DAMIAN MCDONALD

Award Year: 1995

Course: Economics, Maths

Activities: Students’ Union

Occupation: Director General, Irish Farmers Association

I arrived in UCD from Wexford in 1990. It was to be life-changing experience. I emerged from UCD with a primary degree in Economics and Maths and a masters in Economics. However, it was my involvement in college life that had the biggest impact on my personal development.

I was involved in numerous societies and ended up being elected chair of the Students’ Union Council. This position essentially amounted to trying to keep the peace at the Council meetings, which had elected representatives from all faculties. It tended to draw people with strong views on all sorts of issues. In general, I tried to keep the Council focused on matters directly relevant to students at UCD rather than straying into the problems of the world. 20 years on and I recall very little of what the issues - passionately argued at the time - actually

My other main extra-curricular activity was quizzes. The early 90s was the height of the Table Quiz boom. There was practically one somewhere in UCD every mid-week night. Gerry Lannon, a medical student from Roscommon, was part of our team and he was a quiz whizz. It would be exaggerating to say that prize money from quizzes put us through college but it made a big difference. On two occasions we qualified to represent UCD in ‘Challenging Times’, the RTÉ version of University Challenge run in conjunction with the Irish Times. We won a number of rounds, but we were beaten at the semi-final stage both years, which was a big disappointment at the time.

The main thing I remember about winning the President’s Award was that it was some evidence for my parents that all the time they considered I misspent in activities, other than study, was being acknowledged in some way. When they heard I was getting the Award they had only one question: “Will this help you to get a job?” I’d like to think it did!