GILLIAN O’HALLORAN

Award Year: 2008

Course: Psychology

Activities: Choral Scholars, Musical Society

Occupation: Management Consultant

Looking back, my second year in UCD was undoubtedly the highlight of my college education: graduating from university and getting a Masters; my first job; my first home - all things I’m proud of. When I consider the last decade, it’s the activities I undertook and the people I met along the way that made, and continue make me truly happy.

Singing with the Choral Scholars got me excited on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Performing for intimate and grand audiences may have taken their breath away, but I’m the one who remembers the melodies and the smells of the Chapel, passing through the kitchens en route to the stage and hearing the sound of my own voice amplify back to me with clarity in O’Reilly Hall. It’s the feeling, more than the memory, which brings it back to life. What a great time it was!

When I think of UCD, I firstly think of my studies, but if I review now what had the biggest impact on me and my University experience, it was the music and debating I revelled in, and the people and parties that followed. My education circled from books and tutorials, to melodies and arguments. A fitting preparation for the story that has since followed…

GREGG O’NEILL

Award Year: 2006

Course: History

Activities: Literary & Historical Society; World University Debating Championships 2006; Philosophy Society; Kevin Barry Cumann; Societies Council

Occupation: Teacher, Christian Brothers College, Monkstown Park; Author

I’ll never forget my first one. It was a Friday evening, mid-September 2000. The Arts Block was cold and dark. I was alone, my friends from school having abandoned me to go the Student Bar (“you know we can legally drink now?”) or their jobs in Xtra-Vision. So I went on my own. Theatre M was heaving, packed to the rafters (I would learn later that sized crowd exceeded the fire code). The L&H was gathering for its first debate of the year to debate whether porn caused more pain than pleasure. I sat there for over three hours as speaker after speaker extolled or condemned the effects of pornography on society and the individual. Students who had the crowd roaring with laughter one minute and held them in rapt silence the next. The guests ranged from a professional porn star to a man whose wife had been butchered by a porn-obsessed serial killer. At the end, I was hooked. I’d found my UCD.

The Literary and Historical Society would come to dominate my time in UCD more than I could ever have imagined possible. In the years to come, I would serve on two committees, put up more posters than I care to remember, meet famous people (one of whom let me carry her Oscar in a plastic Spar bag), write letters to people simply to get the polite replies on headed note paper from the office of Vice-President Cheney, drink more cheap wine than was safe for anyone, get in trouble with Arts Services a lot, and fight for power in auditorial elections - which were life and death struggles for the ages (I’ve yet to experience anything quite like the smugness of the victories or the bitterness of the defeats). Debating took me to New York, Malaysia, Istanbul, Vancouver, Paris, Berlin and many other places. It also brought the world to UCD when I was the deputy convenor of the World University Debating Championships in 2006. Over 1000 students from across the globe gathered in Belfield over 9 long days to participate in the world’s largest non-sporting student event.

I found time to be Auditor of the Philosophy Society and Chairman of the KBC and when I was finally pushed out the door of the committees, I was elected to three terms as Chair of the Societies’ Council. Even then, I couldn’t let debating go. As society activities outgrew the space and patience of Arts Services and the SU didn’t seem interested in helping (there was probably a protest march on to save the spotted owl from the war in Iraq), I led the campaign to pass the referendum in 2006 to fund the new Student Centre with its pool, and cinema, and drama theatre, and, of course, purpose-built debating chamber. I can be honest now and admit there would have been no campaign without the promise of the FitzGerald Chamber.

And it’s still debating that brings me back to UCD. Working as a teacher now, I coach debating and my students debate in the same rooms in Arts that I did and in the Chamber that was finished long after my time if they are good enough to get to a final. My UCD is long gone now. There was no semesterisation or continuous assessment in the early years of the century. No Quinn School, no Sutherland Building, and the Science Block really was just a really big prefab held together with tape and hope. There was a Student Bar, and a Sports Bar, and time to do more than just one thing. But every so often as I wander through the Newman Building and I pass Theatre M, I can still hear the feint baying of the crowd that Friday night and the excitement comes flooding back. God, I really do miss it.

MARK O’TOOLE

Award Year: 1993

Course: Economics & Politics, Political Science

Activities: Film & Video Society; The Great Race; Politics Society

Occupation: Vice President

OpenLink Financial, New York, USA

I loved my time at UCD. It was an exciting time because things were changing and I was finding my way in the world.

I devoted a lot of time to student activities while I was at Belfield. As Auditor of the UCD Film Society, we grew the Society from an average of about 120 members to over a 1,000 members. We rebranded to UCD Film & Video Society, added more programming choices, and worked with the Audio Visual Centre to add in film classes and a competition where members could make their own films. I was lucky enough to have made one of the films that went on to get an award at the Galway Film Fleadh and was also broadcast on RTÉ. I think that was the first time anyone from UCD ever had a film at the Fleadh - or on RTÉ (but I could be wrong!). Gráinne Humphries, who now heads up the Dublin Film Festival, was also on our committee.

I co-founded The Great Race with a number of terrific auditors from other societies on campus and other colleges around the country, where we raised money for famine relief in Africa with a treasure hunt race between Dublin and London.

As Auditor of the Politics Society, while hosting some great debates, we managed several trips to Russia and Cuba – which were very different countries back in those days. What I didn’t realize at the time is how much doing all of this would go on to reflect who I am today and how I’ve managed to use all of these experiences later in life.

Daisy Onubogu

Award Year: 2015

Course: Law

Activities: Literary & Historical Society

Occupation: Director of Speakers Bureau, Web Summit

Putting this brief note together has been remarkably difficult. Which is strange in a way, because as someone pointed out, I’m normally all too happy to take any opportunity that arises to bend someone’s ear about how foundational and world-shaping my time at UCD was. On the other hand, it probably shouldn’t surprise that such a wealth of experiences, and the subsequent impact thereof, would be difficult to concisely sum up in a tidy paragraph, and harder even to do so without resorting to tired clichés. Still, difficult is not impossible, and after having given it a great deal of thought, I’d just like to say that in a nutshell, my involvement in student activity at UCD made me the woman I am today.

If nothing else, it clearly taught me the immeasurable value of a little self-awareness. Finding my way into the L&H, by way of a brief but memorable stint around the Dramsoc basement, was a fairly pivotal moment in my life. I went in, academically bright and yet almost wholly ignorant of everything that mattered, unsure of where exactly I fit in and who my tribe was, lacking any real sense of self, and all but crippled by anxiety and self-doubt.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by ideas, from those I had never considered, to those I had never appreciated, I learnt to look at the world differently, properly. To critically engage, take it apart and have enough confidence in the understanding I derived from that exercise to meet other people’s opinions with my own. I travelled across Europe, one intervarsity debating tournament at a time, figured out my sense of humour, and some other key pieces of who I was, and I found my people, my tribe - those who also wanted to swallow the whole world whole.

By the end of my second year, I had somehow found myself Auditor of the L&H. A black, 18-year-old, working-class, immigrant woman, from a single-parent household, atop the University’s oldest and most prestigious student society. The narrative certainly had a nice arc to it, but the reality was significantly less picture perfect. That year still remains among the hardest, and most stressful periods I’ve ever experienced in my life, but what a learning curve!

Honestly, fast-forward 4 years and every day working at Web Summit, whether it’s spent curating panel discussions between the Director-General of the WTO and the President of the UN General Assembly, or brokering a meeting between the founder of a Silicon Valley giant and the CEO of Renault-Nissan, feels like exercising lean muscles I first developed at 18 years old.

Michael Power

Award Year: 2004

Course: Chemistry, Education

Activities: Mature Students’ Society; UCDSU/USI campaign to reverse BTEA cuts

Occupation: Teacher of students with autism (secondary level)

When I reflect on my time at UCD, studying Science as a mature student with four young children at home, the word that comes strongly into my mind is ‘support’, and I consider myself fortunate to have received support from many quarters to enable me to stay in College, complete my degree programme, and achieve a Higher Diploma in Education.

I recall with gratitude how lecturers were often willing to give their time to help me cope with the academic challenges faced in learning material never before studied and in making choices as I navigated the options available in progressing through the degree programme. I felt that questions were always appreciated and it was gratifying to be told that lecturers valued the presence of a mature learner in their classes.

The support of the College’s Mature Student Advisers, namely Ros McFeely and Ronan Murphy, was instrumental to us in getting a vibrant Mature Students’ Society going. The Students’ Union was also helpful in supporting its development. The Society provided a much-needed social space for mature students to get to know one another, offer each other support, and feel more integrated into the fabric of University life.

Assistance from the College’s Advisers and the SU officers was essential each year in negotiating the arduous process of applying for the scholarships and various other supports that were needed to keep our heads above water. I am particularly grateful to two past presidents of the UCD Students’ Union, Paul Dillon (2003/04) and Fergal Scully (2004/05), for their support in the student-led campaign for the reversal of the cuts to the Back to Education Allowance (BTEA) in 2003. Without their help, the successful High Court challenge to the dreadful decision of the Minister for Social, Community & Family Affairs could not have been pursued. In looking back, I can see that being so well supported enabled me to be a support to others and to enjoy the many different aspects of student life at UCD.

Gavan Reilly

Award Year: 2009

Course: Commerce & German Activities: Choral Scholars; German Society/DeutschSoc; Belfield FM; Students’ Union; University Observer

Occupation: Political Correspondent, Today FM

I remember reading an interview with Ryan Tubridy a few weeks after starting out in UCD where he likened Belfield to a small country, complete with its own government, stadium, clubs, societies, banks, and media. The observation hammered home just how much there was to do on my new doorstep, and how important it was to wring every last experience out of it.

And so over the first couple of years I threw myself into pretty much as many of those experiences as I could. I joined the Choral Scholars, was involved in reviving the then-dormant German Society, hosted a show on Belfield FM, ran for Class Rep and ended up becoming Students’ Union Secretary, and started writing for the University Observer.

All of those experiences were worthwhile, but the latter two experiences were the most pivotal of my life. Through the Observer I learned the power of good writing, and the importance of independent oversight – which was more than I had expected, given I only signed up in the hope of getting some free CDs. Through the Students’ Union I discovered the value in caring how the world was run, and the importance of effective representation. (It was also through the SU that I met the woman I’m marrying in a few months, which makes all the other important stuff seem utterly redundant by comparison.) Both pursuits uncovered itches I didn’t know I had, and gave plenty of chances to scratch them.

Mine has been a career path I could never have seen myself taking when I enrolled in 2004. In fact, had I gone to any other college, I probably wouldn’t have found myself working in journalism at all.

It’s often said that UCD gave back to a student only as much as they were willing to put in. My six years around the campus taught me how true that is. In a campus as big and as daunting as Belfield can be, it can be easy for a student to ‘float’ – to simply pass through without ever getting the chance to dip their toes in life outside the lecture theatres. I will be forever thankful that I had the chance to tap into the life outside the classrooms and forever grateful for the doors it opened up.