An Focal (XXIV. Edition 5)

VOL. XXIV Edition 5

FROM UL TO THE INDEPENDENT:

JASON KENNEDY

PAGE 11

NOVEMBER 2015

RAINBOW WEEK: COMING OUT IN UL PAGES 13 & 14

UL LADIES FOOTBALLERS WIN

Pg 23

UL Workplace Watch focuses on precarious employment

The UL Workplace Watch group, which aims to address issues in the workplace in UL, was renewed last month following a meeting of a number of staff, including the Postgraduate Students’ Union (PSU) President, Seán McKillen.

BY TOMÁS HENEGHAN The group has a number of concerns regarding employment practices within UL, one of the most serious being the issue of precarious employment.

The first meeting of the group this academic year saw a number of a issues raised including the creation of a new teaching position in UL, termed college teachers.

PSU President, Mr McKillen told An Focal he saw the new positions of college teachers as being a “catch-all” for junior staff at UL. He said college teachers are subject to a lower grade of pay than the already established teaching assistant positions.

A further issue raised at UL Workplace Watch’s meeting was the high

teacher-student ratios. Mr McKillen explained that the number in some case as it stands goes beyond 25 students per teacher. He said it should ideally go no further than 15 students per teacher.

The high teacher-student rations are viewed by Mr McKillen as “unworkable”. The result of this would be less time in which a tutor can assist students in their subject area as there would be more students and less time to deal with all on an individual basis.

Another issue raised at the meeting was the use of UL postgraduate students as tutors and the difficulties this presents.

Mr McKillen explained that in some cases students are not receiving proper training in the subject they are expected to tutor and that some are finishing their undergraduate degrees

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in June and beginning their postgraduate courses and tutoring in entirely different subject areas in September.

Mr McKillen said in one case he knew of a taught Masters student who was beginning a new subject area at the beginning of an academic year while also tutoring in that subject during the same period.

The group now hopes to begin raising its concerns throughout the university and bringing those concerns and issues to the upper levels.

The group is also keen for those who have difficulties with workplace issues in UL to contact them by email at ulwwfeedback@gmail.com to discuss the issues further.

UL Workplace Watch was originally formed in October 2014 to deal with workplace issues which arose at the that time.

In December 2014 An Focal reported on the situation of precarious employment at the university. In one case a postgraduate student working on a PhD said he found himself borrowing money from his girlfriend in order to pay for transport to and from the university for the same work which was “actively blocking” his income from the Department of Social Protection.

He described the situation as “a complete farce” and said that everyone he had spoken to on the issue was “wonderfully pleasant” but that “they have their hands tied by a ridiculous system.”

There were also a number of other personal accounts from staff members who had concerns regarding the employment practices at UL. Following this, the UL Workplace Watch group held a conference at the university to address these issues and bring them to public knowledge.

An Focal - Official Newspaper for ULSU

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November 2015 NEWS

Precarious employment at UL to become major issue for UL’s postgrads Precarious employment at UL is to become a major issue for postgraduate students and student tutors over the coming year.

TOMÁS HENEGHAN THE issue was raised two weeks ago at the Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) Board meeting on Wednesday 21st October.

This follows moves to reform the UL Workplace Watch group in UL, which was originally established in October 2014.

At the meeting, Professor Tom Lodge, Dean of AHSS explained that hourly pay is roughly, although not exactly, equal across departments.

However the Postgraduate

Students’ Union (PSU) Faculties Representative, Declan Mills explained at a PSU Executive meeting that anecdotal evidence of pay-scales suggested a range of pay from €12 per hour to €25 per hour, depending on department.

Mr Mills told the PSU Executive meeting however that he would confirm this and present it again to the Executive when it meets next.

On the issue of disparities between duties assigned to tutors, Prof Lodge said he could not make different departments all conform to the same

standard in terms of what duties they require from tutors.

This is a result of departments having different needs and following differing teaching styles. However Prof Lodge explained that he was happy to provide the PSU with copies of each department’s standards so that tutors may have a benchmark and know what is required of them.

Professor Lodge also explained at the Board meeting that he led the awarding of Teaching Fellowships as a way of attracting new highcalibre PhD candidates to the

university as required by the Strategic Plan and the draft Research Strategic Plan.

Mr Mills responded that this was understandable as people who had been on their PhDs for longer than five or six years are often not being used as tutors as they are trying to complete their studies.

However Mr Mills also said the policy means that people who started their PhDs within the last three years – who were also for the most part given hard deadlines of four years to complete their research – are bearing the brunt of unpaid teaching, non-contracted teaching, cuts to hourly pay and the issue of pay which only recognises classroom hours rather

than including admin or support work.

He also raised the possibility that this excess workload was impacting on PhD candidates’ ability to focus on research in the early years of their PhD, which in turn would feed into the issue with Irish Research Council.

Professor Lodge welcomed any individual postgrads who might wish to approach him if they feel they are being exploited. He explained that he will raise their concerns with their department heads in a way which provides anonymity.

He also invited the PSU to collate anonymous data on postgraduate tutors’ working conditions and grievances and

bring this to the attention of a future AHSS faculty board meeting.

Speaking at the recent PSU Executive meeting, Mr Mills suggested that concrete data be brought to the December AHSS Board meeting.

In the meantime, he said, attempts should be made to raise awareness amongst the UL community of how severely these issues are affecting postgraduates and the negative knock-on impact they have on the campus community as a whole.

At the AHSS Board meeting concerns relating to the low conversion rate of Irish Research Ccouncil applications into funding were also raised.

UL goes green with its new Green Flag ON Wednesday 20th October President Professor Don Barry officially raised UL’s Green Flag outside Plassey House in the presence of those who have worked tirelessly to promote and provide sustainable travel options, reduce energy consumption and champion the natural biodiversity found here on our beautiful campus.

CREDITS EDITOR: Tomás Heneghan News editor: Evie Kearney Lifestyle editor: Cora Power Clubs & Societies editor: Seamus Toomey Sports editor: Marisa Kennedy Photo editor: Holly Kenny Social media admin: Caryl Faye Yulo Survey admin: Aisling O’Connor CONTRIBUTORS: Tomás Heneghan, Liz Gabbett, Aisling O’Connor, Naomi Deevy, Marisa Kennedy, Seán Lynch, Seán McKillen, Ciara Corcoran, Declan Mills, Jennifer Purcell, Evie Kearney, Seamus Toomey, Ciara Mag Mhuirneacháin, Jack Ryan, Sally Gorman, Cathal Moore, Karen Goltz, Sinead Cryan, Fay Langley, Patrick Conneally, Lisa Collins, Emma Taylor, Gabrielle McCormack, Barbara Campos Perez, Eoghan ‘Derp’ Carey, Hatem Abnoun, Roisin Howard, Shane McNamara.

In his speech, Dr. Michael John O’Mahony, Director of the An Taisce Environmental Education Unit, congratulated the UL Green-Campus Committee for their significant work in the three areas and gave particular mention to the UL Kayak Club who undertake an annual clean-up of the Shannon River flowing through UL. Many staff and students have contributed to this international recognition and going forward we will all need to work together to keep the Green Flag. The Green Flag is a fantastic award but it is not an award for life, it can be taken away if we do not protect our wildlife and natural resources; choose sustainable energy efficient options traveling and working and reduce our waste.

To ensure and improve on the standard that is now established there will be constant review of UL’s environmental initiatives undertaken and their effectiveness. The Green Campus Committee is spearheaded by its Chairperson, Robert Reidy, Director of UL Buildings & Estates and Dr Chris Fogarty, UL Energy Manager. There are a lot of people to thank who made this award possible but special thanks is due to these two gentlemen.

The Green Campus Committee and Environmental Committee co-exist together to develop ideas and

implement initiatives that all, staff and students can be part of. We are particularly

looking for student involvement if anyone wishes to find out more please contact

SUGetInvolved@ul.ie .

For more information, like UL Green Campus on

Facebook and follow the blog at http://ulgreencampus. com

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November 2015 NEWS

GP clinics at UL’s Student Health Centre to increase to 11 per week The number of clinic hours allocated for consulting a doctor at UL’s Student Health Centre (SHC) is to be increased following a number of recent changes to the service.

TOMÁS HENEGHAN THIS follows the news last month that UL students would be referred to and expected to consult a doctor at the Castletroy Park Medical Centre (CPMC) for most medical issues.

The new changes will see an increase from five clinics per week last month to eleven clinics per week from this week onwards.

It is expected the new timetable will see a GP provide services at the SHC on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesday mornings and Thursdays. A GP to deal with STI issues is also expected to be available at the centre on Mondays.

The ten nurse’s clinics per week at the health centre are expected to remain in place, meaning a nurse should be present from Monday through to Friday, as it was for much of last month.

The issue of the SHC GP sessions was raised in September after it was made known to the UL Students’ Union that students were being referred on to the CMPC for doctors consultations.

The changes to the service as it was in previous academic years were then presented in an email sent by the Director of Student Affairs, Dr. Bernadette Walsh, to a limited number of staff.

President of UL Students’ Union, Colin Clarke labeled the interim system as displaying a complete lack of concern for students, for students’ welfare and their needs.

Mr Clarke also expressed concern regarding the matter of I-grades and a lack of clarity surrounding how students were to apply for the exception grades as students had previously attended the SHC for such issues.

Under the interim system students visiting or phoning the SHC would be directed to the nurse in the centre who provided an initial assessment. If, in the nurse’s “professional opinion”, students would

require the services of a GP, the nurse would refer them on to the CPMC. The CPMC GP consultation fee is €40 for UL students, an increase of €15 on the fees paid to the SHC by students for the service. Students would then need to seek a partial refund from the SHC so that they would ultimately only incur the €25 fee.

Last month Mr Clarke told An Focal the Students’ Union, including himself and the Welfare Officer, Ciara Corcoran, would continue to fight to ensure the changes were not made permanent.

Dr. Walsh said of the changes at the time: “The university is currently examining what is best practice in terms of providing comprehensive student health and wellbeing services with a view to moving to a fit-for-purpose model of service provision in the near future.”

The expected increased weekly GP clinics also follows the announcement last month that the UL counselling service was to gain a new counsellor in order to help clear the backlog of students awaiting counselling at the university.

The appointment of a new counsellor was expected to translate into an additional 20 hours of counselling sessions per week up to the end of the current semester.

ULSU President, Colin Clarke welcomed the change at the time, saying: “ULSU were glad to hear that there has been an increase in funding in the counselling department in UL in order to tackle the growing waiting lists we have.”

However he criticised the temporary nature of the move and said the change would only act as a “short term solution to a long term problem”.

The tender process has now also begun in order to fill the position of Medical Director at the SHC, following the departure of the previous director earlier this year.

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November 2015 NEWS

Yeats collection lands in UL AISLING O'CONNOR FRIDAY, October 16, 2015 saw a collection of rare first editions of the works of poet, William Butler Yeates launched in the Glucksman Library, marking UL as the home as one of the finest Yeats’ collections in the country.

Copies of works such as The Tower, The Winding Stair and Wind Among the Reeds and Plays for an Irish Theatre were donated by Professor Michael Gilsenan with the aid of the American Ireland Fund.

“We don’t have to be an anthropologist to know the gift is the most active thing…the receiver honours the giver,” Professor Michael Gilsenan said.

Gilsenan detailed his affiliation with Yeats, discussing his introduction in his father’s readings and falling into an “obsession” in university.

He referenced “key moments” of his life in which Yeats has made an appearance such as noticing a misquote in a show in New York, and how the line: “an aged man is but a paltry thing,” (from Sailing to Byzantium)

came to mind after cutting himself while shaving.

This donation is a promise to the future by preserving it for not only current scholars but future ones too, according to Gobnait O’Riordan, Director of the Library and Information Studies Division at UL. The collection has been 17

years in the making and makes its home in the Glucksman Library’s Special Collections Department, which was founded in 1998.

“You get to know not just the books, but the people who made such a special collection possible,” said Ms O’Riordan.

Dr Tadgh Hefferman

introduced award winning poet, Caitriona Ni Chleirchm who began with Yeats’ poem The Song of Wandering Aengus before reading her own works from her collections Crithloinnir and An Bhrídeach Sí.

“Yeats enjoys crossing thresholds from one world into another…for all poets there is that joy of language.”

The donation comes in the midst of the opening conference of the International Yeats Society (IYS) and Yeats2015, celebrating 150 years since the birth of the renowned writer.

Fifty scholars from 20 countries came to Limerick for the conference, hosted by UL, to experience arts events and the sharing of research.

This included the viewing of a production of one of Yeats’ dance plays, a concert and dance performance by members of the Irish World Academy, a reading by Ní Chléirchín, and a tour of Yeats’ famous tower, Thoor Ballylee, in Gort, after the conference.

The collection can be seen in the reading room of the library.

Professor Michael Gilsenan at the launch of UL’s Yeats collection

Megaloceros giganteus comes home to UL “He’s home,” the Countess of Dunraven said fondly looking up at the the Irish Elk display in the library, whose family donated the elk to UL.

AISLING O'CONNOR The elk, whose correct name is the megaloceros giganteus, was found by the 4th Lord Dunraven in the Bogs of Cullen, Co. Tipperary. It has made its home in Adare Manor, Bunratty Castle, Plassey House and now resides in the Glucksman Library.

It was returned this year after repairs, following exposure to frequent temperature issues which caused it to fall apart.

Currently fitted with heat sensors and supports to ensure it can stay at the Glucksman, the elk can be found in the reading room of the library.

If the current location proves unsuitable, it will be moved elsewhere in the library.

The megaloceros giganteus was one of the largest deer to have ever lived. They, including the one now homed in UL, were often found in bogs lying on their backs as their balance was easily lost as they bent down to drink water.

Seeing as the elk appears on the university crest and is such a notable figure in UL, perhaps it should stand alongside Wolfie as a symbol of UL?

Lady Geraldine, Countess of Dunraven

Strengthened relationship between UL and Peking University Beijing NAOMI DEEVY THIS week, Dr Mary Shire, the Vice President of Research at UL flew to Beijing China to visit Peking University (PKU).

There, she met with Professor Wang Jie, the Vice President of PKU. The meeting was in relation to mutual collaboration between the two universities on the levels of both research, and student exchange.

Dr Shire also had a meeting with Professor Li, the Assistant Dean in the School

of Software and Micro-electronics at the PKU, about potential research collaborations between PKU and Lero (The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, headquartered at UL).

These potential opportunities to work together strengthen an already wellestablished relationship, as our university has had much positive contact with the Beijing University in the past.

In 2012, Professor Merritt Bucholz from our School of Architecture gave a talk in PKU entitled ‘The Resilient City of

Ireland.’ She was also hosted by the PKU College of Architecture and Landscape this year under the Erasmus Programme.

Also, in April of this year, Professor Elfed Lewis, Director of Optical Fibre Sensors Research Centre at UL, visited Professor Lingyang Song of the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science.

Scholarly exchange through the Erasmus Programme has proven to be a strong area of collaboration between our two universities and will continue

to benefit both sides of this already very meaningful relationship.

Ties with international universities are hugely beneficial for both students and staff of UL, and are a great way to exchange expertise and knowledge while increasing international understanding and collaboration.

This academic year alone will see the arrival of 2,600 international students to UL, and the number of students leaving UL on Erasmus is thought to be more than 900.

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November 2015 NEWS

UL scholarship awards 2015 MARISA KENNEDY THIRTY three High Performance Scholarships were awarded to students at the University of Limerick in conjunction with Bank of Ireland at a ceremony in the Castletroy Park Hotel on Tuesday night. A further 18 students received bursaries from the Munster GAA Council.

The 2014/2015 season was a very successful one for UL GAA with the senior hurlers winning the Fitzgibbon Cup for the fifth time, the O’Connor Cup being retained and the fresher hurlers winning a first ever Fresher 1 title. This success was

highlighted on the night with all trophies in attendance.

Bank of Ireland representative Liam Sheedy, was quick to applaud the High Performance stars on the achievements of last year but stated that the challenge was now to meet that standard and better it.

“What last year has done is raise the bar. When it comes to the UL GAA club, the word is out and that is a testament to what you have achieved.”

Addressing the recipients from across all four codes, Sheedy added that they must now see themselves as “role models” of the GAA at the university.

“It is an honour that is bestowed on you. Yes, it is a responsibility but it is a

massive honour and I hope you realise that.”

Seven players were awarded Gold Scholarship Awards, among them former Hurler of the Year, Tony Kelly and Ashbourne All Star winner of 2014, Laura McMahon.

Recipients of the Silver Award included Galway star, Louise Ward who was described as “the most exciting young player in the country” and Waterford’s Stephen Bennett.

The President of the university, Don Barry said that the talent being recognised on the night was a testament to the “importance of sport in UL” and that the recipients were “fantastic ambassadors for UL”. He finished by stating

that UL is Ireland’s leading sporting campus.

“UL is the only place, the only place to train and study when you want to be top of your game”.

Reiterating Professor Barry’s statement, Director of Sport at UL, David Mahedy said “at the core of this sporting campus is the GAA club”.

“Look at the calibre of people who come on board to support this club, it’s premium stuff and that’s no accident.

People want to be associated with winners.”

Also on the night, Chairman of the Munster Council, Robert Frost presented the 18 students with bursaries from the council. Stars of this year’s U21 hurling championship were among the

recipients in the form of Limerick’s Tom Morrissey and Barry Nash, and Ian Galvin from Clare. Dual stars like Tipperary’s Aisling McCarthy and Kerry’s Jack Goulding also received the award.

Speaking on behalf of the Castletroy Park Hotel, sponsors of the club, Lee Gregson said that the hotel were delighted to be affiliated with the success of the club and to extend the sponsorship deal for a further three years. A further 14 players were given gym memberships from the hotel as part of a new initiative.

Also new this year was a bursary from the laundry on campus and the recipient was Shane Hassett who was recognised for his role as a player,

coach and also his administration work.

Speaking about the recipient, MC for the night Deirdre Murphy said, “we couldn’t say enough about the fantastic work he does for the club. He puts so much effort into creating that club atmosphere”.

Guests of honour on the night included the 2015 Fizgibbon winning captain, David McInerney and Cait Devane, captain of the successful 2014 Ashbourne team.

In their speeches, both former students were quick to highlight the “brilliant” support network available to the GAA players in UL and added that it was now up to the High Performance players to carry on the recent success of the club.

UL One Campus, One Book 2015/16 announced SEÁN LYNCH SARA Baume’s Spill Simmer Falter Wither has been announced as the 2015/16 featured novel for UL One Campus, One Book.

The novel follows a lonely 57-year-old Irish man and his small one-eyed misfit of a dog, through four distinct seasons.

There will be three events for this year’s UL One Campus, One Book, open to everyone to attend.

The launch event for this year’s novel will be a reading

by Sara Baume from the novel.

Sara will be introduced at the event by Prof Joseph O’Connor, Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at UL. Prof O’Connor, whose novel The Thrill of it All was last year’s UL One Campus, One Book, described the novel as: “Utterly wonderful. It’s the most impressive debut novel I’ve read in years.”

The launch will take place on Wednesday, 18th November at 4pm in the Millstream Common Room.

Ms Baume will talk about the relationships between visual art and literary art in the second event, later in the year.

The event will include visual presentations and there will be a discussion about the influences on visual and literary art afterwards.

The final event of the UL One Campus, One Book will be the eighth edition of the How I Write, Ireland series.

Sara Beaume Lawrence Cleary, writing consultant in the Regional Writing Centre, will engage Sara in a public interview about her writing process and strategies.

The interview will give an insight into how the novelist writes, while also giving time for audience members to ask questions of Sara as a way of informing their own writing processes and strategies.

UL One Campus, One Book is a UL initiative, led by the Regional Writing Centre and the Centre for Teaching and Learning, encouraging students and staff to read the same book and talk to one another about it.

Spill Simmer Falter Wither, Sara Baume’s debut novel, won The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2015 and was

long listed for the Guardian First Book Award.

In 2014 she was awarded the Davy Byrnes short story award, organised by the Stinging Fly in association with Dublin Unesco City

NOTICE:

of Literature, for her story Solesearcher1.

Sara Baume won the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award earlier in 2015, just a month after the novel was published.

Ms Baume also won the Emerging Fiction Award for her short story Dancing, or Beginning to Dance.

The novel was featured as one of this year’s UL First Seven Weeks recommended books.

She was born in Lancashire, grew up in County Cork and studied Fine Art in IADT Dun Laoghaire, before completing the MPhil in Creative Writing at Trinity College.

Rick O’Shea, 2FM radio DJ reviewed the novel on his blog, saying: “I’d devour it all over again tomorrow. One of the most memorable novels I’ve read in years.”

Details of the One Campus, One Book events will be available at the Writing Centre’s website: ul.ie/rwc.

Any questions or queries about the project can be directed to: writingcentre@ ul.ie.

content deadlines

If you have content you’d like to see published in An Focal this semester please email it to anfocal@ul.ie by the deadlines as seen below.

Final edition - Edition 6 (available from Week 11) Deadline - Week 10 - 5pm, Monday, 9th November

6

November 2015 EDITORIAL/LIFESTYLE

Tolerance is not, was never, and should never be enough TOMÁS HENEGHAN FIVE months on from May 22nd and marriage equality was finally signed into law late last week. Celebrations because now LGBT people in Ireland can not only marry the person they love, but isn’t it a fantastic symbol of tolerance and the new wonderful tolerant Ireland?

No. Tolerance is not some magnificent gift from fellow

citizens to LGBT people. If anything it’s a spit in the face.

Almost everywhere you turn you see someone talking about how the gays just want a more tolerant Ireland but in reality tolerance is far from what LGBT people want. Tolerance is what Ireland has maintained for decades.

Tolerance is merely saying: “I dislike you as a human being but because we have to live in this world together I’ll put up with you, I’ll allow you

to share this world with me.”

That, straight up, is exactly what tolerating someone means.

Tolerating someone’s sexual orientation then is another story. It is of course similar to tolerating someone as another person but it involves the dislike and the “I’ll put up with it” attitude being directed to an aspect of someone’s personality and existence.

At a workshop a year and a half ago, attendees were asked to play the tolerance game. This involved being paired up with someone and taking a few minutes to pick

out all their physical traits and aspects of their personality and then tell them you tolerated those parts of the person.

In my case I was paired up with a friend. I told her I tolerated her hair colour first and struggling to pick out further traits, I went for the obvious: “I tolerate that you’re a woman.” The look of horror and disgust on her face said it all. Obviously I didn’t genuinely believe the things I was saying to her because but it was all part of this game to show what tolerance meant.

During the marriage equality referendum campaign it was humiliating having to go

around to the homes of strangers and beg them to allow me the right to marry some day.

It was even more humiliating and crushing when they’d very rudely refuse to allow it and say things which I knew to be homophobic, and all I was permitted to say in response was: “Thank you for your time and hope you have a lovely day.”

Any argument, any apparent anger or upset on our part would lead to claims of bullying people on their own doorsteps, so at all times we had to beg and thank people for the time they spent verbally abusing us.

To me asking for tolerance though is worse. To me it is a negative word when applied to attitudes towards other human beings. Tolerances is about putting up with someone else’s existence, even giving them permission to exist. It’s about deciding how someone else should live their life, while pretending to keep yourself out of their lives. Tolerance is not, was never, and should never be enough.

Marriage equality for LGBT people is at last fully legal in the Republic of Ireland but we’ve a long way to journey still in all aspects of life.

The Queen of Ireland: Comedy gold with heavy dashes of joy and sorrow TOMÁS HENEGHAN IT’S Panti time! And no better timing than recent weeks for this moving story to be released into the wilds of Irish cinema.

The Queen of Ireland, as I’m sure many people already know, channels the life and energy of drag artist, Rory O’Neill as the one and only Panti Bliss. But more than that, the movie is a glimpse into the journey Irish gay men have

travelled over the past 40 years.

Opening on the historic and jubalent scenes at Dublin Castle on May 23rd this year, the movie then progresses to a short synopsis of O’Neill’s life as a child in rural County Mayo. As moving and beautifully nostalgic as this is, if you’ve read his book, Woman in the Making, prior to this, don’t expect many surprises.

The story then follows O’Neill to Tokyo and reminisces through the creation of Panti. However, dispersed in between these areas are like little nuggets of gold are tasty morsels of history with added commentary from the likes of Senator David Norris and The Irish Times journalist, Una Mullally.

For an hour and half of film, things move quickly, a reflect on life perhaps? And then before you know it the story is into February 2014 and the now infamous, though more than likely famous, Panti-gate fiasco.

For anyone who doesn’t know, during an interview on a Saturday night talk show on national television Rory O’Neill said some things about the ‘h’ word (that’s homophobia for anyone who thinks they wont get sued by some overly litigious individual for the offence they might cause to heterosexual people when using that word).

Some people (and I wont name names because, like I said, some people can be overly litigious. It’s just the way they were born though, like the gays and their gayness) from a certain Catholic think-tank, as well as an associate of the thinktank took massive offence to being labeled as homophobic for merely trying to stop homosexual couples, and others, marrying the people they love, solely based on their genitalia. Not homophobic!

Team Panti arose like Conchita Wurst’s Eurovision Phoenix and

just as the Streisand effect tends to result in, the people of Ireland, and in some cases, the world, suddenly rallied around this obscure drag queen from Dublin. Panti was a hero of free-speech, a victim of homophobia and champion of gay rights.

The movie portrays the scenes surrounding Panti-gate perfectly, from freedom of speech protests on a Dublin street to a gay Labour Party TD giving an impassioned speech in the Dáil about homophobia and the cowardice of our state broadcaster in paying a vast settlement and issuing an apology to the allegedly injured parties.

The move to the final months of the marriage equality campaign is then swift and it feels like time flying past, ironically quite the opposite of the real-life final weeks back in April and May this year.

Perhaps that’s one of the movie’s failings in that it doesn’t really capture the agonising wait of the final few weeks of the campaign last May. But given an hour and a half to cover an entire lifetime, as well as these massive national events, the film-makers achieved something fantastic.

As expected floods of tears will not be out of the ordinary in the final quarter of the movie. These scenes cover the referendum results day and the subsequent celebrations and no matter how involved you may have been in bringing about marriage equality for Ireland, you will be tied in to the emotion and euphoric joy of these final scenes.

A poignant and almost surreal moment then comes as Panti moves through the crowds at Dublin Castle that Saturday afternoon in May. She comes across a young man wearing a small amount of makeup.

She turns from him without really noticing but then does a doubletake, screams and goes in to hug

him. Not unusual really, except that the young man shown is no longer in this world.

News of the man’s death came almost two weeks ago as floods of heartbreaking tributes flowed through the vastness of traditional and online media. Even if a viewer of this movie didn’t even slightly know this young man, you could easily be moved to further tears thinking of it as you watch. A tragedy, nothing less.

Panti then comes full circle and returns to Rory’s hometown of Ballinrobe in Mayo to perform for neighbours, friends and family in a marquee on a wet afternoon.

O’Neill explains, as he sits at his mother’s old dressing table in his mother’s old room, putting the final touches to his make-up, how he ultimately left Ballinrobe because of his sexuality, and by extension Panti Bliss, and now extraordinary it is that he is back in the town to perform as Panti for the same people he felt so different to at a younger age.

Fittingly the movie closes with Rory returning to his day-to-day life, as it was before Panti-gate, and no more fitting is the final scene as Panti lip-syncs to ‘You’re Gonna Love Me’ and exits onto a stage.

Packed with comedy gold, joy, sorrow and many moments of confusion, even for a seasoned gay like myself, The Queen of Ireland may be one of the better movies to show in Irish cinemas in recent years.

My only real disappointment,I have to admit was the exclusion of any other LGBT successes and issues, such as the Gender Recognition Act. Though this points to the continued societal need to educate and fight for those marginalised, oppressed and ignored within the LGBT community.

7

November 2015 SU UPDATES

Precarious employment - your PSU update

SEÁN McKILLEN WELCOME to Week 9 of the semester. I just have a few quick notifications to start off. The Childcare Bursary applications have now closed.

They will reopen in January 2016. The Student Assistance Fund application process is still open. It is an online application this year, and all details can be found on the UL Access Office website and in the emails I have already sent out. The Research Induction Day is taking place on Thursday 12 November in the Castletroy Park Hotel.

This is for all new postgraduate researchers. You should have received notification at this stage from the Graduate

School. If you haven’t, then you should contact Anne O’Dwyer in the admissions office.

In October 2014 I got involved in a group called Workplace Watch. This was a group of individuals from all parts of the University; students, admin staff, lecturing staff that came together to publicise the issue of precarious employment at Ireland’s universities. We organised a well-attended one day seminar back in December which featured speakers such as Unite Regional Secretary, Jimmy Kelly and representatives from Third Level Workplace Watch. Slowly the issue of precarious employment is being talked about more and more across the campus.

Whether this was a result of our activities, or the increasing prevalence of JobBridge type work being forced upon new applicants to this sector, we can’t say. The good news is that UL Workplace Watch is back after a brief hiatus and we will continue our work from last year.

People are waking up to

the problems in Ireland’s university system. Postgraduate researchers in particular are taking on more teaching work than ever. The remuneration for these duties is decreasing every semester, and now many are being coerced into teaching for little or no pay. This is not right, and this will not be tolerated any further. We are now working in a system where people are at the mercy of a decent supervisor or Head of Department if they want to get paid. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of decent people who are doing their best to make sure that their students are not exploited in this increasingly perverse system. Some staff now feel that showing their managers that they can cut budgets down to the bone and still maintain a quality service is their only way of climbing the ladder. This is patently false.

This will only lead to declining standards which will have a knock on effect across the university. I hope you will all consider joining the pushback against this culture of casualisation of labour.

Look after yourself your Welfare update

CIARA CORCORAN HI everyone!

I hope you’re all having a great semester so far and you’re all looking after yourselves. As it hits mid-term and deadlines are looming in the next few weeks we thought it was super important to make everyone aware of the importance of mental wellness.

Mental Health Week was filled with activities including mindfulness and positive thinking workshops, ‘tea and chats’, ‘colour and chill’, and

a wellness walk every evening.

Thank you to everyone who took part, I hope everyone had a great week and is now ready for whatever the rest of the semester brings.

Remember, it’s ok not to be ok and it’s absolutely ok to talk to someone. We have fantastic support services here including the counselling centre and Chaplaincy. You can contact the counselling centre on 061202327 or call into the drop-in hours from 11-12 and 3-4pm every day in CM073. I’m also in the Union everyday if you need a listening ear or information about the various support services available to you.

As for the day-to-day stuff we’ve all been working really hard to improve the medical centre and counselling services. As many of you may know, the counselling centre now has 20 extra sessions a week which has really helped ease the pressure the staff are

under and help provide the best service for all of you.

The medical centre has begun looking for a new director while in the mean time we have 11 sessions per week of general medical services. I can assure you we will continue to do our best to ensure that the services provided meet all students’ needs in the long term and interim.

The Student Assistance Fund applications are open until November 30th. You can apply on the UL Access Office website or send me an email on suwelfare@ul.ie for application details. Childcare bursary applications have closed and processing is nearly complete. Applications for second semester will open again in January. Hardship loans are still available so if you’re in a bit of bother call into me for a chat or email me to arrange an appointment.

8

November 2015 OPINION

Opinion: Arts postgraduates and UL’s precarious employment As Faculties Rep on the PSU Executive and Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (AHSS) Rep on the PSU Council, I am dealing on a daily basis with the concerns facing postgraduates. At the moment the biggest concerns, particularly within AHSS, can be grouped under the umbrella of precarious employment.

DECLAN MILLS ISSUES including a lack of contracts, unpaid tutors and a lack of clarity around duties and payment are combining to make the job of a tutor needlessly difficult, particularly for people who have started their PhDs within the past three or four years.

In terms of contracts, the main issue around contracts in AHSS is that some departments are issuing them and some aren’t. At the Science & Engineering Faculty Board meeting, the PSU representative was given a copy of a template contract that could form the basis for negotiating between department heads and postgraduates. As far as I am aware, no such template contract exists in AHSS, with contracts and terms of employment being completely at the discretion of individual department heads.

Following on from this, the lack of contracts contributes to a more general lack of clarity around duties and payment. Postgraduate tutors are only being paid for their time in the classroom, and indeed some tutors are only expected to work during classroom hours.

Many tutors, however, face other duties that are not recognised or rewarded.

There is administrative work such as compiling class lists and keeping track of attendance, there is curriculum input, selecting set readings, marking tutorial assignments, and dealing with student queries. A tutor being paid for six classroom hours a week will often be working ten to fifteen hours a week when these other duties are factored in. Meanwhile, although payment is relatively equal across most departments, tutors in different departments are paid at least slightly different hourly rates.

On top of this, there are tutors who are not being paid at all. Some postgraduates have been given fee waivers in exchange for a set number of unpaid teaching hours a week. Many of these tutors have subsequently had the terms of their waivers

changed without warning, with the number of unpaid hours they are expected to work being raised.

Indeed, some departments seem to be getting by entirely on unpaid tutors. This is an untenable situation, particularly as many departments cap the number of hours tutors can work per week, meaning that with their expanded unpaid teaching requirements tutors can no longer pick up extra paid hours, a vital part of PhD students’

On top of this, there are tutors who are not being paid at all income.

In short, the amount of money being spent on postgraduate tutors is being cut throughout AHSS. Meanwhile, departments are taking on new lecturers. Yes, you read that correctly, the money being spent on teachers who are already here and are teaching on existing courses is being cut, while money is being spent on employing new staff members who in some cases have new areas of expertise and will be teaching new modules.

On top of this, a new Teaching Fellowship scheme has been created. This scheme is designed to assist with the Strategic Plan goal of increasing research excellence by attracting promising PhD candidates to UL with the promise of teaching experience and a grant.

We know that one such Fellowship that has been awarded is worth €15,000.

While this is an understandable strategy when the faculty and the university as a whole want to attract more PhD students, it also means that PhD students who registered between 2012 and the summer of 2015 are bearing the brunt of the issues around unpaid tutoring and unclear or non-existent contracts.

I raised these issues at the AHSS Faculty Board meeting on the 21st of October and it seems that the faculty are willing to listen and address these problems as best they can.

Professor Tom Lodge, Dean of AHSS, stated that he cannot make the different departments all conform to the same standard in terms of what duties they require from tutors, as different departments have very different needs and teaching

but it cannot work unless postgraduates are willing to come forward anonymously, either to Professor Lodge or to the PSU - through their Faculty Rep, through me as overall Faculties Rep, or through Seán McKillen, the PSU President - to express their concerns.

PhD students make a vital contribution to the university.

The fees they pay contribute to UL’s bottom line, the research they do (and the conferences they attend and articles they publish) all factors into the university’s research profile, and they form a vital part of the university’s teaching staff, tutoring undergraduates and providing a point of contact between lecturers and students.

Surely this contribution should be recognised, and rather than being in a precarious position postgraduates should be in a secure position within the university?

It seems that AHSS faculty members agree with this and wish to help as much as it is possible for them to do so, but they are limited in that the problems go beyond the faculty. These cuts to tutors pay are somewhat necessary because of restructuring and budget cuts being applied to the faculty as a whole.

In this year’s undergraduate prospectus, one of the

The main issue around contracts in AHSS is that some departments are issuing them and some aren’t styles.

He also offered to provide the PSU with copies of each department’s standards so that tutors have a benchmark and know what they can reasonably be expected to do. This is a very helpful and useful step and I for one welcome it.

Professor Lodge added that if individual postgrads wish to come to him because they feel they are being exploited, he will raise their concerns with their department heads in a way that keeps them anonymous, and invited the PSU to collate anonymous data on postgraduate tutors’ working conditions and grievances and bring this to the attention of a future faculty board meeting.

Again, this is very helpful,

career options listed for the BA in English and History is “sales and retail”. As a graduate of that very degree, I don’t understand the decision to put this in a course-specific careers options list, and I worry that it could appear to some readers that AHSS’s position within the university is not valued as highly as it could be.

In a time when we are seeing both budget cuts and expansion within the university, I feel that it is vital that the university provides support to all faculties and all departments and teachers within each faculty in order to continue to provide the wide range of course options and opportunities for interdisciplinary education that attracted many students myself included -here in the first place.

9

November 2015 LIFESTYLE

Co-op - Making tea or making headlines? It’s your choice JENNIFER PURCELL CHOOSING your co-op placement can be quite a daunting and stressful time, where do you even begin? I am a third year Journalism and New Media student, I am currently on my co-op placement in the Limerick Leader. Although I had never imagined myself working in a newspaper, now, I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else.

The best advice I could give about choosing co-op is to choose carefully. Don’t just leave it last minute and get stuck in an environment you’re not comfortable in.

Remember, you are there for six months, the last thing you want is to be stuck making tea!

Co-op can be the most valuable six months of your life, if you do it right. It’s a platform to prepare yourself for the real world - life after classes and lectures.

In essence, to put the theory

into practice.

For me, as a journalism student, I did quite a lot of blogging. I had, and still have, high hopes of working in a magazine in the UK -someday. Feature writing is where my passion lays, so never in a million years did I think I could write hard news, and write it well.

The co-op office can be a great help, but they work with a certain number of companies each year, so you may be limited in your options if you do choose to apply through UL. I applied for magazines, radio, and online publications all over the country.

I quickly learned that it's important to remember to be realistic. While it might be amazing to work for a huge company in Dublin, you have to take into consideration the cost of living in the capital.

The unfortunate side is most placements don’t pay, and those that do, pay very little. Although you can

argue the invaluable experience you are gaining, sometimes a smaller company can benefit you so much more.

A smaller company gives the opportunity to work more hands on, to have more responsibilities, and to gain a lot more, with more to show for at the end.

A lot of you might ask when the best time is to start looking for your work placement. Well, I was an eager beaver so went about sending my CV along with a very carefully written cover letter, to a pile of companies, quite early on.

Although you are required to formally submit a styled CV through the co-op office, I personally felt I couldn’t share a lot of crucial experience mentioned on my own CV. What made me anxious was how close co-op interviews actually took place to the date we started. Usually a few others from your course will be interviewed for the same position, so how do

you make yourself stand out from them?

For me it was experience, I had gained a lot of experience with online publications in the year leading up to my co-op. Having good grades is a plus, of course, but putting your knowledge into practice is invaluable. If that is difficult to do so early on in your career path, why not try volunteering. Building on your social and communication skills is essential when heading into a workforce.

You are encouraged to apply for your co-op through the college but it is okay to seek out your own placement too. I secured a number of interviews, quite successful interviews too. I was offered a place in radio, a magazine, an online publication

and a newspaper. I was so grateful to have the opportunity to choose from pretty much every type of media outlet in Limerick, which made it quite difficult to decide which would be most beneficial.

I think co-op is about pushing yourself to the best of your abilities, to go outside your comfort zone and explore your options.

Don’t settle for the easy ride, or the handy six months.

The experience you gain on placement can, in reality, change your life.

When you’re fully qualified with your degree, whether you get a 1.1. or a 2.1, whatever it may be, employers are always going to look at your experience.

I currently have a portfolio

overflowing with snippets of articles that I’ve written, features, blogs and hard news.

To an employer, I have put my skills into practice, and that’s evident in the experience I’ve gained in my course and in my co-op.

If your co-op is coming up and you want to boost your CV, get involved with things around campus. I joined ULFM and read news bulletins, which was a key thing to add to my CV. The staff in the co-op office are very approachable, they will not be offended if you choose to secure your own placement. Whether it be here or abroad, don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice.

10

November 2015 LIFESTYLE

Fresher’s Diary: Not new anymore EVIE KEARNEY SOMEHOW it is Week 9 and I’m not entirely sure how this happened.

When I came to UL the First Seven Weeks initiative was there to help with every problem, big or small, and I remember thinking that surely I wouldn’t need the help for seven whole weeks.

After the first seven weeks I should be completely aware of my surroundings and be a fountain of UL knowledge right? Wrong.

It’s Week 9 and I still go into the main building with the fear that I’ll never return.

That’s not to say I’m not in the swing of things, I know my timetable and I’m fairly sure I’m doing the right things for my modules (or at least I hope).

Studying at university is on a completely different level to studying for the Leaving Cert where I would sit down with a sheet after school, learn it by heart and write it from memory for an A1.

At university there is no ‘after school’. It’s more of a ‘between hours, before societies, during hangover’ type thing. This means it’s difficult to get into a routine and it is something that I have struggled with.

Studying had been a foreign word thus far but with assignments and assessments raining down on me I

decided to give it a go, and it really wasn’t all that bad…until it was.

I underestimated how hard it would be to sit in one place for a few hours without being on Reddit or downloading Candy Crush (again). It’s even worse when your Facebook is bombarded with event invites to table quizzes and themed nights out that seem unbearably tempting.

My favourite distraction is reading everything on Buzzfeed and convincing myself it’s technically some sort of study because it’s technically some sort of journalism.

It doesn’t help that I find the library intimidating. I’ve stepped in there twice this semester and found the fumbling for my student card and the search for a seat not worth the outcome of finding no seat and swiftly leaving again.

I suppose it could be a good study space, if you enjoy scavenger hunts and the sound of phones vibrating on wooden desks.

Aside from the academics, I’ve fallen into college life with considerable ease. When people warned me that I would join ten societies and only keep up two they were wrong – I joined five and have kept up one.

I promise myself at the beginning of each week that this will be the week I start playing the badminton that I paid €10 for, but that’s yet to come true.

I’ve also accepted that being broke is part of college life but I thought I was relatively smart with money before I came here. Turns out it’s easy to be smart with money when you’re

in school all day and come home to a dinner you didn’t have to cook or buy yourself.

With Christmas just around the corner it would probably be wise to tone down my spending on random nights out and 4-in-1’s and save up some cash for when I’m stuck back in Tipperary for more than a month.

I’m lucky (or unlucky, depending how you look at it) to be in a course that’s mainly continuous assessment, meaning small bits are done here and there during the semester and I’ll only have one exam at Christmastime.

On paper I have a lot of time to spare but in reality an hour off doesn’t allow for much more than some lunch and a scroll through Yik Yak. I’ve been keeping myself busy with everything but study and honestly that will be changing sometime soon.

Although my first year QCA will not count towards my overall degree, it’s still pretty important to do well to get a good co-op placement and, obviously, I won’t make it to the second year without passing the first.

The First Seven Weeks initiative is over and I think that means “But I’m new!” is no longer a viable excuse for my shortcomings. It’s definitely time to get down to business so I can enjoy the long Christmas break without worrying about results, and head in to semester two with a positive attitude and at least a notion of this studying thing.

They came by the bus-load: UL Open Days 2015 MARISA KENNEDY OVER the space of two days UL welcomed almost 10,000 enthusiastic visitors to the campus as part of the UL Open Days.

They came by the bus-load from all over the country, and indeed further afield, to stroll around our campus and learn all about their perspective course’s in the areas of Business, Arts and Humanities, Nursing, Education, Physiotherapy, Sports Science and Science and Engineering.

The hoards of secondary students were met with hundreds of smiling faces in the form of open day guides, lecturers and various college staff who assisted in facilitating such a mass of students with barely a glitch!

Mother Nature was in a particularly good mood on both days, in comparison to last year, and while it was cold, the sun was shining to highlight the beautiful campus we have here in UL. Indeed many Snapchats were taken of the river from the Living Bridge or of the lovely (if slightly

unusual) design of the Analog Devices building.

These Snapchats were taken as part of the competition the university was holding in which the best selfies taken and posted on Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat with #ULOpenDay would win prizes. These prizes included vouchers for the UL Gift Shop and a chance to go up in the hot air balloon that was on campus. Yes an actual hot air balloon. On campus.

On the grass in front of Plassey house.

Of course as well as the hot air balloon, the big bench in the

main plaza also attracted the attention of avid selfie takers.

The bench was constantly full of different schools being forced into a picture by their guidance counsellors or stragglers wanting to get in on the action or indeed UL students wanting to take advantage of this weird and wonderful addition to the campus. Hat-tip to Wolfie who was bombarded for hours on both days for selfies.

We in the AHSS department forgive him for being too tired to take a selfie with us on the big bench.

While there was an easy,

relaxed and fun atmosphere maintained around campus all the time, secondary school students were just as eager to learn about the academic side of college life. Each student was given the opportunity to attend as many talks as they wanted on the various courses. These talks began every 30 minutes are were given by a lecturer in that particular course.

Students first gathered in the concert hall where they sat according to the department of the course they wanted a talk in. While waiting, the crowd were treated to a number of

videos highlighting the nonacademic side to UL. Videos of various clubs and societies, the recruitment drive and charity week were shown. “Very impressive stuff”, I heard one sixth year student remark of the clubs and socs.

Each student was then led to the room with the course talk by a friendly and chatty (I’m biased) guide and were eager to learn about life at UL from a student perspective. Once inside the room however, it was time to get down to business. “What modules will I take? What are the points? Do I need a language?”, were only a sample of the questions the lecturers generously answered again and again and again to each group.

Both days were a roaring success. Thousands of satisfied students left UL with a smile on their faces excited about life after secondary school. We can all remember those open days where we escaped the torture of the Leaving Cert for one day and were introduced to a world where students are encouraged to strive to reach their potential not only on an academic level. Where we realised that in college, the emphasis is placed on creating a student friendly vibe constantly. And that is exactly what UL open days were all about.

As one student commented before leaving, “The saying should be changed to college years are the best years of your life because I can definitely see that being true here”.

11

November 2015 LIFESTYLE

From UL to the Irish Independent: Jason Kennedy talks to An Focal Jason Kennedy graduated from the BA in Journalism and New Media course in UL in 2012. He is now working as the Multimedia and Content Editor for Independent.ie. He is also a reporter for the Irish Independent on various topics including current affairs, politics and entertainment. Here he tells us his story about life in UL and what’s been going on since.

MARISA KENNEDY “I was part of the first year of the course. There were six or seven of us and in fact three of us are now working in the Independent.”

Speaking as a student of the same course, I can say that a lot has changed since it’s inaugural year.

“We used to hold fake press conferences and we would have to have the copied filed for the next day. It’s crazy now to think that we had a whole day before our deadline, of course it must be all changed now.”

Jason credits his success as a journalist to where it all began.

“When I think back on the course, it’s actually a lot different to what I’m practicing now, like say I work a lot with video now and we didn’t get a taster of that till our final year but at Jason Kennedy. PHOTO: LINKEDIN the same time, I wouldn’t be where I am had I not started out there.”

He remembers his time at UL very fondly, mainly because he wasn’t afraid to get involved.

“I had a great time in UL, I was really sad when I left it. I was heavily involved in the internships but that’s just what Student’s Union, you know, you have to do.”

I helped set up ULFM and I After leaving UL was the News Editor for An Focal. We used to head out to The Lodge, I “Not many people loved that, or to the Trinity Rooms were interested in writing which I wasn’t exactly a big for An Focal but I thought it was fan of...Many an evening was a brilliant opportunity and I was spent in the Scholars.. it was delighted to do it.” great.”

Jason gained a substantial amount of experience in the field of journalism in 2012 Jason comduring his time in UL. During pleted an internship with the a six month co-op placement as Irish Examiner before working part of the course, he worked with The Irish Times for a year. in the Cork Independent which Finally he was approached he says was a fantastic learning by the Irish Independent and curve for him. He himself was offered a job where he is to this the editor of this very paper and day.

Jason had his Final Year Project Though his course was published in The Journal. mainly print based, Jason He stressed that it may be decided to broaden his horihard to get the experience but zons after college and expand every little helps. into video which he insists “Not many people were gave him an edge. interested in writing for An “I finished college and I realFocal but I thought it was a ised it’s what a lot of people brilliant opportunity and I was were looking towards...Later delighted to do it...Sometimes on then I applied for a job. It you have to take a lot of unpaid

“Build contacts, get to know people that’s what’s most important in this line of work.” all about pushing yourself to stand out from the crowd.

“Maybe people think coming from a rural based background might put you at a bit of a disadvantage but I went to college in Limerick and I ended up working in two of the largest newsrooms in the country. The

most important thing is to work hard to be that bit better than the rest.”

So hard work, tight deadlines and unpaid internships, is that what journalism is all about?

“It is a hard gig to get into, I’m not going to lie, it’s hard to get into. But when you do, it’s great. It’s exciting, it’s different and you never know what you’re going to end up doing and that’s what’s so great about it.”

It’s exciting, it’s different and you never know what you’re going to end up doing and that’s what’s so great about it.”

POSTGRADUATE was something like 700 people looking for a post and two of us got it and that was down to the fact we both had a bit of experience with video.”

Jason wants to leave no student journalist under the wrong impression when it comes to the demands of the job.

“It is tough, there’s no doubt about it. It’s not like back in college, especially in a place like the Independent where you’re expected to write your copy for print and online.

With online, every minute is a deadline.”

His main advice to journalism students is to take every opportunity that comes along, no matter how big or small.

“The best advice I could give is don’t be too big for your boots.”

Journalism is a career in which interacting with people and getting to know them is key, a point Jason emphasised.

“Build contacts, get to know people that’s what’s most important in this line of work.”

In something like journalism, Jason admits that “it can be very advantageous coming from a Dublin based college,” but it’s

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12

November 2015 LIFESTYLE

Mind your Mental Heath 3: Self-harm The topic of mental health has been discussed more in recent times and as a result stigmas have decreased, however self-harm is still seen as somewhat of a taboo subject.

AISLING O'CONNOR STEREOTYPES suggest that it’s merely a cry for “sympathy” or “attention” from the “emo kids” but this isn’t the case. It doesn’t matter if your favourite band is My Chemical Romance or One Direction, self-harm can affect anyone.

Statistics from the National Registry of Deliberate Self-Harm in 2013 showed that Limerick City had a higher rate of self-harm than any other county. The 15-19 and 20-24 age groups showed the highest rate of self-harm: with cutting, overdosing,

pain easier to deal with than emotional pain. So no, it is not just for “attention”.

People self-harm because they don’t know any other way to deal their problems, and unfortunately it becomes a vicious cycle. Someone hates themselves so they self-harm, but then hate themselves for self-harming. A pattern begins to emerge and it ends up becoming an addiction.

While those who do it feel that it’s their coping mechanism, it serves to make underlying issues such as depression worse, but the good news is that there are alternatives out there and ways of overcoming this issue.

and alcohol abuse as the most common forms. As it falls so close to home, shouldn’t it be something that we should discuss?

People self-harm for a wide range of reasons, some see it as a form of self-punishment, while others use it to gain control they feel is lacking elsewhere in their life or to display how bad they feel on the inside on the outside. Those who feel numb use it in order to feel something to reminds themselves that they’re alive.

When stress or pressure builds up self-harm acts can be seen as a “release”, and many find physical

• Get a marker and draw lines across your wrist or wherever you feel like hurting yourself. In the morning you’ll wake up to something that can easily be washed off as opposed to fresh cuts or burns.

• Rip paper, scribble on it, and tear it to shreds.

Take your anger out on that instead of yourself.

• Invest in a punching bag, or use a pillow, feel free to scream into it, throw it, punch it etc.

• Make what’s called a “calm jar” by filling an empty jar with food colouring, water and glitter.

Shake it when you feel like hurting yourself and watch the glitter float to the bottom. Snow globes are a good substitute.

• It may be used to relieve muscle pain but tiger balm cools the skin and causes a tingling sensation which could be close to the feeling you’re looking for.

• Hold ice to your wrist, the idea behind this is the same as the tiger balm.

• Although slapping an elastic band on your wrist is still technically a form of self-harm, it’s not going to do damage like cutting or burning would. It’s not the most advisable alternative, but it is an improvement.

• The urge to self-harm won’t last forever, busy yourself with work, exercise, or a movie. By the

SoUL Fest: Light for Life SEAMUS TOOMEY PITCH black, a crowd amassed and stood in silence. The fountain’s water remained still behind Plassey House. The birds that usually

cawed above were missing and the usually student busy grounds were empty, bar our small collective.

A few minutes passed and the crowd was solemn as if inertia had befallen us all. As more gathered the silence only stuck

Students gather for Out in UL’s Light for Life event

longer and the heaviness of the air only grew. It was genuinely peaceful as everyone’s eyes looked around the dark, eerie yard appreciating the rarely seen beauty of a still Irish night.

When we were sure everyone was there Marielle Xuereb (Out in UL President) calmly spoke a few words about the event and then we all gathered closer as a single guitar started playing Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.

We all collected a paper boat with a candle and began lighting them, sharing the dwindling flames and protecting them from the wind which had picked up. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door ended and Ilyana Keohane transitioned to Youth

by Daughter.

We waited for each other to reach the fountain’s edge and then, in unison, began placing the boats into the water. They managed a few inches and most

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time you’ve finished the urges will have passed.

If they haven’t, you can always afford to watch one more episode of that TV show you’ve been following.

If you bottle everything up you will crack. Instead of relieving the pressure by hurting yourself, talk about how you feel with a friend, or even better, with a professional.

Rewards. Be kind to yourself and reward yourself for not self-harming. For example, if you get through the week without doing it you’ll treat yourself to something you’ve been looking for.

The Lucky Star Project involves making a small origami star every day, make white on the days you don’t self-harm and black on the days you relapse. By keeping them in a box you can map your progress. Set a goal to fill your box to the top with as many white stars as possible, and the making of the stars themselves can be therapeutic.

The Paper Chain Project: This is similar to the Lucky Star Project as every day you don’t

self-harm you make a coloured chain and on the days you do, you make a white one. You can see how you’re doing by hanging the chain up in your room, and when you feel like relapsing take a look at how far you’ve come.

• The Butterfly Project: Draw a butterfly on your skin when you feel like self-harming, name it after someone you care about and tell yourself that if you self-harm the butterfly will die. You can’t scrub it off so the goal is to leave it fade away naturally which should bring a sense of accomplishment and serves as a reminder that people do love you. You can have friends draw butterflies for you too.

• Think about what you would say to a friend or loved one if you found out they were selfharming. You’d be pretty upset, right? You’d tell them that they don’t deserve to treat themselves that way and that there are other ways of dealing with their problems. Now tell yourself that and believe it.

fell over or were extinguished by the wind. We lit the rest for those who didn’t make it and set them down into the water, they drifted around and some managed to stay lit, a few crashed and would set each other ablaze, burning up the paper body and leaving

Boats and candles are handed out for Out in UL’s SoUL Arts Fest event

Boats are set out into the water in remembrance of those lost to suicide and to highlight mental health

a small crumbling pile of ash.

Usually the sceptic, even I felt at peace there - there was a certain atmosphere over the grounds and the fragile boats seemed to possess a poignant parallel to the lives many of them represented. I don’t ever recall UL ever feeling so silent and tranquil, it was noticeable, odd and an experience I hope to remember long past my college days.

A bucket was passed around towards the end and Out in UL raised a seemingly modest Є70 for Pieta House. Marielle spoke a few words again and stayed till the end to help clean up.

She was pleased with the success of the event and said: “It was a very touching event and we do believe that the message of mental health and talking about this too often taboo topic was felt by everyone present.

“The sending out of the boats was a significant moment and you could see by everyone’s reactions and the sombre tone of the whole event that it was impactful. Even more so that we raised money for Pieta House which we will be presenting to them and hopefully we can repeat the same again next year with a return of the Light for Life event.”

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November 2015 LIFESTYLE

RAINBOW WEEK: COMING OUT

'I had never really heard of anyone liking both girls and boys' CIARA MAG MHUIRNEACHÁIN It wasn’t until the age of about 13 or so that I kind of got the idea that I might be bisexual.

I’d always found both boys and girls attractive, but I’d always thought when it came to girls it was more of just an appreciation than actual attraction. That changed one day after I read an article in a magazine, which talked about “women crushes”. Basically it talked about how common it is for girls to find other girls and women beautiful, and talented, and wonderful and all that jazz.

As I was reading this I was sitting there thinking, “Oh ok, so this is something all girls feel”. And then I got to the end of the article where it said “Having a ‘woman crush’ is about appreciating another woman, it doesn’t mean you want to kiss or pursue a relationship with them.” Oh. Yeah, no, I definitely wanted to kiss girls.

I spent the next couple of years pretty much just ignoring my attraction towards any girl, and focused on the boys I liked. I had

never really heard of anyone liking both girls and boys, so I just put it to the back of my mind. It wasn’t until I turned 15 and a close friend came out to me as bisexual that I realised that was what I identified as too.

I eventually came out to that friend, and we would talk about it occasionally, but it wasn’t until I came to UL that I really got the chance to explore my sexuality. My (fab) orientation guide told my group all about Out in UL and by the end of the day I’d decided that if there was one society I was going to join it was this one.

Over the course of the next few months I started to come out to my college people, but the thought of coming out to anyone from home was terrifying. Fast-forward to April and Out in UL’s event of the year Queerbash (it’s the best thing ever, go to it) and I kissed a girl (and liked it). The following day I was filled with so much bravado that I decided I was going to call my Mum and come out to her. I rang her up, and her first question was “Did you shift any lads?” to which I answered “Um no, a girl. I think I’m bisexual”. After a few minutes of silence, she eventually told me that my brother and Dad were in the same room as her, so she’d talk to me later. I then spent the next half an hour freaking out until I received a text from my Mum saying “I still love you so much,

and I’m so proud of you for exploring the world”. Literally the best reaction ever.

Over the next few weeks I came out to my four best friends back in Mayo, who all had the same reaction of “Oh that’s cool” and to hug me and continue on with our conversation as normal.

If there’s one thing I want people to take from my story, it’s that coming out doesn’t always have to be a big event, it can literally just be throwing it out there and that’s that. I still have a lot of people to come out to, including all of my family, besides my Mum, but I know that will come in time, and I know that when I do, I have plenty of people who’ll help me along the way. *The name of the author has been changed for confidentiality reasons

“I’m not interested in women... like that” TOMÁS HENEGHAN LATE September 2004 was the first time I realised I was gay. I had crushes prior to that but they were rare and all fell upon those of the opposite sex. In September ’04 I had my first crush on a boy and this one just wouldn’t go away. I was 12 at the time, almost 13, so it meant something very different to the previous list of crushes. After this, the majority of my interest was consistently focused on those of the same sex.

When I was 16 a close relation found out I was gay. I strenuously denied the accusation at the time. My worst fear was that this person would tell my dad and that would’ve brought my life crashing down. Facing the prospect of being exposed as gay I decided I would need to die. I would die before I would let my secret get out.

Thankfully I had someone very close with me at the time who put me at ease.

She didn’t know my secret but she made me feel safe

regardless.

For the next few years the relation who knew my secret held it as a weapon over me.

She would ask me, “Are you gay?” every once in a while when our dad was nearby, knowing it would send me into a blind panic each and every time. She seemed to take pleasure from seeing the pain and terror in my face.

At 17 I started to think a little about the real possibility of being gay. Up to that point it was a secret I just ignored. I wasn’t gay. I really liked this other boy but that meant nothing, it was just an admiration of him. The fact I was only sexually attracted to men meant nothing either.

I kept it a secret while maintaining to myself that even that action in itself didn’t mean anything.

I eventually accepted the reality, though it stayed my secret for the next while and one day in my first year of college, at the age of 19, I sat a friend down on my

sofa and stumbled through my first coming out session with, “I’m not interested in women...like that.” My friend got it straight away.

I might not have said, “I’m gay” but I had finally come out to someone that wasn’t just me. In fact I had only ever said something similar in my own head, not even out loud to myself in private.

I thought this would be enough and it was until I decided in October of my

second year to tell my family.

I had to tell them. I was still living a life of fear, always worried that my secret would get out. I couldn’t be honest with people. I couldn’t wear what I wanted, like the music I wanted, behave as I wanted for fear of being labeled gay for it. As much as I desperately wanted to, I couldn’t speak out against homophobia. I was trapped and my only options were to either stay trapped or tell the truth.

On Friday, November 11, 2011 I went home to specifically tell my big secret to those who mattered most to me. I came out to my aunty that evening, the woman who had helped raise me. The following Sunday I sat my dad and younger brother down at the kitchen table and in a mess of tears and mumbles I came out to them too. Unable to speak and overwhelmed by a mixture of fear and anxiety, and on the very edge of a long

sought after sense of relief, my brother took a guess. In his wisdom he asked if I had gotten someone pregnant. We laughed. I said “no”.

Within the minute he came back with, “You’re gay, aren’t you?” Through the sobs and puffy redness of my face I just nodded and broke down entirely. A secret which had controlled every aspect of my life for more than seven years was finally out.

My brother immediately said that it changed nothing.

He still loved me, his big brother, and being gay wouldn’t change that. My dad followed by putting his hand on my shoulder and telling me I was his son and nothing would ever change that. He didn’t care who I loved, as long as I was happy.

He reminded me that he also loved me and nothing would change that either.

The following few days saw me come out to friends, acquaintances and family.

The worst and only bad reaction I got was from the person who had spent the previous few years torturing me with her knowledge of my secret: my older sister.

She refused to accept that I had taken control of my life from her and I was setting out on my own journey for the first time.

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November 2015 LIFESTYLE

RAINBOW WEEK: COMING OUT

Low and behold, they also were fine with it JACK RYAN MY story is not very unique, nor very entertaining. It's a story about the journey I had to take to come to terms with my sexuality in a rapidly changing and advancing Ireland. The thing about being gay is that no one would ever choose this life. No matter how comfortable or happy I am with myself now and how well everyone took my coming out, it's horrible that anyone should ever have to go through the inner turmoil that the majority of LGBTQ youth go through as we grow up. Those early days of not knowing what you're feeling just that it's wrong to the days of self-acceptance

and finally letting the world in on your little secret can be so detrimental to both your mental and emotional well being.

The earliest memory that I have of being different was on a family holiday in France back in the summer of 2002 and the soccer world cup was all over the tv. I'm actually not sure whether the soccer had anything to do with me thinking this way or if it's just what I relate to, but there was some stage of that holiday that I distinctly remember thinking that I had some sort of feelings towards boys and that I could never ever tell anybody and that I'd take that secret to my grave. I was 7.

The next moment in my life

where sexuality and preference came to the fore was of course during puberty and the early years of my secondary school life. All along I had myself convinced that the second I kissed a girl, these shameful, sinful and wrong thoughts that I couldn't seem to shake would finally disappear. I kissed my first ever person, a girl, on December 23rd 2008. And it was amazing, I remember walking the half an hour road home and couldn't stop smiling the whole way. Ecstasy was an understatement......But it didn't stop my homo feelings.

So the next natural, most logical conclusion that I came to was that once I had done something sexual with a girl,

surely that would once and for all sort me out.

Long story short. It didn't.

At this stage I was coming to the end of my Junior Cert, going into Fourth Year and it was pretty much all I could think about.

I'd always have to check myself if I thought my parents were coming into a room I was in so that I wasn't “ d o i n g

anything” or “looking anyway” that might give my secret away. In my allboys school, at lunchtime when everyone else was talking about all the girls they liked or what they would give them out of 10, I was always the one that could only listen, pretend that I could relate, and lie bullshit my teeth if I had to say anything. Always secretly punishing and scorning myself for not being the same way.

But I was popular. I had loads of friends, was full of confidence, and was, for the lack of a better word, very straight-acting. I was able to fool everyone, easily able to pretend to be someone I wasn't. I always considered myself lucky that I didn't have that “gay voice” that everyone talked about. But I had to confront my demons eventually and it was January of Fourth Year that I actually remember lying in bed one night and thinking “ok look it, I'm probably bisexual and people are just going to have to get used to it”. Another lie..

And that summer I told my best friend that I was bi.

He was brilliant with it, knew exactly what to say to relax me, told me it doesn't make any sort of difference to him and that we'd still be friends for life. And we still are thank God. But he asked me the worst question that he could ave asked at the time and the one question that I was hoping I wouldn't have to address for another while: “So, are you

more into girls or guys.....?”

Of course I knew the answer but I couldn't bring myself to tell him there and then. I had used the bisexual stepping stone like a lot of gays do and that was enough for now.

It took me a whole more year to tell my parents. At this stage I knew I was “fully gay” and had told 2 or 3 friends, but I just had to tell my family. So on June 27th 2013 (weird how I remember all these dates), I sat them down, asked them to pause the TV, walked into the room, hands and body literally shaking with nerves that I had never experienced before.

I told them the big breaking news and low and behold, they also were fine with it! I actually never thought that they wouldn’t be, what scared me the most going into that room was that after the next 5 minutes, whether good or bad, my parents were going to see

me differently after 18 years of them seeing me one way.

That's the moment I consider as my Coming Out even if I had started it already with a few friends and even if the majority of my other friends and family wouldn’t find out for another few months.

It takes courage, no doubt.

Because even though it's full of people of all different orientations and identities, the closet can be the lonely place in the world. Only advice I have is the same advice you'll here on all the other stories and videos you read and watch: Only do it when you're ready, but when you are ready, own it and don't let anyone tell you that you are any lesser simply because how you were born. *The name of the author has been changed for confidentiality reasons

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November 2015 LIFESTYLE

Erasmus Diary started a few series on Netflix to keep me going.

Orange is the New Black…Check.

Luther…Check.

Endless Disney movies…Check.

As you can tell I’m not the greatest football fan but I decided that I can’t come to Manchester and not see Old Trafford right?

So just last week I did the stadium tour with James ahead of last weekend’s Manchester Derby and I really enjoyed it.

I don’t have a huge interest in the game but I do know quite a bit about it because of my brother’s childhood obsession with all things United. So that probably aided my enjoyment.

The tour was very extensive and our guide was a ticket. We were shown the dressing rooms, the press room, the VIP area and even Sir Alex’s box! Hopefully I’ll get to go back for an actual game, fingers crossed.

I also found Afflecks: Without doubt my favourite shop in Manchester. As they say themselves, Afflecks is an “eclectic

SALLY GORMAN SO the last two weeks have been busy busy busy. I have been job hunting and guess what? I got a job! Yes, I start in Goldsmiths Boutique Jewellers in the Arndale shopping centre this week and I am super excited.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t as difficult as I imagined actually. I managed to land myself to interviews in two different jewellers and I was offered the two jobs. Typical.

The hardest part was choosing which position to take but in the end I went for the one closest to home. Simply because it will be easier to get home after late shifts.

Afflecks Vintage store Chinese. Being honest they didn’t look too impressive, maybe you just need to know the right place to go. What I found most impressive was the Chinese Arch erected in the middle, so cool!

The Town Hall on Albert Square is another must see. Simply for the beautiful architecture and beautiful building alone.

Netflix has also become one of my best friend’s over here.

There is no TV in my flat, the horror!

We only have one in the common room for the whole building and more often than not the boys take over. There seems to be soccer on every night of the week, its torture. So, I’ve

By night, Media City in Manchester

Manchester’s Gay Village/Canal Street

So I start on 15 hours a week which is perfect as I imagine that will be split over two days. Ideal because I only have two days in college.

It will be great knowing that I can now enjoy myself a little more without having to worry about money matters.

So to celebrate we had a night out in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. The Northern Quarter here is the equivalent to Temple Bar at home. To say we went on a bit of a pub crawl is an understatement. I think we saw the inside of every pub and met some very interesting people.

I have made a bucket list to complete before my time here ends and I put art galleries on it. I don’t really have a huge interest in art but Manchester is pretty renowned for its galleries so why not? I was never so glad that I did.

I stumbled across some of Banksy’s earliest work and to put it mildly I love his work. It was well worth paying Manchester Art Gallery a visit for that alone.

Since I’ve got here I’ve heard so much about Canal Street and Manchester’s Gay Village. It certainly didn’t disappoint.

Even though I haven’t spent a night there yet I just fell in love with the atmosphere. Everyone was in such good form, really bubbly and ready for fun. I’ll definitely go back.

I’ve also been to China Town. But didn’t actually have any

arcade of the geekily hip and the lovingly handmade and the skilfully pierced lip, not to mention our treasures and trinkets and tokens.”

It has everything you could possibly think of under the one roof. I spent three hours there and could have spent three more.

Some of the things I bought included a rose gold nose ring and blue lipstick. If that doesn’t sum it up I don’t know what will.

So vintage, so hipster.

We have also been trying our hand at pub quizzes over here.

They seem to be all the rage. Needless to say we haven’t had much luck. On the plus side though they are usually in Media City which at night time is pretty amazing lit up in all its glory.

Halloween seems to be an even bigger craze over here. I picked up a cool sugar skull mask in Afflecks and I’ll team it with my blue lipstick for a night in Tiger Tiger. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Presenting class next week should be interesting too. We are covering ‘selly telly’ - In other words we have to bring a product to class and sell it in front of the camera for three minutes. Believe me it’s not as easy as it looks.

So my homework was to watch the shopping channels, best get to it then. Wish me luck!

Manchester’s China Town

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November 2015 LIFESTYLE

Comedy Society brings laughs to SoUL Fest SEAMUS TOOMEY SOUL Fest’s first big event happened Monday night in Scholars, Karl Spain came to perform and UL’s Comedy society opened with 4 comedians including Stephanie Leonard, Lea Wegerle, Andrew Berryman and the wonderful Amy Lee Fox accompanied by the super

silly John Spillane who MC-ed for the night.

Stephanie Leonard opened and managed a few meager laughs from the packed Scholars audience. A few jokes plummeted but she managed to land a few.

German Lady Lea Wegerle followed and with a brave first effort won the crowd over despite speaking a foreign language and not her own native German. Sure a few jokes fell

(L-R) Karl Spain, John Spillane and UL Comedy Society president, Amy Lee Fox. PHOTO: CHLOE FALLON

flat but she recovered very well with the help of her “magic” paper in hand. Playing the German card she mocked her homestead and contrasted the Irish and their much more punctual and efficient German kin. She pointed out though that we do share some values. Such as alcoholism.

Andrew Berryman too was a first timer from another country. This time the infamous shores of the United States, that big oil guzzling war mongering obesity inducing nation with the black guy in charge who’s actually from Moneygall. Again hit and miss with his jokes he managed through his performance and I’d probably be kinder to him if he didn’t have such an annoying twang on the end of his voice.

Also his impression of a hillbilly warrants ear plugs, so much horrible impression for such little joke. The crowd laughed occasionally and he seemed satisfied with his performance.

Amy Lee finished the comedy society’s segment of the night with a daring bit of comedy. Gasps aplenty with abortion and rape the main topic of conversation in Amy’s routine. Her edgy jokes sat well with the college audience and I saw a few nod approvingly either at her clever word play or just the sheer balls with which she stared people blankly in the face as she put together pretty obscene taboo scenarios. Actually blank is not how I would describe her face which sported an innocent and clearly deceptive smile for he most of her performance. How do I know her jokes were really edgy besides the gasps of horror at pretty much each utterance of a punch-line, well I overheard people complaining about her afterwards. If someone doesn’t complain it ain’t edgy rule number one of dark humour.

John Spillane’s role as MC was well suited and he did a stand up job, his outro was his infamous wanking story and he told it well with enthusiasm and adequately inappropriate gestures. Even the comedy veterans who had seen it before laughed at possibly his best execution of this particular bit. I even think I saw Karl Spain chuckle.

All in all a mixed bag with a strong finish that had us warmed up and ready for Karl Spain. Then a fire alarm went off and we all laughed, then it kept going on and on and on.

Finally the professional stepped on stage with a seasoned experience to the sound of applause and a very loud fire alarm muted by two jackets hung over the source of the annoying ringing.

Thank God there wasn’t actually a fire.

Breaking News:

This just in . . . Karl Spain not Spanish SEAMUS TOOMEY KARL Spain was top notch comedy, immediately you could see his years of experience and his confidence on stage made all the difference in comparison with UL Comedy society’s beginners. It’ll all come to them eventually but it’s definitely a tangible difference and straight away Karl was getting laughs and he executed each one of his jokes flawlessly throughout the night. I don’t remember any awkward silences or jokes bombing and it wasn’t like he was reserved or conservative with his topics.

Abortion and holocaust jokes a plenty this was not comedy for the light hearted and we loved it. With that though he was also down to earth and light hearted, he made fun of himself and through gritted teeth told us of the praise he once got from Ed Byrne. And how that ended with Ed Byrne laughing at how unbeautiful Karl is, a story only a modest head could admit to a crowd.

Karl worked the crowd for the majority of his set, he got around to several groups, made fun with some of the nights other comedians, slagged some of the international students and even gave me a roasting. Again you could see his experience come in, it didn’t matter what

was talked about he had a gag or a story about everything, from other comedy gigs, from his life or from his travel.

Karl came in and regardless of if he had material prepared I don’t think he needed it, he was casual, calm and callous with us. It was like he was a friend, one who knows a little too much, his observations were a little too close to the mark and he didn’t hold back but it was all in good fun. We all laughed especially the lucky few who got Karl’s scathing attention, perhaps we allowed him some lean way being a little star struck that he, a celebrity (kind of), was actually chatting with us. Then again maybe it was just his charming good looks *queue Ed Byrne laughing*.

Story after story Karl made sure people were laughing at themselves and each other. Our countries and course choices were attacked and mocked but my favourite joke from the night had to be when Karl was addressing a young Erasmus student from Hamburg in Germany. He started off explaining that they handled and organised the World Cup fantastically from a public transport perspective. And finished with “the Germans were always good at getting tens of thousands of people onto trains and moving them around the country”.

Amy Lee Fox, comedy society president

Comedian, Karl Spain performing at UL Comedy Society’s SoUL Arts Fest event and performer on the night said “All in all despite a few hiccups, namely the fire alarm and late start the night was a resounding success. Karl Spain wowed the crowd over and was very complimentary of the crowd

and the scholars. I’m very proud of all the acts and our MC for ‘bringing it’ as it were.

Our next gig is Monday of Week 10 so be sure to come along”.

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November 2015

UL Drama Society -

CLUBS & SOCIETIES

Let the Good Times SoUL! UL Drama Society is still steam-rolling through the semester, having just held our sixth workshop of the semester - Monologues. We had a range of performances, from ‘The Hangover’, ‘The Avengers’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Corpse Bride’, and much more. For Halloween we held a Special Effects Make-up workshop and afterwards we had a Zombie Walk around campus.

CATHAL MOORE WITH the SoUL Arts Fest now over the UL Drama Society is coming off another successful string of events.

For Week Seven’s SoUL Arts Fest, we put on several events. From the beginning of the week, we were pulling off Public Break-Ups in Scholars, Stables and Red Raisins to cause a stir and create a bit of drama on campus. From cheating boyfriends to disloyal bestfriends, and slaps to the face and glasses of water thrown, on-lookers were left shocked and amazed by what they were seeing. One particular breakup even made a stir on Yik Yak. We also put on a short one-act show called ‘Limbo’ written by one of our graduated members, David Watters.

Starring three of our first-year members, ‘Limbo’ saw a young man sent to a strange interpretation of Purgatory to meet Saint Peter and get a second chance at life. Making his onstage debut, first year MMPT

student, Peter O’Neill stole the show with an extremely strong performance dealing the dry humour of Saint Peter.

The ever-charismatic Leo McKenna brought a sense of realism and humanity to the stage as the bewildered teenager Calvin, delivering a lengthy emotional monologue after a series of hilarious encounters. All the way from New York, international student, Summer Howard brought her passion for theatre and love of Shakespeare to the stage as the money-hungry gold-digger, Jaqueline Merchant. Overall, the show was a great success as three of our new members made their first appearance on-stage for the society and developed their performance skills and the society got some great exposure.

On the Friday of SoUL Arts Fest we held the much-loved Drama Society Sleepover in the Students’ Union. It was a night of Cards Against Humanity, Mario Kart, Call of Duty, and Just Dance (thanks again to Games Society!). And also

getting turfed out in the rain after the fire alarm was set off in Stables. Everyone outside in the rain in their pyjamas singing songs and keeping spirits up huddling together is what Drama is all about - we stick together, we’re a family.

Once back inside, the party soon picked right back up and, for some, didn’t end until the morning. Some thought playing Just Dance at 7am was appropriate, while most were snoring (loudly) in the Games Room. It was a fun night for all, and we’re hoping that good cheer carries on for the rest of the semester.

In the upcoming weeks, we’re looking forward to collaborating with Out in UL to hold a slight spin on last year’s Disney Quiz for this year’s Rainbow Week, as well as having a theatre trip to The Limetree Theatre and our usual workshops.

Since the start of the semester we’ve been practicing hard for our big show - ‘The Affairs at Meddler’s Top’, directed by our own Sinéad Morrisey.

After a slight shuffle in cast,

we’re back on track rehearsing strong for Week 11. ‘The Affairs at Meddler’s Top’ is a murder-mystery comedy starring a host of the best UL Drama Society has to offer.

Eoghan Hussey’s portrayal of Peregrine - a smarmy and slimy pompous tennis player - is bound to have the audience laughing for days on end once he hits the stage. German visitor, Joe Bear is a particularly talented man on-stage as the theatre performer Bouffant Éclair, and veteran performers Meadbh Lynch and James Lillis will be taking to the stage in the lead roles of Sir Hector and Lady Davinia to be our hosts for the night.

Be sure to keep an eye out Weeks 10 and 11 for show times, this one is not to be missed!

We always accept new members, and it’s not too late to join in time for Stage Fighting and Improvisation in the upcoming weeks. Keep an eye on our Facebook, and don’t be afraid to contact me at pro@ uldrama.ie if you have any queries or questions.

UL Drama Society’s Ciara O'Mara monologues on stage

Dance UL - Bopping its way around Ireland Coffee, tea or just an empty mug? Cinema’s secrets KAREN GOLTZ

IT’S been a busy month for Dance UL! Our members have been enjoying our weekly classes offering a wide variety of dancing styles, from hip hop to contemporary to Irish dance.

We’ve had an amazing turn out over the last few weeks and look forward to finishing off the semester with a bang.

You may have seen Dance UL bopping about campus over the past few weeks. We had members, teachers and committee members alike showing off their skills at the UL Open Days and SoUL Week festivities.

Mascot Wolfie even got in on the action.

We recently held auditions for this year’s Intervarsity squads.

The All Ireland Dance Intervarsity Competition is Ireland’s biggest collegiate dance competition, held every year at a different university. Competitions include groups for Irish dance, contemporary, jazz, hip hop and mixed groups. Last year Dance UL hosted the event right here in the University Concert Hall;

SINEAD CRYAN

in addition to that, our teams walked away with two first places in hip hop and contemporary and a third place in Irish dancing.

This year’s event will be held in Trinity College in Dublin, hosted by DU Dance. We were delighted with the number of amazing dancers who came out to our auditions; you should all be so proud of the amazing standard you brought to the table!

This year we will be sending teams for all five categories. The squads will spend the next four months perfecting their routines before heading off to take on the competition in late February.

In addition to the Intervarsity competition, Dance UL will also be taking part in the All Ireland Dance Experiment, hosted every year by DCU Dance in The Helix in Dublin. This is a showcase that takes place every November where dance societies from all across Ireland are invited to present a mixed style routine.

This year’s theme for the performance is “dare to dance”, and Dance UL will be doing just that.

Rehearsals have already begun as our dancers dedicate their time, energy and passion to this project. The performance will be held on Tuesday, November 10th and we encourage anyone

with an interest in dance to come see this wonderful showcase. We will be posting ticket information on the Dance UL Facebook page.

One of our favourite traditions in Dance UL is our endof-semester showcase. In Week 12 of every semester we invite our members to show off what they’ve learned with us. You’ll see performances from every class as well as solos and other amazing acts. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for details.

Make sure to mark your calendars because this is a show you won’t want to miss.

THE Film-Making Society has dived head first into the big, scary world of the UL Wolves.

Every Tuesday we meet up with our members to not only learn how to make the perfect film - with amazing lightning and great cinematography - but also to discuss favorite movies, worn-out cliche's (seriously, no one looks that good in the morning and did you notice there is almost never tea or coffee in the mugs when actors are drinking?) and whether or not ‘The Room’ so bad that it's good, or just bad?

As there is too much to talk about we usually end up in Stables for a few pints afterwards.

But you can't just talk about films, you also have to see them. We've seen Macbeth in Odeon and on Sunday we went to see the new James Bond

movie, ‘Spectre’.

We held a spooky screening of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ for SoUL Week, and now we're preparing for our biggest event yet: the ultimate film lockin, featuring the best movies, the best popcorn and the best members of any society in UL (if we do say so ourselves!).

If you've ever seen a film in your life that you want to talk about, if you want to compete in our one-minute film making challenges or if you want to learn how to be the next big film maker, please come by on Tuesday's, 7pm at S1-15.

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November 2015 CLUBS & SOCIETIES

Cumann Gaelach:

Bringing Gaeilge back to you

The masses gathered, slowly a few at a time congregating outside the Students’ Union. You could feel the difference, there was anticipation in the air, and you could see the questions resting on the tips of everyone’s tongues. Confused I looked around at the gathering crowd wondering what was about to happen.

FAY LANGLEY DIA dhaoibh, a chairde, is mise Fay agus táim mar leas-cathaoirleach don Chumann Gaelach i mbliana. Is léir gur liosta le háireamh na himeachtaí a bheidh fé lánseol as seo amach sa téarma seo!

Tá muid ar fad sa chumann fíor sceitmínach faoin Lá Gaeilge 24! Céard í Lá Gaeilge 24 a cheistíonn sibh oraibh féin…?

An Dúshláin: Is í aidhm an dúshláin seo ná muintir na hollscoile a spreagadh chun labhairt as Gaeilge amháin ar feadh 24 uair a’ chloig: sa bhaile, ar an gcampas , le siopaí agus gnólachtaí, timpeall an bhaile, le cairde, sa chlub spóirt nó fíu amháin sa chlub oíche is tú féin ag iarraidh póg a ghoid ó dhuine éigin!

An Am : Dé Máirt 10 Samhain 2015, Seachtain 10. Bígí ann nó bígí mar chearnóga!

Cén Fáth? Cuideoidh sé le hintinn na ndaoine timpeall na hollscoile a oscailt & eispéireas dearfach a thabhairt dóibh maidir le húsáid na Gaeilge ina saol. Beidh na mílte ag glacadh páirte ann arís i mbliana agus ar fad chun fás ‘is forbairt a chur leis an ngaeilge.

Imeacht eile a bheidh fé lán seol againn ná ‘Ceol is Ól’. Is ciorcail cainte trí mheán na gaeilge sna stáblaí atá i gceist a bheidh gach Dé Máirt ag tosnú ar an 10 Samhain 2015, Seachtain 10. Beidh píosa craic againn ann agus is deis den scoth é chun do chuid ghaeilge a chleachtadh agus do scíth a ligeadh!

Bhí ‘Tae is Play’ againn don seachtain SoUL. Tháinig baill don Chumann Cheoil Thraidisiúnta isteach linn chun cúpla poirt a chasadh agus bhí píotsa orduithe againn in ionad ceapairí! Bhí sé thar a bheith taitneamhach! Bhí seastán againn sa Courtyard ar an gCéadaoin don seachtain SoUl freisin agus bhí bunnóga is tatúnanna as gaeilge ar fail ann. Bhí an-rath ar na tatúnanna le chách! Mar is gnáth, beidh ‘Tae is Plé’ ar siúl gach Dé Máirt sa Seomra Gaeilge @ 2-3pm. Bíonn ceapairí álainn ar fail ann i dteannta le cupáin caife is tae le brioscaí is a leithéid agus gan dabht comhluadar den scoth! Bíonn atmaisféar tarraingteach is cairdiúl le brath ann. Fáilte roimh chách!

Tá an-rath ar na ranganna ‘My First Gaeilge’ atá curtha ar fáil do dhaltaí idirnáisiúnta ach go háirithe. Bíonn frásaí neamh-fhoirmeálta le foghlaim ann ó thaobh conas cliúsaíocht a dhéanamh trí ghaeilge nó conas focail dána a rá. Bíonn an-spraoi ag baint leis na ranganna ar

Puppies! The fluffier side of SoUL Fest SEAMUS TOOMEY AFTER ten minutes there was a noticeable collective of people - after twenty they had packed out the SU and finally at 12pm they had swarmed the courtyard, amassing a staggering following. One loud bellow set them in motion: “PUPPIES!” SoUL Fest had started off with a genuine crowd excited and ready for puppies and chocolate, UL’s Animal Welfare Society’s event. You could hear people beforehand asking frantically where the puppies were going to be. So

fad. Bíonn sé ar siúl sa KB1-18 @ 6-7pm gach Dé Céadaoin. Níl ach costas €2 air!

Bhí Oireachtas na Samhna ar siúl sa Citywest i mBaile Átha Chliath ar an 30 Deireadh Fómhair go 1 Samhain. Bhí craic thar nócha againn ann. Bhí comórtais éagsúla ar siúl ann mar shampla amhráiníocht sean nós, rince gaelach, comhrá beirte is a leithéid. Is fiú go mór teacht linn an bhliain seo chugainn.

Beidh EGM fíor thábhtach againn go luath ó thoabh coiste nua a fhoirmiú.

Má tá suim agat páirt a ghlacadh ar an gcoiste, bígí ag faire amach le haghadh na ríomhphoist ‘gus ár leathnach Facebook @ ‘Cumann Gaelach Ollscoil Luimnigh’.

Táim ag tnúth libh sibhse a fheiscint ag na himeachtaí as seo amach!

Slán tamailín.

Students gather around one of the puppies from Limerick Animal Welfare for UL Animal Welfare Society’s SoUL Arts Fest event

UL Wolves mascot, Wolfie getting some attention from students during AWS SoUL Fest puppies and chocolate event when the dogs showed up naturally you all crowded around the little furry friends, even scaring some of the organisers with your numbers.

A small booth was set up with information about Limerick Animal Welfare (LAW), the group who brought the dogs, and a bucket was passed around for charity for the organisation.

Wolfie made an appearance and even stole some of the attention getting his belly rubbed by some of the onlookers. People were in puppy pandemonium, petting, playing and pandering over the three dogs that arrived first (and Wolfie of course).

The dogs were lapping up the attention with easily one hundred students fighting their way through the busy courtyard just to see them. When pugs were brought in I admittedly ran from my computer in the C&S office and sprinted over to the little smushed faced dogs that my family hold a fondness for.

The phone was out and there

were loads of pictures sent to my mom and sister, and others were doing the same. Needless to say by the end of the day LAW had raised quite a

sum of money and the dogs were exhausted. They had their work cut out for them - there were nine dogs and a shocking amount of students for them to entertain. They seemed happy to be getting into their car and going home for a welldeserved break.

Limerick Animal Welfare showed their gratitude saying: “The students collected €344.45 for us and brought in loads of food, treats, toys, bowls and bedding. The Animal Welfare Society also presented us with a cheque for €150 which they raised at a pub quiz.

“Thank you so much from all the animals and staff at the sanctuary - it was a great effort and very much appreciated. Special thanks to Maria McGrath for organising everything.”

ULSU Events & Promotions Manager, Keith Quinlan making use of AWS puppies and chocolate SoUL Fest event

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October 2015 CLUBS & SOCIETIES

Rubberbandits get award for ‘talkin daycint’ SEAMUS TOOMEY BLIND Boy from the Rubberbandits was on campus in Week 7 to receive the Auditors award from UL’s very own Debating Union.

Auditors, Rachel Jones and Sarah McCarty of DebU were the ones who decided the Limerickborn comedians deserved the highly revered and prestigious award on the grounds that they’re a group who have brought discussion and discourse to the mainstream.

It’s hard to disagree, the Rubberbandits like to cause controversy wherever they go - look at their gallery they recently set up in Japan or their opinionated Facebook page which has talked about the Troubles and the Marriage referendum in vernacular more in tune with the Irish people.

The Rubberbandits talked about this largely during their presentation in Plassey House on the night they were presented with the award.

They described the importance of taking the seriousness and “solemnity” out of issues and how this shows the true ridiculousness of some statements, often hidden behind technical legal jargon that exists pretty much for the sole purpose of confusion and inciting fear in those unfamiliar with this particular language.

Blind Boy’s presentation was genuinely interesting and they talked extensively about creativity, inspiration and self-esteem and how they relate. It was intriguing, surprisingly well thought out and complex, proving their worthiness of such an honour and reassuring some of the higher up parties in UL who were present.

Blind Boy managed all of this while remaining

a funny comedic figure, getting regular laughs out of the well-dressed, posh-looking crowd. He was accompanied of course by Willie O’DJ, the group’s DJ, who refused to speak, but gestured regularly also gaining fans for his humour.

This is exactly what makes the Rubberbandits so special: their ability to connect with regular people and it is this that Sarah McCarty and Rachel Jones recognised which many don’t they are bringing the debates that are usually reserved for the hoyty-toyty upper-class of society, to the regular person, something the Irish government and politicians around the world have struggled to do.

They have begun to break through the barrier that exists between law-makers and the lawabiders, the miscommunication between the two perpetuated by the notion that if we are to affect

these issues and policies we must do so while speaking like stuck up snobs.

With the help of the Rubberbandits, Waterford Whisperers News and other satirical progressives, perhaps one day the Irish political parties will not be exclusive clubs reserved for the offspring of existing party members.

Instead they will be truly open to the Irish public to become involved, active instigators of change, as opposed to the passive apathetic “sometimes we’re arsed to vote” drones which we have become through the decades of inability to engage with our own party system.

Even more, the comedy duo incited this sort of discussion from many of the attendees while smoking an e-cigarette and cursing, just like regular people do.

SoUL Fest Budget 2016 debate - a fiery spectacle LISA COLLINS

Sinn Féin UL’s SoUL Arts Fest event in the Students’ Union courtyard to highlight the homelessness crisis

Sinn Féin pushes the bed out to highlight homeless crisis PATRICK CONNEALLY

ON the Wednesday of this year’s SoUL Arts Fest, Sinn Féin UL gathered at the Pavilion for its event. This commenced with a bed push from the Pavilion to the SU Courtyard, handing out leaflets, talking to people and highlighting the current homeless crisis which has had a devastating effect on Limerick City.

There is a recorded 5,120 people on the housing list in Limerick. There are children whose welfare, education and quality of life is being drastically undermined as a result of this crisis.

Rents have dramatically increased, 8.2% across Limerick in the last year. The cost of a three-bed semi-detached house in Limerick has risen by 10.71%. A couple with two children on the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme will only be allocated €550 from the local authorities.

With the lack of social

housing in Limerick, and with the rises in rent by private landlords it makes it impossible to rent a house as there are no houses in Limerick City for near this payment. The very significant issue of people in mortgage distress has added to the housing need in the city. This has created an even greater demand for housing in the private sector which, in addition to the demand for student accommodation in the University, has created further pressure on an already crowded market.

All of this has exacerbated an already upward pressure on rents. The lack of housing and increase in rents has come in part to an extra influx of over 400 students attending UL this year as well as people from the city having taken up residency in Castletroy due to the severe lack of housing in other parts of the city. The result has been that students have seen a sharp rise in rents across the Castletroy area, putting more pressure on students who are

struggling to afford accommodation, as attending third level education is becoming more and more expensive every year, with factors such as the government’s consecutive increase in college fees.

Our objective with the bed push was to highlight this horrific issue as a lot of people are not aware of the severity of the crisis as it is not an issue which affects a lot of Ireland as there is an abundant amount of empty houses in many parts of Ireland, particularly in rural areas.

Due to the lack of competition for these houses the rent market in rural Ireland is lower and the rent supplement scheme and HAP scheme accommodates the rent market in rural Ireland.

Homelessness is increasing day by day - in Dublin five new people are becoming homeless every day. This has to stop now.

The need for more investment in social housing, more flexibility in mortgage arrears and more state intervention in the private rental market is essential.

UNIVERSITY of Limerick societies Ográ Fianna Fáil (ÓFF), Young Fine Gael (YFG) and Sinn Féin (SF) played host to a much sought after Budget 2016 debate during this year’s recent SoUL Arts Fest.

The week prior to the debate saw the announcement of Budget 2016, delivered by the current Fine Gael-Labour Government.

Youth, employment, housing and taxation were the four topics under debate.

These four topics stirred much excitement and passion-filled arguments from all three political wings, with many speakers inspired by their own experiences and issues.

To ensure law and order was

maintained, the debate was chaired by a member of the UL staff, who ensured participants were kept under control as things got heated, particularly around youth issues, to which many of us could relate.

The format of the debate proved for entertaining observation and one of high quality performances by all. Each speaker had four minutes to speak. YFG began, proposing and defending their budget policies under each topic. Each was met with intense response under the designated topics from ÓFF and then SF. Issues raised were introduced and debated in response.

The issues included lack of student housing (a growing problem here in Limerick), homelessness, tax cuts, and the ever-lingering silent crisis that

Students attending the SoUL Arts Fest 2015 cross-party Budget 2016 debate

is mental health.

Each issue was addressed with vigour by the opposition.

The rebuttal was fierce and exciting. The chair, acting as a peace-keeper at times proved essential as the evening progressed, not to mention when the floor was opened up.

Unlike our elected representatives in the Dáil on occasion, the participants ensured the debate was well structured and successful in its points.

Such was the success and strong showing of members from all sides, that there would be future events between the three political societies.

The event also made some realise that perhaps the pearly gates of Leinster House are not such a distant reality.

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November 2015 CLUBS & SOCIETIES

Going Glee in UL EMMA TAYLOR WHEN wandering the halls of the Irish World Academy after lecture times, one is bound to hear a constant hum of music from the different instruments being practiced, or even the sounds of dancer’s feet thumping against the hard wood floors. Music and dance are the life and soul of the building, no matter where you go there is some beat tempting you to peek inside a window or door to catch a glimpse of an instrumentalist.

Despite this abundance of music from talented instrumentalist but there is something special to be heard coming from room IW2.51. That is the sound of UL Music Society’s very own Glee club and their impromptu harmonization on various songs to a piano and guitar accompaniment provided by James and Ciaran.

The Glee Club originated from the ideas of Aisling Kearns, Ciara Jaffray and Eamonn Walsh in collaboration with UL’s Music Society who supported the idea. They believed that the students of UL would have an interest in singing, especially among those who’d have taken part in their local and school choirs.

This year Glee is under the skillful management of Deirdre Higgins, the club’s president, along with the help of their first year representative,

Valene Greer and Sessions Officer, Brian Griffin. After talking to both Deirdre and the members of Glee, it is clear that this isn’t solely run by Deirdre or the representatives alone.

Deirdre described the group as a “democracy in terms of song choice and things of that nature”. There is no one voice in the club. Every member seems to have an opinion, and every voice is heard. Deirdre even credits the success of their songs for the Hudson Taylor concert as a group effort that was able to be pulled off with the input of the members.

Phove Gavin, second year and member of Glee, talked about how well the club was run in this aspect, praising Deirdre for always listening to the opinions of the members and incorporating them into the songs.

It’s clear to anyone who sits in on a club meeting that the club is indeed as Deirdre said, “a club that belongs to all the members”.

This freedom gives the club a homely feeling. From the minute that one enters the room it’s impossible not to feel at home. The exchanges of laughter and back and forth comments creates what can only be described as a family like atmosphere. This atmosphere is almost guaranteed to lift the spirits of those in the room.

It is obvious that within the two months the club has been running that the small group has become more or

less one unit. A first year member of the group, Gareth Price said that the best thing about Glee for him was the fact that they’re a small group of thirty people whom he’s gotten to know really well over the last two months.

Their unity is impossible to miss.

When inside the room there is not one person to be seen without a friend or a group to talk to, no one is left out.

Even, according to Gareth, their president Deirdre joins in on the jokes.

He claims that there is no one better than Deirdre for the club as she is “the greatest person we could have in the position of a whip-cracker”, showing just how close the group is. It echoes Deirdre’s early statement of Glee being a club for the people, not just run by her. The fact that they’re able to joke around with their president and each other shows just how well knitted this group of students have become.

It’s not all play though, Glee members put in heaps of effort, especially in the last few weeks. The Glee club’s first big performance of the

year was none other than the Hudson Taylor concert in the SU courtyard during Soul week.

“I'm just grateful that the music society could squeeze us in to such a jam packed evening of amazing talents,” Phove said when asked about how exciting it must be to have the opportunity to share the stage with big names like Hudson Taylor and The Academic.

The group rehearsed for two hours for two to three days a week as the time became closed. The dedication of the members was outstanding as they gave it their all during both the performance and rehearsals. Deirdre commented on how amazing it was to watch the members grow in terms of confidence.

“Some [of the members] would have been quite reserved in how they performed the songs, but by the end they were getting so into the performance and looked so confident and amazing,” Deirdre explained.

Despite long and hard rehearsal

hours and treks to the World Academy, the members didn’t flinch or complain, instead they pushed themselves by working and asking questions to fix harmonies they found to be tricky.

To say that their performance on SoUL Fest’s Thursday night was good would be an understatement. For a group who only had a little over a month to put together a ten minute set they did superbly on the stage. The crowd singing and dancing along to their ten minute performance was a clear indicator that the hard work of the Glee club and Deirdre Higgins was not wasted.

Hopefully that performance won’t be the last UL sees of this talented bunch of students. In the words of Gareth Price: “everyone and their pet fish should join Glee.” After spending a few afternoons listening to their amazing idea’s, harmonies and just experiencing the pure glee of the members, I don’t think I could have worded it better myself.

Pretty in Pink . . .

GABRIELLE McCORMACK PINK is not a word often associated with those in the UL Karate Club. So when the newer members of the club arrived to training at the start of October to find the usual array of coloured belts replaced by a sea of pink, they were quite shocked.

However, there was a valid explanation. The UL karate club is proud to participate in ‘Pink Karate’, where pink belts are purchased in aid of breast cancer awareness with all the proceeds going to cancer related charities.

Needless to say, those who didn’t already own one couldn’t wait for the order to arrive.

In early October, the club played host to a seminar by renowned Irish sensei, Gar O’Donovan, who previously coached the Irish Senior Squad and currently coaches the Junior

Squad. This seminar consisted of two hours of perfecting difficult combinations, improving reflexes and stances, and learning new sparring techniques. Everyone in the club gave their all when training as he missed nothing and mistakes were always noticed.

While the training was hard and everyone left tired, nobody left without a smile and a sense of pride that they could achieve such high standards.

UL Karate Club in their pink belts

Over the last few weeks, UL Karate Club have also been lucky enough to fundraise over €1,200 from both bag-packing and our Bake Sale during SoUL Week. Thank you to everyone who helped out, all the funds will go towards future activities, especially our Japan Trip in January. Around 10 members were selected last year to go to Tokyo, Japan in early January 2016 for 10 days of training, sight-seeing, and exploring the Japanese Culture. Our last Japan Trip was a huge success in 2014, and with some re-visiting Japan and others going for the first time, it’s going to an unbelievable experience to say the least!

Training in Japan has always been our big event, and as we go every second year, it gives us plenty of time to train, prepare and fundraise, so that every committed member gets this fantastic opportunity.

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November 2015 CLUBS & SOCIETIES

The craic of Castle Gregory

UL Surf Club members during their recent trip to Castle Gregory.

BARBARA CMPOS PEREZ FAMOUS for its waves and good craic, Castle Gregory was the first surf destination chosen by the UL Surf Club to welcome all its new members for this academic year.

On an early Saturday morning 75 people made their way to the lovely lands of Kerry, and arrived to pleasant weather and perfect waves conditions for both beginners and intermediates.

It was especially perfect for some of the beginners who were catching the first waves of their lives. All members began to understand the philosophy of surfing as the more Swimming in the sea, feeling the boards and waiting for the waves brought everyone in the water together.

Surfing involves patience, perseverance but the companionship felt in the water

is unmistakable. All these elements came together in a unique was during this trip, where both Irish and International students embarked on a new journey of exploration together.

Alas, the waves were not the only highlight of this amazing and unforgettable weekend.

After the exhilarating day of surfing the members set up camp in the beautiful dunes of the Maherees, right next to the beach. Everyone was able to enjoy the magic of the

stars and music next to the bonfire. Dinner was prepared in the hostel located in Castle Gregory village for all the hungry members. A DJ was organized to set up at camp, a fantastic way to Unfortunately, the weather didn’t stay so pleasant all weekend, the following morning everyone was woken up to the not so gentle sound of rain against the tents.

Luckily the rain passed and it was time to start a new day of adventure and of course more

surf.

Following the trip people really felt a part of the surf club family, finishing the weekend with many new friends but also with new personal challenges, to continue practicing and enjoying the soul of surf.

The pool session after the trip proved to be a record breaking session with 110 surf club members present.

The most people the pool has seen from one club at one time. The balance session,

where members practice balancing skills on skateboards and walking on slack lines was also a record breaking number for the club.

UL Surf Club has more adventures in store for its members during the year.

Keep in touch and visit the Facebook group so you don’t miss any new updates. Who can join? Everyone, no matter of the abilities or experiences in surfing!

All about the adrenalin A successful semester so far - UL OPC update CAREY - UL Mountain Biking EOGHAN 'DERP'

HATEM ABNOUN NOBODY understands the logic behind mountain biking - “Why would I risk a broken leg to ride a bike?!”, which is quite reasonable but those people have clearly never been on top of Ballyhoura Mountains overlooking the Shannon and Limerick, red-faced and gasping for air from the long trek up to the top, only to realise that there’s another 15 minute climb. Why do we do it, you ask? For the way down.

We recently ventured to Wicklow for three days to embark on our hunt for adrenalin. Ticknock sounded promising enough for the majority of us, so we stuffed the van with as many bikes as the doors would possibly accept and commenced our quest for trails. Some of us had four years experience on a mountain bike while others just came off their ‘commuter bikes’ and figured “why not?”.

It’s never too late to start.

Saturday morning, GoPros charged, stomachs full (with stale coco pops and last night’s pizza) and high morale, we finally set off to Ticknock. The

trail to the top was certainly... ball-busting...but the way down made up for our suffering many times over. Whizzing past rocks, hopping over roots, darting through puddles and falling flat on your face, enough evidence for a day well spent on the trails!

Once our craving for adrenalin was satisfied, we set out on the long journey back to campus with cuts, gashes, the occasional deep wound and smiles on all our faces. You’ve never been mountain biking if you never showered and found new cuts and bruises every time you picked up the shampoo, and you most certainly will never understand why we do what we do until you try it for yourself.

WHAT a semester we’ve had. It certainly went off with a bang.

With a weekend trip to Letterfrack, a trip abroad to Wales already and some cool hikes in the hills, it’s fair to say that we’ve gotten off to a good start.

We almost have a record number of members almost reaching 500 and we hope to break the record by next semester. We are continuing to cover all aspects of the outdoor pursuits such as climbing, caving, hiking, orienteering and soon, mountaineering.

We are currently holding a

climbing competition at the climbing wall located just opposite the UL Sports Arena on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 to 10 in the evening; the usual times that the climbing wall is open.

There will be prizes given out at the end of the semester between male and female categories. It’s going good so far and if you’re interested in participating, just head on down to the wall. Three new routes are put up every day.

Our next big trip will be the one to Morocco at Christmas. This is for all you budding mountaineers in the club who have expressed interest and we are currently in the planning process for this trip.

The Alps trip was a huge success this year receiving nationwide recognition with the lads’ hurling shenanigans on glaciers. This upcoming trip promises to have just as much shenanigans.

We are continuing with our hikes throughout the semester with our majestic days out hill walking each Sunday. These hikes really are an easy way in which one can make friends and it’s a great chance to see the Irish countryside that most Irish people

themselves haven’t seen.

Letterfrack was utter madness and we will be having a weekend trip coming up soon to Kerry, so if you’re in the club or are interested in joining, make sure you pencil that in to your diary.

In other news, we are investing in club fleeces too which is going to be great because, as it goes in Game of Thrones, winter is coming, so it’ll be handy to have these throughout the cold spell.

If you are interested in joining the club, make sure you like us on Facebook (UL Outdoor Pursuits Club), follow us on instagram (@ulopc) or send us a pigeon or smoke signal us down. Our email is uloutdoorpursuits@gmail.com.

Sprinters unite for bank holiday training camp ROISIN HOWARD A gutsy group of athletes from various colleges in Ireland bonded again in Wexford over the recent bank holiday weekend for their annual rigorous winter training camp. It was great to see such a set up bringing all colleges together to train. Athletes from UL, UCC, WIT, DCU, CIT, ITC, AIT, and Maynooth were all present.

Well done to the UL coaches, Hayley & Drew Harrison along with Shane McCormack from

WIT who took on the 41 athletes for the weekend. Great training camp once again.

The distance group will lead out the Athletics Intervarsity

competitions. Best of luck to the distance group who will be competing in the Munster Road Relays on the 4th of November hosted by CIT. Both the Men’s

UL Athletics Club members on their recent winter training camp in Wexford

and Women’s UL teams won this event last year.

The National Road Relays are less than 2 weeks later on the 14th November hosted by Maynooth - we had top 5 finishes for both teams last year and are hoping to get the gold this year.

Training for the sprinters is Monday and Thursday from 6.15pm at the track in UL. Distance training is also Tuesday and Thursday from 6pm at the pitches behind the track. We cater for all levels of fitness and speed and beginners are always welcome.

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November 2015 CLUBS & SOCIETIES

Sun and medals galore in Valencia for UL Wolves Handball ON October 9th, ten UL students made the trip from the wintery conditions in Limerick to the sun soaked streets of Massamagrell, Valencia to compete in the Spanish One Wall ProTour Open. They joined another 90 players from seven countries in a festival of outdoor handball.

In the Men’s C singles, 8 UL players competed in the group stage.

Six of these managed to progress to the quarter-finals but Bill Lyons and Martin Kennedy were unlucky not to get out of their respective groups.

The doubles partnership of Daniel Relihan and Michael Hedigan were

the first to meet in the singles quarter final. Hedigan proved to be in sharp form as he beat Relihan in convincing fashion.

John Bosco Hurley then met Colin Corbett in the next quarter final. On paper, you would expect Corbett to pull through this test. However, this was not the case with Hurley’s supreme serving and unpredictable angle shots simply too much for Corbett to adapt to, despite conceding a big lead early on. Gordon Nolan emerged victorious in his quarter final against Liam Bradshaw with Bradshaw’s unorthodox tapping style

unable to do the trick against Nolan in this game.

Hedigan then had to play one of the Massamagrell locals in the semifinal. The UL man simply had too much in the tank for the local competitor and advanced into the C final easily. Nolan and Hurley faced off in the other semi-final. Hurley couldn’t find his form from the quarter final in this game, however, and Nolan’s outstanding kill shots were too much for Hurley to cope with. This win made it an all UL singles final between Hedigan and Nolan. Nolan had got off to a great start in the final with some early aces.

However, you could see the fatigue come through as the game progressed to the latter. Hedigan’s ever reaching claw made it frustrating for Nolan to break him down. His kill shots were being picked and his pass shots were being retrieved by Hedigan. Hedigan

took his chances at the right times and eventually emerged victorious with the score ending 15-7.

Colin Crehan was competing in the Men’s B grade in singles. Crehan was placed in a difficult group as he was unable to get out of it. Despite winning 2 matches, and playing fine handball, the UL man didn’t proceed any further in the singles. Niall Bolton was unlucky as he had to withdraw from the competition with an injury.

In the Men’s C doubles, UL came close to claiming the gold with Relihan and Hedigan just missing out on the top spot in the group on points difference to an experienced Dutch pairing. Bradshaw and Hurley came third in the group with Kennedy and Lyons close behind in fourth.

In the Men’s B doubles, Nolan partnered Crehan and made it to the final after some incredible handball from the pairing. Nolan displayed great

athleticism retrieving several balls with Crehan producing several astonishing kills. They defeated a Spanish pairing and a Dutch partnership in the quarter-final and semi-final respectively before facing another Spanish pairing in the final. Nolan appeared decidedly fatigued in the final, failing to produce his earlier retrieval skills and the Spanish partnership picking some of Crehan’s kills to defeat the UL pair on a scoreline of 21-12.

It was an unforgettable trip for the 10 players and they all immensely enjoyed the tournament. Following the event UL now has four players on the European rankings; Paudi Quish (28th), Michael Hedigan (38th), Gordon Nolan (43rd) and John Bosco Hurley (59th). With two events coming up in November it is certain these rankings will be improved on with even more UL players set to feature.

Beginners take on the Capital SHANE McNAMARA THE trinity tea party was where our young beginners had their first taste of competitive ultimate this year. They had a lot to live up to after us winning both beginner tournaments last year. A glorious start was had to the weekend as not all of our players made the scheduled bus on time. But what fun would a weekend of Ultimate be without a few hiccups on the way. Luckily enough players made the pus to field a team and all players arrived (at some stage).

Our first game was against UCC. It’s never easy coming

up against such a well-established team. This tournament was indoors and so space was tight and margins for error very cute. This was our beginners first taste of indoor ultimate having introduced them to the game outdoors with much more space. Never the less our boys showed up to play. It was a closely contested affair against UCC. We gained the upper foot and appeared have the win in the bag until they scored a controversial point on the buzzer to finish our first match a draw at 7-7.

Next up was the might of NUIG, however they might wasn’t so much as we swatted them away in a 10-7 win. It may have only been three

points but we took an early lead and they could only play catch up and never commandeer a miraculous comeback. The following games produced similar results as we topped the group defeating trinity 10-7 and DCU. So with the group conquered we were now seeded 2nd and had a crossover to play. Turns out it looked as though it was going to be another fight to the death vs UCC in the crossover. And boy was it a battle. Trading scores the whole way it was impossible to call who would emerge victorious.

It appeared as if it was going to be another tie. Unfortunately this was not the case as UCC snaked the win

in the end. We may have lost but this did mean we had a lovely sleep in in the morning.

After playing hard all day there is only one thing to do on a trip away… party just as hard. But you know always be safe and sensible.

So a casual few drinks were had and then we headed to Doyles in the centre of the mighty capital. Much banter was had on the night. Despite being tired all the lads had plenty of energy to strut their stuff on the dance-floor and rise at a decent hour.

Despite having a relatively late start we only made it to the courts and fell onto the playing field without stretching or a warmup.

One might have only though that we

played better this way as the DCU 2 team were far inferior to us as we smashed them a whopping 9-1.

Despite our stellar play over the weekend UCC had upset our run at the title and we were now playing for the 5th or 6th spot. Fighting for 5th spot against us was UCD. Lamentably we were exhausted and nursing some injuries. The competitive juices were not flowing in this game and we succumbed to the well-structured UCD. We finished 6th but had a tremendous weekend with all the lads learning loads. We may have not made it to the final but we made it back just in time to watch the Irish match.

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November 2015 SPORT

LADIES FOOTBALL

UL Ladies Footballers win All-Ireland Freshers Blitz for 2nd time in a row UL travelled to NUIG with three teams ready for action in the 2015 Freshers Blitz, for what proved to be a very successful day. UL1 and UL2 remained unbeaten in the group stages with UL1 defeating Mary I1, NUIG1, LAW and UUJ2, while UL2 overcame Carlow IT, NUIG3, and DKIT to book their places in the Senior quarter-finals.

UL3 also qualified for the Junior semi-final from a tough group containing DIT, DCU, UUJ and Trinity. UL3 were unlucky to lose out to eventual champions UUJ in an exciting junior semi-final, while UL2 also fell just short at the quarter-final stage against NUIG1 who would go on to contest the senior decider. UL1 continued their unbeaten run as they

overcame DKIT in the quarter final and DCU in the semi-final to set up a repeat of last year’s decider as they faced NUIG in the Senior Final.

The senior decider had all the excitement and drama one would expect with an All-Ireland title on the line as NUIG started well with two points from play before UL sprung into life with an excellent

Louise Ward, captain of the Ladies Football Fresher team and Player of the Tournament

Louise Ward goal. Aoife Keane and Anna Tuohy added points before the break with Aisling O’Connell, Hannah McMahon and Caoimhe McGrath holding solid in defence to restrict NUIG to only one more point for the remainder of the half leaving UL 1-2 to three points ahead at the break.

The second half was score for score in the early stages with Laura Rogers and Anna Tuohy points for UL matched by their NUIG counterparts.

Megan Heneghan continued her confident and composed form between the posts marshalling the UL defence, before yet another decisive Louise Ward run finished with the ball crashing to the NUIG net to extend the UL advantage. The fresh legs of Anna Lawless gave UL a renewed impetus and when Shauna Molloy got in on the scoring act, pointing a fine score under pressure, UL were four points clear.

This game was far from over however, as NUIG came storming back, scoring two goals in quick succession to leave them two points up with time running out. UL showed fantastic character and resilience to drag themselves back

UL Ladies Football Fresher team into contention when after an excellent Laura Rogers run up the wing, Louise Ward converted a free to leave the minimum between the sides, before fantastic pressure in the UL forward line lead to a turnover and Ellen Dowling popped up to level the scores with only seconds remaining.

The game finished level with UL unbeaten after seven games now facing into a kick off to claim the silverware.

UL won the toss and elected to kick first with five kicks at goal from 30 meters to decide the winners. Caoimhe McGrath was first up for UL and calmly slotted over to give UL the perfect start, NUIG missed their first kick and Ellen Dowling was unlucky to see her effort rebound off

the crossbar in UL’s second attempt.

Louise Ward was next up for UL and again slotted over brilliantly to extend the UL advantage, NUIG failed to score their next two kicks, and so for the second year in succession the All Ireland Freshers Title remains in UL. Congratulations to all involved in a fantastic victory and also to UL’s Louise Ward who picked up the Player of the Tournament award.

Elsewhere in the club, teams won 12 of 18 matches during Weeks 6 & 7. Our senior hurlers won 3 league games, defeating LIT, NUIG and GMIT. The senior Ladies footballers overcame IT Carlow and NUIG to stay top of the group. The senior camogie

team overcame WIT in the first round of the league.

The fresher 1 hurlers were beaten by LIT but defeated NUIG while the fresher 1 footballers were beaten by UCC. The fresher 2 hurlers made it two from two overcoming NUIG and IT Tralee. The intermediate camogie and ladies football teams beat WIT and NUIG respectively. The intermediate hurlers were defeated

by UCC and drew with LIT while the junior hurlers drew with LIT and defeated UCC. Well done to all teams and management. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with fixtures.

Get out and support our teams, especially at home games!

SOCCER

IT Carlow vs University of Limerick - CUFL Premier South THE University of Limerick began their league campaign with a deserved draw against IT Carlow. Carlow enjoyed the loin’s possession but it was UL who broke the deadlock. After a turnover in the UL half of the field, Garbhan Coughlan broke, 30 yards from goal.

Initially looking like he was going to shoot, he weaved past two defenders before coolly applying the finish. Less than a minute after the restart, UL were picking the ball out of their own net. Carlow scored a breakaway goal to even the tie.

Ten minutes later UL restored their one goal lead.

Again Garbhan Coughlan picked the ball up just inside the IT Carlow half and instead of wasting time beating defenders decided just to shoot. From 40 yards out, Coughlan scored a goal that would be worthy of the Puskas award. This was a milestone goal for Coughlan as it brought his tally in competitive matches for UL to 30 goals in 21 matches.

With 65 minutes on the clock, Carlow’s star player Jonny Bonner dribbled past the UL defence and unleashed an accurate strike past Stephen Walsh in the UL goal. Carlow could have snatched all three

Game - week 2: COLÁISTE STIOFÁIN NAOFA 0-2 UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK

points late on but squander the opportunity.

UL: Stephen Walsh; Barry Hooton, Conor Maguire, Ross O’Toole, AJ O’Connor; Jonathan Hannafin (c), Joe Collins; Killian Hayes, Oisin McMenamin, Aidan McGrath: Garbhan Coughlan Subs: Jack Lynch (on for Hayes), Aidan Boyle (on for Maguire), Oisin Hassett (on for McGrath) Goals: Garbhan Coughlan (17’, 28’) Bookings: Jack Lynch, Jonathan Hannafin M.O.M: AJ O’Connor

WITH Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa steam rolling UCC in their opener 5-0, UL knew that they would have to be top of their game to overcome the Leesiders. Down key players, UL didn’t sulk and Ian O’Sullivan and Mike Mc Carthy’s men attacked the task in hand.

UL launched their league campaign with a hard fought draw against IT Carlow and a win would put the Wolve’s in a great position. Debutante Ian Fletcher opened

the scoring for UL after 20 minutes on the clock, with crafty work Aidan McGrath. UL really took control of this match and with 25 minutes remaining.

A booming ball from Ross O’Toole dropped to Garbhan Coughlan who covered more ground than Saint Brigid’s cloak, showing his class, he nonchalantly lobbed the on rushing CSN keeper and secured all three points. It was party football for the remaining 20 plus minutes and UL could even keep

everyone happy by emptying the bench.

Team: Andrew Walsh; Barry Hooton, Conor Maguire, Ross O'Toole, AJ O'Connor; Joe Collins (c), Jack Lynch; Ian Fletcher, Aidan McGrath, Adam Collins; Garbhan Coughlan.

Subs: Colm O'Reilly (on for Collins), Killian Hayes (on for Fletcher), Tom Foody (on for McGrath), Fionn Hurley (on for Coughlan) MOTM: Jack Lynch

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November 2015