serve as president for two years. He was also a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

The legacy of the Mallet family foundry business can still be seen across the Irish landscape, and the legacy of Robert Mallet’s scientific work is fundamental for modern seismic studies.

The eighteenth century was a veritable spawning ground for driving thoughts in many disciplines, primarily geology, and Ireland was not on the sidelines in this respect.

Anthea Lacchia

2 November, 2010

Mallet would go on to do a great deal of research in seismology, eventually proposing that the damage caused by earthquakes was due to transmission of elastic waves of compression through rocks. Notably, he coined the term “seismic” to describe these waves and the term “epicenter” to describe the point on the Earth’s surface directly above the focus of an earthquake.

His experiments on Killiney Beach, south of Dublin, became famous for his use of gunpowder detonation to examine the velocities of energy passing through various materials, including rocks. This was, in fact, the first “controlled source” seismological

The future of liquid crystal technology RESEARCHERS IN Trinity College’s School of Engineering, led by Prof Jagdish Vij, have discovered a new and fascinating property of liquid crystals, which may well offer major industrial uses. Liquid crystals are a matter state, which possesses both properties of a solid and a liquid, making them optimal components of electronics displays. The researchers have uncovered a new liquid crystalline phase, in which deformations form in the usually uniform crystal structure, a phenomenon never before observed. The crystal molecules self-assemble, requiring no external stimulus to do so. This discovery could well serve to widen the possible applications of liquid crystals, with the potential of 3D displays using the technology being cited as one of the developments in the near future.

the system was initially thought to reside in what is dubbed the “Goldilocks Zone,” owing to the temperatures deemed to be just right for the existence of liquid water. Gliese 581c was thought to lie just within this habitable zone, however further research showed that due to the greenhouse effect, the planet would probably be a furnace on the level of our very own Venus and hence would be highly unlikely to hold liquid water.

It should be noted that when astronomers speak of “potential habitability” and a planet’s ability to sustain life, they are not necessarily speaking of one in which humans could thrive.

Gliese 581g may only be able to support forms of life along the lines of lichens or very basic plant life, but neverthe-

less the ramifications for the existence of such life forms would be massive.

Various factors must be considered when deducing whether a planet is habitable but liquid water and an atmosphere are the most important and if Vogt’s finding prove to be correct, the chance of finding both these on Gliese 581g is very high. In fact, Vogt claimed somewhat boisterously that he believed that, “the chances of life on this

ENGINEERING

experiment ever to be performed in Ireland or anywhere else in the world.

These studies were brought to the attention of many in 2009, when the BBC Coast program recreated the experiments by detonating a small charge on Killiney beach.

Mallet also famously produced a “Seismographic Map of the World”, where he plotted known earthquakes and volcanoes. He realised that most of these geological events occurred along sinuous lines, rather than being randomly distributed. One hundred years later, this would be explained by the theory of Plate Tectonics. The draw of the quakes was strong, leading Mallet

Ireland ranked as tech powerhouse IN SPITE of budget cuts and fears of reductions in education and research, Ireland has succeeded in maintaining and developing its high-tech research facilities, and has received international recognition as a major player in Materials Science, the study of the characteristics and uses of materials, particularly nanomaterials like carbon nanotubes.

Ireland is now ranked eighth in the world for this field of research, placing well ahead of many other countries known for their emphasis on technological development, such as Japan. This cutting-edge work holds great promise in the development of numerous technologies, such as usable, super-durable substances. This success looks set to continue, as further investment in Materials Science has been pledged. The European Research Council has awarded a starter grant to Prof Jonathan Coleman of Trinity College to further his research in Nanoscience, which may well open the next chapter in Irish research and development.

PHYSICS

Shedding Light on Dark Matter THE SCHOOL of Physics in College hosted an enlightening lecture by Harvard professor of science, Robert Kirshner, on the subject of dark energy. Dark energy is a relatively new phenomenon to be observed, having first been discovered in 1998.

The lecture dealt with the theory that the evident accelerating expansion of the universe is fueled by dark energy. While virtually nothing is known about the composition or properties of dark energy, current calculations suggest that around 70 percent of the universe is composed of it, while only 5 percent is composed of conventional matter.

Kirshner’s lecture dealt with what little is understood about dark energy, and its contiguousness with the structure of the whole universe.

16 OPINION PROFILE PROFESSOR JANE OHLMEYER

Queen of the Humanities David Barrett looks at the impressive career of History Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, and discovers that she is anything but an Ivory Tower academic

J

ane Ohlmeyer is a lovely person. Genuinely. Her office is filled with mugs from different universities that she has visited and even gave this writer tea when he came in (in a mug from the University of Krakow for the curious) but there is no doubting that she means business.

Ohlmeyer grew up in Belfast before studying for her undergrad in St. Andrews, Masters in Illinois and PhD right here in Trinity. Following that was an intense academic career in Irish History, which included a time as a lecturer in Yale and Head of the History department in Aberdeen University before becoming the Erasmus Smith Chair of Modern History in Trinity in 2003 – a position that she still holds.

However, despite her extremely impressive resume and tremendous scholarly output Ohlmeyer is perhaps best known for her extensive involvement in the 1641 Depositions project, which digitalised the accounts of Irish Protestants in the 1641 massacres and was opened on Friday 22 October by none other than the President and Ian Paisley. Ohlmeyer explained that the idea came to her in 2003 that it would be fantastic to digitalise the 1641 Depositions, which had hitherto been gathering dust in the archives and had barely been seen in years.

What followed was a relentless effort to bring this project to fruition, an ef-

FACTBOX Surname: Originally of Dutch origin.

Favourite Historical Period: Early Modern Ireland, which she only stumbled upon while studying British history for her undergraduate degree.

Most stereotypically Irish trait: A love of tea

fort that now sees Ohlmeyer representing Ireland and the humanities at a European level – most notably as the Irish representative on Dariah (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities).

Ohlmeyer explained that involvement at this kind of level was essential for 1641: “The Internet is quite fragile and we wanted 1641 to still be there in one hundred years. Three years ago the infrastructure just was not there for this kind of project”.

Ohlmeyer is quick to credit her colleagues both in Trinity and elsewhere for the success of 1641 but there can be little doubt that her drive and obvious enthusiasm and passion for the project was one of the driving forces. While her description of the process made this writer’s head spin with its complexity what struck me most of all was the diversity of business, governments and universities that were brought on board – everyone from IBM to the EU were involved at some stage in the process.

Ohlmeyer said that this arrangement was “mutually beneficial. We were the perfect guinea-pigs as complete computer illiterates in a big technical project.” Ohlmeyer’s strong conviction in using business to help achieve scholarly goals comes through constantly: “The likes of Google, IBM, Microsoft and Intel would not to deal with Trinity if we were not already among the best in our field. If business can help us achieve our scholarly and teaching

goals I think that’s all for the good.”

Ohlmeyer is a huge believer in the idea of Trinity as a learning centre and is convinced that the quality of both students and staff ranks up there with the best she has ever been in (a mightily high compliment from someone who once lectured in Yale).

Her commitment to personally teaching the tutorial groups of her undergraduate courses is quite remarkable – and has earned her a large following among history students. She is full of praise for her colleagues: “Trinity could not be further from an ivory tower. Teaching and research is our core mission as academics and the commitment that my colleagues have to this goal is incredible.” High praise indeed.

What of the future? While Ohlmeyer refused to be drawn into speculation regarding the upcoming Provost elec-

SS Illustration by Cat O’Shea

tion it is hard not to see how she would be a formidable candidate. Ohlmeyer possesses a strong academic record and has shown – repeatedly – an ability to get things done with a marked skill at bringing together disparate groups to achieve academic goals (and, just as importantly, contribute money to them). Combined with a personality that made this writer feel like Ohlmeyer had personally baked him a batch of cookies after five minutes of conversation she will undoubtedly be a contender to be Trinity’s first ever female Provost.

The question is however: In a time when all the talk is on the “smart economy”, would Trinity be daring enough to let a historian take the helm?

Ignorance greatest opponent to LGBT civil rights Ciara Finlay examines what it means to be gay in Ireland, and recounts her own experience

P

lease allow me to begin this article as I intend to finish, and that is with honesty. I am a 22-year-old Trinity postgraduate student, I am a Conservative, an older sister, a nerd, a Phil hack, and a lesbian. All of these facts and none of these facts define who I am as a person. Nevertheless, only one of these is has caused me to experience senseless hatred: namely, my homosexuality which is something that I became aware of ten years ago.

When I first realised that I was gay I told my friends. However, children talk, and it wasn’t long before I was “outed” at a rehearsal for the school musical – ironic, I know. Bullying and name-calling would begin the moment I arrived at school and follow me around throughout the course of the day, day after day. This wave of homophobia culminated in a violent assault which remains fixed in my memory. These events form a shared

experience for many homosexuals.

Some overcome them as I did, others aren’t given that chance. This was the case for Seth Walsh, 13, Asher Brown, 13, Billy Lucas, 15, Tyler Clementi, 18, and Zach Harrington, 19, all of whom were persecuted for their sexuality and killed themselves as a result.

“Bullying and namecalling would begin the moment I arrived in school, and eventually culminated in a violent assault.”

These young Americans and their families had just cause to wonder why the USA is known as the “land of the free” in the wake of these truly tragic events.

Since the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City, gay visibility has increased dramatically and continued to do so when Harvey Milk became San Francisco’s first gay supervisor and called upon homosexuals to “come out, come out”. However, there has been an undeniable trade-off as the cost for being seen is that you become a better target. This was the case in 1998 for Mathew Sheppard who was tortured and then beaten to death.

Although this is the startling reality which many homosexuals face, “it gets better”. This is the message which Seattle sex-columnist Dan Savage sought to deliver to struggling teens across the globe through his YouTube Campaign – which rapidly went viral with politicians such as Hilary Clinton and President Obama jumping on the bandwagon.

In Ireland, things have slowly gotten better. For example, the Trinity LGBT, or the LGBT Soc, formerly known as the DU Gay Soc, was founded in 1982, that is 11 years before homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland, and yet Trinity students were given a voice. Senator David Norris

succeeded in having homosexuality decriminalised the same year that President Clinton introduced “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. Furthermore, Senator Norris may yet become Ireland’s first gay President. More recently the Civil Partnership Bill was signed into law this July by President Mary McAleese. What is provided is

“However, there has been an undeniable trade-off as the cost for being seen is that you become a better target.” “marriage-lite”, stepping stone, which gives homosexual couples many marriage-like benefits in areas such of property, pensions, and tax – you know the sexy stuff at the core of any civil rights movement. What it leaves out is nevertheless of tremendous significance, namely, the right to have a family.

In the United Kingdom unmarried

couples and homosexuals were given the right to adopt in 2002, and later Civil Partnerships created a marriageby-any-other-name for homosexual couples in 2004. This omission by the Irish government reflects the central role that the family plays in the Irish state, but is an insult to homosexuals, as people and citizens of the state. This is especially true since recent studies suggest that not only do homosexual couples do no worse than their heterosexual counterparts in raising children, but that lesbian couples actually do a better job! Despite these findings there are certain people and groups who object to homosexuals being trusted with children for fear that they might “recruit them”.

In this regard the struggle for our civil rights is like that of any community which has come before us. That is to say that our greatest opponent is unadulterated ignorance.

We must challenge these lies with honesty, and thwart ignorance with education. Homosexuals are as “good as you”. We are your sons, and daughter. We are your politicians and playwrights. Lastly, we are you.

TRINITY NEWS

OPINION 17 opinion@trinitynews.ie

No country for old men The recent RTÉ series “Ireland’s Greatest” exposes the scars left in the public consciousness by British rule, according to Michael Gilligan

A

t a time of a severe drop in public morale, RTÉ recently released a documentary series which allowed the Irish public to vote on who they thought Ireland’s greatest ever figure was.

Top of the poll, as decided by last Friday’s Late-Late-watching public, was Nobel laureate John Hume followed by Michael Collins, Mary Robinson, James Connolly and finally unequivocally both last and least – trailed Bono.

Historians were baffled and thrown into disarray at the list which contained names as obtuse and irrelevant to the some 1500 years of documented Irish history as Roy Keane, Ronan Keating and Collin Farrell. Granted it isn’t likely early Christian monks influenced to any great extent the historical direction of Ireland, but it is just as unlikely that we hit the supreme genetic jackpot in the twentieth century.

Only three of the names among “Ireland’s greatest” predated the 1900s. The oldest bidder was Daniel O’Connell who, despite having peacefully achieved the right for Catholic Irishmen to become MPs in Westminster, was left contending with figures like Roy Keane whose contributions to the course of Irish history (as distinct from Premiership football) remain at best negligible.

What the poll incontestably demonstrated, apart from the influence and power of popular culture, is the rupture that exists between Ireland, pre- and post-colonial. In the British equivalent, “100 Greatest Britons”, released in 2002 and by which “Ireland’s Greatest” was inspired, the wealth of figures stretched as far back as AD 60 with Boudicca (a leader of the resistance to the Roman Empire) and included such legendary names as King Arthur, William Wallace and Alfred the Great. The question that we must then ask ourselves is why is our conception of Ireland so bound and limited to the twentieth century?

Two weeks ago when Bob Geldof (who, incidentally, was also on the shortlist) spoke at The Hist, he briefly made reference to Ireland and, in an attempt to stir empathy, compared its colonial history to that of Africa. However, he went a step further again, claiming the Irish were a “deracinated people” who were

ROUNDUP

Money can’t buy you votes Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has spent an astonishing $160 million dollars in her campaign to take the reigns of a floundering California economy. The former eBay CEO has invested nearly all of that money from her private accounts, creating the most expensive nonpresidental campaign in history.

Whitman’s Democratic challenger, Jerry Brown, has spent only around $20 million dollars but still leads in the polls.

Her broadcasts are hard to avoid, as Whitman has bombarded the airwaves with thousands of adverts every single day, in an array of languages that would make even a multi-cultural Californian’s head spin.

Could her big-spending tactics actually work and win her the election? Perhaps an ordinary California voter put it best when he posted on the Internet: “California is my state, Ms. Whitman. And it’s not for sale!”

cut off from their heritage and forced to “forge an identity” for themselves. Despite my initial incredulity, the results of “Ireland’s Greatest” revealed a harrowing truth behind Sir Bob Geldof’s words.

Where was High King Brian Ború, the Earl of Tyrone Hugh O’Neill, Red Hugh O’Donnell and even Colmcille to name but a few of those who were so casually thrown aside. I dare not mention St Patrick in such hallowed grounds as Trinity but (and I think we can grant him citizenship under the same grounds as Connolly) was he not in many respects an immense figure who irrevocably changed the course of this island and whose name, for one hazy day every March, has become synonymous with all things Irish?

Ireland may be a young nation politically but its history is rich and vast. The problem with “Ireland’s Greatest” was that it saw “Ireland” as a concept which has only existed for the last 150-odd years.

However, if, as Bob Geldof seemed to imply, we owe much of our identity to the cultural revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, where then on the list were the men that made this possible? Douglas Hyde, it can be argued, was almost singlehandedly responsible for the (pseudo-)survival of the Irish language, yet he was unworthy of a place. People like Michael Cusack were also nowhere to be seen, and even poor Arthur Guinness probably deserved a mention. Yeats, combining in his work both the Gaelic and the colonial, is in many senses the father of modern Irish literature. With Joyce, he carved Ireland onto the literary map. Is Ireland then, and our very identity by association, not more indebted to these cultural giants than their political counterparts?

But hey, in the eyes of many people abroad Bono and Arthur Guinness are Ireland’s greatest, and (to sprinkle a little more cynicism on the wound) Michael Collins’ deserved place as runner-up is probably, for our generation, due to the myth-sustaining role played by Liam Neeson – who, need I even say it, was also on the shortlist.

US Comedian plans political rally Jon Stewart, of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, reeled in the biggest fish of them all of Wednesday: President Barack Obama. The comedian, who is planning a rally at the National Mall the weekend before midterm elections, spoke plainly, if not entirely seriously, to the President.

Obama’s key message for Stewart’s audience? Get out and vote on November 2! The President has spent the past few weeks on a difficult campaign trail, trying to lend his celebrity (if not his plummeting popularity) to the fight for congressional Democrats.

Some critics of Stewart worry that he is getting to close to the subject of his satire, possibly becoming a political activist himself. All I know is, if there is any chance to keep the Republicans from taking over both the House of Representatives and the Senate in November, well then Mr Stewart, work away.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS A SELECTION of notable Irish men and women are pictured. Though Trinity News is not so bold as to claim these are the greatest Irish people who ever lived, each contributed to the progress, reputation or culture of Ireland during their lifetime, with many actively working to improve people’s lives. Names with a star appeared in RTÉ’s top 40.

From top left: Sister Sarah Clarke, Aodh Mór Ó Néill (Hugh O’Neill), Delia Larkin, Douglas Hyde, Theobald Wolfe Tone*, John Hume*, George Bernard Shaw, Mary Robinson*, Brian Boruma (Brian Boru), Daniel O’Connell*, Eamon de Valera*, Michael Collins*, Edmund Burke, James Joyce*, Jonathan Swift, Adi Roche*, Michael Cusack, Sir Thomas Barnardo, Sister Catherine Macauley, James Connolly*.

Scientists make progress on DNA decoding

The campaign for election begins

T

he new campaign for a new Provost is now well under way. Aspiring candidates appear suddenly to relish the company of colleagues on High Table studiously avoided in the previous ten years and are eager to seek them out in the remotest parts of College. Suddenly the sense of the “College community” (a phrase beloved of remote administrators) begins to acquire some of its old vitality.

Such is the power of an election and the possibility of a real determination of events. This is a power that the electorate must be eager to grasp and to use, for it will disappear as soon as the votes have been counted.

As with a Cowen or a Cameron, we shall not truly know the quality of a Provost until he or she begins to exercise the authority normally associated with the resident of 1 Grafton Street (now obscured from view by the iconic Hub Building). It is imperative that the

2 November, 2010

A VIEW FROM NEW SQUARE

GERALD MORGAN new Provost act decisively to put an end to the scandal of bonus payments and special allowances to superior academics with managerial skills. And we

need to decide how much we ought to pay someone for the privilege of living in the Provost’s House. I suggest that we put a limit of €150,000 on the Provost’s salary and regulate all other salaries downwards from it accordingly.

The system of electing a Provost is unique to Trinity College, a relic, according to one correspondent in the Irish Examiner, of a gentleman’s club, and to the same correspondent in The Irish Times “archaic, obsolete and irrelevant”.

It is amusing in a way to see that the old perceptions of Trinity College have not been entirely abandoned in the public mind. How unfortunate it is that they are no longer true. A vote is a precious thing and no university manager will be entirely at ease with the idea of a collection of free-thinking individuals making up their own minds on the allimportant question of their leader or boss. Hence attempts are bound to be made to restrict this power.

The system by which we elected F. S. L. Lyons in 1974 and his successors in 1981, 1991 and 2001 is no longer to be trusted. Thus there has been a change in procedure, that is, a change for the worse in the restriction of the power of nominators and electors.

We can no longer leave the selection of candidates to the good judgment of nominators, but we must interpose a committee of the wise and good to determine the names of those who are to be deemed worthy of nomination and election.

It is one more sign that Trinity’s liberal traditions are under threat, and I hope that the electorate will respond to this challenge by an assertion of its own power.

After all, who would want to appoint as Provost a person of “significant academic standing” (the College’s advertisement)? What we require is a great scholar. A very different thing. gmorgan1066@gmail.com

The scientific community is in high spirits after researchers cataloguing the human genome announced that they are on the way to compiling a comprehensive study on nearly five trillion letters of human DNA code. This research could lead to a much more comprehensive understanding of human evolution and determine the genetic derivations of certain diseases.

The project plans to examine the genetic codes of 2500 people.

Researcher Even Eichler has been quoted in the Guardian saying, “When we compare these 159 humans we’ve analyzed to the great apes, we have the ability to identify the genes and gene families which have expanded specifically in our lineage of evolution since we separated from that of chimpanzees and gorillas.”

He also said: “We find a tantalizing set of genes that are important for neural development in terms of neuronal migration.”

So there you have it. You can tell your mum that your neurological development, though not far from that of the great apes, has undergone some serious neuronal migration! Erm… huh?

Jonathan Creasy

18 EDITORIAL

HEAD TO HEAD: DEBS BALLS

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

t

SENSATIONALISM ALLOWS USI TO BE IGNORED THE SLOGAN the USI has chosen for tomorrow’s march – “Education not Emigration” – is just the latest instance of poor communication from this organisation.

According to their website, the aim of the march is threefold. They wish to protect the maintenance grant, to prevent an increase in the registration fee, and for government to set up an internship system for graduates.

Do the USI want us to march against emigration, or for the aims they have stated? Their argument is that if the maintenance grant is cut and the registration fee lowered, students will be forced to drop out of college, or not enrol in the first place. The line goes that even those who do struggle through will graduate with slim prospects of employment, due to the lack of a government-sponsored internship system. The USI believes that these young people will then be “forced” to emigrate.

Is emigration such a large problem? Figures for this year are not yet available, but for last year up until April 2009, the figure for Irish nationals emigrating was 18,400, less than a third of the full figure for emigration (65,100). One can assume then that the bulk of emigrants were migrant workers returning to their country of origin.

While there has been an increase in the emigration level for this year, it seems far too early to claim that it is a crisis.

The USI claims that 1000 graduates leave the country each week, but it is unclear how they reached this figure. Even if the full 18,400 Irish emigrants last year were all graduates, it’s difficult to believe rates could have increased so drastically in such a short space of time.

USI’s fondness for hyperbole is not helping their case. Over the summer, their comparison of today’s emigration with emigration levels during the Famine made many spectators cringe. They held a photocall where caricatures of government officials pushed students onto a Famine ship. Rather than making government sit up and take notice, this stunt only served to showcase their lack of understanding of historical events, and their fondness for sensationalism.

Other recent press releases have also been a source of embarrassment. That of October 16 was particularly memorable, given that the first line was “The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has slammed the Government for forcing students to work as strippers, sugar babies and escorts.” The press release was in response to a Sunday Independent article, which stated that increasing numbers of young people were earning money by working as escorts, though no figures were given and this statement seemed to be based mainly on anecdotes.

The framing of USI’s response was so ridiculous that their point was lost. Once again, rather than highlighting the fact that the cost of living is rising, and students are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, the USI set themselves up to be ignored.

We wish the USI well in their march tomorrow, but are concerned that rather than acting as a rallying point, their slogan confuses and dilutes their message. And at this current time, we cannot afford to be represented by an organisation that allows us to be ignored.

t

ENDORSEMENT FOR ELECTION CANIDATE TRINITY NEWS has decided not to endorse a particular candidate in the upcoming elections.

While we note that there has been a strong tradition of endorsements in many reputable and well respected newspapers, we believe that such a declaration calls into question the objectivity of our reporting.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, many newspapers were affiliated with political parties, and the tradition of endorsement stretches back to this time. However, it is our belief that such a practice is now anachronistic, and in conflict with our aim of impartiality.

“If you are yearning to go relive your glory days, go drink in a field” ROISÍN COSTELLO

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he debs is an institution in Irish society which is both applauded and maligned in equal measure every year but which somehow manages to survive as a celebrated event. The flaws of the debs are trotted out by schools debaters every year in preliminary rounds of Gael Linn. Surely then the reputation of the institution must be precarious, its facade of respectability chipped by the general consensus among most people that they serve no useful purpose?

Yet the debs remains fairly unscathed – its flaws being generally accepted to exist but swept under the carpet and regarded as the kind of complaints raised by the people who wouldn’t understand the appeal of a huge booze-up in black tie. I go to Trinity, so I appreciate the appeal of tottering around the Shelbourne in a full-length dress as much as anybody. The debs, however, is different kettle of well-dressed fish.

On a purely social level, the debs’ merit is questionable. It was and still is no more than a superficial rite of passage, an arena for the pretty people to compete with each other. The debs is a shadow of things past – the last vestige of the social institution that saw girls let loose in society in the hopes of securing a husband. I may be the only one but I’m not entirely comfortable with the propogation of a tradition based on the premise that the highest ambition a young girl can have is to marry well. Even today they’re

more about flaunting the partner on your arm than the dress you’re wearing. The goal for the debs today is still (whether you want to admit it or not) to be the prettiest person with the prettiest partner. A lofty goal to be sure.

Add to the socially questionable the financialy irresponsible and the appeal of these events dims more. The truth of the matter is that no matter what you say the debs cost money and they cost too much of it. If you figure that there are one hundred couples spending a grand per couple, all in, on the night then each debs is worth one hundred thousand euro. People are defaulting on mortgage repayments that cost less than some people spend on dresses they will wear for the night and never again. Money.

Well. Spent.

The practical argument in favour of debs, the one the shiny happy make, is that the debs is the last chance to relive your glory days with all your friends before you head off for college.

I don’t know what kind of debs you went to but a lot of them involve sitting at a table of people who you no longer have anything in common with in a night filled with those polite, smiling silences that in an Austen novel somebody would fill with talk about the weather.

If you want to relive your glory days then do: throw on your best Abercrombie hoody and go drink in a field.

Oh the glory days.

“Most will recall it fondly as the best night they’ll never remember” SARAH CLARKIN

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rguments against the debs largely incorporate those of the Dail Mail variety: look at these young, South Dublin girls spending thousands on their dresses, who do they think they are? It must have cost week’s worth of the average industrial wage to achieve that nuclear orange glow! And as for the hair, the nails, the limo, the overpriced tickets to the below standard venues, what are they thinking? Some will continue this debate further still, dubbing the debs a throwback to the Celtic-Tiger era, and rendering them solely to blame for the spoilt, uncaring, life-owesme-something attitude attributed to her cubs.

Yet in the grand scheme of things, the debs are not something which we should be complaining about, and in some respects, they are really events which can be celebrated!

Debs can undoubtedly be expensive, but they are a once in a lifetime opportunity, and should be treated as such. For girls and boys alike, they mark the end of their school days and the beginning of another chapter, with a fitting splendour and majesty.

It may be the last time for years to come, most likely the last time ever, where all your classmates will be in the same room and the atmosphere is not something that can be easily recreated. As for the expense, for the girls it includes dresses, beauty accoutrements, shoes, bags and transport as well as the tickets (though the boys get off less lightly, with little more than the ex-

pense of hiring a tux and buying a corsage for their lucky date’s wrist). In other words, it can be done modestly. There is no rule which dictates that huge amounts need to be spent in order to have a good night, and in almost all of the cases, no one would notice anyway!

Which brings me to the final argument usually brought against debutante balls: the messy night it culminates in. In general, the excitement of the debs is so peaked that people do tend to consume more alcohol and there are more instances of puking into breakfast rolls than is often the case.

But even this is part of the fun! The girls go home with a ruined dress, the boys with a lost jacket, yet with them is a camera full of memories to help piece together the lost sections of the night. That walk home when everyone else in the country is rising for school and work, begging the milkman for a free pint because your purse/wallet is mislaid – this encapsulates the tainted essence of the debs.

The fun, the glamour, the expense, the up styles and false lashes, the descent into debauchery while dressed up as ladies and gentlemen, the false lashes stuck to your cheek, the hair pins stuck down the back of your dress… It will all never be experienced again.

For some, this is something to be thankful for. For many more, it will be for the rest of their lives the night they never forget – or perhaps the night they’ll never remember!

TRINITY NEWS

OPINION 19

LETTERS

Letters should be sent to letters@trinitynews.ie or to Trinity News, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. We reserve the right to edit submissions for style and length. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Trinity News.

LETTERS@TRINITYNEWS.IE

HEADACHES FOR NEUROSCIENCE Madam – Once again any attempt to be organised in Trinity College has failed completely and utterly. I am a student of Neuroscience and our timetable this year has been an unholy disaster.

I have several clashing lectures that are constantly being rearranged. In one case, a lecture was moved so that we could attend another lecture with Physiology. Then, when we arrived at the physiology lecture, there was no lecturer or tutor present. It later emerged that they had changed the venue, and just hadn’t told Neuroscience.

Another couple of times we have had lectures scheduled and no lecturer has turned up as they were told different times on their timetable.

These issues only encourage the thought that there are people in Trinity who can’t do their job and yet for

some reason, are still being paid to do it.

Yours, etc, Rachel MacCann JS Neuroscience

TRINITY NEEDS CHANGE NOW Madam– The upcoming election of Trinity’s next Provost has set the rumour mills turning at full speed, and it is hardly surprising that several high-profile names have been mentioned.

Of these, one we might have expected – Professor Patrick Prendergast, the Vice-Provost – was officially announced last week. I have met Mr Prendergast on more than one occasion, and he is a fine man. But- and I say with this with no ill will towards him personally – I cannot help but feel he is cut of the same cloth as his predecessor, and the university needs a change.

The corporate nature which has invaded not only Trinity, but every major university in the country, has not served us well. Undergraduate teaching is barely limping onward, while new initiatives with impressivesounding names and “interdisciplinary” credentials draw away the little available cash.

Educational institutions seem to employ as many marketing staff these days as they do academics, as they try to attract external funding from grant bodies or corporations for new projects, any new projects, that might increase the profile and stature of their institution.

What Trinity needs right now is a break from this mode of thought. I don’t suggest, as I know others might, that we need a Provost who is a highbrow academic, with little understanding of how the system works.

Rather, we need to select a person from the many very capable and wellrespected figures the university has already produced who is capable of honest and open-minded discussion;

a person who values common sense as highly as they do academic discourse; someone who would prefer to get right down to the issues rather than indulge in time-wasting corporate-style nonsense.

It is a shame figures like Ferdinand von Prondzynski, a former Fellow and the finest of the recent university heads, or Eoin O’Dell, one of the most well-respected legal minds in the State, have excused themselves from the race.

Both are known for their open and public nature, something cherished by their fans in an industry ruled by small committees behind closed doors.

If such men would actively avoid the role of Provost in one of the country’s leading universities, despite encouragement, does that mean the situation is so dire they cannot see room for improvement? If so, all the more need for a radical change.

Yours, etc, Dave Molloy BA 2009

Murder and sprees on campus

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DWARD FORD was shot dead at his window in No 25, in the Rubrics, by a rabble of students in 1734.

The shooting took place on the New Square side of the building, from what was then called the Playground or the Mall. The unfortunate don was at the window above the passage through the building – now covered up.

The incident has been mentioned several times here in Trinity News, and many of the college’s histories describe what occurred, and how the accused students were acquitted of his murder.

A very good summary also appeared in TCD: A College Miscellany on March 17, 1906 – giving his name incorrectly as Forde, however.

A short article by Professor McDowell in Trinity: An Annual Record in Michaelmas 1950 gives further details on the killing which are not recorded in the other accounts. The information is from a verbatim report of the trial, which was acquired by the British Museum in 1932.

Ford was the son of the Archdeacon of Derry, and had been elected to Fellowship in 1730 at the age of 24. When the rooms of a colleague, Hugh Graffan, were wrecked, Ford tried to track down the perpetrators – and received some threatening letters for his trouble.

Just after midnight on the night of March 7, 1734, a porter at the front gate was attacked by a group of young men wearing white, and shortly afterward Ford’s windows were smashed by stone-throwers in the Mall. Ford took out his pistols and shot at the gang. He then ordered two undergraduates also living in Rubrics to summon a porter.

Roan, one of the undergrads, advised Ford to go downstairs and not confront the troublemakers. We have Roan’s testimony from the court.

He says he got dressed, and ran up to Ford’s rooms.

“Mr Forde stood near the windows and, looking to the Mall, said to me: ‘There they are.’” I endeavoured to prevent Mr Forde being hurt himself or shooting at the persons in the Mall by importuning him again to retreat, but he would not, and taking up a pistol advanced again toward the window and pointed the pistol downward at the persons in the Mall through a broken pane of glass. I immediately heard the shot from the Mall and Mr Forde was wounded.”

Roan and the other student, Hansard, took Ford down to Hansard’s rooms, “where he lay some time speechless, and then spoke for a surgeon”.

Roan testified: “We asked Mr Forde if he knew who shot him, who

2 November, 2010

OLD TRINITY PETER HENRY answered, ‘I do not know, but God forgive them, I do’. He lay pretty easy about ten minutes. Mr Dobs came in and endeavoured to bleed him, but he was dead.”

A few hours later some Fellows met, and having heard that a student called Cotter had been drinking with his friends in his rooms all the previous day and night, decided to pay him a visit. Cotter’s rooms were at the library end of the Rubrics – probably No 22.

There they found Boyle, a bachelor of arts, with three undergrads: Cotter, Crosbie and Scholes. On the table was an empty punch bowl and some bottles and glasses. The Fellows also found powder, a recently fired gun, and white clothes.

The four were put on trial for murder in July 1734. The trial was a mess. A witness couldn’t be found.

The porter admitted to having been “a little in liquor” when he was attacked.

And Hansard, in whose rooms Ford had died, insisted he heard the voices of other students on the fateful night – not those of the prisoners. The Lord Chief Justice found in favour of the four.

But the college’s Board thought differently. Cotter and his pals were sent down.

It didn’t seem to hurt them too much. Cotter became an MP and a baronet. Crosbie succeeded his father’s title and was created a viscount and an earl. One master of arts who had attempted to influence the trial married an heiress and became Dean of Armagh. Boyle, the only graduate among them, never took his MA, probably knowing better than to present himself in college again.

IT SEEMS rather dull that parties in college are called, simply, parties.

SS A spree in progress. Drawing from Henry Albert Hinkson’s Student Life in Trinity College, Dublin.

In Oxford, and other universities over there, they still have the bop – usually, I think, a bit of music in the college bar. Members of Germany’s studentenverbindungen (who have the enviable tradition of the Mensur – slashing each other’s faces) refer to a party as kneipe.

For many years, a party here was a hop. In Trinity News in December 1953, for example, it was noted that “the Swimming Club ‘hop’ in the Dixon was a much more sober affair than the last”. This word almost certainly succumbed to the iconoclasm of the 1960s.

Donnell Deeny, in his essay in Trinity Tales, gives some more names: “A party in the Hist was called ‘a blind’ but one in the Boat Club was ‘a thrash’”. This was around 1970.

I have never (yet) encountered a thrash, but the Boat Club called its Halloween party “The Massacre” in recent years. I think this may have lapsed.

Henry Hinkson, in his Student Life (1892), tells us that parties were

then called sprees. “The spree is not conducted on total abstinence principles,” he writes, and gives a good description of a night of drinking in college at the time.

The JD was an occasional visitor: “It sometimes happens that the party is surprised by an unwelcome visitor, in the person of the Junior Dean … In this case the JD delivers the concluding oration, which is couched in language far from complimentary to the host.”

Hinkson also includes some verses about a spree given by a student called Grandison in his rooms high in 27. It’s unfortunate that those rooms weren’t reclaimed for students when the sport administrators moved out a couple of years ago – no more sprees up there.

TO READ the Trinity piece on the trial, the 1906 article in TCD, an April 2009 piece about Ford’s ghost and Hinkson’s description of the spree, visit trinitynews.ie/oldtrinity. pehenry@tcd.ie

THE PUBLIC EDITOR IN ITS news pages, Trinity News publishes two main forms of coverage: the news article and the feature. It is important to remember that these forms require different levels of journalistic subjectivity from each other, and also from the content found in the opinion pages. The second issue of the paper demonstrated that this is a point which requires some attention.

The straight-forward news article is always presented in the standard style consisting of headline, the writer’s name and byline, along with the article beneath. The reader brings certain expectations of objectivity, fairness and fact-based reportage to this form. The writer should not refer to their own experience, and any conclusions drawn in a news article should be based entirely on the facts, rather than the opinion of the writer.

Apply this criterion then to “Get extra extra-curricular in College,” an article published in the Society section, where Freya Findlay recalled her various experiences of Freshers’ Week. Although the article was enjoyable, it was obviously a piece of opinion writing, and should have been marked in a way that differentiated it from the news coverage. I suggest that this should be done by labeling such an article – an opinion piece that appears outside the Opinion and Editorial pages, not part of a regular column – as a “Comment”. That way, confusion can be avoided on the part of the reader.

Also in the issue, an article about the return to sporting prominence of the American football star Michael Vick proved problematic in terms of the form in which it was presented and its content. Entitled “No rest for the Vick-ed as tales of notoriety spread,” the article appeared in the Sports Features section.

The writer, James Hussey, detailed Vick’s conviction for running a dogfighting ring on his property, for which he served a prison sentence. He then went on to describe the “media deluge” Vick has faced while seeking to rehabilitate his image, which Hussey sees as “nothing short of shameful” because “Vick saw nothing wrong with fighting pit bull dogs [and this] indicates the deep-rooted habits of his community.”

“The opinion held by many in African American society of canines is very different to that of the stereotypical view on man’s best friend. Dogs were used as a tool by white slave owners to seek out runaway black slaves,” he wrote.

It is important to note that a feature is not an opinion piece, though that is what Hussey wrote and Trinity News published. The journalist may insert him/herself in a feature article in order to better guide the reader to understand the news and explore opposing views, but the writer should not attempt to convince the reader to feel a particular way about an issue.

“On reflection I agree that [the article] should have been labeled opinion or comment,” Daniel O’Callaghan, the editor of the article, told me by email. “If we are putting a piece like that in again I will make sure to do that.”

However, even if the article was labeled as opinion, it still would have posed some difficulties. I would submit that many of the racial and class assertions it contains are totally unsubstantiated. They should have been challenged by the editor, and backed-up if true by reputable research.

According to O’Callaghan, time constraints dictated that the piece was put into the paper almost as soon as it was submitted. It is therefore paramount that editors leave enough time when commissioning an article in any journalistic form to ensure that every single factual claim made by the writer can be authenticated.

Cillian Murphy, Public Editor To contact the Public Editor, email public@trinitynews.ie

20 BUSINESS INTERVIEW WITH DAN O’BRIEN

“We are in unchartered territory” Dan O’ Brien, economics editor of The Irish Times, discusses his views on everything from the upcoming budget to membership of the euro.

Owen Bennett reports

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“The whole banking system would be destroyed. In effect, leaving the euro would have disastrous consequences.”

ver the past year, Dan O’Brien has provided a pragmatic and rational analysis of the plight facing the Irish economy. With cutbacks and tax hikes being the flavour of the month, I questioned O’Brien on whether he believes that the budget strategy adopted by the Government is feasible.

As expected, his response was far from optimistic.

“That remains to be seen. This is a huge fiscal adjustment, with a very weak economy. We are in unchartered territory and the upcoming budget will hold the key as to whether the Irish economy can survive without an EU/ IMF bailout.”

However, O’Brien is quick to point out that he does not expect to see the same street violence that gripped Greece earlier in the year. “Ireland has a very different social infrastructure to that of Greece. Here in Ireland, we are much more socially calm.

Aside from the extreme nationalist movement, there has never been a history in Ireland of social tension boiling over from peaceful protest to violence. I would be reasonably optimistic that we won’t have severe social unrest here regardless of what happens economically. Having lived in six different countries and having spent most of my career studying how they work, I believe that Ireland has the political and social structures to get through the current crisis without the severe violence that occurred in Greece earlier in the year.”

Key to the economy recovery is a strategic plan to reform the public sector. I asked O’Brien if he believed measures enacted by the Government, such as last year’s Croke Park agreement, were enough to address the flaws in the sector. He admits, “If the Croke Park agreement is to be believed, and the dignitaries are to be believed, then it is an acknowledgement that change needs to take place.” However, he is not optimistic that there is the will on both sides to realise the aims laid out in the agreement. “In the past there have been a number of agreements between both the government and the unions which have failed, simply because the government was not willing to push for an implementation of the agreement, while the unions were not willing to accept the terms they had previously agreed to. Although public service reform is imperative, I think there’s a good chance that the Croke Park agreement will be thrown in the

shredder.”

Of late it has become apparent that much of the growth in the later years of the Celtic Tiger was funded by unsustainable property speculation.

Given that the bubble has now burst, O’Brien downplays the prospect of a return to growth in the short term. “In the next few years, it’s very difficult to see growth in the economy at all. The property bubble bursting has done enormous damage to the economy.

The public sector is bust, a large part of the private sector is bust, and many firms have seen their balance sheets

“I would be reasonably optimistic that we wouldn’t have severe social unrest here regardless of what happens economically.” destroyed by the recession. In the short term, there is going to be a huge debt hangover which is going to weigh heavily on firms and households. It is going to have a huge impact on their willingness to spend. Also, given that the government is on the brink of bankruptcy, a stimulus package is out of the question.”

Yet, he does allude to the fact that Irish exports have performed strongly in recent times and harbours hope that the export sector can be the vehicle to drive a return to economic stability. “If you look across the different export sectors, both the merchandise and the services sectors, Ireland is a world leader, and there have been some big successes in those fields. One would hope that as the world economy recovers, growth in exports would spill out into the other sectors of the economy.”

In the long term, O’Brien is confident Ireland can see out the current plight.

“If households can pay down their debt, then growth can be generated through domestic consumer spending.

There will always be domestic spending; the only question is at what level. Consumer spending depends on levels of personal debt and income. At the moment those factors are not very favourable, but, over a 10-year period, I think consumer spending will pick up and this will sustain growth in the

SS Illustration by Cat O’Shea

economy going forward.”

Many commentators have been quick to place the blame for the economic crisis on our membership of the euro. Although he admits the euro did have a role to play in creating the current predicament, O’Brien is unequivocal in his belief that leaving the euro is not an option for the government. “One must remember that, if you join a single currency, the only way to get out of it is to crush your economy. If Ireland decided to leave the euro, it would have to relaunch its own currency. The new Irish currency would be designed to be weak, and as such would be worth much less than the euro.

“Invariably, people would transfer their money to a different currency to avoid making a loss when the punt is

reintroduced.

This would in effect constitute a run on the banks and the whole banking system would be destroyed. In effect, leaving the euro would have disastrous consequences.”

I ask him whether such consequences would be a price worth paying for having the ability to devalue our own currency in order to help kick start the economy. “Devaluation is not a guaranteed solution to our problems.

Look at Iceland for instance. Iceland devalued its currency in order to ease the economic hardship but it could not prevent a massive contraction in GDP. “The UK is another example. The Bank of England devalued the sterling recently and we have only seen modest increases in British exports.

“I would be very wary of the idea of leaving the single currency. The costs and potential consequences of such a move far outweigh the benefits of doing so.”

Real Madrid gets results both on and off the pitch In the first of a two-part series, Marius Nigond discusses the business culture that permeates world football, and examines the business model that has made Real Madrid the most affluent football club in the world

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lorentino Pérez is a well respected Spanish businessman who is currently in his second spell as President of the world’s wealthiest and most famous football club, Real Madrid. His first spell in charge (2000-2006) was rendered famous by the creation of “Los Galacticos”, a dream team made of the world’s best and most iconic footballers. However, despite the immense array of talent, the club performed relatively poorly and Pérez resigned in February 2006 leaving the club with over €200 million worth of debts.

In June 2009 Pérez was re-elected as Real Madrid’s president with the

“Players are also bought on their potential to sell shirts to fans.”

promise of making the club great again. Within three months of coming into power he had brought in four genuine world class players, spending €257 million in the process and increasing the yearly wage bill to over €300 million.

Short term, this money came in the form of loans from local banks and building societies. Jose Maria Gay, a professor of economics at the University of Barcelona, sparked panic when he estimated that the club’s total debts stood at over €800 million. However, official figures show that Real Madrid’s debts at the beginning of the 2010 season were “only” €245 million, down from €327 a year earlier. Although these figures may still seem huge, Real Madrid’s potential as a cash-generating machine is even bigger. Crucially, as the club is registered as a non-profit social trust, it is not required to pay high

interest rates. Moreover, Real’s loans are predominantly from local banks which face massive social pressure to be lenient with one of the country’s most iconic brands.

Perez expects the club to generate €500 million in 2011. The €442m

“Local banks face massive social pressure to be lenient with one of the country’s most iconic brands.” made in 2010 means that Real Madrid is the richest sports club in the world. In recent years the club has worked hard to establish its brand in emerging markets for football. It has joined other La Liga clubs in seeking

permission to play matches at earlier times in order to take advantage of the booming demand for high-quality football in China. Also, the club regularly undertakes pre-season promotional tours of Asia and the US. Madrid’s dare to buy the world’s greatest superstars is already starting to bear fruit in terms of merchandise sales. Sales increased 51% last year and the potential exists for these to rise even further. The recruits aren’t only bought according to the individual qualities of the players but also their potential to sell shirts to fans in certain parts of the world. Kaka shirts, for instance, are very popular in South America, while Karim Benzema attracts a cult following in North Africa. If these marketing

strategies fall short of expectations, Madrid can always rely on the 92,000 “socios” who pay €1,500 a year to be a member of the club. The club also has property investments in Madrid worth over €500 million.

It must be remembered that, although Real spend exorbitant amounts of money in the transfer market, these fees are justifiable from a business perspective.

Perez and his associates are acutely aware that buying new players constitutes capital investment. “Los Galacticos” cannot guarantee results on the pitch, but they can certainly ensure that the Real Madrid brand remains the most prestigious and affluent in world football.

TRINITY NEWS

business@trinitynews.ie

Opposition economics: Fine Gael

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fundamental problems inherent in the banking system. The party aims to give the banks one year to shore up their balance sheets by selling assets and raising private equity. If the banks fail to raise the required capital, the government would split each bank in two, forming a “good bank” and a “bad bank”.

For each institution, the “good bank” would take control of the performing loans and the branch networks. These banks would initially be nationalised but would be resold to the private sector when market conditions allowed.

The “bad bank” element of each institution would be left to manage the impaired loans and would, in effect, act as an asset recovery vehicle. These institutions would be wound down over time.

Fine Gael’s approach has received support from a number of influential economic commentators.

Joseph Stiglitz, former head of the World Bank has been vocal in his support of the policy, as has Irish economist David McWilliams. The strengths of the “good bank, bad bank” solution lie in the fact that there is less risk attached to the valuation of toxic assets, unlike NAMA’s “long-term economic value” valuation process.

Nonetheless, there is a glaring flaw in Fine Gael’s proposed solution to the banking crisis. Given that the banks have a year to shore up their balance

“Joseph Stiglitz, former head of the World Bank, has been vocal in his support of the policy advocated by Fine Gael, as has Irish economist David McWilliams.”

El of a profit: The Sun claims that fuel company Shell earns a total of €1.15m an hour, despite reports it has suffered from the BP oil spill. Shell made approximately €2.5bn in the three months up to October.

THE WEEK IN NUMBERS

€15bn

The amount the Government intends to save through tax increases and spending cuts over the next four years.

-1.8%

SS Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar talks shop with party leader Enda Kenny.

NAMA: THE FACTS NAMA will function as a ‘bad bank’, acquiring property development loans from Irish banks in return for government bonds.

The original book value of these loans is €77bn, with a current market value of €47bn.

Speaking at Trinity College, Nobel prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz criticised NAMA as a “simple transfer from taxpayers to bondholders” and accused the Government of “squandering” public money.

sheets, there is a very real threat that international funds will fly from the Irish banks, should investors begin to fear that the banks will be declared insolvent. This quandary led former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes to declare the strategy “unworkable”.

Like all mooted solutions to the current banking crisis, Fine Gael’s strategy contains both strengths and weaknesses. Given that the party is expected to participate in the next government, it is likely that some if not all of the elements of the party’s banking policy will be implemented.

Whether they prove successful or not is another matter, and the country will have to wait and see.

Blue Sky on the horizons for Murdoch Lorcan Clarke looks at the current power struggle gripping BSkyB, and analyzes the meteoric rise of one of the biggest players in the sprawling TV market

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upert Murdoch’s News Corporation is bidding for outright ownership of British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), of which it already owns a 39% stake. The move has been met with opposition from British media rivals, including the BBC and The Daily Telegraph, who are appealing to the British government and the media regulator, Ofcom. Sky has dominated pay

“Some investors suspect Murdoch might use Sky’s cash in ways which benefit News Corp. rather than itself.”

2 November, 2010

television in Britain and Ireland over the last decade, and continued to grow throughout the recession. So, just how good is Sky, and what will happen if News Corp. gains ownership of it?

To the answer the first part of that question, Sky is very good. In terms of customers, it will soon deliver satellite television to ten million households.

While ITV and Channel 4 have been losing revenue in recent years, Sky beat the expectations of analysts last week when it announced that pre-tax profit between July and September increased by 24 per cent to £230 million, and sales increased by 15 per cent to £1.53 billion.

Sky was not always in such rude health. It grew out of a network founded by Murdoch in the late 1980s. For a while it was such a drain on News Corporation that the parent company came close to bankruptcy.

M u c h credit must go to Tony Ball, who ran Sky

THE WEEK IN THE PAPERS Ryanair under investigation: The Irish Times revealed this week the UK Office of Fair Trading are investigating Ryanair’s 38 per cent stake in Aer Lingus. The OFT suspects the Ryanair merger with Aer Lingus has breached competition laws, which Ryanair views as “legally out of time”.

In the second of a two-part series, Owen Bennett weighs up the pros and cons of Fine Gael’s proposed solution to the banking crisis ine Gael has been unequivocal in its opposition to NAMA. As an alternative, the party advocates the establishment of a National Recovery Bank (NRB) which would focus on providing credit to households and small-to-medium enterprises. The NRB would be a wholesale bank, capitalised initially by withdrawing €2 billion from the National Pension Reserve Fund.

Customers would still apply to their local bank for loans, but the NRB would provide most of the capital.

However attractive it may seem initially, Fine Gael’s idea of a National Recovery Bank fails to address the problem it is designed for. As a number of economists have alluded to recently, there is no guarantee that the banking sector would avail of the NRB’s funds to lend to households and small firms.

With banks currently attempting to shrink their balance sheets in order to meet the Financial Regulator’s capital requirements, it seems improbable that they will increase lending in the shortto-medium term.

Yet, since the bank would be state owned, the government would have a direct say in where capital is invested.

Thus, loans could be advanced to the “real economy”, providing a shot in the arm to struggling businesses and households.

Fine Gael also plans to address the

FINANCE ROUND UP

between 1999 and 2003. He managed to increase the subscriber base from 3.5 million to 6.9 million in that period.

Under his management, Sky switched its customers from analogue to digital television and pioneered the iconic “Sky box”.

The company’s further growth was based primarily on two things:

“Sky Sports has played no small role in elevating the Premier League to being the richest football league in the world.” customer service and football rights.

Sky Sports has played no small role in elevating the Premier League to being the richest football league in the world.

James Murdoch took over from Ball, a controversial decision at the time which was reflected in a fall in share prices. Murdoch’s performance justified the choice. Under his control, Sky soared ahead of its rivals on the technology front. It began to shape not only what its customers watched, but how they watched it.

Sky has maintained this emphasis on television technology, pioneering 3D and mobile television, as well as the distribution of programmes through games consoles.

Almost 3 million customers now pay for high-definition

channels. It has also managed to diversify its operations horizontally into broadband and phone services, helping drive average revenues per user to £508 in the 2009-10 fiscal year, up from £427 two years earlier.

The firm has proved to be relatively recession-proof, but its continued success is now threatened more by regulation than by competitors.

With that in mind, let us return to the second part of our question, concerning the consequences of a successful takeover by News Corporation. A case could be made that not that much would change at all, as News Corp. already controls Sky’s activities. Some fear that ownership would add to Murdoch’s already considerable influence in world media. An alliance of newspapers, broadcasters and platform owners has expressed concerns that a merger between the UK’s largest newspaper group and pay-TV company would reduce diversity.

Opposition to the bid comes not only from competitors, but also from shareholders of Sky. Some investors suspect Murdoch might use Sky’s cash in ways which benefit News Corp. rather than itself.

Murdoch has been guilty of such practices before. In acquiring Hughes Electronics, News Corp. will transfer $4.5 billion of debt to Fox News. This decision could be crucial. Right now, the world is watching the British authorities.

In ten years time, we could all be watching Sky. In twenty years time, it’s not too much to speculate that Rupert Murdoch could be watching all of us.

The expected contraction of Irish GNP for 2010, down significantly from the -10.7 percent contraction in 2009.

$1.7bn

The profits made by Ford in the 3rd quarter, just one year after being on the verge of bankruptcy.

€29.3bn The expected final cost to the taxpayer for the Anglo Irish Bank bailout.

THE WEEK IN QUOTES “You’d be amazed how many times I take a picture with a very pregnant woman and then she immediately gives birth” - Bill Clinton in a speech scouting for Democratic candidates “I’m here to talk about real trash.

Media trash, I leave to you” - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a press conference at the litter crisis in Naples, dissmissing reports that two television executives helped introduce an underage girl into his entourage “Last spring we took courageous decisions. We won the battle of the euro. Today we show we can draw the lessons of the crisis” - Herman Von Rompuy, President of the European Council, as the EU holds a summit on preventing future economic disasters “Dáil cross-party support may prove crucial to our international financial credibility” Garret Fitzgerald in his support for bi-partisan cooperation in Irish politics “This scourge of internet piracy strongly affects Irish musicians, most of whom pay tax in Ireland.” Mr Justice Charleston in his High Court ruling that UCP should not be forced to disconnect file-sharing users “You can’t blame the rich for paying as little tax as possible. I do the same” In his column in The Guardian, David Mitchell argues legal tax avoidance by the likes of George Osborne shouldn’t be blamed for the defecit, the rules behind it should.

“We can’t fucking win with you shits, can we?” BBC Director General Mark Thompson in an official statement after press criticism that their presenters were deemed to be wearing their Remembrance Day poppies ‘too early’.

22 SPORTS FEATURES sportsfeatures@trinitynews.ie

Ruby turns out to be some gem Kate Rowan heard some secrets of the racing world revealed while attending the launch of champion jockey Ruby Walsh’s autobiography

T

he first time I ever placed a bet was in 2000 on Ruby Walsh riding Papillon in the Grand National.

I’ve not backed a Grand National Winner since, so Papillon and his jockey have a special place in my sporting memories. At the launch of his autobiography, Ruby Walsh was interviewed by journalist Malachy Clerkin, who co-wrote the book with him. Immediately the subject of his colourful moniker came up. Walsh explained in his Kildare brogue, “I was called after my grandfather, he was Ruby too, which was short for Rupert because he was born on the feast of St. Rupert.”

Much is said about the bloodlines and genealogy of horses, but Walsh himself has an impressive racing pedigree. In his day, Walsh Senior was a jockey and trainer, and is now famous

“Much is said about the bloodlines of horses, but Walsh himself has an impressive racing pedigree”. as an RTÉ racing pundit, making remarks about “riding” that sound like racy innuendos to those uninitiated to the racing world. His late grandfather and namesake was also a trainer from “a great family of horse people.”

Younger sister Katie is making a name for herself as a jockey, and notched up two winners at this year’s Cheltenham Festival. Her brother joked, “I don’t get much of a chance to ride many of dad’s horses anymore because of Katie!” All the family was in the audience to support him and many punters had a word with Ted about tips in upcoming races, which he seemed delighted to oblige.

For someone as successful as Walsh – two Grand National wins on Papillon in 2000 and Hedgehunter in 2005, then winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup twice on Kauto Star in 2007 and 2009 – he comes across as down to earth.

Of his fledgling career as an amateur

jockey in his teens he said, “I was lucky my dad is a trainer because nobody else would have given me a ride back then.” He went on to explain there was no other career path for him: “I always knew it would be racing, there was nothing else”. His mother Helen insisted he finish school.

Walsh got permission from his school to take some time off each week to go racing, so he could establish himself in the business. Laughing he told of how “part of the deal was that I would study and do homework on my way home from races, I would sit in the back of the car with a book and I would at least pretend I was doing some work!”

His mother was also keen for him to apply for some college courses as a back-up plan but ever determined to follow his dream the Kill native purposely put down “grand old courses like veterinary and medicine, knowing well I wouldn’t get five or six hundred points” so the path was clear for him to race full-time after he completed his Leaving Cert.

After a very promising and smooth start to his career as a professional jockey, Walsh suffered his first serious injury at Pardubice in the Czech Republic, breaking his leg in October 1999. He missed five months of racing and during this time started to doubt if his career would continue to flourish but this led to him in his opinion gaining an advantage “nobody is as hungry as you when you get back, I was mad for action when I first came back”. Despite a Cheltenham Festival without any winners the young jockey was just around the corner from a victory he would describe as “meaning the most emotionally” to him of all his triumphs.

That win was of course was guiding my old friend Papillon to success in the Grand National. The reason this win was so special to Walsh, other than it being his first win and first time attempting such an iconic race was that his father was the trainer. Also the owner Betty Moran was a family friend.

The jockey described the gelding “as a family horse”. He showed his grounded side again when he shared

hello to but he was a friend of a friend and I was looking for a place to stay and it was suggested I would stay with him and I have done so ever since. It is great to have a home to stay in rather than a hotel. They even have ‘Ruby’s room’ in their house now!”

Some of the most fascinating insights into Walsh’s career and views on the racing world came up during the question and answer session after the main interview. When asked which jockeys he disliked he said there was huge rivalry between them all but because racing is such a dangerous sport, any of them could have a serious accident during the next race, so there is no point in being petty.

“I was lucky my dad is a trainer because nobody else would have given me a ride back then.”

“He filled his CAO form with ‘grand old courses like vetinary and medicine, knowing well I wouldn’t get five or six hundred points’ so the path was clear for him to race full-time.”

his thoughts during the build up to the famous National Hunt race: “I was more thrilled with the idea of actually having a ride in the race at all.”

From that point ten years ago Walsh became a household name and has since racked up the most winners for a jockey at the Cheltenham Festival, the sweetest of those moments being his two Gold Cup triumphs on Kauto Star trained by Paul Nicholls.

He talked animatedly of his great friendship and rivalry with Tony McCoy, or A.P. as he calls him. Often when the Kildare man is across the water he stays with McCoy and has been doing so for eight years. He explained, “I only knew A.P. to say

It was also interesting to discover that many jockeys including Walsh prefer it when the going is soft because “you can have a bit of a banter but when the going is hard, you have to be more careful and keep your head down as it is much faster and so more dangerous.”

I was surprised by how candid Walsh was on the matter of female jockeys when questioned if he would mind his young daughter Isabelle riding when she was older. “I am not sexist but, women are much lighter than men and so the falls affect them much more, even though my sister rides I don’t think I would like my daughter to do it but I wouldn’t mind as much if I had a son.”

There was more honesty on show when asked about following his father into training: “I don’t know if I am diplomatic enough to deal with all the owners and jockeys”.

Not for the first time in the session, he came across as self-effacing when he said that “the owners are the most important people in racing, the jockeys and trainers like to think they are but without the owners there would be no trainers, jockeys, punters or bookmakers.”

Ruby proved to be a gem as he signed books afterwards and chatted happily with the punters as his family mingled with the crowd just as if they were at a race meeting at Punchestown or Cheltenham.

average w e e k day, but how many of those same people will talk about the minutiae of United‘s or City’s next fixture? The world therefore needs to embrace the footballer as the paradigm of humanity.

Athletic, strong, talented, quick thinking and at the forefront of their respective field, their hunger marks them out from the masses who dream of one day playing at the top level.

The killer instinct that has proven the saviour of humankind through the millennia is present in abundance in the average footballer. It is this that makes them heroes to millions across the globe and sets them on a societal pedestal. The word “hero” is bandied about a lot in the modern world but I believe that it’s time to accept and embrace the footballer as an archetype of humanity.

The way you look on this last

statement depends on how you view our society today. Accept it as truth and live contentedly amidst Sky Sports Soccer Saturday updates and RTÉ’s aged pundits. On the other hand, if you reject such a preposterous idea as a damning indictment on how life has given into the homogenised, sensationalised world of the tabloids, you are left to shudder at the number of young boys who wish to be world famous sports stars.

COMMENT

I’m holding out for a hero James Hussey ponders what it means to be a sporting hero today, and if there is anyone admidst the galaxy of stars that fits the bill IT IS a well known fact that history loves a strapping young man. Our world, and particularly our generation, feast daily on the trials and tribulations of stars from the worlds of sport, music and acting. Though I have always had a soft spot for the more athletically minded, in recent years I have found it increasingly difficult to find “heroes” or people to admire in the world of sport.

The squeaky clean image popularly attached to rugby has increasingly been tarnished by controversial tackles, game-destroying tactics and the general lack of sportsmanship shown by many of its most decorated stars. My love of Italian football, and especially Juventus, took a critical blow with the revelation of match fixing during the past decade, though the

genius of Alessandro del Piero keeps me clinging on.

This lengthy preamble brings me back to my search for an idol in modern-day sport. The classical heroes we see in history, the dandies and the world conquerors, have long since disappeared. The general public has no tolerance for heroes that wish to hold an iron grip over the world, slay a hideous Grecian monster or have a wardrobe made up exclusively of designer brand names. In the sporting community, we are, quite like the song, in dire need of a hero. And yes, he’s got to be strong and he’s got to be fast and he’s got to be fresh from a fight.

So where can such a man be found? Cast your eyes towards the Premiership footballer, modernity’s answer to Achilles and the multitudes

“We are, quite like the song, in dire need of a hero and yes, he’s got to be strong and he’s got to be fast and he’s got to be fresh from a fight.”

of men that have represented the hero image throughout history. A myriad of Premiership footballers have used their talent to overcome various childhood troubles, family problems and adverse economic conditions, such as Manchester City’s striker Carlos Tevez who grew up in a tough Buenos Aires neighbourhood, catapulting them to a life of money, stardom and glory. The position these highly paid men play in our society cannot be underestimated.

They provide a welcome form of escapism for millions of people across the world.

In many ways, soccer and its players have become a religion for vast swathes of the planet’s population. This may be an indication of the increasingly secularised society in which we live, but it also serves as a comment for the sheer popularity of the beautiful game. The haircuts they inspire, the numerous goal celebrations re-enacted across the world and the pouting and gesticulating that inevitably ensues after a poor refereeing decision, are all down to the paragons of man that we watch on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

The ordinary people tend not to discuss the finer details of ecumenical matters outside shops and pubs on the

TRINITY NEWS

COLLEGE SPORT 23 collegesport@trinitynews.ie

Soccer defeat for Dundrum Eleni Megoran College Sport Editor

DUBLIN UNIVERSITY Soccer Club had a fantastic game on Saturday the October 30 with its fifth win in the Leinster Senior Football League. It was a game of beautiful football being played by Dublin University against Glenmore Dundrum.

With kick-off at 1 pm it meant that it was a sunny afternoon match that was awaiting the players. The pitch however was soggy after this week’s rain, which meant that players had to really work hard to get up and down the pitch.

The first half began with the two teams going head to head. Dublin fiercely attacked with Ciaran Lawler crossing the ball which found attacker’s Donal O’Cofaigh head but just missed the goal.

Glenmore had a number of sloppy corners throughout the game which were being quickly hit away by Dublin.

However Glenmore quickly replied to Dublin’s strong attack, with a great cross by Glenmore’s number 11. The cross found number 5’s head who quickly headed it into the left hand side of Dublin’s goal. Putting Glenmore in the lead in the first half. 1-0 Dublin kept weaving past Glenmore’s strong defence pressurising them with multiple shots which were all just off target. Dublin were on the verge of a goal throughout the beginning of the first half. It was Captain Conal O’Shaughnessy who equalised the game. Heading the ball that had just been hit off the bar, into the left hand side of the goal making it 1-1, ten minutes before half time.

MATCH RESULTS 18 September 2010 Dublin University 0, Tymon Celtic 1

Conor Bates Contributing Writer

25 September 2010 Dublin University 3, Castleknock 0 2 October 2010 Dublin University 2, Skerries Town 1 9 October 2010 Dublin University 0, Postal United 2 16 October 2010 Dublin University 2, Alpine 0 23 October 2010 Dublin University 4, St. Joseph’s 0 30 October 2010 Dublin University 3, Glenmoran 1 Glenmore’s number 8 was tackled

by James Connolly. Glenmore’s number 2 was given a free kick just in front of the half way line. Dublin stopped the opposition from gaining any ground with that free kick but a poor pass meant that Glenmore’s number 5 was able to take a shot at goal. Goalkeeper Niall O’Carroll saved the shot keeping Dublin in the game.

James Connolly’s throw on created the opportunity for number 8, Thomas Wylie’s fantastic goal which was neatly placed into the right hand corner of the goal. 2-1 Glenmore had some good runs down the pitch trying to break Dublin’s defense. Which was demonstrated by Glenmore’s number 9, wasted run up the right hand side of the pitch with no one to pass or to cross to in the box.

Dublin kept most of the possession and really set the tempo of the game to a pass that suited them. Glenmore continued to try to break Dublin’s defence with constant attacking play.

Glenmore did get a corner that nearly closed the gap between the two teams because the corner was poorly cleared

by Dublin who allowed Glenmore’s number 2 to swiftly try to shoot at goal, but luckily for Dublin they missed.

Dublin’s attackers were determined right up to the last whistle was blown to break past there oppositions defense.

Especially Glenmore’s number 4 who was constantly fracturing the efforts of Dublin.

Number 7’s beautiful goal was just inside the box which put Dublin ahead of Glenmore. At full time Glenmore warily wandered off and Dublin celebrated to focus on the upcoming Colours match against UCD, Wednesday week.

Jimmy Cumiskey, Dublin’s coach

proudly commented on the match saying, “it went very, very well and to concede an early goal was disappointing obviously, but the lads showed great character, absolutely tremendous character to win the game”.

PLAYER REPORT 1 Niall O’Carroll 2 Conor Molloy 3 James Connolly 4 Darran Burke 5 Conal O’Shaugnessy 6 Shane Daly 7 Donal O’Cofaigh 8 Thomas Wylie 9 Ciaran Lawler 10 Edward Tinsley 11 Graham Conway 14 Conor Hynes sub. Wyle 88’ 16 Gary Heafer sub. Tinsley 76’ 12 Share Massey 13 Luile Clarke 15 Steve Mallen

Trinity U21s fall short in powerful display Conor Bates

they mounted pressure they appeared to cut the defence open, but a tackle from winger Ariel Roblez prevented any further movement. They game continued in the vein of a heavyweight fight for the next 15 minutes. They made subs as their courageous frontline began to succumb to the effects of 60 minutes of intense rugby.

Staff Writer

JIM FLYNN was naturally hopeful before his side’s game against Old Belvedere: “this game will tell a tale in itself” said the U21 Rugby manager. The tale he desired would not be a Trinity horror story on a dark Halloween evening. The sides lined out at College Park on a pitch which was bearing the scars of many training sessions and looking very cut-up and patchy in spots. The weather was dry but the pitch was slick: perfect conditions for rugby.

Trinity received the opening kickoff and the game with a spell of nervous kicking from both sides. Trinity settled in well, taking advantage of many of the lineouts which followed the kicks.

Forwards Will Scott, Jack Kelly and Daragh Kiely rose highest to bring in dead-straight throws from Paddy Carroll: a master-class in all round lineout play. They made solid progress from as early as the third minute, with powerful, effective mauling and forward play and quick passing to the backs, provided by scrum-half David Fanagan. Indeed, there was only one moment of chance for Belvedere in the opening exchanges when they broke quickly from a penalty scrum, but flanker Warren Larkin was on hand to make a textbook tackle.

Trinity began to dominate in all aspects, in particular the lineout, even winning some of the opposition’s throw-in’s and continued to battle their way up-field. They were rewarded with a penalty in the 8 minute for an offside. Unfortunately, this was missed by full-back Barry McGuinness.

They retained the ball well, made monster breaks and hit hard on defence. The fruit of their labour was a penalty in the ninth minute which was dispatched to the corner for another lineout. Trinity again won possession and almost converted it for a try in the 11th minute. Their forward momentum was unfortunately halted when fly-half Jack Costigan committed a forward pass on the 5 metre line, after a strong

2 November, 2010

UNDER 21 RUGBY FOOTBALL Dublin University 12 Old Belvedere 15

SS Above: Dublin and Old Belvedere caught in a scrum. Photo: Caitriona Gallagher

tackle. In reality, it was all Trinity for the first ten minutes.

Trinity continued to drive forward and attack the space, getting to the 10 metre line again before turning over the ball. Belvo began to respond to the mounting pressure from their Premier Division opponents and slowly started to carry the ball towards the Trinity end line.

However, Trinity were equal to Belvedere’s probing and centre Ed Barry carried the ball tenaciously, forcing a penalty in the 25th minute.

Again, Trinity played for the corner, with Costigan setting up another lineout for the boys in red and black.

The resultant rucks moved the ball the last ten metres as flanker Warren Larkin powered over the line for the game’s opening score: a try in the corner. Full-back McGuinness missed the conversion to make it 5-0 after 27 minutes.

After the restart it was more of the some from Trinity. But Belvedere dug in, and began to finally make headway into the Trinity defence.

Uncharacteristic turnovers and quick

Foley flies high in TCD loss

breaks from the Belvo centres against the run of play granted them glimpses of opportunity. In the 32nd minute, the admirable Trinity defence could withstand no longer, as Belvedere flyhalf Gearoid McDonald dived over beside the post, and converted himself, to make it 7-5 in favour of the visitors.

Trinity never gave up and recovered possession after the restart. As half time closed in, Belvo began to force the issue, and Trinity conceded a penalty for crossing. McDonald missed from his position, wide on the right.

Half time came with the score 5-7, and this game becoming more of a rollercoaster and more intriguing with every second. Expletives and encouragement poured in from all of the managers in this bruising display of forward bulk and power.

From the restart Trinity maintained their composure. They drove well into challenges, gaining ground, but ultimately conceding the ball close to goal as the result of a penalty.

Belvo responded in kind, throwing everything at Trinity winning scrums and forcing some last ditch tackles. As

In the 60th minute, Belvo struck a blow when they were rewarded a penalty in front of goal, 15 metres out, which was easily converted.

They were to have the next sucker punch as well, when a brief moment of sloppy Trinity defence allowed Belvo a try in the corner. They failed to convert, leaving the score at 15-5, in the 70th minute.

As desperation began to set in for a side that didn’t deserve to be losing, the home side began to become more adventurous in their ball carrying.

They were rewarded very late on when Ed Barry offloaded to Rob Creuss Callaghan, who dived over beside the post. His try was converted by winger Niyi Adeolukan. With time running away on them, Trinity tried their best to keep the ball in play, and in true testament to their character, they did so very effectively.

Ultimately, however, it was to be Belvedere’s day, as they forced the ball over the touchline to receive the spoils of war, beating Trinity 15-12.

In truth, Trinity had played much better and had just not scored enough points. For a team which has less weeks’ worth of practice behind them than most of their group rivals, they performed exceptionally. They never gave up at any stage, and admittedly dominated many aspects of the game.

Dublin University under-21s have previously beaten St. Mary’s and Old Wesley, and this loss will do little to dent their confidence, as they continue to push for league glory.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT saw game three of the camogie season, on home turf at 7:30 pm.

The game against DCU threw in promptly and began scrappily.

Trinity enjoyed the better of the early exchanges, with centre forward Marie Moynihan powering through and narrowly shooting wide. Unfortunately the chances came to no avail and when the game began to settle DCU’s Miriam Twomey registered the first point after five minutes.

DCU took full advantage of the wind and in the 11th minute were rewarded with a well-taken lobbed goal. Cornerback Anne Cleary and centre-back Cathriona Foley were both immense in defence, with the latter clearing up at the back, taking many powerful, physical challenges and pushing forward when in possession.

Trinity continued to settle in, mounting pressure on their rivals around the 20th minute, but a welldrilled DCU defence, and sound goalkeeping, were equal to their attempts.

“An unfortunate ‘keeper situation” was the major hole in Trinity’s otherwise solid team, according to team manager, John Byrne.

At the other end, Trinity’s persistence paid dividends. Wingforward, Jacqui Elebert, was combining well with centre-forward Moynihan, and the ball continued to find its way into full-forward Mairead Dolan and substitute Irene Dempsey, until Dolan pounced on an opportunity for Trinity’s first score of the game: a cutely finished goal in the 27th minute.

Despite their endeavours, the girls found themselves well behind, having allowed 5-3 before responding.

Half-time arrived with the score 5-4 to 1-0 in favour of the visitors. “We need to dig in. Make space and move the ball” were the shouts of encouragement from the coaching staff as the girls took water on board for a second half which promised a wind advantage.

And the second half was a somewhat different affair. Brady came out of the goal and was replaced by goalscorer Mairead Dolan. Eithne Moran took up position in the forward line as Brady left the field.

The girls did begin to create more space in what became a flowing and open game. As they moved the ball quicker, midfielder Sarah Cotter picked out winger Elebert, who blasted narrowly wide just after the restart.

Trinity kept firm at the back and began to take the battle further up the pitch as the game progressed: an improvement on the first half performance.

Eithne Moran was rewarded with a goal on her debut, five minutes into the second half: a blistering strike granting Trinity the spoils of their hard graft.

Foley followed up with a point in the 37th minute, and would go on to finish the game with a fine brace of points.

The game was predominantly focused on the middle of the park, with Trinity’s central “diamond” putting in a performance for their side. The ball did travel from end-to-end, with Dolan pulling off another fantastic save between the sticks. Jacqui Elebert picked up Trinity’s other point.

After the game, team captain Anne Cleary was optimistic: “We need to keep training and gelling together as a team. Our teamwork was good and we just need more matches to get together as a unit. If we can sort out the player positions completely and get a permanent goalie, and keep using these matches as practice, we’ll definitely be on track to compete well in the Purcell Cup.” Manager Byrne echoed these sentiments saying, “Obviously I’m not happy with the result but our performance was fine. We need continued player involvement to give us greater numbers and more choices on the field.”

SPORT

collegesport@trinitynews.ie

Top score for Trinity man in US Football Eleni Megoran College Sport Editor

ROB WILLIAM McDowell is not your ordinary American Football running back. He is the first Irish player to be shortlisted to play American Football in the top under-19 competition for the World team playing against Team USA in Austin, Texas next year. Rob sees it as a “once in a lifetime experience.”

Rob is a top sports man in Trinity College with an extensive sports background in parkour and has played rugby since the age of 11. He started playing American Football only a year ago when a friend suggested that he try the sport out because he would not get into trouble for jumping over people, unlike in rugby. Rob says that playing the sport is the “best of both world.”

He was extremely flattered to be the only Irish American Football player to be nominated for the World Team by the Irish Federation for American Football.

The competition on Wednesday, 2

‘The game will be be played in front of 50,000 fans with more people watching the match on ESPN” February, 2011, which will be played in Westlake High School’s Ebbie Neptune Field at Chaparral Stadium, is a significant step up for the young player’s sporting prospects. Rob humorously stated that it is “very very scary, it really is, I have never played in front of more then 20 people, including the players, it’s a bit of a big step up.” The game will be be played in front of 50,000 fans with more people watching the match on ESPN. The competition was established last year and was played in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where the World team only

running back you get a “touch down and you don’t usually get hurt.”

The definition of an all rounder would probably be Rob. Not only is he a six-foot sports man but also a songwriter and musician who plays piano, guitar and drums. The one thing he will definitely be packing in his suitcase he says will be his guitar.

He has also applied for Trinity’s Scholarships, with great prospects of being granted the award.

O’Toole commented on the young star’s potential as “looking very good for Rob to be picked for the 45 man roster.” With last year’s roster being made up of 39 Canadians, “for Rob to get this fair is very exciting.” The coach praised Rob for being the “most talented player to come out of Ireland.”

He is extremely athletic and has only been playing for two sessions, O’Toole commented that “he has adapted well to the sport and theres a lot opportunities

lost the game 17-0. The World team held the USA team not allowing them a touchdown until the final play of the first half.

The World team will be playing the best high school players from all over America which will field a 45 player roster. Most countries submit a few players every year to try to play for the World team which is usually made up

“Being shortlisted is a once in a life time experience” of international players spanning four continents.

However in reality the World team is usually made up of a high percentage of Canadians, with last years team consisting of 39 Canadians out of the 45 players. There was no one last year from Britain or Ireland that made the team. There was over 200 people that were on the provisional list for the World team and Rob has been short listed to the 60 potential players.

He modestly states “I can’t catch very well so the quarterback just gives it to me and I run.” The video that was submitted by his coach for the selection for the World team shows the powerful speed that Rob has.

For someone that took up American Football just for a laugh he has been not only thrust to the front of the DU American Football (DUAF) team but he will also be playing against top players in America.

The newly DUCAC affiliated DUAF club is supporting Rob not only in his training but also to help him raise the money to pay for his registration fee of 500 euros.

The team will organising a fundraiser a “send Rob to Texas night out.” Stephen Fallon, President DUAF club has said that they are all “very pleased for Rob and we wish him the best of luck.”

Rob has not only been committed to his training with Trinity but also with keeping up with the online training

“It’s the equivalent of making the Olympics in American Football”

SS McDowell shows off his US Football skills in Front Square. Photo: Martin Connolly

log for the International Federation for American Football which keeps up to date with his progress. He has an intensive training regime with task that he has to complete every week, sending video evidence of his progress to the Federation.

Many of his team mates are going to go over to Austin, Texas to support Rob. Even though Rob does not “trust them to keep me in check before the

game” he has Trinity Coach, Darrin O’Toole to guide him.

A week of intense training awaits Rob before the competition with world renowned head coach of running backs, Hiroki Uno, who has coached in the Ivy Samurai Bowl and three college all-star games. Even with pads and helmets, he has fractured his elbow and has had concussions in the past.

He says thats why he likes being the

if he makes the roster.”

Making the team is, as O’Toole said, the “equivalent of making the Olympics” for American Football.

Rob has also been highly recommended by Sky Sports NFL Analyses and SMU coach, Jeff Reinebold, who was very impressed with Rob’s speed and has recommended him to be picked for the World game.

O’Toole stated that he was lucky to be selected as part of the coaching staff for the World team.

He said that if Rob is selected its a “big opportunity for him to make a good impression and it also puts Trinity and Ireland on the American Football map.” The announcement of the 45-roster for the World team will be coming out in the next few weeks.

Men’s Rugby narrowly lose in match against Midleton Michael Gaskin Deputy College Sport Editor

TRINITY SOUGHT to get their season back on track after back-to-back away losses to Malone and Belfast Harlequins. While they did come away with a losing bonus point from both games they were in need of a win to keep in touch with those also chasing a promotion spot.

They played well in parts a poor first-half showing in which they never threatened the Midleton try line and a disjointed passing display really should have laid to rest any chance of victory. However a gritty second half performance saw them haul themselves back into a game that looked like Midleton had wrapped up after the hour mark.

Trinity began the brighter of the two sides and quickly set about probing the Midleton defence. Their opening salvo into the Midleton 22 was as good as it was for Trinity in the first half, as the visitors began to physically impose themselves on the game.

Over the course of the next ten minutes, Midleton had three chances to score. However their full back sliced his penalty to the right and wide of the uprights. Immediately after the restart the Midleton number 8 went on a marauding run through the heart of the Trinity defence only to be hauled 5 metres short of try line. At the third time of asking Midleton finally got the score their dominance deserved. Their full back slotted over penalty 5 metres in front of the posts.

Midleton continued to keep Trinity

COLLEGE PARK: 30 OCTOBER 2010 Dublin University: 17 Midleton: 18 on the back foot over the next twentyfive minutes, giving the home side little chance to play the open flowing rugby they excel at. After a Midleton lineout on the Trinity 22, their number 8 went on another rampaging run at the Trinity defence and offloaded for Middleton’s’ open-side flanker to slide in the corner. Their kicking once again let them down as their full back missed the conversion from out on the sideline Shortly after the half-hour mark, Trinity suffered a double blow. Firstly they lost winger Shane Hanratty to the sin bin for the rest of the half and then Midleton extended their lead further when their winger weaved his way through the Trinity defence to score in the corner. With another conversion missed Trinity felt they were still in with a chance.

Right on the stroke of half time full back Tim McCoy decided to try his luck from the half way line with an ambitious penalty kick. While it had the legs it lacked in accuracy as it drifted harmlessly to the left and wide, to give Midleton a 13 – 0 at the break.

Ten minutes into the second half and with a full complement of players, Trinity used their scrum to excellent effect as they drove over the Midleton try line for Scott La Valla to touch down directly in front of the posts.

With Ciaran Wade slotting over the extras, Trinity had the score back to

SS Above: Trinity Men’s Rugby team play for possession in the close match against Midleton. Photo:

13-7 and were back in the game.

Six minutes later they Midleton’s full back effortlessly broke the trinity line and offloaded to the ball to their winger to slide in .Even with the conversion missed Midleton now had 18 points to 7 lead and looked in a strong position to close out the game.

Shortly after the hour mark Trinity began to empty their bench hoping

fresh legs would break down a leggy Midleton side. It looked like it had paid dividends for them as with eight minutes remaining Conor Colclough danced his way through the visitors defence and laid the ball off for Tim McCoy to score in the corner. With 8 minutes left in the game the home side were once again in with a shout of claiming unlikely victory.

In the last few minutes of the game Trinity began to turn the screw on a tired-looking Midleton team. With a scrum 5 metres from the Midleton goal and time now over Trinity put in one final push and James Gethings barged his way over the line to make it a onepoint game with a conversion to come.

Unluckily for Trinity the conversion, like their comeback, fell just short.

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