LORRAINE MUCKIAN

Award Year: 2003

Course: Industrial Microbiology, Environmental Microbiology

Activities: Ladies Gaelic Football Club

September 1997: I was 17 and 2 months young, green beyond belief and heading off to the big smoke to join my older brother at University College Dublin. One of the major positives about UCD was having my brother there, I thought we would see each other regularly and he could be my security blanket... Foolish ideas of a younger sibling, I saw him twice on campus in 9 months. UCD is a big place!

Occupation: World traveller!

Previously I worked in Vancouver as an Environmental Consultant.

I was left to fend for myself so I got busy on club sign-up day; the one that stuck was the Ladies Gaelic Football Club. There was a large crew of freshers that joined that year and we were taken under the wing of the more senior girls and shown the ropes... Hot ports after freezing cold nights training on the Devlin; walks through the pitch-black forest trails to the back of the Merville Residence; shortcuts around the double warm-up laps that followed the white fence in front of the Nova building; and they introduced a select few of us to the Forum, where we would eventually end-up spending a large portion of our free time doing committee duty! Joining the Ladies Football Club was probably the best thing I did in College, bar none. I spent eight glorious years playing with some of the brightest stars of the sport and one year coaching them. I was challenged both physically and mentally throughout that time, building character as only sport can do! The gut-wrenching pain of the one-point losses and the absolute ecstasy of the one-point victories!

During my 9 years in UCD I was involved with the Club committee too, working with the late Dave Billings and Suzanne Bailey and the UCD Sport’s staff in an effort to continuously improve and grow the Club. It was an exciting era that saw Dave introduce the first women’s football bursary and scholarships; the Club hosted the O’Connor Cup (All-Ireland Intervarsity competition) for the first time; we won the Freshers’ All-Ireland Cup and the Division 1 All-Ireland League and Cup for the first time; we introduced a second team that went on to win the Division 2 League and Cup; and one of the most satisfying achievements for the Club and all those who contributed to its greatness was when almost 40 Club members travelled to University of Limerick in 2002 and completed an unprecedented, and since unrivalled, Division 1 and 2 Intervarsity Cup double! Amazing times and memories for life!

Most importantly we were all fortunate to have had the opportunity to connect in UCD and meet some of the most genuine, loyal, and inspiring people possible. I have medals galore from my UCD days and they have already begun to tarnish, but it is the friendships that I gained and the memories that we made both on and off the pitch that shine the brightest and will never dim. Those are what I treasure most above all else!

Mark Murphy

Award Year: 2013

Course: Medicine

Activities: Medical Society

Occupation: Cardiothoracic Surgery, St James’ Hospital

For any young person starting university is a special time in their life. It marks a transition point from adolescence into adulthood. For me, the excitement and anticipation from that time of my life is as vivid now as it ever was. I will always remember my first day in UCD. University, unlike secondary school, exposes you to a student body of thousands. As such there is an opportunity to find, meet, and mix with like-minded people like never before. Nowhere is this opportunity more apparent than with the student societies. My first exposure to this was the tent at Freshers’ Week. I was amazed at all the different societies to pick and choose from. There really was something for everyone. The smell of popcorn and pizza with enthusiastic students constantly approaching you, saying their piece, and hoping to get their hands on your two-euro membership fee is a distinctive memory. As a fresher the goal was to join as many societies as possible with the principle motivation being which society had the best discounts on their membership cards and which societies gave out the most free pizza.

Later in my time I ran for the position of Treasurer and later Auditor of the UCD Medical Society. It was a fantastic opportunity to get involved in event management as well as managing big budgets of tens of thousands of euro - experiences that remain with me to this day. Our goal was always to think outside the box, to come up with new events, and never to do something just because that was always the way things had been done before. We challenged ourselves and had great fun doing it. During that time the Society flourished and we were awarded the UCD Society Of The Year Award, which was a special honour.

One of our biggest challenges was the annual Med Ball. The Ball was due to be held in the Citywest Hotel in 2010. We had sold over six hundred tickets and everyone was really excited with hundreds of hotel rooms booked. The night before the Ball, Ireland was covered in two feet of snow. We woke up on the morning of the Ball to find that many key people for the event (including busses for three hundred people) had cancelled on us. We managed to rebook everything at short notice and the Ball was an incredible success - it’s still talked of fondly as ‘The Snow Ball’. Experiences like these sum up UCD life. Getting involved and immersing yourself in student life is something you will never regret. The memories I have from that time will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Aoife Nic Shamhr In

Award Year: 2010

Course: Medicine

I will never forget the thrill and sense of utter excitement that I had during my many years spent in UCD working alongside others in Bord na Gaeilge, Teach na Gaeilge, and the Students’ Union. Every day brought along new friends, challenges, and opportunities to involve more and more students in the Irish community on campus. No day was dull. I even remember spending one Christmas morning brainstorming event ideas and making sponsorship proposals.

Activities: Teach na Gaeilge; Aontas na Mac Léinn

Occupation: Medical Doctor, GP Trainee

One of my favourite memories from UCD was organising Seachtain na Gaeilge 2009. What began as a small idea on paper - encouraging students to sign-up to speak Irish for an entire day or week - turned into a week of over 1,000 UCD students going about their day wearing the luminous green hoodie from the campaign, attending over 20 events as Gaeilge and thoroughly enjoying using Irish. Even the shops joined-in with bilingual signs. I enjoyed driving into UCD past the ‘An Ghaeltacht’ signs for the week. It was an unforgettable experience to be standing beside Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh as we released 1,000 green balloons into the UCD sky surrounded by my peers knowing that a few ideas, even if they sound much too difficult to achieve initially, with a little bit of work, and a lot of support and courage anything can be achieved.