The University Observer: Volume XVI, Issue 12

SPORT

UCD RUGBY END SEASON WITH DEFEAT TO OLD WESLEY

YOUR SU OFFICERS: REVIEWED

BACK PAGE

Observer Digest NEWS UCD to seek 2012 Olympic training Campus hopes to become base for foreign athletes PAGE 3

COMMENT Let’s Talk About Sex Why does the law care so much about what happens in bed?

PAGE 7

NEWS SUPPLEMENT PAGE 4-5

sity Obser The Univer

& Culture ver’s Arts

Supplement

12 1 ISSUE VOL XV 13.04.10

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INSIDE

Observer The University

VOLUME XVI ISSUE 12 13th April 2010

NE QUID FALSE DICERE AUDEAT NE QUID VERI NON AUDEAT

IRELAND’S AWARD-WINNING STUDENT NEWSPAPER

UCD Law Masters not accepted by King’s Inn BRIDGET FITZSIMONS

FEATURES Enter the Dragon Dragons’ Den star Gavin Duffy talks business PAGE 12

UCDSVP win €5000 Better Ireland prize HUGH MCLAUGHLIN UCD’s branch of the St Vincent de Paul have claimed the €5,000 first prize in the AIB Better Ireland Awards. UCDSVP auditor Kevin Conlon has said that the prize came at the right time for the group, and will be distributed among their youth initiatives.

The AIB Better Ireland Programme is run with the purpose of promoting and supporting local children’s projects throughout the country. Each of AIB’s 182 main branches were each given €10,000 to disperse among the causes deemed to be most worthy in their community. The winners were determined by a public vote that was conducted online and by text among the members of the community. UCDSVP run six local youth projects that comprise of three youth clubs, two homework clubs and a small group that organises parties for local children. The prize money will be split between these groups.

Conlon credited UCDSVP members, saying that the success of the organisation during the recession has been “purely down to the volunteers,” who have kept the club running.

Continued on P2>> 13th April 2010 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY...

1970 An oxygen tank explodes aboard Apollo 13, risking the lives of its three astronauts

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Students say they were assured of accreditation in December

T

he University Observer has learned that UCD’s Masters in Common Law course may not be recognised as a proper law conversion course by the Bar Council of Ireland. The course, which aims to give graduates the same knowledge as those who have taken an undergraduate law degree, is a two-year masters and is currently in its first year of operation.

One student on the course told The University Observer that they had been told at the start of the year that “King’s Inn accreditation hadn’t been given yet, but we were told it wasn’t going to be a problem and that it would be brushed through.”

However, despite being told that accreditation was assured, students are now being told that they must take extra exams in order to meet King’s Inn standards.

The student said that “apparently they’ve [the UCD School of Law] known since December, but they thought that they could basically talk themselves out of it.”

The students were first told in a meeting two weeks ago that they may now have to take extra exams, which would not be counted towards their degree grade but which would be sufficient for Bar Council recognition. According to the student, “What they came back to us to say was that we knew what we were getting into and that it was never guaranteed and that we knew that it didn’t have accreditation, but we never would have been made

Second year Law student Jane Mc Cann fulfills her Lenten forfeit outside the library last week Photo Gavan Reilly aware if we hadn’t asked.”

The proposed remedy to the accreditation problem is a major stumbling block for many students on the course who have already made plans for the summer, as the exams will have to take place before September. The student stated that students are “being given extra exams to bring us up to par with King’s Inn, given a pass or fail grade, and it’ll just be a

routine that they have down. It’s going to be personal choice,” and that they “don’t know when it’s going to be, how long they’re going to be, what the layout is going to be.”

Students on the course are “frustrated and annoyed” that this error has happened, especially as they “had a meeting in December at which we were told that it [accreditation] was given.” The student

said that their class now feels “cheated,” and “there are some people in the class who have given up their previous careers to study for this and they’re wondering what the point was especially when so many people are here just to study for King’s Inn.” A spokesperson for the university had not returned contact at the time of going to press.

KBC accused of intimidation in elections BRIDGET FITZSIMONS A member of UCD Students’ Union Council has accused a committee member of the Kevin Barry Cumann (KBC) of trying to intimidate him into not running for an SU Executive position. The member of Council, who did not wish to be named, said that he received threatening text messages after having spoken against SU Education Vice-President Donnacha Ó Súilleabháin at a meeting of the Council.

The student showed The University Observer the text message, which stated that any effort he made to run for an

Executive position would be blocked and actively campaigned against by the KBC, the UCD branch of the Fianna Fáil party.

The text message also stated that this was due to his urging SU Council to vote to re-open nominations in the election of Union of Students in Ireland (USI) Education Officer, in which Ó Súilleabháin was a candidate.

The individual said that “the text basically said that a political organisation didn’t like how I acted as an elected official – and even though it was voted through by a huge margin, they told me that if I ever ran for this position that themselves and friends of Donnacha Ó Súilleabháin would come out and campaign against me.” He added that he had “inferred

from it that they would run someone against me. I know that in the past there have been situations in which people have found people running against them due to disagreements.”

In addition, the individual felt victimised, given that he had not meant his speech as a personal attack, explaining that “I wasn’t making a personal attack.

I was saying that he needs a year to clear his name” following an investigation into the alleged misappropriation of Science Day funds. The individual had decided not to run for any Executive position in the days running up to USI Hustings, but received the message before the KBC member had become aware of this.

Chairperson of the KBC, Patrick Conroy,

categorically denied any knowledge of the threats, saying that “it’s an absolute disgrace and I wouldn’t condone it.” He also told The University Observer that “as far as I’m aware, it didn’t happen.”

Vice-President for Students Dr Martin Butler spoke out against the action, saying “dignity and respect underpins everything that we do in a university,” and “any behaviour that makes other students uncomfortable will not be tolerated by the university and shouldn’t be tolerated by fellow students.”

Conroy, who himself ran in the Executive elections, lost out in the

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THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

13.04.10

NEWS

news@universityobserver.ie

Continued from P1>> realistic option for them to pursue later in their lives. Ahearn stated that the goal of the Access Week programme was to stress “how college is important” but also to “show them [that] UCD’s cool. They get to go to the science labs and they get to go to the museum in the Classical department.”

Ahearn explained that the funding will be spent on the supplies used over the course of the week, such as the chemical equipment used in the demonstrations carried out in the labs for the children. He commented that the money will be helpful in making the day more enjoyable for the participating children, adding that the prize money would be spent on “t-shirts for the kids and little hats.”

New Executive Officers elected COLIN SWEETMAN

UCD Students’ Union has confirmed details of the successful candidates for next year’s SU Executive positions. Four campaigns officers were elected to the positions of Women’s Officer, Environmental Officer, Irish Language Officer and Postgraduate Officer, while nine faculty-based Programme Officer positions were also filled. Almost all of the positions were contested, in contrast to last March’s sabbatical elections in which three candidates were unopposed.

Sarah Ní Mhuirí won a majority vote for

the position of Irish Language Officer over Ruairí Ó Maoilmheana, while Regina Brady was successful in her campaign to become Women’s Officer. Next year’s Environmental Officer is to be Alan Pierce, who saw off three other candidates, and the position of Postgraduate Officer was won by Martin Lawless.

In the various Programme Officer elections, current LawSoc auditor Conor O’Hanlon was elected to Law and BBLS Programme Officer, Edel Ní Churraoin and James Doyle were chosen as Arts Programme Officers, Maggie O’Connor won the race to become Science Pro-

Online feedback to be rolled out across campus BRIDGET FITZSIMONS A new pilot scheme that allows students to give module feedback online may be rolled out across campus if enough students participate in the initial trials.

A lecturer from the Centre for Teaching and Learning, Paul Surgenor, has been working on the project since its inception in June 2009 and is urging students to participate.

Currently, each of UCD’s five Colleges has a number of schools taking part in the programme. Students who are eligible for the programme will be sent an email from the Teaching and Learning Centre with a link bringing them to a custom-built site where they can com-

plete the online feedback form, as well as detailed instructions on how to complete the online feedback for their module.

The form has certain set questions, but also allows module co-ordinators to add their own specific questions should they wish.

Surgenor emphasised the importance of student participation, saying “we need students. This is a service for students and a chance for them to have their say.”

The scheme had a 25 per cent uptake last year, and Surgenor is keen to have this raised dramatically. He told The University Observer “if people don’t participate, it’s not going to happen again,” but that “if we do this and it works, it will become a universal policy.”

The lecturer was also quick to stress the

ease of usage of the scheme, saying the process “literally takes three minutes to do.” Similarly, the scheme saves resources and administration costs as module feedback forms do not have to printed out and the data is automatically compiled for lecturers instead of many forms having to be processed. Lecturers will not receive the feedback until after modules and exams are finished and all feedback is completely anonymous.

Surgenor emphasised the importance of student feedback, saying that last year’s feedback was “very constructive.” He is hopeful that the scheme can be implemented around the college but emphasised that this depended on student participation.

gramme Officer, and current SU Irish Language Officer Aoife Nic Samhráin was elected Health Sciences Programme Officer.

In other faculties, Emma Fortune won the position of Business Programme

Officer, Patrick Alvarez was elected Engineering & Architecture Programme Officer, and Cian O’Donnell was named Agricultural Science Programme Officer.

The position of Veterinary Programme Officer was without a candidate.

Alumnus donates $100,000 to rugby scholarship fund BRIDGET FITZSIMONS An alumnus of UCD has donated $100,000 to create a new rugby scholarship for the university’s club. John Gardiner, a law graduate and former captain of the UCD Rugby Club, has initiated the new scholarship scheme, which will be named the ‘Australia 1984 Scholarship’.

It is hoped that the donation will fund three students per year to attend UCD and play for the university’s rugby club over the next ten years.

UCD Vice-President for Students, Dr Martin Butler, has expressed his delight at the donation, explaining that Gardiner donated the money because “he felt that when he was at UCD he got an awful lot from the UCD Rugby Club,” and that he “would now like to put something back” into the club.

Dr Butler hopes that the scholarship might help the club regain some of its former glory, saying he wanted to see the side – who this weekend finished mid-table in Division 2 of the AIB League – “back in the premier division,” following the example of the UCD soccer team who won promotion to the Premier Division of the Airtricity League last year after just one season in the second tier.

According to Dr Butler, candidates for the scholarship will be both scouted and can apply to receive it. He hopes that the scholarship will allow UCD to offer all that it can to the students, expecting that “while they’re here we can meet their academic needs and their sports needs – because these athletes do have a need on the academic side for support and also on the sports side.”

While there has been a rise in sports scholarships, academic philanthropy has suffered as a result of the recession. Dr Butler remains confident that Gardiner’s actions will inspire similar donations from other figures in both fields. “I’d like to believe that there is a lot of good will out there,” he said, adding: “hopefully from this, other people who got a lot out of UCD will also consider giving UCD a gift.” He feels that philanthropic donation “has to be the future,” and that “if we want to develop or build anything we do need a combination of government money and maybe match funding from the philanthropists.”

It is hoped that the first recipients of the scholarship will start UCD in September.

The scholarships will coincide with the centennial anniversary of the foundation of the UCD Rugby Club, which was set up in 1910.

GET INVOLVED!!

Your Students’ Union needs You Join The Campaigns Crew 2010/11!

What does it involve??

Working on campaigns in areas such as: - Promotion of the Irish Language - The Enviornment - Women’s rights, LGBT rights and other equality areas

Mobilising students to take a stand on issues such as: - Improved library opening hours - An improved grants system - Third level Fees

Working with the Campaigns Crew means you could be: distributing informational flyers one day and taking to the streets with a megaphone the next!

Stand up for your rights as a student

To get involved e-mail campaignscrew@ucdsu.ie No Union or Society experience required

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NEWS

news@universityobserver.ie

UCD Societies funding college education in Liberia ALEX COURT €860 from the UCD Societies Fund has been used to enrol a young woman into the University of Liberia. The woman, Jowel Harris, will commence her studies in Business Accounting next month, in a course which will be taught in the capital city of Monrovia.

Timothy Opobo, a Ugandan postgraduate student at UCD undertaking an MA in Development Studies – originally encountered Harris whilst working in Liberia for on the behalf of the African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect.

Opobo explained that he was “taken up by this particular story of Jowel because she was very sincere in telling me that she had dropped out of school, because her parents could no long afford to send her. She was also open in telling me that she had had a child at 15, and had been abandoned by the child’s dad.”

UCD Chaplain, Fr Leon Ó Giolláin, facilitated the funding by referring Harris’s case to the World Aid Society, who have organised the donation to Harris, who will spend it on tuition fees and course materials. Ó Giolláin told The University Observer that Opobo had visited the student advice drop-in centre in the Newman Building, because “…he was concerned about [Harris], whom he felt had great potential, but he was not in a position to help her anymore… it was such a pity that she would lose the opportunity because she is a talented person.”

Harris has expressed her gratitude by email, saying “I am so excited with the news of this assistance. I am really grateful to the World Aid Society because now I can go back to school.”

Opobo echoed this sentiment, commenting that “by coming in to support her education, the World Aid Society has created change - not only for her, but change that will benefit her child, her daughter.” He added that Jowel was “blown away by the fact

No replacement lined up for pharmacy

that she is going to start school again because we had in one sense lost hope, and the World Aid Society has restored this hope.” Ó Giolláin was keen to highlight how the story of how UCD students had come to fund Harris’s education was “kind of unique”, but said he hoped “it’ll become a paradigm for other such stories that can be told. It’s very good that we can link in with people who are in need, particularly when it comes to education.

“It also highlights for us here, how privileged we are and what opportunities so many of us have in the Western World for education which sets us up for life,” Ó Giolláin added.

Liberia is a West African country recovering from a devastating 14-year long civil war. 80 per cent of Liberia’s 3.8 million people are illiterate.

MARK MALONE

SU Welfare Update As it coming up to the end of term please remember if you need any support in terms of Financial assistance or emotional support, you can get in touch with Scott, your welfare Officer on:

- Welfare@ucdsu.ie - 01 716 3112 - Or call in to see him at the Student Center Dont forget he’s here during the summer months to help with any Accommodation problem or preparation issues for September.

So make sure you save his number and details

* It’s been an honour working for you this year, and i look forward to more of the same next year * Regards, Scott Ahearn UCDSU Welfare Vice- President

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THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

The Belfield pharmacy will remain vacant until the end of the academic year after being closed during the mid-term break. Three potential new tenants have recently pulled out for personal and professional reasons after the venture was closed by owner Sean Foley due to a lack of business from the students of UCD. According to Student Centre Manager Dominic O’Keeffe, the pharmacy will be reopened under new ownership by September. O’Keeffe is optimistic that a new owner can be found over the summer period, and there is a strong will to have the pharmacy reopen as well as “re-energised” by September.

While dozens of pharmacies have been forced to close across the country since cutbacks in payments from the HSE to pharmacists for community drugs schemes, O’Keeffe has attributed the Belfield closure to the interests of its owner, who “made a particular decision to leave” at this time. It is thought that

Foley’s decision is prompted by an interest in selling a self-developed dermatology product in the American marketplace, as well as a wish to concentrate on his businesses in the city centre.

The pharmacy is seen by O’Keeffe as “a livelihood, a lifestyle” rather than a high street pharmacy with a consistent year-round trade, said to be one of the attractions for potential new tenants.

The securing of a tenant in the pharmacy is being aided by United Drug, with contact also being made with the Irish Pharmaceutical Union in the hope of meeting new pharmacists wishing to take on the business.

The ongoing presence of a pharmacy on campus is seen as vital given the construction of the new 4,500 square foot medical centre within the new Student Centre. The pharmacy outlet will relocate when the centre is completed, in an effort to gain more business from students, as well as making the business a more attractive prospect to traders interested in the tenancy.

Belfield to be used as Olympic training ground BRIDGET FITZSIMONS

UCD has invited ambassadors from several countries to a reception with the intent of promoting UCD as a prime training ground for athletes competing in the 2012 Olympic Games.

The reception, which is to take place tomorrow (Wednesday 14th April) is expected to spark interest in Belfield campus as a training hub before the games.

Vice President for Students Dr Martin Butler told The University Observer that “it’ll be an opportunity for Dublin tourism and an opportunity for UCD to showcase itself to an international audience.”

As the 2012 Summer Olympics are set to take place in London, it is hoped that UCD can be used as a training ground for visiting athletes hoping to acclimatise before travelling to the Olympic village.

As construction of the new Student Centre continues, it is hoped that the new gym and swimming pool will be completed by 2012. Dr Butler noted that “what traditionally happens is that some teams will come here sometimes three months in advance,” and he believes UCD is perfect for this purpose as “we’ve got the on-campus accommodation, we’ve got the restaurant, we’ve sports science, we’ve all of their needs.” Dublin’s

close proximity to London is also being used as a selling point in the proposal.

The reception is to be attended by a large number of diplomats. At the time of speaking to The University Observer Dr Butler stated that fifteen had agreed to attend the event, from countries as diverse as Iran and Australia. Former Irish Olympians Ronnie Delaney, who won a gold medal in the 1500m for Ireland at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, and Michael Carruth, who took gold in 1992 for welterweight boxing, are expected to attend the reception. In addition, athletes who have received sports scholarships to UCD are also expected to attend the event. The UCD Choral Scholars will be performing and the UCD Symphony Orchestra have been invited to perform.

Dr Butler feels that having Olympic athletes on campus will “bring a bit of life, fun and vitality,” to UCD. He also said that “2012 is the closest the Olympics has been in a long number of years and it would be nice if Ireland could enjoy the fun.”

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THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

13.04.10

NEWS

news@universityobserver.ie

Back to the Future President review N MATT GREGG

ominally a Computer Science student, Gary Redmond describes his year as UCD Students’ Union President as being “a year of very tough decisions” but yet also one of “numerous achievements”.

Most notable amongst these achievements was the successful campaign against the reintroduction of 3rd level fees, an issue that has dominated the student landscape for the last couple of years. Though by no means exclusively the result of the UCDSU, Redmond feels it could not have happened without them.

“The resources from the UCD SU were vital. Myself and Conan, current President of Trinity College SU, sat down very early and decided that the campaign that had been run the previous year wasn’t working and we needed to go at this from a new tack.”

This new approach involved placing a much greater emphasis on lobbying and contacting individual TDs directly, an approach that took full advantage of the Green Party’s precarious position within Government. Of course, the lack of direct student involvement has seen Redmond draw much criticism but he insists that, if offered the chance, he wouldn’t change a thing.

“When I’ve a choice between knocking on the doors of Res or going and lobbying a TD who might stop that student paying five grand in fees next year, my choice will always be on the background lobbying work because I think it achieves far more.”

With the reintroduction of fees off the immediate agenda, it is difficult to argue with him. However, his concentration on this national issue, and the methods he employed have hindered Redmond’s performance closer to home. According to a study carried out by The University Observer, less than 40 per cent of the student population could recognise the President.

“I’m always worried. Every student should know who their SU President is,” admits Redmond slowly, pausing for breath. He

is then quick to dispute the significance of these results, lamenting that “students only come to the Union when they have a problem. They don’t see the work that’s going on. ” Though there is certainly much merit in his claim, Redmond’s methods certainly did little to improve his visibility levels.

Whilst progress on many of his more substantial manifesto promises is evident, the pace of their delivery has often left much to be desired. In an age where the internet has surpassed all other media outlets, it is notable that plans for a SU website to keep students updated have only just come to fruition.

Likewise work to ameliorate the parking situation in UCD, an issue close to the hearts of many students, has shown little concrete progress during Redmond’s tenure. He is adamant that the new transport plans drawn up will alleviate UCD’s current parking shortage but for the time being they remain merely plans. Similarly, Redmond is in “protracted negotiations with the bursar” over the high level of residential fees and hopes “to tidy that up” before his term ends.

The return of the number 10 bus service to Belfield, the extension of library hours and fruitful negotiations over the student centre levy, all achieved whilst cutting the budget by seven per cent, bears testament to Redmond’s talent in dealing with the university. He puts this down to the trust he had earned from his role as Entertainments Vice-President last year.

Another area where Redmond is suitably pleased is the Student Health Service,

“I’m always worried. Every student should know who their SU President is”

something he prioritised in his manifesto.

“Health services are working a lot better,” he beams. “We’ve been able to reintroduce the contraceptive clinic and move the STI clinic on campus.”

Yet, these successes cannot hide perhaps the greatest blemish on Redmond’s record. “Infighting between sabbatical officers is not good enough,” he admits.

“But in the UCDSU, the President of the SU has no power to discipline the sabbats so you’re at the mercy of the sabbats that are elected.”

Arguing that this meant he was powerless to deal with internal disputes and allegations of incompetence, Redmond believes that a review of the SU structures is necessary to ensure that sabbatical officers can be held accountable in the future.

Despite these complaints, little effort has thus far been expended trying to overhaul the current SU structures.

When challenged over his promises to reduce resit/repeat fees, Redmond explained that he could not do this because it would contravene established SU policy designed to spread the costs of more practical subjects across all faculties. “As president I am merely a tool to implement the policy of the SU. My opinion doesn’t really count. Particularly going forward to the USI, I will merely be a tool to implement the policy.”

As Redmond’s year draws to a close, it appears his legacy is still very much up in the air. Beyond the fight against fees and the reintroduction of library and bus services, Redmond is heavily reliant on the future to prove he has been as successful a President as he claims.

“While the work is started now, I suppose the benefits will only be seen long after I’m gone,” muses Redmond. This is the difficulty facing any political leader and Redmond could not hope to be the exception. With any luck by the time Redmond takes up his position as USI President next year, the dividends will already be evident. Otherwise incoming President Paul Lynam will face a year of even tougher decisions.

We don’t need no education Education Officer review

BRIDGET FITZSIMONS “There are all these different things that I can look at and say that I know I’ve done something good here.” UCD Students’ Union’s Education Vice-President, Donnacha Ó Súilleabháin, feels that he has “done something good,” during his tenure, but many students will scratch their heads wondering just what this is. His year has undoubtedly been one of the worst for the Education office in recent memory, and it seems as if Ó Súilleabháin is either unapologetic or totally oblivious to the fact that he has had such a bad year.

Recent events have cast doubt on Ó Súilleabháin’s ability to maintain the office of Education Vice-President. His attempt to run for the position of Education Officer with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) was met with anger and disbelief by class reps, SU Executive members and Ó Súillebháin’s fellow sabbatical officers.

UCDSU Council voted to support the ReOpen Nominations campaign rather than give their sizeable support to their own candidate. This in itself is indicative of the fact that Ó Súilleabháin has simply not done the job that he was elected to do.

Asked about his USI campaign, Ó Súilleabháin said “I’ve no regrets about running for USI,” a move which was met with disbelief and anger by his colleagues. When he says that he has “been really touched by the outpouring from people whose opinions matter to me,” it is clear that the opinions of the vast majority of his peers

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simply don’t matter to him. Or perhaps it’s indicative of the ball dropping on interpersonal issues that have marred this sabbatical team’s year. It would come as no surprise if the public outrage and disbelief shown by Ó Súilleabháin’s contemporaries simply hasn’t been mentioned behind the closed doors of the SU corridor. Ó Súilleabháin simply does not seem to have any idea of how badly his year has gone – either this or he is trying his best to bury his head in the sand. When The University Observer asks what his low point of the year was, he concedes that his being beaten by RON at the USI Hustings did not look good, but is quick to blame coverage of his implication in the Science Day controversy, saying “It was just bad reporting, which everyone panicked about because if you take it at face value, it doesn’t look good.” Unfortunately face value is the only thing which can be read from this story, since Ó Súilleabháin has repeatedly resisted any attempt at explaining the matter or clearing himself of any perceived wrongdoing.

Similarly, Ó Súilleabháin said that his high point of the year was the Green Party’s endorsement of the revised Programme for Government, which saw the prospect of third-level fees abolished for the time being. “Myself and Gary worked very hard on that,” he says. Ó Súilleabháin has based his year’s performance on taking credit for other people’s work and behaving in a completely unprofessional manner. His lack of professionalism was clear in his refusal to speak to Campaigns and Communications VicePresident Paddy Ryan since October last year. He said that “myself and Paddy have personal differences, but it hasn’t affected

any work that we’ve had to get done,” but it is unclear how a union can present itself as united to represent students when one sabbatical officer cannot push personal differences aside to do his job.

In studying his manifesto with The University Observer, Ó Súilleabháin pointed to ideas he claims were completed throughout the year. However inspection of the facts show that his claims are, at best unfounded, at worst outright lies. For instance, he said that he had completed a promise to change UCD Connect email to a Gmail platform – something that has clearly not happened. Ó Súilleabháin has been quick to deflect responsibility for his lack of action despite other officers having been forced to take up his workload. For the students who have been let down by the Education Office this year, that Ó Súílleabháin says he “would do very little differently” will be a slap in the face.

It’s unclear whether Ó Súilleabháin genuinely believes he has had a good year or if he is simply hoping that by staunchly denying any wrongdoing to the end, he will ride out the year with his job intact.

Sadly for UCD and for UCDSU he will.

“It was just bad reporting, which everyone panicked about because if you take it at face value, it doesn’t look good”

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Campaigns & Communications Officer review GAVAN REILLY

Paddy Ryan is the first to admit that his year as Campaigns & Communications Officer has been far from perfect. “I suppose taking up the job and the whole transition into the first semester was bumpy,” concedes the Tipperary native. “Everyone perceives the job they’re taking up to be different to what it’s going to be.”

Ryan’s year has indeed been a bumpy one. Though the second semester brought better fortunes for him – assisted by the shift of criticism from himself to his colleague, Education VP Donnacha Ó Súilleabháin – the first term brought more criticism than any individual sabbatical officer had been subjected to for years. Ryan acknowledges that his year began bumpily, and debits this to his self-professed different approach to campaigning.

Instead of the traditional week-long campaigns, Ryan “initially wanted to have continuous campaigns: I tried to figure out how to do it. It just didn’t work for me. I think the first few campaigns suffered as a result…

I had so much planned – so many ideas and things I wanted to do. I was being over-eager and over-ambitious. I said I’d go hell for leather at this.

I tried it all and it didn’t work.”

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Paddy-whackery

THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

Unsurprisingly, Ryan cites the backlash against him a result as the low point of his year – but curiously, also sees the criticism as the high point too. “It’s when you’re at your lowest that you find out who your friends are. When everyone starts rallying around you and tell you, ‘no, come on, you can do this, we believe in you’ it’s both a high and low point.”

It is unfortunately telling that Ryan doesn’t cite any particular campaigning victory as the climax of his year; major achievements like recruiting a record number of class reps or the successful resistance to third-level fees have, realistically, had little to do with his input, being largely built on the work of SU President Gary Redmond. The flipside of this, though, is that Ryan cannot take much blame for some of the year’s failures, such as the introduction of charges in the Student Health Service – again, because the dominant style of Redmond’s hands-on leadership has sidelined him.

Once he reverted to the weekly campaign model Ryan’s year was solid, but unremarkable. He may have gotten unlucky with the reception to his plan for year-long campaigns rather than concentrated weekly ones, but the fact that the surviving campaign weeks had only a limited impact means that overall verdict of Ryan’s year must be that the Engineering student – in both his approach to the job and his decision to seek it in the first place – bit off more than he could chew.

Thankfully for his own sake, Ryan sees his tenure as a positive experience. “It brought me to the reality that life is a lot harsher than you think it is, but I’ve learnt a lot and I’ve matured a bit. I’ve had great craic. If I was in the same position I’d definitely run again.

Will I run again? No.”

Wel-fairy Godfather Welfare Officer review KATIE HUGHES Student welfare in UCD has been highly recognised this year due to the efforts of Students’ Union Welfare Vice-President, Scott Ahearn.

This recognition is mainly positive, with a huge increase in the Student Welfare Fund, a series of successful ‘How To’ talks and a Kick the Habit programme. Ahearn feels he will walk away from the year feeling he has “given it his all” – and after looking at his achievements this year, he has every right to do so.

One of Ahearn’s main priorities for the year was to set up a Welfare Crew, which would help raise student awareness of the Welfare position and the services it provided. He feels that it has been a successful in “opening Welfare up a lot more” but concedes that more structure is required – something he will be expected to have sorted next year when he starts his second term in the office.

While Ahearn has enjoyed a lot of praise for his unquestionable dedica-

tion this year, the issue of the introduction of medical fees at the Student Health Service remains. He explains that the requirement for fees is due to further restrictions on the Student Services Charge, from which the service is funded. As other student services are also funded under this umbrella, including IT and library services which were deemed more essential, fees were a necessity to balance the books. However, it cannot be said that Ahearn abandoned the cause of free healthcare, having taken extensive measures to aid students who could not pay the fees, and ensuring the establishment of a student health fund of €20,000 for those under financial strain. However, students are still unable to have their medical cards registered both at home and with UCD. In a year that saw an increase in students’ financial problems, Ahearn managed to secure an estimated €105,000 solely for the Student Welfare Fund, which was an incredible achievement in a time of recession.

Ahearn has also dealt with a lot of personal cases throughout the year, asserting the “your problem will become my problem” slogan in his manifesto, taking between 50 and 60 individual cases per week. However, he describes the personal cases as “one of the most demanding parts of the job.”

Ahearn admits that some of his promises did not happen, such as publishing an Online Cheap Guide and increasing food choice for students with special dietary requirements. Ahearn counters that such campaigns were never his “number one priority” and that he never got a chance to complete them – which, to be fair, seems a tired excuse given his passion for the rest of his job.

In a poll taken earlier in the year, Scott Ahearn was seen as the most recognisable of the four Vice-Presidents, proving his workrate and public profile when compared to his colleagues. Ahearn has been there for students on an individual and broader level. Welfare this year has been quite successful and we can be only confident in anticipation of Ahearn’s second term.

Mike Pat on the back?!

Entertainments Vice-President review KATIE HUGHES It’s difficult to know where to begin reviewing the performance of Mike Pat O’Donoghue, like the man himself it’s been a meandering miscellany year of the weird and wonderful. Some say the Entertainments office hasn’t changed in the past three years, and that O’Donoghue is a product of the Redmond and Quinlivan schools of Ents Officers. It’s a fair enough assessment since O’Donoghue has been involved in the Ents office since the days of Holly Irvine, however his sentiment has always been ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ and he feels he has “mixed it up a bit” this year. “I never said we were going to revolutionise and have go-karting around campus and stuff.”

He does feel his job is more difficult than his predecessors’ since this is the first year that every course in UCD has been fully modularised “in my six years here it’s always just been, ‘This hasn’t been done before’.

Then you do it, and people are like, ‘Oh. That’s a really good event – but I’ve an essay.’”.

The highlight of his year he admits, is yet to come – 23rd April’s UCD Ball. Having spent the last three weeks with a phone seemingly glued to his ear, O’Donoghue was finally able to announce the line-up over the weekend. “It’s going to be amazing. We’ve billed it as Europe’s biggest private party, and it is, but it’s probably the biggest student event that’s ever happened in Ireland.” He cites Redmond’s work last year as being instrumental in gaining the permission to increase the capacity by three thousand, “there’s a certain amount of trust the Ents office has got… we’re taken very seriously by the college.” The Ball hasn’t been without its hiccups however, having set up an online ticket purchasing option, the website subsequently crashed the day the tickets went on sale “what kills me is that there was 22,000 hits on the website in two or three

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hours and very few tickets went because the servers just got overloaded.” The event is, as yet, not a sell-out but O’Donoghue is confident that the announcement of the line-up will generate the last push of interest required.

As for his disappointments, one gig at the beginning of the year stands out as a major let down. Poor attendance by students for a gig which he felt would sell out doesn’t mean he wouldn’t run it again “the people that were there had the time of their lives” and the Ents Office strived to recoup the losses through nightclub events – which they managed to do. But selling out gigs in the Student Bar has proved more difficult than ever before, and O’Donoghue concedes that students are staying in drinking before catching last buses into city centre nightclubs, essentially bypassing the bar altogether. But he still feels that the bar is the hub of entertainment activity in Belfield, and moreso with the loss of ‘The Pit’ outside the Centre Club.

O’Donoghue has some sage advice for incoming VP Jonny Cosgrove: “People elect you as your own officer.

You appreciate advice and all the help you get but if you just have a gut feeling sometimes that an event’s going to work, just go with it. Just do it.”

As for next year he “wants to stay in the entertainment-y student side of things” which is as enigmatic an answer as has ever been given. Looking back on the year he says he would do it all again in a heartbeat “Yes. 100 per cent.

I have less hair, but it’s a recession, so I’d expect a bit of receding in a recession.”

11/04/2010 22:12

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Like the corners of my mind While on a break in Donegal, James Fagan revists snippets of his childhood and what exactly makes happy memories

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ountains, beaches, sunshine and rain.

Hills, strands, pubs and golf courses.

There are many places around the world that have all these things, yet to me there is only one place that truly captures their essence: a small little area on a quiet little peninsula in north-north-west Donegal, called Rosapenna. It has been a regular holiday destination throughout my childhood, be it in rented cottages or – if we decided to push the boat out – a weekend in the hotel.

I’m back up after almost three years, and the change is noticeable. There are more houses, more developments and changes to the layout of the golf course (a big deal, as you’ll find out in a moment). Seeing it really evoked a longing in my heart for those happy days, way back when.

I decide after having arrived to break off from my parents and go for a walk on Tramore, the beach where I threw tantrums if made walk it as a child. The walk takes me up over the original start to the golf course, now a track of dirt for a housing development which the recession has since flatlined. Yet as I round the bend to the beach I was sidelined by a freight train of nostalgia.

My nose fills with the woody smell of burning turf.

Under my boots I feel the gravel path give way, after years of disuse and some heavy erosion. I look up and I can see the valley below, which makes up the front nine of the golf course (now with added clubhouse).

As a child I would walk the course with my parents, enjoying the sun or listening to a tape on my brother’s Walkman I had borrowed (read ‘nicked’). I think it was one October lunchtime on the 5th hole that I defeated the Elite Four for the first time.

As I step down onto the beach the sand compresses, leaving gaping holes in the shape of my feet much like it would when I was three – or six, or ten, or all

the other times I was here. Directly across from me there is a rocky outcrop of jet black igneous stone with yellow speckles. The rocks lie like petals, fallen haphazardly upon each other.

These rocks also hold special meaning; a whole summer full. Back in 1995 a heatwave crossed Ireland which coincided with our summer holiday. I think I spent pretty much all of those two weeks diving off the rocks into the sea, or exploring the rock pools with their red sea anemones. Yet now the rocks seem so much smaller; funny how the mind’s eye grows memories to larger than life.

My walk takes me along the beach stepping over arterial channels of water which run back to the lowering tide, crushing seashells and playing chicken with the incoming waves. Their roar is a better companion than any MP3 player ever could be. All around me I could see the landmarks of the area each holding its own memories: the forest park at Ards where I would go for picnics; the Capuchin Monastary beside it where I once met a Fr Pacificus, whose beard was almost waist length; and Muckish Mountain, covered with ice and snow, which reminded me of Glenveagh where one can also see the Mountain.

When I arrive back into the hotel I think back upon

“Funny how the mind’s eye grows memories to larger than life”

the walk I have taken – a literal trip down memory lane. While the moments are long gone, and the area changed from what it was, at its core it is still the same because I can look back into the past using that which is still there.

I think that when it comes to our lives, it is the little things within the larger picture which define whether we are happy – be they something simple such as beating a videogame or slightly more out of the ordinary like meeting an eccentric monk. On this trip I visited Glenveagh again. Golden eagles were introduced to the park in 2002, and it had been my dream to see one. This trip I finally did; the ranger had one down to show off to visitors. That moment will become one of the little things I will remember with joy in later life.

Yet this philosophy of appreciating the little goals and mini adventures isn’t confined to holidays – it permeates our entire lives. This year in college I have taken on what some might call a masochistic level of extracurricular activities; however, these will ensure I have plenty of memories from college at the smaller, more personal level such as bantering in the Observer office or running a friend’s campaign for auditor. These will be the things which will weave together to create

contentment when I look back on college, years from now. And looking back on my time with the Observer and in other places, I wouldn’t change a thing as the memories are awesome. See you in the funny pages.

This is an edited extract from James Fagan’s new blog, The Industrial. It is updated weekly and can be found at http://theindustrial.blogspot.com/.

Inconvenient bedfellows Secularism isn’t the cause of society’s evils, argues David Osborn – in fact, it’s the only way forward for a broken Irish society

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he word ‘secularism’ brings to mind different things in different people. For many, it brings atheism to mind, in particular the outspoken atheism of the likes of Richard Dawkins. For others it conjures up thoughts of Stalinism, thanks to the policies of Stalin, Mao and other communist dictators who saw religion as a threat to their own dogma.

But what is secularism? As I have learned over the course of my life, far too many people simply don’t know – unfortunate, but not altogether surprising. What is surprising is the number of people who think they know, but clearly don’t.

I’ve had people tell me they oppose

hasn’t already made up their mind could believe any of the above once the term has been properly explained.

Firstly, ‘secular’ does not equal ‘atheist’.

While it is true almost all non-religious people are secularist, not all secularists are atheists. Secularism doesn’t necessarily promote atheism, nor does it logically lead to atheism. Secularism, simply put, is the notion that politics and religion should remain separate.

This certainly does not mean that the state should be atheist or promote it, but rather that it shouldn’t take a stance on religion at all. In schools, it doesn’t mean teaching atheism; it means accepting all students from every background

“All nonsecular education systems are discriminatory and sectarian” secularism because they think it means communism, or the establishment of atheism as the state “religion”, or that secular schools means teaching children that God doesn’t exist. I’ve been told that Hitler was a secularist, that secularism was the justification that Stalin and Mao used for the murder of tens of millions of their own citizens, that secularism is the reason paedophile priests exist, and I’ve been told repeatedly that secularism is causing the moral degeneration of our society.

This is intellectual effluent that has been deliberately spread by people who want their religion to either remain in power or to acquire it, because nobody who

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and educating them all equally, without teaching them that one particular religion is truthful. All non-secular education systems are discriminatory and sectarian, and only a secular public school system can be fair to everybody.

Nor does secularism strip parents of their right to educate their children in a religious setting: privately-funded schools could have whatever ethos they like, and voluntary religion classes could be taught in public schools after hours.

Some fear that a secular state, intentions aside, will ultimately lead to an irreligious society like France. The evidence doesn’t support this assumption, as the US – the original modern secular de-

mocracy – is the most religious country in the western world.

Conversely, Britain and Norway are both very irreligious places, but they are not secular countries; in both cases, the head of state is also the head of the official church, uniting the church and state in a single indivisible icon. The implication is that every citizen of those countries is also a professor of the state faith, a deeply disingenuous notion.

Secularism does not offer justification for murder or crime. Contrary to the claims of many religious fundamentalists, Hitler (who was a Catholic) was not a secularist; indeed, he attempted to establish Nazism as a state religion. Stalin was an atheist, but this is incidental; he didn’t do the things he did because he wasn’t religious, he did them because he was a paranoid totalitarian.

Secularism does not lead to the moral degeneration of society or to paedophile priests; indeed, it enhances societal ethics. More than twice I’ve heard grown adults link the rise of secularism to the Catholic abuse scandal, apparently seeming unable to connect the fact that the abuse in question took place largely before 1993, and before Ireland underwent the recent liberalisation.

A state which is bound to a religion looks only to the dogma of that religion for its ethics; a state which is required to look to no religion for its law is also required to actually think about the matters at hand, to use reason and logic to decide how to proceed – not the dictats of a book from the dark ages, or from a Church which rapes children, lies about it, protects those who committed the offenses, and then when exposed is more worried about its reputation than about its victims. A secular government is accountable for its actions; its decisions are its own, and it cannot blame mistakes on the adoption of “infallible” truths, or hide behind religion.

So what is secularism? It is the only way forward. If we want to live in a society

which respects the rights of everyone, not just the majority, in a society which respects freedom of religion; a society where the state doesn’t discriminate against people based on religion; a society where religious tests aren’t required

to be a judge or the president; a society where civilisation can flourish; then we need to live in a country which has legal separation of Church and state.

Ireland, whose constitution declares the Catholic God to have the right to be worshipped by the Irish people and whose laws of the land give public schools the right to discriminate against tiny, innocent children based on the religion of their parents, has a long way to go.

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Don’t mention the War

The Civil War lives on in an ineffective Dáil, argues Sally Hayden, so the time has come for major reform

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he recent exit of George Lee from Dáil Eireann sparked huge amounts of commentary from irate politicians about his lack of stamina, apparent arrogance and inflated sense of self-worth. It also ought to have raised additional debate, however, on the role our politicians play, why we elect them and their duty to us as their constituents.

Lee’s departure has begged the question of what personal qualities one needs to be a politician. Must one have a natural popularity, charisma and baby-kissing charm? Is it an ability to smile and answer hazily in the face of thorny questions? Or is it the association with a political party which identifies itself by its original side in the Civil War? The skills that cause one to be elected are not necessarily the skills that are vital to run a country effectively, and therein lies some of the issues that Ireland currently being forced to recognise, given the situation in which we now find ourselves.

Before we ridicule the cries to position Michael O’Leary as Taoiseach, and revitalise the Irish economy to the extent that bathrooms nationwide have a PAYG (pay-as-you-go) tax on their usage, we must admit that there is an argument to be made for leadership experience, independent of the political party or the Oireachtas. A recent Eurobarometer poll showed that the Irish have the fifth-lowest level of public trust in their political institutions of the 27 European countries surveyed. Currently Cowen and company are spending €1m per hour more than

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is being earned through taxes. The Irish citizens’ new attainment of a depraved bank and two building societies – along with further stakes and €81 billion of property loans through Nama – is costing four times what the UN estimates to be

the total cost of rebuilding Haiti Looking at a government where ministerial positions can be awarded to candidates without background or interest in their appointed departments, it is easy to see how areas like health and education

are suffering. Observing a situation where the government’s head honcho earns the fourth highest salary in the world for a government leader – all while preaching frugality and cutbacks – we see a palpable demonstration of a clear disconnection from the voters and citizens of Ireland.

We have suffered from the deficit of democracy: that what wins elections is not what runs a country.

To install a minimum requirement of workplace experience – say, ten years –

by a government in crisis, and instead are criticised for failing to play the political game – a game which seems to involve sitting pretty while waiting your turn. The Dáil has long been an assembly point for certain professions; barristers, teachers, and at one stage an auctioneer.

When catastrophe calls, it’s up to the people in a democracy to make a change.

It’s the citizens’ job to demand experience from politicians, and it would be in the citizens’ power to call a constitutional

“We have suffered from the deficit of democracy: that what wins elections is not what runs a country” would mean that ideally politics would become less about a lucrative powerwielding career path, and more about a desire to change the world one lives in.

To pay ten years of taxes would be to understand the wish that your tax actually gets used for something constructive. In the judiciary, one must have ten years of legal practice behind them to qualify for a post – merely to facilitate an ability to be fair and rational and make good, connected decisions. To run a country, where judgements are being issued to govern all aspects of life, surely this connection is all the more important. Surely ambassadors with experience of all facets of living are vital, rather than just the expertise of politics.

But is a lack of experience the only concern? There is a blatant shortfall when elected TDs like George Lee fail to have their expertise and knowledge harnessed

referendum to limit the salaries of TDs, so as to attract candidates with an interest in the issues at play rather than the money to play for. Those who can make a difference should be encouraged to try, and the government should be inviting ideas from not only their followers, but the opposition, who by their very nature are supposed to object to what is going on.

The Irish political system is failing, and it is failing because our two main parties have essentially identical aims and goals.

Instead of the standard split on outlook of issues (normally left and right-wing), they’re split only because of a disagreement that happened ninety years ago. The Irish people need to start judging by experience and results, and remembering that political promises are empty, and regardless of party, all we can be sure of is what has already individually been achieved.

Let’s talk about sex Conor Murphy believes Irish law should worry less about the bedroom and more about wider issues

Sex is okay. Sex dressed as a panda, though? Definitely a no-no to chat about to the friends you want to keep. Both acts start the same way – well, the foreplay may have different logistics – and both will inevitably lead towards the same conclusion. So is one wrong while the other’s cool? To claim to be a modern society, we must be able to examine how we, as a society, interact – without laughing in incredulity.

In olden times sex was seen as a base evil, only to be attempted within a set of the most contrived rules and preconceptions. Let’s look to see how far have we advanced, starting with what sex is now. Is it an evil, a good, a weapon or a tool? Can it be a commodity?

Sex is the only non-harmful consensual act you cannot provide as a service. As George Carlin said, “Sex is legal, selling stuff is legal, so why isn’t selling sex legal?” Its illegality dates back to the notion that sex is either ‘bad’ or ‘special’. While sex can be both, we must admit that it’s often either. The problem of, say, prostitution being abused, is irrelevant: in every other facet of business we don’t ban when abuses occur, we regulate. The notion that a select few should decide how degrading an act is for the rest of society is just laughable. If you wouldn’t work in Tesco, for example, you shouldn’t be allowed to automatically pontificate on whether Tesco might be a good enough job for me.

But I doubt this will happen any time soon, because society does dictate the limits of acceptable actions.

Society decides what’s right, even if the law deigns not to. This is a ridiculous role – especially when it comes to sex. If I want to fight the most ancient of battles while dressed up as an endangered species, rather than in my birthday suit, it might be legal but it is most definitely taboo to mention at a dinner party. For some pathetic reason we still haven’t reached the point where, as adults, any consensual safe act is normal, and where we all have some sort of awkward

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(possibly furry) personal closet to climb out of.

It’s not that the law doesn’t preach in strange and unusual ways. We have taken a leap forward recently in bringing age of consent between boys and girls to a uniform 16. But as with all of these progressions, the end result is a half-baked law, unsure what to do with itself. One decidedly untrendy law pertains to pornography, roughly prohibiting the display of sexual material to people under the age of 18. Advancing this logic further, does this mean that we are allowed to have sex two years before we’re mature enough to actually view it? And doesn’t this mean a 16-year-old is breaking the law whenever he has sex unless he wears a blindfold? Or is he innocent if he keeps his eyes closed?

All nonsensical scenarios aside, there are actual serious implications of the group resistance we hold against any evolution to our sex laws. Some Irish people, for example, feel they can’t marry who they want in this country due to ancient preconceived social rules. So, to anyone who feels that there are religious traditions to be respected with marriage, or anyone who feels like screeching “think of the children!”, go bury your head in the sand: you mightn’t want to know that sexuality, for men, is most probably decided before birth (the evidence is weaker for

women) so the children will be of whatever orientation their genes decide. And hey – if we’re wrong, the world needs better population control anyway. It is extremely irritating watching the Catholic hillbilly brigade being rolled out on talk shows as if their opinion is worth the 50c Bible it’s read out of.

Even if we were to get all these things sorted out, the general hypocrisy of society’s attitude to sex is amazing. Try this: find someone who you know wouldn’t

go out with you, and ask them out every day for a week (Hint - mention panda suits a lot.) We all know that’s creepy, unless you’re good looking, of course.

If I had a book’s worth of space for this piece, I could start to challenge the view that sex is something women own and give out to men when they feel like it. While this perception is mostly beneficial to women, it does give rise to the notion that while women become sluts, men become players.

To grow up about this issue we must all realise we are all different and that this is okay. We all have tastes, and when we get the law to stop talking about the bedroom and get our society to start talking about the wider world, it’ll be time to welcome in the twenty-first century.

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Stupid Students I

After weeks of criticism over dismal standards of literacy amongst Ireland’s graduates, Leanne Waters takes to campus to see if UCD’s students can hack it without spell check

n 1903 James Joyce graduated from UCD, and became one of the most famous writers in Irish history. But UCD’s reputation certainly didn’t finish with Joyce. Instead, it was later to unleash a vast range of actors, academics, comedians, Cardinals, politicians and sportsmen. Famous graduates include Eoin MacNeill, Gabriel Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, and even Brian O’ Driscoll.

No pressure for the modern-day UCD-er, right? Well, apparently not.

Indeed, over one hundred years after Joyce graced our campus, it appears that today’s UCD student is (to be polite) struggling. After a recent controversy surrounding grade inflation, students were under scrutiny for poor academic standards. Moreover, it seems your everyday UCD head can’t even be trusted to send an appropriate document any more. Emails, memos, CVs, you name it: without our trusted spell-check, you can say goodbye to the words ‘Curriculum Vitae’.

Far be it from me to preach; I’ll cast no stones when, in all honesty, my grammar and spell-check systems are working overtime. Without them, I dread to think what this piece would look like; certainly not very becoming for a would-be journalist. So how bad have we really gotten?

To test the theory, I skipped around campus early on Friday morning to find out for myself.

With me I took three sample emails for students to choose from. Email number one: a flawless original. We want our colleagues to pick this one. Email number two: flawed, with mild punctuation mistakes and one spelling error. Okay, it’s not a travesty to pick this one but at college level, surely we can do better. Email number three: flawed. And so, in the highest of hopes that the campus trippers wouldn’t disappoint, I managed to grab three willing students.

Case #1: Lorcan Byrne, just finishing second year in Economics and Finance.

He actively participates in surfing and skiing and when put to the test, successfully chooses email number one – “It was obvious it wasn’t number three... then I saw that there was basically no punctuation in number two.” One up to the students.

Case #2: Anonymous. Miss Anonymous is a second-year Nursing student and chose email number two. She concludes her choice with the comment, “Oh God! I feel so thick! You’re not going to publish my name are you?”

Case #3: David Monks. A Class Rep involved with UCDVO, David is ploughing through his first year as a graduate in Medicine. Thankfully, this upcoming medical expert chose email number one in our survey. Our health professionals haven’t quite fallen horribly by the wayside just yet.

So there we have it. Amidst the 23,000 studnets UCD boasts, two in three students can, in fact, send a perfectly appropriate email. Minister Mary Coughlan is, I’m sure, beside herself with unfaltering pride.

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Students Services Fee: €1,500. Student Centre Levy: €150. Re-sit charges: €230 per exam. Being able to compose one decent email: priceless. Congratulations to the students of UCD! I believe we have now earned our summer fun for 2010.

Test yourself: which e-mail would you send?

Dear Mr Byrne, It was very enjoyable to speak with you today about the assistant account executive position at the Smith Agency. The job seems to be an excellent match for my skills and interests. The creative approach to account management that you described confirmed my desire to work with you.

In addition to my enthusiasm, I will bring to the position strong writing skills, assertiveness, and the ability to encourage others to work cooperatively with the department.

I appreciate the time you took to interview me. I am very interested in working for you and look forward to hearing from you regarding this position.

Sincerely, Mark Jones

Dear Mr Byrne, It was very enjoyable to speak with you today about the assistant account executive position at the Smith Agency. The job seems to be an excellent match for my skills and interests. The creative approach to account management that you described confirmed my desire to work with you.

In addition to my enthusiasm, I’ll bring to the position strong writing skills asertiveness, and the ability to encourage others to work cooperatively with the department.

I appreciate the time you took to interview me. I am very interested in working for you and look forward to hearing from you regarding this position Sincerely Mark Jones Dear Mr Byrne It was very enjoyable to speak with you today about the assistant account executive position at the Smith Agency. The job seems to be an excellent match for my skills & interests. The creative approach to account management that you described confirmed my desire to work with you In addition to my enthusiasm I’ll bring to the position strong writing skills assertivenes and the ability to encorage others to work cooperatively with the department I appreciate the time you took to interview me I’m very interested in working for you and look forward to hearing from you regarding this position Sincerely Mark Jones

“Over one hundred years on from when Joyce graced our campus, it appears that today’s UCD student is (to be polite) struggling.”

Looking Back in Anger Industrial schools have received much attention in the Irish media. It is nearly a year since the publication of the Ryan Report when these somewhat neglected institutions emerged on the front page of every newspaper.

The ensuing controversy over physical, sexual, and emotional abuse made industrial schools the main topic of debate up and down the country. The debate focused around what abuse had happened and what efforts had been done to cover it up. Catholic religious orders established and managed most of the industrials in Ireland. These religious orders were held responsible for perpetrating and covering up abuse. The State also received much attention over its role, having funded and inspected industrial schools, and using these institutions for the purpose of child care. The State was held responsible for its role in allowing the abuse to continue, and actually bore more of the responsibility for the fallout by picking up a large portion of the compensation bill.

Both the State and the Church came under sever pressure. These two foundation stones of the Irish nation began to slowly crumble. The public outrage poured out through the media and continued to flow until institutional abuse began to pale in comparison to the clerical abuse exposed in the Murphy Report.

As the fallout of the Murphy report continues to grow and the calls for resignation ring out, it is important to remember what happened in industrial schools. Despite all the attention they have received few people are aware of their purpose.

Though industrial schools these days have connotations of paedophilia and child abuse, they were once considered respectable institutions across this country. From the late nineteenth century, industrial schools were used to house what were regarded as delinquent children. Some industrial school children had committed crimes, while others were admitted in the basis that they were in danger of committing a crime.

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After a long year of continuing revelations about State and Church institutions in Ireland, Jack Carter assesses the complex legacy of the country’s industrial school system

By the twentieth century industrial schools were largely used to house children of poverty.

Children admitted to industrial schools were usually ordered to do so by a court. Their situation may have been brought to the attention of the court by the ‘cruelty man’ (from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) or the police. In Irish society it had become an acceptable feature of State childcare that children would be sent to these schools.

These institutions were spread right across Ireland. Most towns had one.

There were a number of industrial schools that have received much attention such as Artane or Leterfrack but there were many other schools.

A typical industrial school was run by the Christian brothers or the Sisters of Mercy. They were usually part of an ecclesiastical complex involving or National school, secondary school, or hospital.

The State supplied funds to church run industrial schools as its main from of care for impoverished children until the second half of the twentieth century. The children that went to industrial schools were to receive a literacy education similar to that of a primary school. They were also to receive an industrial education that would equip them to gain employment and therefore earn a living for their adult life – the theory being that if the children could work as adults, then they would never fall into poverty again or rely on the State for welfare.

Unfortunately for the children, and the State, the theory did not work so well in practice. One of the major charges levelled against industrial schools was that neither forms of education were adequate; many former industrial school pupils say that they never received a literacy education.

Many of these children were discharged from the schools at the age of 16 without the ability to read or write, and with no form of support from either the Church or State.

The management of the industrial education also received criticism. In

many cases it was apparent that the management were using the schools as factories and the children as labour. These children were not being industrially trained but rather used to make money for the religious orders that ran the schools.

It must be noted though that not all schools should be tarred with the same brush. The Ryan Report itself points out that many people expressed a positive view towards their time in the industrial schools. The report also notes that not all schools had charges levelled against them.

Some people did leave the schools with a decent education and an ability to look after themselves. The history of industrial schools is indeed a difficult one to write.

11/04/2010 22:13

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FEATURES

features@universityobserver.ie

Enter the Dragon N

obody ever likes being woken up by a phone call – but when you’re picking the people who you’d least like to hear you sounding groggy and underslept, influential businesspeople are probably somewhere at the top of the list. Therefore, it’s a strange and bloody frightening feeling being woken up on the stroke of 9am by a phone call from someone from Dragons’ Den. Thankfully, when Gavin Duffy calls – literally at the same second the clock radio starts to blare the 9am news – he’s merely arranging the details for an interview later that day, and isn’t expecting me to be able to interview him from bed, without as much as pen to take notes. As it transpires, when I get to chat to him again later that day (after, I hasten to add, a lot of coffee), I begin to get the sense that admitting my utter unprofessionalism might not have been as suicidal as I’d feared – because despite the preconceptions one might have about a mega-successful business and media magnate like Duffy, the Drogheda man is an extremely approachable and affable person.

Duffy is familiar to most of us as one of the five tough-talking venture capitalists from RTÉ One’s Thursday night show Dragons’ Den, but what most people our age might not cop is that Duffy began life – and still holds a burning passion – as a breakfast DJ on a local radio station

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Intake: September 2010. Applicants must hold a primary degree in psychology or a related field. For further information visit the departmental web page: www.ul.ie/psychology

Administrator Denise Roche Department of Psychology University of Limerick Email: denise.roche@ul.ie Phone: +353 (0)61 233618

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Entrepreneur and media training guru Gavin Duffy talks to Gavan Reilly about breakfast radio, the problem with the Irish economy, and life inside the Dragons’ Den in Dundalk. More true to the usual entrepreneurial stereotype is the fact that Duffy got into the world of business quite early, taking the DJing job at the tender age of 17.

“I remember finishing a breakfast show one morning in the summer of 1977 and driving back up to Drogheda, and helping in the family pub and going down to change a keg in the basement,” Duffy reminisces. “We had a radio on down there, and I heard the radio who had just taken over from me – and here I was listening from over 20 miles away in the basement. That just made me go, ‘Wow, this is some medium. How does it actually work?’” It was this curiosity – coupled with a genuine passion for journalism and community radio (“I would prefer to be involved with a Newstalk rather than a Spin in today’s context”, he suggests) – that led him to campaign for a licensed local radio station for the northeast, and ultimately to set up Ireland’s first commercial local station, LMFM. “I don’t know whether that was a good career move or not,” Duffy surprisingly concedes, though, “because I really liked talking to a wall – I loved radio and the intimacy of the medium and all that… In the mid 80s I started working on Morning Ireland and to my great surprise, I think it was in 1987, RTÉ asked me to present their first television business programme called Marketplace… They’d been very good to me, but I still had this hankering that if I was to get real legal local radio, I had this ambition about doing it. Critically the station [LMFM] was, as local radios go, quite successful and began to do very well. It was well received and critically acclaimed.” So well, in fact, that UTV took the station off his hands in 2004 for €11m.

Nowadays the day job for Duffy is his Dorland media consultancy firm – again, a business that proved more lucrative than he had expected. “One of the things that worked out well for me was that we went around to a lot of the larger companies in Ireland from about 1999 onward, saying to them, ‘You’ve got a big brand, consider your reputation and risk management… If something ever untoward happens, you have our expertise 24/7’,” he reveals. “It was a type of insurance nearly that the large corporates were taking out with us. We probably oversold it – because since 2008 all of our clients have all, simultaneously, had huge problems because of the economic meltdown… It has paid me very handsomely and continues to over the years. I suppose I should be very lucky to say I’m in a recession-proof business, if we look at the media end of it.”

It was also through his work with Dorland that he became first involved in the seed investments that have seen him gain more prominence in the intervening years – as often, he would take a more hands-on management role in companies seeking his advice on media relations. “One of the things that started to happen from the dotcom boom is that

I would, once or twice a week, have these dotcom hopefuls saying, ‘Will you help us make our presentation because we’re going to a bank for finance.’ After a while I said, ‘I think you need more than that,’ and I would get involved with some of them. Instead of charging a fee, I would take a very small slice – anything from 2.5 to 5 per cent.

“That’s why when RTE and Shinawil [the producers of the Irish Dragons’ Den] started asking around Enterprise Ireland as to who might be a Dragon or not, my name was the one name that came up most frequently.”

It’s through his work in the Den that he’s become most widely known: as perhaps the least outwardly vocal of the Dragons, Gavin’s selective nuggets of wisdom tend to pack bigger punches than those of his colleagues. It’s also, he reveals, offered some useful get-out clauses at awkward social situations. “There’s a fantastic bonus for someone doing Dragons’ Den – for someone like me who’s been dragged up in pubs… we were trained from an early age to be nice to people, and it sounds awful but I’ve been nice to people all my life.

“Now, as a result of Dragons’ Den, I have a licence to be rude, and that becomes very effective! It happens to all of us.

When I’m stuck at a Chamber of Commerce thing or a drinks party – we all get stuck in the corner with an incredible bore – what I do now is say, ‘Excuse me, I’m not interested, I’m out,’ and I just walk away. And I can hear the bore turning to their next victim, laughing, ‘That Gavin Duffy’s a great guy! Did you hear what he just said?’ It’s fantastic! It was worth doing the programme for that alone.”

Not, of course, that this is the sole benefit – aside from being given a chance to make significant money, the Dragons’ Den experience also seems to be great fun. “My best friend in the Den is undoubtedly Sean Gallagher – it’s not just that we share a dressing room … the other three think they’re D4 sophisticates, and it rubs me up the wrong way sometimes! We’re the two culchies and they’re the city kids. Niall [O’Farrell] is incredibly funny in the Den,” he adds.

“Niall is just great fun, he’s just great company! He’s always got a yarn, always got a story. Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter.”

I quickly ask Duffy what he thinks might get Ireland’s economy moving again, and – perhaps unsurprisingly – a mediabased explanation is not far away. Ireland’s political system, he believes, needs total reform. “The Church in Ireland have lost all credibility, the judiciary is just moving too slow. The fourth estate, the media, has taken over, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. It’s not that we have poor leaders, it’s just that we have people who don’t want to be led by their strategies. I’d argue for a national government, and the media doesn’t call for that because it’d spoil their fun… We should have five years of national government with the three main parties, rotating

Course Director Dr. Eric R. Igou Department of Psychology University of Limerick Email: eric.igou@ul.ie Phone: +353 (0)61 234567

11/04/2010 22:14

13.04.10

THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

FEATURES

features@universityobserver.ie Taoiseach every twenty months.”

Duffy’s time at present, however, is being occupied by slightly more humanitarian matters, as a judge for the Vodafone Foundation’s ‘World of Difference’ programme. An unusually charitable programme, the competition offers four young people the chance to work for any charity they want – while Vodafone pay them a wage of €40,000 for the year. Crucially, though, entrants have to compile a pitch for what charity they’d like to work for, and how their work would benefit their causes and their communities.

“For a large corporation to be spending money in this sort of way is something I’m impressed with,” Duffy reveals. “It really does make a difference – instead of giving the money to an organisation, they’re saying, ‘Listen, if you have something that you really think will make a difference and if we have to pay the person would deliver that, what difference would it make?’”

And given his experience in seeing pitches in the Den, what makes a good pitch? “From a judging point of view we’re looking for dynamic people who are driven and passionate about what they want to do in the community. The standard of people who come in – and how difficult it is to select the top four – makes it a very challenging job when you’re sitting there as a judge. Somebody coming in with an idea that really is scalable, that could make a big difference – that’s what always impresses me and that’s what I would give the nod to.

“There’s no pressure whatsoever on us to pick one type of project over another one,” the Dragon concludes. “There’s no corporate considerations of things like that. I like the independence of this, the integrity of it. That impresses me.”

The Vodafone Foundation’s ‘World of Difference’ programme offers four people the chance to work for a charity of their choice, with Vodafone footing the bill. More details of the programme 1878 16/03/2010 17:42 can be advertorial found at http://www.vodafone.ie/ worldofdifference.

Éire na gcéad míle fáilte?

An bhfuil ár tír comh fáiltiúl mar atá chreidtear? Cuireann Maria Ní Shíthigh plé Tá clú agus cáil ar Éire mar thír fáilteach le fada an lá. Fiú sa lá atá inniu ann ní gá ach sracfhéachaint a thabhairt ar scannán ar nós P.S. I Love You chun íomhá de thír álainn a fháil, ina bhfuil craic agus spraoi mar chroílár shaol na ndaoine. Nuair a thagann Meiriceánach (Holly) go hÉirinn cuirtear fáilte mór roimpi. Cuirtear ceol agus cultúr na tíre ós a comhair agus taobh istigh de chúpla lá is cosúil le duine áitiúil í sa teach tábhairne.

Ach an bhfuil bun leis an gclú seo?

An é seo an taithí a bhíonn ag gnátheachtrannaigh agus iad sa tír seo?

Leagann scéal Toyosi Shittabey, an déagóir Nigéarach a bhí sáite chun báis seachtain ó shin i mBaile Átha Cliath, béim ar na fothonaigh ciníocha atá le brath i gcultúr na hÉireann. I ndiaidh an sáigh seo, tá tuilleadh eolas á scaipeadh faoin dearcadh ciníoch atá ag roinnt mhaith Éireannaigh i leith neamhnáisiúnaigh. Tuairiscíodh le déanaí san Irish Times tuarascáil ar thorthaí thaighde a rinne Aontas Múinteoirí Éireann (TUI) a léiríonn go bhfuil 46 as céad de mhúinteoirí feasach ar theagmhas bainteach le ciníochas ina scoil féin sa mhí seo caite amháin. Ina theannta sin, dúirt 32 as céad nach raibh polasaí foirmiúil acu chun dul i ngleic leis an saghas eachtra seo.

An féidir linn tír fháilteach a thabhairt orainn féin nuair a réalann dearcthaí réamhchlaonta mar seo iad féin seachtain i ndiaidh seachtaine? Cé mhéad scéalta mar seo a chonaiceamar sna nuachtáin le bliain anuas? Is tragóid é bás Shittabey, ach ní hé an céad íospairteach de

Page 1

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dhearcaidh ciníocha sa tír seo.

Dar le halt a d’fhoilsigh The Lonely Planet an mhí seo caite tá Éire ar cheann de na 10 tíortha is fearr ar dhomhain ó thaobh fáilteacht de. Mar sin, caithfidh go gcuirimid fáilte roimh dhaoine áirithe a thugann cuairt ar an tír seo. An é gur fáilteoirí roghnaíoch muid? Is amhlaidh go bhfuilimid thar a bheith deas do thurasóirí a chaitheann airgead anseo agus a chuireann go mór le geilleagar na tíre seo sula n-imíonn siad abhaile arís ach go ndéanaimid faillí, go nglacaimid olc fiú, leo siúd a thagann anseo chun saol níos fearr a dhéanamh dóibh féin agus a bhíonn i ngá ár gcabhair.

‘No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish’ a chonaic ár sinsir tráth nuair a b’éigean dóibh dul ar imirce. An é seo an teachtaireacht a bhfuilimid ag iarraidh a thabhairt d’imircigh na tíre seo? Ach go háirithe sa lá atá inniu ann leis an gcúlú eacnamaíochta tá méadú mór tagtha ar líon na gcéimí Éireannacha atá ag tógáil an bád bán chun post maith a fháil. An mbeimis sásta a bheith caite linn sa chaoi is a gcaithimid le himircigh sa tír seo? É sin ráite, níl sé cothrom drochcháil a tharraingt ar an dtír uilig de bharr ghníomhartha mionlach ciníoch. Chuile bliain tagann na mílte chuig an tír seo agus imíonn a bhformhór le dea-chuimhní dá dtréimhse anseo. Ní muid féin a thug ‘Éire na mílte fáilte’ orainn féin agus caithfimid a bheith dóchasach go mbeidh an teidil seo fós oiriúnach dúinn sna blianta atá amach romhainn.

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FEATURES

features@universityobserver.ie

Sporting Passion Intrigued by the notion of hardcore UCD soccer fans, Matt Gregg meets the group aiming to put the passion back into Friday nights at the Belfield Bowl

T

he word ‘Ultras’ cannot escape its footballing connotations. It immediately evokes images of flare waving Italians or street fighting Serbians. So when I received the call to check out the ‘UCD Ultras’, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Was this in fact a job better suited to Danny Dyer, football’s official hardest man? I needn’t have worried.

“Do we have to be called the Ultras?” exclaimed Mark Connors, ring leader of the group, seconds into our meeting.

“We’d prefer to be called something a little more gay! Maybe we could be the ‘Blue Army’ instead?”

It’s a remarkable comment considering the widely held stereotypes that young, particularly male, football fans enjoy nothing better than fighting. As Mark made clear, that’s just not what the ‘Blue Army’ is about.

“It’s a bunch of lads having a bit of craic,” he began, musingly. “We’ve always gone to League of Ireland games but not really to support one team. We just said this year we’re going to take on a team and reckoned UCD would be the team with the least fans. So we decided we’d be their fans.”

The idea was born before the Christmas break but remained a pipe dream right up until the final week of pre-season.

Between college, jobs and girlfriends the group that would become the ‘Blue Army’ had little time to discuss the

details much further. But when the first game against Drogheda United came round, the lads were there to witness a 3-0 victory for UCD. With the Students’ league attendances rarely surpassing the hundreds, new groups of supporters are hard to miss.

After 90 minutes of continuous chanting, disrupted only by their copious use of drums, no one in the ground could possibly remain unaware of the ‘Blue Army’.

“We just went to the first game and the [UCD] PR lads came over to us and basically said ‘Look, are you planning on going to all the games?’” explained Mark matter of factly. “We said ‘yes’ so they gave us free season tickets.”

“He wants us there because if we definitely go they’ll have some supporters,” chimed in Jamie Conroy, a fellow member of the ‘Blue Army’. “Then other supporters just start coming over and sitting around us.”

Five games into the season and it’s looking like the club’s investment has already started to pay off. “Last Friday, there was about fifty people joining us,” continued Lee McEneff, a member currently attending UCD, enthusiastically. “Compare that to pictures of the first match where it was literally just us.”

“The other night there was the seven of us with a load of people around us which was great,” added Mark, nodding his head in agreement. “That’s the aim. Just keep adding people to us.”

War Cries

UCD’s Ultras share their own inimitable chants “UCD, UCD, College are the team for me With a knick, knack paddy-whack, Give a dog a bone, f*** off Bohs, Go on home!”

(To the tune of ‘New York, New York’) “Start spreading the news, he’s playing today He’s gonna score a goal for us, Kilduff, Kilduff; If he can score from there, he’ll score from anywhere It’s up to you Kilduff, Kilduff!”

Ciaran Kilduff he’s our man, hero of our nation Ciaran Kilduff scores a goal, it’s college jubilation!

“Oh when the U! (Oh when the U!) The UCD! (The UCD!) When UCD go marching in!

Oh how I want to be in that number When UCD go marching in!”

“Low lie the fields of Belfield Bowl Where once we watched the great college play Evan McMillian is our captain We have dreams and songs to sing Of the glory round the fields of Belfield Bowl…”

Belfield’s rather empty Bowl last week during UCD’s game against Bray Wanderers Photo Casey Germann

It is often wondered, by the boys amongst many others, why the football team of a college that caters to over 20,000 members has such poor attendance levels and a reputation for fairly passive crowds.

“Not everyone at UCD is going to like football but surely at least 5,000 do?”

Mark opines. “Would they not be interested in going to a game?”

Of course the college has made several attempts to entice students into matches, most notably the discount price for tickets purchased with a student card, but Lee feels even more could be done. “There’s enough tellys around here, especially in the Student Bar and Centre, with nothing on them which could be used to tell students about the matches.

Most people on campus just aren’t aware that the matches are going on.” It’s a fair criticism. Games regularly occur on Friday evenings but from walking through campus it would be almost impossible to tell. There are no announcements, no fanfare and no posters.

“If people went once or twice, they’d see there was a bit of an atmosphere,” bemoans Mark. “UCD are a pretty exciting team, they’re all still young fellows but they play good football. If they can just get people into the stadium, they’ll see there’s a bit of craic going on.”

However, that’s no easy task. The Airtricity League is, and perhaps forever will be, firmly in the shadows of its more illustrious neighbours. Leinster’s renaissance makes them a favourite destination for Friday’s sporting fix, whilst outside Dublin, interest in the GAA is as strong as ever. Even within football, UCD faces stiff competition. From their more successful Irish rivals to the behemoth that is the English Premier League, there exist numerous drains on the College’s fan base.

Still, if you’re ever stuck for something to do, UCD are playing Sporting Fingal this Thursday. The boys would be more than happy to see you.

Taking it to Extremes Natalie Voorheis delves into the frightening world of the football extremists, a world away from the ‘Ultras’

T

he origin of the term ‘hooligan’ is uncertain, but there are a number of variant theories. One common strain through these theories lies in the connection of the term hooligan with the Irish family name of Hooligan, or O’Holligan, and the metamorphosis of the connotations of this name in media of the late 1800s as a result of the misdemeanours of Irish migrant workers in London.

Sports fanaticism and its resulting violent behaviour has, however, long preceded the denomination of such acts as hooliganism. The link between football and violence can be traced back for centuries as far as the 1300s – King Edward II banned the sport in 1314 because of the violent behaviour associated with its players and spectators.

Throughout history, football fans have been marked out as more emotionally charged and violent than fans of any other sport. The charged atmosphere of a football match is one which remains unbeaten in the sporting world, and which provides a platform for expression of emotions felt intensely by supporters.

Dedicated football fans often consider themselves the twelfth member of their team. Their encouragement of team players through mantras and banners, the intimidation of opposing players, and the creation of the atmosphere in which each match is played out constitutes a crucial fac-

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tor in the outcome of the match.

Football fanatics are, by definition, completely emotionally invested in the game. Where else, after all, is it completely normal to see a man blubber like a baby in anguish, or kiss his mate in utter exhaltation?

The language of sports – which has for centuries united a brotherhood of men – lends itself to intense scrutiny when hooliganism and extremist behaviour become normal in the functioning of this brotherhood. It makes one question whether, in fact, violence is the real language of sports.

The fraternal nature of the relationship between fans serves to intensify the feelings of animosity to opposing leading, inevitably to violence.

Fired up fans, a fixture at almost every sporting event, pose a serious threat to the well being of other supporters. Situations often escalate from friendly banter to full-scale disasters in a matter of moments. In recent decades incidents such as the Heysel Stadium Disaster have put a black mark against football supporters, specifically those of British clubs.

“The hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s in the UK has been hailed as some of the worst in the history of sports”

The Heysel Disaster, which occurred just before the kick off of the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus in Heysel Stadium, Brussels resulted in the deaths of 39 fans and the injury of over 600.

Small-scale disquiet between the rival teams’ supporters had spiralled into a full advance from the Liverpool side, charging into the Juventus supporters’ area. The Juve fans, trapped between the onslaught of angry opposing fans and a concrete wall, began to flee over the wall which was unable to support the sudden huge weight and collapsed, crushing many of them.

The intense media coverage of sports related hooligan behaviour serves to highlight the depressing reality of the prevalence of such hooligans in the world of sports and their strong influence over proceedings of a game.

The hooliganism of the 1970s and 1980s in the UK has been hailed as some of the worst in the history of sports. Descriptively termed The English Disease, this period in sports history is marked by deaths and injuries as a result of rioting and violence during games.

The all-out physical riots of this period were severely cracked down upon by the British government. Since this crackdown a new form of hooliganism has emerged. In more recent decades, brawls between fans have become somewhat of an organised sport in themselves, with supporters who align themselves to groups (not unlike gangland cells) and termed ‘firms’ pre-organise fights between one another in a location away from the stadium itself either before or after the actual match so as to avoid police interference.

Football clubs will have a number of these hooligan firms associated with them, each intent on a battle with those firms connected with opposing clubs. This newer form of hooligan is less concerned with the subject of football and more with the finding and fighting of rival firms and generally causing unrest at matches. This coincides with a rise in a hooligan culture. These are men marked not just by their passion for the game but by their choice of dress, social haunts, accents and general rowdy behaviour. The Bushwackers of Millwall, The Inter City Firm of West Ham United, and The Leeds United Service Crew are among the most notorious of these firms.

It’s a far cry from the bunch of lads making up songs and chants to get the home crowd in the spirit at the Belfield Bowl.

11/04/2010 22:16

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SCIENCE & HEALTH

science@universityobserver.ie

Modern Technology for Dummies Living under a rock for the last few years? Never fear – Conor Murphy offers a quick catch-up for the tech scene

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ost people seemingly have last few years: Google (the web), Apple lives, and don’t spend all (mobile and music) and Microsoft (opday checking technology erating systems). Google has dominated news. If you’re one of these the web for a decade now and has total people, this catch-up on the world of tech control over nearly all internet revenue and gadgets is for you. with Google Adwords. However, the Three companies have235mm traditionally future is definitely more ‘cloud’ and less Hot panini & coffee x 157 CO.pdf 26/03/2010 14:36:53 dominated individual parts of tech for the silver lining.

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Hi I’m a Mac…and I’m a PC

Google’s main problem is confusion: it’s panicked because it has no social networking services, and has tried to fix this by going all ‘mid-life crisis’, releasing more software than anyone wanted or needed. If I want to tell a friend ‘I got a dog’, I can use Google Chat, Google Voice, Gmail, Orkut, Google Wave

and Buzz. Extreme geeks couldn’t be bothered telling you about their dog in six or seven ways, every single day, so the public definitely won’t. Google needs to clean this up – and badly.

Apple has redefined what it means to have a successful phone in the last few years. In this key space they are now facing new competition from Google – and soon from Microsoft. Google’s Android operating system (or ‘OS’ for the cool kids) is soon going to become the Windows of the phone world. It’s free, available for any phone maker, well-rounded and powerful – and the actual Google phone, the Nexus One, has received even better reviews than the iPhone. The iPhone now looks old to some, and is feeling the heat so much that Apple has started suing Android phone makers for silly things.

Technology becomes more interesting for the average person when we talk about mobiles. Everyone with a pulse has heard of the iPhone, and its domination is clear – but in the last few months, Google’s Android has gone from two per cent to seven per cent market penetration in the U.S. One problem is anyone who likes Apple can only buy an iPhone, which is pretty but has problems – you can only use one program at a time, for example. Android can be loaded onto hundreds of phones already and more are coming.

Microsoft has always been the Daddy of this group: big and important but definitely not cool. Windows Vista was the closest we’ve come to Hell on Earth, and although they’ve gone decidedly less diabolical with Windows 7, in the phone game Microsoft have been roasted alive.

Windows Mobile has, up until now, been an ugly unwanted offspring – trying to jam a computer OS onto a 2-inch screen. No one outside of the business community has heard of it, and no one cares for it. Microsoft had an App Store for a decade, and no one cared for that either. Then Apple makes it shiny, and everyone goes for it like magpies. That

said, Microsoft have just announced a completely new phone OS (Windows Mobile 7), set for launch this November, to great reception.

Despite their respective screw-ups, what’s good and interesting for you is that everyone’s moving into each other’s space. No doubt you own a computer; you probably use Windows. Aristocrats and trendy graphic artists use a Mac. But have you thought about a Google computer? By the end of 2010, Google will release a range of computers with everything the average person needs to work and play – kind of. These machines will be ultra cheap – possibly €100 or less – and fast. The secret? Google thinks everyone is online all the time anyway, so all you really need is a browser. No

“Windows Vista was the closest we’ve come to Hell on Earth” dedicated music player, no software bundles or other programs… just a browser. Because they are so basic, these machines – running the Chrome OS – will be insanely fast.

This could be a major flop or the best thing to hit cheap computers in a decade – we’ll find out by Christmas. Apple’s OS X works wonders, so that won’t change, while Windows 7 almost works for everything and has kicked Vista to touch, so Microsoft will just improve on that bit by bit for the next few years.

The Internet should be the battleground of this century, yet Google have failed miserably on social networking and need to clean up their other programs. The company really making the ground here is Microsoft: its Bing search engine might acquire Yahoo! and although their normal search still throws up stupid things, their images and video search beats Google’s hands down. They might even be interested in Facebook, and for music their Zune service actually beats the iTunes store for value. Finally we are seeing some competition to provide worthwhile internet services.

One trend that’s both impossible to ignore and hard to understand is the rise of the tablet (or ‘slate’ if you’re cool).

These are 10” touch-screen devices that nobody asked for but everyone wants.

The iPad is the best-known and, technologically speaking, one of the worst, with a great but awkwardly-sized screen, but it seems people would buy dung in tinfoil if it had an Apple logo on it (iPod shuffle, anyone?) as the iPad sold over 300,000 units on the first day – better sales than even the iPhone. Google meanwhile have a few Chrome OS tablets planned – one from Dell and some from Asian firms, including one for under US$100. Microsoft is planning a slate with HP which looks OK, but we’ll see whether it can integrate some of the cool factor of Apple.

The big three are certainly up to their old tricks in certain areas, but have plenty of new tricks in others. There’s real competition for everything we can think of, and not a moment too soon.

11/04/2010 22:16

14

THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

13.04.10

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Observer The University

The University Observer has undergone significant expansion in recent years. In 1998 the newspaper converted from a tabloid format to its current broadsheet format with an entertainments and cultural supplement. The newspaper has been honoured in a variety of student media competitions in recent years, winning ‘Runner Up’ newspaper of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards. In 2006, the newspaper won the Irish Student Newspaper of the Year award. The University Observer has won this award four times in the past six years.

The newspaper is one of the largest student newspapers printed in Britain or Ireland.

The newspaper is printed fortnightly with a print run of 10,000.

THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

1

SITUATIONS VACANT

Applications are invited for the positions of: Editor

Deputy Editor

Art & Design Director

Applications are invited for the position of Editor of The University Observer for the academic year 2010/2011.

Applications are invited for the position of Deputy Editor of The University Observer for the academic year 2010/2011.

Applications are invited for the position of Art and Design Director of The University Observer for the academic year 2010/2011.

THE POSITION:

THE POSITION:

THE POSITION:

The Deputy Editor of The University Observer, upon direction from the Editor, is responsible for all aspects of the newspaper. The Deputy Editor, subject in all matters concerning the newspaper to the direction of the Editor, shall be responsible, with the Editor, for the management of the newspaper, the publication and distribution of the newspaper, the content of the newspaper and is responsible for the coordination of the newspaper’s writers.

You will be responsible for the design and layout of the newspaper, working in conjunction with the editors and contributors. The position will require work at alternate weekends, whilst working hours during the week are flexible. Although this work is highly demanding it is also highly rewarding. The successful candidate would be expected to constantly strive to improve the overall design of the newspaper. The University Observer’s design has been honoured at the Student Media Awards, winning Best Design & Layout. The designer is not responsible for any content, rather on its presentation. The designer is to report to the Editor and Deputy Editor.

The Editor of The University Observer is responsible for all aspects of the newspaper. The Editor is responsible for the management of the newspaper, the publication and distribution of the newspaper, the content of the newspaper and is responsible for the co-ordination of the newspaper’s writers and sub-editors.

The position of Editor of The University Observer is an extremely demanding one and applicants for the position should be aware that the role involves working long, unsocial hours in a highly pressurised environment. The position includes working alternate weekends.

The Editor is responsible for all deadlines being met by the newspaper.

The University Observer is editorially independent from the Students’ Union, as enshrined in the Union constitution. The Editor has complete authority over the content of the newspaper, subject to the standard regulations governing newspaper content (e.g. libel etc).

The Editor will be appointed for the full academic year, 2010/2011.

Applicants should note that no formal training is offered to the successful candidate.

THE CANDIDATE:

The position of Deputy Editor of The University Observer is an extremely demanding one and applicants for the position should be aware that the role involves working unsocial hours in a highly pressurised environment. The position includes working alternate weekends.

The Deputy Editor is responsible for all deadlines being met by the newspaper.

The University Observer is editorially independent from the Students’ Union, as enshrined in the Union constitution. The Deputy Editor has authority over the content of the newspaper, subject to the standard regulations governing newspaper content (e.g. libel etc).

The Deputy Editor is appointed for the full academic year, 2009/2010.

The candidate should exhibit a serious commitment to journalism.

Ideally, the candidate should have at least three years experience working for a newspaper or media organisation.

Applicants should note that no formal training is offered to the successful candidate.

Applicants must be or have been a recently registered student of University College Dublin.

The candidate should exhibit a serious commitment to journalism.

Ideally, the candidate should have at least three years experience working for a newspaper or media organisation.

The position is a full time one and the candidate must be in a position to prove to the interview panel his/her ability to meet fi xed, nonnegotiable printing deadlines whilst working at speed and under pressure.

Applicants must be or have been a recently registered student of University College Dublin.

The candidate should exhibit a clear sense of duty towards the newspaper and a familiarity with the culture of UCD, combined with sharp commercial acumen.

REMUNERATION: The successful applicant will receive €500 per issue to be reviewed in June 2010. As well as this, expenses incurred during production of the newspaper may be reclaimed. In addition, the successful candidate is entitled to a commission rate on all income secured from advertisements placed within the newspaper. More details are available on this matter.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Applicants for the above position must submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae and a detailed proposal, outlining how the candidate intends to operate and manage The University Observer. The proposal must include a comprehensive outline of strategic changes that can be made to improve the newspaper. Specific areas where the newspaper can be improved should be dealt with in some detail. The applicant should also outline his/her proposals for the day-to-day organisation and management of the newspaper.

Applicants with further queries should contact Ms Catriona Laverty, at 01 716 3120, weekdays during business hours.

Short listed candidates will be called for an interview, where they will be expected to answer any questions raised in relation to their proposal. The interview panel will include the current Editor, two previous Editors of the newspaper, the fi nancial administrator of the Students’ Union and the current Union President.

NOTE: • Applicants are only permitted to apply for this position individually.

Joint applications will not be accepted.

• Canvassing members of the interview panel will lead to an automatic disqualification.

• No formal training is offered to successful candidates.

ObserverIssue12_final.indd 14

THE CANDIDATE:

The position is a full time one and the candidate should be aware of the pressurised environment under which newspaper editors operate.

The candidate must be in a position to prove to the interview panel his/her ability to meet fi xed, non negotiable printing deadlines whilst working at speed and under pressure.

The candidate should exhibit a clear sense of duty towards the newspaper, combined with sharp commercial acumen.

REMUNERATION: The successful applicant will receive €450 per issue to be reviewed in June 2010. As well as this, expenses incurred during production of the newspaper may be reclaimed. In addition, the successful candidate is entitled to a commission rate on all income secured from advertisements placed within the newspaper. More details are available on this matter.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Applicants for the above position must submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae and a detailed proposal, outlining how the candidate intends to operate and manage The University Observer. The proposal must include a comprehensive outline of strategic changes that can be made to improve the newspaper. Specifics areas where the newspaper can be improved should be dealt with in some detail. The applicant should also outline his/her proposals for the day-to-day organisation and management of the newspaper.

Applicants with further queries should contact Ms Catriona Laverty at 01 716 3120, weekdays during business hours.

Short-listed candidates will be called for an interview, where they will be expected to answer any questions raised in relation to the proposal.

Members of the interview panel will comprise of the current Editor, two previous Editors of the newspaper, the fi nancial administrator of the Students’ Union, the current Union.

REMUNERATION: This position will be paid €450 per issue, subject to review in June 2010. The designer should also leave with a strong portfolio.

THE CANDIDATE: The successful applicant will have good computer skills and be proficient in Adobe InDesign and/or QuarkXpress as well as Adobe Photoshop. A good working knowledge of Apple Macintoshes is essential. A personal interest in graphic design and typography would also be preferable. As a person you should possess ability to meet tight deadlines and manage a large workload. You must also have the ability to meet technical guidelines from printers and have a basic knowledge of the four colour printing process.

NOTE: Applicants will be required to present a portfolio of work upon request.

Observer The University

Applications should be sent to the following address: Ms Catriona Laverty, The University Observer, Student Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4

Closing date for all applications is 5pm, 16th April, 2010.

NOTE: • Applicants are only permitted to apply for this position individually. Joint applications will not be accepted.

• Canvassing members of the interview panel will lead to an automatic disqualification.

• No formal training is offered to successful candidates.

11/04/2010 22:16

13.04.10

THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

EDITORIAL

editor@universityobserver.ie

Editorial Volume XVI of The University Observer has drawn to a close, and with it my tenure as editor of this rather excellent publication. I hope that those who have come and gone before are as happy and as proud to add this volume to our archives as I have been to take the helm.

Our best reward as student journalists is seeing someone pick up our work and enjoy it. To all our readers who have picked up this newspaper over the past year, thank you. Whether reading News, Sport or just Mystic Mittens, the delight that comes when seeing you enjoying our work makes every moment worthwhile.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading as much as I have, and I have enjoyed it immensely. I have cried tears of laughter and of sadness, learned new ideas and been taught new lessons, hated nothing and loved Jedward and it has all been thanks to the most fantastic team of writers and contributors I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

There are too many of you to thank you all by name, but I would like you all to know that your contributions to this newspaper are so greatly appreciated. Without you all, the Observer wouldn’t be what it is and I truly hope you have enjoyed your time with Volume XVI. For those of you moving on, I wish you all the very best in life after UCD and I hope that you will look back on your time with this paper with the same fondness in memories as I will.

And to all of you with a little more time to give, I hope that Volume XVI has inspired and encouraged you to come back to us again next year. I hope that you can bring Volume XVII the same wit, style and enthusiasm that you have delivered so faithfully every fortnight this year.

While there have been so many writers, photographers and contributors with us this year, there has been a core group of outstanding people who have dedicated so much of their time and skills to this publication. Without our Section Editors, the newspaper would cease to function, ideas would run dry, styles would be lost and deadlines never met. This job has been made so easy thanks to their work.

Matt you have never ceased to impress me with your knowledge and dedication, not just to features but to the whole newspaper. Your work has been a pleasure to read, and your witty company in our office has always been greatly welcome. Thank you for so capably taking on the role of Chief Features Writer, it suited you beautifully.

Sean, your unyielding passion for fashion has generated so many Gok comparisons I fear you may hate us all. You poured so much of yourself into your fashion pages and brought so many new themes to the fore – thank you for injecting life and colour into our fashion section, and for bringing it back to our readers.

Conor, from the very first conversation about films, I knew our film and television section would be in exceptional hands. Always a delight to read your work, I hope you have taken as much from your role as you have given.

From one minute interviews to two hour junkets, your ability to make us all read with enthusiasm and laugh so easily is one that comes so naturally.

Whether stand-up, film-making or reviewing is where your career is headed, I have no doubt you will excel.

Grace, firstly thank you for stepping

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13th April 2010

in to the role of Music Editor, I hope you have enjoyed it. Your presence in the office has always brightened our days, and your ability to argue with Colin over your love of music brought a smile to all our faces. I feel it was fate that your mug is slightly bigger than the others, as befitting your status as a tea connoiseur. Thank you, not just for this year, but for all the years of hard work you have invested with us – I know I speak for several of my predecessors when I say that it has been an absolute pleasure to work with you.

Colin Scally, our image guru. There are so many things to thank you for, not least the introduction of Sporcle to our office. You turned out in hail, rain or shine to follow soccer, rugby, twister and so much more. You gave life and colour to all our pages through your pictures, and brought so much fun to the Observer through your wit and humour. Thank you for giving up your Saturdays to the Hockey stadium, and your Friday nights to the Belfield Bowl.

I hope that you have enjoyed working with us as much as I have enjoyed working with you.

Farouq, our northside correspondent, thank you for sacrificing your little free time to the Science pages. Thank you for staying with us until the end – through OSCEs and delivering babies, through exams and Winter Olympic hockey finals, I’m truly grateful for your dedication. We’ve sadly seen too little of you over the year, but your visits have always brought laughter and snacks to the office. Your talent for writing I’m sure is only surpassed by your talent for medicine, and I wish you all the very best in that crazy career.

James, the last of our outlying faculty members, thank you for picking up the mantle of the Comment pages from the great distance of Roebuck Castle. Your style and ideas have always impressed, as has your travel schedule. The day I saw your Freshers’ Week performance in Astra Hall, I knew you would fit in admirably in our swell group. You are not the only, but certainly the first, man to go up against John Logue this year and win, and you did it with significantly less clothing than the others. The paper, and the office, has been so much the better with you.

Peter, our incredible 26-mile yes man, I still cannot fathom the lengths to which you’ve gone for this newspaper. Our Features section has never been as excellent as it has with you at the helm, your talent for writing is the envy of the office and your company is always a highlight of a day.

Should you ever tire of your miniatures, your charm and skill would make you a superb asset to any newspaper.

Kristin, thank you so much for taking our vague ideas of design and turning them into a simply stunning reality. Changing such a longstanding design was a daunting task I’m sure, but you gave our newspaper a beautiful new look with ease and one that is admired by everyone who sees it.

Colin Sweetman, you never let your abandonment issues get in your way, thank you for shouldering the great burden of otwo on your own, you have done such a wonderful job. I know it hasn’t been an easy year for you but you managed to juggle your degree, your job, your music and otwo and never let the quality drop – even napping at the desk. I know you never enjoyed the fame that Sweetward brought you, but you endured it with great humour

and grace. Thank you for all your hard work, otwo has been in such safe hands, I hope you enjoyed your year as much as I have.

Killian, our roving iternational sports journalist, never have I seen a Sports editor give so much energy, passion, time and dedication to the newspaper.

From the minute you accepted the job before fleeing north to Bundoran, I knew our sport pages were in the safest of hands. Your presence in the office has been a welcome constant throughout the year – you have brought laughter, knowledge and an unprecedented collection of pilfered mementos. Thank you so much for being there every weekend, the whole year has been so much more enjoyable thanks to you.

Bridget, our long-suffering Newshound, your ability to take every joke in your stride and relate any topic back to feminism are two of the reasons we love you so much. Our urban family may be breaking up, but never will I look back on a year with as much fondness as I will this one, and in no small part down to you. I feared I had given you the world’s worst birthday gift when I landed the News section in your lap, but you took it on with enthusiasm and made it something I am so proud of. I truly hope you have enjoyed your tenure as News Editor and fellow Fantasy Girl, I know that no matter what you do, you will always be on top. Thank you so much for all the wonderful memories this year, and I hope we can have many more.

Gavan, deputy only in title, I could never have done this job without you.

There was never any doubt that you would work tirelessly to make the Observer the best it could be, and I know that we have achieved that this year. I am so proud of our newspaper, and so thrilled that our ideas and skills gelled so perfectly together – I would not have wanted to share this year with anyone else. Your vast knowledge never ceases to amaze me, and has resulted in an abundent table quiz booty that should go down in history. I know that no matter what you turn your hand to, you will only ever excel and be held in the highest esteem, as you are here and now by everyone involved in the Observer not least by me. You’ve become a wonderful friend this year, and I know that you will remain so for many more to come.

Thank you for simply everything.

Contributors: Volume XVI, Issue 12 Editor Catriona Laverty

Chief Features Writer Matt Gregg

Deputy Editor Gavan Reilly

Science & Health Editor Farouq Manji

Design Directors Kristin McKnight & Shane McIntyre otwo Editor Colin Sweetman News Editor Bridget Fitzsimons Comment Editor James Fagan Features Editor Peter Molloy

Contributors

Agony Anto, The Badger, Jack Carter, Richard Chambers, Alex Court, Stephen Devine, Gary Dunne, Paul Fennessy, Ciara Fitzpatrick, Sam Geoghegan, Kris Goodbody, Sally Hayden, Jon Hozier-Byrne, Katie Hughes, Alison Lee, Ryan Mackenzie, Jamie Martin, Michelle McCormick, James McDonnell, Hugh McLaughlin, Conor Murphy, Kieran Murphy, Mystic Mittens, Maria Ní Shíthigh, Jake O’Brien, Lynda O’Keeffe, David Osborn, David Reilly, Anne Treanor, Natalie Voorheis, Stephanie Wallace Chavanne, Leanne Waters

Photographer Casey Germann,

Special Thanks Peter, Malcolm, Ian, Tim, Dave, Jonathan, Ade, Emma, Jed, Bob, Steve (and

Sports Editor Killian Woods Image Editor Colin Scally Music Editor Grace Duffy Film & TV Editor Conor Barry Fashion Editor Seán McGovern Image Editor Colin Scally the robots) at Trafford Park Printing; Paul at Higgs; Eilis O’Brien and Dominic Martella; Colm, Claire, James, Rory and Danielle at MCD Promotions; Dan and Orla at Friction PR; Laura and Darren at Warner; Bernie Divilly at PIAS; Giselle Jiang; Stephen Whelan; Dave Carmody; Dominic, Grace, Mark, Sandra, Charlie, Jason, Paul, Gary and all the Student Centre staff; Laura Turkington at Vodafone; Deborah at Dorland; Bombay Pantry, Four Star Pizza; Tommy Wiseau and all at Wiseau Films; M&S Salami Selection; Easter eggs. Lots of Easter Eggs; Natalie Voorheis’s cupcakes and Catriona Blake’s muffins; Jarlsberg cheese

Very Special Thanks

Rob Lowney, Ciara Brennan

Tel.: (01) 716 3119/3120 Email: info@universityobserver.ie Web: www.universityobserver.ie

Photo of the fortnight

Clarification

In our last issue we reported that a spokesperson for UCD had said that the Schools of English, Drama and Film and of Languages and Literatures would be relocating this summer as part of an ongoing relocation process. We have been asked to clarify that the spokesperson did not give a specific timeframe for this process and merely stated that the relocation was ‘proposed’. We acknowledge this error and are happy to clarify it.

It is the policy of The University Observer to rectify any errors as soon as they arise.

Queries and clarifications can be addressed to info@universityobserver.ie.

USI President elect Gary Redmond

11/04/2010 22:17

16

THE UNIVERSITY OBSERVER

13.04.10

SPORT

sport@universityobserver.ie

Violence rears its ugly head Ten years on from the death of two Leeds United fans in Instanbul, Richard Chambers investigates the resurgence in hooliganism in recent times

A

pril 5th marked the tenth anniversary of one of the most harrowing moments in recent football history. Leeds United fans Christopher Loftus (35) and Kevin Speight (40) were fatally stabbed in Istanbul on the eve of the club’s UEFA Cup tie against Galatasaray. The deaths caused outrage across the continent with many seeing it as an anomalous incident, a product of a bygone period when fan violence was commonplace. The ‘justice’ campaigns were credited with catalysing a movement to prevent any further deaths from football-related violence. It is unfortunate to recognise that despite these best efforts, the problem has resurged in Europe and continues to thrive in Latin America.

The extent of the problem in Argentina has been well documented. The fanatical supporter groups, the Barra Brava, dominate the sport, with many leading members linked to politicians. Riots are commonplace and firearms have superseded improvised weapons. This year has been particularly grievous for Argentinean football: five people, including a policeman, have died from their wounds.

The government has long been criticised for failing to address the situation; a fresh scandal has emerged as it was announced that five hundred leaders of the Barra Brava would receive free trips to the World Cup in South Africa. The initiative was proposed by HUA, an umbrella group for supporters clubs – an organisation

legitimised by the government.

Even clubs and nations without a notable history of hooliganism have experienced this upsurge. Berlin’s Olympiastadion, the stage for great moments of sporting endeavor from Jesse Owens to Usain Bolt, was reduced to the setting for a moment of significantly less glory just a few months ago. More than one hundred Hertha Berlin fans took to the field following their defeat to relegation rivals Nürnberg, using metal bars to damage hoardings and the dugouts. This instance has not been an isolated one this season.

Historically, any disturbances in German football have been limited to the infiltration of supporters by far-right extremists; now, however, German football has been exposed to the subculture of the ‘casuals’.

Casualism, a brand of hooliganism that originated in Britain in the 1980s, takes its name from the attire of its participants.

These firms forsake the replica shirts

and garb of the traditional hooligan in favour of brands such as Stone Island and Lacoste, allowing for easier penetration of opposing fans and nonhooligans (or ‘scarfers’). For this reason, they are potentially the most threatening. The subculture has experienced a massive revival over the past decade, with films Green Street and The Football Factory inadvertently serving to glorify the phenomenon.

The model has spread across the continent, including France where further loss of life can be attributed to fan violence.

A member of a casual firm loyal to Paris Saint Germain was the victim of a feud between two sections of the Parc des Princes Stadium, an arena already infamous for crowd trouble. The man, named only as ‘Yann L’ by authorities and a member of the Boulogne End gang, died as a result of head injuries sustained in a manifestation of this most superficial of tribal disputes. The firms boast of their ferocious pride in their clubs, and yet engage in the wanton murders of fellow fans. It is easy to see why observers claim that the hooligans are motivated solely by violence.

In a statement regarding the February 28th riot, the French Sports Minister Rama Yade said “the worst had happened,” adding: “Passions transformed into sordid, senseless, murderous rage. Love of the jersey has become hate of the

“Casualism, a brand of hooliganism that originated in Britain in the 1980s, takes its name from the attire of its participants.”

Irish cricket on the backfoot Irish cricket knows the path to progress but defecting players and political issues are holding the sport back on the Irish scene, writes Stephen Devine Eoin Morgan may be unknown to some, but he is quickly becoming one of the hottest prospects in English cricket. The remarkable fact of this story is that he is a Dubliner, who spent a large portion of his life playing hurling and started his cricketing career with Ireland before switching allegiances. Such moves are not unheard of in the cricketing world: Morgan’s Irish collogue Ed Joyce switched countries in 2005.

Indeed, the move seems to have paid dividends for Morgan.

In the past month, former Trinity student Morgan has been awarded an incremental England contract for 2009-10, after his unbeaten matchwinning century in Bangladesh. More important, however, in monetary terms was the fact that Morgan was bought in the annual auction for the Indian Premier League. The Dubliner was the only England player to be purchased in the first round, as a host of big names failed to attract the interest of the eight franchises.

Much has been made in Morgan’s short career of hurling’s influence in his batting style. He has become known for an innovative shot in cricket known as a reverse sweep, in which the grip of the bat is just as it is of the hurl. The development raises the question of whether we might see scouts from England sitting beside those from Aussie Rules at GAA grounds, looking for the next Eoin Morgan.

Despite the advances that Morgan has made in the past year, the final step

ObserverIssue12_final.indd 16

in his career will be to break into the English test team. Morgan has been seen as too inconsistent to play the longer version of the game, an opinion he has being trying to shake over the last season. The small number of opportunities he has to impress at this level may act against him making the step up.

All the positives the moves have had for both Morgan and Joyce are in stark contrast to the effects on Ireland’s progression. If Ireland’s cricket set-up is to improve, it is key that they are able to hold on to their homegrown talent. The fact that Ireland are slowly developing into an academy for England is worrying, and Cricket Ireland must put the necessary structures in place to halt the tide.

The reason for this comes down to the fact that Ireland has yet to be granted Test status by the ICC. Playing test cricket is seen as the pinnacle of any player’s career, and this is the reason cited by the Irish converts. However, obtaining test status is not easily resolved and their inability to get recognised is complicated.

Ireland have consistently beaten the two lowest ranked test teams Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in the One-Day International format, and Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom protests that Ireland “have proven ourselves in all forms of the game to be head and shoulders above our rivals – we simply want the ICC to tell us what it is we are required to do.”

Ireland are knocking on the door, but plotting a course from here to the

other, hate of sport and hate of life.” PSG’s response was swift, with the banning of all fans from away fixtures for the remainder of the season. The Parisian club’s method, like all prevalent methods to address violence, have been labelled purely reactionary and do nothing to pacify potential troublemakers.

Realistically speaking, there is little governments or UEFA can do to actively discourage those with criminal intent.

Michel Platini recently met with the EU Commissioner responsible for sport, Androulla Vassiliou, where violence was

Sports Digest UCD’s swimming club enjoyed a successful outing at the intervarsities in December, Colin Scally reports

Third successive Intervarsity title for UCD Squash

Dublin’s Eoin Morgan, seen here in action for Middlesex, was the only England player sold in the Indian Premier League auction

next level poses problems for Cricket Ireland and the ICC for financial, structural and cricketing reasons.

Ireland must move forward, though, for standing still will actually mean falling back.

among the most prominent items for discussion. Preventing hooligans from access to the vicinity of stadiums will only do so much to quell the escalating violence.

Any European attempts to dislodge such activity from the sport must be mirrored internationally, less the World Cup be tarnished by an incident similar to that which befell Loftus and Speight. Should these fears be realised it would, as Rama Yade described the violence, be “a victory for barbarism and a defeat for sport, fraternity and civilisation.”

UCD Squash Club recently achieved great success in the annual Squash Intervarsities Championship, which was hosted by University College Cork over two days in March. Participation in the event was down on recent years due to a late change of date and venue, but nevertheless, UCD fielded a range of very strong teams, competing in the Men’s A through D as well as Ladies’ B competitions.

The Men’s A team, led by Ray Byrne, won both of their five game series against Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork by a score line of four games to one to claim the Intervarsities’ Cup for a third successive year. The UCC team finished in second place following victory in their series over Trinity. Further success for UCD came when the ladies’ B team lead

by Megan Oliver claimed victory in their section.

The men’s B team also put in an impressive performance, in particular Curnan Reidy who risked personal injury to put on a remarkable show in the face of very strong opposition. However, the B team, along with the C and D teams, narrowly lost out in their respective sections.

In accepting the Intervarsities Cup, UCD Squash Club captain Michael Fox

congratulated the A team on their efforts in claiming a third title in a row, and complimented UCC on hosting the event remarking that it was “more than anyone could have expected.” He went on to commiserate with the Trinity team, UCD’s greatest rival in recent years, on their third successive year without victory at the tournament.

UCD Boat Club UCD Boat club have enjoyed a successful start to the 2010 season also. Due to persistently poor weather a number of early events were cancelled, but once conditions improved the hard winter’s training began to shine through.

A convincing four length win over old rivals Trinity in the annual colours race, the Gannon cup, was added to a fortnight later when UCD claimed the senior pendant at the Dublin head of the river.

UCD’s novices also claimed victory in their category, completing a very successful day for the club. As the season progresses UCD Boat club’s attention turns to regatta racing, which takes the form of the university championships of Ireland, where UCD’s oarsmen will compete against the strongest collegiate rowers in the country, and will hopefully continue the trend of success which has been firmly established.

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The Badger Very likely the final installment of the Badger...

The Badger doesn’t normally like repeating himself, but he may make an exception for this one and very last time.

Anyway before the end of the next paragraph he will sum up the first part of the story.

In the early 2000’s, the Badger moved Down Unda and signed for Maroubra Soccer Club. Although the club was small in size, “literally”, it had big aspirations. There was much hype about his arrival and the Badger had a huge reputation to live up to.

After the bitter failure in the Badger’s first game for Maroubra, yours truly was due a big performance to catapult this illustrious club up the league. Some people highlight a particular game against the Mascot Kings as the turning point for the club’s fortunes.

Playing on a typically mild 35 degree celsius Australian day, this game turned out to be anything but a normal game of soccer. Defying the written laws, it was agreed between the two coaches that the game would consist of four quarters so as to incorporate more water breaks, while also playing on a pitch with smaller dimensions to minimise running.

You really can’t fault the Aussies’ health and safety concerns, but as for their morals of the game, they were completely out of check. After 28 minutes, the Badger was the only factor holding the game at a steady score of 9-0.

However, by the 32nd minute, a tenth goal was almost inevitable, and the Maroubran coach knew as much. So with no intention of seeing his side lose by a league record margin of 15 goals he called across the touchline “Oi Mate, first to farteen yeah”. His call was greeted with a confident nod, and left this Badger an unhappy camper.

With his team now losing goals by the second in order to reduce the chance of a player dropping dead from dehydration, the Badger was now amounting a serious cache of rage and pondering his next action. The game was far out of his individual reach, so like any raging footballer who was losing by a hefty margin, he began to time his tackles dangerously late, or more like Lee Bowyer late.

Coincidentally, this is in fact the origin of the name, the Badger.

An animal renowned for breaking people’s legs, this particular Badger began to hunt down his prey at the start of the second quarter.

A small nippy right-winger with blonde highlights was the Badger’s target and with one foul swoop, the Badger was determined to do some serious damage.

Most of the opposition’s play was going through this right-sided midfielder and within a minute the Badger had his perfect opportunity.

With his opponent running at full flight with the ball, the Badger dove in two-footed and carefully shattered the youngster’s leg and life of walking unaided with a precise blow to his left femur.

Obviously Maroubra went onto lose the tie 14-0 and fulfill the forfeit, with the fourteenth goal being scored in the 35th minute.

The last thing the Badger remem-

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‘Fenno’ on Sport In his last column possibly ever, Paul Fennessy exposes the lurid workings of Sepp Blatter’s unseemly enterprise and condemns Alex Ferguson’s recent behaviour

bers hearing emanated from an Ambulance, as two paramedics frantically discussed which leg to amputate first.

To the discredit of all morals in football, the Badger escaped any form of punishment for the tackle, meaning he was eligible to take part in the New South Wales five-aside Indoor Championship. Held in the one of the many stadia erected for the Sydney Olympics, the tournament was a developmental stage for some of Australia’s most talented youth players to demonstrate their skills to the onlooking Socceroos coach Frank Farina.

To this day it is not known why the Badger in fact wound up playing in this tournament, but nevertheless, the story must continue.

For the tournament, the Badger was deployed in the newfound role of destroyer. The position is selfexplanatory, with the Badger being entrusted to disrupt any fluidity in the opposition’s play.

It was in this elaborate position that the Badger cemented his nickname as he terrified opposition players after a series of leg breaking tackles left many crippled for life. This ruthless aspect of his play guided his team to the final and although the comprehensive 8-1 defeat didn’t reflect the flow of the game, the Badger was hugely chuffed with his yellow card that he received for a neck breaking tackle from guest referee Dwight Yorke Even the Badger will admit that the aforementioned reference to Dwight Yorke may be a tad obscure, but even more baffling was the sudden invite to the Australian under 13s soccer trials. Scheduled to be held in Lane Cove National Park, the Badger was delighted

with his sudden international status and felt vindicated for all the work he invested into his game.

To wrap up a long winded story, the Badger never in fact made the Down Underers’ under 13 team.

He was deported exactly four hours before the trials with the Aussie authorities citing the lack of a Visa, passport and possession of performance enhancing worms the main reasons for the deportation of the acclaimed saviour of Australian football.

“With his opponent running at full flight with the ball, the Badger dove in two footed and carefully shattered the young child’s leg and life of walking unaided with a precise blow to his left femur”

Cheats permeate every walk of life. Yet football bears the dubious distinction of consistently allowing them to prosper.

Over the course of the past season, the Premier League has seen an unprecedented number of managers speak out against supposed refereeing inefficiency. Rarely does a week go by without one manager of the esteemed twenty clubs launching a foul (pardon the pun) tirade against an official. Last week Sir Alex Ferguson, Avram Grant and David Moyes all voiced such displeasure in interviews.

Let us be clear – officials are not idiots, nor do they purposefully get decisions wrong. However, the modern game has become so fast and frenetic that it is futile to impart decision-making responsibilities solely into the hands of a referee and his linesmen.

Football nowadays, whether people care to admit it or not, is a multi-million pound business. This fact alone ranks the decision to persevere with a system that affords the distinct possibility of human error influencing proceedings, as tantamount to folly of the grandest order. Therefore, something must be done. The players know it, the managers know it and I suspect even the referees would privately admit it.

Enter Fifa’s resident dunce – Sepp Blatter – an emblem of skulduggery and power-driven delusion if ever there was one. Blatter has consistently rejected the idea of utilising video replays for critical incidents in games.

However, Blatter’s argument is fundamentally hypocritical. During the 2006 World Cup final, Fifa’s baffling intransigence was temporarily assuaged. Retrospective video evidence was clearly used to send-off Zinedine Zidane, on account of all three officials failing to spot his blatant head-butt on Marco Materazzi.

Conversely, the France-Ireland playoff game was obviously not deemed important enough to warrant the interjection of video replays.

This circumstance, of course, added to the tangible air of inequity which was first created by Fifa’s decision to retroactively seed the play-off draw, thereby ensuring the bigger nations would avoid playing one another.

More embarrassingly still, Fifa have recently attempted to placate their critics by piloting a pointless extra-officials scheme. During this season’s Europa League fixtures, a system was introduced whereby a referee stands behind each goal-line.

This decision proved predictably disastrous. The scheme was widely derided by players and managers and its ineptitude was highlighted in one game in particular. Despite the presence of five officials, they still managed to send off Fulham’s Brede Hangeland, when the offence in question had actually been committed by Hangeland’s teammate (Stephen Kelly). After this and several other anomalies, Fifa’s scheme was quietly abandoned.

As I write this column, the situation is growing more perilous. Last week, Celtic fans threatened to boycott their club’s away matches unless marked changes were made to the Scottish league’s refereeing system.

Their actions were prompted by the series of poor refereeing decisions which their side have fallen victim to this season.

Moreover, Fifa needs to adopt video technology, or risk alienating not just the clubs and fans, but also the referees themselves. It is likely that less and less youngsters would aspire to such a position, given that it comes across as such an unenviable task.

And to cite one specific example, Anders Frisk – by all accounts a top referee – retired prematurely due to the undue level of abuse he received.

This is just one unsavoury incident of many which could have been avoided had the requisite technology been in place.

Therefore, a set-up akin to the one in rugby union needs to be installed.

One legitimate proposal would be to allow both managers to have three opportunities, over the course of the game, to consult the video replay if a referee makes a questionable decision. This would not affect a game’s flow unduly and would significantly reduce the possibility of mistakes being made for crucial decisions.

One counter-argument which Fifa delegates routinely cite is the belief that football’s format needs to be replicated from grass-roots level upwards. This is a rather flimsy criticism. As stated before, football authorities need to wake up to the fact that there is a difference between Sunday park football and the Champions League.

Another idea which has been muted is the substitution of referees who are performing inadequately.

This concept is similarly unworkable. Regardless of whether they may be substituted, referees will remain human and thus, liable to make mistakes. The implementation of such a proposal would only increase the already considerable pressure on referee’s shoulders and would ultimately be counteractive to their cause.

In the twenty-first century, basic errors such as a handball goal, or a player being sent off owing to mistaken identity, are no longer acceptable. Consequently, by facilitating these cheats’ endeavours, Fifa is implicitly endorsing them. Until the situation is amended, then all the organisation’s pleas for ‘fair play’ will effectively ring hollow.

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sport@universityobserver.ie

WORLD CUP SPECIAL

World football takes to the High Veldt Killian Woods analyses the teams from e ach confederation competing for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, holding special reservation for New Zealand…

E

ighty years after the tournament’s inauguration, we will finally see the first ever FIFA World Cup hosted on African soil when South Africa play host to some of the world’s finest football stars. Even after some minor scares in qualifying, all the coined ‘big nations’ have qualified for the prestigious competition with no major absence from any team to note.

CAF

Although much has been said about the possible capabilities of Ivory Coast and Ghana, the draw for the group stages was hardly kind to them. Ivory Coast being pitted against Brazil, Portugal and North Korea seems to be a step too far for the Elephants and even with Sven-Göran Eriksson at the helm, a group exit could be on the cards.

Likewise for Ghana, who will have to overcome Germany and Serbia to progress, so the possible African fairytale story could come from Nigeria or Cameroon. Cameroon have a good spine to their squad with the likes of Samuel Eto’o and Alex Song, where as Nigeria have an expert coach leading the way in Lars Lagerbäck. Unfortunately, South Africa and Algeria are too weak for this level and early group exits are definitely on the cards.

UEFA

It is not beyond possibility that the winner could originate from this pool of thirteen teams. Spain are touted as being the main contenders from this confederation, with their attractive and ruthless style of play from Euro 2008 expected to ease them through the competition.

However, a strong push could be made by a host of European countries.

It is always dangerous to write off the Germans as they have proven in the past two World Cups. France could also pose a threat to any team and have a host of players who have performed well all season such as Florent Malouda and Franck Ribéry to call upon. Hysteria around England’s chances are building, while Portugal have Cristiano Ronaldo, a game-changing player who could be the difference in tight situations.

One team that could become a tricky opponent come the knockout stages is Serbia. They don’t boast many stars, but have a solid style of play that doesn’t see them concede many goals. It is likely that a European team will progress from at least seven of the eight groups – among them the Netherlands, who always flatter to deceive in the group stage with little end product.

CONMEBOL

The five South American representatives that have qualified for the tournament have won the competition nine times between them – equalling the European total – and two teams in particular could tip the records in their favour yet again.

Brazil have developed into a menacing counter attacking side that can soak up pressure and pick off their opponents, while Argentina have finally created a settled team full of individually talented players.

Apart from Uruguay, who find themselves in a tricky group with Mexico and France, all South American teams should qualify from their groups. There is also a slight worry hanging over Chile, due to their lack of match practice coming into the tournament. Their recent friendly matches were called off after the devastating earthquake, while a game against Germany was also cancelled following the death of German keeper Robert Enke.

CONCACAF

Habitual qualifiers Mexico and United States will yet again compete at the World Cup. This tournament will mark the American’s sixth consecutive World Cup, compared to Mexico’s fi ft h. The

If justice had prevailed: Ireland’s summer of dreams

What if Thierry Henry’s handball had been caught? Sam Geoghegan wonders what might have been for the Irish World Cup campaign

Wednesday 18th November, 2009.

Ireland has achieved the unthinkable and improbable by beating France 1-0 in Paris, thanks to Robbie Keane’s first half strike...

It seemed a World Cup summer was about to brighten up the lives of a downtrodden and depressed nation until the officials missed the blatant handball by Thierry Henry that led to William Gallas’ winning goal. Now, let us imagine that the referee made the right call, that extra time finished with the sides tied, and the momentum inspired Ireland to win on penalties and qualify for South Africa 2010.

Giovanni Trapatonni has many decisions. He has roughly six weeks to decide on the final 23 players he chooses to represent Ireland at their fourth World Cup. To be realistic, the ‘will he, won’t he’ Stephen Ireland affair would dominate the headlines, but it is quite clear that Ireland won’t return to the international fray. Trapatonni’s reluctance to include Andy Reid will also influence who he picks for midfield. Trap’s settled defence of Given; O’Shea, Dunne, St.Ledger and Kilbane will be assured

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of starting places while Steve Finnan, Paul McShane and Stephen Kelly would complete the defensive selections of the Italian.

The midfield almost picks itself: Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews start through the middle, while Manchester United’s Darron Gibson and the injury plagued-yet-creative Steven Reid make the squad. Duff, Lawrence, McGeady and Stephen Hunt will battle it out for the two starting positions on the wings.

Captain Robbie Keane and Kevin Doyle lead the line for Ireland, with Caleb Folan, Shane Long, and Doyle’s Wolves teammate Andy Keogh making up the final places of the squad.

Drawn in Ireland’s group are hosts South Africa, Uruguay and Mexico.

First up for the boys in green are Uruguay. on the first day of the World Cup. If Trapatonni can inspire such performances as he did against world champions Italy and France, then teams like Uruguay and the other two in the group must be overcome. Whelan and Andrews are crucial clogs of the puzzle for this game to disrupt the guile and industry of the Uruguayans. A victory

in this match propels us into our next game against Mexico six days later at Polokwane. A similar team to Uruguay yet more difficult to break down, a draw in this match should leave the Irish in a fantastic position to qualify out of the group with four points from six. South Africa’s home support inspires their team to avoid defeat in their opening matches, which would leave Ireland on top of the group with one game to go. A draw against the hosts earns Trap’s men qualification, and top spot in Group A. South Korea will be the probable opponents in the Round of 16, finishing second in a group involving Argentina, Nigeria and Greece. A team similar in style to Ireland – organised yet lacking in creativity – the imaginative players must start to break down the Koreans. Steven Reid, Damien Duff and Aiden McGeady are the players Trap should use at the expense of Lawrence, Andrews and Hunt. Unfortunately, I foresee the quarter-final stage to be a hurdle too far. The auld enemy, England will be too strong to overcome: Wayne Rooney and company should dispose of us, with Ferdinand and Terry easily handling Keane and Doyle. A quarterfinal elimination would be something to be proud of for a country of our size, though losing to the English wouldn’t be an exhilarating sensation.

It’s a dream about Ireland at the World Cup, that’s all – but something that might have occurred if FIFA had implemented video refereeing. A World Cup summer is still a month of football, but a tournament with Ireland adds to the excitement. So, this nation will watch as neutrals – or support whoever is playing France (and England). I can’t wait.

other qualifier from this region, Honduras, make their first appearance since 1982 and will probably be mere attendees. USA are expected to qualify from their group, but Mexico will play second fiddle to France and Uruguay.

Asian and Oceania Football Federations The five teams from these two confed-

erations have found themselves in very difficult groups, and a spout of group stage eliminations could be expected.

Nonetheless, these teams are all included in very tight groups that could arguably see a team progress with three draws or a solitary win. However, I wouldn’t hold out much hope for New Zealand.

More than a gold trophy Gary Dunne examines the cultural significance of football’s biggest prize The World Cup is a tournament like no other. Many sports have a world cup, but football’s is the World Cup. FIFA estimated the cumulative audience for the 2006 World Cup at 26.29 billion, with 715.1 million watching the final alone.

In an age when appointment-toview TV has disappeared through the Internet, the World Cup still maintains its hold over the globe.

This power comes from the greatest back catalogue of iconic sporting moments. Italia 90 and ‘Timofte against Bonner’ are seared into the Irish consciousness. Argentina have 1978 and a cathartic victory during a period of brutal military oppression. Street parties were strictly forbidden, yet thousands flooded the streets of Buenos Aires after their victory over Holland. In 1986, they had a barrel-chested guy that was not too bad either.

Similar reactions will come from Holland and Germany about 1974, in South Korea about 2002 – and yes, in England around 1966. You may have heard the English mention 1966 once or twice during the last 44 years of hurt, or boast about being potential World Cup winners.

Its role as the pre-eminent sporting tournament lends it a cultural significance that little else can match. Football can erase barriers in a way that politicians can only dream. East Germany’s

victory over West Germany in 1974 saw football tear down the Berlin Wall fifteen years before the physical wall came down. For 90 minutes, Germany was united again. The World Cup can erase the invisible walls people build between each other. This allows people to forget their troubles, if only for a brief period.

The Ivory Coast saw a respite from a raging civil war to celebrate qualification for the 2006 World Cup. Jews and Palestinians play for the same Israeli team. Together they dream about qualifying for the tournament. In fact, Israel celebrated as one when the Palestinian Abas Soan broke Irish hearts with a lastminute equaliser during qualification for the 2006 World Cup. This June, the world can become one and enjoy what has the potential to be a great tournament. Viewers from Bantry Bay to Bloemfontein will see Catalans and Basques aiming to win Spain’s first World Cup. North and South Korea will take part in the same tournament as the USA. Ireland will find sudden bonds with Uruguay and anybody else that stands between Thierry Henry and his famous hand seizing the World Cup. Above all, the world will forget politics and watch a feast of international stars aim to win the most cherished prize in football.

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Lucky, efficient - and this year’s champions Let down by Brock James, Clermont Auvergne were the only team left in Europe capable of matching the ruthless Leinster machine and knocking them out of the competition, writes Killian Woods Jonathan Sexton’s reliability from the boot was crucial to Leinster’s success over the much-fancied French side

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e are now down to the wire in European Cup rugby, with Leinster flying high after their narrow one point victory over Clermont Auvergne. Their pulsating tie with the current French champions at the RDS typified the meeting of two teams with a thorough and comprehensive grasp on how to play an exciting brand of rugby that is pleasing on the eye.

Whether it was the sheer physicality on show or the pace these two sides man-

aged to incorporate into their attack, Leinster and Clermont dispelled any thoughts that their individual attacking prowess would cancel each other out.

The contest progressed in a prolonged end-to-end fashion in which both teams dominated particular sections of the game and for the Leinster’s part, maximized their effort-to-points ratio.

Looking for one specific aspect that allowed Leinster claim a narrow victory, one must look no further than the lack of a competent place-kicker in the Cler-

mont team. Normally a clinical kicker in all manners, Brock James had – by any fly half ’s standards – an unacceptable performance from the boot. The Australian kicker sacrificed a combined 23 points, missing four penalties, one conversion and three drop-goals.

Though expecting James to kick 100 per cent of his place kicks is asking for a very high standard, his missed conversion alone would have sufficed to see Clermont through to the semi-final – and even converting a hand-

Handbags at the ready

The intense competition between Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong is bound to hit new heights this summer, writes Richard Chambers

The impending summer brings with it the usual miscellany of international sporting events. Of these, the 97th edition of Le Tour de France promises to be more compelling than ever.

Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner, will be competing in the second season of his comeback, hoping to secure an incredible eighth victory. However, he will have to overcome the man who threatens his legacy as the greatest rider in the race’s illustrious history, ‘El Pistolero’ – Spain’s Alberto Contador.

The 27-year-old winner of two Tours de France already ranks among the greatest tourists in cycling history. In his short career as a team leader he has completed cycling’s equivalent of a Grand Slam, capturing the Vuelta a España, the Giro d’Italia and – of course – Le Tour.

Last year’s Tour will be remembered as the emergence of Contador as the true successor to Armstrong. As a member of Team Astana alongside the Texan, relations between the two deterio-

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rated during the first week as debate engulfed the Tour about who the true leader of Astana was. To the surprise of many observers Armstrong actually led Contador for much of the early stages, until his antagonist launched a stunning attack contrary to team rules and captured the yellow jersey in Stage 7. Relations between the two remained sour after the race with Contador and Armstrong exchanging snipes in the media and via Twitter.

Armstrong, now with Team RadioShack, has built an accomplished squad of former rivals and Astana riders with which to challenge the Spaniard’s dominance. Despite this, Contador’s extraordinary innate attributes may serve to counteract the group effort of RadioShack. Since turning professional in 2003, Contador has become the sport’s purest climber. His explosive acceleration on the climbs has been key to his two previous victories. In addition to this, his high cadence is similar to, but perhaps more elegant than that of his bionic rival.

Though the more relaxed post-comeback Armstrong will not admit it, the adversaries have much in common. The ruthlessness that defined Armstrong’s ascent to the upper echelons of sporting greats is equally evident in the Madrileño. A newly acquired aptitude in time-trials is reminiscent of perhaps Lance’s greatest strength. In 2007, Contador showed remarkable composure to hold on to the yellow jersey in the penultimate stage, despite the challenge of more experienced time trialists – in the end winning the tour by a mere 23 seconds, a feat that would draw admiration even from Armstrong.

Following a 2009 route that was notably light on mountain stages, the 2010 edition was approved by Contador who remarked that it was a ‘tour for climbers’. The contentious omission of the team time-trial, to the chagrin of Armstrong, will please a rider who does not always enjoy the unreserved support of his teammates. If Contador capitalises on this favourable route to win a third Tour no one will doubt his position alongside Hinault, Mercx – and even Armstrong himself – as one of the sport’s most celebrated competitors.

ful of those opportunities would have seen his team comfortable winners. So if Brock James is to be so harshly singled out as the sole perpetrator for Clermont’s loss, then why should Jonathon Sexton not be individually praised for his key role?

Supposedly out of form coming into this crunch fixture, Sexton kicked 19 of Leinster’s 29 nine points, missing just one place kick in the process. It is always easy to single out one player for a loss, and the Irish public are renowned for scapegoating the fly half for a loss of any magnitude. Therefore in victory, a fly half who maximizes his teams points from place kicking to a rate of 87 per cent accuracy should be lauded as a game winner.

Although Sexton should be praised for his game-changing performance, light still needs to be shone on the worrying number of points Leinster conceded in a home game with so much at stake. As highlighted previously, Leinster could have found themselves on the wrong end of an irreversible points deficit if James had been more accurate with the boot.

The Heineken Cup champions conceded eleven penalties, an unforgivable amount for a team at this level.

Giving away numerous penalties within the kicking range of an average fly half at such a high level of rugby almost invites any opposition to round off a game with ease. For future ties, Leinster cannot rely on any team being significantly weak in this fundamental area of modern day rugby.

The manner of this performance overall, though, would have to be pleasing for the Leinster coach Michael Cheika, even if they were the undeserved winners.

Clermont Auvergne were never going to arrive for this Heineken Cup quarter final with a game plan revolving around anything but attacking rugby. Therefore,

positives must be taken from the fact that Leinster managed to balance fending off the current French champions for large parts of the game, while still finding a method to enact their own style of attacking rugby.

It must not be taken for granted how difficult a job it was for Leinster to balance the defensive necessity with the need to beat their opponents at their own freeflowing rugby game. No team this season has come to the RDS and been capable of carrying their own game plan with the efficiency Clermont had on Friday evening, and it must be said that no other team is probably capable of doing so.

The visitors managed to win all five of their scrums against a ferocious Leinster front row containing Stan Wright, CJ van der Linde and Cian Healy in reserve, while also turning over two Leinster scrums. In addition, their domination in claiming eight of their own eleven lineouts, while sufficiently challenging Leinster at theirs, just shows how this marauding French team were very close to a win in all aspects of the game.

The statistics between the sides in all areas, apart from place kicking and penalties conceded, only minutely tip in the favour of Leinster, so on that basis the Blues were good for the win. The players and coaches can take solace in the fact that no team remaining in the competition will be able to match their own ruthlessness in defence, with particular reference to the breakdown where Clermont equalled Leinster’s 96 per cent recycling success rate, and their 85 per cent success in the tackle.

Figuratively speaking, Leinster have contested a mini-final – and in doing so overcame a major hurdle. Their combination of luck and sheer efficiency has pulled them through. Roll on France.

The Badger Sports Personality of the Year: Don’t Push It

Pain in the Arsène of the year: Arsène Wenger

Unfortunately the Badger is not actually proud of you, Tony McCoy, for finally winning the Aintree Grand National.

Any man who commits so much dedication to a diet that consists of peppermints and chewing gum deserves no general recognition whatsoever. You sit up there beating a horse with a stick, and then take all the plaudits for winning an acclaimed historic race.

The Badger is going to praise the real champions in all this. Congratulations, Don’t Push It, you are the University Observer Sports Personality of the Year and thoroughly deserve the award. You throw yourself over ridiculously tall mounds of shrubbery, and courageously agree to carry these midget freak people on your back at the same time. Well done: you are a worthy winner.

For this season and the many previous, football fans have had to cope with the constant mumblings of Arsène Wenger.

His unrelenting accusations that players, referees and managers were out to get him have nagged the Badger for long enough now. Therefore, Wenger is the comprehensive winner of this prestigious award.

Thankfully vindication came recently when his side took on an in form Barcelona team that was in no mood for his ramblings. After years of protesting that Arsenal play football the right way and other teams should not disrupt it, he taught his team to be a collective bunch of hypocrites by trying to kick Barcelona out of the game. He was humiliated for his tactics as Barcelona embarrassed Wenger and his world-class selection of super toddlers.

Best Footballer in the World, Literally: Lionel Messi Forget your Ronaldos, your Gerrards, your Lampards and your Drogbas of this world, Lionel Messi is undoubtedly the best footballer to grace our green earth at the moment. He is going to cap off an excellent season, which has seen him score 40 goals in all competitions, with a flurry of mesmerising performances on the high veldt this summer, and possibly lead his side to World Cup victory.

Sub-awards

The Graham Rowntree Cauliflower Ears of the Year award: Martin Johnson The Bowyer Ex-Con Footballer of the Year award: Marlon King Cheat of the Year (sponsored by the Ashley Cole School of Adultery): Ashley Cole Bottlers of the Year: England 2010 World Cup squad

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sport@universityobserver.ie

We look forward to the football World Cup, and what might have been for Ireland

OBSERVER

sport

UCD end season with unfortunate loss UCD 16 Old Wesley 29 Killian Woods was at the Belfield Bowl to watch UCD RFC’s final game of the season against Old Wesley

U

CD RFC played their last AIB League Division 2 game of the season against an Old Wesley side that still held aspirations of making the playoffs. The game also took on some extra importance with the return of former UCD captain Michael Hastings to the club he joined in late 2000. His return to Belfield didn’t start well, as UCD established a healthy lead in the opening stages of the game.

After kicking off proceedings, UCD managed to turn the ball over in the Old Wesley half and apply some serious pressure on the Wesley defence. A series of quick offloads kept UCD’s attack flowing and eventually led to their opening score: with UCD pushing closer and closer to blitzing the visitors with an early try, Old Wesley were penalised for hands in the ruck, allowing John Cooney to slot over a difficult penalty from the far right hand side. Five minutes later, Cooney extended his side’s lead further as he kicked another difficult penalty from the right touchline.

This was a great start to the game for UCD, as they looked good for the first try of the match.

The try nearly came through an overlap created

by UCD’s backs, which saw Collidge winger Rory Allwright bundled into touch as he dove for the line.

Even after 20 minutes, UCD were controlling possession and bossed healthy percentages for territory and used these positives to increase their lead to nine points from the boot of Cooney with just over 22 minutes gone. From this point, however, Old Wesley began to up their game and just before half time managed to overhaul UCD’s lead thanks to two tries in five minutes.

Wesley’s first try came after sustained pressure inside the UCD 22-metre line saw flanker Colin Wallace barge over, only for the conversion to be missed by fly half David Smith. The second try resulted from a mix-up in the UCD defence

who assumed en masse that a penalty had been given. Luckily for Wesley, substitute winger Alan Thompson continued to chase the kick and gathered to give his side the lead, which Smith added to with the conversion.

With UCD only three points behind their opponents at half time, they were hardly out of this contest. Play at the start of the second half, however, took far more wind out of UCD as Wesley began to further dominate the contest.

Indeed, it was heart-in-mouth time for UCD just four minutes in, after John Rowe made a clean break and offloaded to Carroll who tore up the pitch, looking likely to score Wesley’s third try of the afternoon. An unbelievable tackle by Andy Cummiskey denied Carroll his try, and averted UCD falling further behind.

Unfortunately this superb covering tackle was only prolonging the inevitable; Wesley scored their third of the afternoon thanks to a great move off a scrum in the UCD half creating a five-ontwo overlap for the visitors and Thompson going over. A successful conversion brought Wesley’s lead to ten.

UCD narrowed the gap to three straight from the restart, thanks to a well-worked try crafted by centre Eoghan Conran and finished by winger Calibhe Doherty. With the game now entering the closing stages, Old Wesley were repelling UCD’s ventures forward and looking likely to see out the game, but in the dying minutes, UCD found themselves cemented deep in their own half conceding possession to Thompson who completed his hat-trick and rub salt into Collidge wounds.

The result leaves UCD 13th of 16 sides in Division 2 after a long, tough season that saw the fruition of many young players such as Rhys Ruddock and Niall Earls. The season might not have been a classic, but the future look bright.

Photo: Colin Scally

Students taught a sobering lesson

After two successive 0-0 draws, UCD slumped to a heavy defeat against title aspring Dundalk in Oriel Park, reports Ryan Mackenzie

After a successful unbeaten streak that saw UCD fend off the menacing threat of Shamrock Rovers and Galway United, while also claiming their second win of the season against struggling Bray Wanderers, the Students could be forgiven for travelling to title-chasers Dundalk last Friday evening with a sense of confidence and optimism. Sadly for the young squad, the night held nothing but disappointment as the home side sincerely thwarted their opponents’ aspirations of achieving an unlikely victory by executing a convincing 3-0 win.

The match opened in a very different manner to its conclusion, as it was the visitors who enjoyed the most promis-

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ing chances of opening the scoring in the first half. The sleek and clever passing that characterised College’s attack early in the match led to a wonderful chance for striker Ciaran Kilduff on 15 minutes. Unfortunately his effort was directed straight at Dundalk keeper Peter Cherrie, who had no difficulty in quelling the danger.

A number of long-range shots from Dundalk posed the only credible threat to Billy Brennan’s UCD net, and these tame efforts were countered in similar fashion by the Students as the half drew onward. It was David McMillan who put the finishing touches on a well worked team movement on the half hour mark by teeing up for an ambitious long distance

shot that was narrowly deflected away from goal.

While the first half ended in promising fashion for the Students, their inability to capitalise on their chances was soon punished early in the second half. A wonderful attack by Dundalk saw JJ Melligan place the ball delicately in the bottom corner of the UCD net to give the match its first goal on 55 minutes. The move was ignited by Melligan himself, taking the ball on the half-way line before playing it to teammate Neale Fenn, who returned the favour with a clever pass back to Melligan inside the UCD box from where he finished superbly.

After another twenty minutes of this

Dundalk 3 UCD 0 dominance, their lead was extended.

A well-placed corner by Melligan was bobbled momentarily across the face of the UCD goal, eventually finding its way onto the head of defender Gary Breen who coolly placed the ball in the back of the college net in the 73rd minute.

A relatively feeble response by the Students proved fruitless and a third goal late in the match from Fahrudin Kudozovic sealed an impressive win for Dundalk and a disappointing night for UCD.

This victory continues Dundalk’s unbeaten league season and places them at the top of the table, on level points with St Patrick’s Athletic, but with an all-important game in hand. For UCD, it serves as a grim awakening to the difficulties of top-flight football and plunges them into what could prove to be a dogfight to avoid a swift return to the second tier of Irish football. The Students will look to bounce back with a win tonight against Athlone Town in the EA Sports Cup.

11/04/2010 22:18