Motley Magazine - Vol XVII - Issue I- Identity

The

Identity Issue

September 2023

Identity & Childhood The Boyhood of Boygenius

Creative Legacy

The Motley Crew Ronan Keohane | Editor-In-Chief Ronan Keohane is a final year World Languages student and the 2023 Global Citizen Award recipient. He wants to promote this magazine as an inclusive space and a creative and intellectual outlet for students.

Owen Mamo Cooney | Graphic Designer

Kevin Quane | Web Editor

Jessica Anne Rose | Deputy Editor-In-Chief

Sarah O’ Mahony | Assistant Editor Features and Opinions Sarah O’Mahony is a final year English and Politics student. She is currently embracing her transformation into a Swiftie, much encouraged by her housemate.

Shannon Cotter | Assistant Editor Features and Opinions

Conor Hogan | Assistant Editor Current Affairs Conor is a final year history student who has made a number of contributions to the Motley in previous years. He has an interest in art, reading and politics.

Mary O’ Keefe | Assistant Editor Current Affairs Mary is a final year Politics and English student, prevo published by the Organization for World Peace. She’s also the secretary of UCV Scribblesoc and loves all things art!

Ciara Browne | Assistant Editor Creative Works Ciara, a writer, poet, artist, and fashion enthusiast. Excited to contribute my skills as Motley’s Creative Work Editor, celebrating campus creativity in diverse forms

Ella Barron Carton| Assistant Editor Creative Works

Sydney Marhefsky | Assistant Editor Entertainment

Tess O’ Regan | Assistant Editor Entertainment

Kevin is a student of physics and as such serves as motleys resident computer person. As a skilled procrastinator, he has become an expert at doing anything but college work. Can regularly be found eating cheese.

Sydney is a final year Arts student studying English and Politics and the winner of the 2022/23 Department of English Undergraduate Awards (2nd Arts). As a horror enthusiast they spend their free time deliberately

scaring themself.

Owen is a 2nd year Psychology and Computing student. He is passionate about UX design and hopes to work with Nintendo in the future. In his spare time you can find him playing cards or despairing over his python code that doesn’t work.

Jessica Anne Rose, a final-year BA English student, received a SMEDIAS Award for Feature Writer of the Year in Arts and Culture. Her poetry is featured in various publications, and she enjoys living vicariously through her Sims 4 while listening to musicals.

Shannon is a 2nd year Finance student and has experience working with UCC 98.3FM. Loves watching movies, reading books and working in part-time jobs where she doesn’t actually do anything.

Ella, a creative writing graduate from the University of Galway, now studying Planning and Sustainable Development, is excited to collaborate with writers and explore diverse storytelling mediums this semester.

Tess is a final year student in Film and Screen Media, with a minor in English. Their writing has previously been published in the Motley and on the Dublin International Film Festival website. Don’t ask them about what their favourite books unless you want a lecture.

Contributors Caoimhe Lowe, Alana Daly Mulligan, Emily Gleave, Conor Hogan, Kieran Deegan, Mary O’Keefe, Aoife Hayden, Jessica Anna rose, Sam and K, Andrew Mason, Stephen O’ Brien, Matthew James Quill, Chiara Alessio,Tess O’Regan, Lauren Martin, Sydney Marhefsky, Seán Dunne, Áine Feeney, Emily O’Sullivan, Tiernán Ó Ruairc, Justine LePage, Ruby Kloskowski, Aikaterini Kousouri, Srujani Dash.

Images Provided by Unsplash.com Vectors Provided by Vecteezy.com and Freepik.com

from the

Editor’s Desk Identity is a rich mosaic of experiences, beliefs, and affiliations that shape the core of our being.

It goes beyond labels or categories- it is the culmination of our cultural backgrounds, traumas, personal histories, diverse spaces we occupy, and so much more.

In all its complexity and beauty, our identity influences the lens through which we perceive the world, influencing our thoughts, decisions, and interactions. Identity is a vast and complex concept which encompasses many different things. It moulds our perspectives, guiding our outlook on life. Our differing identities bring a unique set of privileges and disadvantages, which we will never be able to separate ourselves from, making identity an integral part of our existence. Creating any sense of the true meaning of ‘reality’ is challenging; our differing perspectives make up this reality, like the composition of fragments in a complex mosaic. Like all existing mosaics, the composition and its representation are better viewed from afar to get the complete picture by being inclusive and representing as many inputs as possible.

As mentioned previously, oftentimes identities come with privilege. Living without any disabilities means you can more easily engage in social activities, find employment, and access public spaces, among many other things.

Growing up in a middle-class family in Ireland will grant you much more opportunities in life than growing up in an impoverished environment in a less developed country. That gets taken for granted by those who haven’t experienced such challenges.

Recognising privilege has thankfully become much more prevalent in popular discourse in recent years as we have become more enlightened. Although we cannot ‘spread’ our privileges or ‘even it out’ in any way, what we can do is try to understand our place in the world better by educating ourselves, gaining more insight from those around us to understand their sets of experiences and perspectives better and trying our best to pay our sets of privileges forward to contribute towards the greater good in whichever ways that we can. I felt that making the theme of this issue ‘identity’

would open up an essential dialogue that needs to take place.

My thinking was that perhaps this could also open the floor to any generous individual who would like to share their experiences with our vast readership.

Unfortunately, increasingly in our world and in our nation, we can see how identity is becoming weaponised based on a very deep historical foundation. Throughout history, we have been divided by arbitrary identity characteristics which limit our perceptions of the entire ‘human complexity’ of one another. We can see the dehumanisation of various social groups within Ireland and worldwide, ultimately leading to their oppression. We focus primarily on how we differ from one another rather than on what truly unites us: Our humanity.

I would like to thank each contributor to this magazine for their excellent submissions.

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Current Affairs

Entertainment

Features & Opinions

Creative Works

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Navigating the Path to Alternative Education: The importance of overcoming Stereotypes and Obstacles in order to thrive Editor-in-Chief Ronan Keohane interviews Caoimhe Lowe about her experiences of overcoming stereotypes and thriving in academia as a woman diagnosed with Asperger’s For many, the journey through mainstream education is a well-trodden path, but for some, like Caoimhe Lowe, the experience takes a unique twist due to disabilities. Today, I interviewed Caoimhe Lowe, who was generous enough to share her story and sets of experiences with Motley Magazine, shedding light on the impact of Asperger’s, a form of Autism, on her educational journey and how alternative education became her pathway to self-discovery and success.

As Caoimhe Lowe recalls, her time in mainstream school was marred by the torment of bullying. Her disability led her to learn differently from her peers, and unfortunately, this made her a target, not just for fellow students but even for some teachers. The result-

ing feelings of inadequacy and the pressure to “act normal” left a deep mark on her early educational experiences. Caoimhe remarks, “They would often look down on me and make me feel stupid”.

sponse was compassionate and empowering; the lecturer provided lecture slides in advance, enabling Caoimhe to stay on track and clarify any uncertainties, fostering an inclusive learning experience.

So, what prompted Caoimhe to seek alternative education options? The decision was driven by a desperate need to escape the relentless bullying that had taken a toll on her mental health. Caoimhe initially turned to YouthReach in Limerick City, but the situation only worsened, prompting her to leave due to safety concerns. In the search for a more accommodating environment, Caoimhe found solace in a school in Shannon for her final year, where he chose to remain mostly silent. Caoimhe stated, “I wanted to go to college to better myself and to show those who bullied me that it didn’t impact my future.”

Throughout her journey, Caoimhe encountered stereotypes and prejudices. For instance, in her third year of secondary school, she was given word searches instead of questions related to the current book, a clear underestimation of her capabilities.

Yet, these experiences only fueled Caoimhe’s determination to persevere. She learned to disregard others’ beliefs and focus on she self-worth.

However, the turning point came when Caoinhe resolved to pursue a college education.

Her determination was twofold: to better herself academically and to prove to those who had always doubted her wrong.

College life brought a fresh perspective; there, she found an environment that acknowledged her disability while also importantly affirming her academic potential. Supportive educators tailored her coursework to Caoimhe’s unique learning style, simplifying assignments when necessary.

One pivotal moment Caoimhe cherishes from her college experience is a conversation with a lecturer. During a period when she was struggling to keep pace in class, she reached out for help. The re-

When asked what advice she’d offer to others facing similar struggles in mainstream education, Caoimhe emphasized, overall, the extreme importance of self-belief. She urged individuals to ignore the doubters and naysayers, emphasizing that one’s abilities and worth are defined by personal conviction, not external judgments.

She stated “My advice is if people tell you your not good enough or smart enough or even that you’re not able to do things, ignore it, you know yourself if your able to do things or that your enough, believe in yourself not what others believe” In Caoimhe’s remarkable journey, we find a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

Her story serves as an inspiration to anyone facing adversity, reminding us all that, with determination and self-belief, we can rise above challenges and carve our path to success.

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“This film wouldn’t’ve been possible without my co-writer and our director Luke K. Murphy who pitched the idea to me nearly two years ago now. He brought a level of professionalism to the project and really gave me a grá for making films. We had an incredible team of passionate people around us who believed in this project, it’s exciting to see a group of people waking up in the morning, excited to make a difference.”

‘Homofónia’ is showing across Ireland and Europe, having just made its London-debut at the beginning of September. The project is shortlisted for Louth International Film Festival, Disappear Herye (Donegal) International Film Festival & Kerry International Film Festival. Anyone interested in screening the short or having a panel discussion should get in touch with the team: www.alanadalymulligan.com/homofónia.

Homofónia:

An Ode to Irish Queer Identity and Hope for the Future Ronan Keohane interviews the producer and co-writer of the short-film ‘Homofónia’ ‘Alana Daly Mulligan’ about the ideas behind the film and the importance of queer film-making in Ireland In the realm of cinematic artistry, where every frame carries a deeper message, “Homofónia” emerges as a profound exploration of identity, communication, and hope. This short film, creatively titled to evoke thoughts of homophones and homophony, brings forth a narrative that resonates far beyond the screen. Homophone means a word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning and often a different spelling. Additionally, homophony is defined as a musical texture consisting of one melody (tune) and an accompaniment that supports it. These two terms come together in order to elaborately encapsulate the essence of

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what it means to be Irish, to be queer, and to be human. Alana takes us on a captivating journey through “Homofónia,” where the musical score, laden with homophonic motifs, mirrors the complexities of its characters. It’s not just a story of a closeted couple trying to navigate their emotions and language but a reflection of society itself. As Alana eloquently says, “When we lift up one queer person, the society as a whole can be more cohesive and work as a melody together. Thus this film isn’t solely about sexuality and gender; it’s about expressing the shared humanity that binds us all.”

In the world of “Homofónia,” homophobia lurks in the shadows, an unspoken spectre that haunts the lives of its young protagonists. The fear of being themselves in a society that doesn’t always accept them hangs heavy in the vair. These children are indeed terrified of homophobia, even when it’s left unsaid but implicit in their daily lives.

But “Homofónia” is not content to remain confined to the cinematic realm. Alana and the team are taking the message directly to the people visiting schools and community centres across Ireland. “Our project and the way we’re going about disseminating it is an island first. Maybe because it is my first time producing a project or because we’ve worked with so many people from so many different backgrounds in the production phase, I think the strength of the short is its hunger to connect with as many different kinds of people as possible.

Diversity is a superpower, and we’re keen to make sure people can see themselves in our project.” Contrary to popular belief, they’re not trying to ‘change anyone’s sexuality’ but rather to show that queer people are a vital part of the Irish tapestry. The film serves as a reminder that queer individuals have every right to exist and be Irish.

As Alana passionately asserts, “The film is an ode to everything I wanted to learn in school.” It stands apart from many contemporary Irish-language films, which often delve into themes of repression and darkness.

“Homofónia” flips the script, embracing a country of hope, diversi-

ty, and dreamers, including its LGBTQ+ population.

“With far-right ideologists peddling homophobic and transphobic rhetoric that is directly impacting LGBTQ* youth education, it is important now more than ever thvat we have these stories out in the world, for young questioning Irish queers to find, to feel represented and accepted. Ironically, there’s nothing straight about homophobia, it weaves itself in and out of our lives, it takes many different forms from the blatant hate crime to the microaggression at the Christmas table. But if we put into the world examples of what it means to accept people for who they are, we can aspire towards that. 76% of young LGBTQI people surveyed last year said they felt unsafe at school, That’s shocking.

You can only blame kids to a point, really it is the responsibility of teachers and parents to ensure they foster environments of active allyship in these spaces.”

faced by LGBTQ+ individuals. Alana laments the inclination toward sadness in contemporary storytelling but offers a beacon of hope through “Homofónia.”

“Homofónia” is not just a film; it’s a tribute to the richness of Irish identity, a testament to the power of storytelling, In a time when Ireland, and a beacon like many other vplaces, grapples with the challengof hope for a es of a cost-of-living crisis and various other issues, more inclusive Alana believes that young people need hope. “Hoand harmonimofónia” isn’t just a film; it’s a message of hope, a ous world. declaration that every identity is valid, and a reminder that, collectively, we can aspire to create a harmonious society that resonates like a beautiful melody.

In the world of “Homofónia,” a heartfelt plea echoes - it’s a call to recognise and celebrate the full spectrum of Irish realities, embracing hope, diversity, and the very essence of being Irish, while also shedding light on the struggles

Identity Beyond Borders:

An insight into lessons learned studying abroad on Erasmus Editor-in-chief Ronan Keohane interviews Emily Gleave, an international office student support team member, about her experiences studying in Bonn, Germany.

Emily Gleave is a final year arts international student who studies English and German, 1) Can you share some of the initial challenges you faced when adapting to a new cultural and educational environment in Bonn?

Living and studying in Germany was undoubtedly an enriching experience, but it came with challenges. One prominent feature of life in Germany is its bureaucracy. You are greeted with paperwork and registrations when you set foot in the country. You must register in the city, which involves many forms and procedures.

What’s interesting and somewhat baffling is the requirement to pay radio and internet tax regardless of whether you own these devices. Furthermore, during the registration process, you’re even asked about your religious identity, specifically whether you were baptised. It’s a detail that many students, including myself, found unnecessary and invasive.

Then, there’s the language barrier. While Germany offers an incredible opportunity for language immersion, it can be quite challenging to adapt to. Almost everything, from official documents to everyday interactions, is predominantly in German. It pushes you out of your comfort zone, but it can also be a steep learning curve.

Navigating the academ-

ic landscape was another hurdle. The available modules and their locations at the university can be bewildering. At times, it felt like deciphering a complex puzzle. The main building of Bonn University, in particular, seemed like a labyrinth, making it hard

to find your way around.

One of the most surprising aspects of life in Germany was the heavy reliance on cash. In a world increasingly moving towards digital transactions, Germany remains staunchly cash-based.

This posed a challenge when you needed to pay for things, especially when cash was the only option available. It starkly contrasts the convenience of digital payments we’ve become accustomed to here in Ireland.

Despite these challenges, the experience of studying in Germany was gratifying. It pushed us to adapt, learn, and grow in ways we never imagined. While bureau-

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cracy, language barriers, and cash transactions might seem like obstacles, they were also part of the journey that made our time in Germany all the more memorable.

2) How did you navigate the process of building relationships and forming an identity within a diverse international student community during your time in Bonn?

Bonn is a city with a vibrant international student community, and that’s one of the aspects that made my time there truly enriching. The historical significance of Bonn as the former capital of West Germany during the East-West divide is evident in its diverse student population. Connecting with fellow international students was an incredible experience, and it provided a unique opportunity to learn about different cultures and perspectives. The university organised an international club, which was a fantastic platform to meet people from all around the world. Additionally, the Erasmus student network was another great resource, although it did require a paid membership.

However, one aspect left a bit to be desired, especially for someone like me who is highly active in student life and societies.

In Bonn, there seemed to be a slight limitation in terms of the accessibility and availability of stuvdent societies. Coming from a background where student societies

played a significant role in shaping my university experience in Cork, I couldn’t help but feel like a part of my identity was missing in this context.

Friendships formed within these societies and the practical experience gained from them are essential components of the student journey. It was hard not to experience a sense of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) when comparing the vibrant student life in Cork to what was available in Bonn.

In conclusion, while Bonn offered a diverse and welcoming international student community, some aspects of student life and society accessibility left room for improvement.

Nonetheless, the experience of studying in Bonn was still a valuable and enriching, contributing to personal growth and a broader global perspective.

3) Did learning the German langvuage play a role in shaping your identity and your ability to connect with the local culture?

Learning German was undeniably at the heart of my overall experience in Bonn. It wasn’t just an academic requirement; it was the key to unlocking a deeper connection with both my German classmates and international students who didn’t have a strong command of English. It was, in essence, an essential tool for communication and understanding in this new environment.

Comprehending and navigating daily life in German was not only practical but also immensely valuable for cultural immersion and building networks. It allowed me to bridge the gap between cultures, fostering a sense of belonging and connection that transcended language barriers. I made numerous friends through this expanded means of interacting with people, and what made it even more special was the ability to form friendships in an entirely different language. Learning and using German this way was not just a skill but a gateway to a more profound and meaningful experience during my time in Bonn.

4) In what ways did your academic pursuits in Bonn contribute to your evolving sense of self and identity?

My academic pursuits in Bonn profoundly impacted my evolving sense of self and identity. One particularly eye-opening course I took was the History of the English Language. While it may seem unrelated to personal identity initially, it led me to contemplate my connection with the English language. We delved into the fascinating evolution of English over time, which prompted me to reflect on how identities, including linguistic ones, also transform. Studying this subject in the context of a German university was a unique experience. It allowed me to understand how German perspectives shaped their understanding of the English language. Hearing German people’s viewpoints on English language history certainly broadened my perspective and encouraged me to appreciate the nuances of my own relationship with English.

country while studying abroad in Bonn?

One way I stayed connected was by actively participating in the Cork student housing co-operative, even from a distance. I used my laptop to contribute remotely.

This involvement felt important because it allowed me to engage with the broader housing crisis issue affecting Irish people. It was a way to remain connected to the challenges back home and continue contributing to a cause I cared deeply about.

Studying in Germany also provided me with a fresh perspective on housing. I couldn’t help but notice the significant difference in housing prices and quality amenities compared to Ireland.

My rent in Germany was substantially lower, and the quality of my apartment was noticeably higher. This stark contrast between the two countries shed light on the housing challenges faced by many in Ireland.

6) Do you have any advice or insights for other students considering studying abroad, particularly in the context of exploring their own identities?

For fellow students considering studying abroad and exploring their own identities, I have some advice to offer. First and foremost, take the opportunity to broaden your horizons by interacting with people from diverse backgrounds worldwide. Engaging in student life in your host country through clubs and societies is essential. The experiences you gain in these settings can play a significant role in shaping your identity.

Remember that what you invest in your study abroad experience is what you’ll receive in return. Be open to new experiences, even if they push you far beyond your comfort zone. Exploring different cities within your host country is equally vital. It allows you to witness the rich diversity within the country itself and gain a deeper appreciation for its culture.

I had the privilege of visiting a lesser-known city like Bad Homburg, and it was an eye-opening experience.

Exploring such places contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of your host country’s reality. The same holds true for Ireland – it’s crucial for visitors to venture beyond Dublin and explore smaller Irish towns to gain a well-rounded impression of the country. Ireland boasts a wealth of regional diversity, diverse accents, and dialects, making it a microcosm of the world’s cultural tapestry.

5) How did you connect with your home

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IRELAND’S MILITARY NEUTRALITY HAS BECOME A FUNDEMENTAL PART OF ITS IDENTITY ON THE WORLD STAGE, BUT CAN IT REMAIN A PRIORITY GOING FORWARD? The return of war to the European continent has forced a re-examination of Ireland’s Defence policy. Current Affairs Editor Conor Hogan outlines the history of neutrality and discusses whether it can be maintained with the realities of the new international system.

In 1945, George Orwell wrote an essay entitled ‘Notes on Nationalism’, which, upon reading, is not actually about nationalism. Rather it targeted a broader chauvinism, an irrational obsessive group feeling of which nationalism is one manifestation. Others included communism, Zionism, and pacifism. Neutrality in Ireland may now have reached a similar status.

Even to open the issue to public discourse is to be met with protest and nationwide trepidation. But the neutrality that some so fervently cling to is an illusory concept that has never truly existed in the way that is perceived. The origins of Ireland’s neutrality were not rooted in any resolute ideological conviction, but rather in a political gesture to register discontent towards Britain’s hold on the northern six counties. It has since persisted, partly for the advantageous

diplomatic position it provides Ireland, and partly as an excuse for frugal defence spending.

But with nothing to deter Russian naval incursions from our shores but a firm tone of voice, Ireland’s lack of capability in safeguarding its geopolitical obligations has now been laid bare to the rest of Europe. Can the preservation of ‘neutrality’ remain a tenable priority in Irish foreign policy given this more hostile geopolitical climate?

The formal tenet of neutrality was only proclaimed at the outbreak of the Second World War. The Irish Free State, hoping to distance itself from Britain, would limit its role in foreign conflicts, as guaranteed under Article 49 of the Constitution of the Irish Free State in 1922 which stated that it could not participate in any war without approval from the Oireachtas.

But the refusal to join the Allied struggle against Nazi Germany would formalise neutrality as a principle of foreign policy, and proved to be a decision which landed the country in a cauldron of diplomatic hot water in the post war period and significantly delayed its admittance to the United Nations, despite much being mad of Ireland’s inclination towards the Allies since. The onset of the Cold War saw the question of Ireland’s neutrality resurface. Having by this point seemingly shed the remnants of colonial rule, Ireland now stood as a sovereign state, capable of diplomatic decision-making independent of consideration of its trans-channel neighbour.

But in 1949, an invitation from the United States beckoning Ireland to join the nascent North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was flatly refused by the Irish Government. The reason given was an aversion to forging a formal military alliance with the United Kingdom, which persisted in its occupation of Ireland’s consti-

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tutionally claimed territory. While the Republic had been emancipated from Imperial governance, its vestiges continued to prevail over the discernment of the state’s leaders, particularly in regards to transnational diplomacy. Ireland therefore retained its neutrality in the post war period not so much out of ideological conviction, but out of protest of the Unites Kingdom’s hold on the northern counties.

Needless to say, this single issue could not colour Ireland’s foreign policy forever, and by the 21st century, the context of Irish neutrality had changed significantly. It had by then joined the EC, as the EU was then known, alongside Britain, and had seen a fundamental transformation of Anglo-Irish relations with the Good Friday Agreement. It is no longer inconceivable for Ireland to formally ally with Britain, as such an alliance has already been made. This past year has witnessed the revelation that without any mean-

ingful air defences of its own, Dublin struck a secret agreement during the Cold War which has seen the Royal Air Force provide Ireland with air security for the past 70 years. Nonetheless, in 2009 when the EU signed the Lisbon Treaty, which envisaged closer defence and security cooperation between the members of the Union, Ireland insisted on a protocol that specifically reaffirmed that the treaty did not ‘affect or prejudice Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality.’ By this point, that is what neutrality had essentially become; a tradition.

For unlike many neutral countries, neutrality has in fact never been formally written into the Irish Constitution.

Instead, Dublin simply outsources the deployment of its own armed forces to the UN with a triple lock system requiring not only the Dáil and Oireachtas, but also the United Nations Security Council to approve the deployment of any more than 12 Irish soldiers abroad. A council on which, lest we forget, a veto is held not only by our former colonial master, but also by Russia.

Increased Russian naval activity along the Irish Coast prompted disquiet not only in Dublin, but likewise in Washington and Brussels. While Ireland may sit at the periphery of Europe, far from the frontline of any conflict, its strategic posi-

tion is becoming increasingly important. Irish waters are home to one of the greatest concentrations of data cables in the world. These conduits facilitate 99 percent of the earths internet transmissions, and act as the veins and arteries of financial networks linking Europe and North America. Should one nonaligned actor interfere with these cables, chaos would be unleashed on both sides of the Atlantic. It would seem that if Russia has been mapping these cables, there is not much capability to defend this significant infrastructure. The Irish naval service has no anti-submarine capability, nor much of an ability to even detect such intelligence gathering. Frankly, the security and defence architecture widely used in the European Union and transatlantic space does not exist in Ireland, and military neutrality has served as a justification for this underspending for decades.

Little has changed in the way of military spending since the post-2008 crash, and the Defence Forces have been left with threadbare resources, thoroughly unprepared for any 21st century threat. Even among Europe’s non-aligned states its defence infrastructure is substandard. Both Finland and Sweden long maintained robust militaries capable of defending their neutrality before pursuing NATO integration.

The war in Ukraine has opened debate across Europe about defence policies, prompting countries to abandon previous policies of neutrality. Only Austria, Cyprus, Malta and Ireland remain. While it seemed that Irish military neutrality was set in stone, from the start Ireland has openly and unequivocally supported Ukraine politically, supporting the imposition of EU sanctions and the decision to expel Russia from the council of Europe, as well as providing Ukraine with 55 million euro of non-le-

thal aid as part of a wider coordinated EU contribution to the war effort.

The distinction has been emphasised between being military neutrality and political neutrality.

Such was Ireland’s response when faced with the realities of such a severe escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, because while doubts have been raised about the political security and strategic effectiveness of military non-alignment, so have doubts on moral position of neutrality.

One cannot be neutral to the Holocaust, for ex-

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ample. Impartiality cannot be retained towards calculated race extermination, nor towards the violation of an independent state, nor towards the premeditated murder of women and children.

Neutrality in response to oppression amounts to at best an abdication of moral responsibility, and at worst complicity with tyranny. Perhaps the insistence that from 1939 to 1945 Ireland’s wartime neutrality was not truly impartial, that bias was harboured towards the Allies, suggests that as a nation, we possess a col-

lective conscience that recognizes this truth.

However, it is difficult to view NATO membership as a desirable option. Unlike Finland or Sweden, there is no geopolitical pressure for Ireland to align with NATO, because its effectively protected by neighbouring NATO members anyway.

The cost would likewise be a deterring factor, seeing as Ireland currently struggles even to maintain one of the lowest defence expenditures of any EU member, at just 0.3 percent of GDP, and joining NATO would require this to increase significantly.

NATO members are expected to spend two percent of their GDP on defence, an unpalatable diversion of spending in the midst of various cost-of-living and housing related crises.

Additionally, neutrality has become a fundamental part of the Irish identity on the world stage, especially as that of a mediator and peacekeeping nation. Ireland’s place outside the Western alliance, along with its contribution of Defence Forces personnel to UN peacekeeping missions has helped Ireland to build a valuable diplomatic reputation, and the abandonment of neutrality would be to risk losing this standing. However, this standing is likewise threatened by a severe lack of government investment in military infrastructure, which has seen the Defence Forces

thoroughly unprepared for any 21st c e n t u r y threat to vital undersea f ibre-optic cables, not to mention struggling to even sustain its peacekeeping mission in Syria. But change in Ireland’s defence policy must not be drastic, it need only evolve. Joining NATO is not the only option that presents itself.

Ireland has never stood entirely outside Euro-Atlantic defence structures, apparent in its participation in NATO’s Partnership for Peace Plan in 1999. Similarly, Dublin has recently become more involved in the EU’s PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation) initiative, whose aim is to standardise training and equipment among European militaries in order to increase interoperability. Before the invasion of Ukraine, Ireland was involved in only two PESCO projects.

That number now stands at 23. The government has also committed to increasing the country’s defence budget from €1.1 billion to €1.5 billion by 2028, the largest increase in the State’s history. Ireland has already begun to take the necessary steps towards strengthening its cyber, airspace and naval defences.

In order for Ireland to fulfil its geopolitical obligations, this more mature attitude towards defence must be employed .

While it has undoubtedly granted Ireland a unique place on the world stage and ought to be maintained as a tenet of foreign policy, no longer can non-alignment be used as an excuse for the chronic neglect of defence infrastructure by the government. Nor can it be held sacred by the public, a vehement declaration of moral virtue, for it is neither of those things. Rather it must be seen merely as a commitment to diplomacy over aggression, and an understanding that while Ireland is adjacent to the Western alliance, it is outside of it. But most of all, to prepare for the new realities of the international system neutrality must be understood as being a tenet that is liquid, one that allows for reinterpretation and change as needed, as it always has.

Why are so many former French Colonies experiencing coups?

Contributing writer Kieran Deegan analyses the recent trend of military coups in West Africa in the context of French interests in the region.

Gabon and Niger, both former French colonies, are currently in the midst of military coup d’états.

But what significance does their former colonial status have on the recent situations in the two African nations? While Anglophone Africa has a relatively stable political climate, Francophone Africa has not enjoyed the same stability.

While the recent coups may pose a threat to French authority in the region, could it be that France stands to gain anything from these upheavals? There are many theories that speculate on what France would have to gain from this instability. If you guessed the ever common answer of control, greed and power then you are correct.

First, some context for what is happening in Gabon right now.

Ali Bongo had just won a disputed election in which he cemented himself a third term in office.

Having succeeded his father, the previous dictator of Gabon Omar Bongo, this would have extended the dynasty’s reign to a 56year hold on power. The military stepped in soon after his victory and seized power. What does all this have to do with France? Gabon has historically been heavily influenced by France politically.

The ex-president Omar Bongo, after a totally unrelated trip to Paris where he definitely did not have a job interview for the presidency, was appointed president in 1967.

He turned Gabon into a one-party dictatorship with extremely close ties to France, and in return for France subsidising his budget, Bongo gave France access to Gabon’s oil and uranium supply.

One of the roots of all of these conflicts, especially the conflicts cur-

rently being seen in West Africa, is France’s interest in the uranium rich region.

It has long influenced foreign policy towards its former colonies.

When uranium was discovered in Gabon and Niger, France now had an independent and reliable source of uranium, free from United States influence, to fuel its power plants and nuclear weapons arsenal. If coup leaders were to cut ties with France, it would negatively affect the economies of both countries.

But already the new interim President of Gabon, General Brice Oligui Nguema has met with the French ambassador and has said that he will strengthen Gabon’s relationship with France. Could this be an attempt to dissuade France from getting involved?

Or were they involved the whole time? Nguema, after all, is a distant relative of the Bongo family, and served as a close military aid to Omar Bongo. With mounting public discontent towards French influence and unrest following a contested election, could this coup have been an effort to remove Ali Bongo while maintaining a system which still benefits France?

In the case of Niger, France yet again benefits from a long saga of violence in a nation through the acquisition of cheap uranium. Niger provides 15 percent of France’s uranium and accounts for a fifth of the EU’s uranium stock. Niger was

in the middle of its 7th Republic when the Presidential Guard detained President Mohamed Bazoumand the military took control of the country, continuing Niger’s long history of violent coups and regimes in the years following its independence. While the current price for uranium is just over $56 a pound, the new Nigerian government reportedly wants to do the unthinkable to their old buddy France and increase the price of uranium exports. This loss of cheap uranium would not be a huge loss to France in the grand scheme of things, but it would signify a symbolic loss of influence over its former colony. Consequently, France has been accused of organising strikes demanding the release of Bazoumand, while President Emmanuel Macron says that the French government ‘will not tolerate any attack against France and its interests.’

12 | current affairs |

The Global South emerges as growing power in the G20

Summit

By Mary O’Keefe Delhi was plastered with the lotus flower as optimistic banners declared this year’s G20 summit under the theme of “One Earth, One family, One future”. Despite some prominent absences- both Russia and China sent representatives in lieu of world leaders- the summit did indeed seem to stress the importance of embracing the wider economic world instead of focusing solely on geopolitics. The most prominent player of this year’s summit, India’s Narendra Modi, declared India as the leader of the so-called “Global South,” a contentious term that divides the world in terms of gdp. Chief amongst this year’s achievements was inviting the African Union to become a permanent G20 member.

The move, along with a softening stance on Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, highlights a growing frustration amongst the Global South as Western and Northern power squabbles overshadow the issues that matter most to them.

Modi presenting India as the spokesperson for the Global South should come as no

surprise. The G20, although taking on a more diplomatic role as of late, was founded chiefly as an economic forum focused on international cooperation. India, an economic powerhouse of Asia, is a prime candidate for voicing the fiscal concerns of the Global South.

The term is divisive and highly inaccurate, but seems to be having a resurgence as of late- at this year’s BRICS conference, South Africa’s chair declared their focus to be the “advance the agenda of the Global South.” Additionally, the “Voice of the Global South Summit’’ held in January of this year saw Modi cement his leadership position as he welcomed 125 countries to the virtual conference.

This move towards a more united Global South on the geopolitical playing field shows the groups growing influence, especially in relation to Russia. Russia itself maintains a strange mix of South and North, given its proximity to Europe but its opposition to Western superpowers such as the EU and US. India maintains a neutral relationship with Putin.

The two countries have had a close relationship since the cold war, with India relying on Russia for cheap fuel and weapons manufacturing.

They still maintain this trade today despite the ongoing war, with Modi calling for a dialogue-based solution to the conflict. The attitude of the Global South mimics this, as many in their ranks suffer economically at a disproportionate rate, despite having almost little to no involvement in the conflict. This, perhaps, could be a deciding factor in the recent rise in support of Russia amongst some of the Global South in the past year. A study by the EIU showed an increase in neutrality amongst

“emerging economies,” with the number of countries remaining ambivalent to the conflict rising from 32 to 35, now representing just over a third of the global population. More concerning still to Ukraine and its allies is the jump in support for the Russian Federation, rising from 29 to 35 between 2022 and 2023. One of these countries includes South Africa, the next chair of the G20 conference and a member of the BRICS bloc.

Indeed, this change in attitudes from the Global South was reflected in this year’s G20 summit. In stark contrast to last year in Indonesia, where ceremonial mangrove-planting was disturbed by a missile crisis, this year’s meeting saw Ukraine scheduled for the last day of the conference. The G20 statement on the Russian invasion of Ukraine saw a softened approach. Ukraine was not invited to attend, and although the Delhi declaration ratifies the importance of all countries abiding by the UN charter and decried the humanitarian cost of war in Ukraine, the document does not mention Russia by name. Crucially, the statement also underlines the significance of the G20 as an economic forum for international co-operation, not a platform to resolve “geopolitical issues.” Their move towards neutrality was welcomed by Russia, with one foreign minister owing the success of the meeting to the strong front of the Global South.

With the next two meetings of the group being held in South Africa and Brazil respectively, it’s in Biden and Zelensky’s best interests to steer conversation back to the war.

What’s clear from the aeighteenth meeting of the G20 is that the Global South is a rising player in the game of economics and politics, and that their influence will affect how the war in Ukraine unfolds.

Hindutva Fascism in India prevails in the New International System Hindutva Fascism in India prevails in the New International System.

India’s reinvention as a new world power has long been forecast. As the country strives to redefine itself, the Hindu nationalism which has gained a monopoly over Indian politics is allowed to continue without challenge. Current Affairs Editor Conor Hogan explains its origins and consequences.

I

ndia is trying to define itself as an emerging power in the new global order. A confluence of recent events has convinced some, including India’s own leadership, that its moment of ascension has come.

Built on a constitution of secular liberal democracy, having recently become the world’s most populous country, and emboldened by a United States in search of a counterbalance to an expansionist China, India seemingly has the potential to be a great power state in the 21st century. But the benefits of having this US backed power in the Indo-Pacific to challenge China’s ambitions has allowed Western leaders to avoid confronting the Hindutva fascism which has been progressively taking hold in the country.

citizen they were was purely a matter of faith, and the startling ethnic cleansing and pogroms that followed.

From the dismembered and vivisected India left behind by the British Raj emerged visions of independent economic development based on liberal democracy. Armed with a political elite better versed in the English language than most of their British counterparts, India elected to be a constitutional and secular democracy which allowed freedom of religion rather than a Hindu country that organized its polity around the dominant faith’s tenets, as neighbouring Pakistan was doing with Islam. This feat was due in no small part to the influence of B.R. Ambedkar, perhaps the primary author of the Indian Constitution. The ‘secular’ precept, however, amounted to little more than an optimistic fantasy. Hindu nationalism has found its way into the nation’s polity for as long as the Republic has existed, and with it any hope of a genuine Indian unity in independence was ruined. The current ruling political party in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have exerted their own monopoly over Indian politics, criminalising Islamic divorce and revoking the autonomy of the Kashmir region.

Ambedkar, decades before, had identified a number of regressive tendencies in India, and indeed in Hinduism, that he feared might risk the country’s new venture into liberal democracy. Hinduism’s Bhakti tradition in particular, which encourages the deifica-

Hindutva, an ideology formed by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1922, is the advocation for Hindu nationalism, supremacy and for the establishment of a Hindu hegemony within India. It views Hinduism not merely as a religion, but as an ethnic identity, one superior to the various other minority religions and ethnicities in the country. Its creed liberally borrowed from the European fascist movement of the early 20th century (incidentally, the inception of Hindutva occurred during Savarkar’s incarceration following an attempted revolt). It is a movement characterised by right-wing extremism and an intolerance of minorities, particularly Indian Muslims. The ideology was intensified by the bloody sectarian partition of 1947, whereby the Islamic state of Pakistan was carved out of Indian territory and people were now told that what kind of

14 | current affairs |

tion of human leaders, is one such tendency that India has been unable to avoid under Shri Narendra Modi.

Since November of last year, when India took over the rotating presidency of the G20, Modi has been canvassing not just for India’s place in the global spotlight, but also for his own. Portraits of the Prime Minister along with G20 insignias adorn billboards, celebrations are held, and fanfare abounds.

The event, in the eyes of the Indian government, will mark the country’s growing global stature. ‘During our G-20 presidency’, Modi declared, ‘we shall present India’s experiences, learnings, and models as possible templates for others’. The government’s message is clear: India is becoming a great power under Modi. But the implications of the leader of India’s Hindu Nationalist Party’s smiling face looming omnipresent over the country’s Hindu and non-Hindu population on wall paintings emblazoned with the phrase ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’ ought to be more ominous than inspiring. Because while the government are embarking on a global exercise of rebranding India, they may also be planning to do so literally.

When Salman Rushdie wrote, in The Moor’s Last Sigh, that ‘those who hated India, those who sought to ruin it, would need to ruin Bombay,’ he was alluding to the Hindu chauvinists who had tried to extend their claim over the pluralistic city by renaming it, after a Hindu goddess, Mumbai. With its name changed its minority citizens were persecuted, intimidated and displaced by another Hindu Nationalist Party, the Shiv Sena. This is now an act we all collude with. It was veiled by the Shiv Sena as an attempt to shed any remaining traces of colonialism.

Blaming the vestiges of colonialism for undermining and denigrating authentic Indian culture was once the stance of India’s socialist progressives, but it was retired after economic liberalization lifted millions out of poverty, diminishing their need for a villain on whom they could blame India’s economic failures.

But it is a hackneyed piece of jargon that still is often dusted off by Modi to serve his Hindu revivalist project. By conflating liberalism with colonialism he can discredit both at once, effectively turning the very rhetoric of Indian progressives against them.

Consequently, it should be cause for alarm that some official G-20 dispatches from the Indian government were signed not by the ‘Prime Minister of India,’ but rather the ‘Prime Minister of Bharat’. Derived from Hindu mythology, the Sanskrit and Hindi word is

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favoured by the BJP, and by followers of Hindutva.

While both names are used interchangeably in the country, it has until now been the convention to use ‘India’ on official documents. Modi’s decision to break from this convention at the summit on which he has staked his reputation is hardly incidental.

Certainly, it must be acknowledged that the name ‘Bharat’ has its roots deeply intwined with India’s ancient culture and history, and that is not overlooked.

But let us not be beguiled that the BJP’s promotion of this Hindu India harbours insidious intentions when only 1,000 miles from the G20 summit in New Delhi, sectarian violence persists among Manipur’s largely Hindu Meitei and largely Christian Kuki Tribes. The decision represents a calculated manoeuvre by the BJP to further marginalise the non-Hindu population of India and march the nation ever closer toward Hindu hegemony. And with India taking its place as a counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific, the BJP can now do so with the complicity of the West.

F

or a long time, I believed identity was something restricting and confining.

In old journal entries, I would complain about how I felt limited by the way my identity defined me. The one with the loud laugh, the overly sensitive one, the musical one, and so on and so forth. It would just frustrate me so much, this feeling that I was being squashed into a tightly sealed box. I am sure many people have shared this sentiment at times. However, I recently went to go see the film

freedom to grow and expand.

What stands out significantly to me in Theater Camp is the important connection it makes between having a sense of belonging and a sense of identity in childhood. In the form of a mockumentary, the film documents life for the campers at AdirondACTS, a summer theatre camp that has been in danger of closure after financial struggles, even more so after its owner Joan falls into a coma.

The show must go on, howev-

at the teachers of the camp.

Amos, played by Ben Platt, is the drama teacher alongside his best friend, Rebecca-Diane, played by Molly Gordon, who is the music teacher. AdirondACTS, where they first met each other as campers themselves, provided them with such a strong sense of belonging and identity that they came back to teach the new campers when they grew up. This shows how feeling a sense of belonging and having a sense of identity that you align with in child-

Is Having an Identity Important in Childhood?

By Aoife Hayden

Theater Camp in the cinema and it has changed my opinion about the aforementioned topic. Who says that identity must be limiting? Instead, identity can be grounding and reassuring while still allowing

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er, and as the kids return for the summer, Joan’s ‘tech bro’ son, Troy, runs the camp in her stead and tries to deal withfinancial problems. The connection between belonging and identity can be seen by looking

ometimes, it can feel like the identity you’ve been given may not necessarily fit though, but you don’t know how to change the way you have been defined. The stage manager in Theater Camp, Glenn Winthrop, played by Noah Galvin, is an example of this. He clearly has a love of theatre, having similarly been a former camper, and is now working at the camp during the summer.

He shows that he strongly identifies with it explaining to Troy that, “We’re theater people. We know how to turn cardboard into gold.” Despite this, it is evident his role as stage manager at the camp may be limiting him, as he is an incredible singer, actor and dancer who has not gotten the chance to perform. One would expect that this is where identity can be restrictive, but it ultimately isn’t, for he goes on to perform in a musical as the lead. Identity is shown here to have grounded

hood is integral in shaping the direction you would like your life to go in as you get older.

and reassured Glenn in his love of theatre, while also allowing him to grow and expand as a performer. The belief that identity limits you is not true. It can limit you if you allow it to, indeed it can be frightening to try something new, but who is to say that won’t be the best thing you ever do?

I think it’s safe to say the finale song of Theater Camp, “Camp Isn’t Home”, really cements how nurturing having a sense of identity in childhood can be for a person. As the kids sing lyrics like “Where every kid picked last in gym finally makes the team// where square pegs find their holes, and outcasts find their dreams,” it is clear to see how important having a sense of belonging and identity is for them. Everybody needs roots because without them, how can you grow?

16 | current affairs |

How Neurodiversity and Disability Can Impact Identity

By Jessica Anne Rose, Deputy Editor-in-Chief

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his month’s theme is ‘identity’, and as a neurodivergent/disabled person, I wanted to give other neurodivergent/ disabled people the chance to provide their perspectives on themselves. I left the questions as open-ended as possible and asked both interviewees to answer without thinking too deeply about what they ‘should’ say. When asked ‘who are you?’ on the spot, how would people with disabilities answer?

Being neurodivergent, I hate face-to-face interviews, so I decided to format this interview remotely via email for the comfort of everyone involved.

A quick definition of identity: Identity means how you see yourself, what kind of person you are, and how you think others may see you. I was interested to see how disabilities impact people’s description of their own identities, as no two perspectives are

the same, even if you live with the same disability.

Thank you so much to the interviewees for helping to break the stigma around how we as neurodivergent/ disabled people are seen by others, especially by members of UCC staff and the student body. Though our disabled existences do not mean we owe education to able bodied people, the vulnerability and honesty of these interviewees will hopefully show perspectives many readers might not have considered. Our disabilities are part of us, but don’t make up our entire identities.

1: What is your name, or what should I refer to you as during this interview?

K: During this interview you can just refer to me as K! Sam: My name is Sam. 2: In your own words, can you describe yourself or what you define as your personal ‘identity?’ (Basically, who are you, in your own words.)

K: I am a 22 year old post-

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graduate student, who has both ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and dyspraxia. I have known I was neurodivergent for a long time, but only recently have come to accept it.

Sam: When I talk about myself and my identity I use the term “non-binary”. To me, this is the term that fits most. I am 1/3 feminine, 1/3 masculine and 1/3 neither.

3: Do you feel that your d i s a b i l i t y/ d i s a b i l i t i e s impact your definition of ‘identity?’ If so, do you think it has a positive or negative impact?

K: I have a love-hate relationship with my disabilities. While I do feel proud of my identity, I struggle to show it in public. I know that I have my quirks, but whenever I talk to someone, I feel like I am always masking my identity into someone who is trying to be like everyone else.

Sam: I definitely think that my disabilities have a positive impact on my perception of a person’s identity.

As someone that is born different to the “normal” you very quickly learn to have a big heart and open mind. With more ease you can question society’s gendered assumptions.

4: What would you like people to notice about your identity when they first meet you? Eg. Your

skills, personality traits, your disability, etc?

K: Contrary to belief that those with ASD do not understand sarcasm or humour, I feel like I am very witty and able to bounce off of people rather well.

I also feel that I am very understanding of everyone else’s troubles. I never felt able to discuss my feelings in depth with people in my life, so I can empathise with many people who share that issue. However, I do feel overwhelmed in moments of stress or large gatherings, and some people rarely pick that up.

Sam: While my disabilities aren’t visible from the outside to the average person, when a person does notice I cannot stand the look of pity that I receive every. single. time. A reaction to my disabilities is not the first interaction I want to have. I want boring small talk about what I’m studying in college, what my interests are or what drew that person to me.

5: For you personally, do you prefer referring to yourself as someone with a disability or a disabled person? Do you have a reason for your preference?

K: I will never let my disability define me, so I will always want to be regarded as a person with autism. I

feel the latter always carries negative connotations along with it, that just because they are disabled, they are lesser than everyone around them.

Sam: I have never thought about this, people tend to just decide for you. Instantly though, my preference is a person with a disability.

To me, this description is a lot less focused on the fact that the person is disabled.

Rather than the disability becoming a part of the person (in being a “disabled person”) they are a person that coincidentally has a disability.

6: If you could change one thing about how the identities of disabled people like you and me are perceived, what would it be?

K: I just hope that someday people realise that ASD is not just black and white. It is considered a spectrum for a reason. We may have similar quirks and difficulties, but we are all also very different. There seems to be a stigma surrounding it, and I hope someday it is resolved.

Sam: The list of ways I wish people’s perceptions of disabled people would change is endless. Once again, no look of pity please! Yes, my disabilities play a major role in my everyday life but it is not who I am. No I am not a ‘warrior’ or a ‘fighter’, this is just my norm.

My disabilities also do not make me weak, I do not always need your help, I am more than capable, as I said, this is my norm, I’ve found my ways to get stuff done!

7: Finally: how do you hope people would describe you as if they were asked to speak about you? Would you want your disability to be mentioned?

K: My disability is a part of me, and always will be.

However, I have come so far in life without so many people not knowing about the difficulties I encounter each day. People can describe me any way they want, for better or for worse. If people ever speak about me, as long as they acknowledge that I am always trying my best, I will feel content.

Sam: Of course not! Unless I am in a space where my disabilities are relevant to the conversation, why should it be brought up?

If an able-bodied person was talking in a group of people, would you mention that they have family issues?

8: Would you like to add anything else?

K: Nothing else to add!

Sam: Nope.

18 | current affairs |

Lady Bird: Christine or Marion

By Andrew Mason

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rowing up, most of us dream that our teenage years will mimic something from a movie. Usually, the ones with extravagant parties, genuine friendships, first love and a grand finale as you enter adulthood. In essence, a John Hughes movie. Think The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Sixteen Candles. Hughes introduced the world to the golden era of ‘coming of age’ films and taught us about the experience of being young and trying to know and define yourself while staying true to that self. So, there’s a lot of emotionality, struggle, pain and confusion, and the wonder and thrill of big and new feelings and experiences. At the heart of all good coming-of-age films is a struggle to find one’s identity despite the pressure of conformity.

Lady Bird, written and directed

by Greta Gerwig, stars Saoirse Ronan as the titular character and Laurie Metcalf as her mother Marion. Set in 2002 Sacramento, the story follows the life of Lady Bird throughout her senior year in high school as she desperately tries to shape her identity. Lady Bird hates so much about her life. She hates her given name, Christine, insisting everyone call her Lady Bird. She hates that she lives in Sacramento, that her family is poor, and that she’s bad at math. She’s willing to do just about anything to escape from this identity. We watch the story unfold from two sides: from the perspective of a teen and the per-

spective of a parent learning to let go. This “separation from the mother” aspect is derived from what’s known as the ‘Woman’s Quest for Wholeness’,the heroine’s version of the hero’s journey which is more focused on separating from the female aspects of their identity, entering the world of the masculine, and then reuniting with their feminine selves to become a “whole” figure.

Lady Bird herself confronts this struggle with identity head-on when she demands to be called by a name of her choosing. This is her first step in forging her own identity. But in forging one’s own identity, a confrontation explodes. The person with whom we have created our own identity from — the image we have plagiarised in trying to create ourselves — comes from our parents.

Marion McPherson, Lady Bird’s mother, spends most of the film openly criticising her daughter’s appearance and intellectual prowess. This conflict over Lady Bird’s identity ripples out to the other aspects of her life, including the men she becomes involved with, the friends she chooses, and the colleges she wants to apply to. When Lady Bird finally asks her mother why she can’t just approve of her decisions, Marion says: “I want you to be the very best version of yourself that you can be.”

But, as Lady Bird counters, “What if this is the best version?”

Lady Bird seeks a mother who embodies love, care and understanding but is instead served as a mother who represents stasis and suffocation. She seems determined to keep Lady Bird close to home in Sacramento, California. At the same time, Lady Bird wants to go to more culturally inclined places like “New York, or Connecticut, or New Hampshire”.

Through her separation from her mother, Lady Bird fails to see

her mother’s life in context and the struggles that come with it.

This is precisely what Lady Bird does as she sees Sacramento and her mother’s role in keeping her there as a smothering form of stasis and eventual death. However, once she does complete the separation, Lady Bird begins to recognise these aspects of her mother and ends the movie with a message left for her in which she acknowledges both her and her mother’s feelings for Sacramento and thanks her mother for the journey.

Greta Gerwig perfectly shows this resolution of identity by intercutting scenes of Lady Bird, who is now calling herself by the name her parents gave her, Christine, and Marion driving through Sacramento at sunset. Once the separation is complete, Christine can forge ahead with her own identity and arrive at peace with the mother that once hounded her, allowing a softer portrayal to take hold in her consciousness and lead her into the world she now needs to become a part of. It takes the journey of this film for Lady Bird to come to appreciate where she came from and how it will always define a part of her. At its core, Lady Bird is a mother-daughter love story.

Their relationship is what Gerwig says love looks like. It’s not very pretty or perfect, but it perseveres.

By Chiara Alessio

Identity and Facade: The Dilemma in Claude Cahun’s self-portraits

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elf-Identity and its interaction with the outside world are a central theme throughout all of 20th century production. Although some artists became more mainstream in their exploration and representation of the self, such as Frida Kahlo, surreal artist and photographer Claude Cahun’s self portrait production and writings – although more obscure – are an equally interesting approach to the subject of internal identity and its clash with the outside world. Claude Cahun’s identity was complicated and multifaceted in a historical period that was hostile, violent and strived for homogeneity rather than pluralism, being, in fact, a queer, androgynous, Jewish artist living in France at the height of War World Two. However, seeing this as the one and only rendition of Cahun’s identity could be a one-dimensional approach: Cahun explored the topic critically; going beyond the clinical representation of queer life and gender neutrality, showing the complicated pressure to define oneself through the eyes of the outside world, and exploring questions such as: What makes me me? Is the version of me that I put out in the world truthful and candid? Isn’t life just a big play, while humans are told to play a part within society?

Are we destined to have to live and be identified within boxes?

These questions were supported

‘The Father. Nowhere! It is merely to show you that one is born to life in many forms, in many shapes, as tree, or as stone, as water, as butterfly, or as woman. So one may also be born a character in a play.

The Manager [with feigned comic dismay]. So you and these other friends of yours have been born characters?

The Father. Exactly, and alive as you see!

[MANAGER and ACTORS burst out laughing.]’

- Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author

and amplified through the works of psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s collective unconscious and archetypes and Luigi Pirandello’s theory of the masks, explained in various iconic pieces of work such as: One, No One and A Hundred Thousand, Six Characters in Search of an Author, and The Late Mattia Pascal. Pirandello’s novels deal with this exact same dilemma: Who are we to the outside? Pirandello’s answer is both cynical and Jungian: within modern society, we are nothing but the roles that we decide to play within it. Life is a play, in which us (the actors) like to put on different masks for different scenes and occasions. Our identities are never truly shown, nor understood. If we must pick up a new role, a new mask, and keep playing, we will do exactly that.

The influence of Pirandello’s theory of the masks is everlasting in Cahun’s self-portraiture. As Cahun themselves put it: ‘I will never be finished removing all these faces’, and ‘Under this mask, another mask’. The medium used, the photographic self-portrait, is also a key in order to understand Cahun’s pictured identity dilemma: a medium often thought as exact, almost scientific, thus realistically correct, that shows us carefully curated images, delivering selected messages through surrealist metaphors, phrases, images, allegories. Surrealism is delivered through careful editing that doubles bodies or heads, while makeup covers and transforms features, and mirrors distort or double the picture. In this way, the portraits are not simplistic documentary or candid: this is what Cahun shows themselves to us as, this is what they want us to see. For this reason their appearance changes with each portrait, as if different, specific characters are

presenting each other in a constructed, photographic play. Cahun’s brief theatre experience shows the similarities between the stage, the director’s camera and the photographic lens in their eyes. To us, the viewer, is served the same fabrication, as multiple Cahun’s alter-egos show themselves to us, similar to the Six Characters in Pirandello’s famous play, that can morph into different roles using clothing, hats, scarves, identifiable only through what they put on themselves (such as, the black mourning veil seen at the start of the play). This is seen through a grotesque, incestuous-like scene where The Father mistakes The Stepdaughter for a sex worker, while she’s disguised only by a hat. The intricate, Pirandellian and Jungian web shows the strain within Cahun’s self-portraits, the masked absurdity, and the cynical message that every personality we create and hold on to is nothing but fabrication for the outside world. Deconstruction, removing the masks, is a task in which the artist is occupied (as depicted in a self-portrait, sitting down, holding a theatre mask in one hand, with their actual face disguised and morphed by makeup) but never truly satisfied with, as every contact with the outside world obliges us to put a fictitious mask on. This whole process can only be defined as the pinnacle of Claude Cahun’s pictured, photographic queerness. Ultimately, Cahun’s body of work is not clean-cut, but rather surrealistically delivers one big question to us, the viewers: Who are we, me and you, really?

20 | entertainment |

Swifties and Fan Identity in a Social Media World

by Stephen O’ Brien

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n an August night in Long Island Beach, New Jersey, close to a thousand people crowded outside a restaurant that was to be the location of Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley’s wedding party. However, these people did not come out simply for the sanctity of marriage.

Instead, these were Swifties, waiting to glimpse their idol and namesake, Taylor Swift.

In the months since Swift released her album Midnights and star ted her Eras Tour, she has been constantly swarmed, her songs and albums (both new and old) have dominated the ch ar t s, and an announcement from the singer could cause a minor earthquake.

Her popularity is immense and unavoidable, rivalling the cultural impact of Beatlemania or Michael Jackson; the world has a case of Swiftiemania. But what creates such a fanbase? Why do people make a celebrity a part of their identity? And can it be positive?

Swift has cultivated a fanbase willing to preorder five versions of an album without

even a single song to preview what they have just bought. It sounds wild, but this relates to Swift’s relationship with her fans. In the early days of her career, Swift put effort into interacting personally with her relatively small audience.

As her career grew, so did the internet, and she used avenues like Twitter and Tumblr to reply and keep tabs on her followers, with some of these people being personally invited by Swift to her home.

These “Secret Sessions” were pre-release events where fans got to hang out with the musician, eat cookies baked by her, and listen to her upcoming albums. Although she doesn’t do this anymore (a mixture of the pandemic and her retreat into privacy), it’s no wonder that Swift has such a grasp on her fanbase; the idea that your favourite musician might be keeping up with your fan account and could text you to hang out is a concept straight out of a movie.

Ultimately, the relationship between fan and artist is parasocial, which begs the question: why do fans continue to be fans when it is mainly one-sided? In the age of social media, stans use their favourite celebs as their profile pictures, post fan cams in PopCrave replies and get into heated debates about musicians as if it is a personal attack. These users tend to be teenagers who make being a fan their identity online. That could seem to be unhealthy and disruptive of developing one’s own identity. However, I believe that this isn’t necessarily the case.

Adolescence is a time of insecurity and confusion, a time

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spent figuring out who you are, and of self-conscious anxiety. Many of these teens are LGBT+ and are just beginning to figure out their queer identity whilst also managing the pressures of being a teenager.

These online communities of similar peers can be platforms for self-discovery and places to communicate with other queer people. The link between queer culture and music, specifically pop music, has existed for decades, with artists like Diana Ross, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, and Lady Gaga all having a dedicated queer fanbase. Stan Twitter is a modern extension of the connection between pop music and the LGBT+ community. For kids who feel judged or outcasted, having a community of people with a shared interest could help them get through the awkward and uncomfortable years of puberty.

So, whilst fanbases may seem to be primarily a b o u t superficially obsessing over a celebrity, that is just a starting point for finding an entire community of like-minded people, especially for those who need it the most.

D

What

By Matthew James Quill.

I

’m sure we’re all feeling a little disappointed by the recent delay of Denise Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two to March of next year (nothing but solidarity to the actors and writers, by the way), but here I’d like to talk to you about something a bit less tangible of the Dune series, which is the topic of identity. I will be getting into mild spoilers for Frank Herbert’s original book series here, but nothing that should taint your enjoyment of the films, or indeed, the books.

Dune at its core is a series about what it means to be human, and how this concept can be challenged throughout millennia. This is visible from the earliest known period of “The Duniverse”, the Butlerian Jihad, a time of great strife and upheaval. Contrary to what one might assume from the name (or what I believe Frank’s son, Brian misinterpreted in his Dune prequels), this Jihad was not so much a literal war against an ideological opponent, instead, it was a war against the very concept of machine logic. This period is described as one eerily similar to the one we find ourselves in, wherein hu-

mans are replaced by machines, presumably resulting in mass unemployment and the concentration of capital in the hands of a privileged few (Side note: How ironic that Dune of all series is being affected by actors and writers demanding protection and regulation against artificial intelligence). This Jihad resulted from an ideological shift from a society of machine reliance to one of human self-determination. This can be seen in a precept adopted from this period: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind”. Following this, a new feudal system of governance emerged along with a multitude of disparate groups, all vying for power in an untamed universe.

Two groups in particular emerged which challenge the topic of human identity the most.

The first is the Bene Gesserit.

These conniving matriarchs make a name for themselves by being a silent religious order guiding the path of humanity through a mixture of subterfuge, religious engineering, and selective breeding.

However, far from being merely a group of space nuns, the Bene Gesserit possess certain powers, key among them that of the Other Memories. This is a trope that has appeared in media from Dragon Ball to Assassin’s Creed, but essentially it is the ability to access the

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U

Makes

experiences of one’s ancestors.

Only those Bene Gesserit who undergo a process known as the Spice Agony can unlock this power, which is a dangerous one.

This is because this power is not one of memory alone; the personality of one’s ancestors, referred to as “ego-memories” can also be accessed, and if care is not taken, they can overwrite the identity of their descendant and live anew.

Such an individual is referred to as an Abomination. This fate befell that of Alia Atreides, sister of Paul Atreides. Paul himself represents an incredible danger to the Bene Gesserit, for you see, in their myths one figure ranks above all: the Kwisatz Haderach.

This legendary male figure would have access to the Other Memories of both his male and female ancestors and thus would be able to bridge space and time to see into the future, unlocking the power of prescience.

This power would in turn guide the fate of humanity for millennia to come.

N Us

The second group, the Bene Tleilax, or the Tleilaxu, challenge human identity in much more subtle, cunning ways that do not reveal themselves fully until the fifth novel, Heretics of Dune. While the Bene Gesserit have mastery over their individual biochemistry and have entire world religions under their thumb, the Tleilaxu have an innate understanding of human genetics, particularly cloning.

They have access to a technology called Axlotl Tanks, through which clones called gholas can be produced. The most famous ghola of them all is that of Duncan Idaho, who is replicated countless times throughout the Dune saga to serve various purposes and goals. It is through gholas that a challenge to the Bene Gesserits power emerges, for while the Other Memories allows one’s consciousness to become “immortal” through one’s ancestors, a ghola can allow for true immortality, as the memory of each ghola iteration can be passed down to the next ad infinitum once the cell line is preserved.

The topic of gholas also raises questions

E

Human? which have existed since the concept of human cloning first arose: If you could copy a human, down to every cell, with everything arranged in the same way as the original, would they be the same person? Notably, only gholas created after the death of the original would retain their memories, as was the case with Duncan Idaho.

A “live” clone would be in a state of tabula rasa, a blank slate that needs to be taught how to be human and develop an identity.

Interestingly, a gholas memories are not available immediately, they must be drawn out through a process of conditioning to reawaken them. It almost seems like they are hypnotised into remembering who they were, telling us that perhaps it is not enough to copy a human’s biology to also copy their consciousness. It is clearly much more than a trick however, considering gholas can recount entire millennia of memories from lives they lived even though the current body did not experience them.

Quandaries such as this have puzzled biologists and philosophers for over a century. Since the genetic revolution of the last century, a belief known as biological determinism has emerged, which proposes that one’s genes control human behaviour (and thus, identity). While this belief is somewhat reductive and does not factor in our environments’ effect, it holds some truth; we know that nucleic

acid, and thus genes, encode proteins, which in turn direct cell replication and can alter cellular behaviour. Following this logical thread, cells develop networks, which form tissues, and eventually organs such as the brain, which could be said to control behaviour. This is likely the explanation the Tleilaxu would prefer, but biology is never that simple (If it were, my life would be very boring as a biologist). While it’s true that brain regions, such as the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, have been identified as areas involved in forming “the self”, we are still guessing based on areas that light up on MRIs when memories of ourselves are accessed.

Perhaps it is fruitless to attempt to rationalise something as ephemeral as our identity down to a physical component, as there will always be “something else” that can’t be measured or recorded on a graph. For some cultures, that “something else” could be a soul or a divine spark. For the Bene Gesserit, it might be the collective unconscious of their Other Memories, bubbling beneath the surface, which perhaps proposes a deeper truth; we are the sum total of everyone that came before us, but that does not mean we cannot aspire to be more.

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How The Coming-of-Age Comedy Touches On Something Much Deeper Than A Few Laughs A Review by Lauren Martin (Spoilers Ahead)

D

erry Girls is hilarious. Lisa McGee, an Irish playwright, decided to wake up one morning and make magic. Derry Girls hit our tellies in 2018 via Channel 4. And then it went onto Netflix where the third, and sadly final season, has recently been released. A third season, which I binged after getting my wisdom teeth removed. Special shoutout to tomato soup for being my diet for three consecutive days, I will never be eating you again.

Hence my rediscovery of just how much I love this show. The wit, the spectacular combination of characters. Having someone as spine-

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less as Clare Devlin and someone as brazen as Michelle Mallon interact on screen is a delight.

Derry Girls (for those of you not already blessed with this knowledge), is a comedy series which follows the lives of four girls living in Derry, accompanied by a half-English cousin, during the time of the Troubles and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland (although they do venture into Galway at one point). The girls, and half-English James, go to Our Lady Immaculate College, a fictional girls’ Catholic secondary school that I recognised all too well, having been to one myself. One of the many reasons this show made me think of the theme ‘Identity’.

We follow the girls and their families, specifically Erin Quinn and Orla McCool’s parents

who are just as entertaining as the young teens. From late night arrests, street fights for concert tickets and finding a bag full of cash and a gun, the girls (and James!) get up to all sorts of mayhem.

Part of the reason Derry Girls is so ‘cracker’ (slang for good, very good) is because it’s so familiar.

Have I ever lived in the North?

No. But have I heard words like ‘wains’? Or have I ever been told to ‘wise up’? Absolutely yes. The slang, the accent, the mandatory and awkward gatherings in an all-girls Catholic school – although having Sister Michael around certainly helps there; she is a riot – the Mammies, the sweet shop, the crucified Jesus or weeping Mary statues everywhere, and that one relative/family friend that you cannot escape and will chat your ear off. (Metaphorically, but Uncle Colm would have you wishing it was literal.)

Derry Girls captures the essence of growing up in Ireland – hopefully the first years are old enough to remember these core memories.

I had an absolute ball watching these characters plan and scheme and just over-complicate everything in general.

Until we got to the end of season three. In the final episode, an hour long special, my heart just exploded. Now, there’s been touching moments before this finale episode. Like season one episode six, when the ‘wains’ (young people/ children) are enjoying themselves on stage at a talent show, completely oblivious to a fatal bombing which had just occurred. There’s countless more examples of these thought provoking and powerful messages but I actually want those who already haven’t already to watch the show and, as awesome as they are, I don’t think Motley will let me use every page of their magazine to dissect this wonder of a series.

So, I’ll cut to the chase.

In the final episode of the show, the gang have all turned eighteen and are now eligible to vote for or against the Good Friday Agreement, designed to end the Troubles. Erin is the most against the Agreement, stating that things are black and white when it comes to killing people and those who have killed others should not be released. This causes quite the rift between herself and her closest friend, Michelle, whose brother would be one of those prisoners set free.

The two fight but eventually reconcile, Michelle admitting that she isn’t all that sure about the Agreement herself. No one really is. Granda Joe spends most of the episode reading

and dissecting the booklet the public is given, explaining the Agreement. But it was Granda Joe and Erin’s conversation towards the end of the episode that had me in tears, clutching my Squishmallow for dear life. Erin asks: “What if we vote yes and it doesn’t even work?”

And Granda Joe, in return, asks: “And what if it does?” He then elaborates: “What if all of this becomes a ghost story you’ll tell your wains one day?”

Identity is a broad term, it can refer to so many things; your gender, your nationality, your sense of style, your career of choice. I did not expect to relate to a comedy series about five young people in Northern Ireland, during the Troubles no less. But Erin Quinn wanted to improve the lives of those around her and those ahead of her. She had family, friends and wanted to give something to the world. Irish actors and actresses are getting more and more popular, as is the Irish accent.

Irish people and our slang, our odd sayings, are making appearances more and more, but it doesn’t hold a candle to this comedy series. It is Derry Girls that I saw myself in. That same tongue and cheek, that joy amongst friends and a constant striving to be just a little bit better than you were yesterday. This show captured the essence of growing up in Ireland, but it also captured that motivation, that grit that we all have, that we all identify with; to be just a little better tomorrow.

The music is both melancholic and undeniably hauntingly beautiful, befitting its intimate narrative of identity and love in the face of brutal violence. Hayden Anhedönia’s debut album, Preacher’s Daughter, follows the story of Ethel Cain, a teenage girl who flees her religious upbringing only to be killed and eaten by her lover. Though it may be an exer-

terprets her own murder as confirmation of her wickedness, as she sings “I tried be good/Am I no good?”, implying that her death is equivalent to her failure to “be good.” Ethel further surrenders her identity by pleading “Can I be yours?/Just tell me I’m yours” to her murderous lover, seemingly incapable of being angry on behalf of herself and instead seeking af-

tormentors: Their subjectivity is rendered useless and viewed as worthless” (14). Ethel’s self-blame can thus be read as an attempt to reassert her subjectivity; if she is suffering because she is “bad,” she can end her torment by being “good,” giving her a sense of agency that is absent if she accepts that she’s blameless. Of course, by blaming herself she is ulti-

Ethel Cain, Abuse, and the Loss of Identity

by Sydney Marhefsky

cise in futility to explore the identity of this short-lived character, Anhedönia finds meaning in that futility, as she begins to unravel the implications of losing your identity and of never having been able to form one in the first place.

Preacher’s Daughter brings to light the erosion of identity that results from abuse, particularly on the tracks “Hard Times,” which consists of Ethel recounting the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her father, the titular preacher, and “Strangers,” the final song on the album and Ethel’s postmortem lament after she has been killed and cannibalized by her lover. “Hard Times” reveals that Ethel feels as though her victimhood is proof of her own tainted character, as evidenced by the lyrics: “I thought good guys get to be happy/I’m not happy/I am poison in the water.”

Ethel reasons that her own unhappiness, which conflicts with her belief in a fair and just world, must then be proof that she is not a “good guy,” that she is a corrupting “poison” by virtue of her hurt.

In “Strangers” she similarly in-

firmation from her killer. Ethel’s loss of identity is not to be misconstrued as entirely emotional, for the violence inflicted on her leaves her “memory restricted to a Polaroid in evidence,” as all that physically remains of her is a photo of her half-eaten corpse.

Her existence is reduced to “evidence” of an atrocity; her whole person becomes entirely secondary to the violence inflicted on it.

Rather than being unique to this character, such erosion of identity is arguably inherent to interpersonal violence and is deployed to subdue victims in the face of their exploitation. Feminist scholars have argued that our sense of self is fundamentally relational to others, as it’s continually shaped and reshaped throughout our lifetimes by the people around us and even the meaning of the words we use to describe ourselves (wife, student, citizen) are deeply entrenched in social phenomena (Brison 14). Taking this view of the self, philosopher Susan Brison asserts that “victims of human-inflicted trauma are reduced to mere objects by their

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mately playing into her abusers’ hands, with their theft of her identity becoming a tool of further control over her.

Anhedönia further interrogates this hijacking of one’s identity as a means of coercion on “American Teenager,” referencing the role of nationalism in military recruitment with the lyrics: “the neighbor’s brother came home in a box/But he wanted to go, so maybe it was his fault/Another red heart taken by the American dream.”

His identification with the “American dream” both convinces him to give up his life and assigns the blame for his death to him alone.

Anhedönia’s statement that she “wrote this song as an expression of [her] frustration with all the things the ‘American Teenager’ is supposed to be

but never had any real chance of becoming” encapsulates the weaponization of a social identity for the purposes of exploitation. Her statement also raises the question: Did Ethel ever have a chance at all?

There are plenty of indications that Ethel’s identity never truly belonged to her. The album begins with “Family Tree (Intro),” which declares that “Jesus can always reject his father/But he cannot escape his mother’s blood/ He’ll scream and try to wash it off of his fingers/But he’ll never escape what he’s made up of.” The imagery of having his mother’s blood on his hands suggests that Jesus has been born of violence,

thus implying that “what he’s made up of,” which he can “never escape,” is a similarly violent end.

In this reframing of scripture there is no point in Jesus’ story at which he belongs to himself, as he is created with the purpose of being sacrificed already in mind.

Likewise, Ethel has no chance to form an identity independent from the brutality she has experienced in her journey from an abusive family to an ultimately fatal relationship. Indeed, much like Jesus, the most significant part of Ethel’s lasting memory is her death. While her gruesome murder forecloses any possibility of a happy ending, she is also already dead from the start, “swinging by [her] neck from the family tree.”

Ethel’s loss of identity is tragic specifically because it is inevitable.

Preacher’s Daughter exposes the fragility and conditionality of one’s identity through the character of Ethel Cain. The album envisions identity as not innate or fixed, but rather as dependent on one’s situation and, to some extent, the cooperation of others.

While this view endows us with the potential for self reinvention and profound connections with others, it also leaves us with the frightening possibility of never being able to become yourself or of having your identity snatched away by a callous act. How do we contend with our very selves being at the mercy of circumstances and others’ inclinations?

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The Boyhood of

Boygenius Tess O’Regan

M

onday August 28th, Kilmainham Hospital, Dublin. It’s sometime after eight, might even be nine, in the evening. I am standing in a field, the crowd around me dressed in varying levels of office-ready attire. Crisp white shirts (with the arms cut off), suit pants (paired with Doc Martens), a friend of a friend has tied a tie around their waist as a belt. There are jorts too, an ocean of distressed blue, and hundreds of hoodies with a fiery Old Testament style Biblical angel printed on the back, staring at you with its hundreds of eyes. More keep appearing as the line from the merch tent shrinks. If my mother saw this she’d say the crowd looked like a bunch of twelve year old boys.

Well, it is Boys we’re waiting for as the sun finally starts to dip.

The Boys, with a capital B. The openers (Ye Vagabonds and MUNA) have wrapped up their sets. Any moment now Boygenius will play their first Irish show as a group, their last on the European leg of their tour promoting The Record. As with all their shows this summer, the beginning of their set is signalled by the blasting of ‘The Boys are Back in Town’, by Thin Lizzy, over the stage speakers.

Boygenius are not, however, actually boys. Formed in 2018, when the three members discovered they’d be touring with each other, Boygenius is made up of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus – all solo artists in their own right.

All noticeably women. So why the emphasis on boyhood?

During their first press tour, after the release of their EP boygenius, the group explained their name several times. ‘[A] “boygenius” is someone who their whole life has been told that their ideas are genius’, Bridgers told Vogue in October 2018. Baker expanded on this when speaking to Newsweek, saying a “boygenius” is a ‘specifically male artist who has been told…that their every thought is not only worthwhile but brilliant…Conversely, women are socialized to make themselves small.’ The band’s name picks at the patriarchal oppression that represses women’s voices. This is an issue often remarked on in feminist criticism, and is in dialogue with the material conditions of an “all-female group”.

Boygenius told Rolling Stone last winter that they want to ‘exist like any other band’ without any ‘extraneous identifiers that we work within’ being remarked on. Nobody calls the Beatles a “boy-band”, but Boygenius has to work hard to avoid being landed with the title “girl-group”.

In that same Vogue article, Bridgers notes that all the recommended artists on her Spotify page are women. ‘[And] that’s great…totally check out other women’, she encourages, but the point is made.

Female

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artists are not a genre, and yet they are grouped as one.

Not because of any similarities in their sound, their style, or their actual art, but simply because of their gender.

Boygenius resist this restrictive categorisation by playing with gender. Fans and press alike refer to them as the Boys. For their Rolling Stone shoot they paid homage to Nirvana, dressing in semi-drag to recreate the band’s 1994 cover. The cover of boygenius is a visual quotation of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut. And in June, they dressed in full drag for a Nashville show to protest Tennessee governor Bill Lee’s anti-trans and anti-drag bills. As Judith Butler puts it: ‘One…cites [gender] norms that already exist, but these norms can be significantly deterritorialized through the c i t a t i o n’ (Un-

doing Gender). Again and again, Boygenius has blurred the lines of gender, advocating for queer rights, and their own personal desire to be ‘treated like famous bands of dudes’ (Rolling Stone). Because gender might be a performance, but gendered discrimination can and will reach past the curtain to leave a serious impact on the person behind it.

This sentiment comes out in the lyricism of The Record. The bridge of their hit “Not Strong Enough” repeats one line over and over again: ‘Always an angel, never a god.’ This line can be read as an explosion of frustration at patriarchal expectations that put women up on a pedestal, demanding perfection and passiveness. Make them into “angels”, if you will.

The “god” in this metaphor then could be those fabled “boygeniuses”. Boys who are given a sense of self-importance, allowed to be their own Creators.

This kind of restrictive casting of women is related to the

idea of the Madonna/Whore complex: A dualist view of women that sees them as either virginal, pure beings (mothers and wives) or sexually tainted, fallen women (sluts).

Women can be angels or demons it seems, but never gods.

Boygenius is right on the pulse of feminist thought when it comes to questions of identity and what it means to be a woman in the music industry. However, that does not mean that they aren’t aware of how men are boxed in by patriarchal systems too.

The chorus of “Not Strong Enough” begins with the lines: ‘I don’t know why I am/The way I am/Not strong enough to be your man’. There is of course a satirical metatextual level to this line. That three women sing it imbues it with a certain kind of misogynistic meaning, touching on the idea that women are “inherently” weaker than men. But on face value the line taps into ideologies of toxic masculinity; this idea that men have to be ‘strong enough’ to avoid feminisation. The theme is echoed in Baker’s verse when she references The Cure song “Boys Don’t Cry.” Similarly, there’s a confusion of gender boundaries within “We’re in Love” when Dacus sings ‘I’ll be the boy with the pink carnation…/who looks like hell and asks for help.’

According to Rolling Stone this song is about the band and their friendship.

Having Dacus refer to herself as a boy here ties into the band’s

running joke of being the Boys.

More importantly though, we see a progression from the toxic cult of masculinity that haunts “Not Strong Enough.” In “We’re in Love” there is room for a masculinity that can withstand openness and vulnerability.

Maybe the inversion of gender in their music, and the metatexts surrounding it, is a reflection on how gender is not one fixed thing. Baker mentions a “macho” sense of pride in her own fitness that almost led to her drowning during a writing trip with the group. While the experience led to the song “Anti-Curse”, it speaks of an ideal that anyone is more than capable of internalising too, not just men.

This is one of the things Boygenius does best: illustrating the overlapping, fluid lines of gender, demonstrating the damage this binary does to everyone.

The complex issues of gender and identity are treated with the nuance and understanding they deserve in their music.

The opening song off The Record, “Without You, Without Them”, has a line in it that always stands out to me: ‘Thank your father before you/his mother before him’. There’s this refusal to choose between the matriarchal and patriarchal lines of the family tree. ‘ This isn’t about a lineage of men or women, rather family, stories, and identity. What would I be without you, without them?’ The song asks.

Boygenius understands and emphasises that identity is a collage of a myriad of paradoxical cultural touchstones.

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An Aromantic Identity Emily O’Sullivan discusses the experiences of aromantic individuals remaking the ‘norms’ of sexuality and popular culture.

I realised I was aromantic when I watched Sleeping Beauty. Not because I didn’t find Aurora or Prince Philip attractive, though that should have been a sign. It was because of true love’s kiss. It was realising that if that was me, I would have died sleeping.

Nowadays the definition of love has extended to include family and friends but in the beginning it was always romance, and I didn’t have that kind of love in me. I just knew that I didn’t.

Once you notice something, it’s hard to ignore. I slowly became aware that there was this fundamental human experience that I would never get to participate in. Snow White, Twilight, The Notebook.

Every teen movie with every teen girl crush. Waiting and waiting to feel something and the dawning realisation that it wasn’t happening. My friends started talking about their crushes. Our first foray into the adult world. That was fine, fun.

The gossip and the secrets, the sanctity of the newness of this world. Then they got boyfriends.

Getting the boyfriend is fun. Just another milestone in a decade full of them. You begin to look around.

See everyone with everyone, realise you stand alone.

All of a sudden and slow as a languid river is the realisation that this is how it will always be. A future of outside. You are made aware that there is part of your identity defined by its lack. You feel it. You have stopped being a child, but the world’s conception of an adult with all the romance and settling that involves, does not seem to fit just right.

If childhood is where your identity is built for you, from school and family, then adulthood is when you add in some variety. Get a hobby, get an obsession.

Have that one feral moment you can bring up at parties to make yourself seem interesting. Because if childhood gave you a lack in your identity you can fill that with whatever you want to. You might not be able to love romantically but there are lots of different types of love to replace it with and now’s the time to do it. Just know what you’re filling the hole with.

Now you have done the emotional work. You are proud. You should be. There is a sliver of your identity that you chose and that you built. Once again you look around. Rent exists. Mortgages exist. Dual income households are the standard. You are below the standard. You are keenly aware of this when looking at grad programmes and master’s and whether or not it’s smarter to put the money towards the future because the future is that bit more uncertain for you.

So you look to representation for hope. You encounter Voldemort, who canonically was a mass murderer because he couldn’t love.

You encounter Jughead who is only aromantic in the comics as Cole Sprouse is far too good looking to not be with someone.

Canonically asexual and aromantic characters just don’t fit. Welcome to the world of head canons. The geniuses are usually a good shot. Too obsessed or just above it all to be into romance. Again, no pressure there. They usually are financially stable even on one income so there is hope there.

So, representation, though getting better, still isn’t going to give you much hope. You may question why you, why this small thing that requires of you but gives nothing in return. It requires you to recalibrate your ambitions, your self-image, your idea of your future. It requires you to look at the old fairy tales and getting a mortgage and everything in between differently. But you won’t get an answer.

So, you open your eyes a little wider and forge that different path because the beauty of life isn’t in what you are and what you lack but in what you do.

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The Dilemma of Identity in the Age of Social Media

by Shannon Cotter

“Stay true to yourself.” “Be yourself.” “Express yourself.” These are the enduring quotes which act as staples to end of every Disney Channel movie. Here the protagonist realises that the key to their happiness was not boyfriends, fame or popularity, but the undiscovered ability of self-expression.

This is a lesson that is carried over to everyday life, the subsistent belief that being genuine or authentic will attract the things and people you want. But as we move further into the age of social media, the more the line of identity becomes murkier and murkier.

The meaning of identity revolves around who you are – your hobbies, dislikes, interests, pretty much everything. Yet every day online, new opportunities arise to be more like someone else. Someone you admire, someone you envy, even someone you dislike.

It is easy to trace the stream of people who, having been sucked down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories online, develop views and even character traits that misalign with the person they were before.

It is hard to deny the influence of social media and how it can change who we are as people.

What media we consume, what we become interested in, even our thoughts. With the rise of social media, there seems to be an increase of personas to choose from, some better than others.

I think lately of the “Clean Girl” trend – a trend in which girls reverently do their skincare, meditate before screen time in the morning and consume only

healthy food. That is not to say these influences can’t be positive.

The encouragement to pursue healthy living will always reap more rewards than negatives. Provided it doesn’t lead to an over-excess of exercise or an under excess of food. But it brings up the question that if we choose to pursue these personas, how much of us is genuinely left behind?

I have grown up and seen friends around me evolve in accordance with what is trending, to take on what it is deemed suitable. The e-girl, the bad bitch, even the influencer which adapts what we wear and what we post. A lot of our consumption of what we like, the clothes we purchase or the habits we maintain can be somewhat drawn back to social media. I know well enough myself that Tiktok convinced me to watch Gilmore Girls and induced a love of autumn in a girl who was otherwise ambivalent to the season until I began to associate it with dark academia and knitted sweaters. Most people are well aware enough of the rise of incels or the self-induced “Alpha” males, the men who only take cold showers and sleep five hours max at night. All things encouraged by the internet, by chat rooms where people commune and find within themselves a bitterness that only worsens with time until it envelops. Even this era of self-love and self-care – an era where you are actively encouraged to pursue only what makes you happy can have its pitfalls. Relationships can be cut off over minor flaws, things which take too much energy can be laid off in return for self-care. Sometimes, it is even encouraged to isolate yourself rather than be disappointed by the flaws of those around us.

This new level of self-sufficiency, for all its benefits, seems to be breeding a new, lonelier generation under the guise of “self-love.”

“You can’t opt out of the rest of humankind,” Sally Rooney, author of “Normal People’’ once said, and there seems to be a fundamental truth to that.

The more we inhibit these personalities that we’re exposed to, the farther we grow away from our

own. “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, the most talked about book to get your life in order, describes how to change our identity, we must become what we want to be. You don’t say you want to be a runner, you run, until that becomes a core part of you, your identity. The shifting tides of who we are all lies on the basis that identity is not a concrete thing, but malleable. In that way, it brings up the question – is there ever just one version of us? Is there ever one persona to be true to? Even if these things shift with time, does some part of us still retain what made us “us” in the first place?I try to think back to the person I would be had I not been subjected to the world of social media – to the grim stream of the 2016 election, the trends for teenagers that changed with each passing year. To all the things that I have become more aware of and made me more cynical than I would like to be. Influences have always existed. In film, music, whatever pop culture took the world by storm. Social media is just another addition to this bounty, raising the question- is that one, unchangeable version still present? Or did it ever exist at all?

Changing A short story by Seán Dunne.

Looking down to his twin mittens, Baba wondered why his colours hadn’t changed. “Breakfast!” Resounded a voice from below. And below he went, treated to an assortment of grasshoppers and stick insects. With bent back his mother arched over the platter with a clear eye.

“Awfully quiet today, aren’t we?”

She was always surprised by his morning tiredness. “Just sleepy is all, how did you sleep?” A loud boisterous laugh echoed from her jowls. “How did I sleep? What kind of a child are you that you care how I sleep” She planted a soft kiss on his leathered cheeks. “I slept fine honey, now eat up and get yourself ready for the day, you’ll have to head out soon.”

“Okay mom.”

And so the subtle sounds of morning sidled on; eyes were rubbed, yawns were yawned and teeth were dirtied and cleaned in turn. Fixed into the mirror, Baba thought about his future. When would he get his colours? Why had it been so long? It was just another day for a chameleon. Baba wasn’t far down the tree when Corky made his appearance, swaggered and swaying in his usual motions. “Goooooooodmooooorning” he said “a beautiful day for adventure.”

Corky’s lassoed tongue loosed around in the air, independent of the mouth it clung to.“Please no…” feigned Baba.“What now?” “You’re not in one of your good moods are you?” Corky’s good moods were notorious for their awfulness. “I am.” The clearness in his eyes might have confused Baba, but he had quickly figured him out. “It can’t be.”

Gawked Baba. A further pause. “It is.”

Corky’s voice had the timbre of an open faucet. “It can’t be.” “IT IS.” Laying all questions to bed Corky

promptly shifted his scaled colours. The pale green of the morning had given way to a bright and vibrant blue. Baba couldn’t believe it. “What do you think?”

“Cool.” “Pretty sweet right?” “Yeah.”

Then the penultimate question. “What about you?” “Not yet.”

The pair went on their walk through the forest. More and more of the young chameleon’s were changing their colours, and Baba felt more and more out of place. What was nature waiting for exactly? Was this some test of faith? Some retribution for things done? Thoughts around in his head like a great ocean of bad, and there wasn’t a ring buoy in sight. Here was one.

“Baba.” Cried a familiar voice. “A fine day today, isn’t that right?” This was Mr Fincher, the forest Finch. “It is sir, it is.”

Replied Baba. Mr Fincher studied Baba up and down.

“Why the long face today, Baba? Something troubling you?” Baba briefly paused. A flutter of wings followed as Mr Fincher settled himself more easily on the branch. “A little bit sir.” He said eventually. “Well keep me out of suspense, let’s hear it.” Baba proceeded to relay his troubles, his fear that he would never be able to change his colours at all. “Mhhhhhhh.” Said Mr Fincher. “Mhhhhhhhh indeed.” His beak now pressed itself into his chest, plucking loose haired-tufts from his coat. “Baba, do you know what makes someone special?”

“Special?” “Yes, what makes someone special.” Baba thought for a moment, but couldn’t quite come to the point. “I don’t know.” Mr Fincher sighed. “What makes someone special, are the things that they can do that no one else can. Do you know what I’m saying?” “Not really sir.”

“Mhhhhhhhh.” He said, in a tone both loud and quiet. “It’s a hard thing to see at times. I know it well. But being

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Colours

the same as everyone else only makes things easier, it doesn’t make them better. Not in the long run.” For Baba, these words were just a little too far out reach him. But he could feel a certain shift in the wind.

“Thank you, sir.” “Anytime, Baba. You have a good day now.”

As the day barrelled along, a light rain made its presence on the forest floor. Baba and the others were taking refuge in a little barony of trees. “Any sign of the colour change, Baba?” A general laughter echoed, followed by a flail of conversation. “Cut the kid a break, you can appreciate this is hard for him too.” “Hard for him? It’s a little embarrassing to us all don’t you think?” At this point those speaking were almost impossible to distinguish, there were too many voices.

“He won’t last long out there, you know.” “Poor kid, hopefully they’ll come through fast.” “You’d think so anyways.”

“How long has it been?” “Eight months?”

“I heard it was twelve.” As the chatter continued, Baba retreated elsewhere into the canopy, the voices subsiding in the distance. Lingering now only with his thoughts, he wondered when he would get his chance to prove them all wrong.

That day would come in the following week. The Chameleons, thick in the sap of summer, were sleeping well amongst the trees. Baba sat with them, resting himself on the bark. It was then, in the stillness, that the Boomslang came. Slithering along in black and yellow danger, it passed its eyes on the surroundings. Sensing the threat, Baba’s friends morphed into the frame of their surroundings, shifting their colours to the dark hues of wood. Terror gripped Baba by the throat, as the eyes of the other Chameleons began to shift on him. “Please let me change.” He

thought. But the colours wouldn’t come.

Amidst the confusion a Gecko ran along, pressing itself too close to the Boomslang. The jaws of the snake moved quicker than anything Baba had ever seen. Like that the little creature was gone. Searching for another predator the Boomslang shifted its head back and forth, bobbing in the air. Baba thought his fate was before him, as he sat obvious amongst the others. But no. The eyes found their target in one of the other chameleons, camouflaged, but closer. It was Corky.

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.” The snake seemed to say, slithering its way towards him. “Hmmmmmmmmmm.” It was then that Baba did the stupidest thing of his life. With bated breath and gritted teeth he ran himself out in-front of the snake, putting his flesh between him and his friend. Still the chameleons were silent behind him. The Boomslang stopped in its tracks. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

It seemed to say with its tongue, eyeing up Baba like an unexpected desert.

Seeing the reality before him, Corky emerged himself from the camouflage and stood next to Baba, barely a thumb from the Boomslangs slithering lips.

It was now, in the dying heat of the moment, that the other chameleons made their move, swarming around the snake in their numbers. Its confusion aided them. Unawares of what to do the snake took its chances and retreated into the trees, its tongue high against its head as it seemed to say: “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm” as it went.

The chameleons filled with the adrenaline of fear could not believe themselves. “Baba, that was incredible.”

“You put yourself on the line for us all.”

“You saved us.” And there, surrounded by the praise and love of his friends, Baba turned red with embarrassment.

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Condescension Rebranded for a Younger Audience In the wake of the cultural reset of the Barbie movie, contributing writer Áine Feeney discusses the “girl dinner” rhetoric and more malevolent side of TikTok’s latest trending audio.

One of the most popular TikTok trends of the summer has undoubtedly been ‘girl dinner,’ where thousands of creators have taken to the platform to show their ideal meal, with the only criteria being that the meal had to consist of a combination of snacks, or a portion of randomly assorted food. Like most trends, its origin was humorous, as some creators inserted images of attractive celebrities over the ‘girl dinner’ audio, and the trend has grown side shoots of its own such as ‘girl calories,’ ‘girl time,’ and ‘girl math.’

According to the logic of ‘girl math’, returning an item to a shop means you have made money, thus you can spend it on something new. Or paying with cash makes the item you are buying free, because cash is untraceable and therefore the purchase feels inconsequential. These trends are entertaining and provide women with a forum for sharing their experiences, but is there a hidden danger to the rhetoric creators are using?

Some would argue that the discourse around “girl dinner” and its various iterations is simply a reclamation of identity. As we leave the 2010s behind, we wave goodbye to an era during in which it was the absolute antithesis of “coolness” to be girly.

Girls were pressured to avoid acting like “other girls” (i.e. enjoying stereotypically girly things) all with the goal of appearing attractive to men. It was also a time when girls were made fun of engaging in fandom culture (a rather difficult thing to avoid during the age of Tumblr and the wave of boy band popularity that had been coming in and out of fashion since the 1990s) So can we justify “girl dinner” as being a celebration of girlhood

and the freedom to choose whether or not to identify with it? In one sense, most certainly. However, like most trends, they reach a crescendo of absurdity as creators take it further and further to put their own spin on it. At this late stage of the trend’s cycle, it has approached dangerous territory as creators are now inserting images of ridiculously small and disproportionate meals, like a can of diet coke and a small bag of cereal.

Aside from the obvious implications this has for toxic diet culture, we are now at a point at which the focus has shifted towards parody and patronisation.

One commenter on a TikTok by the creator @ halleykate keenly observed that “girl dinner is an [eating disorder] with a pink font” while others have condemned the trend of ‘girl [insert noun]’ for infantilizing women’s behaviours and justifying dangerous habits such as disordered eating and reckless spending. There is a very fine line between genuine empowerment and gendering an entire set of behaviours under the guise of false empowerment. A trend from earlier in the year conveys a similar message, as creators posted videos alongside the song ‘Just a Girl’ by No Doubt with captions like “me doing the most illegal things ever but it’s okay cause i’m just a teenage girl” (@ womenlover183) While a lot of these posts are clearly satirical, they are a subliminal reflection of our current social culture and

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the way in which performative activism and empowerment for the sake of aesthetics can actually further reinforce the gender binaries that have defined our society for centuries.

Parallels can be drawn between this phenomenon and the ‘girlboss’ aesthetic that rose to popularity in the 2010s, particularly when comparing how both sets of trends condescend women. The term ‘girlboss’ came about during a time where hustle culture and burnout were romanticised, and women were encouraged to go above and beyond in all areas of their lives in an attempt to answer the age old question of “can women really have it all?” In an article for Utopia-The-Edit, podcaster and YouTuber Keelin Moncrieff describes the notion of the now ‘redundant’ girlboss as ‘a hamster in a capitalist, sexist, environmentally and humanly exploitative, racist wheel.’ What’s interesting about the girlboss aesthetic, is the language that it uses and the way it cushions the harmful, toxic behaviours that it perpetuates.

In her 2022 Netflix special ‘Hot Forever’ American comedian Iliza Schlesinger describes the false empowerment of the ‘girl boss’ aesthetic as ‘glitter speak’: “In an attempt to empower women, we’ve decided that the best way to do that…is to talk To women like they are f****** idiots, and we use a specific language, you’ve seen it in giftshops, on thank you cards…you’ve seen this pejorative and infantilised ‘glitter speak’. You’ve seen this language: ‘Yes! Sassy AF! Twerk it mama! Not an entrepreneur, a she-entrepreneur.

Not a boss, a boss b****, cause’ it’s different from a regular boss, like a boy!”

Schlesinger then goes on to comment on how marketing teams stole this type of language from drag queens as well as black and LGBTQ+ communities in order to sell their products, all the while talking down to women under the shallow pretences of empowerment. As is the cruel nature of capitalism, marketers will do anything to hop on a current trend to sell merchandise, and it’s only a matter of time before retailers begin churning out lunch boxes with built in portion control segments, emblazoned with the words ‘girl dinner,’ ‘girl snack,’ or ‘girl lunch.’

the release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie this past July.

The film offers a fresh, wholesome perspective on girlhood as it reimagines the world as a much kinder, more empathetic place. This prompted creators on TikTok to revel in their own shared experiences of girlhood and what it means for them. In comparison to this, the entire discussion around ‘girl math,’ ‘girl dinner,’ and ‘girl time’ seems a little foolish. It seems like we have leaned so far into the sense of faux-empowerment that it provides, that we end up coming full circle and making a mockery of the experience of girlhood.

Not only does the language of ‘girl dinner’ help to justify disordered behaviours, it patronises women and dismisses all they do as nothing more than just the work of ‘silly girls’. All of a sudden, girlhood is no longer defined by this sense of celebration and friendship and wholesomeness, but rather by frivolity, irresponsibility and childishness. Like clockwork, another generation of hard-working girls and women are dismissed by the same hand as their millennial ‘girlboss’ predecessors: their own.

The real-world implications of this trend are not clear, but it’s likely that like most trends, it will die just as quickly as it sprung up. However, it is an important lesson to consider when we are choosing what language we use to talk about ourselves.

In a world where women struggle to be taken seriously in their professional and personal lives, the use of over-saturated phrases like ‘girl dinner’ feel less like self-deprecation and more like self-sabotage. The feeling of girlhood is unique to every person that identifies with it, but to confuse its softness with childishness is volatile ground to tread - if we start infantilising our own behaviours, it’s only a matter of time before others start treating us in the same vein. There is a delicate balance to find with every content trend on social media, and while many see absolutely nothing wrong with this one, it’s important to keep an eye on it before the next iteration comes along to condescend the next generation of girls for simply existing.

The question remains as to how the ‘girl dinner’ trend fits into this overarching issue of condescension that originated with ‘girlbossing’. Girlhood in general has become a huge talking point in popular culture this year, largely on account of

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rishness, s o m e thing as free flowing as the Atlantic i t s e l f

Tiernán Ó Ruairc dives into growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland and why a ‘homogenous Ireland’ was never true to begin with Cork City Library on Grand Parade closed in July following a far right protest and another incident occurred on Sunday the third of September. It’s clear that a small group of agitators believe their identity is being wiped away. Their anti-migrant rhetoric is in line with many groups on mainland Europe and the United States. Their fear is that increased immigration into Ireland will dilute the Irish people, with some far right commentators comparing it to genocide. While highly disrespectful to those who suffered genocides in recent history like the Tutsi and Twa people of Rwanda and of course the Holocaust, these have not fallen on deaf ears.

For whatever reason Irish people are convinced that each and every immigrant is hell bent on destroying Irish culture. Well White Irish culture.

Despite the growing diversity in Ireland the CSO still accounts for 77% of the nation

identifying as White Irish in 2022 with a further 10% identifying as White Non-Irish.

What this means is that only 13% of the population identify as Non-White Irish, this includes people of Black African descent and Asian. This is completely expected for a country in the Northwest of Europe where the population have been ‘light’ skinned for almost 30,000 years as a reaction to the lack of UV exposure done in this part of the world.

So, if we still live in a white Ireland, what’s the issue?

The only answers they have is that they don’t want the country to lose its heritage. What heritage? The idea of a homogeneous Ireland is odd, considering that before the Norman invasions and English plantations there was no such thing as a homogenous Irish people. In fact, any homogeneity we had was based on the fact we hated our invaders. It would certainly be stretching pretty hard to call contemporary immigrants aggressive invaders. Surely our Irishness comes from our love of things that are of the land. Is it as simple as having the passport, or does it go deeper than this? Is it our affinity to the glens of Antrim or the rugged hill of Galway and the Fields of Athenry or the Curragh of Kildare for those of us so inclined. Does that mean that after three generations the grandchildren of Georgian immigrants are still not Irish?

Is this in spite of the fact they attended the same primary schools as ourselves and learnt Irish, attended the same cúl camps and ran through the

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same fields to the quarry out the back of the town to drink when they were too young to be doing so legally. This idea of an Irish Ireland is flawed.

Most of us, if we look deeply enough, have some odd protestant Anglo Irish marriage pre nineteen twenty , a lot of names like Ó Ruairc and Lachlann and of course anything with Fitz in it are not as Irish as we’d let on. Irishness is defined by our next inclusion. In thousand years what we deem Irish now may not be so Irish Certainly after any union of the full island will we call northern Irish people imposters? They certainly don’t share the same recent history as ourselves. Will they be seen as immigrants too in a country they’ve just entered, heck will we of the south be immigrants in a new Ireland. Will we be Irish at this time or something new? The names used to describe people of this island can change much like the measurements used to determine who is Irish. Or will the new mashing of communities create something entirely new. Ireland isn’t something solid, its flowing like water and changes based on the terrain or the people. Irishness is the people that choose to be Irish, its not something predestined to a select few.

ing good at something is our ticket Navigating Identity to making friends, making people proud of you, earning praise and an identity. I’m Me and as a Former ‘Gifted Kid’ moulding I like hurling, I’m Me and I’m good

By Deputy Editor in Chief, Jessica Anne Rose Humans are multifaceted beings that cannot be defined by a singular personality trait or talent, yet humans are complex beings that need labels to comprehend people and life around them. As a writer, to an extent I enjoy that, having an explanation, description, or a singular word that defines what I see in front of me. To define myself. I am a woman, I am a student, I am a writer, I am a sister, I am a lesbian, and I am also someone who experiences existential dread that I will never be all of the people I want to be. Welcome to your twenties: the unique time period where you will watch people your age get married, have babies, move countries and hit countless milestones as you stand surrounded by college work in your childhood bedroom and hype yourself up in order to call the local Chinese takeaway.

I take comfort in knowing that I’m not the only person my age who hasn’t got a clue about where they’re going or who they want to be. As children and teenagers, we are naturally praised for the things we excel at, maybe it’s a sport, performing, maths - and growing up we are absorbent sponges that learn from how we are interacted with. We learn that be-

at singing, I’m Me and I want to be a designer when I grow up. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it messes with your head when you graduate secondary school and you need to enter adulthood where you don’t get praise. Instead you need to focus on either getting a job immediately once leaving school or making a plan to study in order to get a job. You’re also supposed to know what that job is, which is strange to ask from an eighteen year old, as if we’d know what our twenty-five year old self wants from life.

If you’ve just entered UCC or have been here for a few years and feel the same, welcome. College is wonderful but that transition from secondary school where you were herded like sheep for six years and have suddenly been released onto campus is brutal.

It can feel like you suddenly need to know everything about life and yourself, when the reality is you will never know everything no matter how long you live.

Things change far too often - I graduated from secondary school in 2020 from my living room and now I’m in my final year of my undergraduate degree and expected to write a dissertation. Growing up my assigned talent was writing, hence why I’m speaking

to you here, but I can’t help but feel hesitant to confine myself to just that. Will I be bored of it by twenty-five? I adore it and it’s what feels natural for me to do, but I love so many other things too. Should we just follow the safest option, the option we’ve been expected to take, because we have no idea what else there is? And how are my former classmates getting married? In this economy?

Along with the other aspects of myself I shared in the first paragraph, you will have now realised that I am an overthinker. Unfortunately I don’t have the right answer for you if you feel the same as me, but isn’t that kind of nice? It’s terrifying, not knowing what comes next, especially if you worry a lot about the future like me, but it’s also fun just floating on your back in the ocean with everyone else, wondering if a wave will hit. What I do know is that who you are isn’t just what you’re good at. To the people you know, it can actually be one of the least important things. One of my best friends is one of the most spontaneous people I know. She comes and goes like a wisp, bringing sunshine and letters of affection she wrote that night, excitedly talking to everyone

she passes. She is an incredible listener who gives deeply empathetic and helpful advice. She doesn’t care how she is perceived by people who don’t matter. The way she sees the world and the way she describes it and its inhabitants is something I could listen to forever. She’s also a champion athlete.

I am learning to see myself in the same way that I see my friends. I am learning not to criticise myself for being behind them in some aspects, because I am also ahead of them in others. We’re not in competition with each other either, in fact we’re teammates. So I’ll continue to enjoy my course and writing, I’ll continue to engage with the hobbies I like and I’ll try new ones. Next year I’ll hopefully do a masters, chosen specifically because it is about something I love. We cannot choose to go back or to slow down, but we can choose to make our experience as enjoyable as we can. In a world that changes as quickly as ours where it’s impossible to know what’s even happening tomorrow, you owe yourself the things that make you content, whether you’re ‘good’ at them or not. Now go live your authentic best life whatever form that may take, you hot mess.

“I am the one thing in life I can control. I am inimitable, I am an original.” ‘Wait for It,’ Hamilton

Commemorating Creative Legacy: Remembering two amazing friends through the Artwork that they left behind By Ronan Keohane I would like to dedicate this new section to 2 wonderful old friends of mine: Bonnie Hickey and Hollie O’Connor, who unfortunately passed away in tragic circumstances.

Implementing this section into our magazine aims to celebrate UCC’s artistic talent. I strongly feel that artists and creative minds are not celebrated enough or given the recognition they deserve. I hope I can bring hidden talent to light by setting up this section. Nowadays, an artist is a very tough identity to be. Some of the biggest challenges of a modern artist include financial instability during the ongoing economic and housing crises, the pressure to stand out in a highly crowded market, the prevalence of AI automation and the pressure to assume a multifaceted role of self-promoting and entrepreneurship, among many other things.

More broadly, in the context of hyperconsumerism and neoliberalism, there is less and less respect for the intrinsic value of art and authentic creativity. Visually we are highly overstimulated, and in the market, art is commodified and reduced to a status symbol.

With this said, I would love to discuss 2 amazing artists who I had the incredible privilege of meeting and who both changed my life completely. I met Bonnie Hickey in secondary school, and I met Hollie O’Connor through some mutual friends.

To commemorate them, I decided to celebrate their life and work in this magazine feature.

Bonnie Hickey

Hollie O’Connor

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The life and work of Bonnie Hickey Bonnie Hickey was a captivatingly beautiful and kind soul with her entire life ahead of her. Bonnie passed away unexpectedly and tragically on October 3rd 2021. Her closest friends had described Bonnie as an “irreplaceable shining star” and “a hopeless romantic, poet, creative, explorer, glasses breaker, a talented painter with inspiring taste in music and movies”, a woman who “collected many fans, broke many hearts and was effortlessly class”. I would most certainly have to agree.

I saw Bonnie for the first time in our school hallway. Immediately, I was in awe of her unique style, which was simple yet effortlessly elegant and stylish. That was the very first thing which caught my attention. At that time, I was unaware of her name and only learned it after asking around. My admiration grew after seeing some of her work in my art class, and I immediately saw the talent radiate from her work. I didn’t interact with her for a long time out of nervousness and social awkward-

ness. I had very little self-confidence after spending most of my childhood tormented and friendless; as a result, I never assumed she would have any interest in speaking to me or becoming friends with me. Eventually, when I built the courage, I decided to friend her on Facebook. After weeks of liking each other’s posts, I eventually texted her.

It was a short and sweet message complimenting her work and style, saying that I thought it was rare and cool to see in our small town. From then on, the friendship blossomed. Eventually, as the friendship grew, we shared our favourite songs and discussed our favourite artistic movements and why we liked each one. It was my first time having an intellectual conversation about topics like this with anyone in my small town. I remember being so taken aback by her wisdom and insight; not only did she talk about the products of the artistic movements but the historical background behind why they emerged during the periods that they emerged in.

I remember not always knowing how to respond because I knew that anything I would say would sound so simplistic and uninformed by comparison. However, Bonnie was far from the type of person who would judge someone for not being

highly informed on topics she was interested in.

see the amazing woman she had become and her living and thriving; it was a special moment. In a million years, I Through our friendship and different would have never expected it would be conversations, I was tremendously inthe last time I would ever see her. Shortspired in my journey as an artist. I was ly before her passing, she worked as an never really sure whether or not it was art teacher in Valencia, Spain, where I reciprocal, but I certainly hope it was. am confident she inspired many more Bonnie was a talented multimedia artist, people. always brimming with ideas and radiA particular piece I loved is that of a ating inspiration. She was remarkably faceless woman. I have my own set of gifted when it came to painting, and be- interpretations about the meaning confore her passing, she had sold multiple veyed through this piece; however, firstworks in our local Limerick Milk Marly, I would love to share Bonnie’s artist ket. When she first started to sell her statement, and present her work, letting work, I visited her at the stand, and we it all speak for itself. talked and laughed together for a while about how we had joked years before (in As per her artist’s statement, Bonnie one of our very first conversations) that said: “The themes which I explore in my we were both destined to become hippy work include the human form, femininart sellers in the Milk Market eventuity and the internet’s effect on the female ally. I told her that it was so amazing to psyche. I chose to use materials such as silk, cotton and thread. Silk is often associated with beauty and luxury, cotton and thread are associated with the crafts and home – mothers changing sheets or sewing up our hems. Society is changing; gender roles are changing and the internet now plays an increasingly larger role in our lives. I chose to paint a faceless nude as a symbol for how people on the internet can be anonymous or edit themselves. For this reason people can feel both connected and disconnected to society” I felt that this piece was particularly striking and relevant to the struggles of our times.

Along with her apparent skill and craftsmanship, Bonnie had a fantastic ability to contextualise her artwork within the struggles of the times that

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we live in. Although everyone will have different interpretations of the artwork, my interpretation of it has always been that we are all reduced to faceless bodies through social media machines. The female body is particularly rendered as a faceless body with the rise of social media and the internet, given the mass distribution of pornography, often depicting the female body as a subjugated and powerless form. In these contexts, the screen divides the viewer and the woman; the viewer is disconnected from the woman’s humanity and the complexity of her person and soul. Social media profoundly negatively impacts people’s mental health and affects their relationship with society. Making something so evocative out of one of the biggest struggles of modernity is commendable.

In addition to figure painting, Bonnie experimented with abstract art; here is an example of a work demonstrating her fluid art skills. I love this piece mainly because of the radiance and energy within it. The elegant flow of the paint, along with the contrasting

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light and dark hues, masterfully intertwined, created an enchanting visual rhythm that seemed to dance across the canvas. It was as if the artist had harnessed the very essence of movement and translated it into paint.

Although Bonnie is unfortunately no longer with us, I will forever be grateful for all our conversations together; each of which were life-changing. When I first heard the news of her passing, I was shocked and completely shut it out of my mind. I had repressed it for months and refused to deal with it properly. Instead, I overloaded myself with hundreds of different responsibilities so I never had to face my thoughts, and I drank every night until any pain I felt was numbed over. When I came to terms with it, all I could do was send her endless messages to her inactive social media accounts, hoping they reached her somehow. I also began reading through our old messages and reminiscing about our old conversations. One day, I eventually visited her wonderfully decorated grave. I placed my phone on her tombstone and played some of our old favourite songs by Cocorosie and Neutral Milk Hotel. While the different songs were all playing in the background, I told her everything that I got up to during my year abroad and many other crazy travel stories from my time in various countries throughout East Asia and the Middle East. I told her about the lessons I had learned from her, the confidence she had inspired in me, and everything she had given me.

The life and work of Hollie O’Connor Hollie O’Connor was a magical, unforgettable and amazing young woman who unfortunately passed away on April

4th, 2021. Not only was she one of the sweetest people I ever had the pleasure of knowing, but she was a highly talented and accomplished artist who had been highly commended and won competitions for her work.

When I think of Hollie, the words ‘free spirit’ come to mind. In a very peculiar way, when she passed away, I felt significant gratitude towards her for what she had contributed to my city while she was alive - this was felt just as strongly as all of the surrounding

sadness I had felt. I was grateful she had inspired many people with her artistic talent and passion. I was thankful that she was always so kind and had so much humanity. I was grateful that she was always genuine and 100% herself, and never followed all of the arbitrary and meaningless rules that our city expected her to, and never lost her identity or sense of self through the extreme pressure to conform within Irish society. These were all scarce qualities in the city that I grew up in; the consequences for not conforming to the set of expectations, behaviours, and appearance were all significant.

It would have taken considerable courage and authenticity not to be constrained by all of that.

Hollie was a supremely talented multimedia artist who was always coming up with innovative ideas, and creating various projects with various materials, including charcoal, ceramics/sculpting, watercolour, lino, sketching, etc. This represents terrific versatility and diversity in her artistic contributions.

Through her social media accounts, she was also generous enough to share the steps of her artistic process in depth with the world; she often shared photos of various pages of her sketchbooks and posted Instagram stories of the different projects that she was working on.

My favourite paintings of hers will always be her self-portraits. She was a beautiful person inside and out, and so talented.

Something so amazing and special about Hollie was her kindness. She selflessly sold her artwork to raise money for a local charity, Foynes Search and Rescue.

This charity is guided by compassion and strives to bring mental health support to the community of Foynes. Being such a compassionate human being and an avid supporter of mental health, Hollie set up a stand. She raised €230 by selling her artwork to the general community. This was done selflessly and in the interest of the greater good, which shows precisely the type of person she was.

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By Justine LePage

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A letter to my dysphoria

By Ruby Kloskowski You glare at me, threaten me from within mirrors and window reflections.

I feel your presence along every step of my life.

Such a simple creature engendered by design to exist within the recesses of my mind.

A vicious reminder of my own bodies self-loathing.

Like a smouldering iron you brand me with your shame, you make me wear it on my sleeve.

You are a shadow on radiant summer days, you slither behind me, taunting me with your presence.

Your form disfigured and warped, mimicking my body crudely.

Yet on tranquil nights is where you show yourself.

Your apparition no longer restrained in the confines of dark corners; the night is your domain.

You envelop me in your freezing embrace and bring upon such a paralysing fear.

A fear of shame and disgust.

Do I pass? Am I too manly? Will someone know? What will they all think if they find out?

You tumble these thoughts in my mind.

The shame of my frailty and the disgust of my body.

As the agonisingly long night ends, I know your embrace will never thaw and that your grasp on me will never loosen.

I will not let you define me.

So, when I wake up beside the pit you left in my bed and your cold presence still lingers.

I know that I am worth more than the words of a pathetic creature such as you.

| creative works | 47

Untitled Poem Srujani Dash

48 | creative works |

Santorini | creative works | 49

Aikaterini Kousouri

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