UCC Express Issue 9

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | uccexpress.ie | Volume 18 | Issue 9

Library staffer calls for 24/7 study space Page 5

WAKE UP CALL: Research by Martin Davoren has detailed UCC students’ hazardous drinking habits. More on Page 16.

Image by: Tomas Tyner

Postgraduates to suffer huge fee increases

Stephen Barry and Brian Conmy

● 19 Masters courses see fees rise by 80% or more Students intending to take on a Masters course in the Colleges of Business and Law or SEFS (Science, Engineering and Food Science) in the coming year will have to pay up to treble the amount of fees paid by those studying this year.

The reason cited for the most dramatic increases is the Higher Education Authority (HEA)’s phasing out of the Graduate Skills Conversion Programme (GSCP), which subsidised a number of courses, primarily in information and communications technology, engineering and biological and chemical sciences.

Colette O’Sullivan, Financial Analyst for the College of Business and Law, noted that the increases came about after a review by the HEA in 2012.

“The HEA decided to phase out support to institutions under the GSCP. From September 2014 the composite course fee is a matter for individual institutions to decide in accordance with the usual conventions.”

Thus a new Schedule of Fees was sent

by each Faculty to the university’s Finance Committee in December for rubber-stamping.

The new fees have led to an average increase in the cost of a Masters programme in the Commerce Faculty of €2,737, while a Commerce PhD is now more expensive than in any other faculty in the college at €7,000.

Meanwhile a SEFS Masters has, on average, risen in cost by €1,475, with a €1,700 jump in Higher Diplomas and €1,164 rise in Postgrad Diploma costs.

Among the worst hit individual courses are the Independent Research MComm degree, which has almost trebled to €7,000, with the Applied Physics Masters similarly hard hit, rising from €3,750 to €10,000.

Ten Science-related Masters have risen in price by a minimum of 80%, with five Business courses and four Engineering courses seeing equal upsurges.

The College of Business and Law is also seeking to target international students for higher fees, with market studies suggesting that they can remain competitive while charging more. Thus the average International fee has risen by €2,664 across that College.

The new fees schedule was uploaded to the Fees Office website during Christmas week, although the individual pages for some programmes have not yet been updated. Indeed, some students have already been offered their postgraduate programs if they applied before the January 14th deadline.

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Brendan O’Neill talks about student groupthink culture Page 15

UP TO

PJ Gallagher’s struggles with stage-fright Verge

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Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

SoundBites

USI Receives Huge Endorsement from UCC

“I’m just very happy that I’m at a place where I’m content and I don’t really care anymore what people think. I just want to live happy with the person I love.”

Cork ladies footballer Valerie Mulcahy talking about coming out as gay in Donal Óg Cusack’s documentary Coming Out of the Curve, part-filmed in the Mardyke.

“I get filtered information all the time in my job... Do read Michael Porter’s paper Seven Surprises for New CEOs; the third one as I recall was ‘You will again know the truth.’”

UCC President Dr. Michael Murphy speaking in Boole 1 during his annual Student Council address.

Inside Today: Business expansion Page 4 Referendum reaction Page 6 Presidential power Page 10 Endless search Page 11 Eamonn Ryan Page 16 Fitzgibbon Cup win Page 20

The Number Cruncher

1/4

The proportion of female Trinity students who have had a non-consensual sexual experience, according to a TCDSU survey of 1,038 students. 5% of men have been subjected to a similar experience.

HARMONY: USI President Laura Harmon can rest easy as her alma mater re-affiliated.

● 91.4% of voters wished to stay affiliated to the USI. Stephen Barry Editor-in-Chief The UCC Students’ Union has reaffiliated with the national union, the USI, after last week’s referendum passed by an overwhelming majority of voting students.

The USI responded to questions raised over transparency by publishing accounts over the weekend, while their on-campus presence was met with no visible opposition; paying off with a 91.4% ‘Yes’ vote (2,468 of the 2,699 valid votes).

The poll was down almost 1,000 on the last referendum three years ago, when the vote was held at the same time as the SU elections. The quorum of 1,796, however, was comfortably met. This year’s result was also a much greater endorsement of the national union than that of 2012, when the ‘Yes’ vote amounted to 70.8%.

USI President and UCC graduate Laura Harmon said that the verdict on the USI referendum showed that the work that the USI does has full student backing: “This result vindicates the work that a growing and strengthening student movement is doing. It shows that students back USI’s campaigns and clearly demonstrates to policy makers and the political parties that, when USI speaks, we speak with the force,

Image by: Conor McCabe

the power and the support of Ireland’s students.

“The great thing about referendums is the voice of the students being heard.

Students know education, we know what’s working and what’s failing.

We’re informed, we’re engaged and we’re ready for the general election as a united movement working without fear or favour in the interests of our members, their families and this country’s future.”

In response to the results Rob Cas, a ‘No to USI’ campaigner, stated that “they (USI) have effectively received a mandate from UCC students to continue to work on their behalf...

They absolutely must work harder and better.”

Editorial team

Editor-in-Chief: Stephen Barry

Deputy Features Editor: Laura Flaherty

Deputy & News Editor: Barry Aldworth Sport Editor: Stephen Walsh Deputy News Editor: Brian Conmy

Photo Editor: Emmet Curtin

Fiction Editor: Ruth Lawlor

Photo Editor: Marc Moylan

Humour Editor: Roger O’Sullivan

Designer: Kevin Hosford

Features Editor: Conor Shearman

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The number of society balls held on the one night, Thursday January 22nd. The Strauss Ball was a surprise sell-out on a night which also featured Accounting & Finance, Psychological, Foodies and Engineering Balls.

17%

The rate of men who consume more than six units of alcohol at least four times per week. That was the finding of UCC research of 2,275 students’ drinking habits. 5% of females consumed a similar level of alcohol on a regular basis.

€10,000 The potential value of a Quercus scholarship to successful applicants.

The Talented Students’ Programme is taking applicants for its second year until the end of this week across a range of five categories.

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UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

UCC and State set for High Court battle

due to minimum qualification and experience requirements. Neither UCC nor the state believe they are liable for the added years component of the pensions.

Stephen Barry Editor-in-Chief

● The dispute centres on an €8.3m pension liability.

The disagreement between UCC and the Irish government over an €8.3m pension liability is set to be resolved in the High Court this summer after a member of staff took a case which lists the university and the Departments of Finance and Education as defendants.

The plaintiff is seeking to resolve the matter which relates to added years, a pension top-up often awarded to staff that would not be in the position to work for 40 years by the age of 65

Third-level pension funds were transferred to the state in 2010, who now control the assets and liabilities, making the UCC case one which will be followed intently by other institutions, as well as the state.

The government currently pay the pensions through UCC but the dispute centres on UCC’s belief that the state controls all of the pension fund’s liabilities, as well as its assets, while the state currently maintains that it is not responsible for the figure.

Michael Murphy, President of UCC, surmised that it was a case of the Minister of Finance changing the terms of the deal: “The arrangement was that the state would take on responsibility for pensions in the university into the future and on the basis that there would be no change in the terms and conditions of the staff.

“Subsequent to the transfer, the decisions on what pension you would get were now decisions made by the Minister for Finance, technically. The Minister for Finance decided to change the practice that the university had in place for the last 30 plus years, which resulted in a number of staff not getting the pension, particularly the added years component.”

The college was criticised by the national spending watchdog, the Comptroller & Auditor General, who believe that UCC’s treatment of the figure was not in accordance with accounting standards. However, Deloitte, UCC’s other auditors, have not raised such objections.

University officials also added that

the €8.3m gap would only become realised if all staff retired tomorrow and decreases year-on-year as affected staff need less added years to achieve the 40-year target.

The Departments of Education and Finance both declined to comment on the matter which is set to reach the High Court in June.

O’Sullivan warns against Marriage Equality complacency Barry Aldworth News Editor UCC students strongly voiced their support for Marriage Equality in last week’s campus-wide referendum with over 95% of voters in favour.

GREEN LIGHT: The Green Campus initiative received further positive news last week.

Image by: Ger McCarthy

UCC claims runner-up spot in Green Rankings Robbie Byrne Music Editor

UCC community.

UCC has maintained its place as the world’s second greenest university, after first earning the position last year.

UCC Vice-President for Teaching & Learning, John O’Halloran also spoke out on the result: “This is great news in an ever competitive environment, with more and more universities taking part in this global green ranking. Sensitising our community to the limited resources of the globe through education and research and taking practical steps across the university in sustainability has proved successful once again in this ranking scheme.”

Now in its fifth year, the Universitas Indonesia Greenmetric World University Rankings placed UCC in the runner-up spot behind the University of Nottingham, beating competition from more established green institutes such as Oxford (5th) and Berkley, California (9th).

UCC significantly outperformed all other Irish universities with UL next best of the Irish, earning a place just outside the top ten; someway ahead of DCU in 53rd and Trinity in 104th places respectively.

President Michael Murphy welcomed the result, noting that UCC’s second place ranking acknowledged the college’s green credentials as well as the tireless efforts of many across the

Reaction across social media was also positive, with words of congratulations coming from emeritus staff and television personalities, as well as the triumphant University of Nottingham.

Green initiatives undertaken rotated around a college funded awareness campaign that worked in tandem with the installation of heat recovery systems, solar panels and even a wind turbine.

Indeed, Director of Buildings & Estates Mark Poland praised the contribution of students to the projects undertaken: “Student buy-in from the outset has been pivotal to the success of UCC’s Green Campus programme, inspiring the student-led, researchinformed and practice-focused mission of UCC’s green agenda.”

The news adds to the long line of environmentally friendly credentials attributed to the Leeside campus. In 2010 UCC became the world’s first third-level institute to be awarded the Green Flag, while in December 2014 UCC became the only shortlisted Irish representative in the European Business Awards for the Environment finals.

The campus is now set to exceed, or at least satisfy, the recommended energy consumption reduction target of 33% by 2020.

However while UCCSU Equality Officer Rob O’Sullivan described the mass support for Marriage Equality as “incredibly reassuring to me, both personally and professionally,” he warned against students believing the issue would be easily won come May:

“This result is a fantastic show of support for the LGBT* community in UCC but it is not a sign that the fight is over.”

“My biggest concern with this referendum, both before it and after it, was that it could make UCC voters feel complacent; that the job had been done.

“The job is far from done. Recent [RedC] polls have shown support for Marriage Equality steadily fall, and the ‘No’ side has finally mobilised with leaflets in churches. This result

is a fantastic show of support for the LGBT* community in UCC but it is not a sign that the fight is over; it is not a sign that we should down tools and call it a day. We have roughly 3 months until the ‘big referendum’ and we cannot waste a single moment.”

Of the 2,635 votes cast, 2,501 called for the SU to support the national referendum on Marriage Equality, with just 120 voters opposing the idea. Voter turnout amounted to 15.1% of the valid student population in a referendum somewhat overshadowed by the wider debate about USI affiliation.

However O’Sullivan was equally dwelling on the positive signs of student support for Marriage Equality in the past month, after a Motley Magazine survey revealed that 86.2% of respondents intend to vote ‘Yes’.

“What’s fantastic now is that, with this referendum and the recent survey published in UCC, we have two very different metrics to measure the level of support for Marriage Equality in UCC, both of which are largely in favour.”

The national Marriage Equality referendum will ask voters to consider whether “marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”

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Business school expansion announced Barry Aldworth News Editor

● The expansion is estimated to add €200m to the local economy.

UCC has announced that it is to spend €120m on expanding its business school, with €60m of the sum to come from the university’s own resources.

The remaining funds are likely to be covered by state grants or private sector support.

The plan was unveiled at the Cork

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS Business Association’s Awards Night, where UCC picked up the award for ‘Outstanding Business Operation’.

Investment in business schools has taken centre stage of late, with Trinity College announcing in December that it would spend €70m on improving its school.

The Leeside upgrade, which is estimated to bring a total of €200 million to the Cork economy, seeks to establish UCC’s business school as not only the best in Ireland, but as one of the best in the world. Professor Ciaran Murphy of the BIS Department stated that that aim of the development was “not to be world-class in Cork, but to be world-class from Cork.”

Murphy, in an interview with the Irish Independent, added that the development will bring many benefits to Cork, including increased spending and job creation: “It means so much, not just in terms of student numbers, but also the spin-offs such as direct spending in the city and indirect benefits such as the supply of services.”

SU survey highlights college Wi-Fi issues

City Council rejects motion on CIT-UCC merger Barry Aldworth News Editor A motion calling for the Minister for Education to investigate the possibility of merging UCC and CIT was dismissed at the most recent sitting of Cork City Council, with only the motion’s proposer voting in favour.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Tim Brosnan brought the motion to the City Council, arguing that if such an amalgamation took place the administration costs of both institutions could be greatly reduced. “Both UCC and CIT are multi-million euro operations and the more savings that can be made the more that can be ploughed back into the University,” Brosnan argued.

The Cork North-East Councillor added that the improved range of courses offered by a combined institution would “attract more foreign and domestic students,” as well as greatly improving the resources the individual institutions can currently offer.

However the other councillors present at the meeting were quick to criticise the motion, with Lord Mayor Mary Shields stating that such topics were outside of the Council’s remit. Brosnan’s party colleague John Sheehan echoed Shields’ claim, adding that CIT and UCC were, as individual institutions, more than capable of catering to the demands of current and future students.

Sinn Féin’s Stephen Cunningham, a UCC Government student and one of Cork City Council’s youngest ever members, described the motion as “ridiculous,” claiming that such a move would “be in no way beneficial to either UCC or CIT.” Cunningham added that any such move had the potential to damage both institutions and would pose a threat to current plans for CIT to merge with Tralee IT to create a Technological University for the south of Ireland.

“Within the motion itself the proposer mused about the so-called ‘potential’ for Cork to finally have a ‘major’ university,” Cunningham noted. “As a proud UCC student of four years, I find the implication of such an assertion to be quite offensive. I believe that those of us who live in Cork and indeed those across the country should share my pride in Ireland’s only internationally recognised university.”

LONE RANGER: Brosnan's motion was widely dismissed.

Despite the cross-party dismissal of the motion, Brosnan highlighted that he was not prepared to give up on the idea: “I believe in the power of one and I will follow up by writing to the Presidents of both institutions asking them to explore the proposal. I recall a previous vote when I was in the perfect minority of one. On that occasion I was the lone voice against the introduction of clamping in Cork City. It was introduced, caused public outrage over time and was scrapped.”

Pioneering Electronics Entrepreneur to discuss Boole legacy

Holly O’Shea News Writer The results of a UCCSU-run survey on Wi-Fi connectivity issues in UCC during term one have been released, with 61% of respondents claiming that the Eduroam service was, at various points in time during the first term, unusable.

The survey, which ran throughout the month of November, was organised after a UCCSU Council meeting on October 29th, during which a number of class reps made complaints about the service. In total, 167 students logged complaints relating to UCC’s Wi-Fi during the month, with the availability and quality of the service emerging as the key issues.

30% of those who responded claimed that Wi-Fi was unavailable in several areas where they would expect to be

able to access the service, including the Kane Building, Food Sciences Building and the Main Rest. Availability on satellite campuses also proved to be a significant problem, as a high number of the complaints identified the Brookfield campus, specifically rooms G01 and G02, as having little or no internet access.

Even in buildings where a Wi-Fi connection was available, students still had problems connecting to the service.

20% of respondents claimed they could not connect even when Eduroam was available and 23% reported continuous disconnections.

Furthermore, 21% of students highlighted that the WI-Fi speed was slower than in previous years, with the majority of these complaints describing the service as unusable.

OBE: Muffy Calder will be speaking about Boole's work on Friday.

Brian Conmy Deputy News Editor In celebration of the bicentenary of George Boole, a series of events to honour the professor of mathematics’ legacy are set to take place around UCC. These events kick-off on Friday at 6pm with the George Boole 200 Inaugural Lectures, which celebrate Boole’s 200th Birthday.

Speakers at the lecture will include the co-founder of Synopsys and Cadence, two of the world’s largest electronic design automation companies, Professor Alberto SangiovanniVincentelli from the University of California Berkeley and Professor Muffy Calder from University of Glasgow, the former Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland.

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has conducted research vital to advancements in the semiconductor and electronics in general; he has consistently been at the forefront of the revolution in the computer aided design world and the devices that have enabled it.

Calder’s work has focused on the modelling and reasoning behind the behaviour of complex software and biochemical systems using computer science and other techniques. Her work in the field has led to an OBE award for services to Computer Science and a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award.

Other events in the George Boole 200 campaign include the redevelopment of Boole’s former home at 5 Grenville Place, a number of exhibitions and a film documentary.

George Boole, born 2nd November 1815, was an English mathematician.

Awarded the first Royal Medal in mathematics for his 1844 work On a General Method in Analysis, Boole was appointed first Professor of Mathematics at the Queen’s College in Cork in 1849.

Boole is celebrated to this day for his work on Boolean logic, which forms the basis of modern digital computer logic; a logic without which the work of Professors Sangiovanni-Vincentelli or Calder would not have been possible The event celebrating Boole’s contribution to modern life is free to attend and will be live-streamed from Boole Lecture Theatre 4.

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UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

Library Director calls for 24/7 study space for students Barry Aldworth News Editor While negotiations over library hours for term two are still ongoing, UCC’s Director of Library Services, Colette McKenna, confirmed they will be reworked to ensure the library can cope with the impact of semesterisation.

While library hours are set to change for the coming term and will be reevaluated again in advance of the next academic year, McKenna argued that the university as a whole needs to put greater emphasis on making 24-hour study space available to students.

When asked about buildings other than the library being opened 24/7 for students to study in, she stated that “there are plenty of universities that provide 24/7. I’m a great believer in listening to student need and responding to that.”

Plans are in place for such a space to exist in the new Student Hub, McKenna highlighted that this would “not help our current students,” adding that the university needed to be more proactive and not reactive when it comes to meeting the needs of students.

The issue of library hours gained mass attention during early December when UCCSU organised a sit-in protest in response to the Boole Library’s closing times. However McKenna stressed that library hours were altered before the 2014/15 academic year had even begun, including an earlier opening time: “We thought we had responded well in what we felt would be the need in terms of longer opening hours.” Yet McKenna

highlighted that as soon as the term had begun, the library experienced increased use, as students responded to the introduction of semesterisation.

While the introduction of semesterisation may prove beneficial in the long-term, McKenna believes that student anger over library opening hours was a product of a failure to implement the new system in a way which would not place unnecessary stress on students.

“We certainly picked up from all our interactions with students that they came seriously under pressure with the number of assignments they had.”

“We certainly picked up from all our interactions with students that they came seriously under pressure with the number of assignments they had and the number of class examinations, all of which coincided with having to revise for exams.”

In a recent interview with The Express UCC President Michael Murphy argued that library staff would need to be more flexible if any lasting change was to be made following the student sit-in. But, for McKenna, such a claim ignored the efforts staff had already made to assist students following the

ONLINE ARCHINE: McKenna (left) hopes to develop the Digital Library. introduction of semesterisation. students at times.

In addition to accommodating to new work hours, the Director of Library Services argues that library staff worked even harder to assist students with the transition, with staff coming close to adopting the role of a counselling service for over-worked

Boole Library owed over €74,000 in fines

Barry Aldworth News Editor

● 27,000 students, past and present, have unpaid fines.

UCC’s Boole Library is currently owed €74,363.75 in unpaid late-return fines, with over two-thirds of the sum made up of penalties attached to the accounts of current and former undergraduate students.

Approximately 27,000 students are listed within the library system as having unpaid debts, meaning the average student owes the library just under €3 in fines. While outstanding

fines attached to undergraduate accounts total €49,741.06, postgraduate students owe the college slightly more on average, as the 6,196 currently open accounts attached to postgraduate students combined for a total of €24,622.69 in fines.

The figures reflect an issue which is impacting upon college libraries across the country, after an investigation by the Irish Independent found that the UCD, NUI Maynooth (NUIM) and Trinity College libraries were owed a collective €800,000.

The same investigation found the unpaid fines to be a much larger issue at UCD, Ireland’s largest university, where a total of 21,380 people owe

the library a combined €428,494.

However, UCC’s figure ranks as worse than that of Trinity and NUI Galway, which are owed €67,920.91 and €24,633 respectively.

While much of the library’s recent attention has surrounded its opening and closing hours, staff are also working to increase the amount of information available to students digitally to cope with the demands of the new assessment system. Having recently

Students issue public invite to Climate Change Conference

CONCERNED CITIZEN: Tom Arnold is among the speakers.

Brian Conmy Deputy News Editor

Colette McKenna, UCC’s Director of Library Services, emphasised that while the library’s purpose was not to take money from students, fines were necessary as “the student body want the books that aren’t coming back.”

Several UCC Societies have collaborated to host a conference on climate change. The societies including the Philosoph, Engineers without Borders, International Development and Environmental Society have collaborated with the Green Campus Committee to host the conference next Saturday.

McKenna added that while the library’s priority was ensuring that all unreturned books would be recovered, the outstanding debt, if recouped, could be used to further improve facilities within the library.

Panellists set to speak on the day include: Oisin Coghlan, Director of Friends of the Earth, Tom Arnold, former CEO of Concern Worldwide, John Gibbons, Irish journalist and activist for environmental concerns,

picked up the award for ‘Excellence in the provision of services for a Digital Library’ at the Excellence in Business Awards, McKenna highlights that the library hopes to further develop this service, making more texts and information available “at any time, in any place, anywhere.”

Niamh Garvey of Trocaire and Stevo Mijanovic, a speaker from the United Technologies Research Centre who are sponsoring the event.

May Boeve is also set to speak in her capacity as the Executive Director of 350.org, the grassroots organisation which organised marches on climate change last September.

The Conference Convener, final year Law student Owen Murphy, noted that the timing of the conference couldn’t be better: “The fact that students have organised this reflects the desire among many young people for governments to take meaningful and immediate action on climate change.

“It’s fallen off the political and media agenda over the years. The Climate Bill 2015 was published on January 10th and has already seen criticism in the press over its various weaknesses, including from conference attendee Oisin Coghlan of Friends of the Earth.”

The announcement of the conference comes hot on the heels of UCC being declared the second greenest university in the world in the recent Univesitas Indonesia Greenmetric World University Ranking, an achievement Murphy says students paid a pivotal role in.

The conference is free and takes place in the Aula Maxima this weekend, with registration recommended.

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Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

USI future hinges on finance Stephen Goulding analyses the referendum result which saw UCC remaining affiliated with the USI and asks what next for the organisation?

After the gyre of slogans, facts and viewpoints that preceded the referendum, the students of UCC voted to stay affiliated with the USI last Tuesday. This landslide victory, however, may not be as unambiguous as it first appears. Why would the students of UCC give an overwhelming endorsement to a union that has a rather shady transparency record? A union that has failed to prevent the hikes in fees? A representative body that many students may feel disenfranchised from?

The answer, it would seem, lies in the depth of our pockets. Money makes the world go round after all.

The ‘No’ side’s far flaunted figure of €120,000 – which in all likelihood was borrowed from UCD’s 120,000 Reasons to Vote No campaign, as the figures don’t match up with UCC’s USI related spending – was, in hindsight, not enough of a deterrent for students to sway from the USI. In reality, €120,000, whilst not mere chickenfeed, isn’t a great deal when it comes to running a world class university (it’s only slightly more than half of what we dish out to our president as an annual salary).

money trying to compete as a localised union on a national basis, something that we tried and failed to do in the eighties and nineties.

“As for the defeated naysayers, this should be the spark they need to gather momentum on campus and start raising awareness about the issues they have with the USI.”

Undoubtedly, the benefits of the saving would have been immediately appreciated on a local level, with the ‘No’ side pointing out that the money would enable the university to hire three more doctors for UCC health services, or could allow for more library hours, or even that a new common room could be built. But, had we disaffiliated, we would have been forced to fork out a similar amount of

Thrift thrived on voting day, however, with the ‘Yes’ side vehemently pointing out that USI membership amounted to a mere €5 per full-time student per year. By any standards, €5 for union membership is a bargain: SIPTU charges its average waged members about €4 per week. To deny having a national union, who have a strong history of lobbying for individual cases on a national basis, at your disposal for a mere €5 per year would amount to nothing shy of idiocy.

That said, the USI may not have debate and rational thinking to thank for their indisputable victory. Instead they have us, or rather our €5 per annum contribution to thank. Anyone with a physical presence on campus during the two voting days would have noted an overwhelming ‘Yes’ presence, outfitted with leaflets and t-shirts.

Which brings to light the question of whether or not it is justifiable that the

CAMPUS PRESENCE: The 'Yes' campaign were met with little opposition over the two days of voting.

Image by: Marc Moylan

USI use our contributions (which are taken without option) to campaign for its continuation?

Did the difference between the sides lie in campaign funds, the moneyed muscle of the USI competing against a grassroots ‘No’ side that had no disposable funds? Would the outcome of the referendum have been different if every student who voted hadn’t come into contact with a T-shirt-wearing, leaflet-branding ‘Yes’ supporter?

These questions will have to remain rhetorical for, as it stands, the USI

#UccVotes Reaction Laura Harmon ‫@‏‬Harmonica26 91% of UCC students have voted #YestoUSI YestoUSI - a huge majority. Together we are stronger. Thanks to everyone who voted.

Glenn Fitzpatrick @ ‫ ‏‬glennthefitz “The students united will never be defeated.” #YestoUSI

is here to stay. As for the defeated naysayers, this should be the spark they need to gather momentum on campus and start raising awareness about the issues they have with the USI, its ineffectiveness and lack of transparency; as opposed to just opting out and pleading nolo contendere.

Why not campaign to make sure we get bang for our buck? Why not start demanding that the USI get the most out of our €5 and make them prove that they are by continuing to publish their accounts, as they did on the eve of the vote?

I for one am glad that we didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater: whilst the USI has the potential to be so much more than it is today, it is still a necessity for the progression of students and students’ rights. Yet its future, if the recent referendum is anything to go by, rests on the union’s relationship with one thing: money. More specifically, how it handles money, its ability to generate money and its accountability towards money.

Katrina Stovold @ ‫ ‏‬QuestionsAndTea Misleading numbers: 91% of the vote, perhaps, but not anywhere near that percentage of students.

Rebecca M @ ‫ ‏‬Smurphette85 UCC students are 95% in favour of marriage equality. Best university ever really. #MakeGràTheLaw

Jack Eustace @ ‫ ‏‬JackAEustace Brilliant endorsement for national student solidarity in Cork there. UCC making the choice UCD should have made. #YestoUSI YestoUSI Alex C ‫@‏‬WorldNo1Idiot Very impressed with the passion shown by yes side. No side just vocal online.

Let’s hope the passion will be carried forward!

Danny O’Donovan @ ‫ ‏‬Dunux It’s great to see such strong grass roots support for #yes2usi. Let’s keep the momentum going!

Michelle Ní Mhurchú ‫@‏‬MsMurphington Delighted with the result of #uccvotes but also bitterly disappointed with the 15% turnout rate.

*Didn't reach quorum

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UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

Student council sparks contraception fee debate Alternatives to the current means of charging female students a €20 contraception consultation fee are required according to Méabh Flanagan.

Visiting the student doctor in UCC had been free for everyone, regardless of ailment, until last year, when economic reasons forced the introduction of fees for certain categories of visits.

The most controversial of these fees is the €20 charge for ‘contraception consultations’, which are necessary for women who want prescriptions to hormonal contraceptives such as the pill. The choices are bleak for the cashstrapped student; pay the fee and then the price of the contraceptive itself, or risk relying solely on condoms, which have 18% pregnancy rate per-year with typical use.

Student Council addressed this issue recently with the motion that Cian Power would continue to campaign for the fee to be lifted. As Welfare Officer, Power’s role on campus is to work with “sexual health and finance problems” and he has previously attempted to have the consultation fee removed.

However, on the night, he opposed the motion as, in his opinion, there was no feasible chance of the fee being lifted.

He also claimed that if the fee were to be removed, waiting lists would grow longer and staff would be forced to be laid off, although he did acknowledge that the fee was “in some terms sexist and antifeminist.”

The motion went on to pass, Power’s comment on the result being, “I have

spoken to Dr. Byrne about the charge since starting my term as Welfare Officer. Now that I am mandated by Council, I will use the strength of council to further discuss the reduction and abolishment of the fee. I will do everything in my power to do my best for students’ welfare.”

“The result of this would be shorter queues, less strain on the system and the additional income could be used to improve services even further.”

With all attempts to abolish the fee proving futile thus far, it’s time that a different approach was taken to this issue. One compromise would be to have all students share the financial burden. With 3,000 contraception consultations each year, some €60,000 will be raised by the fee. If the other 17,000 students who attend the doctor yearly were to pay €2.50 per visit, €42,500 would be raised. Under that model the contraception consultation

POWER PLAY: Cian Power is now mandated by Council to campaign against the contraception charge.

Image by: Anna Ahern

could be dropped from €20 down to €5 and the Student Doctor would still be raising far more than the current €60,000.

would be shorter queues, less strain on the system and the additional income could be used to improve services even further.

The €2.50 fee for normal visits, which is, after all, only the price of a cup of coffee, would be enough make those with runny noses reconsider wasting a doctor’s time but it would not be enough to discourage anyone who is truly sick from attending, unlike the consultation fee. The result of this

And why should students mind paying €2.50? Would they not be, as Dr Michael Byrne put it, “receiving highquality care?” A system such as this would be far more equal but we seem to have a strong opposition to it, as if we’re afraid to ask male students for €2.50 to see the doctor, while at the

Political hypocrisy spells time for change in global outlook

same time perfectly content to milk female students for €20 at a time.

Those who are completely opposed to the idea that students would have to pay €2.50 to see the doctor should be the staunchest supporters of the removal of the fee; if one student cannot be expected to pay €2.50, then it’s extremely apparent that young women cannot be expected to bear the burden of paying €20 any longer.

In light of recent world events, Diarmaid Twomey says that the current state of politics is one which requires urgent addressing.

‘Je suis Charlie’: It is a phrase that will remain etched in the collective psyche of the world for some time to come; a phrase which passed the lips of almost every western world leader in recent weeks. We are Charlie. But are they?

Are we?

“Politics doesn’t seem to be just a dirty business but a business bereft of any sort of moral principle.”

January wasn’t a good time to shine an investigative light onto global politics.

In recent weeks, in scenes reminiscent of an elongated political parody, we saw a collection of world leaders march in solidarity through the streets of Paris to defend and promote the idea of free speech, the correct response to such an attack. Yet only two weeks later we witnessed them mourn the death

of the King of Saudi Arabia; the very same month in which Saudi Arabia’s oppressive regime was giving 1,000 lashes to Raif Badawi for attempting to exercise the same free speech the leaders of the ‘Free World’ professed to care about so much. Remember: this was a right so fundamental to these leader’s societies that they marched through sombre Paris streets, hand in hand, to defend it. You genuinely couldn’t make it up!

Depressingly, politics doesn’t seem to be just a dirty business but a business bereft of any sort of moral principle.

Why were flags flown at half mast for the leader of a monarchical regime which has regularly lashed rape victims, publicly beheaded citizens and holds an ideological position which directly contradicts that of the ‘Free World’?

The cynic in many of us identifies that dirty black poison which Saudi Arabia produces by the barrel load as being the possible motive behind the selfish

and selective annulment of the West’s relationship with its guiding principles.

Is our thirst for energy and economic growth so cardinal to our government’s agenda that our most basic emotion as a collective people and world, that of humanity, is so easily forgotten about?

It would seem so.

It points to an even wider issue with politics. Not alone is it laced with hypocrisy and contradictions, but it now appears to no longer even be controlled by people or societies and instead by money, oil and the 1%. We see this when politicians schmooze with economic elites in Davos. 1,700 private jets, emitting carbons by the bucket load, simultaneously touched down in Switzerland just last month to discuss the economic implications of climate change – another scene in our political parody.

As long as economies are growing who cares about depleting global resources,

rising temperatures, unsustainable population growth, oppressed societies, starving children or the extinction of a wide variety of life on our planet? Sher haven’t you a few bob in your back pocket; aren’t you alright Jack!?

There has to be another way.

Consecutive governments in our beautiful and proud nation, and throughout Europe, have risen to power off the back of lies, misinformation and corruption. A selfish part of me doesn’t want change; I worry what change will bring. But the rational side of me knows it is absolutely necessary, if not for you and I, certainly for future generations.

They say you get the politics you

deserve. If that is the case, we, as citizens of Ireland and the wider ‘Free World’, need to take a long, hard, critical look at ourselves.

The promise of tax cuts and a shovel of tarmac in the pothole at the front gate must no longer hold the appeal it clearly has until now. The politics of greed, elitism and corporate power has brought us to a tipping point. If we have any respect and hope for our children’s future, it’s time to not only embrace change but to bring it about ourselves.

Contemporary western politics has proven itself to be all about rhetoric but no action. It’s time for acceptance and change. It’s time to take back control.

8|

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

Yik Yak: Drawing the line against social media Emmett Flynn examines anonymous messaging social media apps in colleges and asks whether certain apps should be banned.

An app making waves in America for largely negative reasons may not be far from arriving to Ireland.

Yik Yak is an online bulletin board for college and high school students in America with a twist: those who post to the app’s Twitter-like feed are anonymous, only 500 people within a mile and half radius can see the content, and only posts by those in the posters smartphone contact list are visible.

Users of the app can then upvote or downvote the 200 character posts.

The reason behind its popularity is due to the fact it is more area specific and current than other social networks; students can offer instant reaction on the lecture or the lecturer during a lecture. One lecturer in the US claimed that a poster made a degrading comment about her appearance during a lecture which she found hard to deal with as all the students could see the comment simultaneously.

In Chicago a high school teen committed suicide allegedly due to bullying he received on Yik Yak. The problem for colleges and high schools

in America is that it is an app where people post light-hearted comments but also gossip, rumour, slander and generally offer negative commentary about students and lecturers in order to bully or undermine. In many ways it’s like the controversial website Ask.fm that caused a lot of anguish and even suicides in Ireland and other countries.

While schools in America have banned Yik Yak as a reactionary move, I think Irish universities (and for that matter secondary schools) should ban this app before it becomes a menace. As many commentators have said: Yik Yak doesn’t bring anything useful to the table, only suffering and unnecessary public humiliation.

The news then that the app had raised $62 million in venture capital and is currently valued at almost $400 million is somewhat surprising. The valuations seem reasonable in this crazy tech bubble: communication apps are very hot right now with Facebook buying WhatsApp back in February for $16 billion, while Snapchat was recently valued at an insane $10 billion.

Yet Yik Yak draws a closer comparison to the apps Whisper and Secret, both of whom are chasing the anonymous messaging app market with limited success. Secret has crashed and burned by dropping out of the top 250 apps in the Apple App Store in the US in September and now is out of the top 1,000.

Whisper, meanwhile, is still in the top 500 in the US but was hit by a damning report by The Guardian that it was secretly tracking users, despite

Global Issues Course

claiming to not do so and this may have slowed the app’s momentum. Whisper differs to Secret in that you can’t post someone’s real name when you are writing a message about them but that’s still not a huge barrier to identifying the person being slandered. Secret does claim to moderate their app to prevent bullying but I doubt that’s their primary focus.

So Irish universities and other stakeholders should watch what apps are becoming popular in America and

prepare for their inevitable deployment in Ireland, or even consider banning apps before they become popular.

Although we should not live in fear of apps, it may be that it is impossible to ban them anyway.

It would be great to have a debate about these technologies before they arrive in Ireland: public awareness wouldn’t go amiss and neither would good guidelines offered to both students and lecturers.

On voting ‘No’ to gay marriage

Jane Snow* provides her reasons for voting ‘No’ in the upcoming marriage equality referendum.

6 week Global Issues Course in UCC Starting Monday, 9th Feb or Tuesday, 10th Feb Participant fee: €25

Apply online: www.suas.ie Topics: development, health, debt, education t rade and livelihoods, environment and taking action.

Photos Clockwise:Photos Clockwise: A tea picker with fair trade organization Commercio Equo e Solidale: Mother and child at Medecin San Frontier feeding programme in Mozambique: two boys search through litter to find anything they can sell in the Philippines.

Costs subsidised by Irish Aid and European Union

The argument that seems to be put forth around campus is one that concerns the changing of opinions about LGBT* rights and therefore buying into the general ideology of gay liberation.

However anyone who believes that marriage is none of the government’s business and who also views civil rights, like whimsical marriage equality bills, to be secondary to social rights, will have to admit that voting ‘No’ to gay marriage is the only reasonable response to this sudden hoo-

ha about what ‘political correctness’ should be.

The austerity measures currently being undertaken by the government (water tax, housing tax, this tax and that tax) have been falling on the backs of the working poor, the underclass and those less well off in society. The LGBT* banners with colourful ‘Equality’ letters scrawled across them are hypocritical insofar as they propose equality for the middle classes at the expense of the quality

|9

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

Investing in the body Qualified fitness instructor Cathal O’Reilly gives advice on maintaining the fitness routine during the tricky postJanuary enthusiasm phase.

Ugghh another fitness article about making me feel guilty or trying to tell me what I should be doing, right?

Wrong. So your mates have been going to the gym with you for the past three weeks... It’s been great but now they’re starting to hum and haw about the trip down. The next episode of whatever show is on Netflix, they’re too hungover from the night before or simply just not feeling it.

So does that mean you can’t maintain your regime? There’s no question, it can be difficult.

For some of us, going with somebody else takes away from the other issues we face in the gym. Issues such as other people, or not being able to use equipment properly, or just feeling a little strung out because ‘Beefy’ is counting his reps out loud. When you get into the gym there’s no need to be intimidated by the lads lifting big weights or the girls who have been on that machine for the last hour and are still going. In more cases than not, everyone had to start in your shoes and work from there. You

will find that the majority of people are friendly and only happy to help if you’re in need of direction. Don’t be afraid to ask people if they will be much longer on a machine; they will normally say just one set left.

Another issue people will struggle with in the first few weeks back is a lack of energy. Most people will ask themselves: what am I eating? ‘Oh great, now I have to change my diet completely to get energy?’ Wrong!

It’s completely normal to feel exhausted. Your body is not used to the exercise and is just getting used to the movements. Give yourself a break and keep positive. Your body will start getting used to the exercise after a while and you can worry about diets at a later stage.

A lot of people tend to get bogged down with extreme diets to achieve results fast, also known as yo-yo dieting. Yes, you may see results but you are sacrificing your health at the same time. Remember, it is about a long term goal of building health and

fitness, as opposed to losing a stone in a week and putting two back on at a later stage – that’s a vicious circle and it’s not sustainable for the future.

Think about your body as a bank and each time you exercise it is an investment for the future. You don’t save money by lodging large amounts

inconsistently; sporadically you end up spending it. Lodging a little bit every week consistently will make you appreciate it more and you will be more reluctant to spend. It’s the same with exercise: each time you go to the gym it’s a small investment in your health and overall well-being.

But overall, doing something is better than nothing. Even if you walk on the treadmill for 10 or 15 minutes, it is better than the friend who is sitting on their ass and bringing you down.

Don’t look down on someone unless you are helping them back up!

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of life for those at the bottom.

denial of how far behind this country has fallen.

Really what these civil rights campaigners are saying is that some members of our society should be more equal than others. Why? Because they think it’s perfectly fine that the astronomical cost of changing these ‘equality’ laws will, again, fall on the backs of the poor. Winning referenda costs money. If it passes, changing the bill itself will cost money. Everything costs money; money which could and should be put elsewhere, where it would actually trickle down.

Not that this article sets out to be contrarian, or homophobic; God forbid! Marriage is none of my business, nor is it the government’s (and changing that fact is… well, not an issue of equality as such). Plus I really don’t care what gender you prefer to take to bed. I really, really don’t, so please stop telling me about it!

So whatever about progressivism and gay liberation, Ireland has already lost its sovereignty to the EU and it still thinks that Judeo-Christian myths of progress lie in ridiculous neo-liberal equalities and privileges that stand in direct

As long as 20% of the nation’s children go to school hungry and 750,000 people live in poverty, this marriage equality plea should be put on the back burner before we waste any more of our country’s near non-existent wealth on the matter.

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What are you waiting for?

Download an Application form from www.goracing.ie and send along with your C.V. to: Kate O’Sullivan, Marketing Department, Horse Racing Ireland, Ballymany, The Curragh, Co. Kildare OR Email kosullivan@hri.ie.

Closing Date: Monday 9th March 2015

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10 |

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

Presidential power: Examining Article 26

Cormac Manning examines the legal remit the President had in responding to calls to decline to sign the Water Services Bill into law.

P

resident Michael D Higgins got some interesting mail over Christmas. One letter came from Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh, another from Reform Alliance senator Fidelma HealyEames. Both letters basically asked the President to do the same thing: invoke Article 26 of the Constitution and decline to sign the Water Services Bill into law. These letters were signed by a combined total of 49 TDs and senators; among them, independents Shane Ross, Stephen Donnelly and David Norris, newly-elected Socialist TDs Ruth Coppinger and Paul Murphy, the entire Sinn Féin parliamentary party and two Fianna Fáil senators.

So what is Article 26 of the Constitution? The article sets out for a procedure in which the President is given the power to consult a body of advisors called the Council of State to consider the constitutionality of a Bill.

After consulting the Council of State the President has the option either to sign the Bill, or send it to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. The Supreme Court then rules on whether the Bill is constitutional or not. It does not rule on whether the Bill is a good policy, it only considers whether it is repugnant to the constitution.

After the Supreme Court returns its verdict the President must decline to sign if the Bill is unconstitutional, but if the Bill is constitutional, the President has no choice but to sign. In addition, article 34.3.3 provides that if the Supreme Court declares the Bill constitutional its constitutionality

can never again be challenged.

It should be stressed that the President does not have the power to decline to sign the Bill because he thinks it is bad; under Article 26 the President can only refuse to sign if it is unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court declares the Bill constitutional, the President is

forced to sign it whether he agrees with it or not. Our system is different from countries like the United States where the President has the power to veto a Bill just because he or she doesn’t like it.

“Our system is different from countries like the United States where the President has the power to veto a Bill just because he or she doesn’t like it.”

Is the Water Services Bill unconstitutional? If the President

sends the Bill to be tested in the Supreme Court, the public pays for the legal costs of the entire case, which are ridiculously expensive.

Senator Healy-Eames writes that, “the over-riding concern for many is that the Bill should not leave any opening for water to be privatised in the future.” Deputy

Ó Snodaigh writes, “The proposed plebiscite on the ownership of Irish Water in Section 2 of the Bill does not satisfy demands for a constitutional referendum to enshrine the public ownership of Irish Water into the Constitution.”

In my opinion, this is indeed a massive failing in the Bill and a valid reason to vote against it in the Oireachtas but it is not unconstitutional to privatise water, however bad an idea that may be.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh and Senator Healy-Eames should actually already know this. They support the campaign to amend the constitution to prevent water privatisation-while I commend them for that support, if you support a campaign to amend the constitution to protect against water privatisation, then you must think water privatisation is currently constitutional, or there would be no need for the campaign.

One of the reasons also given by Senator Healy-Eames as to why she feels that the President should invoke Article 26 is that water charges are a ‘regressive tax’. Leaving aside the difference between charges and taxes, regressive taxes are not unconstitutional; if they were, VAT (a very regressive tax) would be illegal. Again, remember the constitution does not give the President the authority to refuse to sign a Bill because something is bad, only if it is unconstitutional.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh writes, “There is such a degree of widespread public opposition to the imposition of charges for water as proposed under Section 3(2) of the Bill that such a proposal should be put to the people by way of referendum or by holding of a general election before such charges are introduced.” There certainly is a lot of public opposition to the Bill (whether or not it’s a majority of people is another question), but the Bill was passed by a majority of democratically elected representatives of the people. Just because something is unpopular does not make it unconstitutional.

What about having a referendum on the Bill? Sinn Féin’s letter contained the request that “Under Article 26 of Bunreacht na hÉireann we request that you consider declining to sign and promulgate as a law the Water Services Bill 2014 on the ground that the Bill contains a proposal of such national importance that the will of the people thereon ought to be ascertained.”

Nowhere in Article 26 does it give the President that power – he cannot call a referendum on the Bill even if he wanted to. Article 27 details when the President can call a referendum on a Bill – it’s only when the Seanad rejects a Bill but the Dáil overrules it, and even then only if presented with a petition of a majority of senators

and a third of TDs. Neither condition is true in this case so the President cannot call a referendum.

Therefore what appears would happen if President Higgins were to have accepted Sinn Féin and HealyEames’s request would be that he would send the Bill to the Supreme Court, the public would pay the tab for some expensive Senior Counsel, the Supreme Court would declare the Bill constitutional, and the President would sign it into law. The Bill would still in all likelihood become law, the only difference is that we, the public, would pay a hefty legal fee. But we need not worry about that scenario – on 28 December 2014 President Higgins signed the Bill into law, without referring it to the Court.

All of this leads to one of two conclusions. The first is that the authors of the letters did not read the Article they were invoking and didn’t know the constitutional power of the President. Among 49 of our national legislators, not one of them had the competence to have checked this. If it is not that first conclusion, maybe it is the second: that some of the signatories knew that the President had the power to refuse to sign the Bill – only if it was unconstitutional – but still decided to go ahead and deliberately mislead the Irish people to suit their own PR and agenda. It is up to the reader to take whichever conclusion they wish.

| 11

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

An endless search to find how much is enough Mark Kelleher

All �ive of us are believed to be dead. At one time we were missing. Our faces, mostly snipped out of graduation or special occasion photographs, appeared for weeks in both local and national newspapers and covered streetlights, bus shelters... We were excessively lamented on social media platforms. Our names and last known sightings were announced nightly on the televised news. This is what we last wore, this is where we were last seen, here is the phone number you are to ring if you happen to see us.

The shock of our disappearances sparked discussions on the radio.

People who knew us could not stop talking about us. How badly they missed us. How desperately they wanted us home. They forgot about the bad stuff and exaggerated the little good we possessed. Those who did not know us pretended they did.

We were eulogised and beauti�ied in our absence.

Human interest, however, has its reliable limits. Time passed. Wider society grew bored. Searches ended and, �inally, we were mourned. That was our cue. Don’t wonder how we knew this. Call it inference. Call it the desperately predictable. Our imagined deaths freed us. We lived again, beautifully hidden.

Our new way of life is fundamentally a process of undoing. The replacement of abstractions with simplicity.

It is, reduced to its fundamental core, a peculiar form of unloving; a discarding of things we previously felt were meaningful or inextricably bound to. The names with which we were christened have been replaced by the aliases that led us to one another. We do not know nor wish to know the previous identities by which we were known. Our aliases are tightly held, a mystery to everyone but the respective individual, a manifestation of some lingering internal urge.

The foundations of this milieu we have fashioned, no doubt a peculiar set of philosophies to the stunned outsider, are built on loss. The power of abandonment. A complete remove from the traps which we all willingly fall into along the way. We commit to creating an environment in which the –less is all that we submit to. That is: we are Godless and moneyless, sexless and loveless, comfortingly clueless, at times unnervingly speechless. We are also, it can be said, perpetually homeless.

Some brief biographical information.

We are all, or at least previously were, children of The Digital Age. Spend enough time online and you lose the outside world. Penetrate the web’s darkest interiors and you’ll �ind the cracks into which, by choice, the emptied out have leapt. It is there where we met. Put it down to cosmic beauty, some unknowable product of

fate. Plain chaos.

All traces of our past communications have been destroyed. The speci�ic place where we daily conversed, where the �irst stirrings of this withdrawal were conjured, has been completely removed. We did not, as you might expect, all �lee at the same time. Such an absurd event would have been immediately �lagged by the authorities, categorised as cultic, an unspeakable act of no particular concern. The trick to success, we knew, was to play dead.

“we are Godless and moneyless, sexless and loveless, comfortingly clueless.”

We spaced it out. The process took a certain amount of years. The immensity of our planning was dispiriting but did not dissuade us.

For obvious reasons the raw details cannot be revealed in any meaningful way. What requires consideration is the desire, the motivators, the immovable psychic yearning.

Some more biographical background. What little we know about one another has been learned through unconscious slips, traces of old habits, passions. Velouria, the youngest of the group, can often be heard incoherently speaking in her sleep. Her usual enthusiasm tempered by slumber, the ragged edges of dreams inspire in her vocalisations of deep-buried thrills, vague cravings. Someone called Caroline is regularly and urgently requested to extinguish a light.

Ambiguous numbers, always primes, are frequently whispered. The rest of us just listen.

Noir, our other female, spends much of the night staring �ixedly at the sky.

Located as we are at a signi�icant distance from city lights, her vantage point could hardly be improved.

She identi�ies and points to Lyra, Orion’s cold and ethereal glow, the International Space Station; at such a remove it’s natural to doubt it’s even there. She talks of wormholes and lunar landings, string theory, the in�initude of space. This is what makes it all so special, the one and perhaps only great beauty, she tells us with a sad smile – the cognitive defeat it in�licts, the humbling minuteness it con�ines us to. We do not doubt it.

We each try with all we have to devolve into primitive states. Our environment is one of stillness. The only human intrusions that reach us are rare cracks of faraway gun�ire

and the twice daily overhead drone of airplanes that none of us can ever turn our heads to. T.C., the last and �inal arrival here, is currently struck with the same unease we all had to encounter and battle through. His bone-white face sweats profusely and for hours he’s not seen. For solace he seeks the sight of birds in �light, imagining, perhaps, that their level of easy contentment is somehow achievable through patience. This is, at least, what Gideon instils in him.

Gideon was the �irst to arrive and is considerably the most eager to stay. On the one day of the week he speaks – Sunday, the most troubling of all days for everyone – he offers encouragement, reinforces our collective reasoning, says this is the only natural way in which to live. He reminds us of the things we chose to leave behind: the burden

of too much love or not enough, the ceaselessness of accumulation, technology and politics, status, sex and piled on stress, impermanence, time’s appalling �low. Those traps, he says. Those sad traps.

In contemplating our unique living arrangements, questions from the person reading this will remain.

Doubts about the validity of these surreal claims will arise. The cynical reader will unquestionably deny the feasibility of what has been described. How do we survive?

How have we not been discovered?

Where, precisely, are we, and in what do we live? The reader is requested to make their own mind up. We do not seek approval or validation. For all of us, part of the reason why we chose to come here was to escape entitlement, The Age of Information, the mass need for resolving all

unknowns through the acquisition of all answers.

steady

The �lummoxed reader might with merit wonder why, in light of our purported desire to withdraw completely from society, why this account exists at all. This account, some details of which have been altered, exists as proof. As a source of comfort, perhaps, to the secret weepers behind bolted doors, those brutally caged by thought, the desk sitter who realises the �igures will never stop rolling in, those dismayed by the impossibility of their dreams, the cut loose, those dulled by the never-ending �ight to be fucked or fallen in love with, the on edge and those who have fallen over it. There are, let’s be clear, alternatives. What it comes down to is how willing you are to really let it all go and how desperate you are to forget.

12 |

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

We Need Gay Parents!

NEWS HEADLINES WORLD: Moro Islamic Liberation Front cause massacre in Philippines.

Other unfortunate terrorist acronyms include the Ballyhaskin Jihadists and the Sligo Terrorist Directive.

COLLEGE: Students vow to only accept lecturer feedback typed in font size 12 with double spacing.

MUSIC: Nicki Minaj revealed to be an elaborate Eddie Murphy character act.

EDUCATION: Mature student goes through entire lecture without mentioning kids or asking a question.

BUSINESS: Nationwide 10 cent coin shortage over after Bus Éireann start charging €2.

LIFE: Record low of three reported cases of cannibalism in line for Science Ball tickets.

HEALTH: Pregnant women more likely to quit smoking if paid. Rise in number of babies that look like cigarettes.

Trevor Drinkwater

rudimentary

cloud-

I smile and nod politely whenever they

surrogates in order to produce more

The future can be an amazingly scaring

stored version of my brain), there is

raise these points, not having the heart

children in order to compensate for the

a potentially exciting event which

to tell them that we are in fact the end

massive drop in birth rates. They will

is in the not too distant future. I am

of the line. You see, our generation

be the only ones with the means and the

speaking of Ireland’s marriage equality

That is the educational equivalent

are the first to have lived our entire

referendum, in which we as a nation

will to carry on the human race.

of looking out into the big wide

adolescent and adult lives with tiny

will be given the opportunity to decide

radiation emitters in our jean pockets

However they cannot complete this

world of true independence and upon

the marital fortunes of our LGBT*

necessary task unless we as a nation

being confronted with the terrifying

and to regularly subject our genitals

friends and family. I have been using

to daily bouts of laptop exposure.

go out and vote for their right to marry

possibility of real existential progress,

SOCIETY: UCC Comedy Society now own all the rights to laughs in UCC.

my vote as leverage in order to get my

Our ability to sexually reproduce has

and, when the time eventually comes,

deciding instead to scarper off into 12

gay friends to do favours for me, but

secretly already been taken from us,

more months of further education in

constitutionally ensure their ability to

all in jest. I will be voting ‘Yes’ as any

a fact which none of us are likely to

sane, liberal-minded individual will.

produce and raise a family in whatever

TV LISTINGS

order to retain my mostly perfected

discover until sometime in the late

status as a giant man-baby. However

Hopefully it will pass and they will be

way they see fit! If we do not vote ‘Yes’

2020s. This is where gay marriage

the future is not exclusively the domain

granted the rights which they obviously

to marriage equality, not only do we

becomes a biological imperative!

of unwelcome changes.

deserve as members of the human race.

deny these people the ability to marry,

I, personally, can’t wait for the

“I have been using my vote as leverage in order to get my gay friends to do favours for me, but all in jest.”

and disappointing place. I should know, after all I am a postgraduate student.

ENTERTAINMENT: makes a funny joke.

Des

Bishop

UTV Ireland Sunday @ 6pm: Countryfile, a hard hitting docudrama about the life of rural paedophiles.

TV3

abundance of obligatory Back to the Future references and massive leaps forward in cybernetics which undoubtedly await us as a civilisation.

Until, of course, sometime in the late 20--s when earth faces an apocalypse at the hands of the unstoppable expansion of

the

newly

developed

nano-

machines. Or alternatively, if we never meet such a fate, we have the eventual Monday @ 9pm: An investigative journalist turns his attention towards home hygiene in Donal MacIntyre: Breaking Grime.

TG4 Freitag @ 6.30pm: Tá péineas móra na péineas is fearr: Turas Gnéasach.

heat death of the universe inherent to the William Thomson understanding of the second law of thermodynamics to

cryogenics

or

However I am not only doing it as a selfless act of solidarity. I, like all good voters, have my own selfish needs in

The fact of the matter is that homosexuals are on average more intelligent than heterosexuals with the former having an IQ of 114 and the latter only a measly 100, obviously leading to greater net incomes! These facts are all well and good, you may be thinking, but how does this affect my supposedly sterile reproductive organs. Well you see my friends; there will come a point in the future when we are so sexually inert that the sole way to reproduce will be through in vitro fertilisation, something which many people will simply be unable to afford.

we more than certainly resign ourselves to a Children of Men style apocalyptic scenario. And while I love the movie, I simply want better for the real world.

To add a rather surprisingly earnest coda to this piece, the problem with voting is that young people only actually care about their opinion when they can tell people about it. The student body recently voted in favour of campaigning for marriage equality and, while that is excellent news, you must remember that it is not good enough to just wear a marriage equality sticker or badge or whatnot. If you want to make

look forward to.

mind. I have many friends who firmly believe that our generation’s children

The burden of genetic preservation

a difference, you must actually go out

Regardless of these fun future events

will be born into a golden era of a finally

will thus fall upon homosexual couples

and vote ‘Yes’ when the time comes.

which I hope to live to witness

recovered economic system and a

with their higher wages and IQs to

Together we can make the future not

(perhaps through some manner of

liberally-minded, near-utopian society.

implement methods such as IVF and

such an apocalyptic place.

| 13

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

Banned by popular demand Ronan Harrington questions the literacy of Breda O’Brien as she fails another word association test.

Iona Institute mouthpiece Breda O’Brien has been barred from appearing on national television due to popular demand after her basic word skills were called into question.

O’Brien’s challenged literacy came to the fore during a discussion last week about same-sex marriage. The samesex marriage issue is just one feather in the Iona Institute’s hat of concerns, albeit a very predominate feather on an otherwise bare hat. It’s more like the yoke on a fez really, if that fez had a net worth of about €300,000.

The discussion arose over a proposed new wording of Article 41 in the Irish Constitution, which will be put to the vote during the Marriage Equality Referendum in May (the one that actually counts, not the SU survey; remember that kids): “Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”

While this wording was broadly welcomed by politicians, O’Brien took issue, broadcasting her concerns on Morning Ireland. She worried that the referendum would make it impossible to judge how suitable people would be as parents based on their sexuality.

This is probably based on the flawless track record that heterosexual people have as parents. And on the fact that straight couples don’t just have a kid, it’s something they need to work for.

Straight couples just aren’t like those gay couples, who will be able to have a kid in mere years after a few rowdy nights of drunken and passionate paperwork.

O’Brien said she didn’t oppose civil

“Straight couples just aren’t like those gay couples, who will be able to have a kid in mere years after a few rowdy nights of drunken and passionate paperwork.” partnerships for same-sex couples but drew the line at marriage as children become involved. Children aside, I find her stance of civil partnership status being good enough for gay people telling. It’s a zero-sum attitude to equality. In her mind, homosexual people can’t gain rights without heterosexual people losing some. She’s fine with gay people being equal, just

not as equal as her.

When O’Brien said she didn’t have a problem with a grandmother and a mother raising a child, Labour TD Dominic Hannigan asked what the difference was between that and a lesbian couple raising a child. She said the former situation was acceptable as, although the child’s father is not present, their right to having one has not been ‘taken away’.

By this logic heterosexual parents are straight up bastards because they deprive their children of the right to have two mothers and the right to have two fathers. Actually, single parents are the worst because they deprive their kids of all three parental gender combinations.

While single parents don’t fit Iona’s

Varsity battle set for Ordinary Level UCC Michael Stack

This week in UL, also known as Ordinary Level UCC, a historic event will take place: a Comedy Intervarsity.

When someone suggested the idea to me I nearly dropped my Biochemistry degree, which I carry around with me to frighten CIT students (their fear of the unknown is infamous). A Comedy Intervarsity? An interesting concept to say the least...

“I enjoy judging people more than almost anything, most of the time I do it before I meet them or even hear them speak.”

Myself and a few others from the society will be going up against UL

(Pass-UCC), UCD (Dyslexic DCU), Trinity (The Father, The Son and The Holy Nepotism) and NUIG (Connacht’s Finest). As auditor of the Comedy Society here, my role is, of course, going to be on the judging panel (you can’t vote for your own society naturally). Initially I wanted to perform as I didn’t feel like going all the way up to Stab City and not show those mothers a thing or two about comedy! Also, it seemed like a trek.

However, when they offered me the chance to sit down and judge other people, then how could I say no? I enjoy judging people more than almost anything, most of the time I do it before I meet them or even hear them speak. I have it down as a skill on my CV, along with being polite and rarely late. It’s going be difficult to remain subjective and unbiased of course. If I don’t like the look of one performer, for example, then he might as well give up his dreams of performing on Live At The Apollo because without my connections, he doesn’t have a chance.

Disclaimer: I have no connections. I barely know my parents.

As well as this, every performer is going to have a different style; a different take on things. Different judges will find certain things funnier than others. So how do we judge fairly? I am strongly of the opinion we should employ a Hunger Games-type scenario, where all the comedians are dropped into the Burren and must fight their way out – sure being funny got you nowhere back in the day; it was only the size of your sword that mattered. That wasn’t meant to be an innuendo but let’s just run with it.

Either way, UCC Comedy Society will likely not return from Limerick. All I ask is that you erect a statue of me neutering a dog in the Amphitheatre; it’s been a lifelong dream of mine.

I hope you all will have us in your prayers. And if you never again hear from us, just know this: we died doing what we loved – battling other humorously inclined individuals from Ireland’s various universities in a bizarre comedic melee.

traditional view of families, right-wing Catholics don’t find them threatening to their worldview, so we’ll just ignore that.

This brings us to the quote from O’Brien which called for the test: “Do you think we should change the Constitution to allow grandmothers and their daughters to marry?” At this point, Breda was subjected to a word association test, in which she had to give synonyms for a list of words. All was going swimmingly – big and large, tall and high, bribing and lobbying – until she reached ‘homosexual’, to which she gave ‘incest’, operating using definitions she picked up from 1950s PSA films. At this point, O’Brien failed and was then swiftly stripped of her alarmingly high public profile.

To cover my ass, that last bit didn’t happen, that was satire. I’m glad, though, that people with conservative views aren’t censored. It would be boring to live in a monoculture in which your views are never questioned.

However I’m annoyed that Iona have such a high media profile; a fact which is due to their fat coffers and the media’s condescendingly simple narratives, which result from having people with polar views in the name of balance, as opposed to knowledgeable guests. But what does Iona care eh? They only have one talking point, about which they’ll keep flapping their gums and bobbing their fez, like a homophobic Tommy Cooper.

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Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

Crossword

2

3

6

7

4

8

Sudoku

5

Puzzle 1 (Hard, difficulty rating 0.61)

9

Hard

9 10

1

5

3

11

5

12 13 14

15

2

16

8 6

17 18

19

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23

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26

5

8

7

4

Across

Down

6 Crushes it when getting extra teaching (6)

1 Top national contest for golfers is phonier than the rest (5,4)

8 Boil vino until this state of total forgetfulness (8)

2 Trinity raves in third-level competition (12)

10 Congregation (8)

3 This imitation pet would be bad to sit beside in an exam (7) 4 Real fish becomes more ostentatious (8)

14 F5 (7)

5 Academic robes (5)

16 Liberty (7)

7 Bores when not drunk (5)

18 Choral activity (4)

9 Unpaid participant (9)

19 Eh, em, sort this for mathematical propositions (8)

13 Dirty room that students live in (9)

22 Shane O’Donnell is a good one for the replay (6) 23 Light orange fruits (8) 25 Beats paper (8) 26 Scholarly essays (6)

6

1

2 5

6

5

4

Medium

Puzzle 1 (Medium, difficulty rating 0.58) Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/sudoku on Sun Feb 1 18:58:23 2015 GMT. Enjoy!

9

12 Mix of voices rants on (13)

8

2 7

1

11 Listen to the quiet (6)

1

7

2

4

8

21 22

6

4

4

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3 8

2

6 9

2 2

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5 1

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15 I engross in college GAA competition (8)

1

20 EU focused society (6) 21 Parnell’s starting position (5)

5

3

9 8

24 Deal sufficiently with (4)

8

3 6

17 Creative Societies’ Ball (7)

6

3

4 1

7

6

January 21st Answers

Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/sudoku on Sun Feb 1 18:58:34 2015 GMT. Enjoy!

C T R D I A T H I L O W N

E R A A N S U T O N E C U R E H A Y C A L S M S H E C L A R A L I I N C N C A S T N E

V A A G R A M N E B D E G R E A I R L L S T R N A R L E A P S S R O O Q R U N D A T A Y I S K E N H E G

S E

D M E T

HARD

C C H A D O S

F G L I A I G H

MEDIUM

Ireland’s most frequently published college paper now availible on all your devices! uccexpress.ie

U A N F B R E L E Z M E S

| 15

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

Standing up for freedom of speech Journalist Brendan O’Neill talks to Conor Shearman on the right to offend, fostering intolerance and why students refuse to engage in debate.

Freedom of speech may sound like a simple idea, but for Brendan O’Neill – unlike a majority of outspoken figures across the past few weeks – it is a philosophy which he holds consistently and absolutely: “People pay lip-service to freedom of speech but they don’t want to live it as a reality and you can see that all the time.”

He offers the example of politicians championing free speech with the slogan ‘Je Suis Charlie’ yet attempting to get rid of page three in The Sun; “You see these contradictions all the time where on the one hand people will say they like freedom of speech, but there’s always something they secretly want to censor.” For the journalist and editor of Spiked magazine, a walking contradiction to some in his self-described stance as a MarxistLibertarian, freedom is an ideal which should be strived for far more in an individual’s life.

Defending offensiveness is integral to O’Neill’s commitment to freedom of speech, “some of the great leaps

forward by humankind were made by people who were willing to be offensive.”

A persuasive speaker, O’Neill portrays the current decade as one of intolerance, dominated by a culture of offence taking and censorship. Social media he outlines as one of the tools which facilitates this culture; although he suggests it has the capacity to open debate, the reality is that it achieves the opposite. “It can actually stifle debate, it can enforce conformism, it makes people less thoughtful, less considered, less sensitive to nuance.”

The phenomenon of the twitch hunt, whereby an online storm is generated in pursuit of a figure who has said or done something controversial is an all too familiar occurrence to provide credence to such a view.

In an article published in the Spectator before Christmas, O’Neil accused students – once viewed as bastions of open mindedness – as some of the prime practitioners of this culture of intolerance. The article, which refers

to a number of personal experiences on campuses, describes students’ attempts to shut down, rather than participate in debate; outraged at arguments which refuse to conform to the designated norm.

“We’ve created a new generation that seems to think its own self-esteem is the most important thing in the world, which it isn’t.”

It is a trend which he believes originates from a generation who have been taught to prioritise their own self-esteem: “We’ve created a new generation that seems to think its own self-esteem is the most important thing in the world, which it isn’t.”

The potential damage this creates, he outlines, is when one’s political outlook is bound up in their personal identity; contrasting arguments to the outlook which defines oneself will be dismissed, as “younger people tend to be more sensitive to anything that they feel impacts on their identity or on their way of life.”

Same-sex marriage is one of the examples around which O’Neill believes such a stifling of debate is taking place. “The debate around it is very worrying,” he begins. “There is a quite stifling atmosphere and if you are not in favour of gay marriage, as lots of religious people, you can be demonised. You can be cast out of

polite society like Brendan Eich at Mozilla who was basically forced out of his job by an online mob simply because he donated money to an antigay marriage campaign.”

Although neither for or against marriage equality, he describes it as a somewhat “invented issue,” portraying comparisons between it and the civil rights movement in the United States in the 50s and 60s as “completely disingenuous” due to the lack of protest which has accompanied it.

Instead he believes it to be a campaign championed by a “middle elitist class.”

It is a middle class which have come to dominate society in many ways according to O’Neill, counting journalism, politics and acting among a number of fields now controlled by the middle class. “You have the lower classes and the upper classes no longer as influential as they used to be and so into the vacuum the middle classes come.” A middle class dominated society may not be in itself a terrible thing to O’Neill but it is if middle class values are imposed on everyone at the expense of individual liberty. Freedom, it appears, is that pillar which stands above all else.

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16 |

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

The Big Interview: Eamonn Ryan The nine-time All-Ireland winning manager expresses his concerns about young people’s relationship with alcohol to Stephen Barry.

Eamonn Ryan is unlike many of those who speak about the dangers of alcohol consumption insofar as he stops well short of sermonising on the topic.

The 73-year old former Gaelic Games Development Officer in UCC and current Cork ladies football manager has a lifetime of experiences behind him and, although he almost never drinks these days, he insists he is far from a “Father Mathew type.”

Ryan has a more grounded approach.

He doesn’t speak down about the issue, offering a relatability which enables him to continue to coach young players year after year. He seeks to emphasise that he understand how the pressure of being young can lead those in a bracket he defines as 16- to 25-year-olds to drink.

It is an age where the status quo begins to change as children become adults and move into college or employment.

These lifestyle changes can lead to many poor choices: lack of exercise, reliance on junk food, lack of sleep and, of course, dabbling in mindaltering substances.

Indeed, Ryan spoke on the topic on the day in which a UCC study into student alcohol use was released. Among the primary findings was that the gendergap has narrowed significantly, with 67.3% of women reporting hazardous alcohol consumption versus 65.2% of male respondents.

It’s a result Ryan has seen evidenced; “Without a doubt the girls have caught up well, which would reinforce my point that peer pressure is very, very strong and fitting in with the crowd is a huge factor.”

Curbing this desire to follow in the footsteps of friends into binge drinking, rather than listening to one’s own “inner voice” is key to drawing

an individual’s tolerance between an enjoyable night and a potentially hazardous outing.

“The 16- to 25-year-old has the choice to get well-tanked up before leaving the flat to have a night out and then continue drinking for the rest of the night, almost to oblivion. So whatever choices he or she makes on that particular night from then on are very much in the hands of the Gods.

“Once you get over the few, the law of diminishing returns starts to set in and there’s damage to your physical and mental wellbeing” “Whereas if the drinking was controlled… in other words, if somebody had four or five pints, well then they could enjoy the night and maybe it would involve skipping a round or maybe having a bottle of water in between the drinks.”

young people would have insecurities and doubts too. So what tends to happen is that young people follow each other without thinking and I think this is what leads to binge drinking or anti-social behaviour sometimes.”

The author of the aforementioned alcohol consumption survey among students Martin Davoren stated that it is far from a student-only issue: “It impacts us all and these findings should not be seen as merely a ‘young person’, ‘student’ or ‘UCC’ issue. Currently the Irish state is at a decision point with regard to policies on the promotion sports sponsorship.”

Ryan would undoubtedly agree with the former point but the latter mention of sports sponsorship, an often raised issue, is not one he is convinced about: “A lot of people jump on the sponsorship bandwagon at the moment but I’m not too sure about that. I don’t think that is the reason for binge drinking really.

Maybe it exasperates the situation but I think the basic reason is that people don’t go by their inner voice and follow each other.”

So Ryan’s outlook would be to try to break the cycle of binge drinking through education, awareness and lessening the peer-related factors.

However, for young people, these decisions are influenced by the actions of those around them and breaking this cycle is a tough task as the insecurities are felt hardest at younger ages.

“I think telling people ‘not to drink, you can’t drink and it’s bad for you’ is counterproductive. You have to rationalise and explain that this actually wrecks your mental and physical wellbeing. If you drink it’s good socially, mentally and maybe even physically, but once you get over the few, the law of diminishing returns starts to set in and there’s damage to your physical and mental wellbeing.

“I’m in my seventies and I still have insecurities and doubts about things, so

“I think a lot of young people, if they rationalised it, would come to that

VERGE

conclusion too that they’re really just following what everyone else is doing.”

eyes, with peer pressure again the primary factor:

Ryan has got to a point where drink is never the main attraction, “I might have a drink after a game but it would be very incidental to what I was doing,” and it’s a matter of cutting down rather than necessarily cutting out.

“With other substances people say ‘would you just take these’ because it’s someone that you know. The police tell me that 65% of the initiation of the drug culture is usually from an associate rather than a drug dealer; that the initial steps are taken by experimenting with some pal or what some friend gives you.”

However it is a conversation which shouldn’t stop there, with drugs becoming an increasing issue in Ryan’s

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| 17

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

Bus Éireann: a captive market?

History Expressed: Who was UCC’s first Auditor?

Laura O’Flaherty looks at alternatives to Bus Éireann in response to another fare increase by the company.

The recent bus fare hike that came in with the New Year has made getting home for students that bit harder. As students, many find it near impossible to maintain a car, between tax, petrol and insurance. In lieu of this we have two options when it comes to travelling home: Bus Éireann or Irish Rail. Irish Rail has its detriments; bothersome train changes and limited routes mean that for the majority, Bus Éireann is the only genuine option. With tickets prices rising at an alarming rate, how justified, if at all, are these price hikes and would we all be better off getting wheels of our own?

Let’s take, for example, the most expensive ticket I have personally purchased: from Cork’s Parnell Place to Hanrahan Station in Wexford. As a student this ticket cost €36. Now this is a regular bus which serves Midleton, Youghal, Dungarvan, Waterford and Rosslare Harbour. It’s a busy bus for students and commuters alike. I take this bus once a week, every week, during the academic year, so I spend over €1,296 per term on travel. That’s

over a fifth of the grant; the main, and often only, source of income for students. So, what exactly is that money being spent on?

Emmet Curtin

Often this money goes to a service

“I take this bus once a week, every week, during the academic year, so I spend over €1,296 per term on travel”

which is substandard; one which is more often late than on time. The experience of waiting for hours at a bus station on a connection that you missed

due to delays is a universal one. How many of us have been late for classes or even exams as a result of a bus showing up late, or even not at all? Too many!

So, the question needs to be asked: would students be better off having our own cars? In the short run, yes.

You would save a whole €7 per trip, and about four hours of your life per return trip. In the long run, however, we see that getting a car is not a viable option; tax and insurance are too high for students without means of income outside of the grant.

When we take this into consideration, as well as the fact that Irish Rail can often charge much higher prices

(with the exception of Cork to Tralee or Dublin), it is clear that, while Bus Éireann charges a student’s full week’s shopping for a bus ticket to sit in a small seat, subject to screaming children, travel sick passengers and bumpy rides, they are reasonably justified in their prices. When we stop and think that although it is an annoyance and leaves many of us out of pocket, Bus Éireann are paying for fuel, tax, insurance, wages, maintenance and purchase of new vehicles that we could not otherwise afford. Suddenly the charges no longer seem as ludicrous.

Graduate Profile: Gillian O’Sullivan Gillian O’Sullivan is a former Irish race walker who has represented Ireland at European, World and Olympic Games in the 20km race walk. Her achievements include holding the world record for the 5,000m walk and winning a silver medal in the 20km race walk at the World Championships in 2003.

O’Sullivan is an Arts graduate with a Higher Diploma in Education from UCC which she received in 1999. She currently works as a personal trainer and offers health and motivation talks.

What’s the most important thing you learned about yourself while in UCC? I learned how to manage my time. I had to focus on study and sport so it was about having a time plan for the day and carrying it out. It is certainly a life skill that is always useful.

What’s your best memory of college?

Having great laughs with my friends in the houses we shared along College Road. The accommodation may not have been great but the company was always good.

What do you think is the main difference for this year’s graduates compared to yours?

Maybe expectations are higher for the current graduates. We all knew it

What’s the most important piece of advice you would give to someone looking to begin a career in sport?

Train hard, but train with a purpose and have a definite training plan. That way, you can see improvement and build your sporting career.

At the time there were only two Mr. Bullens in UCC, one of whom was Richard Bullen who entered QCC as part of the first matriculating class in 1849, studying in the Faculty of Arts.

While Richard Bullen was the only student with that surname, there was also a staff member with the same last name: Mr. Dennis Brennan Bullen M.D. who was the first Professor of Surgery at QCC and the father of Richard.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your work?

Trying to get across to clients that exercise and healthy eating are part of a good lifestyle, and cannot be done for a few weeks at a time. It must form part of your day.

What traits do you least like in others?

Laziness!

The latter Mr. Bullen seems a more likely candidate for the auditorship of the society, however, due to the fact that, unlike today, university societies were not necessarily student-run and staff members often played prominent roles in all extra-curricular activities.

What’s your worst vice?

Being my own worst critic!

What’s one rule that you think everyone should follow?

Everything in moderation. Be that excess in eating, drinking or working too hard.

At the start of my career, it was a

Prior to the 1930s only a handful of societies existed in the university, most of which have existed to this day.

However it would appear the Philosoph is indeed the oldest society, existing almost since the university’s inception.

The society is believed to have been founded in 1850 but, unfortunately, records for university societies were almost non-existent at the time.

According to Donal Godfrey, Auditor of the 130th session, the first society was set up by the college’s resident chaplain who was displeased with the superior attitude of Trinity College to the newly founded Queen’s College Cork (QCC). Therefore he founded the Philosophical Society and, according to the history of the society, the first meeting was held under Mr. Bullen’s auditorship.

would take a while to get a career off the ground and there was a certain acceptance that things might be difficult for a time.

Do you feel psychological training is an important part of competing in sport?

Societies have been a part of UCC since the beginning of the university, growing as the university did from a small number of societies to over 100 individual societies, each with different aims and responsibilities. All of which begs the question, what society is the oldest? And who was the first society Auditor?

learning curve but as my career went on, the psychological part is huge.

To compete at the top level, there is

huge self-belief needed. You need a psychological as well as a physical plan.

So, while we can’t be sure, Dennis Bullen seems to have been the first ever Auditor of a UCC society, one which is now 165 years old has shown no signs of stopping since!

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Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

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Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

UCC cup GMIT dazzled by intercounty stars hopes UCC 3-19 GMIT 0-8 ended Catholic Institute: 2 UCC: 1 Stephen Walsh Sport Editor Catholic Institute continued their cup run with a narrow win in the Munster Senior Cup second round on Saturday.

The Limerick hosts scored two first half goals from Rosie Pratt and Aebfhinn Bourke and that proved to be the difference between the sides on what was a very cold and wintery afternoon for a hockey match.

The UCC team rallied, though, in the second half and pulled a goal back through Ciara Sexton at the midway point. The momentum now was all with UCC as they went looking for an equaliser. In the final ten minutes they were camped in the Institute half but, despite forcing six short corners, they were unable to break down the stubborn Institute defence.

It was a rare loss for the college side which had beaten Bandon the prior weekend to go within two points of the top of the Munster Division 1, with a game in hand.

UCC’s focus will turn to the Irish Hockey League next weekend, where they will be seeking their second win in the national competition at home to Dublin’s Railway Union.

UCC: Steffi Bowe, Ailbe Coyle, Ciara Mullane, Aoife Freyne, Sarah Sullivan, Nicola Kerr, Sarah Browner, Sarah Wrixon, Clodagh Moloney, Ciara Sexton, Susan O’Hanrahan, Katherine Geoghan, Grace Tutty, Iseult Harding, Shauna Fagan, Amy-Kate Trevor.

Stephen Walsh Sport Editor

claiming a point.

UCC had a convincing 20-point victory over GMIT last Thursday in their Fitzgibbon Cup opener. A strong first half showing from UCC along with three goals from Alan Cadogan, Conor Lehane and Shane O’Donnell set the Leesiders on their way to an easy victory.

UCC were now winning all the key battles around the pitch and this dominance was to result in a goal being scored in the 19th minutes, when Lehane got in around the back of the defence before powering the shot into the top corner of the goal.

The opening ten minutes were devoid of much action, except for Dara Starr saving an O’Donnell shot, as both sides struggled to deal with the strong wind blowing across the pitch. Cork Senior Cadogan was getting the better of his man and as a result was able to score a point as well as creating a few frees that Barry Lawton comfortably converted.

Jason Flynn scored a long range point for GMIT as the Galway based side tried to keep in touch with the Cork college. They were dealt a blow on 15 minutes, however, when O’Donnell handpassed the ball to Cadogan and he made no mistake hitting it across Starr into the far corner of the goal.

Minutes later Cadogan nearly had another goal but his shot from 12 yards was well saved by Starr, although he followed this up a minute later by

Bigger

Conor O’Donnell fired over a point for GMIT from a free but the half finished with Lawton scoring another free as UCC went into the break 2-10 to 0-3 ahead.

O’Donnell opened the scoring for GMIT shortly after the interval as the Tribesmen went on a scoring streak of three points in five minutes; the highlight of which was a 45 metre point from Tadgh Haran’s sideline cut.

But normal service resumed on 40 minutes with Clare Senior O’Donnell unlucky not to score a goal when seeing his powerful shot from 12 yards tipped over the bar by Starr, while Barron saw his penalty also saved by Starr.

UCC keeper David O’Gorman was called into action on 46 minutes to save a shot from Jason Flynn as GMIT tried to bring some respectability to

SHARP SHOOTER: Barry Lawton gets his shot away despite the attentions of Donal McGeal (7) and Paul Hoban.

Image by: Marc Moylan the scoreline but, by now, the game was as good as over with both sides giving game-time to their bench players. However there was still time for O’Donnell to score a goal from a rebound after DJ Foran saw his shot saved by Starr.

The group moves to Galway this week with UCC heading for a trip to Dangan to play NUIG while GMIT will meet UL on home soil.

UCC (Cork unless stated): David O’Gorman; Killian Burke, David Glynn (Kilkenny), Michael Breen (Tipperary); Tadgh Bourke (Waterford), Daniel Roche (0-1), Shane Roche (Waterford); Rob O’Shea (0-1), Jamie Barron (0-2; Waterford); Tom Devine (0-1; Waterford), Barry Lawton (07, 4fs), Conor Lehane (1-2); Anthony Spillane (0-1), Shane O’Donnell (1-2;

Clare), Alan Cadogan (1-2).

Subs: Shane O’Keeffe for Cadogan and DJ Foran (Waterford) for Lehane (45), Cormac Murphy for O’Shea and Paudie Prendergast (Waterford) for Barron (52), Eoghan Finn for O’Donnell (57).

GMIT (Galway unless stated): Dara Starr; Paul Fox, Iomar Creaven, Kevin Lane; Darragh Burke, Paul Hoban, Donal McGeal; Padraig Flanagan, Tadgh Haran (0-2, 1sl); Brendan Toohey (0-1; Tipperary), Gary Brennan, Conor O’Donnell (0-3fs; Clare); Jason Flynn (0-1), Shane Lawless (0-1), Neil Keary.

Subs: Gary Grealish for McGeal (40), Luke Cosgrove for Flanagan (44), Darragh Cooney for Toohey (48).

challenges lie ahead, says Cunningham Stephen Walsh Sport Editor UCC manager and Dublin boss Ger Cunningham left the Mardyke very pleased with his side’s performance in the opening game of the Fitzgibbon Cup, noting the importance of gathering early points.

“We’re very happy with the win,” asserted Cunningham. “We got 3-19 to 0-8 but really we could have got six or seven goals at the end of the day. The first day out in the Fitz competition is important to win our home match and get the two points on the board.”

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“We could have got six or seven goals at the end of the day.”

The former Cork goalkeeper was particularly satisfied by the way in which his team moved the ball around the field: “There were some very good performances in the side today. We moved the ball well and supported

GOAL! Conor Lehane fires in the second goal. each other well and had some good team play.”

of the team had given him a few headaches.

Key to the top class performance was the strength in depth of the UCC panel with many inter-county players having to make do with a place on the bench such is the competition for places on this UCC team. Cunningham acknowledges this in his post-match comments in saying that the selection

“We do have a very strong panel and I said it to the lads before the game that it was an extremely difficult task to pick the team. There have been a lot of lads who have put their hands up in the weeks of preparation and we have a very strong bench. There’re lads who get on their inter-county panel sitting

Image by: Marc Moylan but then it’s great to have it.

“It’s a nice headache to have but then it’s tough when you go to pick a team and they’re disappointed. But hopefully they believe in the panel and remember that it’s 20 players on any particular day.”

After a classy performance headache isn’t likely to go away.

that

| 21

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

UCC avoid relegation trap UCC - 3

IT Sligo - 1

John Hudson Sport Writer Three goals in an eight-minute spell before the break helped UCC avoid the drop and retain their Colleges and Universities Premier League place for another season, while IT Sligo will now play Division One football next term following their relegation.

to the game the importance for UCC to continue as a Premier League side and the final result came as a great relief to him:

The impressive Sean O’Callaghan bagged a brace and Brian Murphy’s well struck penalty gave the Cork boys a deserved interval lead in this relegation play off at Mervue United’s All-Weather pitch in Galway and left IT Sligo with a huge mountain to climb on the resumption.

But credit must go to manager Ciaran Kelly for his half-time talk which certainly did wonders for the NorthWesterners and for a period in the second half they looked the better side. Odhran McMacken gave Sligo a real confidence booster with a well taken goal ten minutes into the half and, despite a couple of later close calls, they failed to make any further inroads into the margin.

“Luckily we survived the bad spell only conceding one goal and managed to regain control.”

“I’m delighted that we came through in what I would say was a testing game against a keen well organised IT Sligo side. We played really well in the opening half and looked comfortable with our three goal advantage at the break. Luckily we survived the bad spell only conceding one goal and managed to regain control.”

UCC then went and regained the initiative to see out the remainder of the game for an important win.

UCC were clearly the far better side in the opening half and always looked like grabbing some early scores against a weakened Sligo outfit missing several key players on the day.

Manager Noel Healy had stressed prior

The first goal arrived on the half hour

Shane O’Sullivan Sport Writer

to go in the game to force overtime.

Alas, that’s all the Packers could do.

Seattle won the coin toss, received the ball and with it, control of the game.

Wilson threw a long bomb shortly into the extra frame, connecting with wide receiver Jermaine Kearse for a 35-yard touchdown and the victory in the best game of the last two seasons.

The biggest hits of the NFL season As the NFL season comes to a close, it would be a shame not to reflect on the key moments that helped to shape a season that saw both teams and players enter the history books due to their utter determination to be crowned the champions of Super Bowl XLIX. Here are five moments that made the past five months great…

5 Starting in Cincinnati, the Bengals’ rookie running back Jeremy Hill became the first man in the franchise’s history since Corey Dillon to rush for 1,000 yards. Hill finished with nine TDs and 1,145 rushing yards. This was a key moment of the season from a rookie who was only filling in on the team as he made franchise history.

4 The Seahawks inspirational comeback against the Packers in the NFC Championship game was a season defining moment. The Seahawks came from 16-0 in the third quarter to lead in the latter stages of the fourth, although the Packers were able to score a field goal with less than 20 seconds

Last minute scores crucial across codes Stephen Barry and Stephen Walsh

CAMOGIE: Ashbourne Cup UCC 3-5 Waterford IT 1-11

TOUCH CONTROL: Double goalscorer Sean O’Callaghan stretches to take the ball down in Galway.

Image by: Andrew Downes as O’Callaghan got on the end of Mylod’s low cross from the left to beat Al Aiyadi from close range.

O’Callaghan doubled their advantage six minutes later with a fine finish.

Another cross from the left this time from Brian Murphy wasn’t cut out and O’Callaghan cleverly seized the chance to get in ahead of Sligo defenders Ronan Sweeney and Luis Amadal to steer the ball home.

Things went from bad to worse for Sligo on 38 minutes when Amadal tripped Mark MacManus as he ran into the box. Murphy stepped up and kicked it into the top right corner despite Al Ayadi getting a hand to the shot, leaving UCC with enough of a cushion to see out the second 45.

UCC: Charlie Bornemann; Mark MacManus, Cian Hill, Jeremy Bridgeman, Andy Gannon; Sean O’Callaghan, Conor Barry, Brian Murphy, Kyle O’Shea, Ian Mylod; Mark Murphy.

Subs: Pierce O’Riordan for O’Shea (77), Darragh Kiely for Mac Manus (83), Sean O’Mahony for B Murphy (86).

IT Sligo: Ali Al Niyadi; Mark Connaughton, Ronan Sweeney, Luis Amaral, Jamie Walsh; Kevin Buckley, Joe Mitchell, Eoin Clarke, Odhran McMacken, Dylan McCabe; Allesandro Perini.

Subs: Adam McKenna for Buckley (52), James McGonagle for Sweeney (74).

RUBGY: Ulster Bank League Rainey Old Boys 22 UCC 25 Paul Kiernan crossed for a last gasp winner as UCC secured a valuable third win of their Ulster Bank League campaign. Kiernan and Brian Vaughan tries put the college into a 15-point lead but Rainey Old Boys came roaring back with Mark O’Connor contributing 12 points. However the Ulstermen would be denied late on.

SOCCER: Intermediate Cup UCC 1 Glenville 1 UCC needed a late goal from a Cian Hill free kick with ten minutes to go to keep their FAI Intermediate Cup aspirations alive. The college will travel to Dublin for the fifth round replay.

Robin Murtagh broke the deadlock on 40 minutes yet Glenville were lucky to maintain the lead as UCC missed a penalty during the second half. UCC had goalkeeper Charlie Bourneman to thank for keeping them in the game as he made two stunning saves to keep UCC in touch before Hill’s equaliser.

3 That famous catch by Odell Beckham Jr., showing all of his strength, agility and flexibility, ensures his place in the 2014/15 season highlights. The young rookie, who missed four previous games prior to the game against the Cowboys due to injury, returned to create a moment that will be relieved

by NFL fans for generations to come.

2 The biggest controversy off the field this season came in the form of deflated balls. Just days after winning their conference and ensuring their place in the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots faced the serious accusation of tampering with match balls during their win against the Indianapolis Colts. Bill Belichick and his team continue to deny the accusations but the issue is

Katrina Mackey converted a late free to take a point from UCC’s Ashbourne Cup opener against perennial contenders WIT. The Cork All-Star had Amy O’Connor to thank for keeping the students in the game, though, as the Fresher netted a hattrick of goals across the hour. The sides were level 2-2 to 1-5 at the break as Laura Treacy’s late strike cancelled out UCC’s advantage, while Emma Comerford’s accuracy with four placed balls seemed to have given WIT the decisive lead. But Mackey grabbed the draw which puts UCC in position to qualify for the finals weekend with a draw or better against DCU.

yet to be resolved.

1 The biggest and most historic moment of this season came from the genius that is Peyton Manning. Denver Broncos’ Manning, known as one of the greatest

quarterbacks of all time, cemented his name into the NFL record books when he broke Brett Favre’s record for the most touchdown passes thrown of all-time. Manning finished the season on an astonishing 530 TD passes and many believe the veteran can exceed 600 before he hangs up his cleats.

The soccer club will turn hosts for the Freshers’ Harding Cup next weekend, with a squad including former Cobh Ramblers player Seán O’Mahony.

UCC will be playing their first game of the campaign against DCU at 2pm this Friday in the Farm with the final being held on Sunday in the Mardyke.

22 |

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | UCC EXPRESS

Cox happy to unlock swarm defence Stephen Walsh Sport Editor

simply following the game plan.

After a successful day battling CIT’s system of blanket defence, man-of-thematch Conor Cox was quick to praise the management team lead by Billy Morgan for the way the side was set-up for success.

“We knew they were going to be dropping a few back and keeping it tight.”

“We worked hard in the couple of weeks and months leading up to the game and it showed today with the performance. We worked on the way they were going to play. We knew they were going to be dropping a few back and keeping it tight so we worked on our tackling and our tackling was very good today; especially up front where we turned over a lot of ball and got a good few scores from it. So we were very pleased with that.”

Despite the early concession of a John Corkery goal, Cox said that the team never panicked and believed in their ability to get a result from the game by

“It wasn’t a setback. We knew they were strong and that they were going to come at us but we said that if they did get a foothold in the game, we were going to stick with our game plan.”

Going into the break with a large lead, the Kerry ace maintains that UCC knew they had to be wary of a CIT backlash. They decided to counteract this by going all out at the second half.

“We said at half-time that they were

FAST-FORWARD: Ian Maguire punches a hole in the CIT defence. going to come out all guns blazing in the second half as they were eight points down but we decided that we weren’t going to allow them have that period. We just went at it hammer and tongs for the opening ten minutes of the half and thankfully Conor [Dorman] got the goal.”

Waterford 3-12 UCC 1-9

UCC 1-17

Stephen Barry Editor-in-Chief

Owen Kirby Sport Writer

Waterford captured their first McGrath Cup title since the competition’s inaugural year (1981) with a welldeserved nine-point win over a UCC side that were holding players in reserve for the start of the Sigerson Cup campaign.

UCC hurlers fell to a narrow defeat to Limerick in the Waterford Crystal Cup semi-final, as a late run of points gave the home side the victory in Kilmallock last Saturday week.

The game opened at a lively pace with UCC picking up three quick points in as many minutes through Shane O’Donnell, Alan Cadogan and Conor Lehane. At the other end former UCC player Adrian Breen scored a pair of points for Limerick.

Midway through the first half Limerick hit the lead for the first time and over the remainder of the half asserted their influence on the game with UCC struggling to stay in touch as the sides went in 0-10 to 0-7 at the break.

The second half started with UCC quickly drawing level through points from Rob O’Shea, Lehane and Daniel Roche. Limerick again regained the lead but UCC kept going and overtook

Of course, if performances similar

to today continue then it’s possible that the Listowel Emmets’ player will be playing a prominent role with the Kingdom come summer time. It’s a challenge Cox is looking forward to, with the ultimate glory in his sights: “It will be another big year ahead for us this year and hopefully there’s another All-Ireland in us.”

McGrath Cup

Limerick 0-22

UCC showed their intent by naming a very strong team with the opening round of the Fitzgibbon Cup on their mind. Meanwhile Limerick fielded six of the starting 15 from last year’s AllIreland semi-final defeat to Kilkenny.

Next up for the Cox and his UCC teammates will be the visit of IT Sligo to the Mardyke in two weeks, with Cox expecting another difficult contest: “They have the McHugh brothers so they should be very good and it won’t be an easy game.”

Students miss out on

Limerick apply the finishing touch

Although staged in January, the weather and immaculate condition of the field combined to help provide a very enjoyable and keenly fought game.

Image by: Marc Moylan

TOP SCORER: Conor Lehane, seen in action against GMIT last week, scored six points against Limerick.

Image by: Marc Moylan the hosts with 20 minutes to go, with Lehane getting the go-ahead score.

Limerick roared back to life with the introduction of fresh legs as Shane Dowling and Tom Morrissey and Paul Browne all hit scores to help them take the lead by three points, 0-18 to 0-15, as the game entered its final moments.

There was time for substitute DJ Foran to get a goal that put UCC in front before Limerick finished the stronger side, with Dowling, James Ryan, Pat Begley and Breen all contributing to the final flourish.

Limerick: Nicky Quaid; Stephen Walsh, Richie McCarthy, Seamus Hickey; Wayne McNamara, Donal O’Grady, Dan Morrissey; Conor Allis (0-2, 1f), Cathal King (0-1); Niall Moran (0-1), James Ryan (0-2), Cian Lynch (0-2); Thomas O’Brien (0-4fs), Patrick Begley (0-1), Adrian Breen (03).

Subs: Shane Dowling (0-4, 2fs) for O’Brien and Tom Condon for McNamara (ht), Tom Morrissey (0-1) for Allis (46), Paul Browne (0-1) for King (53).

UCC (Cork unless stated): David O’Gorman; Killian Burke, David Glynn (Kilkenny), Michael Breen (Tipperary); Cormac Murphy, Paudie Prendergast (0-1f; Waterford), Shane Roche (Waterford); Daniel Roche (0-1), Rob O’Shea (0-4, 3fs); Shane O’Keeffe (0-2), Jamie Barron (Waterford), Conor Lehane (0-6, 3fs); Brian Hartnett, Shane O’Donnell (0-1; Clare), Alan Cadogan (0-2).

Subs: Diarmuid Lester for Burke (ht), Michael Collins for O’Shea (40), Eoghan Finn for Lehane and DJ Foran (1-0; Waterford) for O’Donnell (51), Rickard Cahalane for Breen (59).

In front of 907 onlookers in Dungarvan, UCC took to the field without their captain Paul Geaney plus a host of other inter-county players and suffered the worst possible start when Joey Veale goaled. However UCC hit back to take the lead before Conor Horgan raised a green flag from a rebound.

Yet the hosts hit back with Maurice O’Gorman coming from deep to score the goal that would help them to a 2-6 to 1-7 half-time lead.

Waterford used their greater available depth to their advantage and after Gavin Nugent’s 50th minute goal, UCC were consigned to their second-ever McGrath Cup final defeat.

Waterford: Stephen Enright; Dean Crowley, Niall Walsh, Thomas O’Gorman; Tadhg Ó hUallacháin, Maurice O’Gorman (1-0), Ray Ó Ceallaigh; Shane Aherne (0-4, 3fs), Tommy Prendergast (0-1); Michael

Curry (0-1), Michael O’Halloran, Patrick Hurney (0-2); Liam Lawlor (0-2), Gavin Nugent (1-0), Joey Veale (1-0).

Subs: Conor Phelan (0-1) for Walsh (21), David Grey (0-1) for Veale (52), Jason Curry for Hurney (61), Billy Power for Crowley and Oran Keevers for Prendergast (66), Mark Ferncombe for M Curry (69).

UCC (Cork unless stated): Padraig McCarthy

(Kerry);

Jamie

Davis,

Kevin Fulignati, Kieran Histon; Kevin O’Sullivan

(Kerry),

Sean

White,

Enda Dennehy; Alan O’Donovan, Adrian Spillane (0-1; Kerry); Fintan O’Connor, Kevin Davis (0-1), Shaun Keane (Kerry); Thomas Hickey (0-2, 1f; Kerry), David Harrington (0-3), Conor Horgan (1-2, 2fs).

Subs: Francis Courtney (Kerry) for Hickey (ht), Kevin Hayes-Curtin for J Davis (42), Colm Hyde for White (43), Padraig Scanlon (Kerry) for O’Donovan

(44),

Padraig

Lohan

(Tipperary) for Harrington (51), Shane Power (Tipperary) for Keane (61).

| 23

UCC EXPRESS | Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015

Sweet sixteenth win gives Demons Cup double UCC Demons 91 (47) 38/68 (56%) 7/17 (41%) 8/13 (62%) 41 12 17 31 46

Stephen Barry Editor-in-Chief C&S UCC Demons’ 16-game unbeaten season yielded its first piece of silverware as the relentless scoring of the Corkonians granted their captain Shane Coughlan the honour of raising the National Cup for a record sixth time.

Marian were able to go toe-to-toe with Demons for the opening 15 minutes but the game was being played at Demons’ pace and the reigning Cup champions began to erode Marian’s resistance.

The Dubliners led 30-28 after Michael Chubb’s perimeter three but the Demons responded with an overwhelming 19-2 run in the final six minutes of the first half to create a 15-point gap which Marian could never counter.

It was a crushing blow for Marian who

had led for most of the opening quarter but could never stretch that advantage beyond four points. Demons always had a response to Marian’s early accuracy, with Coughlan hitting a layup after Daniel James had opened the scoring from outside the arc.

In a helter-skelter first quarter, playercoach Colin O’Reilly briefly handed Demons the lead before James’s quickfeet enabled him to sink a lead-three.

Niall O’Reilly, like Coughlan chasing his sixth title, scored a pair and added a foul to level before his American teammate Lehmon Colbert claimed a rebound at one post and finished at the other for a 19-17 lead.

However his rival American Preston Ross, in his first year out of college, and Neil Baynes shared six points in the final 90 seconds of the quarter to give Marian a two-point advantage, 23-21.

In front of a sell-out crowd of 2,000 in Tallaght’s National Basketball Arena, the intense pace continued into the second quarter. Marian were rising to the occasion while the favourites were their consistent selves. However Colin O’Reilly’s sideline affirmation that Marian would not be able to sustain the pace rang true and he exploited that fact by not using any of his timeouts to exploit his side’s greater fitness and finesse.

Coughlan drained a towering three in response to Ross’s big rebound score but Colbert was beginning to win the battle over his American counterpart.

Chubb’s three was the final flourish for Marian as the one-way traffic flowed towards their basket for the remainder of the half. Kyle Hosford got two in transition to level, 30-30, before Coughlan landed another shot from outside the perimeter under pressure.

Digest

Marian had come swinging but Demons had brought a knife to the fight and, despite Marian’s greater number of turnovers, Demons outscored them 13-5 on turnover ball in the opening half. Colin O’Reilly provided the best example, picking off a wide-open three, while Coughlan concluded the half with a pair of breakaway twos.

Demons’ full-court press ended with a 47-32 half-time lead as their prize.

Marian kept battling, with Baynes (20) their most efficient shooter, but Demons were always able to produce a killer reply to each score and extra punishment for every miss.

Adrian O’Sullivan’s major dissipated any Marian momentum, his brother Ciaran’s corner three extended the lead and Colbert’s buzzer-beating fade away gave Demons a 67-49 lead at the end of the third.

Marian’s problems in keeping up with Demons’ pace was manifest in their shooting efficiencies, with their topthree shooters, Ross, Baynes and Conor Meany, all hitting a mere one-in-three.

Meanwhile Colbert was deadly at the post, using his superior size to help himself to 11 rebounds, 25 points and the Most Valuable Player award.

Basketball – Men’s National Cup Final: UCD Marian 65 C&S UCC Demons 91 (Lehmon Colbert 25, Shane Coughlan 14, Colin O’Reilly 13). Men’s Premier League: C&S UCC Demons 88 Killester 73 (Lehmon Colbert 27, Colin O’Reilly 12, Niall O’Reilly 12); Sat 7th Feb: Travelodge Swords Thunder vs C&S UCC Demons @ 6pm in ALSAA, Dublin; Sun 15th Feb: C&S UCC Demons vs DCU Saints @ 3.15pm in the Mardyke Arena.

1-17 (Conor Lehane 0-6, 3fs; Rob O’Shea 0-4, 3fs; DJ Foran 1-0; Alan Cadogan, Stephen O’Keeffe 0-2 each; Shane O’Donnell, Paudie Prendergast, f, Daniel Roche, 0-1 each). Fitzgibbon Cup Group B: UCC 3-19 GMIT 0-8; Thu 5th Feb: NUIG vs UCC @ 2.30pm in Dangan; Tue 10th Feb: UCC vs UL @ 2pm in the Mardyke. Fresher Division 1 Championship Quarter-final: Tue 10th Feb: UCC vs UCD in the Mardyke.

Camogie – Ashbourne Cup Group stage: UCC 3-5 Waterford IT 1-11; Wed 4th Feb: DCU vs UCC @ 2.30pm in DCU.

Ladies Football – O’Connor Cup Group A: Tue 10th Feb: UCC vs NUI Maynooth.

Gaelic Football – McGrath Cup Final: Waterford 3-12 UCC 1-9.

Sigerson Cup 1st round: UCC 3-15 Cork IT 1-6; Quarter-final: Wed 11th Feb: UCC vs IT Sligo in the Mardyke. Fresher Division 1 Championship 1st round: UCC 2-14 Queen’s University 1-7; Quarter-final: Thu 5th Feb: DCU vs UCC @ 2.30pm in DCU.

Rugby – Ulster Bank League Division 2A: Rainey Old Boys 22 UCC 25 (Paul Kiernan 2 tries; Kevin Kidney 2 pens, 2 cons; Brian Vaughan try); UCC 22 Banbridge 24 (Kevin Kidney 2 cons, pen; Cillian Ansboro, Cillian Monahan, G Ryan try each); Sat 14th Feb: Old Wesley vs UCC @ 2pm in Donnybrook.

Hockey (Mens) – Munster League Division 1: UCC 3 Bandon 2 (Wesley Brownlow 3); Sat 14th Feb: UCC vs Harlequins in the Mardyke. Irish Hockey League Pool A: Sat 7th Feb: UCC vs Monkstown @ 1pm in the Mardyke.

Soccer (Mens) – CUFL Premier Division Relegation play-off: UCC 3 IT Sligo 1 (Sean O’Callaghan 2, Brian Murphy). FAI Intermediate Cup 4th round: UCC 1 Glenville 1 (Cian Hill). Donie Forde Cup Semi-final: UCC 0 Rockmount 1. Beamish Cup 1st round: UCC 0 Midleton 3.

Hockey (Ladies) – Munster League Division 1: UCC 2 Bandon 0 (Steffi Bowe, Amy Kate Trevor). Munster Senior Cup 2nd round: Catholic Institute 2 UCC 1 (Ciara Sexton). Irish Hockey League Pool A: Sat 7th Feb: UCC vs Railway Union @ 3pm in the Mardyke.

Hurling – Waterford Crystal Cup Semi-final: Limerick 0-22 UCC

91-65 Half-time Field Goals 3 Point FGs Free-Throws Rebounds Turnovers Points off Turnovers Biggest Lead Points in the Paint

Soccer (Womens) – WSCAI Premier Division Semi-final: Tue 3rd Feb: NUI Maynooth vs UCC @ 2pm in NUIM South Campus.

UCD Marian 65 (32) 27/64 (42%) 5/16 (31%) 6/9 (67%) 24 14 9 4 36

“We came out swinging,” said the MVP after the final buzzer. “We knew what UCD Marian were going to come out with and they were really strong early on. We just needed to be patient and the team really pulled together as the game went on.”

For a team that contains some of the greats of Irish basketball, a dominant American and an average winning margin of 21 points, the remaining question seems to be not whether Demons’ will add the league title, but if they can do it unbeaten for the year.

UCC Demons: Kyle Hosford, Lehmon Colbert, Ciaran O’Sullivan, Shane Coughlan, Colin O’Reilly.

Interchange: Adrian O’Sullivan, Darragh O’Hanlon, Shane Duggan, Niall O’Reilly, Carlton Cuff, Niall Murphy.

UCD Marian: Conor Meany, Michael Chubb, Daniel James, Neil Baynes, Preston Ross.

Interchange: Conor Ross, Barry Drumm, Francesco Borsetti, Rafa Burgos, Renatas Nedzveckas, Kevin Foley.

BASKETBALL P 13 10 13 13 13 14 12 12 12 12

C&S UCC Demons Travelodge Swords Thunder Killester Templeogue UCD Marian BFG Neptune UL Eagles Belfast Star DCU Saints Dublin Inter

W 13 9 9 7 5 5 4 3 4 3

L F A 0 1228 958 1 809 707 4 927 906 6 1002 1009 8 884 905 9 1078 1129 8 840 907 9 882 955 8 916 995 9 851 946

BP 0 0 0 1 4 1 3 4 1 1

Pts 39 27 27 22 19 16 15 13 13 10

LADIES HOCKEY Harlequins UCC Catholic Institute Church of Ireland Ashton Bandon Cashel/ New Inn Limerick Fermoy

P 9 8 7 9 9 10 8 8 8

W 7 7 6 3 3 3 3 2 0

D 2 1 0 2 2 1 0 0 0

L 0 0 1 4 4 6 5 6 8

F 40 25 25 14 12 18 8 8 4

A 5 7 7 12 18 18 23 22 42

Pts 25 23 18 12 12 11 9 6 0

UCC

SPORT

Tuesday, Febuary 3rd 2015 | uccexpress.ie | Volume 18 | Issue 9

Derby champions UCC off to perfect start

MAN DOWN: Sean Kiely goes to ground under pressure from Cork IT’s Stephen Cahill.

UCC 3-15 Stephen Walsh Sport Editor Reigning Sigerson champions UCC got their title defence off to the best possible start, winning this local Cork derby by 15 points in front of a large home crowd. A strong second-half showing from the university side proved the difference between the pair as UCC scored 3-10 without reply to decide the final outcome.

UCC started the stronger of the two sides with Conor Cox, who would go on to total nine points, opening the scoring with a point after a minute, although Cork Senior Donal Óg Hodnett replied for CIT with a point from an easy free.

CIT were to take the lead on ten minutes when Darragh Tracey laid the ball off to John Corkery and the Cork man slotted the ball low past Michael Martin in the UCC goal. This was followed up with Brendan O’Sullivan scoring a point for CIT to extend the lead to 1-3 to 0-2.

CIT were playing the better football in the opening quarter, finding success down the right wing in particular.

Meanwhile, defensively CIT were

CIT 1-6 making good use of the sweeper that was restricting the ball going into UCC’s dangerous full-forward line.

Their cause was further helped on 19 minutes when College centre-back Brian O’Driscoll was shown a black card by Derek O’Mahony for dragging back Donough Leahy as he attempted to clear the ball.

The loss of O’Driscoll appeared to spur UCC on with Paul Geaney scoring a point which was shortly replicated by Luke Connolly, following a poor kickout.

UCC got their first goal of the game on 27 minutes when Sean Kiely made a powerful run into the box before passing to Thomas Hickey who punched the ball into the net.

The second goal arrived on the verge of half time when a Cox free dropped short and Shaun Keane rose highest to punch the ball into the net past Hanrahan. Tomas Clancy added a point as UCC went in to the break 2-8 to 1-3 ahead.

The second half was hardly a minute

old when Conor Dorman burst through the middle of the pitch to power a shot low past Hanrahan into the CIT goal.

Further points followed through Cox and Clancy as UCC were now well on top of Paudie Kissane’s CIT team.

It wasn’t until the 16th minute that CIT scored their first point of the secondhalf, through O’Sullivan and this was followed up by a point from Michael Vaughan minutes later.

However the game was up and both sides began to empty their benches to give players a run out, with the pace of the game slowing considerably.

In the final minutes CIT nearly grabbed a late consolation goal but Michael Martin was well able to save O’Sullivan’s shot before reacting quickly to push Hodnett’s rebound out for a 45.

UCC (Cork unless stated): Michael Martin; Fergal McNamara (Kerry), Jack Maguire (Kerry), David Culhane (Kerry); Conor Dorman (1-0), Brian O’Driscoll, Tomas Clancy (0-2); Ian Maguire, Gary O’Sullivan (Kerry); Shaun Keane (1-1; Kerry), Luke

Connolly (0-1), Sean Kiely; Thomas Hickey (1-1; Kerry), Paul Geaney (01; Kerry), Conor Cox (0-9, 4fs; Kerry).

Image by: Marc Moylan

Inside Sport Page 23

Subs: Sean White for O’Driscoll (BC, 19), David Harrington for Geaney (37), Éanna Ó Conchuir (Kerry) for Kiely (42), Padraig O’Connor (Kerry) for Culhane (47), Jamie Davis for Clancy (49), Alan O’Donovan for Keane (55).

CIT (Cork unless stated): David Hanrahan; Paul O’Sullivan (Kerry), Stephen Cahill (Limerick), TJ Brosnan; Padraig Crowley, Brendan O’Sullivan (0-2; Kerry), Donough Leahy (Tipperary); Killian O’Connor, Darragh Tracey (Limerick); Sean O’Flynn (Tipperary), Jerry O’Connor, Conor Jordan (Kerry); Barry O’Mahony, Donal Óg Hodnett (0-2, 1f), John Corkery (1-1).

Subs: Michael Vaughan (0-1) for O’Connor (30), Roland Whelton for Leahy and Dan Daly (Kerry) for Tracey (39), Anthony O’Connor for O’Mahony (51).

Full reaction on Page 22

HOOP DREAMS: UCC Demons sailed to their second successive National Cup title, with Colin O’Reilly’s men 26-point victors over UCD Marian.