Motley Magazine - Vol XVII - Issue II - Fear

The

Fear

October 2023

Issue

Derelict Ireland The De-Yassification of Chambers

Fear Everything And Rise

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, previously published by the Organization for World Peace. She’s also the secretary of UCC 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 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 Kavsar Kurash, Asena Bazakova, Shannon Cotter, Dave Hackett, Saoirse Exton, Júlia Vašečková, Jessica Anne Rose, Kevin Quane, Stephen O’Brien, Sydney Marhefsky, Tess O’Regan, Andrew Mason, Seán Dunne, Sarah O’Mahony, Yozlem Dogan, Megan Burns, Farahnaz Haidary, Cormac Denis Donovan O’Neill, Ellen Ni Chonchuir, Alice Buckely Healy, Emma O’Neill, Robyn Zeta Zelly, Anastasiia Cholan, Ayane Minami, Haruka Higa, Miquel Pastor, Hayeon Gu, Aoi Uraguchi, Conor Hogan.

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

from the

Editor’s Desk Fear is complex and surrounds us daily, whether we like it or not. Fear is one of those things that is automatically associated with negativity alone despite it having many positive sides to it.

Fear has always intrigued me since it’s so double-sided. Oftentimes, fear can both be extraordinarily beautiful, and it can also be frighteningly hideous. Additionally, fear can inspire both the best and the worst in humanity, and this fear has a wide range of positive and negative aspects to it.

On the one hand, fear can empower and positively affect us by triggering our survival instinct or acting as a powerful motivator for change, fostering some (very much-needed) empathy and compassion within humanity. It has always fascinated me how much fear shapes different people and their personalities. There is a lot of fear associated with experiencing different traumatic experiences, however, human cultures and human beings are often shaped unique-

ly by these traumas and fears.

Fear additionally has a very unique and aesthetic quality to it. From a personal standpoint, I am typically unfazed by works of art which have a standard and conventional beauty to them; oftentimes, a sense of fear is a beautiful component in making an artistic work truly captivating and compelling. This is why I am drawn to dangerous endurance art performances and Butoh dancing for creative inspiration.

On the other hand, fear can be horrendously destructive.

We live our day-to-day lives surrounded by fears that are often profoundly repressed and hidden in the depths of our subconscious minds.

There are very reasonable and understandable daily fears which are associated with the ongoing climate crisis, cost of living crisis, and accommodation crisis, which hinder our happiness and joy for life on a daily basis. Additionally, fear can inspire the worst in humanity.

It is currently turning people against one another with the

endless fear-mongering in the media, which nowadays most prominently targets transgender people and refugees through weaponising more vulnerable factions of the population. Fear can lead to dehumanisation leading to all types of oppression.

Fear along with the desire to inspire fear is a factor which is responsible for wars, genocides, crimes against humanity, terrorist attacks, murders, etc.

I could continue this for years, but I can’t because of my word limit.

In short, it is often said that in life, we cannot have the good without the bad, that creation and destruction will always be two sides of the same ‘coin’, so to speak.

Fear exists right at the centre of that. I decided to make the theme of this issue fear, hoping for an excellent and creative exploration of the theme by UCC students. I am delighted with the submissions and excited to showcase them.

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INSIDE ISSUE No2 - OCTOBER 2023

Current Affairs

Entertainment

Features & Opinions

Creative Works

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P.17

P.22

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Special

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Progressively seperated Júlia Vašečková It’s the weekend. But instead of spending time with my friends in the city, I anxiously check my phone every two minutes. It’s election night, and I’m not even in Slovakia, but in Ireland. Frankly, no one else around me cares about it as much as I do. I would venture to say no other nation is preoccupied with these elections as we are, and yet, everything seems grave. The leading party is positively populist and dully soulless.

The former being of some comfort, as the party leader declared himself pro-Russian. It is not unthinkable to consider these claims as nothing more than empty words, taking into account the nature of populist politics and their ever changing stances.

Some time passes, the week rolls by, and I read the news. Military help to Ukraine is temporarily on hold, as the new government will have to decide on our further participation. At this time, no other information is available and the situation seems like a very long waiting game.

The truth is, it’s just one among many others, an instance in time artificially lengthened.

ed houses want to get their hands on our country, when we ourselves want nothing more than to restore our own. The same being applicable to those, who are even more fiercely seeking a free home, which hopefully lies in the future.

With that knowledge in mind, it’s easy to see the similarities, which connect us more than variations make us differ. Seemingly, as we are in the waiting process, we must, also, make the world wait. The issue being, that it doesn’t wait. It will go on with or without us, but the pride left in the past can hardly be restored.

For the time being, we are waiting for us to gain a sense of self. In this process, we unfairly project unto others, rendering them even more distressed, because we lack the conviction to truly stand up for our principles. As to what those principles are, it’s unclear.

As one goes through life and other places, it is hard not to take notice of the prevalent, almost universal approach to wait-andsee policy. We wait as the votes are being counted, we wait for the results, we have to wait and see what will become of us and then we wait some more.

We patiently wait as our houses are slowly turned to debris, we wait for the landlord to call us back to tell us the suspiciously expensive studio is not available anymore, and we wait for our home to come to us. Somehow it never does. Or it’s just a matter of time. We might as well wait a bit more.

It’s said a home is not a physical place, but rather something abstract. Can it be a moment in time? How else do I make sense of the fact that my fellow countrymen elected this party for the fifth time? We wait with an almost nostalgic intention, regressive notions taking over in times of need. With high expectations do we wait for the better someone to come, not realising we are the vessel, situated in the present.

And yet, as we struggle to clean our home, we leave dust on the doorstep of our neighbour.

Blindly we think that the people with bombard-

It’s quite obvious from the results of the elections that we are divided, creating an unstable environment not only for us, but those who highly need our help. But it’s precisely in a divided world, that people need to clearly identify the ethics of a dignified country. With that being said, not all has to be lost. We are, after all, still waiting for the official statements. And that’s what makes it so painful, at the forefront the instability of it all, as we passively and fearfully observe and wonder.

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Derelict Ireland: Cork’s house hoarding problem

Frank O’Connor is one of the main driving forces behind the campaign Derelict Ireland. The campaign highlights the incredible amount of dereliction and vacancy in our cities, towns, and rural areas whilst we continue to struggle through this prolonged housing emergency. Dave Hackett from the show Keeping Track on UCC98.3FM speaks to Frank O’Connor to get the lowdown on the campaign and finds out why Frank and his partner Jude Sherry decided to take on this gargantuan task.

Can you tell us how you started your campaign, Derelict Ireland?

Myself and my partner Jude lived away for a good few decades and we moved back to Cork just over 4 years ago. We fell in love with the city, particularly the friendliness of the people in Cork, but we were really shocked by the levels of dereliction and vacancy, as well as the housing crisis, the homeless crisis, and the decaying heritage. It was these observances that really struck us. We work as designers with sustainability as the strategy for building products and urban environments. So, we started doing research from day one, started taking photographs, chatting to people, and basically continued doing that for about a year and a half, researching the different areas and we decided that dereliction was something we should really focus on. It was something that had become normalised in Ireland. People were just accepting it as something that was normal in their street, in their town, in their village and Jude and I just couldn’t accept that.

Our work is very much about challenging cultural norms and we look at the alternative. And for us, dereliction should not be acceptable. It shouldn’t be normalised and it’s destroying our towns, our communities, taking away homes from people who need them and also taking creative spaces as well.

So, on the 24th of June 2020 we decided a way forward. We started a Twitter thread and for the next year we shared one property or two properties per day, all within 2 kilometres of Cork City centre. Over the course of that year the whole Derelict Ireland campaign evolved and we really wanted to shine a light on Dereliction and Vacancy and to say this is not normal and we need to change it and we also wanted to show there are other possibilities.

Can you give us an example?

We’d come from Amsterdam, Amsterdam had

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a huge dereliction issue back in the 70s and 80s and the Dutch had gone out on the streets, young kids, the elderly, the whole lot went out in the streets over and over again and said, look, this is not acceptable and they kept doing it until the authorities had to change things. If anyone’s been to Amsterdam in the last few years they will see that it’s a thriving city.

There’s over 50% social housing, it’s very livable, and it’s safe. But also they’ve managed to bring back their heritage and I think people don’t realise the value of heritage. I mean Cork City is an amazing city in terms of heritage, but sadly we’re losing so much.

So, for us we had to start the campaign. We wrote a report and Jude took the lead in terms of data. We analysed data for 340 properties in Cork City. This is the first time anyone has done this. Jude went through all the publicly available data and we produced together a report called ‘This is Derelict Ireland’, which was launched in March 2021. That really took the campaign outside of Cork. We started travelling across the country taking photographs, meeting people, and likewise groups that are set up right across Ireland.

Why do you think dereliction has become normalised in Ireland?

It’s been around since the foundation of the state. In Ireland we have a strange relationship with property. It’s like you can’t talk about someone’s private property. There were obviously things like the crash. There’s a lot of people, unfortunately, just hanging on to property, they see it as an asset or an investment.

A house should be someone’s home, not some investment for someone to make money in the long term, but I think it’s a whole load of issues really. But I suppose one of the things that’s become normalised is that people basically didn’t want to question it. Questioning someone on a private property basis is a tricky conversation in Ireland but people forget that the constitu-

tion actually does protect the right to property in certain situations when there’s a real need, and I think no one can argue that the need isn’t there in Ireland in the last few years.

At the moment in Ireland there’s over 20,000 derelict homes and there’s over 160,000 vacant homes. These are not holiday homes. That’s over 180,000 potential homes that could provide somewhere safe and secure for families or individuals. We have kids where Jude and I live in Shandon coming from temporary hotel accommodation, passing derelict and vacant houses on their way to school everyday. It’s a breakdown in the social contract.

There’s probably amazing graduates going to come out of UCC this year with all kinds of disciplines and I’m hearing over and over from my circles a lot of those graduates are going straight on a plane to leave our country rather than face living with their parents until they’re in their late 30s.

Is dereliction profitable?

It is and that’s what we found with our report.

Jude looked at a lot of properties that had been hoarded for years. She looked at what they were originally bought for and each year the value of the empty house went up 20,000 a year. So, it is profitable to hoard in the city.

Is it a myth in Ireland that politicians own a lot of property?

From our data it seems they do own quite a lot of property. Personally, I don’t think politicians should be owning lots of property. It just doesn’t make sense. How can you make fair judgments?

How can you be true and ethical with your decision making?

How does dereliction affect our community?

Obviously, it attracts anti-social behaviour, vermin and makes the street less safe, often destroying heritage, the sense of place being eroded but it is a blight on our cities and it creates urban decay. It is state enabled vandalism.

Yourself and Jude have been running this campaign now for almost 4 years. Do you do this off your own back?

Yeah, it’s totally self funded. Myself and Jude really believe that people have the power to change things. We just need to basically work together and not accept the cultural status quo around dereliction and vacancy. Derelict Ire-

land is far more than just derelict properties.

It’s about how we live, it’s how we treat each other. It’s about how we respect our built environment. It’s about cultural change. So there is still a long way to go but we are so pleased that it’s not as normalised anymore. People are starting to question it. Derelict Ireland is not just a project for me and Jude anymore, it has become a movement. Can you imagine if everyone from an 8 to an 80 year old could live in our urban environments, in our city and towns. People living over shops, heritage restored, the kids playing in the streets, it is possible. We’ve lived in Amsterdam. That’s what is there. We can have it in Cork. Cork is a unique city. There’s no city in Ireland with the same range of built heritage dating back hundreds and hundreds of years with so many influences.

It must be a hard thing to do every day putting pictures of decaying buildings up on social media. Do you find any solace in it, does it bring you any sense of fulfilment?

It’s the community. I mean, we had to do something, so yes, definitely. I mean Jude and I were struggling before we started because we were getting so down, seeing and meeting people without a home. But the solace is that what we’re doing hopefully is making that awareness and if one or two houses come back every week then one or two more families have a home. But yeah we have to look after our mental health as well, because it can be quite challenging that way. We did a piece with The Examiner a few years ago and a woman in her 80s rang me and she was crying on the phone, she was basically saying she grew up in the city and it meant so much to her and she was so delighted that someone was finally standing up, so once you get that kind of feedback it makes you emotional.

ENVIRONMENTAL Activism Saoirse Exton Interview carried out by Motley Editor-in-Chief Ronan Keohane.

Fear can often be a powerful motivator for change.

What role has fear played in driving your commitment to addressing climate change on a global scale?

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he reality is that the climate crisis is absolutely and undeniably terrifying. When we face statistics that spell out the destruction of our planet within the next few decades, of course we have fear. To be honest, I haven’t felt a huge amount of hope lately. I look at these models of the next few decades, at the snail-pace of change entertained by leaders in the most responsible countries - and I find it next to impossible to believe we will somehow, within the next 6 years or so, reverse the centuries-old roots of climate change. I think my fear fuels my anger which helps to fuel my activism. I fear for the future, and I am angry that I have to fear for my future. As a young person, I question where the meritocracy, where the bright future we were all promised at school, by our leaders, our parents, our teachers, has gone? How is it fair that we have to inherit a world we have had no influence in messing up? I am scared of how much we will lose even if we somehow defeat the climate crisis, the language and culture and biodiversity we will simply never get back. Fear can be so debilitating and can foster apathy, but the right kind of fear - the realistic kind, the kind that avoid nihilism and maybe has some ounce of hope - is the powerful kind.

Many people fear the scale and urgency of the climate crisis. How do you maintain hope and inspire others to take action in the face of such daunting challenges?

To be honest, I find it extremely difficult to maintain hope. It is not just a discipline that needs to be practised over and over, as I’ve heard my activist colleagues say before, but also something that can be extremely easy to lose. I believe that hopelessness is also a normal response to something as big and multi-faceted as the climate crisis. Hope is also fickle, I think it responds to the particular days we have.

I like to describe hope as a pendulum, constantly moving backwards and forwards, constantly chang-

ing in a multitude of ways. If we are to maintain any hope, we have to remember that humans, although we have convinced ourselves otherwise, are inherently good. We are empathetic and compassionate, social and understanding. Although we have tarred ourselves with the brush of cruelty, it is, in actuality, only the actions of a wealthy and powerful few that have landed us in the mess we are in today.

We must remember that the term ‘Carbon Footprint’ was invented by British Petroleum in order to squarely place the blame back on the individual rather than corporations like themselves. We are at our most powerful when we come together, and the fact I have had the privilege to facilitate this coming together of people over the past few years has been, I think, my way of maintaining my own hope while (hopefully) inspiring hope in others.

Climate activism often involves confronting powerful interests and institutions. How do you cope with the fear of not being heard or having your efforts go unnoticed?

Exxon Mobil, a fossil fuel company, knew about the climate crisis for 40 years before they told anyone.

As aforementioned, British Petroleum is responsible for coining the term ‘Carbon Footprint’, which is now used regularly in schools, government climate action plans and the media across the planet. Coca Cola, in conjunction with other plastic-producing companies, was responsible for the movement to increase recycling, without any plans for plastic production to slow down. These massive corporations are certainly daunting. Shell has been known to target activists directly. They don’t like collective action. They are armed with an arsenal of ears that are willing to listen, armed with banks filled with their profits. But I think, ultimately, they are few and we are many. They may have power, but only because we as the masses, as the people, have granted them that power. It is our duty now to wrestle back that power from their hands, whether that’s through increased regulation on corporations or through mass protest and direct action. I am scared that my voice, as an individual, will never be powerful enough to challenge companies that have departments whose role is specifically to foil people like

me, who are concerned for their future, their planet and their health. As an individual, I am powerless.

But we, as consumers and as protestors, have the power to completely upheave our current social systems and ensure that our interests and concerns are heard.

The fear of climate-related consequences, such as extreme weather events and displacement, affects communities worldwide.

Can you share any experiences or stories from your advocacy work that highlight these fears and their impact?

I have a particular interest in indigenous and traditional languages and the interconnection between language loss and the climate crisis.

As the climate crisis progresses, we face losing 50% of all languages my the middle of the next century (Language Conservatory), and with that, we lose the unique perspectives these languages illustrate on the planet around us. For example, there are communities in the Amazon that see no distinction between humans and nature. They see humanity as we, particularly in countries that pollute more and are wealthier should - as part of the environment and the ecosystem. As sea-level rise threatens countries like Vanuatu, the most language-dense country on the planet, we face losing the very thing that makes us human - our language - and with it, centuries of knowledge that has been passed down through generation after generation.

We face losing the more than 300 words for snow the Sámi people have, we face losing the 32 words for field Irish contains. We face losing ancient knowledge that could help us in our struggle against the climate crisis and face losing different ways of seeing the world around us. This is one of my personal greatest fears.

Looking ahead, what are your hopes and fears for the future of the climate movement and the planet? What message of inspiration or caution would you like to convey to your fellow students through your activism?

I think as a climate movement we need to ensure that we keep up the fight. We need to continue our actions, even when momentum seems to be falling away. Whether we continue protesting, or whether our action takes a different form, through educating ourselves, or through engaging in legislative advocacy. The climate crisis is certainly far

from being solved and we have increasingly less time to solve it. We need to put pressure on our leaders to deliver on their promises and to develop even more radical policies that secure climate justice, a just transition, energy and food security, and a fundamentally better future to us all. We must remember that the climate crisis affects every aspect of our existence, from the cost of living to the quality of the air we breathe. I think climate activism and activism in general can feel like something that only adults can do, only people who can vote can participate in. But we need people of all ages, from all walks of life to be climate activists. We are facing a crisis that affects all of us and so our movement must reflect this fundamentally. Schools may teach young people we are naive and half-formed beings, but we are just important as any adult and we must express our anger and frustration with the leadership that claims to represent us.

BLAMING

the Victims: Israel’s 75-year occupation of Palestine.

By Current Affairs Editor, Conor Hogan Zionism, the establishment of a God given Jewish homeland on Palestinian soil in which the European Jewry could settle is a messianic, superstitious, and nationalist idea. The promises made by the British mandate in the early 20th century essentially guaranteed a conflict with the Arabs by taking away what was most precious to them, their land. It is one of many states built on injustice or political foolishness, which doesn’t serve as a justification for eviction or destruction, but the current iteration of the state of Israel does not only threaten, but rather seeks to eliminate the Palestinian state and its people entirely. Those who are in support of a Palestinian homeland should be no less in favour of it in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks.

While simultaneously condemning the acts of mass murder carried out by the Islamist fundamentalist sect of Palestine’s resistance movement, one can recognise it as a response to the decades of expansion, subjugation and slaughter inflicted by Israel’s occupation.

The establishment of Israel as a state in 1948 occurred partly due to the already substantial portion of Palestinian territory the Zionist faction had acquired,

as well as their dominance of the political battle for Palestine on the international stage. Israel has continually expanded in size and power since. In 1967 it annexed vast amounts of Arab land—a territorial annexation that more than tripled the dimensions of Israel’s original confines, encompassing the entire corpus of historic Palestine, territory which it still occupies.

In 1973 Israel further expanded its borders into the Golan Heights. This military occupation and the persistent subjugation and humiliation of the non-Jewish population found its backing in substantial foreign support, without which it could not have endured.

Until The Second World War, Europe was the central stage on which political contestation over the land of Palestine had taken place. Arthur Balfour’s declaration of support for the imposition of a Zionist state within the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire saw its articulation after the First World War, with Britain’s mandate to rule Palestine. The revolt in 1936 by the Arabs who had inhabited the land for centuries was thwarted by the British, but who attempted to quell hostilities by restricting Zionist ambitions. When the

Palestinians flee South Gaza

1948 Nakba Jewish population turned violent as a result, Britain washed their hands of the problem, relaying it to the United Nations. A partition was initially rejected by the Arabs, and the State of Israel declared itself in 1948, exacerbating the conflict. In the armistice of 1949, the land was carved between Israel and Arab states, but there was no new state for the Palestinians. They were relegated to two small strips of land, Gaza and the West Bank. The period that followed was known as the Nakba, or the Palestinian Catastrophe, in which an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were displaced, expelled from their homeland.

After the Second World War the external epicentre for the struggle over Palestine shifted across the Atlantic to the United States, where Israel has acquired an astonishing level of support from its ally. Israel is the recipient of more US aid than any foreign state in history. The implications of this patronage are that the United States is significantly responsible for fuelling and inflaming the violence perpetrated against the Palestinians, who remain the victims of Zionist theory and Israeli policy. In doing so the US and Israel are in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

The verdict of the world’s preeminent judicial authority, the International Court of Justice, affirms that the provision of the Geneva convention apply to the occupied territories, which means that all movements and settlements into these territories have been in contravention of international law. The United States’ diplomatic, military and monetary support of Israels expansion likewise place it in violation of these provisions.

Palestinians have now endured 75 years of this brutal and vicious occupation of their country. During the six-day war of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but it the popu-

lation remain isolated from their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank. Two year safter Israel’s withdrawal, the Islamist fundamentalist party- Hamas - seized power.

Despite the efforts of the United Nations, the United States, the Israeli parliament, and the Palestine Liberation Organization, no settlement could be brokered. The reason for this enduring stalemate is the effective veto that religious fundamentalists in the region have exerted over any such solution. Islamic extremists have proven equally effective in obstructing diplomatic solutions as their Israeli counterparts.

Where one faction seeks to expand their territory and impose their orthodoxy in the belief that it will hasten the coming of their messiah, the other faction adamantly claims the contrary; that divine right to the land is theirs, and that their adversaries must either leave or face annihilation. No two-state solution could conceivably be brokered under these conditions. It’s reasonably well-attested that the growth of Hamas may have originated partly from the Machiavellian decision by Israel to bolster Palestinian Islamist fundamentalism in Gaza as a counterweight to the secular and leftist PLO, who then led the Palestinian resistance. The leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, himself referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel.”

Netanyahu’s cabinet has long pursued hardline and provocative policies, expanding settlements into Palestinian territory, conducting raids and incursions into the West Bank which have seen not only Palestinian militants but also civilians dead. The attacks by Hamas now act as justification for his government to militarily decimate Gaza, resulting in the death and displacement of an entire population from their homeland.

A reality reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba now looms.

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An Activist by Birthright an Interview with activist Can you tell us about your background in human rights law and what motivated you to pursue a career in this field?

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tudying human rights comes from a very deep place within me. I have a strong personal reason behind why I do the work that I currently do. In 2000, my father, Nigmat Bazakov who was a wellknown human rights activist and politician, was assassinated. He was the head of the Uyghur association ‘Ittipak’ in Kyrgyzstan; many local Uyghurs believe that this was the work of Chinese agents however, it is not confirmed. I do not remember my father because I was less than 2 years old when this occurred. Through the work that I currently do, I get a strong feeling that I connect to him.

How has your personal background as a Uyghur influenced your passion for human rights advocacy and your choice to focus on Uyghur-related issues?

I cannot really recall the first time I heard about the specific details surrounding the Uyghur crisis or the repression of Uyghurs in China. I grew up and spent my entire life in both Russia and Kyrgyzstan, where this is much less addressed in public discourse.

When I think about it, this is rather peculiar because, in Kyrgyzstan, there is a very big Uyghur community! When I eventually got more insight into the details, I was extremely upset. It was incomprehensible to me how, in the 21st century, internment camps exist. I could not wrap my head around the idea of millions of Uyghur people being arbitrarily detained. At first, I was reduced to tears however, eventually, I reached a point where my mind went from sadness to looking more at what I could do about the situation.

When I finished my bachelor’s degree program, I decided that human rights could be a good choice. While I had such a deep motivation to make a positive difference and support my community, I felt as though I didn’t have the intellectual tools to go about it

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properly. As soon as I entered the University of Padua, I began to learn about the fundamentals of human rights. I started to look for Uyghur organisations which were active in helping Uyghurs, and eventually, I found the World Uyghur Congress, where I am completing an internship with them.

With a number of small, big steps, I was able to engage with my community on a deeper level. While I have worked extremely hard and gotten so far, my passion for the situation makes me feel as though nothing I do ever feels enough.

The Uyghur crisis has received increasing international attention. What are the most effective ways to bring about positive change and support the Uyghur community? Which ways have you implemented in your activism?

Given that we as activists have significantly less power than other actors, I personally think that grassroots campaigning and activism are the best ways to ensure positive change. This should be approached entirely through non-violent means and with the aim of confronting those who oppress us with our humanity.

With regards to my personal approach to activism, I have completed a variety of different campaigns and fundraisers in order to bring about positive change and support my community. I have also carved out a career path for myself which aligns well with what I am passionate about through applying for internships which directly address the cause. The first campaign I ever participated in was a small initiative that I personally initiated. As I delved deeper into human rights, I contemplated what actions to take to contribute to the cause. The answer presented itself naturally. Studying in the cosmopolitan city of Padova, surround-

Asena Bazakova on the Uyghur Genocide ed by students from diverse backgrounds, I frequently found myself fielding the question of my origin. When I revealed that I am a Uyghur, I often encountered a lack of awareness about my people. In response to this knowledge gap, I conceived the idea of creating a tote bag adorned with vibrant Uyghur ornaments. This design not only served as an attention-grabbing conversation starter but also featured an accompanying flyer that provided information about the Uyghurs and the ongoing Uyghur Crisis.

to see many people who are not a part of the Uyghur community also protest and advocate for the end of repression and for the fundamental human rights of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

What advice would you give to students and young activists interested in getting involved in human rights advocacy, especially concerning the Uyghur issue?

Additionally, during my internship at World Uyghur Congress, I assisted with the submission made by the organization to the fourth cycle of China’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The Universal Periodic Review is a critical mechanism established by the United Nations Human Rights Council, aimed at assessing the human rights situation in every member state of the UN. It involves a comprehensive review of each country’s human rights record, providing an opportunity for governments, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders to engage in constructive dialogue and collaboration in the pursuit of human rights improvements.

My role in this process was demanding. I contributed to the research and data collection necessary to build a comprehensive report that highlighted the human rights violations and concerns faced by the Uyghur population in China. This work involved delving deep into various sources, such as reports from NGOs, eyewitness accounts, and reputable news outlets, to compile a substantial body of evidence.

I have also participated in 2 peaceful protests in front of the Chinese Embassy in London this year. This was a unique opportunity as it allowed me to meet many like-minded individuals. It was wonderful

My advice to students and activists interested in engaging in human rights advocacy, particularly concerning the Uyghur issue, is to proactively reach out to relevant NGOs or organisations and inquire about internship opportunities. This hands-on experience will immerse you in the very heart of the issue you’re passionate about and provide invaluable insights into the inner workings of human rights organisations.

Indeed, the Uyghur community warmly welcomes any assistance and support from individuals and organisations dedicated to the cause.

12 | current affairs |

An Activist by Birthright Interview with Kavsar Kurash

I

am an activist by birthright. It is not as much of a motivation as it is a sense of duty, I have to do it even when it doesn’t motivate me.

How has your personal background as a Uyghur influenced your passion for human rights advocacy and your choice to focus on Uyghur-related issues?

- My personal background as a Uyghur has definitely had a heavy impact on my activism, though I am quite sure that I would have been an activist nonetheless. My focus isn’t Uyghur-related, it is humanity-centred centered and I deal with all the advocacy as such. However, it is by circumstance that I have been primarily active with the Uyghur cause as just being Uyghur has put me in an environment where all the tools and resources for advocacy are being served to me on a silver platter.

Can you provide an overview of the current human rights situation for Uyghurs in China and the challenges they face?

- The progress is excruciatingly slow, but it’s good progress nonetheless, and perhaps more than what we can bargain for considering the state of the world and its financial interests. The biggest challenge we are facing with China is the common issue of them being an economic Superpower, which further exacerbates the complexity of our plight. As money speaks the loudest at the table of diplomats and bureaucrats, helping Uyghurs and putting humanity first would seem to go against these nations’ own economic agendas. Who would have guessed that slavery and theft on a global scale is such a lucrative business?

As an activist, what are some of the key initiatives or campaigns you have been involved in to raise awareness about Uyghur human rights violations?

- Education of the blood trail that follows consumer products, getting in touch and lobbying with politicians, and generally being present in the activism of other oppressed people as well.

The Uyghur crisis has received increasing international attention. What do you believe are the most effective ways to bring about positive change and support the Uyghur community?

- The most effective way to bring positive change is to be more mindful of the origins of the consumer products we indulge in, as well as putting pressure on politicians and world leaders to sever ties with any industry that uses forced labor.

Could you share any personal experiences or encounters that have shaped your determination to advocate for Uyghur rights?

The role as an activist was predetermined for me as it started with my grandfather who was a counter-revolutionary and was one of the few who were trying to found a panturkic union, but that movement was short-lived, as most of the leaders of the movement were arrested and hanged. Then, there was my father, who through his poetry and music, spoke about the plight of Uy-

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ghurs, which led to a government crackdown forcing him into exile.

With the former two sadly passed away, I stand to continue the fight.

In human rights law, what legal mechanisms or international conventions are particularly relevant to addressing the Uyghur crisis, and how can they be enforced effectively?

- The entire basis of which we judged and tried the Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity. If we can not hold China accountable for their crimes against humanity on the same grounds as we did with the Nazis, then the only difference as to why the Jews are still not being oppressed by them is the fact that the Nazis couldn’t figure out how to monetise and profit off of ethnic cleansing, but the Chinese did.

petitions, and the like.

What advice would you give to students and young activists interested in getting involved in human rights advocacy, especially concerning the Uyghur issue?

Be patient. Uyghurs won’t stop suffering tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Chances are that the fruit of your labour will be seen by your children, not by you. So in a timespan of your life, it may seem like you haven’t made any progress, but the fruit doesn’t grow from a tree until the last stage of its maturing process.

How do you engage with governments, international organisations, and civil society to push for policy changes and greater accountability regarding Uyghur rights?

- Through first understanding the language of politicians and diplomacy. Quid Quo Pro, or one favour in exchange for another. It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that nothing in this world is free besides my mother’s unconditional love. We Uyghurs need to start realising that we have some power to influence politics; I am currently based in Stockholm, Sweden, and I see in Swedish politics is that in a democracy, each vote carries a ton of weight. Some members of parliaments have gotten their seats by a mere 600 votes.

We have roughly 3,000 Uyghurs in Sweden. I assume you see where I am going with this; the only obstacle is that Uyghurs slowly forget the more significant cause and are divided among minor issues. But to directly answer the question, it is through social media presence,

Looking ahead, what are your hopes and goals for the future in terms of advancing Uyghur rights and justice, both at the national and international levels?

- My hopes and goals for the future are to establish networks with other minority organisations to exchange ideas and build strength in numbers; this would be at an international level. On a national level, though, the easiest and most realistic path seems to be to try to create some form of friendship group with the local government and the various parties of Sweden, so there is a commonality that all parties can agree on.

14 | current affairs |

From Ambition to Artistry: A Conversation with Sinéad Gallagher, the Creative Force Behind Philomena Theatre Company

T

he first time I heard of Sinéad Gallagher, it was during the introduction of Philomena Theatre Company to social media. As a female-led theatre company, it was a novelty in an underfunded, yet steadily growing industry. With the collaborative talents of both Sinéad and Lír Graduate, Sadhbh Malin, it promised to be a breath of fresh air, bringing daring and new provocative voices into the fold. Imagine my shock when I discovered, several months after the announcement of Philomena Theatre Company, that Sinéad was actually a UCC resident. Having completed a degree in English Literature and Philosophy, Sinéad has recently finished her MA in Arts Management and Creative Producing. With six sold-out shows at the Dublin Fringe Festival (which is not an easy feat),

Sinéad is a talented, incredible, and inspirational young woman. I was lucky enough to catch up with Sinéad for a cup of coffee (as well as being gifted in every sense of the word, she is also kind. She disgustingly refused my offer to buy her a drink. Some people really have everything) where I picked her brains on fear, Philomena and what it’s like to become an overnight success at such a young age.

Shannon: Where did your interest in performing and theatre first come from?

Sinéad: I went to a very arts-forward school and people were very much encouraged to do art, painting, music, drama. It was just very normal, I guess, so I didn’t think of it as a special or unique thing and I really enjoyed it. I found I was good at it and comfortable with it, and I really enjoyed creating stuff with my friends. I like making people laugh as well. I loved it in school, but then in college, I kind of got quite far removed from it.

Shannon: What was the trajectory that led you to the degree in UCC? Sinéad: During Covid, I moved to Canada and when I moved back here, I worked in an office job for a year. I really liked it and it was for charity which is something I think is really valuable but I just wasn’t satisfied at all. I found the course in UCC, the Creative Producing one and I thought that was perfect.

Shannon: Was there any fear into going into an industry like the arts where there is often a lack of financial security?

Sinéad: Oh yeah. That’s why I didn’t go for it when I first graduated. I was bartending being like I could never get a job in the arts. I didn’t really think there was employment or steady employment. My parents were always very encouraging and supportive of whatever I did, but I think for myself I was like

“it’s just not that realistic.” And I still don’t know where I got those ideas from Shannon: Do you still think there is a concept of “notions” in Irish culture?

Sinéad: Definitely. I’d say I’ve internalised a bit of that. I think everyone has. Especially if you’re in the arts at all, so many people are fighting their inner demons and being like “should I stay? Is it worth it? Is this a worthwhile career path?”

Shannon: How do you think you overcame those fears and gained confidence?

Sinéad: I think for me, the main thing that really helped was just to surround myself with people who are interested in that, or at least supportive of it because if you’re with people who don’t get it or see the value of it, then obviously you’re gonna absorb that as well. Whereas I think, you know, dipping my toes and meeting people through that, that definitely helped me overcome it.

Shannon: Arts can tended be an underfunded community. How do you form connections and network?

Sinéad: I think I got really lucky the time of my life that I’m in. I guess, as a masters student, I’m a little bit older, a little bit more serious and then doing my masters, we got the opportunity to meet a lot of people in the arts. The community here is small, but really, really kind as well so it was very easy to charge people and then see them again in another event and kind of build up on that.

Shannon: As co-founder of Philomena Theatre Company, what do you think you’ve gained from taking on a leadership role?

Sinéad: It just gave me a lot of confidence. In a past project I did, people would naturally speak over other people or they would take a leadership position, but there was no assigned leader which can be frustrating a little bit when there’s no-one there to be like “this is the decision.” Taking on that leadership position honestly suited me down to the ground (laughs). With creative stuff, I can be controlling but I think I can be kind and listen to people which helps since we’re equals obviously.

And everyone has an equal say, but at the end of the day someone needs to call it and I guess it gave me a lot of confidence in doing that.

Shannon: With regards to “In Heat” (Philomena Theatre Productions sold-out, acclaimed debut), there’s a strong focus on gender roles.

Do you feel you there is a need to change how women are portrayed and if so, how would you like to do it?

en on screen, which is great, and stage as well. I think for us, right now, the most important thing, especially with “In Heat” is trying to make characters like people that we recognise on stage. Like the character of Helen (the show’s lead), there’s moments where she can be really terrible but I can definitely relate to a lot of her fears and worries and insecurities.

Shannon: “In Heat”, there’s also a lot of focus on being in your 20’s during this current timeframe in Ireland. How did you want to represent this era of being a twenty-year old which is unlike any other before?

Sinéad: I mean, I’ve never been in my 20’s in any other time but I just feel like with all of the climate emergency, the cost of living crisis, all this stuff piling on top of us and I know every generation has felt their emergency, but I’m not, like, sure if it’s ever felt this close. And like it’s confusing and conflicting that so many people our age are trying to plan our lives, thinking about families, thinking about careers, thinking about buying a house, things like that. And, then, you know, it’s like “is the world going to burn in ten years?” And like World War Three is gonna happen tomorrow. And, like, I know that everyone has been told in the past before and there’s been scary things like that, but it’s just like we’re so upfront. It’s constantly hanging over your head, like this feeling: is it okay to keep going?”

Shannon: As a final question, what was it like to gain an outpouring of support before and after “In Heat.”?

Sinéad: Oh yeah. It was so much. It was amazing.

Like I mean we have to check in with each other at times and be like “this is crazy.” We are so lucky and so glad, like lots of people do this and often people don’t care about. But we managed to engage a lot of people and people really seem interested and on board.

Unfortunately I had to end my chat with Sinéad though I easily could’ve talked to her for hours.

There’s nothing like being in the presence of someone who is so warm, funny and humble as she is talented. You can catch some of Sinéad’s work as producer for the upcoming acclaimed play “The Perfect Immigrant” which arrives in Cork Arts Theatre on November 16th, as well as during a (fingers crossed) potential return of “In Heat”. In addition, make sure to follow @philomenatp and @ginead2 on Instagram.

You’ll want to claim you’re one of the first when this woman ends up taking the Irish theatre industry by storm.

Sinéad: I think it is changing. I think there’s a lot more funny women and like, complicated wom-

16 | current affairs |

Gonzo

Tales from the Edge of Intoxication

by Kevin Quane “The only way to deal with the hangover is to look it dead in the eye and give it the finger,” I once declared to a world spinning on the edge of reason, and today, my friends, we embark on a wild odyssey into the heart of that infernal beast known as “the fear.”

In the disorienting aftermath of a night spent courting the enigmatic mistress called alcohol, there comes a point when you awaken, not in your own bed, but in a murky abyss of anxiety, guilt, and a pounding headache that makes you question every choice you’ve ever made.

This, dear readers, is the hangover zone - a twilight realm where the laws of sobriety crumble into a surreal and twisted reality. As Hunter S. Thompson once eloquently put it, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

Imagine this: You’re a fearless raconteur of the night, striding through the darkness with a drink in hand, leaving a trail of laughter and chaos in your wake. The world becomes a blur, a kaleidoscope of colors, sounds, and fragmented memories. You’re dancing on the precipice of oblivion, and the abyss gazes back into you.

And then, dawn breaks like a merciless judge, illuminating the debris of your intoxicated escapades. You awaken in a world where coherence has given way to fragments of blurred recollections. “The fear” tightens its grip on your psyche,

In the words of the inimitable Hunter S. Thompson, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” And in the hangover abyss, we are all, in some twisted way, professionals of the strange and the bizarre.

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whispering insidious doubts about your behavior and actions.

The phone becomes your confessional and your tormentor, as you desperately search for evidence of your transgressions. Did you send that ill-advised message? Did you proclaim your undying love to a complete stranger? The dread intensifies, and you’re thrust into the heart of a psychological labyrinth.

But in the midst of this chaotic theater, there’s a strange clarity. “The fear” becomes a reckoning, a mirror that reflects not only our follies but the very essence of our existence. It’s a mirror that we cannot shatter, for it is ourselves we confront.

As the day progresses, and the hangover gradually subsides, a peculiar transformation takes place.

We emerge from the crucible of “the fear” with newfound insights and resolutions. We pledge to drink more responsibly, to savor life’s pleasures without surrendering to the reckless abandon of the night.

In the haunting aftermath of “the fear,” we come to appreciate the balance between hedonism and restraint. We dance on the edge, but we learn to tread lightly. We indulge in the thrill of the night, but we emerge from the chaos with a deeper understanding of ourselves and our limits.

So, fellow seekers of the sublime, as we navigate the turbulent seas of intoxication and excess, let us heed the lessons of “the fear.” It is not just a hangover; it is a journey into the heart of our own darkness, a testament to the human spirit’s resilience and capacity for growth.

Who’s Afraid of a Little Gore? Abjection and the Pleasure of Body Horror

by Tess O’regan (Content warnings for mentions of self-mutilation, blood, and cannibalism)

I

can’t be more than eight, crouched behind the couch trying to shield my eyes, hands over my ears to block out the noise.

It would work, if I actually committed to it. Instead, I lower my hands. It can’t sound that bad, I tell myself as I do so, but it is. The sharp snips and suppressed whimpers rising from the tinny speakers across the room are the definition of awful. And yet I can’t bring myself to tune them out again. In fact, against all reason and self-preservation instincts in my body, I peek out around the back of the couch as well. Time to put an image to the sounds.

On the small screen in the corner of room X-Men: The Last Stand flickers blue and white as a young boy, Angel, clips the wings sprouting from his back. He is breathing heavily, panicked and not thinking clearly, his hands are anything but steady. The result is a back bloodied and painful and completely repulsive.

Eight year old me nearly threw up at the sight.

Eight year old me could not look away.

‘Have you seen Saw?’ It’s a question I find myself asking far too often. And, far too often, the answer I get back is: ‘No. No, isn’t it really gorey?’ This seems to be a trend with body horror films. You hear ‘body horror’ and you think of gruesomely detailed close ups of wounds, of sharpened knives, of blood and pus and various other gooey fluids. Terrifying, disgusting stuff. And you’d be right in your thinking: body horror is disgusting, it is terrifying. But that’s the point.

Film theorist Barbara Creed argues that horror scares us because of its use of the ‘abject’; “that which does not ‘respect borders, positions, rules…[and] disturbs identity, system, order’.” The abject is something that crosses the line of what society deems ‘normal’. Hence the tendency of Western horror films to de-

pict anything that strays from white, heterosexual, cis, middle-class, Christian norms as monstrous. Similarly, the abject can refer to the sight of bodily fluids outside of their usual contexts. Blood and the act of bleeding, for example, are considered abject because that’s not where the blood is supposed to be.

The ultimate site of abjection, however, is the corpse. As Julia Kristeva wrote in Powers of Horror, the dead body is ‘the most sickening of wastes…a border that has encroached upon everything.’ The abnormal, the monstrous if you will, overtakes the entirety of the human body. Death overpowers life, and the normative state of living is completely destroyed.

It is the abject then that repulses us from the mutilating traps of the Saw franchise, the intimate surgeries of David Cronenberg’s filmography, or even the slight gore of an X-Men film.

It is the abject that attracts us to these films too. Angel’s scene in The Last Stand disturbed me so much I felt ill, yet I couldn’t look away.

Years later, I’d find myself squealing in delight as I watched Taylor Russell bite a girl’s finger off in the opening ten minutes of Bones and All. The act was still horrifying – I recoiled in what Larrie Dudenhoeffer calls “a sympathetic…response to the visual compromise of certain characters’ flesh” – but something had changed.

Or rather, nothing had. Whatever sick fascination kept my eyes glued to that scene in The Last Stand was identical to what I felt watching the first incident of cannibalisation in Bones and All. But this time the feeling didn’t just nauseate me, it thrilled me. This is the true power of the abject in horror films: it allows us cathartic release for things we might otherwise never see. It satiates a curiosity for the things we confine to the shadows, the things we prefer not to think about for fear they might happen to us.

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Fear Factor: What Makes by stephen o’ brien

H

orror movies have created countless monsters and terrifying scenarios that are feared by every teen out camping, and every child staying up past their bedtime. From the meat-obsessed maniac, Leatherface, in The Chainsaw Massacre, to the night terrors of the inescapable Freddy Krueger, to the gruesome torture of the Saw franchise. These films have scarred generations, and kept them coming back for more.

What all these films have in common though, and what can make them so effective, is that their monsters (and their themes) can be linked directly to societal issues and fears of their time.

When watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you are shown a group of hippie teens driving through Texas, and a family of cannibals looking for their next meal. A pretty scary concept on its own.

Look a little closer, however, and the film becomes a criticism of the meat industry, something that was gaining a lot of traction in the 20th century over environmental and ethical concerns. A whole introductory scene is spent with the disgusted teens talking about a passing slaughterhouse with a hitchhiking Sawyer family member, when the hitchhiker exclaims, “My family’s always been into meat!”. For the Sawyers, meat is meat. Killing cows and killing humans, they’re one and the same.

With brutal gore and violence, the film makes you question that if seeing people get treated like an animal is so horrific, then why do we do it to animals?

Texas

Chainsaw Massacre also contains commentary on America and the American society after the Vietnam War. The nuclear family, a staple of mid-century media, was beginning to break down, and the Sawyers can be seen as a satire of it, with their ‘hillbilly’ ways, and the complete lack of feminine figures in the household (except for when Leatherface takes up the mantle, in drag, to serve dinner).

In the opening, the teens talk to the hitchhiking Sawyer about the newer, more “humane” ways of killing cattle. He disregards this “new way”, though, as just another thing that has put people out of work. The industrialization of the farming industry has neglected rural America, and this place has become an apocalyptic wasteland. Texas Chainsaw Massacre shows a part of the US ruined by the “American Dream”, and shines a light on the real fear at the time of what would happen to the rest of the country heading into the 80s.

A Nightmare on Elm Street, like many of Wes Craven’s films, was inspired by a real-life story; multiple refugees from Southeast Asia, particularly the Hmong people fleeing Laos, died in their sleep under mysterious circumstances. They were mainly young men between 15-25 who suffered extreme PTSD after escaping to the United States. One case, which Craven had seen in the L.A. Times, was the story of a young boy who believed he would be attacked in his dreams if he fell asleep.

Unfortunately, when the child finally did sleep, his parents heard him screaming in the night, and when they came in he was dead.

Horror Movies So Scary?

The film delves deeper into this anecdote, showing us a story of teens being murdered in their dreams by a man named Freddy Krueger, seeking revenge after his parents burned him alive. The film was released to an audience of adolescents that had grown up on violent movies and tv, and whose parents were worried about what their kids were watching, listening to, and thinking about. The 80s was a decade of the Satanic Panic, and rife with news about serial killers and child predators. It was a time when people began to not trust their neighbour, and worry about what a violent movie like Texas Chainsaw Massacre might do to an impressionable mind.

Saw was written by James Wan and Leigh Wannell back in 2001, inspired by low-budget horrors like The Blair Witch Project (1999). The premise of this film (and subsequent sequels, prequels, and spinoffs) revolves around a serial killer who traps his victims in ‘morality tests’ to see if they value their lives. This film went on to inspire a whole genre of horror films: torture porn. These films were more extreme than the slasher or splatter film of the 20th century, and were very popular. This popularity can be linked, in part, to the effects that 9/11 had on the world.

The culture in the US post 9/11 was patriotism masking a deep fear of terrorism and death. Mass shootings were starting to become the prevalent event that they sadly are, and the internet was an accessible tool for the world to see the atrocities committed in the War on Terrorism. Death and torture seemed to be everywhere. Films like Final Destination captured that constant, looming fear

of death incredibly well. The Saw films, however, portrayed this threat of death as something controllable to the audience; these torturous deaths weren’t random, it was a matter of morality. Jigsaw punished and tortured the cruel, the corrupt cops, the cheating husbands. These films helped to fill the viewer’s morbid curiosity, one created by the culture they were living in, but also placated their minds and told them that they were safe from this torture if they were good citizens.

Of course, horror movies can be written off as simple, or cheap, or trashy. Many low-budget, cash grab scary movies are created each year, normally profiting off of the success of a popular horror film from the year prior. But fear is a powerful emotion, one that is constantly fueling the news, and basically runs Twitter. So when a good writer can look at the headlines to see what is striking fear into the masses, they have the basis for an incredibly scary movie.

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Psycho Killers, the Possessed, and Neurotypical Fears of the Mentally Ill

by Sydney Marhefsky

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he aesthetics of mental illness have long been a staple of the horror genre, with allusions to haunted asylums, delirious women, and deranged scientists all making frequent appearances in horror films.

Although these motifs are often only shallow references to mental illness in order to build a sense of danger and disconnection from reality, they are not without ideological implications.

Indeed, these implications become clearer with the more pronounced image of mental illness in the particular motif of the insane killer, which directly associates mental illness and brutal violence.

Mentally ill people are persistently depicted as predisposed to violence, particularly through the well-worn trope of the “psycho” killer.

The antagonists of Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Split (2016) are prime examples of this trope, with all both films locating the monstrosity of their villains specifically in their mental illness. In Silence of the Lambs, the serial killer Buffalo Bill is identified by Hannibal Lecter as being made into a criminal by the trauma he endured as a child, with the abuse creat-

ing a pathology “a thousand times more savage” than the transsexualism he mistakenly thinks he has. Alongside being immensely transphobic, the portrayal of Buffalo Bill points directly to mental illness which arises from trauma as the cause of his murderous actions. Similarly, the villain of Split, Kevin, is a threat because of his Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is a mental illness that arises from severe childhood trauma and involves the presence of multiple personalities, called ‘alters.’ The primary danger to the protagonist, Kevin’s “evil” alter, The Beast, is animalistic, supernaturally powerful, and on a quest to rid the world of untraumatized, non-mentally ill people. Split not only constructs mental illness as a cause of violent outbursts, but constructs mentally ill people as a class that is hostile to neurotypicals (people who do not experience mental illness or disability).

These portrayals of mentally ill murderers who are killers specifically because they are mentally ill are both extremely stigmatizing and extremely common.

In recent years, some horror films have attempted to take a more sympathetic

perspective towards mental illness, shifting their focus from disturbed murderers to possessed protagonists. Two such films are Lights Out (2016), the story of Rebecca, a young woman fighting to protect her younger brother from an evil spirit which has attached itself to their mother, and Smile (2022), the story of Rose, a therapist who is cursed after witnessing a patient’s suicide. These movies’ thinly-veiled metaphors for mental illness are at best unsuccessful in their efforts to improve the position of mental illness in horror, and at worst even more insidious than previous depictions.

The films do not dispute the portrayal of mentally ill people as a threat to the people around them, and in fact perpetuate it. The evil spirit of Lights Out, Diana, consists of the remnants of a deceased little girl within the mind of the protagonist’s mother. While alive, Diana had supernatural mind-manipulating abilities, to which the protagonist’s mother, Sophie, unwittingly succumbed when they met at a psychiatric hospital. As she is harboring Diana, however unintentionally, Sophie is a danger to the people she cares about, as Diana tries to increase her own power by worsening Sophie’s mental state through murdering her partners and attempting to kill her son. In the same way, the mechanics of the curse that torments Rose make her a menace to her

peers, as the curse spreads by forcing its carrier to inflict trauma on another person by either committing suicide or murder in front of them.

Further, the erratic behavior caused by the intermediate stages of the curse leads Rose’s sister to compare her to their “insane” mother who caused them both great emotional harm. Unlike the classic mentally ill antagonists, these characters don’t intend harm, but are unable to stop themselves as they become unwitting and unwilling vessels for their metaphorical mental illnesses.

This lack of agency in the harm they cause to others leads to a grim conclusion that’s left implicit in Smile but made explicit in Lights Out. Smile ends with Rose isolating herself at her abandoned childhood home in a desperate effort to face the trauma of her mother’s death and thus rid herself of the curse. Despite confronting her trauma, she is possessed by the entity and then proceeds to commit suicide in front of her ex-partner who has come to look for her, thus passing the curse on to him.

The impression the viewer is left with is that the only moral, harm-minimizing course of action for Rose was to isolate herself and then commit suicide as soon as she could ensure no one would see it.

Indeed, this conclusion is further supported by the reveal that Rose let her mother die by refusing to call emergen-

cy services, which she does because she is afraid of her.

Within the text, Rose’s inaction is completely justified, as mental illness arising from trauma has been constructed as life-ending, inescapable, and contagious. It doesn’t matter that her mother “really [tries] to be” a “good mom,” for she never can be and her mere presence is harmful to her children. Lights Out similarly endorses this reasoning, particularly in its climax, in which Sophie declares to Diana, who is bearing down on Rebecca, “there is no you without me,” before shooting herself in the head. Though there is a moment of Rebecca sobbing over her mother’s body, the overall tone of the ending is one of peaceful resolution, as the movie ends with Rebecca, her brother, and her partner reaffirming their commitment to one another while sitting in the back of an ambulance. Both endings, be it in their tragedy or their tranquility, reinforce the notion that mentally ill lives are not worth living.

Although Smile and Lights Out are ostensibly more sympathetic to mentally ill people than their predecessors in the horror genre, the films’ acceptance of the premise that mentally ill people are a danger to the people around them leads to the conclusion that their lives are worth less in comparison to those of neurotypicals.

Under this reasoning there is no functional difference between the

deliberate m u rd e re rs of Silence of the Lambs and Split and those cursed through no fault of their own in Lights Out and Smile; Where an unhinged killer like Buffalo Bill must be righteously eliminated by law enforcement to protect the public, a well-intentioned mentally ill person must do so to themself to protect their loved ones. Instead of challenging fears of mentally ill people as violent, these movies simply pivot into the neurotypical fear of becoming mentally ill, and thus lesser as a human being.

Despite surface-level appearances of greater tolerance, mainstream horror continues to other the mentally ill in order to capitalize on the fears of its neurotypical audiences.

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SPIRITED AWAY: Miyazaki’s Enchanting Masterpiece

by Andrew Mason

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ithin the opening scenes of Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning 2001 anime feature Spirited Away, the world has shifted.

We find ourselves lost in some kind of enchanted realm with our fearful heroine, 10-year-old Chihiro, whose parents have taken a deviation on the way to their new home; the film charts her arrival and adventures in a world ruled by spirits, magic and sorceresses. While her parents are charmed by these unexpected surprises (mossy shrines, a deserted town and a feast laid out just for them), Chihiro is instinctively cautious and fearful. As dusk falls, accompanied by Joe Hisaishi’s shiver-inducing score, we are enveloped in the shifting landscape – folkloric and pastoral, now neon-tinged; we are captivated, with seemingly no way back.

After her overindulgent parents mutate into pigs, Chihiro must work for a witch named Yubaba in her bathhouse that serves otherworldly customers in order to survive and find a way to free her parents and return home.

Imaginative and inspired, Spirited Away immerses the viewer in a fantastical world that at once astounds and alarms. Many of the deities are based on figures in Japanese folklore, and part of the Japanese title itself, Kamikakushi, refers to the concept of disappearance from being taken away by gods. The story is also a tale of resilience and persistence, as Chihiro gradually draws on her inner strength to endure this land where humans are designed to perish.

Over twenty years ago when the film released, it created shockwaves in the film industry, leaving a significant impact on animation in the 21st century. Spirited Away emerged during a period when animation was predominantly perceived as a genre for a younger audience as opposed to a filmmaking craft in its own right. This was also a time when cul-

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tural disparities often became barriers to the global distribution and consumption of animation and media in general. The film broke through established stereotypes about the medium and demonstrated that even as a Japanese film deeply rooted in Japanese folklore, it possessed the remarkable ability to profoundly connect with viewers across the globe.

Miyazaki’s enchanting universe in ‘Spirited Away’ elicits profound emotional responses from its viewers. It accomplishes the magic of a fairy tale without leaning heavily on traditional narrative structures.

Unlike classic fairy tales like ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ which rely on the Witch to convey a moral message about the dangers of greed, animation transcend the need for such explicit plot devices. They possess a unique capacity to communicate meaning on an emotional and sensory level that surpasses even live-action photography.

Spirited Away accomplishes precisely this feat by utilizing exaggerated features, transformative body imagery, and the introduction of the grotesque.

Through these artistic elements, it constructs a realm beyond our own, one that immerses the audience in themes of generosity, environmentalism, individuality and overcoming one’s. Remarkably, the film accomplishes this without demanding that viewers dissect the narrative to grasp these concepts; it weaves them seamlessly into the fabric of its visual storytelling, allowing audiences to experience and understand them on an instinctual level.

While the animation and imagery are what captures the audience, it is Chihiro and her arc that captivates them. Chihiro’s arc is a profound journey of personal growth and resilience. Initially timid and fearful, she transforms into a determined and compassionate young girl. Her metamorphosis is marked by her ability to confront and overcome various challenges in the spirit world, ultimately learning to stand up for herself and others. Chihiro’s love and empathy for her friends, especially Haku, guide her transformation. Her courage in the face of adversity and her unwavering commitment to saving her parents exemplify the film’s central themes of identity, empathy, and the transformative power of human connections, making her character arc both captivating and inspiring.

BLIND DATE D&M What were you looking for from the date?

(Darragh) To do something outside of my comfort zone.

(Megan) I thought it would be a fun way to meet someone new with no planning or prior expectations.

What was your first impression of them?

(D) Very good looking, cute smile. Really nice.

(M) He seemed really sweet from the two texts we exchanged pre-date, the vibe continued when we got there.

What did you talk about?

(D) What we were studying in college, what we did for the summer. Music taste, tattoos.

(M) We talked about tattoos, music, college, careers, how we spent the summer.

Cringiest moment of the date?

(D) I don’t know if cringy is the word but I should’ve complimented them more.

(M) Honestly felt pretty effortless, can’t think of anything cringy, I’m hoping he doesn’t give a play-by-play of all my cringiest moments.

One thing you had in common?

(D) Not liking working with kids.

(M) Career goals in the same kind of area but different enough to be interesting to talk about.

Recently Features Editor Sarah O’Mahony sent two UCC students on a blind date to Alchemy Coffee Shop, Barracks Street. 15 students applied and Megan and Darragh were chosen as the most compatible. Megan is a 22 year old Accounting student from Wexford and Darragh is a 22 year old Arts student from Cork.

How long was the date?

(D) Just over an hour.

(M) An hour - I would have chatted longer but I had to run!

Did you guys go somewhere after?

(D) No, as they had something to do afterwards.

(M) No. Would you introduce them to your friends?

(D) Yeah for sure. Very bubbly, would fit in with my friends.

(M) A little too soon to say but he seems funny and sweet so why not.

What do you think they thought of you?

(D) Decent I guess? I think the good impressions were reciprocated.

(M) I hope I made a good first impression, sorry for being distracted about running off!

Final impression of them?

(D) Bubbly person, I would like to find out more about them for sure.

(M) Seemed like a genuinely nice and easy-going guy.

Would you like to meet them again?

(D) Absolutely!

(M) I think we’re going to grab a drink next week! :)

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Female

‘Twenties Terror’ Expressed in the Music of

Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo’

By Deputy Editor in Chief, Jessica Anne Rose Before they both reached the age of eighteen, musicians and songwriters Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo had achieved international acclaim for their debut albums, sweeping their respective Grammy Award seasons. Both Eilish and Rodrigo had been in the public eye from a young age - Rodrigo landing the lead role in Disney Channel show Bizaardvark at age twelve, and Eilish at age thirteen when her song ‘Ocean Eyes’ went viral on the streaming service, SoundCloud. Now the pair have released their successful sophomore albums which possess a distinctly more mature, experimental sound. Their bittersweet lyrics around womanhood have resonated with and impacted me as I’ve transitioned from being a teenager to my twenties along with Eilish and Rodrigo - despite the difference of their growing up in Hollywood and my growing up unknown in Ireland, I relate to their pangs of womanhood. Growing up as a woman is a painful, strangely beautiful, universal experience that Eilish and Rodrigo capture in their music, a capsule for generations of existential twenty year olds to come.

A self confessed ‘old soul’, Eilish laments the abuse of power she experienced as a child in the music industry, only now understanding the extent of the abuse she endured since she reached adulthood. Eilish’s music is known for its unapologetic descriptions of pain. Her lyrics speak of experiencing mental illness, loss, getting older and wondering what her purpose is now that she has achieved so much by such a young age.

Her most recent single, ‘What Was I Made For?’ is played at the main character’s moment of realisation in the hit movie Barbie.

It’s a movie that celebrates girlhood, growing pains, and the collective nostalgia every woman feels when reflecting upon a time where she didn’t have to know how to do everything. ‘What Was I Made For’ encapsulates Eilish’s own disillusionment and unhappiness in not knowing where to go from here and the loneliness this age can bring, a feeling I myself experience constantly. It’s something you cannot understand unless you have lived as a woman, despairing at the endless demands of ‘successfully’ existing in our male dominated world and then attempting to meet these demands anyway.

‘When did it end?

All the enjoyment, I’m sad again Don’t tell my boyfriend, it’s not what he’s made for What was I made for?’

Many tracks on her sophomore album, Happier Than Ever, reflect on getting older and the sudden realisation that womanhood is a solitary journey, where she ‘wish[es] someone had told me I’d be doing this by myself.’ Amongst the thought provoking ballads, Eilish, now an adult, celebrates her sexuality and own desire despite the body shaming she’s experienced since entering the public eye. She revels in what she’s learned and basks in her newfound confidence as someone who spent her teenage years struggling with depression and negative self image, exacerbated by the media’s constant attention.

‘I’m not your friend or anything, damn You think that you’re the man I think, therefore, I am.’

Eilish’s music connects particularly with women of the same age as her, like myself, where we learn to accept the panic and directionless moments of being an adult, whilst poking fun at it by embracing the fact that every woman to some extent experiences the same feeling.

In September of this year, Olivia Rodrigo released her sophomore album GUTS after two years of radio silence and huge public expectation for her to follow the sensation of her debut album Sour.

Sour was created when Rodrigo was seventeen, an angst filled album that is made up primarily of ballads over her public breakup with her first love. The unexpected hit album quite literally caused heart attacks and was a big factor in bringing back 90s and 2000s pop punk culture, which is at the core of GUTS. This second album is angrier, showcasing Rodrigo’s frustration with having to be ‘the perfect all-American bitch’, whilst finding herself in numerous toxic relationships that have left deep emotional scars. In the opening track, ‘all-American bitch’, she switches from a cheerful, gentle melody to screaming at

the impossibility of being the ‘perfect’ woman. She lists idyllic yet infuriating ‘I am’ affirmations throughout: ‘I am light as a feather and as stiff as a board.’

‘I am built like a mother and a total machine.’

‘I’m grateful all the time, I’m sexy and I’m kind, I’m pretty when I cry.’

Rodrigo remains as brutally honest about her own struggles as she did in Sour, detailing her jealousy of other women she deems perfect, and then despising herself for feeling jealous. It’s a vicious cycle I experience myself all the time.

In fact, I feel as though Rodrigo was able to hear my internal monologue when writing ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl.’ It’s a song where Rodrigo dissects her social interactions and how she is perceived by others and wishes she was ‘normal.’ The fact that so many other women relate to the rage in this song and ‘all-American bitch’ is extraordinarily satisfying - as women we are not meant to possess anger or jealousy. These are not desirable emotions for a woman to experience or share with others, and Rodrigo voices what we’ve all wanted to say with loud unrestrained honesty that quickly became viral on social media. There is a generation of women online like me who are full of fury because of the pressure to repress what is not ‘appropriate’ for us to think, never mind say out loud. This repression and the shame around it culminates in a piece of work like GUTS that maps the emotional journey of anger to regret to embarrassment to self hatred to existentialism.

The album ends with the track ‘teenage dream,’ a reference to Rodrigo’s first album where she asks where her teenage dream is because being seventeen is hell on earth. In ‘teenage dream’, there is no anger behind her words. Now there is a numbness towards what she has accomplished because she

has no idea where to go next. It’s very similar to Eilish’s mindset of not knowing how to exist outside of your teenage self.

‘They all say that it gets better, It gets better the more you grow.

They all say that it gets better, It gets better - but what if I don’t?’

This lyric has followed me around since I first heard it. I hear it on campus, in classes, in bed at night, in every lecture I attend. Similarly to Rodrigo, I’ve left my awful teenage years behind, but I’ve also left what I managed to achieve during them. Is it possible to be happy and successful as a creative person?

Eilish and Rodrigo’s music have changed my perspective of myself because I recognise the way I am isn’t that different from everybody else - as women, we’ve all just become accustomed to hiding things really well. The honest words of young women like Eilish and Rodrigo who feel the same growing pains and continue to be successful despite them are a needed reminder that we can persist. Their work gives me hope that as women we will grow more confident and accepting of our shared struggles, and we will learn to express them rather than repress them. We owe a lot to artists like Eilish and Rodrigo who open the door for more female self expression for all of us, whilst experiencing the world on a pedestal at young ages. As Eilish sings: ‘Things I once enjoyed Just keep me employed now […]

But next week, I hope I’m somewhere laughing For anybody asking, I promise I’ll be fine.

I’ve had some trauma, did things I didn’t wanna Was too afraid to tell ya, but now, I think it’s time.’

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The Morning After

by Seán Dunne

The spread of vomit spewing from the woman before me was about as remarkable as it was off putting. She was at it again: “Oh fuck.”A further coating of intestinal paint was smeared down to the seawall below. In the excitement I caught her hair before it fell in the flight path. The stuff was the colour of sand and felt like loose flaxseeds in the hand. In the gap between spews I loosed a more pleasant thing from my mouth: “In the horrors, are we?”

I heard a light laugh, removing my hands from her space in the moment. “The horrors? Are these here hurdles not the pearly gates themselves?” She gestured towards the railings she leaned against, dry heaving again for another round. I paused myself while I could, I decided I’d play Peter in the moment. “Name?” I asked. “Emilia Earhart.” “Cause of death?” “Coconut crab.”

A slight twinkle in her eye entered with the words. I paused briefly as I looked.

“I’d say you’d be well fit for heaven.” “You think so?” “I know it.”

With that we decided to walk along and beyond the gates. The punctuation of the waves pushed rhythmically in the surrounding air. Somehow I noticed the patterns of the beach: how the stones grew thicker as you walked along, how the curves grew sharper passed the dunes. I wondered how long it had all taken to come together as it was. I kept these thoughts to myself. We found ourselves stood amongst the stones, skimming the finer candidates out into the water. “Seven.” She said, having bent her arms in the motion. I had only managed about four myself, and was unwilling to announce the failure. With that the rain fell. The sky itself had been hinting as much throughout the morning’s palette. The suddenness of the rainfall came as a surprise and we lifted our coats above our heads to save ourselves. A small inlet in the rocks stood a few paces off, drawing us into the shelter.

As I seated myself on one of the larger rocks, I noticed the feint scuttles of a crab beneath me. The creature ran from under my feet into the wider background behind us. He carried a small tuft of sea glass in his claws, dropping it as he took off from under me. I held it in my hands as we talked: “I wonder what happened.” She said. “How do you mean?” Her responses weighed heavily in the air. She spoke into the void. “Last night.”I had been there before, of course. The not knowing. The potential embarrassment. “I left my things behind.” She continued. “Where?” I asked.

She traced her finger out to a light in the sea. The thing hummed in a distant red, like the dipped colours of a passing plane.

“I think I’ve lost them.”

Through some trick of the light we found ourselves there. We looked out onto that red glum of before. Closer now, it could be seen in the water. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

She said. I wasn’t quite so convinced. The light having quickly retreated we found ourselves again in the comfort of the notch. Rain pattered outside, gently cushioning itself into the folds ofsand. The sounds pushed our eyes to closed. I felt our tufts of hair press against each other before the sleep. When we awoke the rain had stilled. The clouds as well had parted somewhat, allowing light to dot the sea. Peering out from the darkened space we walked out onto the beach. A small boat sat floating empty in the low tide. “A boat.” She said, walking towards it. “Where is it from?” I asked, trailing behind. “I can’t say.”

Wading into the water I felt the knock of current at my knees. Gently, I made my way, before reaching the small boat. Its paint had bled into a moonscape, patches of colour punctuated with the raw timber of the keel. The wood was rough and littered in pockets of bark. “It’s old.” I said, noticing the lumbers dark tint. The thing was entirely empty. Even so we pulled ourselves up into the hull and looked out into

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the sea. Small droplets of water from our clothing rolled onto the planks below. I cuffed my pants and waited. In my inside pocket I had a small tin of cinnamon biscuits. We sat and ate them, looking at the little structures drawn into the hardened dough. “It’s an unusual thing to wait, isn’t it?” She said, her eyes twitching a little as she spoke.“How do you mean?” I asked. She took a small bite into the biscuit in her hands. “The strangeness of it. It feels so unnecessary.”Night fell quickly. The boat had, at this point, drifted rather far. It was an eerie thing. Bar our own subtle shifting, there was only the lapping of water around us. As the darkness had descended I glimpsed a small green bottle bump against the hull. The soft thud drew my attention and I pulled it up from the water. Drying it out on the planks I used my speck of sea glass to sow holes around the neck. In the preceding hours I had gathered some raw tufts of seaweed, likewise drying them out on deck. Nudged into the bottle we used it as a kind of lamp for a period, lighting it with a loose matchstick in my pockets. In the shadow of light and smoke we drifted along. “Do you reckon I could go back?” She said, eventually. I could see that her eyes looked beyond me, well into the darkness. “I think so.” Her throat bobbled like water under the thought. “It will be embarrassing.” She added. “Might be.” I began to look beyond myself. A part of me wondered what exactly I was looking for. “I’m sure I did things I regret.” She said.“Haven’t we all?”

We slept when the faint light from the bottle died, our hair touching in the ocean’s noise.

When I awoke the following morning I found myself alone at sea. Drifting loosely in the waves I searched for her, but all that came was new land, approaching in the distance.

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The De-Yassification of Chambers The straight owners of Chambers will straight college students who ‘would be never know what it’s like to grow up as scared’ by what they found inside. What a lesbian in an all girls convent school they would’ve found inside that had been and develop the crippling fear of being removed was rainbow decor, the drag perceived as a predator. The fear fol- queens’ stage, and any hint that Chambers lows me around to this day and makes had ever supported the LGBTQ+ commusocialising even more uncomfortable nity. The drag queens who had worked for me than it already is. It takes time tirelessly there for years, and relied on for me to learn that it’s okay to hug my their jobs there as their main source of friends, to put my arm around them in income, had been ‘temporarily’ laid off photographs, to share a bed with them with no notice. It was a cash grab. The on sleepovers - because there’s a voice drag queens that worked there and the in the back of my head that tells me I am queer customers were the ones who had seen as dangerous. That any action I do generated so much income for Chambers could be misconstrued, any compliment over the years. They’d also been featured I give can be taken the wrong way, and in countless Pride events, profiting from my attempts of befriending someone can the exposure, only to rebrand the entire be judged as something perverse. On the venue to make more money from the rare nights that I went out to dance and straight majority over a two week period. drink with friends, Chambers was my This is laughable, considering how many favourite place to go as I didn’t have to straight people had partied in Chambers worry about how I would be perceived by previously, not to mention the income others. I was amongst a community that from other bars and clubs across the understood exactly how I felt, who never city that weren’t openly LGBTQ+ friendly saw me as a threat, but a friend. Also, the owned by Chambers. I wish I could say I music was good. That’s a rarity for most was surprised but I wasn’t. Brands across clubs in Cork city. the globe rebrand as LGBTQ+ friendly for Pride month for profit and then pretend On the first week of Freshers this it never happened. Some brands that September, I was on a bus heading home do feature queer people in their adverwhen I noticed the sign for Chambers had tising, such as Bud Lite did with trans changed to Sinners. I initially thought activist Dylan Mulvaney, will buckle at nothing of it, assuming they’d rebranded any homophobic or transphobic backlash the place and changed up the aesthetic. and drop queer sponsors, leaving them I found out the truth via Instagram. to process the hatred now being slung at Chambers, our only gay bar in Cork, had them on their own personal social media not rebranded for us, but for incoming platforms. For Chambers to take down

the rainbow bunting for two weeks and expect it’s usual customers to come back when it’s financially profitable for them to supports gays again - it happens everywhere, all of the time. I’m not sure what it is about drag queens that people find so terrifying. They’re entertainers, comedians, musicians, performers. Their work is not about hatred, it is not about hurting or perversion, it’s light hearted entertainment. Notably, this entertainment changes its content based on its audience - drag queens have never presented sexual content to children or minors, they are not a threat to them nor anyone else. Yet they are the victims of unprovoked violence leaving Chambers after work. Being physically attacked, being verbally assaulted in broad daylight. So who is actually the threat here?

We will find a new home. But what happened Any straight person in Cork can pick and choose at Chambers is a reminder of why we celebrate what bar or club they’d prefer, but for many Pride - because it’s one of the few places it is safe LGBTQ+ people, Chambers was the only option to fully be ourselves. We have lost another one of where they knew they wouldn’t have to ‘tone down’ those places. I’ll never know what’s so scary about their personalities, mannerisms, or appearances. a community that just wants to love and identify Despite what having a safe space means to the themselves authentically. I’m not sure people are community, or how much business the commu- truly afraid of us at all, and in reality are just nity has brought Chambers over the years, they afraid of what unapologetically being yourself in cast us out and rebranded as Sinners, which was the face of hatred looks like. How disconcerting really the cherry on top of the cake. The word has that fearlessness is. It’s not our problem to make a whole new meaning when it’s used to alienate ourselves palatable for anyone. We have never queer people, and not used to reclaim the years wanted anything other than the freedom to exist of prosecution we still fight against today. The peacefully without being attacked for it. wonderful drag queens of Chambers and the queer community of Cork came together to pro- Ultimately, it is other people’s fear of us that test Chambers’ morally questionable decision forces us to live in fear. That is something out of to temporarily rebrand for profit - it was only our control that we cannot fix, which is what is when the protests reached national attention that truly terrifying.

Chambers responded, and stuck some Dealz rainbow tassels in its windows. It proved that they had never understood the point in the first place.

Article by Jessica-Anne Rose Chambers was not a safe space because of its decor, but because of the security everyone felt Photos by avril.os.photography behind its doors. Now we know that our security and safety can be taken at any moment for something as simple as two weeks profit, and the safe space is desecrated.

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Fear is a Friend, Fear is an Enemy

by Megan Burns

I

was walking towards Castle Street when a woman stopped me and handed me a piece of paper. I took it and immediately regretted it not only because of the paper’s dampness that undoubtedly was caused by the woman’s sweaty hands but also because soon after she started talking to me about God. I smiled and said thank you to the woman, hearing such warnings of “It’s the end of days” and “The numbers 666 are everywhere” hurled desperately at my back as I made my escape.

If she caught me on a different day, I would have told her I liked kissing women as much as I liked kissing men or that I believed abortion to be a fundamental human right. Perhaps it was God’s doing that I was in such a happy mood that day. Nonetheless as I walked home, I thought more about God and the impending doom. And I came to the conclusion that I didn’t care. How could I? With assignments on the horizon and an eight thousand word dissertation to be written. Judgement day for me looks more like a percentage on Canvas than demons flying around the sky launching fire bombs my way. Yet I couldn’t get this woman out of my mind. This truly God fearing woman who looked so desperate to save me, to save Cork city. So I started thinking about all the things I was afraid of, excluding God. Let’s start with the minor fears. I fear being late to a lecture. I fear smelling bad to other people. I fear I won’t have anything in the press for breakfast. I fear I’ll look ugly that day.

I fear my hair will be greasy and I won’t have time for a shower. I fear the shower water will be cold. Now let’s take it up another level. I fear

I’ll never be friends with my brother again. I fear the ones I love don’t love me as much as I love them. I fear I’ll never truly feel beautiful. I fear I’m stupid. I fear that I’m not good enough. I fear that I’ll get kidnapped, tortured and raped walking home alone at night. I fear people are talking behind my back. I fear that I’m too fat. How about another level? I fear I’m a bad person. I fear I’ll never live the life I truly want to live. I fear I’ll wake up one day and be eighty-six and regret every single decision I’ve ever made in my life. I fear my parents will die when I least expect it. I fear being happy because I know it won’t last. I fear I’ll get pregnant by accident.

These fears, these thoughts float around my mind so naturally now that I’m hardly aware of them anymore which is ironic because they control most of my actions. And that’s it, isn’t it. Fear controls us. Now I’m not going to give you advice on ‘how to overcome your fears’ or give you a ‘guide on becoming your best self ’ because well, I’m not doing a psych degree.

But I can say that fear is unavoidable and it can sometimes be helpful. Fear is that friend you love for certain occasions but hate for others.

You’d invite this friend on a night out or when crossing the road but you would hate to have them sit next to you in an exam. So learn to start uninviting fear where it’s not wanted.

As for God, I stopped fearing him when my breasts grew and I started bleeding once a month. Seriously, how can you fear damnation when you already feel damned for being born a woman.

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by Alice Buckely Healy

21st Birthday Song

by Cormac Donovan O’Neill

“It is endless, this cruelty of Ireland is endless.”

Thomas McCarthy, 1983 “I am a weed, given no ground.”

Junior Brother, 2022 Again -the dismal visit of the funeral carts and ramparts of human bones in putrefaction huddled as close as the dead.

The house is overcrowded, and the Union is in debt and it’s just now dawning that the stumbling age is coming.

Still beef is sold from starving ports at thirteen billion in the courts and the gnawing tick of hunger-time and buzzard beat of evening news see us all alive and dying new along similar lines and one hundred years on some unfortunate finds a national carcass slumped dead in the ditch without honour or ceremony a terrible ancestry of prisoners whose piped throats admit the bile of history and shiver clothed in the stories of last century

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lost in the boot of a car which of course must now burst at a terrible and cost and winter will see us all stretched to the fullest electricity switched off to fuel the national furnace belching gouts of exile literature into an airless atmosphere out out out and a bloated sun hanging over Dublin Cork and Galway and your town and home and village unsympathetic to the oxygen of the human condition but with byzantine promises of of your children’s endless privilege and all this generous investment of slavering beasts all must burst a terrible cost Above, great cranes outstretch pitiless hands and grateful, pick the suckers exposed off the ground in the garden of the young where grass does still grow thick and green and there’s a whole wide world out there and thank God we don’t know much about it.

Cat And Mouse

by Emma O’Neill

Gusts of wind send shivers, down her spine.

Feet scurrying, frantic in moonlight.

Street lights illuminate him, whistling stories, No notion someone else is around.

The hum of songs, sung from the darkness.

Instil regret, she shouldn’t have walked.

Stray cats distract his path, cut off short.

Without another glance, he turns around the bend.

Footsteps gradually fade.

She survived, Another cruel game of cat and mouse.

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Playing Dead

by Ellen Ní Chonchuir

death takes up so much space inside my mind; I am so scared that you will die. this is not the fear you promised: it taunts and pokes and stabs; it grabs, and tightens squeezes til my eyes bulge.

I turn away.

I clench them shut.

I chant. I pray. a swan with bloody feathers, like hot taryour soul for mine. bright flashes of smoke, rope; tears that hiss and sting. fingernails, red moons, rag dolls swing from branches. roaring water rushes in. the waves are thick like syrup; cold pricks of icicles black bubbling foam swelling, gurgling, dragging away my breath. you think that I am silly, but you don’t know these things. you want me to stop I try I do I am trying.

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but I always lose in this game against myself.

I open my mouth and I wish I had something to tell you other than this pain but it is all that is inside; so it is all that can come out.

Banshee

by Zeta Kelly

I lie awake pressed to the window, in fear she will return.

The woman of the fairy mound, cries through the night.

Close your ears for your loved ones sake.

But, it’s no use. She knows where to find you, in the depths of night, hidden like a child, under the weight of your sheets.

She keens through the mor, gravitating to you. Bones protruding through her midnight cloak, under the blue haze of the full moon, you are illuminated.

On your unintentional stage on the bed, you hold your breath, and then, it fills your insides.

Her inevitable howl, vibrating your bones shaking you to your core.

It’s too late, she knows you heard.

Clamoring and wailing, like a babe for its mother.

You run to other bedroom, and you realize, You are alone.

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were commonplace. We provided what support we could, but with the withdrawal of American troops and the entry of a new regime, our efforts were undone overnight.

My sense of hopelessness and despair were shared by all who wished to assist Afghani women robbed of their rights to education, work, recreation, and any sense of a normal life.

I Fear the Deafening Silence By (Farahnaz Haidary, human rights and women activist) In the heart of Afghanistan, a silent struggle unfolds—a battle fought not with weapons, but with resilience and determination. I was one of the fortunate few who had the support to challenge this oppressive culture, but I’ve seen countless others silenced by it. Should we, as global citizens, remain passive spectators to such injustice?

This is the urgent question that weighs heavily on my heart as an Afghan woman, and a dedicated defender of human rights and a woman activist.

Let’s be blunt—gender apartheid in Afghanistan is a harsh reality. Afghani women bear the brunt of this systematic oppression, enduring lives stripped of basic rights and opportunities.Without access to education, the cornerstone of progress and development, they remain powerless to shape their destinies.

Thanks to my (uneducated) mother’s unwavering support I was the only girl in my village who had the opportunity to challenge this norm. Tragically, other women, lacking both the ability and support to defy the status quo, remain silenced, trapped in the cycle of oppression.

At home, I founded a nonprofit organization dedicated to human and women’s rights. On an everyday basis, my colleagues and I encountered innumerable cases of abuse and debasement. A thirteen -year-old girl forced into marriage with a sixty yearold man. Domestic abuse. A young woman beaten to death by her male relatives – perhaps as punishment for her being a minor speaking to a man. These so-called ‘honour’ killings

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Afghan women, who have endured war and destruction, now find themselves unable to access basic services or even enter hospitals without male accompaniment. Their resilience is extraordinary, but their lives have been severely curtailed.

Gender apartheid isn’t just about Afghani women; it’s about the future of Afghanistan and the entire world.

When half a society is marginalized, progress stalls, and a nation’s potential stagnates. Excluding women from economic and political life hamstrings Afghanistan’s growth and poses a threat to global security, particularly with extremist groups resurging under the current system.

Afghani women don’t accept this injustice quietly. They take to the streets, demonstrating for global support. Many have paid a steep price, facing imprisonment and even death. Yet, the international response remains limited, with violence against Afghan women increasing at an alarming rate. We cannot let the women of Afghanistan lose hope; the consequences are too dire.

If we, as a global community, fail to act, we face a future marred by destruction and despair. Continued oppression of Afghan women perpetuates a cycle of violence, instability and extremism, affecting not only Afghanistan but also reverberating globally. History will not judge us kindly if we remain bystanders.

I am no longer in Afghanistan. As a refugee in Ireland, I can enjoy all my rights as a human being. Yet, still I carry the weight of responsibility for the women who remain within my homeland’s borders, unable to experience the freedom I now have. It is my privilege and duty to amplify the voices of these Afghani women, to ensure they are heard and supported in their quest for justice and equality. In the face of adversity, the resilience of Afghan women serves as a beacon of hope,

reminding us that the power to effect change lies within each of us, and together, we can break the silence and shape a future where justice and equality prevail Afghani women need the world’s support, and they need it now. Stand up for the rights of Afghan women.

FEAR

Face Everything And Rise Face Everything And Rise Face Everything And Rise As a unique feature of this specific issue of Motley Magazine.....

Words by Ronan Keohane

E

ditor-In-Chief Ronan Keohane collaborated with the academic English department to speak with some international students about their experiences of fear surrounding living in a new country. We embarked together on a project named “Face Everything And Rise”, where we wrote a prompt and got various people to share their experiences and insights on a foreigner’s perspective of studying in Ireland, along with all of the fear and adventure that comes with it.

Given that many UCC students go on exchange abroad every single year, this could be useful in understanding how to cope with moving to an entirely new environment. Additionally, reading these different reflections may also be an excellent opportunity to encourage compassion and empathy for people who have come a very long way to study at our lovely UCC campus.

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Our notable feature contributors for this project come from various countries and backgrounds, including Japan, Ukraine, Turkey, Afghanistan, South Korea and Spain.

This provides this collaboration project with a nice and wide range of perspectives and insights.

What does fear mean to you? Fear is the word we use to describe our emotional reactions to something that seems dangerous. Have you ever experienced having to live in a country that is not your own? Being away from everything you know may be challenging for your mental and physical health. In this special feature, the class will present different challenges we faced and how we accepted them and found solutions to them. Perhaps this could be useful to you if you decide to study in a new environment. You may also relate to our stories if you have experience of studying or living abroad in a new environment.

Aoi Uraguchi

The Power of Communication in Overcoming New Environment Fears Have you ever found yourself in a completely new environment? It’s a situation that often stirs up a multitude of fears. In my case, I made the decision to come to Ireland to study English, driven by the desire to enhance my language skills through interactions with people from diverse backgrounds. Yet, before setting foot in Ireland, I was concerned about making friends and establishing a harmonious relationship with my host family.

My foremost fear revolved around my ability to forge new friendships during my time abroad. I had heard that the Irish were known for their friendliness, but I still wondered if I could navigate effective communication in English. At UCC, I made a conscious effort to engage with fellow students, maintain an open mind, and foster connections. Fortunately, I have succeeded in making friends here. I’ve learned that there’s no need to be anxious about making friends in Ireland. The process is quite akin to making friends in Japan; the only actual difference is that this time, I’m doing it in English! Naturally, I encounter occasional challenges, making mistakes in English and struggling to express myself precisely, but the journey is undoubtedly worth the effort.

Additionally, I had concerns about the dynamics of my relationship with my host family. This was my first experience living with anyone other than my own family, and I felt somewhat uneasy in my ‘Irish home.’ For instance, in Japan, it is customary to remove our shoes before entering a house for hygienic reasons, whereas in Ireland, this practice is not

shared. I initially found this disparity a bit odd.

There were occasional misunderstandings between my host family and me, often arising from the phrasing of my English messages.

Nonetheless, they made a sincere effort to understand my English and spoke slowly to help me grasp their words. In situations like these, it’s essential for all parties to be nonjudgmental, patient, and accommodating.

Thirdly, I wrestled with impatience regarding my gradual progress in English proficiency.

Among my English skills, speaking had always been the weakest. It’s been five weeks since I arrived in Ireland, yet my improvement in speaking skills, compared to my classmates, has been relatively modest. I found myself growing impatient with my own progress. At this point, one of my classmates wisely advised me not to compare myself to others but rather to assess my progress today compared to what I achieved yesterday. It dawned on me that I needed to conquer myself in order to overcome shyness and actively participate in class discussions.

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“Don’t Let Shyness Hold You Back: Embracing Differences Abroad”

Haruka Higa

What creeps into your thoughts when you find yourself in a completely unfamiliar environment? In my case, it was the fear of different cultures, human relationships, and the language barrier.

now count people from various countries as my friends, proving that good relationships can be built with effort.

Why was I afraid of different cultures? It’s because cultures often do things differently in various aspects such as thinking, customs, communication, and more. I was concerned that my casual behavior, common in Japan, might come across as rude or incomprehensible to someone from a different culture, potentially leading to conflicts. However, upon my arrival in Ireland, everyone warmly introduced me to their culture and politely informed me about the standard way of doing things here. While it’s true that cultural differences can occasionally lead to minor conflicts, I learned that these could be resolved through mutual education and understanding of each other’s cultures.

The language barrier was another source of fear. Irish people possess distinct accents, and my confidence in English, especially speaking and writing, was lacking because I had limited opportunities to use English back in Japan, primarily within the confines of my classroom. In the initial week in Ireland, I was almost entirely unable to understand or speak English due to the unfamiliar environment, nervousness, and the strong accents of my classmates. However, as time passed, I made a concerted effort to speak and immerse myself in the culture. By the second week, I felt more at ease in Ireland and in class, which significantly improved my English comprehension and speaking abilities.

I also had apprehensions about my relationships with my host family, classmates, and friends.

Being naturally shy and not particularly skilled at engaging in conversations, I was worried about making new connections. Nevertheless, I made a conscious effort to overcome my shyness and actively interact with people. The result? I formed strong bonds with my host family, and my classmates became friends. Furthermore, I

In conclusion, my initial fears regarding cultural differences, human relationships, and speaking in English began to dissipate once I set foot in Ireland. I realized that by summoning the courage to engage with people openly and frequently, there was no need for fear anymore.

The lesson I’ve learned is clear: Don’t let shyness hold you back. Believe in yourself!

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Navigating New Beginnings: Overcoming Fear in an Unfamiliar Environment Changing your location and routine stepping out of your comfort zone, can often be a daunting and overwhelming experience for many individuals. The ongoing conflict in my home country, Ukraine, forced me to decide to flee. I embarked on a journey to Dublin, where I found refuge in City West, which hosts a refugee centre.

The uncertainty of my new surroundings weighed on me as I navigated the administrative processes, but eventually, I secured a new place to call home.

However, suppose you’re searching for a sense of security and peace regarding your accommodation. In that case, one helpful strategy is to proactively explore potential living arrangements in advance, perhaps even securing your own room. This proactive approach can significantly ease your concerns and promote a sense of tranquillity.

Anastasiia Cholan 42 | special |

Navigating New Beginnings: Overcoming Fear in an Unfamiliar Environment

My second concern centred around finding an appropriate place to pursue my studies. Despite an exhaustive search, a suitable course eluded me. Fortunately, a recent opportunity opened up for me to continue my education at UCC, bringing me one step closer to my dream profession as an interpreter. I advise those in similar circumstances to persevere, knocking on every available door. Eventually, an opportunity will present itself.

Last but not least, I grappled with healthcare concerns. I have an ongoing ENT issue that necessitates antibiotic treatment. It surprised me that the healthcare system here differs significantly from what I was accustomed to back home, where I could see a doctor promptly for urgent problems. The extended waiting times at the local hospital’s emergency department shocked me. Drawing from my experiences, I would strongly recommend students consider obtaining medical insurance and be prepared to seek the assistance of a private GP when urgent care is required. It’s often the only way to ensure timely treatment.

For those who have embarked on a new path, my advice is to follow it confidently. Your efforts will ultimately yield rewards. Embrace the unknown, and you’ll forge meaningful connections with people worldwide, creating memories that can help dispel all your fears.

“Exploring Self-Discovery: Confronting Fears on My Journey” I began this journey in a distant, solitary place, an extraordinary adventure filled with highs and lows. I had my goals and beliefs, but fears tagged along. I wondered if I was prepared for what lay ahead and whether I would stay true to myself. I made a choice, committing to give my all and embrace every aspect of life. I am, on a path of self-discovery, facing my deepest fears.

One of my biggest fears was the dread of disappointment and falling short of the carefully set goals. It’s been two years. I’ve spent two years in Ireland, experiencing many things and taking on jobs I’d never done before. Frustration and worry have often been big issues for me, and I’ve encountered judgmental individuals. But amidst the trials, I’ve found joy and valuable lessons. I’ve travelled to different countries and explored numerous cities, realising that life is a complex tapestry that’s constantly evolving.

Despite our challenges, each carries unique stories, pain, and experiences that shape who we are. Thanks to my struggles and the lessons they’ve taught me, I’ve become a life mentor in my own rite.

Yozlem Dogan

I’ve learned to view every negative experience as an opportunity for growth and faith. When faced with challenges or negativity, I see them as parts of a bigger picture, a reminder that better things lie ahead. I’ve realised that I don’t always need strict rules or high expectations.

I’m at my best when I simply embrace who I am rather than getting fixated on what I must achieve. Instead of dwelling on unmet expectations, I find contentment in being authentically me.

This perspective uplifts me, guiding me through life’s ups and downs, and empowers me to acknowledge my past accomplishments and those that await me.

It’s the mindset I’ve chosen that gives me strength and makes my journey through life’s challenges and triumphs all the more fulfilling.

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Ayane Minami

This journey has pushed me well outside my comfort zone and presented me with a series of challenges.

Despite the thorough research I conducted before embarking on my study adventure in Ireland, there are times when I wish I had done even more in preparation.

In my approach to fear, I’ve adopted the practice of visualizing my fears as towering ‘walls’ that I must confront and ultimately conquer. In this article, I’d like to share with you the three most formidable fears or ‘walls’ that I’ve encountered while studying in Ireland.

The first formidable ‘wall’ I confronted immediately (and most urgently) was the “money wall.” I diligently saved money in the leadup to my journey, working tirelessly every weekend to accumulate funds from my part-time job to support this endeavour. Despite my unwavering effort, I still wonder if I saved enough. Since arriving in Ireland, I’ve found myself frequently using my credit card, yet I’ve been too anxious to check the exact amount billed. I’ve contemplated whether applying for a part-time job might be a good move. Such a decision could alleviate my financial concerns and provide valuable work experience, which I am still considering.

Bridging Boundaries: Conquering My Three Toughest Fears Abroad Before leaving my homeland, I was apprehensive about communicating in a second language. I studied English at school and participated in English conversation classes in Japan. My English proficiency had been steadily improving, and my confidence has also been on the rise. However, upon arriving in Ireland, my newfound confidence vanished almost instantly. Effective communication in English proved to be quite demanding, especially when confronted with the rapid pace of Irish accents. I quickly realised that I needed assistance in understanding. My challenge is to become a more proficient listener, acclimate myself to the local accents, and engage in conversation whenever the opportunity arises. My limited success in this endeavour hinges on my ability to interact with as many Irish people as possible.

Lastly, the concern that has surfaced pertains to adjusting to Ireland’s public transportation system. Before arriving, I couldn’t have fathomed how different the system here would be. Buses in this country do not always adhere to a strict timetable, a stark contrast to what I’m accustomed to in Japan, where punctuality is of utmost importance. Waiting for a bus, for example, had been quite a novel experience! I had never encountered such a long wait for a bus in my home country. Perhaps it’s true that Japanese people are overly concerned about punctuality. However, generally, we would consider it bad-mannered to be late for appointments, classes or meetings.

Nevertheless, I was worried about whether I could comfortably adapt to the public transportation system here.

In summary, my time in Ireland has been marked by the formidable presence of three principal fears: financial concerns, difficulty understanding local accents, and adjusting to the public transportation system. Overcoming these challenges in an entirely new environment is no small feat. Still, I recognise that conquering them will transform my time in Ireland into a truly precious and once-in-a-lifetime experience. I am determined to live my life here step by step, learn to adjust and to embrace the learning process overall.

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“No pain no gain” persistence Amid Adversity: Overcoming Fears and Pursuing Success I often find myself overwhelmed by the multitude of tasks I must complete. Yet, I firmly believe that every grand journey begins with a single step. It raises a fundamental question: Should people think that success always demands a sacrifice?

August 15, 2021, marked a dark day for my homeland. As American soldiers left Afghanistan and the Taliban returned to Kabul, I witnessed the loss of everything I had fought for. Fleeing my country and leaving my family behind, Ireland became my refuge. Nevertheless, amid the safety and sanctuary, I carried fears and uncertainties. I longed for my family, my fellow organization members, and the students I had committed to. Anxieties loomed as I confronted the challenges of adapting to life in a European nation, communicating in a foreign language, pursuing my

education, achieving my dream job, and finding my place in a new society.

After seven months in Ireland, I’ve unearthed the inner strength to confront my fears head-on. My concerns about adapting to European life and connecting with people have started to fade. I’ve also made significant progress in my educational journey, commencing my English studies at UCC.

The transformation has been remarkable, and I no longer fear fitting in or communicating with others.

Furthermore, the possibility of pursuing a master’s degree upon completing my English course has brought new hope and direction to my journey.

Yet, certain fears still linger, especially concerning the safety and well-being of my family in Afghanistan, who remain without refuge. My heart aches for my fellow organization members and the bright students I once mentored, now confined to their homes, unable to attend school, university, or work. These anxieties continue to weigh on my mind. Another persistent fear is the uncertainty of securing my dream job and using my earnings to support my family and organization.

Nevertheless, I cling to hope, believing in my ability to overcome these challenges, even as I pray it won’t be too late.

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The Challenges of Life Abroad Miquel Pastor Can I access healthcare if I’m injured? Could my landlord force me out? Am I making the most of my time?

These are the main fears that continually linger in my thoughts.

I find myself far from my homeland of Spain, and with that distance, I feel a sense of vulnerability. I know very little about my landlord, and the intricacies of the housing market in this foreign land remain a mystery to me.

The fairness of my rent is uncertain, and many contracts are solely verbal, exposing me to potential deception.

Tales of unrecovered deposits and renters locked out of their own homes, compelled to spend nights in hostels, constantly haunt me. It’s challenging to dismiss these stories, and the constant worry of losing my accommodation weighs heavily on my mind.

A visit to a general doctor comes at a cost of €60. Without private healthcare insurance, some individuals find themselves without the right to a hospital bed. I have a friend who, after suffering an injury, had to spend two nights in the overcrowded corridor of a public hospital, incurring significant expenses. Economic factors dominated his decision to return home, having had this distressing experience. Hearing such stories can easily deter one from taking risks, whether it be in sports or aiding those in need.

I understand the importance of improving my English to secure a better life.

However, life in Ireland is expensive. The time that should be devoted to studying English often ends up being consumed by work – starting with part-time and then full-time shifts to cover living expenses. I’ve frequently been drifting into sleep during class, struggling to follow lessons properly due to perpetual fatigue. Homework is often a luxury I can’t afford as I labor in the evenings.

My initial purpose in coming to Ireland was not to advance my career skills, and this sometimes leaves me with a sense of being adrift and unproductive. Finding a balance in this foreign landscape remains my challenge.

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A Maze of Thoughts: Facing Fears and Finding Growth in Ireland What’s been the most challenging decision I’ve ever made?

For 24 years, I lived in Korea, never venturing abroad.

Yet, the yearning to study or work in another country had been with me since a young age. I yearned for a change in my life. So, when I decided to come to Ireland, it was unquestionably the most challenging decision I’d ever made. However, the prospect of going abroad isn’t only accompanied by excitement; it also brings a fair share of fear. I grappled with three persistent, intertwined fears: financial burdens, career setbacks, and the weight of potential regret.

Upon arriving in Ireland, I had to take a hiatus from my university studies, momentarily putting my career on hold. In Korea, most nursing students aim to graduate as swiftly as possible, avoiding the prospect of younger nurses taking on senior roles. The fear of forgetting their accumulated knowledge also drives them to continue studying. But those weren’t my primary concerns. What truly weighed on my mind was the fear of falling behind in society.

In Korea, societal expectations often dictate certain life milestones. Those who deviate from this predetermined path are often labelled as ‘stragglers.’

All these fears intertwine with one another, all eventually leading to the fear of regret. Making decisions without confidence could plunge me into a cycle of self-doubt and endless mental meandering.

Truthfully, I might label my decision to come to Ireland as irrational. My heart had overruled my head. Yet, I wouldn’t classify it as a terrible decision. It has its pros and cons. Without coming to Ireland, I wouldn’t have forged the friendships I cherish today, nor would I have had the opportunity to broaden my worldview.

Taking a pause in my life has granted me the

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energy to resume my journey. Even though some regrets may linger, the lessons I’ve garnered in Ireland are invaluable and will stay with me forever.

Fears are universal; the key is to maintain a positive outlook and seek solutions for each fear we encounter. We’re not alone in this journey. To conquer our communication fears, engaging with people from different countries and using the target language, English, is paramount. We must foster confidence and focus not on comparisons with others but on the progress we’ve made from yesterday to today. By building a support network within our class and extending it to the wider community, by pushing our boundaries and asking for help when needed, we can overcome our fears and cultivate cross-cultural awareness.

Hayeon Gu

Much like many Koreans, I harboured a fear of the university debts I’d eventually have to repay to the government. Being a nursing student, my degree’s tuition was considerably higher than that of other departments, heaping a heavier financial burden upon me. There were moments when I wondered if it might have been wiser not to have come to Ireland, opting instead to graduate earlier to expedite debt repayment.

Contrary to what some may think, I didn’t hail from an affluent background.

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