Volume XX – Broadsheet – Issue 5

uo The University Observer Generation Protein the dangers that suppliments are causing to this generation

Interview An interview with renowned Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor

LGBT Outreach the questions transfolk deal with on a daily basis

above UCD SVP set up for Homeless Week outside the James Joyce Library

Fionnán Long p8

Jack Walsh P14

Sam Blanckensee P7

photo james brady

SU demand greater rights for UCD residents

november 12th 2013 Volume XX issue v universityobserver.ie

peter hook The rock legend talks to otwo about being an icon

Rebekah Rennick otwo p12

Kevin Beirne editor

UCD Students’ Union (UCDSU) has launched a campaign that seeks to improve the rights of students living in UCD Residences. Under the current licence to reside, the terms and conditions that all those living on campus must agree to, students have fewer rights than private tenants.

At present, Residential Assistants (RAs) can enter students’ apartments without prior notice and begin filming, so long as they “clearly alert everyone in the vicinity of the student apartment when their recording equipment is in use.”

Private tenants are allowed to refuse entry to their landlord if they have not received 24-hour’s notice.

UCDSU General Manager, Philip Mudge, said that the campaign was based on the fact that “in simple terms, rights that were long-fought and hard-won in terms of private tenancies are not respected within

tenancy agreements on campus.”

The #RESRIGHTSNOW campaign will include a march from the SU Offices in the old Student Centre to the Merville Residence Offices on Thursday, November 21st at 1pm.

According to UCDSU President, Mícheál Gallagher, the campaign focuses on four specific points: “reduced fines, a fair system of appealing the fines, ending the use of inspection cameras in apartments and finally, ultimately renegotiating the licence to reside.”

During the 2010/11 and the 2011/12 academic years, the combined amount of deposits retained by UCD Residences almost totaled €200,000. According to a spokesperson for the University, these retained deposits “are reinvested into fixtures and fittings, appliances, and the physical structure.”

For UCD residents, any fines that

are imposed can only be appealed to the same body that has passed down the original fine, and it is possible that an unsuccessful appeal will lead to an increased fine. UCDSU has described the cost of these fines as “extortionate.”

The University also defended the use of cameras “in the interests of safety and security,” saying that RAs “have recording devices as part of their equipment which may be used when attending to an incident in student residences.

This is in line with the Universities Safety and Security Policies.”

In response to this, Gallagher said “UCDSU cares deeply about the safety and security of students of UCD. However we feel that cameras are a breach of students’ fundamental right to privacy as guaranteed in the [Irish] constitution. Moreover this is not something that occurs

» UCDSU claims licence to reside breaches constitutional right to privacy » UCD Residences retained almost €200,000 worth of deposits over two years

in private tenancy agreements.

“Simply stating that this is in line with University policies does not make the situation acceptable.

There have been incidents where students have been in towels going between their rooms and the communal showering units, and regardless of alerting students that cameras are being used this is not acceptable.”

RAs have only been formally allowed to film inside of students’ apartments since Clause 23 was introduced to the licence to reside before the previous academic year.

Clause 23 states, “In the event of an actual or potential risk of injury to people or of damage to property, enforcement may include the use of CCTV or other recording devices which may record the activity of the occupier and any other persons attending at the premises.”

Senior lecturer fails to overturn gender bias appeal » High Court upholds Labour Court’s initial ruling » Justice Cook said complaints of gender discrimination were not valid

John Cooke said that there was no apparent error of law and that no valid reasons for overturning the decision by the Labour Court had been presented by Dr O’Higgins.

Dr O’Higgins’ initial appeal to the Labour Court referred to her second application for a professorship in 2007. Her follow up appeal to the High Court requested that the Labour Court rehear her case.

During the proceedings of her appeal to the Labour Court, Dr O’Higgins suggested gender discrimination could be argued on three accounts in relation to the selection process for professorship in UCD. The balance of gender on the promotions committee, which contained 12 men and

one woman, was challenged.

Following a review of the selection process, the Labour Court asserted that the promotions committee had valid grounds for rejecting Dr O’Higgins’ application for professor because she did not meet the sufficient academic criteria for promotion.

Dr O’Higgins still disputes the grounds on which her appeal to the Labour Court was rejected. She feels the court failed to acknowledge all the evidence and material presented, while also failing to undertake an analysis to compared the academic credentials of each candidate up for promotion.

She also claims that the Labour Court’s adjudication didn’t account

Otwo P16

kerrie o’brien

poet Kerrie O’Brien talks about her love of travelling

Killian Woods deputy editor

An appeal to the High Court made by a senior lecturer in the UCD School of Law and Business claiming gender discrimination was a factor in the decision to not promote her to professor has been turned down.

Dr Eleanor O’Higgins brought her action to the High Court in order to challenge the decision handed down by the Labour Court. In November 2012, the Labour Court heard her case and it was adjudicated that gender discrimination did not factor in the decision of the promotions committee (UCAATP) not to promote Dr O’Higgins to professor.

In the final judgement in the High Court last Friday, Mr Justice

Orla Gartland The Dublin-born musician talks to Otwo about her new EP ‘roots’

Ellie Gehlert Otwo P22

for the committee’s lack of expertise in business ethics, therefore affecting their ability to judge her application, and reiterated the gender imbalance on the panel.

When delivering his final verdict, Justice Cooke stressed that there was no element of competition between the applicants for promotion and that there was no threshold for the numbers of promotions that could be approved.

Justice Cooke also addressed the matter of the Labour Court’s role in Dr O’Higgins’ appeal process. Cooke said that the court’s role was to examine the complaint that gender bias factored in the process of applying for professorship, and not deciding if Dr O’Higgins had grounds for promotion.

ucd weather

Foil Arms & Hog

The lads ask you to trust them when they say trust no one Foil Arms & Hog Otwo P2 by cathal nolan

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Wet & Windy

Sunshine & Showers

Sunshine & Showers

Sunshine & Showers

Periods of Rain

Sunshine & Showers november 12th 2013

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News

News in Brief Sophie Sharpe

Remembrance Vigil to be held this week This year the Remembrance Day candlelit vigil for Please Talk will take place on Wednesday 13th November at 5.30pm. The annual event is organised to acknowledge those lost through suicide and encourage people to reflect on mental health, while recognising the struggles that others may be facing.

Please Talk is a campaign that commenced in UCD in 2007 to tackle the mental health problems facing young people. By encouraging people to talk, and providing information about available support services to those seeking guidance, Please Talk has been successfully promoting the importance of mental health, and reinforcing the idea that talking is a sign of strength, not of weakness.

The transition to university and the stresses of college life itself can prove extremely challenging to students. Please Talk is there to assist in providing an answer. With extensive experience in handling the difficulties that college students face, the campaign staff are always on hand to promote the social, personal and emotional welfare of students.

Prospective students in the O’Reilly Hall during the UCD Open Day last Saturday photo conor o’toole

Homeless Week 2013 raises over €2,700 Cian Carton

Former UCD President launches third theological text The work of philosopher and former UCD President Patrick Masterson was honoured on Monday night, 11th of November, at the launch of his new book Approaching God: Between Phenomenology and Theology.

The third in a trilogy produced over more than four decades ago, Prof. Masterson continued his examination of belief and reason, attempting to bridge the gap between these controversial topics, as already begun in his two previous books Atheism and Alienation, published in 1971, and The Sense of Creation.

The first book dealt with the change in attitude towards religion from the 17th century, where “people thought you were mad or alienated if you didn’t believe in God, whereas a lot of people today think you are mad or alienated if you do,” says Masterson.

A subject of profound interest to the author, Prof. Masterson regarded the publication of his new book as the result of a life-long, ongoing exploration.

The launch was attended by his four children; Rosemary, Lucy, Naomi and Laurence, at which he acknowledged the absence of his late wife Frankie, who passed away five months ago. The professor was acknowledged at the occasion by UCD Professor of Philosophy Dermot Moran.

Dr Brady delivers oration in Melbourne UCD President, Dr Hugh Brady, was present at the 2013 Menzies Oration on Higher Education in the University of Melbourne. The event honoured the Sir Robert Menzies, the former Prime Minister of Australia.

Sir Menzies passed away in 1966 and is renowned for his dedication to improving the development of Australia universities. The general topic of each oration is higher education policy.

Dr Brady used his oration to broach the pressing issues affecting the higher education system during the recession and how much a threat this economic downturn poses to third-level education.

During his closing statement, Dr Brady said, “The University of Melbourne and UCD were founded to be bold and have demonstrated throughout their histories, including their very recent histories, that they are not afraid to be different.

“They will undoubtedly be challenged to do so more often and with even more conviction over the coming decades given the pace at which knowledge, technology, the higher education marketplace, and society is changing.”

“In so doing, we can perhaps take even more inspiration and comfort from John Henry Newman who memorably wrote that ‘To live is to change, to be perfect is to have changed often’.”

UCD St. Vincent de Paul (UCD SVP)’s Homeless Week 2013, which took place outside the James Joyce Library last week, has raised in excess of €2,700 to help support those who are struggling with homelessness.

The event was launched on November 5th by Alice Leahy of TRUST, a social and health service for those who are homeless.

The St. Vincent De Paul’s Head of Social Justice, John-Mark McCafferty, was also present.

UCD SVP also welcomed

UCD hosts Thinking Big conference

an emphasis on awareness raising.”

During the week, many students participated in a nightly sleep out, taking up residence outside the James Joyce library. Although it was a challenge, Cryan was quick to point out that it was “nothing compared to what it is like to be homeless.”

The volunteers were kept busy during the day, “selling tea and coffee, answering questions and handing out sponsorship forms.”

UCD SVP aims to help those who are marginalised in society while promoting self-sufficiency.

It is one of the largest and most active college societies and helps both students in need on campus and participates in community projects in Dublin, like volunteering in Backlane Homeless Hostel.

The society carries out a soup run four times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights. Students gather at The Spire on O’Connell Street, purchase food and prepare it in Teach Mhuire, a hostel on Gardiner Street, before distributing it to homeless people in the city centre.

The funds raised from Homeless Week 2013 will be used to finance projects like this, which costs “upwards of €200 each week.”

While the society continues to run weekly events, it is also planning more fundraisers, talks, debates and social events for next semester.

UCD SVP is always looking for new members. Cryan spoke of at length about the benefits of getting involved, which she surmised as being “a great way to get to know people on campus and develop new skills, while also making a very real difference to society.”

week ago is forgotten. This event was about trying to make people realise the real challenges are five, ten, 20, 50 years down the line.”

Speaking about the topics Thinking Big addressed, O’Flaherty felt the event had a “great synergy” and that all topics covered easily complemented each other and that the group was able to achieve their goal whereby “people were coming out of the event inspired

to research and think further.”

O’Flaherty expressed a desire to see a similar event held next year, but admitted it would rely on interest from students to go ahead. “We’ll have to see who is up for it next year. I can certainly see it happening and it would be fantastic. The committee were fantastic, particularly over the last few days. We kept coping with little problems.”

photo james brady

Yvanne Kennedy Thinking Big, a two-day forum that aimed to address some of the pressing matters for the future such as climate change, water scarcity and food security, was held in the Garret FitzGerald Chamber during the 8th and 9th of November.

The project, which was arranged

by UCD students, focused on highlighting the potential problems future generations will be forced to address, with a series of workshops and talks organised over the Friday and Saturday to help spread this message. The UCD Office of the vice-president for Innovation subsidised the event.

Co-ordinator Eoin O’Flaherty spoke about how he felt the event was received saying, “[The event] increased awareness and inspired people to think long-term.”

O’Flaherty also praised the vicepresident for Innovation for both their financial input and advice during the organising of the conference.

photo james healy

november 12th 2013

Fr. Peter McVerry of the Peter McVerry Trust who gave a talk on homelessness, an ever-present problem in Irish society, with an estimated 5,000 homeless people currently living in Ireland.

This year, the society raised over €2,700, which was slightly down on previous yearly total., Despite this, the changing nature of the event has been welcomed by UCD SVP Auditor Clare Cryan. She expressed her delight at how the event has “evolved over the past years from a fundraising event to an event with

19 speakers attended the event, along with a public crowd of 100 on the Friday and 60 on the Saturday. Notable speakers at the event included Dr Tom Arnold, chair of Constitutional Convention and board member of the Mary Robinson Foundation, who spoke about climate justice.

Professor Frank Convery, President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and Chairman of UCD Earth Institute, also spoke at the event and broached the topic of water scarcity and its availability for future generations.

Co-founder and partner of Alexa Capital and Adjunct Professor of the Imperial College London, Gerard Reid, flew in from the UK for the event. O’Flaherty said that Reid’s event was one of the best showcased over the two days. “[He] spoke about embracing the digital energy revolution which is fascinating, basically how technology is allowing

us to be much smarter about energy and much more efficient.”

O’Flaherty, an Economics and History student, was keen that the event would go against the current trend of short term thinking and ignoring the pressing matters that will affect future generations.

“Current thinking in the media and by politicians is short-term.

It’s about the sound bite or the next election and whatever happened a

UCD International website wins Web Award

News

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national

News in Brief Roisin Culligan

Micheal Halton UCD International’s redesigned website has won the Best Education and Third Level Website at the recent Realex Fire Irish Web Awards held on the 6th of November.

The new site was launched at the beginning of 2013 and UCD International fended off competition several other finalists. Those included the 2012 winner from the National College of Art and Design, the full University College Cork site and consumerclassroom.eu; a European Union funded website aimed at promoting consumer education, among others.

The awards are run by communications expert Damien Mulley and 2fm DJ Rick O’Shea, who served as master of ceremonies and presented UCD International’s Marketing Executive, Lorraine Woods, with the award for UCD on the night.

UCD International Marketing Manager, Una Condron, spoke after the event about UCD International’s success in developing a website that “underpinned UCD’s place as Ireland’s Global University.”

The website serves three functions for the UCD International office. It supports current students looking to “internationalise their student experience in UCD”, informs “prospective international students looking to UCD as a destination for their studies,” and supports “new incoming international students in their transition to Ireland and their studies in UCD as well as giving these students access to [the] wider UCD International community.”

Condron emphasised the importance of having the support of a great website in attracting international students to UCD because of competition from “markets such as the USA, UK and Australia who are well established as a destination for many international students.”

Outside of these areas, UCD International also seeks to promote the “international dimensions of UCD’s identity and activity” to current students through opportunities available “with UCD Volunteers Overseas and through activity on campus and in the Global Lounge.”

This award is a major endorsement of the success of UCD International and the development team from iQ Content’s approach to improving the international experience for current and prospective UCD students.

The project was a collaborative effort in which the International Office consulted with all areas of student services to see how they could best serve the needs of students and also partner universities.

With over 400 partner schools across the world and thousands of students visiting both UCD and these partners every year, the response has been very positive. The site also utilises geo-tagging so that information received by someone browsing the website is as specific as possible to their particular needs.

The Realex Fire Irish Web Awards had 1,300 entrants this year across 29 awards, recognising achievements in areas such as News and Media, Entertainment and Arts, Technology and Social, Government, Education and Community, Commerce and Mobile, as well as Technical Awards.

Trinity College Dublin to undergo rebrand Ireland’s oldest university, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), are considering changing their name to create a more globally appealing university. The rebranding will include a new logo and name, but the Trinity name itself will still be an essential part of the new brand.

It was decided that the confusion abroad over whether Trinity is actually a university or a college, which has different connotations in different parts of the world, necessitated a change.

Trinity Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast said that although it has a strong reputation and identity, Trinity isn’t a global brand. Comparing it to the likes of Cambridge, Oxford, the aim of the rebrand is to increase the reputation of the institution.

TCD Professor Vinny Cahill commented that recent international university rankings, in which TCD dropped 19 places, are a “wake-up call” for Irish Higher Education.

Dr Prendergast commented about the rebranding saying that “anything was possible… Ireland knows Trinity College is a university, but do people in Shanghai know that?” Discussions over a rebrand are ongoing.

DITSU considering installation of ‘puppy room’

Youth groups call on Senators to reject Social Welfare Bill Sinead Conroy A letter published in the Irish Times last week has called upon Senators to reject Section 9 of the Social Welfare Bill 2013 that focuses on amendments to the Jobseekser’s Allowance.

The letter was signed by Joe O’Connor, President of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI); Ronan Burtenshaw, We’re Not Leaving; Clara Fischer, Equality Budgeting Campaign; Dan O’Neill, Young Workers Network; Ciaran Garrett, Chair of Labour Youth; Ian Power, Executive Director of SpunOut.ie; Mary Cunningham, Director of the National Youth Council of Ireland & Patrick Burke, CEO of Youth Work Ireland.

The aforementioned youth groups are appealing to Senators on this matter due to the effects such a bill could have on the quality of living for under 26s in Ireland.

According to a recent Vincentian Partnership estimation, it will cost a single adult €184 a week to live next year. Despite that fact, the recently announced cuts to social welfare payments mean that unemployed young adults will only be afforded a little over a half of this living cost; €100 per week.

Since this budgetary announcement, student groups have been vocal in expressing the adverse effects this cut may have and are calling now for

the government to place huge emphasis on the promised youth guarantee.

The USI and the We’re Not Leaving youth group held a demonstration outside Leinster House in recent weeks in order to protest the planned cuts.

The demonstration was in response to comments made by government ministers that young jobseekers should not be “at home watching a flat-screen television seven days a week.”

The protesters staged a mock living situation of both young jobseekers on the bare minimum, and government officials living a life of luxury. When commenting on the protest, USI president Joe O’Connor

said that the situation highlighted “just how separated our decision makers are from this reality.”

A compensatory factor of Budget 2013 for young jobseekers was the announcement that €14 million would be allocated to the youth guarantee. It promises to give a job, work experience or apprenticeship to anyone between the ages of 18 and 24 who has been out of work for more than four months, The organisers of this protest are now calling on the government to get behind this promise and ensure that young jobseekers are supported in their search for work. O’Connor has said, “The government needs to

concentrate its efforts on the youth guarantee and creating job opportunities across various sectors.”

The general consensus among the members of the youth groups involved is that the youth of today are being punished for something they are not responsible for. Ronan Burtenshaw of youth group We’re Not Leaving said, “It’s time that young people were seen as the valuable part of this society that they are, and not just cannon fodder for a crisis they did not create.”

The groups urged the Seanad to vote no to this cut, but the motion passed at the end of last week.

Library hours extended for exam season Yvanne Kennedy As of Monday November 11th, the James Joyce Library will open at 7:00am and close at midnight from Monday to Friday to facilitate the increased traffic caused by students studying for the end of semester exams.

Additional opening hours in the library will also be supplemented by the return of the study area in the Astra Hall, which will be open until 3:00am every morning.

This means that UCD students will have access to on-campus study areas for 20 hours per day.

UCD Students’ Union (UCDSU)

President, Mícheál Gallagher, says this is a step in the right direction for the University’s vision that UCD “would have a 24-hour campus, and a 24-hour study facility should be part of that.”

Gallagher noted that close cooperation was necessary with the Director of Student Services and also the library staff on this initiative.

Over the past number of years, study facilities have been made available for extended hours in the lead up to exam periods. UCDSU General Manager, Philip Mudge,

pointed out that despite this being an annual expectation of students doesn’t mean it extended hours can be guaranteed. “[It is] important to acknowledge that just because something happens more than once, doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. Offices still have to go back year on year and say they still want this.”

Gallagher continued to stress that the “strategic vision” of UCD as a global university “needs a 24-hour study area. We’re not there yet” but the Union and the University continues to work towards this.

Though there is no official Union policy on the issue, Gallagher believes that bringing UCD to this global mark may need such a 24-hour space available year round, not just during exam times.

This would bring UCD in line with other Irish universities; such as Trinity College Dublin (TCD) which maintains two 24-hour facilities on its campus, which only close over the Christmas break.

Mudge noted that the need for study space being made available on a more continuous basis was not just to do with the global image of

UCD. He said that the university, “needs to move to a situation where no one is disadvantaged, where they don’t have facilities at home” where they can study.

He acknowledges that some people do have “facilities as good as the library” but there are others who “can’t access or afford” much more basic set ups at home where conditions for study may not be ideal. “[The] principle of access to education is that everyone should have the right to get the best degree they can and therefore the facilities have to be provided.”

The proposed “puppy rooms” at Dublin Institute of Technology may become a reality, as DIT Students’ Union (DITSU) look for a method to counteract stress around exam time. The idea was originally put before the Student Council in a ‘mock motion’.

Despite this, it garnered interest and so DITSU vice-president for Welfare, Fiachra Duffy, decided to look into the idea, with the possibility of creating a temporary facility so that students can go and play with puppies as a way to relieve stress from exam pressure.

A similar idea was put in place in UCD during Mental Health week when UCD Students’ Union (UCDSU) Vice-President for Welfare, Cian Dowling, brought in a kitten for a similar purpose. While in 2010, former UCDSU Welfare Officer, Scott Ahern, brought a petting zoo to UCD Campus as part of a mental health awareness week.

The concept of introducing a puppy room has been touted in other universities and has proved very successful in places such as the Univeristy of Aberdeen, Scotland.

UL journalism student awarded the Irish Times Best Journalism Award Ruth O’Shaughnessy has been awarded the Irish Times Best Journalism Award by the Irish Times Editor, Kevin O’Sullivan.

O’Shaughnessy was presented with the award for her work on the implementation of the European Globalisation fund at Dell, a grant given in 2009 of €14.8 million to help former workers at Dell in Limerick to find new jobs when it was announced that 1,900 jobs would be lost over a period of 12 months in the Limerick plant.

An academically accomplished journalist, O’Shaughnessy is a Limerick native and an internationally experienced industry professional in global sourcing and supply chain management. She graduated from the University of Limerick (UL) Journalism and New Media with Spanish and Economics and is currently studying for a MSc in Economic Analysis at the Kemmy Business School in UL. A talk was also given by Mr O’Sullivan during his visit to journalism and business students at the University on the topic of ‘The Journalist in the Multimedia Era’. Chairing a questions and answers session after the event, Dr Stephen Kinsella said that “O’Sullivan was refreshingly honest about the challenges publications like the Irish Times will encounter in the future, which made the discussion much more focused and helpful.” november 12th 2013

4

news analysis

A system divided

With many people claiming they earn more money by not working, Cathal O’Reilly takes an in-depth look at our social welfare system and its shortcomings

Over the past number of months, our government has been facing continued scrutiny from the Irish people regarding the continued struggle they face cracking down on social welfare cheats. Allegedly, the number of people treating the social welfare system as a means of substantial income has risen dramatically with the current economic climate and the lack of employment available.

Our current social welfare payment is approximately €188 per week, which some people feel is far too much for those who are unemployed to receive. The general belief is that the system is flawed, as it allows people to have a much too comfortable lifestyle while out of work.

At the same time, there have been reports of 40-week waiting lists for those desperately seeking disability allowances. From January 2014, people under the age of 25 will face cuts that will leave them only able to claim €144 per week under the new budget.

Hard-working taxpayers are becoming more and more concerned about where their money is being allocated, and want to see a healthy and effective social welfare system that cannot be abused in the same way as the present system.

Social welfare is an investment in our economy, not simply a pay out, and workers need to be able to trust that the government is operating a proper system.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton believes that the most important aspect of achieving social welfare reform is to adopt a universal view when looking at our social policy. The idea of a Scandinavian approach has been favoured in the past, treating all people equally with a healthy social divide allowing everybody to gain from the generated income from tax.

A small minority, however, oppose this view, and instead favour a capitalistic system with a ‘survival of the fittest’ mindset. This would involve cutting the current social welfare payment dramatically, which would ultimately force people back into work in order to have a greater income. But can people be forced into jobs that simply don’t exist?

Innovation and entrepreneurship are two vital aspects of our economy, however, education is a primary focus for Joan Burton and the Department of Social Protection. november 12th 2013

People are choosing to stay at home as they earn more on social welfare than they do at work, leading to a decline in social morale and a lack of motivation in the workplace

One of the biggest difficulties when getting people back to work is a lack of motivation.

When someone has been made redundant due to cutbacks, it is extremely difficult to encourage them to get back into the workforce

The minister has been working extremely hard in recent years, primarily investing in and treating education as a number one priority.

It is important to keep people moving so that if the opportunity arises, people will be job ready.

One of the biggest difficulties when getting people back to work is a lack of motivation. When someone has been made redundant due to cutbacks, it is extremely difficult to encourage them to get back into the workforce.

One such investment is the JobBridge scheme, which commenced in June 2011. This scheme was set up to provide jobseekers with the opportunity to acquire new skills and work experience through internship programmes.

Since its inception, more than 20,000 people and 9,000 companies have been involved in the scheme. It has been quite successful, with 61% of its interns acquiring full-time paid positions upon completing the programme.

These positive figures highlight the importance of education in getting people back to work.

Burton has spotted a niche in the jobseekers market in providing a fantastic incentive that shines a light on the opportunities available to people who are out of work.

There is also a scheme available for eligible people claiming social welfare to avail of a second chance education programme. The Back to Education Allowance scheme provides people with the chance to participate in full time education.

This is available to nearly all social welfare receivers, including the unemployed, people with a disability and lone parents.

This scheme again highlights the importance of education in getting people on social welfare back to work. An interest in education will make prospective candidates stand out to any potential employer.

Burton has made this opportunity available to everyone claiming social welfare and it has proven to be hugely successful. Numbers for the end of the academic year 2012/2013 were 25,961, showing a 191% increase to the 2007/08 figures.

When asked about the huge waiting lists for people on disability benefits, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Protection said, “Prompt processing of claims remains a priority for the minister. Schemes that

require a high level of documentary Four week sick leave pay has been more, it is the most vulnerable evidence, particularly in the a huge problem facing employers who will suffer, while many remain case of illness related schemes, in recent years. A signed medical comfortable on the income they are can take longer to process.” certificate is essential when making receiving in social welfare payments.

Taking into account the high an application, which must be The latest statistics from the CSO level of work hours required for approved by a certified GP and show a staggering 408,670 people these documents, it should indeed passed before sick leave is paid. on the live register. This is 20,665 be the highest priority of the It has become increasingly easy less than last year, which suggests Department of Social Protection. in recent years to access signed a positive rise in employment It may even lead to the creation medial certificates, and employers levels. A large proportion of this of more jobs in this department, feel negligence on the part of doctors reduction can be equated to as opposed to the proposed cuts in signing these documents is increasing numbers of emigrants. of 159 jobs this January. becoming an issue. Essentially, there The still significantly high levels The notion that the lack of is no solution to this problem, but of unemployment in Ireland mean technological capabilities to deal with businesses are suffering because the social welfare payment is a the large number of applicants seems of the high expenses of sick leave. huge expense for the government. quiet distressing considering the An anonymous local business The Department of Social high standard of current technology. person commented on current Protection spokesperson explains, Modern generations are able system and its detrimental effect “As Minister for Social Protection to download applications to on employers. “The company and Member of the Government, their smart phones, making it a that purchased my business had Joan Burton’s main challenge is to personal office anywhere in the a paid sick leave policy in place get people who become unemployed world; but the idea of technology and all employees availed of back into the workforce again or being introduced to deal with high their paid sick days… I believe to become job-ready. Recently, numbers of disability applicants this policy was abused.”

Minister Burton appointed leading has been overlooked and has left a Another flaw in the social welfare industry and policy experts to a huge number of people affected. system is the loss of benefits to new jobs council that will drive the Looking forward, technological employees once they work over a implementation of the Government’s improvements have been made to certain amount of hours per week.

Pathways to Work 2013 strategy combat waiting lists regarding other Essentially, it is more beneficial for to tackle unemployment.” problems in the system. The Public some people to claim social welfare But the crackdown on people Services Card (PSC) is a new system rather than join the workforce and abusing the social welfare in place that is designed to combat contribute to society. This is not the system remains a huge problem. the duplication of efforts across fault of the jobseeker. Rather, it is the It is simply unfeasible for the the board with enhanced security government and the lacking social government to operate a system systems and identity authentication. welfare system currently in place. where individuals are better off This will help fraudulent behaviour A second anonymous employer financially from not working. within the system, however, there is told the University Observer, “Some The Public Service Card hopes yet to be any noticeable improvement employees, especially unmarried to eliminate fraudulence and in the processing of disability claims. mothers, are allowed to earn up to waiting lists in the future.

According to the Department of €300 before they lose their benefits.

Business owners are risking Social Protection: “A PSC involves If you are offering them a full-time their financial wellbeing and the capture/utilisation of an position, they are not interested. So the wellbeing of their families to individual’s photograph and signature the biggest competition to employers create jobs and drive our economy and the verification of identity data is the social welfare system. forward. On the other hand, people already held by the Department.”

Applicants will confirm at the are choosing to stay at home as To date, the Department has interview that they are only interested they earn more on social welfare deployed two registration methods. in working so many days per week.” than they do at work, leading to a A face to face process involving Budget 2014 saw no change to decline in social morale and a lack personal attendance at a DSP basic social welfare rates, meaning of motivation in the workplace.

Office and a centrally managed the mentality of jobseekers to Trust in the allocation of the reduced process that does not find work will also likely remain taxpayers’ money is vital and require personal attendance, unchanged in the coming year. the idea of hard-earned money but rather utilises data already Old-age pensioners, medical card paying for people who are held by other state agencies holders, working mothers, savers cheating the system and having such as the Passport Office. and families with health insurance no contribution to the workforce Over 343,684 PSCs have been were all targeted once more in the will continue to cloud the efforts issued to date. The majority of budget, and spending cuts and tax of Joan Burton in the continued these cards have been issued to new increases amounted to €2.5 million. struggle to achieve social reform. claimants for Jobseekers Benefit/ Low to middle income families With dole payments remaining Allowance and applicants for a with sick children are in danger of high for the healthy over 25s, new PPS number. The Department losing their medical cards as a result vulnerable groups continue to face Spokesperson believes, “This of a wide scale review. One in ten cuts in this year’s budget with new technology is proving to old age pensioners are also going a lack of consideration for the be successful in the area of to lose their medical card due to a importance of entrepreneurship detecting social welfare fraud.” change in the income limits. Once and existing business’s nationwide.

Finding the middle ground

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Assessing the impact of illegal downloading on the entertainment industry, Anna Carnegie suggests it is time to legalise it and focus on maximising advertising revenue

Hands up who’s ever illegally downloaded something? Or at least been privy to it by watching or listening to something that was sourced in, let’s just say, a not very legal manner? The chances are, quite a few of you.

Despite its illegality, piracy appears to be just one of those crimes, like soft drug use or underage drinking, that is deemed almost socially acceptable.

There are no losers, it seems.

Well actually, there are. Let’s start with the big one; the entertainment industry itself. We’ve already witnessed retailers like HMV facing heavy cutbacks due to the rise in online consumption and arguably the death of the disc.

Could companies, like iTunes that charges for downloading, be next in line to go? Is there a better solution here than slowly watching theses companies crumble? Yes, by getting rid of the one thing that is holding them back, the cost.

Let’s look at another loser in the current scenario, the consumer/ criminal. Rather than pay for the latest songs, films or TV series, many of us do go for the cheap and easy option and engage in a little illegal downloading. It’s not so easy, or cheap, though, when you get caught.

From hefty fines in some parts of the world, to prison sentences in others, it’s safe to say that the matter is not taken lightly. Of course, these are extreme examples, but it does seem slightly ridiculous that there exists, at present, no third way between paying exorbitant prices and paying even more exorbitant fines.

Let’s face it, for many people, the punishment for illegal downloading does not feature heavily on their list of priorities when considering whether to download something that they just have to see. If the threat of punishment is not a game changer, let’s look at another aspect of the illegal downloading business that is far from perfect.

In a consumer-led society, it is your

The punishment for illegal downloading does not feature heavily on their list of priorities when considering whether to download something that they just have to see

right as a customer to complain if you aren’t satisfied with the quality of a given product. You don’t even need to be a paying customer for this to apply; take social media sites like Facebook, who have a ‘report’ tab, so you can voice your complaints regarding an individual/group/ advertisement that you find offensive.

Unfortunately, such a right does not have the same gravitas when applied to an illegal industry. If you are not happy with the quality of a given show, yes you can go elsewhere, but you’ve probably wasted a significant amount of your time downloading it. And what if it gives your computer a virus? Again, you’ve no legal footing to stand on.

So, what’s the solution? More stringent controls? Tougher penalties?

Or is it time for something a little more innovative? Despite the penalties associated with it, the majority of people are in the habit of downloading for free, and this is not likely to change. What can turn people away from the illegal option?

Simple; making downloading legal.

‘But that will put the entertainment industry out of business’ you may cry.

‘Where are they going to get their money from?’ The same place any online company offering a free service to customers does: advertising.

Just look at Google, Facebook and Twitter; three of the world’s most profitable companies. They are all free at the point of use; all utilising advertisement for monetary gain. You may ask why big firms pump money into Google or Facebook just to have

their name pop up in the sidebar.

It’s very simple, these businesses know a successful product when they see one. People want to connect with their friends and families and search for information at the click of a button, much in the same way that they want to listen to the latest hit song, or watch the next series of an addictive TV show. There will always be a base of potential consumers heavily concentrated in and amongst these sites.

Legal downloading, of course, is not a new phenomenon, it just has yet to go mainstream. This however, is only a matter of time.

Already, major TV channels have past broadcasts available on their websites such as Channel 4 (4oD) and BBC (iPlayer). Providers like Netflix

offer a month’s free trial, and items are becoming increasingly cheaper to download for existing members.

If legal downloads didn’t return some form of profit, practices like this wouldn’t exist. You wouldn’t be able to read a large proportion of papers online. It just wouldn’t work.

Companies do what’s in their best interests, and given the move away from the record and bookshops, much to the dismay of many, major corporations have to innovate and come up with new ways of turning a profit.

Legalising downloads seems like one good way to go. That is not to say that they will necessarily become more profitable than before the rise in online consumption, but it is certainly preferable to being beaten out of the market by piracy.

The great equaliser Inequality is not just morally wrong, argues Robert Nielsen as he looks at why inequality causes and prolongs recessions

photo Sean MacEntee

It is common to read articles decrying the level of inequality in the economy and criticising the lack of fairness in society. These arguments are usually made from a moral point of view that it is not right that a subsection of society are so rich, while so many are struggling to get by. But the damage inequality does is deeper than this.

Inequality is not only unjust, but it also damages the economy.

Leading economists, such as Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, argue that inequality leads to recession and that we cannot fully recover from any existing recession until we create a more equal economy.

The idea that inequality contributes to recession dates back to Hobson and his theory of underconsumption.

Hobson argued that inequality

makes the economy unstable, by concentrating wealth in too few hands. Even if the wealthy take this income and invest it, consumers will lack the ability to purchase the goods.

So the economy will have too much production, but too little consumption.

The result will be storage rooms full of unsold goods that no one can afford to buy. Production will have to be cut back, workers will have to be let go and the economy will fall into a recession.

This theory was expanded upon by John Maynard Keynes, who pointed out that the main difference between the rich and the poor is that the poor spend most of their money while the rich don’t (a fact of necessity rather than choice). So if wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few then less money will be spent.

Ford revealed the simple logic behind his idea.

If his workers were paid more, then they could afford to buy the cars they were making

most people with stagnant incomes and unable to afford to make ends meet, while factories are crowded with unsold products. Customers lack the income to buy goods and keep our consumer economy going, while businesses lack the customers to keep going and to pay their staff wages.

It is not good enough to presume that if the rich save their excess income, it can be lent to the rest of the economy. At the moment, corporate profits are at a record high and inequality is soaring, but this is not boosting the rest of the economy. This is because while the rich are saving, this money is not being lent out, but is sitting idle in bank reserves.

In times of great uncertainty like ours, banks are not willing to risk lending and businesses are not willing to risk investing. This is the problem with excessive inequality, while the poor will always have to spend their money just to get by, there is no such obligation on the part of the wealthy.

Henry Ford was a revolutionary businessman in many ways, but in 1914 he unveiled a scheme that is less well-known than the production line and just as novel.

Ford proposed to pay his workers $5 If less money is spent then a day, which was somewhere between businesses will have fewer customers double and triple the wage of most and make fewer sales. This means industrial workers. Newspapers and they will have less revenue and have businessmen were shocked at this to make some staff redundant. These strange act of charity with many staff will now be unemployed and predicting that it couldn’t last, as have less money to spend, meaning other businesses would undercut. businesses have fewer sales and the But Ford revealed the simple vicious circle continues. We end up in logic behind his idea; if his workers a situation with high unemployment were paid more, then they could and an economy in a recession. afford to buy the cars they were There simply aren’t enough making. This idea soon spread to yachts and racing horses for the other businesses, and the basis of rich to buy in order to keep the a consumer society was born. economy going. Nor can the money Key to this idea is the relative be lent for others. As our current income hypothesis, which is crisis shows, this money will have gaining increasing influence among to be paid back eventually; a psychologists and economists. It commitment that even middle-class states that people do not aim to people are struggling to fulfill. maximise their income in isolation, We are currently in a peculiar but rather in comparison to others. position whereby inequality has left So, if your friends and neighbours

are getting richer and your income is staying the same, you will feel poorer.

People also want the best for themselves and their families and compare themselves to the richest and most famous people and try to emulate them. When a society becomes more unequal, not only are the rich able to afford more luxurious goods, but everyone else feels poorer in comparison.

People suffer from stress in trying to keep up with the top and this is the leading reason as to why, although the western world is richer beyond our grandparent’s dreams, we are no happier than people were 100 years ago.

People also respond to inequality by borrowing to keep up with the wealthy. As a short-term cover, there is nothing wrong with this, but inequality persists and the income of everyone else fails to rise then the economy is in trouble.

Real wages in the UK and the US have barely risen since the 1970s and people have resorted to borrowing to cover the difference.

As the financial crisis has shown, there is a limit to such borrowing.

All of this leads to a growth in the financial sector. As more wealth ended up in the hands of the 1%, this money was invested in the financial sector and gambled on the stock market. In Ireland in particular, it was invested in property speculation. Growing inequality led to many viewing property as their only way to get rich.

Recessions are complicated affairs with many causes and influences.

It would be overly simplistic to say inequality alone caused it, because the greatest crisis of our generation does not have one sole cause. Still, inequality certainly made a recession more likely and exacerbated the problems of it.

Without a strong consumer base with enough purchasing power to keep the economy going, we will remain mired in recession. Inequality is not merely wrong on moral and justice grounds; it is also bad economics. november 12th 2013

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Our Relationship With Food

With 61% of Irish adults now overweight or obese, Elizabeth O’Malley looks at why losing weight has become harder

There is the same amount of sugar in one can of Coke as there is in a bottle of Innocent Smoothie; although there is a difference between the artificial sugar of Coke and the natural sugar we get from fruit

Weight is not an easy topic to talk about, yet it seems to be something we’re obsessed with. The irony is, we should be healthier than ever. Fresh fruit and vegetables are now available all year round and good food is cheaper than it has ever been before.

By law, companies are required to state what ingredients are in their food and measure it against a set limit of what is recommended daily. If we don’t know what aspartame or phenylalanine are, it’s easy to Google them.

This fails to take into account how much easier it is to eat poorly.

Food is constantly being advertised, especially to children. Portion sizes have increased and food is more readily accessible. Gone are the days where chocolate was a treat

once a week. We are surrounded by fizzy drinks, fast food and supposed ‘fresh food’ which has been dressed up in green packaging, but in fact is just as bad for us.

For example, there is the same amount of sugar in one can of Coke as there is in a bottle of Innocent Smoothie; although there is a difference between the artificial sugar of Coke and the natural sugar we get from fruit. Some brands of granola bar have the same amount of fat and calories as a Snickers bar.

Additionally, foods labelled diet and low fat often don’t just reduce the amount of sugar, salt and fat they add to their products, but add in sweeteners such as saccharin and sucralose, which are just as bad for weight gain, high cholesterol and high

blood pressure, and put consumers at risk of heart disease and diabetes.

A large part of the problem is the food lobby. If we were to decide to eat healthier, it would be corporations like Coke and McDonalds who would lose out, as they tend to have the most processed food.

They have been able to perpetrate fraud through clever packaging and advertising that convinces us things like Vitamin Water in the US are healthy, while it has even more sugar in it than Coke and has been linked with kidney problems.

Foods high in sugar, especially sweeteners, are addictive. In a University of Bordeaux study of rats who were exposed to cocaine, then given a choice between intravenous cocaine or oral sac-

charine, most chose saccharin.

On the other side of the equation, there is a lot of money to be gained through selling miracle foods like acai berries, chia seeds and quinoa which claim to make you healthy and help you lose weight, despite the fact that studies done by reputable universities show they don’t really do anything.

There are millions of euro to be made by peddling diets that promise to help you shed pounds in a few days. Atkin’s, South Beach and clenses may help you lose weight in the short term, but anything which requires you to cut out a specific food group is no good in the long run and leads to yoyo dieting. Weight you had previously thought lost is bound to come back, but not the money you spent buying the book that told you

about the diet in the first place.

We’ve also become more sedentary with the advent of cars, meaning we no longer have to physically exert ourselves as often. It’s pretty damning that most of us don’t meet the target of 30 minutes exercise a day recommended by pretty much everyone with a medical degree. Our society seems to be splitting further into people who go to the gym every day and those who barely get any exercise, without a healthy middle ground.

It’s gotten to the point where a quarter of all children, and 61% of adults, are now overweight or obese.

Obesity is now killing 6,000 people a year in Ireland. The government has now launched a three-year campaign in order to address the issue.

This campaign advocates giving children child-sized portions, reducing treat foods to small amounts and not every day, and replacing fizzy drinks and fruit cordial with water among other things. The Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly, has also indicated that he intends to introduce calorie postings on menus, restrictions on marketing of food and drinks to children and

revise healthy eating guidelines.

Meanwhile, the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and the Irish Heart Foundation are calling for a 20% tax on sugary foods after the Department of Health estimated that a 10% tax on sugary drinks would reduce the number of obese adults in Ireland by 10,000. In France, a 19.6% tax on soft drinks in addition to VAT of 5.5% is expected to raise €120m per annum.

In June 2011, the European Parliament voted against proposals for traffic-light style food labelling regulations. The traffic light system displays a red, amber or green light on the front of food packaging to clearly show consumers how the contents rate in terms of healthy eating criteria. The colour is determined by the levels of calories, sugar, salt and fat the product contains.

The Shadow Health Secretary in Britain has suggested that legal limits on how much sugar, salt and fat that can be used should be imposed on food producers. However, this runs the risk of more sweeteners being put in food instead.

Perhaps what all of these measures miss is that maybe the choice isn’t between a Snickers bar or a granola bar. Since when did weight loss get so complicated? Growing up, we were told to cook, not order take-out.

Have three square meals a day, don’t snack. Walk or cycle, don’t drive.

Eat a variety of different foods, not just all of the same. Treats should be enjoyed, not become the norm.

We will always have weaknesses; the chicken snack box late at night, a donut on our lunch break, a pot noodle because it’s the cheapest meal in the shop. The big problem we have is that we don’t realise how often we have them and then wonder why we’ve started gaining weight.

The big problem with eating, as with any addition, is that we have ways of fooling ourselves that it’s not an issue. It’s time to re-examine our relationship with food.

The spy that bugged us With the recent revelations that the United States has been conducting an extensive spying operation aimed at European governments and their citizens, Steven Balbirnie examines the possible motives behind this espionage The US is not the only country currently involved in espionage.

Similar operations are undoubtedly being carried out to some degree by the likes of Russia, China and even Israel

Transatlantic relations, while not exactly smooth over the past decade, have hit a new low.

It was recently disclosed by the data-analyst-turned-fugitive, Edward Snowden, that the United States has been conducting extensive surveillance operations directed at European nations that would be considered American allies.

Both Der Spiegel and Le Monde have published reports stating that over the course of a month, 70 million French phone exchanges were tapped and recorded as part of this surveillance operation.

French Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault articulated this outrage when he said, “It’s incredible that a friend, an allied country like the United Sates can go so far as to spy on that many private conversations which have no strategic justification, no national defence justification for the

november 12th 2013

US; therefore the US must respond.”

The disclosure that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone has been bugged for the last ten years drew a similarly agitated response, in a country where the sinister actions of the Stasi in East Germany are within living memory.

German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere spelled out how this action had affected ties between the two countries, saying, “we can’t simply return to business as usual.”

Beyond these verbal condemnations by government ministers and the American ambassadors to several European capitals receiving a rap on the knuckles, what actions have the European nations taken? On the surface it would appear that they have done very little, and there are several possible reasons for this.

The first, and perhaps most obvious, point is that espionage is a

centuries old tool of statecraft that has always gone hand in hand with the more palatable elements of diplomacy.

These spying operations reached their zenith during the Cold War and most, if not all, of these security surveillance apparatuses are still intact after the end of the struggle between the East and the West.

This leads to the second point.

The US is not the only country currently involved in espionage.

Similar operations are undoubtedly being carried out to some degree by the likes of Russia, China and even Israel, which was at one point in the 1980s caught spying on the US. It would be naïve to presume that European countries do not carry out spying operations either. According to the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, Peter King, “the French are some ones to talk; the

fact is, they’ve carried out spying operations against the United States, both the government and industry.”

The other possibility is that European governments are reluctant to act against the US as they may be complicit in this operation.

According to the Guardian, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK have been carrying out similar practices and coordinating with each other.

At a congressional hearing, NSA Director, General Keith Alexander, even claimed that the leaked information was “data provided to NSA by foreign partners.” David Cameron’s strident criticism of the Guardian certainly raises questions about what role, if any, British intelligence services may have played in this.

There may still be repercussions for the United States, as the UN will

lead to huge losses in revenue for American companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon.

With such high stakes, why then has the US engaged in such risky monitoring of its European partners?

Congressman King has claimed that “the reality is the NSA has saved thousands of lives, not just in the United States, but also in France and Germany and throughout Europe.”

This argument is unconvincing when the targets of this surveillance are considered. Spying was directed against European governments and businesses, and this would indicate that this surveillance was not for security reasons.

Bernard Squarcini, the former head of France’s secret services, has perhaps pinpointed the true purpose of this espionage when he alleged that “the Americans spy on us like we spy on them, to defend our businesses. No one is fooled.”

The potential economic dimension to this surveillance cannot be ignored. Certainly, at a time when the US is negotiating a substantial trade deal with the EU, being vote later this month on a resolution able to know what European jointly drafted by Germany and leaders are thinking before they Brazil to declare that the assembly even come to the negotiating is “deeply concerned at human table would give the American rights violations and abuses that representatives a stronger hand. may result from the conduct of any By looking at the targets of surveillance of communications.” this spying outside of Europe, the If passed, this would certainly be economic factor becomes even an embarrassment for the US. more apparent. It was revealed More significant, however, is the that the NSA had hacked the suggestion by the President of the Eu- computer network of Petrobras, ropean Parliament, Martin Schulz, that Brazil’s state-run oil company; it is recent talks to establish a free trade difficult to see how this could have zone between the US and the Eurobeen done for security reasons. pean Union should be suspended. This With the risk that its global trade agreement has been estimated economic dominance may be waning, to be potentially worth €100 billion. there is the possibility that the US Coupled with this, the EU could could be using its international suspend its Safe Harbor agreement surveillance network to give it with the US, under which American an advantage over its economic companies have been allowed to rivals. The irony is that this may process commercial and personal have instead jeopardised the most data from European customers. The significant transatlantic trade deal suspension of this agreement could to have ever been negotiated.

comment LGBT Outreach — “So, do you have a penis?”

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Ahead of Trans* Week in UCD, Sam Blanckensee talks about his experiences as a trans man

Being trans* is tough, and I won’t pretend otherwise. Because of my gender identity, I miss out on rights that everyone else takes for granted.

Being trans* affects my daily life, whether it’s a day when I can barely get out of bed because of dysphoria, or the questions that people ask, like the headline of this article.

With a surname like mine, the most common conversation I have starts with, “Blanckensee, that’s an unusual name. Where does it come from?” The next most common question is about my gender identity.

My choice to disclose my medical history is seen as a strange one by my peers and, when people I have met ten minutes previously decide to ask me about surgeries on my private parts, I tend to agree with them.

Humans like to objectify things.

Women are judged for their breasts or their weight or some sort of physical aspect of their bodies.

Men have the same thing done to them, as they are seen for their abs or their height or hair colour.

Trans men and trans women are objectified in a different way.

There are times when people seem to see trans people as a surgery, or as a medical mystery, rather than as people. Ireland’s Trans* Mental Health and Well-Being Survey showed that 40% of our trans* community have attempted suicide at least once, so it’s obvious that we have a long way to go as a country until we are giving the necessary level of support to our trans* citizens.

The November 20th is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. This year, our count of known trans* related murders was 78 in April.

I don’t know what the count will be next week. It certainly won’t be smaller. Trans women of colour have a 1 in 8 chance of being murdered; that statistic just shouldn’t be real.

Being trans* is a scary thing.

I can’t go a day without being anxious about the reactions I might get from people when they find out that I am transgender. If somebody in a bathroom finds out, or if somebody gets on a bus that

knows and happens to be drunk, I get scared of the repercussions.

If those people turn violent, I get hurt. I am constantly aware of what I look like, because if I present in slightly the wrong way somebody might find out I am trans*, and that could go badly. I see stories on my Facebook wall every day of friends of mine being threatened or having problems with people because of being trans*.

The government is bringing in a new law in the next few months, which will allow trans* people to change their the sex/gender on their birth certificates. This will give us privacy and prevent us from being required to “out” ourselves on a daily basis just to get basic rights.

Personally, I have a few problems with the law that has been proposed though, one being the fact that the law won’t cover people under the age of 18. That means that schools can continue to legally discriminate against trans* students due to their gender identity. The law also mentions the discrimination of sports teams, something I believe should never be covered by legislation.

I love sports, I have always played lots of them and soon I plan to start playing team sports again.

My problem is that I may not be allowed to do so, by law. I take testosterone, which is seen by sports organisations as a steroid, however, I only have the normal male level.

I play rugby and other contact sports where I can, and love playing them, but my gender identity stops me from doing it. If the law goes through, sports teams could legally prevent me from joining either a men’s or a women’s team and prevent me from staying fit and healthy as a result.

If I wasn’t open about my identity, I could probably just not worry about people knowing and play amateur sports, but I don’t have that option because being transgender isn’t something I have chosen to hide.

All of the negative aspects aside, I actually have found so many positive things about being trans*. Having gone through such a drastic change

If I wasn’t open about my identity, I could probably just not worry about people knowing and play amateur sports, but I don’t have that option because being transgender isn’t something I have chosen to hide

Heidi Krieger, now Andreas Krieger, competing at the 1986 European Championships

in the eyes of all of my friends, I know that the friends who have accepted me and that have moved on from focusing on my gender identity are my true friends.

I also know which of my friends weren’t so great, but I think I am better for that. Since coming to college, I have actually made friends due to the fact that I am trans*. The LGBTQ+ Society in UCD are wonderful, and last year’s Trans* Week was an amazing experience where I learned how spectacular all of my new friends are.

I also have had the opportunity to educate. I hope that, because I

have come out, I can pave the way for easier coming out processes for others in the future. Being out as transgender isn’t easy. It has so many challenges when it comes to acceptance and privacy.

Describing intensely personal things that people just wouldn’t ask about any other medical condition on a regular basis, which really gets uncomfortable in certain situations, can be difficult.

Being open has also been worth it. Being open means I don’t have to hide my history, I never have to wonder whether I would be accepted

if people knew, and I have changed being transgender in my friend’s minds from something scandalous to just another medical reality.

I am able to joke about something that, in most contexts, is extremely taboo and I can help other trans* students come out.

My identity has given me the opportunity to make a difference.

I understand why people don’t like telling others they’re trans*.

It’s obvious that facing the awkward questions and putting yourself in a spotlight about your medical history isn’t the usual thing to do.

Sometimes I wonder about my own decision to be open. I wouldn’t have half the problems I have with my identity if I weren’t so open, but I also wouldn’t have the amazing support circles from my friends. I wish being trans* wasn’t a big deal, and that my life wasn’t characterised by it, but for now all I can do is work toward the time where it isn’t.

UCD Trans* Week takes place from the 18th to the 22nd of November and the Transgender Day of Remembrance Service on campus is at 6pm on the 20th of November on the Concourse outside the Newman building

Fight or flight response With Ryanair now introducing changes to make them more customer-friendly, Cathal O’Reilly examines the rocky relationship between Ryanair and Aer Lingus

Ryanair and Aer Lingus are two names that don’t gel well together in the business world. One is associated with ‘no frills’ and cheap flights made possible by cutting whatever corners possible, whether they are flying to cheaper airports or making their passengers walk out onto the tarmac to get onto the plane.

Aer Lingus, meanwhile, is known as being the reliably Irish airline that has struggled to maintain profits against its cheaper rival.

Both airlines have been battling on and off for the past seven years.

The feud began back in 2006, when Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, made a bid of €1.4bn to become the majority shareholder in Aer Lingus.

While Ryanair’s three bids came with promises of new jobs and a rise in share prices, Aer Lingus refused them all with little or no explanation as to why.

It seems even more surprising, given that this all occurred in the midst of worst economic crisis our country has ever seen.

Instead, Aer Lingus has hit back and initiated legal proceedings with the UK Competition Commission, claiming that it was anti-competitive that Ryanair had such a large stake, almost 30%, in their company.

Ryanair are arguing that the UK body does not have jurisdiction.

Aer Lingus are in for a long haul of litigation and legal proceedings.

Recent developments have shown that 91% of its cabin crew have voted for industrial action. This is includes disputes over rosters, pension deficits and its recent announcement to put 87 jobs at risk in Shannon airport.

But Ryanair can’t claim a high ground either, after registering their first profit warning in a decade.

Their second profit scare came in recent weeks with projected profits to drop €90m from €600m to €510m. Share prices have plummeted with these reports.

Despite backlash and negativity, O’Leary refuses to back down.

While Ryanair’s three bids came with promises of new jobs and a rise in share prices, Aer Lingus refused them all with little or no explanation as to why

Ryanair have recently announced ten year growth deals with London Stansted and Warsaw airports, hoping to grow traffic in Stansted from 13 million to 15 million in the next 5 years. With 81 million passengers worldwide, they have just ordered 175 new planes to be built over the next 5 years.

One particularly infamous example of Ryanair’s money-grabbing policies concerned a student who could not board a flight because he did not have the £50 required to pay the surcharge on a bag of duty free. After all, O’Leary himself said a few months ago that negative publicity sells more seats than positive publicity.

Recently, Ryanair have tried to tackle the perception that they don’t care about customers. The new changes being introduced include customers being able to carry on

handbags as well as their main carry-on. Seats are now allocated with a charge of €5 for those who want seat priority. Re-issuing of boarding card cost has been cut dramatically from €70 to €15.

Ryanair have also introduced quiet flights in the mornings and at night, which remove the ads for scratch cards and the annoying on time flight announcement.

Online efficiency has also improved with a decrease in the amount of clicks required to book a flight from 17 to just 5. Ryanair’s fuel costs rise by 7% and their average fare still falls by 2%.

Say what you will about Michael O’Leary, but he has transformed flying. Before Ryanair came along, there was no such thing as a budget airline and their fares are still the cheapest in Europe. O’Leary has

also become his own brand. His flamboyant and witty personality has been a genius addition to the company in terms of a marketing strategy.

Sexual innuendo is his best friend when dealing with the press.

It’s rare you will find an interview without him using some vulgar language for dramatic effect. The “Oh my god, did he just say that” factor continues to attract the public eye towards his company.

He’s not afraid of admitting faults, however. O’Leary’s focus on the future almost always overshadows any negative press. He recently spoke of the airline’s long-term goal of a low-cost transatlantic airline starting flights at “10 bucks” to the US. Meanwhile, Aer Lingus seems to be a byproduct of the Celtic Tiger; still slightly confused in terms of their marketing strategies that

focus on high spending tourists and creamy Guinness. They’ve built an image around motherly figures dressed in emerald green tucking passengers in with tea and biscuits.

Perhaps the problem is that Aer Lingus is not even that much of an alternative to Ryanair. Sure, they don’t try to sell you brand name luggage or blind you with their yellow seats, but they are not exactly what would be classed as luxury. In fact, Aer Lingus’ idea of luxury simply involves giving all passengers free tea and allowing them to walk directly from the terminal to plane.

Additionally, given the problems they are having with their crew, they can’t even be called the friendlier airline of the two. Maybe it’s no wonder that Ryanair is still making profit in a depressed

economy, while Aer Lingus is struggling to stay relevant.

Why are we struggling so hard to save Aer Lingus? Is it because we don’t want Ryanair to be the only Irish airline? Or is it possible to have the best of both, since the practices of the two airlines seem to be coming closer together?

Ryanair continues to have a positive impact and create jobs elsewhere. Aer Lingus, on the other hand, is stubborn in trying to compete with Ryanair while 87 jobs are at risk in 2014.

Mr. O’Leary still expresses an interest in a merger. Will it ever happen? It is highly unlikely and certainly not in the near future.

2014 will be a long year of litigation for both parties. It remains to be seen whether Aer Lingus will still be around in ten years time. november 12th 2013

8

Features

Par the course

With education branching out across various new mediums, Conor de Paor examines the possibilities for the students of tomorrow

On the Coursera.org homepage, there is a simple statement: “Take the world’s best courses, online, for free.” This is the entire idea behind the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), where a college or a university will provide full courses completely free of charge online. The lectures are provided as videos, the notes are available for download and, in many cases, it is possible to receive certification proving that you’ve completed a MOOC. But there is far more to these online courses than simply watching a video; many of them, such as the courses provided by Stanford Online, will collect statistics on your learning through their online platform. They can then begin to tailor each individual’s experience, targeting their preferences.

This concept features prominently on the KhanAcademy’s website, which states that it is “Learning, personalised.” That is the attraction of these resources. It is possible for each user to learn in a way best suited to them. According to the KhanAcademy, it is “the radical portability of Internet-based education” that allows for this groundbreaking innovation to flourish.

These courses have become so popular that many websites now bring them all together and allow users to search the myriad available. Examples include iTunesU and Coursera.

David Heath, the owner of an early stage start-up called CourseGap, believes that although there is a great selection of courses available, students just don’t know about them. “Students aren’t fully aware of [the courses]. Some are and some are doing them, and I think more would do them if they felt employers valued them.”

This is where Heath feels his company comes in, as groups like CourseGap have the potential to provide much the same content as other compilation

sites, as Heath explains, “We’re filling the gap between college courses and industry.”

This is the focus of Heath’s employer-oriented start-up.

Coupling the certificates from these MOOCs is “another way of setting yourself apart from everyone else.”

It seems logical that this is the next step for online education.

Online courses will no longer just satisfy interest, but will also allow students to really delve into their chosen subject areas.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) provides many of their modules for free through its website, MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). MIT is held in high esteem and if students start doing more OCW courses, employers might begin to take this into account when hunting for the best candidate.

According to Heath, “Ten of these MOOCs along with a 2.1 degree is going to prove your passion for the area, which the employer needs to see.” The idea behind CourseGap is that Heath and his team will contact employers to determine which MOOCs would best complete prospective CVs. In this way, the company’s vision is to direct “a certain student towards a particular MOOC that would make them more favourable in an employer’s eyes.”

Online courses have also had a dramatic effect on the classroom in the United States. Referred to as “KhanAcademy Classrooms,” the concept is simple, but overhauls the conventional way of teaching.

Students are asked to view content related to a certain topic on the KhanAcademy website at their own pace, pausing and playing it as they wish. In lessons, the emphasis is then on applying what they’ve learned in theory to problems.

The teacher is no longer lecturing the students, but rather actively helping them by motivating and teaching through application.

Undergraduate Education Officer for UCD Students’ Union, Adam

There are certain topics done so well online that lecturers are saying, ‘Just go away and look at this and then we can talk about it’

Carroll, believes that this is “a very effective mode of learning.” He draws the comparison that “it’s very similar to our own system of tutorials so far. You will have your lecture and then you can ask questions and discuss the topic in greater detail.”

UCD does not offer free course materials online at present, but as Carroll points out, “Blackboard is a great resource we have and there are more and more lecturers using the online facilities so far as using online multiple choice quizzes as part of their assessment.”

Outside of Blackboard, UCD recently launched UCD Online.

Similar to the idea behind the Open University, where a student will pay to undertake a degree programme online or through the post, UCD Online offers students a choice of more than 15 accredited courses for a fee.

Carroll admits, “They are on the

expensive side for an online course.”

A 90 credit MSc. in Environmental Sustainability will cost a prospective student approximately €5,000.

Lecturers have begun to incorporate these MOOCs into their own teaching styles, according to Heath, who explains, “There are certain topics done so well online that lecturers are saying, ‘Just go away and look at this and then we can talk about it.’”

This online content has become so invaluable to some that it’s favourable to attending lectures. Some students will even play the online videos at twice the speed, according to Heath, as they have told him that they want the information quicker in order to test their understanding sooner.

There is a disadvantage to moving towards online education in the long run, of course. Carroll makes the point that people leave college with

much the same degree, but that the social aspect of communal education is what sets them apart. “It’s the involvement in clubs and societies and even in the Students’ Union that will really give you the edge over someone who came into college from nine to five and then left.”

The fear is that if everything is shifted online, then the university experience will be lost. In regards to lecturers, Heath points out, “I think they’ll always be there, but in a different sort of format, as a coach, for want of a better phrase. Someone who can motivate the students, to keep them up to the best of their ability.”

MOOCs and online learning certainly have a place in the future of education, but it seems that they will always be an aid.

However much we may yearn for it, it will be a long time before they replace the lecture theatre.

Shake shake shake Diet supplements are becoming an increasingly large part of the average student’s exercise regime, but the health benefits are questionable, writes Fionnán Long

The IRFU warns that labels may not list all the ingredients in a product, and if they do, they may not accurately record the amounts of each ingredient

november 12th 2013

The London 2012 Olympics saw 26 world records broken. This represents a continuing trend in the advancement of human sports performance. As time goes by, weightlifters are getting stronger and sprinters faster. Athletic performance today is incomparable with performance even 20 years ago.

There are many causes of this trend: refinements in technique, improvements in equipment and the development of more effective training sessions. Amongst these, however, has been emergence of sport supplements. Athletes no longer need to drink raw eggs à la Rocky Balboa to get a protein fix.

“The most common supplements that people would take would be multivitamins, fish oils or omega 3s, protein and creatine,” explains Chris

Moore, a personal trainer at UCD’s Sport and Fitness Centre. He believes that people often take supplements because they feel that “something is lacking” from their nutrition.

Whey protein is one of the most common sports supplements used.

John O’Meara, a pharmacist in UCD’s Student Centre, says that it is possible to get the benefits of this supplement through a natural diet. However, to get the same effect athletes would need to eat “high quality nutritional meals every 2-3 hours.” He believes that acquiring the same level of nutrition naturally is not compatible with most people’s modern lifestyles.

Mikey McCarthy a UCD swimming scholar agrees. “If you’re a full time student you might not have the time to prepare your stuff. Having a protein shake is a lot easier.”

McCarthy usually has two training sessions a day, and three on Wednesdays, coupled with work.

This level of dedication and hard work just does not allow the time to prepare healthy and nutritious meals.

McCarthy says he uses protein to recover after a training session.

O’Meara explains that people who do heavy training tear down muscle fibres. “Your body will optimally repair those muscle fibres if you’re consuming a certain amount of protein in the day. If you’re not fully recovered, you’re going to be pretty sore and you’re not going to be able to train efficiently.”

The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) advises against rugby players under the age of 18 using sport supplements, highlighting the lack of research into long term effects of

supplement use in young users.

But O’Meara disagrees with the IRFU about whey protein. He says that it is a natural food product that is isolated and extracted from milk. He believes that for someone under the age of 18, whey protein is no more harmful “than someone drinking milk.”

Sports nutrition businesses are poorly regulated as quality control is limited.

The IRFU warns that labels may not list all the ingredients in a product, and if they do, they may not accurately record the amounts of each ingredient.

O’Meara explains, “[There are] a lot of pre-workout supplements designed to get people worked up.”

It is supplements such as these that he believes occupy a legally grey area. He calls for them to be regulated and redesigned chemically to conform to legal requirements.

He points out that the pharmacy in the Student Centre doesn’t stock such products and that they are careful to use quality suppliers when ordering supplements for the UCD Pharmacy.

Creatine has become one the most controversial commonly used sport supplement. While the IRFU advise rugby players under the age of 18 against the use of protein they advise “strongly” against the use of creatine.

They point out that there has been limited academic study on the safety of the supplement. The Mayo Clinic advises users to inform their physician of creatine use.

Gastrointestinal discomfort, muscle cramps and headaches are amongst the recognised side effects.

O’Meara points out that creatine occurs naturally in steak and fish, but acknowledges that when it is taken at the large quantities required for loading “it can be a bit of a shock to the gut.”

Loading is a practice whereby a person consumes large amounts of creatine to allow for a build-up in the muscles. “If someone’s guts aren’t good at absorbing large

quantities of things, some of it can pass through undigested. When it passes through undigested, that will put water into the guts.” This is what leads to abnormal bowel habits.

Jess Stallard, a UCD sports scholar for swimming, believes that for some sports supplements are part of a lifestyle. “The average UCD gym user would feel a bit better to be seen with a protein shake. It’s part of the image.”

McCarthy says that there is also a lack of understanding on how to use supplements properly among the general public. In his opinion, there are people “who would abuse it and take a bit too much.” Moore agrees, “They just hear protein and go take it. [A lot of people] try supplements before they have even tried adjusting their diet.”

Both Stallard and McCarthy emphasise that they didn’t feel under pressure to take protein. They did not have any reservations about their health when they started using the supplement. As McCarthy explains, “If you have the right information on how much to take, then it’s very hard to damage your health with it.”

Stallard and McCarthy started using whey protein when they were sixteen. “I started taking it because I started doing gym work to improve my swimming,” says Stallard.

McCarthy started taking a protein supplement when they were relatively new. “When I started taking them, it was at the very start when there was very little of it out there. [There was] a bit of a stigma about it. It was like you were doing something bad.”

While the health benefits of protein supplements are becoming more well-known, much like any drug or supplement, proper dosage is the most important thing to remember. Although protein shakes are more common now, and less of a social taboo, they should still be treated with the respect required of diet supplements.

Get yo’ junk outta my face

science

9

It appears ‘junk DNA’ isn’t so useless after all as Grace Yu delves into the latest discovery in genetics

DNA is that complex code of As, Ts, Gs and Cs that is at the core of every cell in the human body. It is a code to make the proteins, the cells, and the structures that we call our body.

In the 1970s, a scientist coined the term ‘junk DNA’ for the large portions of the DNA for which no functions were known about. This would apply to 20% of the human DNA sequence that does no coding for proteins, also known as noncoding DNA. These sequences were once considered completely useless junk, parts left in our genome that were once functionally useful in our ancestors, but have since become redundant.

It’s becoming increasingly clear, however, that what we thought was junk before is most definitely not.

Over the past few decades, scientists have found valuable sequences in this junk DNA that do much more than simply sit around, coasting off the work done by coding DNA. One of the most prominent examples of apparently useless, but life-saving junk DNA is the telomere. Telomeres are repeating sequences at the end of a string of DNA that protect our DNA from getting damaged when it is replicated in our cells. Replication often results in the ends of DNA getting chopped off and so telomeres ensure no vital, coding DNA is lost in the process.

Most recently, a research team under Dr Visel in Berkeley, California has discovered junk DNA that codes for some aspects of facial structure.

This is not to say that these sequences of DNA code for how our face looks, but rather, these sequences are vital in activating those genes that do.

They may seem useless to the untrained eye, but for those looking for value among invaluable things, it is an important piece to the puzzle.

These supposed junk sequences

reside a long way up the chain from the sequences that actually code for our faces, but they spread their love from afar, helping to kick start the process of face making. Let’s face it; if these guys weren’t doing their job, you could bring literal meaning to the term ‘butt ugly’.

It is now well-known that certain sequences of DNA have effects on genes that code for the necessary building blocks of our bodies. It’s been said that these sequences may account for up to 98% of what is considered junk DNA. However, this is not a matter of lock and key, far from it. These sequences of DNA do not act alone to activate a gene; they work in small groups that are usually located close together in the sequence of DNA. In many cases, it is unknown which sets of these sequences act with others to activate particular genes. It’s like picking a lock on a door, it’s not easy, and it’s not simply done with one try.

Scientists can, and have, spent years and years trying to find out what combinations of these junk DNA sequences work together to activate one single segment of DNA. Though this may seem like a ludicrous amount of effort to go through for such a small reward, the information we yield from such studies is vital to understand the way our bodies work.

Dr Visels’ team at Berkeley has identified more than 4,300 of these segments of junk DNA. Some of these segments have muted, barely useful effects, while others work together with other segments to turn on a specific coding sequence of DNA resulting in gene expression and a measurable effect.

The segments of DNA Dr Visels’ team in particular have identified, affect the shape of various parts of the face. They sculpt the finer features of

These supposed junk sequences reside a long way up the chain from the sequences that actually code for our faces, but they spread their love from afar, helping to kick start the process of face making

the face: length, width, depth and structure; much like an artist’s hands.

Before we get too excited at the prospect of being able to genetically alter our faces, the research thus far has been focused mainly in mice.

It is hoped this research can be translated to humans however, as we share a large portion of our DNA with the furry little pests and, as we are both mammals, we have very similar developmental processes.

Imagine that. A few genes clipped or added here and there and you could be a man-sized rat. Ain’t that the dream? The team is now working to identify similar DNA sequences present in the human genome, to see if their studies in mice could be applicable to humans after all.

We have come a long way in recent

years, and most of this progress is due to our rampant curiosity. If scientists had simply stopped investigating junk DNA once one of them decided the stuff was useless, we would be no closer to understanding fully how genes work, and would probably be sitting scratching our heads in confusion at the whole thing.

This proves that everything in science is worth investigating further.

Junk DNA holds the key to so many advances in genetic research that will be unveiled in years to come.

Who knows, those spare As, Ts, Gs and Cs may even unlock the secret to belly button lint. A long shot, but anything appears to be possible.

Additional reporting by Michael O’ Sullivan

Liar, liar, pants on fire Think you’re hard to fool? Try pulling one over a baby, says Caitriona Smith

illustration rory mullen

Barefaced lies, white lies, honest lies, half-truths, bluffs, untruths, fabrications, whoppers and just plain bull crap. No matter what way you try to spin it, that email you sent to your lecturer last night explaining how you need an extension on your paper because for whatever excuse you drummed up is such a breathtaking work of fiction you probably think you deserve the A+ for it alone.

What happens when the lecturer morphs into an 18-month-old baby with the deception detecting abilities of Tim Roth in Lie To Me, though?

Not even your tallest tale is going to fool those big-eyed babes; they can see into your very soul, or so a recent study done by two psychology researchers at the Concordia University seems to indicate.

The study found that babies as young as 18 months of age could tell when an adult was being false.

The experiment, conducted by Sabrina Chiarella and Diane Poulin, enlisted 92 proud nappy-wearers between 15 and 18-months-old.

Two actors were used to convey positive or negative emotions after

a positive or negative experience.

One actor had to act happy when presented with a toy and act sad when they hurt their finger using facial expressions. The other actor had to mismatch these emotions by acting happy when they hurt their finger and acting sad when handed their toy. The babies were found to be very observant and had strong responses to the actors’ emotions.

The research found that the 15-month-olds reacted strongest to the actor who mismatched their emotions. This indicates that the 15-month-old uglies haven’t yet made the connection between events and their corresponding appropriate emotional response.

You can’t trick the 18-month-olds quite that easily, though. The older babies were first presented with the ‘goodie’ actor who laughed and cried in all the appropriate places. The babies responded to the positive facial expressions in an equally positive manner and to the negative facial expressions by showing concern and empathy. When they were presented with the actor who was lying, the 18-month-olds displayed what the researchers called checking behaviour.

When confronted with mismatched emotional responses, the 18-montholds spent more time studying the face of the actor that was lying than the 15-month-olds did. They also frequently looked at their caregiver or at the truthful actor’s face, people they see as upstanding citizens, as if to gauge their response to these obvious falsehoods.

Why is it that we, as fully mature and developed adults (optimistically speaking), can’t tell our lies from our porky pies? We learn to deceive from an extremely young age; baby’s fake-cry for attention all the time and studies show that by 8-months-old they can actively attempt to conceal forbidden activities from their parents. When it comes to telling the difference between the truth and untruth however, we suck.

There are both physical and emotional reasons why we don’t see the wood from the trees. Jumping back to Tim Roth in Lie to Me, there is scientific proof that our faces sell out our lying ways in telltale signs called micro-expressions.

When they were presented with the actor who was lying, the 18-month-olds displayed what the researchers called checking behaviour

These micro-expressions, however, which give a glimpse at genuine emotion, are so fast they are impossible for the human eye to register, and so hints at our deep, dark secrets go unnoticed. Also, the non-verbal cues or micro-expressions that we all look for when attempting to detect deception, such as rapid blinking or fidgeting, are based on statistical averages, not absolute patterns.

For example, some people fart when they lie, but not every farter is a liar and not every liar is a farter. Liars don’t break eye contact when lying, people telling the truth are just as likely to look away as people spinning webs of lies.

Maybe ignorance really is bliss. Think about it. You don’t want to be able to tell that your boyfriend is lying to you when he says your ass doesn’t look big in those jeans, or when your parents say you’re not a disappointment.

Our minds are not pre-ordained to follow the scientific method, where an idea is formed that we then attempt to disprove. Our brains are constantly forming ideas about things and then constantly searching for information that supports and confirms these ideas, not disproves them.

So when we squeeze our collective butts into those jeans that we know are too small for, but are going to wear anyway and turn to our bemused friends and they confirm the excellency of our posterior with an obvious sarcastic tone, we now know that we choose not to hear it.

We have developed to smile safe in the knowledge that we’ve been able to detect liars since we were babies. november 12th 2013

10

science Pain, pain go away The discovery of a mouse resistant to a scorpion sting could have positive implications for treating chronic pain, writes Sara Holbrook

A desert mouse has been discovered in the south-western US deserts that cannot feel pain from the sting of a scorpion. These grasshopper mice have evolved to the point that they are now immune to the sting of the Arizona bark scorpion, a species only found in the same area as the mice themselves.

This scorpion is generally able to protect itself from predators with its extremely painful venom, but now there is a strain of mouse that is essentially higher up on the food chain than this once lethal predator.

According to research published in Science on October 24th of this year, there have been small changes in these mice that allow for this pain immunity. These changes in question have been to the amino

While the mice do consume the venom from the sting, the pain is not transmitted and so, while they are experiencing the pain, they technically cannot feel it

acids in a pain-transmitting sodium channel. While the mice do consume the venom from the sting, the pain is not transmitted and so, while they are experiencing the pain, they technically cannot feel it.

It was evolutionary neurobiologist Ashlee Rowe who first noticed that this strain of mouse surprisingly did not react to the venom of a scorpion that was known to have a painful sting, both from human accounts and from the reactions of other mammals.

Rowe continued her work at the University of Texas, Austin where she explored the role of Nav1.7 and Nav1.8, two sodium channels that are found on pain-transmitting neurons called nociceptors. The reactions of the neurons in the

grasshopper mouse were compared to those of the house mouse.

It was discovered that in both mice, the venom bound and activated Nav1.7, but that in the grasshopper mouse it constrained the activity of the Nav1.8 channel. This means that while both mice were affected by the venom, it was only the regular house mice that felt the pain while the pain transmission was blocked in the grasshopper mice.

Pain is a warning signal to both humans and animals. It is a simplified feeling induced to remind animals in the wild that their actions could result in death. These mice cannot feel the pain that other mammals experience when stung by the scorpion, and so they need no longer fear the bark scorpion.

Neuroscientist Thomas Park, of the University of Illinois in Chicago, who was not involved in the research, has highlighted that pain is very important and it is not that the mice can feel no pain; they are only resistant to the pain caused by the sting from this specific scorpion.

He said, “The grasshopper mouse has found a way, very cleverly, to disconnect the pain pathway.” The mice can still feel other sources of pain, which is very important as complete loss of pain means that the mice would have no way of knowing that they were hurt and no reason to avoid danger or predators. This would decrease their survival rate substantially.

Could this pain resistance have any impact for humans? The blocking of all pain transmissions would be just as dangerous in humans as it would be in mice. Pain is a signal to a person that something is wrong within the body, if humans could not feel pain, then serious damage could be done to the body without the person noticing.

When you pick up a hot plate and you feel pain in your fingertips, it is that pain that makes your hand release the plate before the burning

gets too severe. If you could not experience pain, you would continue to hold the hot plate until your fingers were damaged beyond repair.

Also, a sudden appearance of pain is the body’s way of notifying people that they could have a serious disease.

Modifying a person so that they were unable to feel any pain would in fact be more dangerous for a person than being able to fully feel pain.

This method of pain blocking could be useful in cases of chronic pain. Chronic pain is when pain signals are still active in the nervous system long after the time of healing and while acute pain is necessary as a warning signal; chronic pain is of no use to anyone.

This new discovery could be used to treat chronic pain, such as phantom limb painn that persists after a limb has been amputated. In these types of cases, it could be very useful for a person to have the same immunity that the desert mouse has developed.

The Nav1.8 channel has already been looked at in terms of solving cases of inexplicable pain and this discovery could give scientists new ideas on how to deal with pain. Instead of having to stop the pain at its source, they can block the transmission of the pain along the nervous system.

If it could be used in humans in a way that just blocked one type of pain, in the same way the mice are only immune to the scorpion sting, it could be very effective. It could increase the quality of life from those suffering from conditions such as arthritis.

If the pain from just this disease could be prevented from being transmitted, it could exponentially benefit sufferers of the disease.

This novel pain-blocking mechanism could be useful in certain human cases and it is fascinating that such a small amount of variation in the make up of these mice can have such a large effect on their entire being. It really is the little things that make all the difference.

Roli-Poli-Oli The recent outbreak of polio in Syrian refugees is a cause for concern, says Michael O’Sullivan

Polio; the word used to strike fear into the hearts of many. That fear is no longer present in the western world, however, as the disease has long since been eradicated. In fact, it is now uniquely found in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, though vaccination drives in all three are driving down case numbers annually.

A horrendous and incurable disease, polio causes paralysis in random parts of the body, most often the legs. It attacks grey matter in the central nervous system and stops it functioning correctly. This leads to the muscles wasting away, and the sufferer is left with useless limbs and the fear of the disease spreading.

Should the disease progress up the spinal cord, it can paralyse the lungs and eventually cause death.

Polio eradication is one of the true great success stories of western civilisation. During the 1950s, the disease was rampant across the globe, causing thousands of deaths in the US alone, leaving many times more with varying types of paralysis. What followed formed the basis of modern medicine.

Ordinary people funded the drive to find a cure and campaigned to raise awareness of the disease and its signs. Modern day intensive care is based on treatments and techniques developed to keep polio sufferers alive when they arrived in hospitals, often struggling to breathe. Modern rehabilitation methods started with polio victims, and those affected by the disease were the forerunners of the disability rights movement.

You can imagine therefore, that the news that cases have been cropping up in Syrian refugees is incredibly worrying, especially since the country had previously eradicated the disease.

The most likely cause for this latest outbreak is, not surprisingly, the civil war. The majority of cases appearing are those in children under two years of age, since vaccinations stopped after the war began.

There is also suspicion that refugees are contracting the disease from their Pakistani neighbours, as november 12th 2013

vaccination is prohibited in northwest Pakistan. 22 cases have been confirmed so far, and when you consider the fact that only one in two hundred of infected people ever show symptoms, the threat level is rising.

We have all received the polio vaccine. Most of us probably don’t even remember getting it, but it has saved the lives of thousands.

Its effectiveness is as clear-cut as they come, as polio was wiped out once the vaccine was administered globally. This latest outbreak is a major reversal, and the cause is largely due to human ignorance.

The prohibition of the vaccine in Pakistan stems largely from the fact that most vaccination clinics in the region are run by the US, and the Taliban are using the vaccine as a wedge to keep the US out. They say that while the US continues to attack them with drone strikes, they will kill anyone they catch attempting to vaccinate against polio in the area and aid workers have already perished as a result.

Many reading this will probably feel stunned by the archaic ideals of some foreign administrations and the massive detrimental effect their ideals can have on their people. Would it come as a surprise then, that the US itself is one of the worlds’ largest hotbeds of anti-vaccination campaigning?

In the last seven to eight years, there has been a marked increase in the proliferation of anti-vaccination material in the US, largely due to celebrities and public figures jumping on the bandwagon. They reason that their vaccines make children autistic, as the numbers of diagnosed autism cases has risen in recent years.

Of course, this doesn’t take into account that the reason for the rise is the inclusion of many new disorders on the autistic spectrum and the fact that doctors are continuously improving their methods of diagnosis, resulting in an overall increase in the numbers diagnosed with the disorder.

The argument against vaccination is flawed on two fronts. The first is

In the last seven to eight years, there has been a marked increase in the proliferation of anti-vaccination material in the US, largely due to celebrities and public figures jumping on the bandwagon

that saying that vaccines cause autism is about as broad a statement as it is possible to come out with.

You may as well state that the universe contains lots of stuff.

Autism encompasses a huge and complex range of disorders that we are only beginning to fully understand, so naturally we are going to start recognising more forms as our understanding of the disorder increases. The second is that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to back up the claim that vaccines cause such disorders.

Ask an anti-vaccination campaigner to point out a single scientific study that shows a link to vaccines and autism and their

rebuttal will involve pseudoscientific political jargon. This sort of attitude is dangerous at best and downright lunacy at worst.

Children in countries where diseases such as polio have been eradicated have no natural immunity to the disease and so will suffer greatly if exposed. The only thing keeping the immunity levels up is the vaccine. By not vaccinating their children, parents are putting future generations at risk of contracting illnesses we thought we had removed from society a long time ago.

This has been shown true in some developing countries. After the disease was eradicated, they

stopped administering the vaccine, only to have the disease re-emerge a few years later amongst the young, unvaccinated populace.

The current outbreak amongst Syrian refugees boils down to a simple problem, human stupidity.

Had the Syrian regime not ousted these people from their homes, they would never have moved to Pakistan.

Had the Taliban not been so against any form of American interference, beneficial or not, polio could have been crushed in the area, and children wouldn’t have had to suffer. Politics has no place in the world when it comes to the lives of innocents, and its high time people began to realise that.

science

Develop or die

11

With Samsung rolling out new ways to create apps, Karl Quigley looks at what this means for the company’s future

Psycollegey —Consumerism

Excitingly for gamers, as an extension of the multiscreen kit, Samsung paired with Unity Technologies to create the Multiscreen Gaming SDK. This allows for gaming on any TV, with the use of a Samsung phone or tablet

Samsung has held its first ever developers’ conference in San Francisco, taking place from October 27th to the 29th, and it can easily be argued that the main reason for the conference was to bring Samsung into the heavyweight league for smart devices.

The company can make accepted claims to being one of the most important vendors in the mobile market as, according to David Eun, Executive Vice President for Samsung’s Open Innovation Centre, the company currently ships upwards of one million devices each day, every day of the week.

With their first developers’ conference, we see that Samsung is pushing to extend its reach from just phones. Samsung obviously sees televisions as central to the experience of integrated mobile and home devices. Eun claimed that Samsung has been leading the smart TV market since they first debuted models in 2007. The biggest news that emphasises this is Samsung’s announcement of their five new software development kits, abbreviated to SDKs. The most impressive of these kits is the Multiscreen SDK, which allows users to share

Need to rush out and buy the latest Mac? Louise Dolphin tells you just how you’ve been convinced you need it so badly

content across multiple Samsung devices using their new Cloudbased publishing service. These toolkits will allow developers to create their own applications and entertainment software that can be shared and used across multiple Samsung devices. The multiscreen SDK also allows for one-touch discovery and paring across devices, allowing for easy sharing between various gadgets.

Excitingly for gamers, as an extension of the multiscreen kit, Samsung paired with Unity Technologies to create the Multiscreen Gaming SDK. This allows for gaming on any TV, with the use of a Samsung phone or tablet. The Samsung gamepad attachment was shown with this new kit and David Helgason, CEO of Unity, claimed, “We take the very best of what Unity is, and combine it with the best of what Samsung has to offer.”

Samsung has introduced new phone SDKs, which will improve the current handsets.

Other kits offer precise S-Pen controls that will allow for smooth and seamless handwriting

recognition and a multi-window capability, which lets the user run several apps simultaneously by shrinking and inflating apps on screen. This particular feature was shown off with the use of the Twitter application while simultaneously browsing the web.

Another brand new feature was the Samsung Chord, which promises peer-to-peer connections across Samsung devices. This feature was even demonstrated as two tablets playing air-hockey were ‘pinched’ together to instantly allow them to play a joint game.

Back with Samsung’s smart TV, a revised 5.0 Smart TV SDK was revealed. It has been optimised for the brand new multiscreen function, but also allows for new features such as playing music from your phone directly to your home entertainment system.

Smart TV 5.0 also showed support for closed captioning of video apps and an overall improvement in its search engine. “The question everyone is asking is what is the next big thing for developers,” said Juan Pablo Gnecco, senior director of Samsung’s Media

Solution Center America during the presentation at the conference.

“The answer is TV. But TV is not alone. Today the living room is full of devices, it’s truly multiscreen.”

The streamlined approach that Samsung is taking, such as secure apps that improve the bring-yourown-device trend in a workplace, is largely due to Injong Rhee, Senior Vice President of Samsung’s mobile communications business, who claims that the enterprise mobility market will grow about three or four times faster than the consumer market. This means a huge opportunity for device manufacturers such as Samsung.

Undoubtedly, Samsung is pushing to compete with Apple as the world of mobile smart devices becomes more complex and more popular. Samsung already leads in the entertainment market, and is easily a top contender for smart phones and tablets. With this push and brand new introduction of developer kits, Samsung could well break through the steel grip that Apple has with its ‘App Store’ and consumer market, and finally trump its largest competitor.

Mad Science The evolution of bitchiness, a peanut butter Alzheimer’s test and classifying personality based on geography. Fionnán Long asks what the hell is going on with science lately? illustration rory mullen

Bitches be clever In a discovery that may rattle gender equality enthusiasts, a paper published by the Royal Society has concluded that women have evolved to be “bitches.” With riveting scientific prose, the royal researchers reported that aggressive females favour “low-risk competitive strategies.” Translation: Bitching is favoured. This discovery is likely to boost the self-esteem of rejected drunkards across the country.

Smell ya Later Consider this riddle: What can be done with a ruler, peanut butter and an elderly nostril? At the thought of this question, imaginative readers may have developed rather disturbing ideas and ambitions.

Fortunately, Jennifer Stamps and Professor Kenneth Heilman of the University of Florida are not as twisted as you. In fact, they’re quite clever. They have developed an improvised early test for indicating the presence of Alzheimer’s disease.

By measuring the distance at which a person is unable to smell

peanut butter, the condition of the first cranial nerve can be established.

The failing of the cranial nerve is an early marker of Alzheimer’s. This author hopes that unethical doctors will be creative when they run out of peanut butter. A vulnerable geriatric nostril is too much fun to pass up.

that they happen to come from Texas; politely described as “temperamental and uninhibited.” This translates into a certain subset of Texans hating marriage equality and LGBT* rights.

The other two regions that can have their personality classed based on location are centred in California who were shown to be“creative” and the Great Plains, 50 States of Grey whose personality can be wholly described as ”friendly.” Findings for You can now blame your defective Ireland are yet to be published, but personality on geography. New research one suspects that similar research has broken down a map of the US based carried out in this country would on personality types. Surprisingly, find it very easy to tar us all with the Tea Party’s only misfortune is the same personality brush.

Bernays connected female smoking to the notion of being more powerful and independent; manipulating people to behave irrationally by linking a product to a desire Navigating my way down a bustling Grafton Street last weekend, I noticed how many people were laden down with shopping. We take a trip into town for a warm winter coat, but often end up purchasing other things we could get by without. I suddenly felt baffled by this question, “Why do we buy things we do not need?”

Adam Curtis’ gripping documentary, The Century of the Self, addresses this question. After the First World War, American industry was worried about overproduction, worried that a time would come when people had enough goods and would no longer feel the need to buy.

The rich had always been used to luxury goods, but most products were advertised as a necessity and promoted in functional, practical terms to the average American. They were advertised to appeal to your rational side.

So, how did industry transform from appealing to our intellect, to appealing to our desires? It applied the psychological theory of the age. It promoted the idea that you could buy things to express your “inner sense of self” to others by your clothes to express your character, your car to express your power etc. Products could represent who you are and how you want to be perceived. Quite suddenly, consumerism was born.

A key figure, heavily involved in transforming America to a culture of desire was Edward Bernays.

It’s surprising that so few people have heard of Bernays. However, we have all heard of his uncle: Sigmund Freud. Bernays wondered if he could use Freud’s ideas about hidden irrational forces to make money by manipulating the unconscious desires of the masses.

Bernays originated the notion of an emotional connection with products and services. He mastered the art of appealing to emotion rather than rational intellect. You do not need a new car or a new handbag, but think of how you will feel once you have it. He revolutionised the American economy by showing American corporations how they could make people want things that they did not need by linking mass produced goods to our unconscious desires.

Arguably, his most dramatic campaign was to get women to smoke in public; one of the biggest social taboos in the early 1900s.

He did so by connecting cigarettes with the idea of challenging male power by branding cigarettes “torches of freedom.” Bernays connected female smoking to the notion of being more powerful and independent; manipulating people to behave irrationally by linking a product to a desire.

This concept was echoed by Mad Men protagonist Don Draper.

“Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.”

We irrationally believe that buying products will make us happier, more powerful, more attractive, more expressive, safer, more like the person we want to be.

However, wealth and material possessions are not necessarily linked to self-reported happiness.

For example, psychological studies show that the overall happiness levels of lottery winners spike when they win, but return to pre-winning levels after just a few months.

Yet, it is shocking and almost frightening how some advertising campaigns have infiltrated our psyche so subtly yet so successfully. Take, for example, the diamond industry. How is it that tiny crystals of carbon are ubiquitously recognised as symbols of wealth, power and romance?

How can it be that after almost 20 years of bad press about blood diamonds and working conditions in diamond mines, almost every person pledging marriage feels compelled to acquire a diamond engagement ring?

Before the 1930s, diamonds were rarely given as engagement rings; rubies, sapphires, and opals were deemed much more exotic gems.

De Beers transformed the world diamond market in the 1940s with a powerful message, “A Diamond is Forever”. It would seem that we are now hardwired to attach irrational feeling and sentimental value to these sparkly pieces of carbon.

It would be remiss of me to argue that all products are pitched to our emotional, sentimental, and even subconscious selves. Some appeal to our rational selves. Interestingly, age and product type play a role in our responses to advertising.

A 2007 study in Marketing Letters found that elderly adults (65+) respond quite differently to advertising than undergraduate students. While college students show preference for rational, factbased adverts for utilitarian products, investment services or pain relievers, and emotional ads for hedonic products (greeting cards or cologne), elderly people show preference for emotional adverts for both types of product (e.g. for investment banking “We’ll work to protect your future” as opposed to “Choose us to earn a high return on your investments”) Alternatively, some companies strive to appeal to both intellect and desire. Arguably, Apple’s advertising strikes this balance.

On a rational level, Apple products appeal to us as the only computer manufacturer that make hardware and software, their products are made from high grade materials, have good battery life. They sell us reassurance in a quality, durable product. But they sell more than the product, because they also sell us a lifestyle.

The new Apple iPad Air is “an extremely simple tool, but extremely powerful... it has been to classrooms, boardrooms, expeditions, even to space... and we can’t wait to see where you’ll take it next.” Aided by extremely clever marketing, the Apple brand has come to embody a lifestyle.

In terms of selling a lifestyle, advertisers are well aware that most members of the public see themselves as virtuous, intelligent, creative humans. Therefore, if they can point out the difference between your self-image, and the reality of your situation they can arouse a feeling of dissonance or “mismatch” in you.

We have an innate drive for consistency and when this is shaken, we feel uncomfortable and feel a need to correct it. There is a desperate struggle in the world of advertising to capture our minds, our imaginations, and our desires. I’m not sure about you, but I’m going to try and ask myself a bit more often ‘Why do I actually want this?’ november 12th 2013

Reduced reside nces fines Fair represent when appealin ation g fines An end to the u inspection camse of in apartments eras Commitment fr renegotiate thom UCD to to reside IN Su e licence mmer 2014

november 12th 2013

Editorial

Editorial

13

T c f n a f s u

There is a worrying trend of apathy among UCD students these days. This isn’t exactly news to anyone, at least not to anyone who has recently gone through this university. Quite regularly, it seems that only a very small minority of the more than 20,000 students actually care about what goes on in UCD. That is not to say that people don’t care about things. There are some fantastic people doing fantastic things in UCD who put every ounce of themselves into something they care about. Last weekend’s Thinking Big event is a perfect example of students actually caring about something and doing it.

The problem is that these people are few and far between, with the majority of students leaning more heavily to the apathetic axis of

the enthusiasm scale. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the SU’s #RESRIGHTSNOW campaign this week.

As good and just as the campaign is, it will not achieve anything if students don’t get behind it.

The students of UCD need to get out in numbers for the march on Thursday if they want to actually effect a change, they can’t just click ‘Attending’ on an event on Facebook.

For all the work that social media did to help coordinate the Arab Spring, it is the enemy of first world activism. People think that leaving some angry comments on the event page of Alastair Campbell’s visit is the same thing as protesting at the event in person.

If people really considered Campbell to be a war criminal who

should be jailed, then why the hell didn’t they show up to the event and try to block it from happening? Or even just show up and let him know what you think of him. No matter how important you think you are, he didn’t read your Facebook status.

Online movements like the anti-Kony fiasco that swept UCD last year (until people realised that the planned day of action was the same day as the UCD Ball, of course) showed that people are more concerned with appearing to be activists than actually becoming one.

The Kony phenomenon was a prime example of this. Quite how the video became so popular in the first place is still a bit of mystery, but once it became popular, its popularity became the reason it was so popular; like

Paris Hilton a few years ago.

It’s hard to say whether people saw their friends sharing the video and felt that they finally had the opportunity to publicly care about something, or if they just cynically saw it as another trend to be followed.

I think both arguments have merit, to be honest. Our pop culture has become so self-aware that apathy is now cool. To care about something is to have to stand out, a fact that still scares the crap out of some people.

It goes back to that great irony that society celebrates people from the past who weren’t afraid to go against the culture at the time in order to make a change they thought was necessary, yet it ostracises anyone who dares to step out of line in the present.

This isn’t the only reason for

the level apathy among students at the moment. Part of it could well be disillusionment with the SU after years of fiscal irresponsibility, something that has admittedly been addressed now.

The decision by UCDSU President, Mícheál Gallagher to focus this year’s campaigns more local than in previous years must be commended. The fact that UCD abuse their position as a trusted university to get students to agree to a residential licence that gives them less rights than private tenants is nothing short of disgraceful.

It is surprising that there has not been more uproar about this before. This is something that all students, not just those who live on campus, should be passionate about.

For anyone who doesn’t think that

UCD has a problem with apathy, go to any English university and you’ll see the difference in the levels of student participation. It is clear that Gallagher is using the rebrand to model UCDSU off the English blueprint.

A strong SU is good for all students, as all students are automatically signed up for membership. The more active the SU is in the running of the university, the less likely we are to end up in a situation where students are treated like second-class citizens with fewer rights than the rest of society.

If students back the #RESRIGHTSNOW campaign in numbers, it could be the start of changing the culture to one of activism, instead of the current indifference. If not, who cares, right?

the university observer

talleyrand

Editor Kevin Beirne Deputy Editor Killian Woods Art, Design & Technology Director Conor O’Toole

Afternoon Anuses,

mother’s Berlingo van has already floundered this year, as his Talleyrand is sad to say, an mantra; “the coppers never pull unsurprising supply of stupidity over anything with a yellow-reg”, has soaked the UCDump this week. tragically proved to be incorrect.

During Talleyrand’s bimonthly The CREEPs have been able to inspection of campus, one has take advantage of this mobility issue observed some incredible acts of and use their connections within incomprehensible malpractice on the the college (the UCD President is a part of both staff, students, and the former CREEP) to corner the market, editors of this paper. You’ll notice selling over forty copies to prominent Talleyrand said ‘both’ there, while perverts throughout UCD. So, if you referring to three distinct groups don’t want the Assistant Professor of people, and one of those groups of Geology getting his rocks off to a has failed to correct it. Halfwits. video of your kitchen, lock your doors!

Michael Galvin, the Students’ The Thinking Big conference was Union SU President, has this week declared a great success by all those hit out at the University, and severely in attendance, who also organised injured his hand. He was angry the event. This zany bunch, who because the Campus Residential consist entirely of men for sexist Emergency Evictions Panel (CREEPs) reasons, can be seen on page two of are filming in students’ rooms without this ‘news’-paper. Putting the event permission, and undercutting him together was the dying wish of Billy by selling the footage in box sets.

Cockburn, the boy who won the Gilligan’s operation of selling overall event award for Most Awkward the VHSs out of the back of his Looking Boy Wearing his Dad’s Suit.

The UCD medical department was surprised when he came to them, as massive self-adulation was previously not realised to be carcinogenic. The shocking disease causes the sufferer to become completely insufferable, revert to their initial sperm-like appearance, and gives them vivid delusions in which they think they have already won a local election for Fianna Faíl.

As Talleyrand sees on page three, DIT are considering installing a ‘puppy room’. It’s good that they have finally stopped trying to attain the status of a University and are aiming their sights on becoming something more attainable, namely a creché. That is to assume that these puppies are not going to be installed in teaching roles.

Talleyrand can imagine there are quite a few relevant lessons small baby dogs could teach DIT

students. Professor Ruffles on How To Be Likeable, Dean Woof reads from his book The Importance Of Not Shitting Beside Where You Eat, Dr Pipsqueak presents Absolute Helplessness 101. If the ‘puppy room’ is a success, they should consider installing a ‘silverback gorilla room’ too, so that some DIT students might finally get the chance to find love.

A word of warning though, we all remember what happened when the former Cork-Limerick IT went too far and installed a ‘cobra room’. They thought it would fix all the problems the ‘rat room’ had been the cause of, but ultimately it resulted in the poisoning of six agricultural science students. Their deaths devastated the whole province’s average IQ score. It’s never been the same since, and you still can’t get a sandwich with more than two fillings there, as a result.

News Editor Yvanne Kennedy Comment Editor Elizabeth O’Malley Features Editor Nicole Casey Science, Health & Technology Editor Michael O’Sullivan Sports Editor Shane Hannon Otwo Co-Editors Steven Balbirnie Jack Walsh Games Editor Niall Gosker Film & TV Editor Laura Bell

Tally out Music Editor Rebekah Rennick Fashion Editor Emily Mullen Chief Otwo Writer Emily Longworth Staff meterologist Cathal Nolan

letters to the editor

Chief Stylist Christin McWeeney

Send your letters to editor@ universityobserver.ie

It has come to my attention that your publication is impossible to locate. I quite enjoy your fortnightly ramblings as it distracts me from the mountains of college work I usually have to do. Recently, however, I have found it difficult to locate your

paper in the science buildings.

Has there perhaps been a budget cut that wasn’t publicised that has led to a reduction in the number of papers you produce?

Or is it that you have decided that hide and seek is the best

way to ensure only avid readers view the paper, just to see how many people actually read it?

Either this or you are simply binning the excess, which, to be perfectly honest is possibly the most heinous thing you could do.

I expect this situation to be rectified forthwith, so I can distract myself some more from my duties as a student.

Staff Writers The Badger Louise Dolphin @tila the Hun Fionnán Long Mystic Mittens Robert Nielsen Conor Potts Talleyrand Laura Woulfe Contributors Sam Blanckensee Anna Carnegie Cian Carton Sinead Conroy Conor Conway Roisin Culligan Sean Finegan Sean Flanagan Ellie Gehlert Eva Griffin Micheal Halton Stephen Larkin Jack McCann Conor McKenna Sara Holbrook Ian Mulholland Aaron Murphy Caitríona O’Malley Cian O’Neill Cathal O’Reilly Conor Power Karl Quigley Ronan Schutte Sinead Scully Caitriona Smith Sophie Sharpe Grace Yu Illustrations Emily Longworth Rory Mullen Michael Vance Photographers James Brady Erica Coburn James Healy Joanna O’Malley

Thanks Eugene, Maeve, Andrew and all the folks at Smurfit Kappa.

Sarah, Orla Gartland, Foil Arms and Hog, Rory Murphy. The Bombay Pantry family deal. Ruth O’Toole-McCourt.

Special Thanks You.

Yours etc, Andrew-James Green

november 12th 2013

14

sport

Amy Given Tuesday— Two is the magic number

The Notorious One Irish mixed martial arts fighter, Conor McGregor, talks to Jack Walsh about looking at his opponent for the first time, ACL injuries and Jose Aldo

The amount of top-quality striking partnerships has declined in the past few seasons, but Amy Eustace says they’re already making their comeback

Football’s obsession with pairs is one that, in recent years, has subsided. Along with a rake of other typically English stylistic points, strike partnerships have been dumped in favour of a continental trend towards lone forwards supported by a surplus of tricky midfielders.

The death of the goalscoring duo is a lamentable one. What would Manchester United’s treble-winnings season have been without Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke? The pair amassed a staggering 53 goals between them in 1998/1999, and 46 the following season.

Then there’s Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush. The former, at the age of 30, hadn’t scored in a league game at Anfield in ten months before Bob Paisley drafted in the recently signed Rush. He would go on to score 13 goals the following year and 18 the year after. The effect of Rush reverberated even further, as the Welsh striker went onto score 108 times in all competitions over the following three seasons while partnered with Dalglish.

In the mid to late noughties, there were few comparable examples, save for the prolific partnership that Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen established during the 2000/01 season.

Premier League managers cottoned on to the fact that strikers are less likely to work as hard off the ball as other players might.

The drift was defensive in one sense, and reflected a 21st century standard that more should be expected of midfield players.

Fernando Torres in his pomp was the model for the lone striker, although such was the English public’s familiarity with the dual-striker classic blueprint that many complained that the young Spaniard needed support from a second forward.

In his best year, this came from Steven Gerrard, who was similarly buttressed by Xabi Alonso, a design echoed in the Giroud-Ramsey-Ozil goalscoring conveyor belt currently in action at the Emirates. Robbie Keane, drafted in that season for the purpose of alleviating the strain on Torres, found himself surplus to requirements.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy at United, Didier Drogba at Chelsea and Robin Van Persie whilst at Arsenal, similarly, did their best work when they led the line alone. They were players strong enough to shoulder the enormous pressure of acting as a solitary striker, buoyed by the pay-off that the credit would be theirs and theirs only.

The move toward the 4-5-1 or 4-3-2-1 (or some derogation thereof) heralded the advent of the false nine and other delightful tactical inventions that make hipsters everywhere rejoice.

But as in fashion, football trends are circular. Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, with 16 goals november 12th 2013

Fernando Torres in his pomp was the model for the lone striker, although such was the English public’s familiarity with the dualstriker classic blueprint that many complained that the young Spaniard needed support from a second forward between them in just 11 league games, are setting the bar for a new kind of effective partnership.

Perhaps it’s because Suarez, for all his well-known indiscretions, does work hard off the ball, and has the effect of drawing two defenders away for Sturridge to find space for a shot. Perhaps it’s because Rodgers is arguably playing three at the back; a tactic that thrills the progressive and offends the traditional.

The craze is spreading. At Old Trafford, Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie have yet to reach their potential, but still have a combined total of 12 goals. The spark hasn’t ignited between the pair, probably because Rooney is expected to make up some of the inadequacies in United’s midfield.

At Manchester City, Alvaro Negredo has four goals and Sergio Aguero six, but they’re cursed with the deepest squad in England, and rotation is the enemy of bonding.

Edin Dzeko, cast by Manuel Pellegrini at the start of the season as his number one forward, has contributed a further three.

Bucking the trend towards reversing the lone striker model are league leaders Arsenal, who haven’t had a really effective pair of forwards playing in tandem since Van Persie and Adebayor. They seldom actually played together, but signalled the possibilities in a 4-0 Champions League victory over Porto in 2008, where they each scored twice.

Up front largely by himself, Oliver Giroud’s five goal tally is overshadowed by Aaron Ramsey’s six, pending the return to fitness of his would-be partner Lukas Podolski. Jousting with Liverpool’s traditional front two, however, Arsenal’s method just about comes out on top in terms of goals scored.

Whoever ends up on top of the table in May will ultimately justify the manager’s chosen system. Should someone like Manchester United or Liverpool win a Premier League with two up front, it could signal the end of the lone striker era.

The Fighter’s Mind, Sam Sheridan’s account of his interviews with the likes of Dan Gable and Freddie Roach discussing the mind-set of the fighter, stated that, “You need a certain type of arrogance to fight. You have to have the secret in your heart. That you are too tough, too technical, too strong for this guy. You have to believe in yourself more than anything.”

This self-belief is personified in Dublin native Conor McGregor.

He equally maintains strict inner focus and exuberant confidence, which made the 25-year-old’s rise to become the darling of the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) brass seem so effortless.

McGregor attributes his success to a personal belief. “It’s as simple as you telling yourself that; that’s it. All I have to do is tell myself. I tell myself so much and I tell everyone else so much, that I’m going to do this or that.

“I’ve been doing that since I was a kid, not just now the spotlight is on; I’ve been saying this since before anyone was even listening. I talk so much; you better believe I work so much more.”

Possessing a ten fight win streak that saw him capture the Cage Warriors Fighting Championships Featherweight and Lightweight titles, a feat only equalled by Dan Henderson’s dominance in the Pride Fighting Championships. McGregor entered the UFC’s Octagon in April, and quickly made his mark.

In blitzing through Marcus Brimage in 67 seconds, McGregor followed his own movements and ideas of combat. “I’m walking out and just trying to keep my mind clear, and to not overthink things. Just

I’ve looked at him a million times, and I’ve seen fear a million times.

That fear manifests, so that’s what I see. I look at him and I can see right through his eyes

be slow in your thoughts, have your thoughts slow and concise. The slower you think and the slower your mind is, the faster your reactions will be.”

McGregor has become renowned for mentally agitating his opposition.

In recent weeks, he has called out most of the top ten of his division and looking at an opponent is always the same process for McGregor.

“I’ve looked at him a million times, and I’ve seen fear a million times. That fear manifests, so that’s what I see. I look at him and I can see right through his eyes.”

McGregor’s last fight in Boston, an event launching the UFC on Fox Sports One, was filled with intrigue.

He fought to a decision against Max Holloway, in which the fight was won utilising McGregor’s grappling arsenal, all a tactical reaction to an ACL tear caused by an awkward bridge and roll escape from Holloway.

The Irishman was deflated following the win, citing his inability to finish. ACL injuries kill careers, yet he was uncaring in the cage. “I honestly just didn’t even acknowledge it. I didn’t tell my corner men, I didn’t. I just accepted it.

“To be honest, I didn’t understand the severity of it. I didn’t really realise what it was, I just knew it popped. I knew it was unstable, and it felt really wobbly. I just blocked it out of my mind. I didn’t react to it in any way. It didn’t even register.”

McGregor, a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), credits his successes to Ireland’s first BJJ Black Belt, John Kavanagh. The leader of the Straight Blast Gym and a man McGregor proclaims as “a genius, he is remarkable at planning movement.

“When he says something, his attention to detail is special. So definitely training at SBG with

John is huge. John brought me up. I was just a little small boxer when I started. He has moulded me into a martial artist, into a man who can move many ways.”

The UFC’s featherweight champion, Jose Aldo, will face number one contender Ricardo Lamas on SuperBowl weekend at UFC 169, with McGregor unfazed by Lamas’ mentality. “Hype is a funny thing.

I don’t listen to what people have to say, I just look at the movement.

“I think, and in my mind he’s fighting for a chance at the belt.

Rather than fighting to win it. He’s happy that he’s got a chance, his shot. A contender. I believe that is the type of competitor he is.”

Aldo has defended the belt seven times, showing a remarkable ability to fight specialists in their domain. In short, he can out-strike kick boxers, and out-grapple All-American Wrestlers. McGregor begrudgingly sees Brazilian as the victor in February. “[Aldo] did not look great in his last fight. He looked very basic in his last fight, he didn’t look dynamic. I believe the man who believes he’s going to win, is going to win. I think Aldo’s going to win.”

Plagued with an ACL injury that could leave him side-lined for six months, McGregor’s will has been tested, but not broken. “There is a nation of people waiting on me to come back and put on the big show.

“That motivates me to keep on and train hard, and it’s different now with the UFC on board. It’s not hard to get motivated when there are so many good guys in there waiting.”

With a homecoming fight in Dublin pending his return, McGregor will hope to climb atop the pack and earn his chance to fight Aldo, to win his legacy as a pioneer of Irish MMA.

sport

15

UCD Ladies endure narrow loss to St. Mary’s

UCD 5 St Mary’s 7 UCD ladies home

1 Olivia Fogarty 2 Emma McLoughlin 3 Julie Gillis 4 Ashleigh Bugler 5 Sabine Neumaer 6 Leanne McNamara 7 Helena Hayes 8 Marie-Louise Ryan 9 Alice O’Callaghan 10 Aisling Byrne 11 Aisling Feeley 12 Mary-Kate Moloney

UCD Ladies Rugby suffered a narrow loss to St. Mary’s in their third competitive match of the season in Group A of Leinster Division 4 last Wednesday evening, November 6th. Despite succumbing to a home defeat, the scoreline does not reflect the commitment put into the game by UCD. There was a shared sense of the enthusiasm of among both sides at full time. Despite St. Mary’s taking the spoils, UCD’s disappointment was tinted with a sense of optimism for upcoming games.

Look back on this fixture, UCD will view it as a missed opportunity that they could, and should, have won comfortably. The home side played against the wind during

the first half, and controlled their opponents, dominating the territory while playing most of their rugby within the St. Mary’s half.

UCD’s rucking throughout the game was excellent and provided a continuous platform of possession from open play. However, they were unable to convert this territorial dominance into points on the scoreboard as the UCD ball carriers’ persistent lateral runs made work easy for the St. Mary’s defence.

Furthermore, UCD squandered a host of penalties awarded to them in favourable positions by taking the quick tap option, only to lose possession through knock ons and infringements at the breakdown soon after.

These missed opportunities to get on the scoreboard eventually cost UCD when the final whistle blew. St. Mary’s stuck to their simple gameplan of containing UCD and their dedication in defence was demonstrated by their high tackle count.

On the 30 minute mark, UCD lost control of the tie when St. Mary’s got their only score of the game. A speculative punt was gathered by the St. Mary’s full back, Erin Brown, in her own half. Brown ran a wide arc and then cut back past despairing defenders to score under the posts.

Even at this early stage in the game, this try proved to be the match winner, with the easy conversion ensuring St. Mary’s left UCD’s

half with maximum points.

The second half followed the same pattern as the first, with UCD dominating possession and territory, but failing to make this influence count. However, St. Mary’s must be commended for their defensive efforts, which were a match for everything UCD threw at them.

With five minutes remaining in the game, UCD’s standout performer, No. 8 Marie-Louise Ryan, was rewarded for her tireless efforts with a try near the corner flag. The difficult angle meant a failed conversion, which left them still two points adrift.

UCD maintained the pressure on St. Mary’s for the rest of the contest, pushing as hard as they could for a winning score. St. Mary’s were

awarded a scrum on their own line as the last play of the game, but the away side contrived to lose control of the ball and nearly granted UCD a final chance to touch down over the tryline and secure a late victory.

Unfortunately for the hosts, St. Mary’s scrambled and managed to clear their lines and hold on to earn their hard-fought, narrow victory. UCD can take positives from the defeat with the rucking of some of the forwards representing notable progress. Olivia Fogarty, Julie Gillis, Leanne McNamara and Marie-Louise Ryan were very effective at the breakdown and crucial to feeding the backline to set up attacking situations.

Equally, Aisling Feeley, Mary-Kate

13 Rachel Gilheney 14 Ailbhe Touhy 15 Charlene Lagarrigue Replacements

16 Niamh Keogh 17 Mags O’Brien 18 Kaytelynne Radde 19 Jess Bertrand 20 Amy Anderson 21 Elaine Murphy 22 Rachel Dooley

Moloney and Charlene Lagarrigue performed well to find the space to open up the St. Mary’s defence, even though the midfield was very crowded.

This defeat at the hands of St. Mary’s was UCD’s second in three games this season. UCD lost their opening fixture to Old Belvedere at the start of October, but bounced back to secure an emphatic victory over Railway Union in their second game of the season.

UCD Ladies Rugby play their next league match against Belvedere in Belfield on Wednesday (20th November) at 7.30pm killian woods

The Badger Our furry and very opinionated friend The Badger talks Saipan, Toure chants and bogey-free rounds in this week’s column

The Badger would like to start out by saying that he is delighted the FAI have decided to appoint Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane as the new Irish managerial dreamteam. It should be quite entertaining and the Badger thinks people will now actually decide to go to the friendly against Latvia on Friday.

The Badger knows the Irish team train at their Malahide base, but surely Keano will treat them with a visit to the incredible facilities over in Saipan. I mean, he loved it there so much the last time, right? Sources of the Badger’s confirm that Keano loves tripping over to Costa del Saipan for regular excursions and even used to drag his beloved Triggs along.

As much as the Badger would like to chat about #MONKEANO, even at this early stage of their appointment, it seems like overkill.

So instead, the Badger would like to draw your attention to the plight of Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez.

The Little Pea is green with envy that he is not getting enough game for the buck he takes. Somehow he is “exhausted at the lack of game time”. Something about that quote leads the Badger to believe that somewhere along the line Hernandez’s words got lost in translation. Then again, maybe it is

Sports Digest

UCD. Despite the scoreline showing disparity between the two sides, UCD played well with a host of new players making their debut for the club.

The women’s side drew with last Naas scored again to draw the match All-round year’s varsity winners DIT, 11-11. with 15 minutes left in normal time, success for UCD but Billy Dore scored a goal from the Goals from the experienced Katie men’s hockey Ryan and Eimear Walsh, as well edge of the D, assisted by left back James Purcell, to make it 3-2 to UCD. as newcomers Rian Morgan and UCD Hockey enjoyed success last Catalina Parga, kept UCD women’s week with the first team taking a 3-2 Waterpolo Club in touch with a strong DIT outfit. win in the Irish Senior Cup in BelfMeanwhile, UCD swimmer take on DIT and ield against Instonians thanks to a Brian O’Sullivan broke his own goal in the last few minutes from Ross Brian O’Sullivan Irish Junior Record in the 50m Canning. The next round is to be Backstroke twice this weekend at breaks swimplayed on the 30th November against ming record the Leinster Winter Championthe Ulster side Lisnagarvey.This vicships. O’Sullivan achieved a time of tory was followed up with a win in the 25.19 in the heats, before improvintervarsities, as UCD beat DIT 3-2. UCD men’s and women’s teams from ing upon his own record again in the Waterpolo Club lined out on UCD thirds also found success for the finals with a time of 25.08. the 4th of November to face DIT. the first time this season when they Upcoming events include the The men’s side succumbed to an travelled to Naas to play Naas secNational Short Course Championonds and won the match 3-2. With the unfortunate loss 11-4, with Dean ships, which are being held in Smal, Cormac Reddin, Conn Walsh game 1-1 at half time, Alan Jephson Belfast from the 21st of November and Darragh Waters all getting scored to make it 2-1 to UCD in the to the 1st of December, with a their names on the scoresheet for first 10 minutes of the second half. strong UCD team set to attend.

tiring sitting on the bench these days.

As a tribute to Hernandez’s woe, the Badger has been singing his kids to sleep with a melody dedicated to the Mexican’t. “There once was a little little pea, he sat on the bench with no glee. He was a big grump, his talent was trumped, by a player called Robin van Persea.”

Okay, maybe it’s more limerick than melody, but as a dedicated father, the Badger gives the kids what they want. And they want limericks.

The Badger is usually tasked with putting the cubs to sleep.

But he is fed up of the normal methods, like reading nursery rhymes, concocting his own far-fetched stories, and writing limericks on the spot.

Yours truly has instead reverted to the renowned Toure chant. The repetitive echoes of Kolo and Yaya’s names are an excellent method of putting the kids into a deep hibernation so the Badger can have some alone time with his other half, Netflix.

Speaking of Netflix, the Badger heard an untruthful rumour that they will be getting delayed rights to all Champions League games following a deal with BT Sport.

Netflix executives were delighted with their bargain deal, which only cost the entertainment provider

€785m. The Badger likes that kind proficiency. That’s why he likes the Germans so much.

Their efficiency is ruthless.

Apart from a slight blip against Arsenal, Dortmund look like they could go very far again this year in the competition.

Meanwhile, Bayern appear to have already won the trophy.

To end the column this week, the Badger needs to regale you all with his latest pet passion. And that’s the tournament which decided to use as many constanants as possible, the WGC-HSBC Championships.

Golf is like Grand Designs for badgers. We all look at those beautifully crafted greens immediately get a rush of blood to the head thinking about how we could demolish that lovely course and make it into a lovely sett.

Speaking of setts, with winter in full swing, the Badger would like to put out a come and get me plea to all his fans. The burrow just doesn’t seem to be doing the trick at the moment so anyone willing to give him a possible spare room for these cold months would be much appreciated.

Don’t all rush at once.

Badger Out.

uCD Boxing club to take on Trinity UCD’s boxers are set to go head to head with their Trinity counterparts this Wednesday, November 13th, in an exhibition event. The event will showcase beginners and also some experienced boxers from both clubs.

Other clubs that have been invited for the bout that will take place in the Astra Hall include Golden Cobra, Palmerston and St Mary’s boxing clubs.

The event starts at 7:30pm and is expected to draw significant interest due to the spike in interest boxing has enjoyed after the success of Irish boxers at international competitions in recent years. General tickets for the event are €5, with club members tickets €2.

Last year, UCD Boxing Club won the senior intervarsities and the defeated Trinity to win the Colours Cup. Roisin Culligan november 12th 2013

16

sport UCD U20s maintain winning record UCD 37 Old Belvedere 22 UCD RFC home

15 Billy Dardis 14 Jonny McDonnell 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Jack Hitchcock 11 Robert Keenan 10 Ross Byrne 9 Conor Mcquaid 1 Ivan Soroka 2 Sean McNulty 3 James Harrison 4 Oisin Tegeler 5 Gavin Thornbury

6 Josh Murphy 7 David Fortune 8 Peadar Timmins Replacements

16 Dermot Dolan 17 Liam Walsh 18 Stuart O’Sullivan 19 Andy Brennan 20 Colm O’Corcora 21 Andy Boland 22 Chris Deignan

photo conor o’toole

Last Sunday afternoon saw UCD U20-As host fellow Pool 1 leaders, Old Belvedere, at the Belfield Bowl in the JP Fanagan Premier – Super Six (Phase 1). Like their opponents, UCD came into the game off the back of four victories, with Old Belvedere representing the young side’s most significant test of the Super Six thus far.

UCD will have welcomed the challenge that Old Belvedere presented following a series of games where the gulf in class between the opposition and themselves was embarrassingly apparent.

The hosts began the game very eager at the breakdown and within a minute of the kick off, the Collidge forwards were committing significant numbers to the ruck and forced Old Belvedere to infringe to grant UCD their first kick at goal.

Kicker Garry Ringrose was in excellent form throughout the afternoon and effortlessly kicked over the first points of the game to break the deadlock in UCD’s favour.

Despite succumbing to UCD’s power at the breakdown so early and struggling to compete with the strength of UCD’s flankers Josh Murphy and David Fortune, Old Belvedere hit back instantly to take the lead.

Good ball off the lineout saw the visiting scrumhalf supply his backs with quick ball. A neat pop to the right winger opened up the UCD defence and allowed him to run in under the posts.

Old Belvedere were buoyed by their instant response and appeared to be the first team this year that could have the measure of UCD in terms of a backline that could carve open their defence. However, a lapse in concentration by the Old Belvedere defence allowed UCD’s winger Robert Keenan to dart through.

Keenan accelerated away from the Old Belvedere defenders with captain Peadar Timmins in support off his left shoulder. Keenan’s offload to Timmins allowed the captain to surge forward before a further interchange of play saw the ball quickly spread to Gavin Thornbury.

The UCD second row was dragged to ground inside the Old Belvedere 22 with the away side struggling to get back to defend. As support arrived, UCD flyhalf, Ross Byrne, called for quick ball to allow for a cross-field kick to full back Bill Dardis who was unmarked on the left wing.

Byrne’s kick was perfectly weighted and Dardis easily gathered the ball to run in the try under the posts.

With UCD now possessing a

three-point lead, Old Belvedere won a penalty on the 45-metre line due to a UCD defender failing to release the tackled player, and they didn’t waste their opportunity to level the scores.

The away side were in the ascendency for large periods of the first half and were bossing UCD at the scrum. However, UCD always looked dangerous and likely to make a break at any stage Ringrose or Jack Hitchcock had the ball.

UCD began to growing into the game just before the 20 minute mark, with Ringrose now gaining ground each time he received the ball in open play and Timmins beginning to combine well with Byrne in midfield.

Ringrose managed to put Collidge back in the lead again from the boot, marking a turning point in the first half where UCD began to take control.

With the score at 13-10 in UCD’s favour, Byrne gathered a ball that had been kicked loose from the

base of a ruck. The flyhalf fed Hitchcock on halfway and the centre surged forward to take the ball back into Old Belvedere territory.

From the next phase, Byrne took the ball to the line and found Timmins on his inside shoulder to allow the number eight to power through the Old Belvedere defence untouched and under the posts.

For the rest of the first half, Old Belvedere continued to be somewhat dominant in the scrum, but any advances by the away side into UCD’s half were contained and failed to cause UCD any worries of notice.

Old Belvedere’s play was very messy and rushed at times. This characteristic of their play cost the visitors a chance at a try just before half time, as miscommunication at the breakdown allowed James Harrison to gather the loose ball and UCD went into the break ahead 20-10.

UCD started the second half

strongly. A clever decision by Hitchcock to go down the short side allowed him to unleash the ball to Dardis in support for the full back to score his second try of the game.

Old Belvedere’s play was still messy in the second half, but they eventually made their pressure count for something as a diagonal run by their flyhalf opened up UCD, allowing an Old Belvedere winger to score in the corner to bring the scores back to 27-17.

Again, Old Belvedere appeared too busy celebrating their try that brought them close to touching distance with UCD and conceded a penalty immediately from the kick off, allowing Ringrose to make it 30-17.

Byrne and Timmins were still causing havoc for Old Belvedere in the second half as the pair were combining very well to open holes in the visitor’s defence.

Midway through the second

half, Old Belvedere lost a scrum against the head gifting UCD a quick tap 10 metres away from the tryline. From the ruck Timmins again took on the ball and knocked over the would-be tackler to run in with ease under the posts.

Just as UCD looked to have closed out the game, Old Belvedere struck back with a try thanks to a lapse in UCD’s concentration. Their late score made it 37-22 and for the last few minutes, the students were forced to hold off a late surge from Old Belvedere to see out the game.

An Old Belvedere grubber kick through left Dardis back-tracking to chase down the loose ball. The winger eventually gathered the ball on the UCD try line, but visitors couldn’t recycle possession and Timmins pilfered the ball and kicked to touch to bring an end to the game.

KILLIAN WOODS

O’Donoghue leading UCD to success Irish international and UCD hockey player, Shane O’Donoghue, speaks to Jack McCann about the new arrivals in the UCD team, mimicking the success of the women’s side and his targets for the year

I have small targets. If you’re solely looking for goals, goals don’t tend to come

competition that O’Donoghue feels will be beneficial in the long run and was “definitely needed for us to push on and succeed.”

When UCD secured Irish Hockey League (IHL) status by defeating Monkstown 2-0 in a midweek game, O’Donoghue was with the Irish Senior squad in New Delhi for the World League round two. He was, however, told the result the morning afterwards and was delighted with the result. “[I was] over the moon because there was a lot of time, effort and money pumped into UCD. “It was a great feeling for guys who had been there for two or three years to get some sort of outcome for all the effort that they’ve put in.”

O’Donoghue finished as the top scorer in both the league and the IHL while at Glenanne during the 2010/11 season. When asked if he sets himself targets for getting a certain number of goals each season, O’Donoghue modestly replied, “I have small targets. If you’re solely looking for goals, goals don’t tend to come.”

In terms of the teams’ ambitions for the season, O’Donoghue says, “To win the IHL and the ISC or to go as far in them as we can… and Shane in action for Ireland u18s v Scotland in a 2010 international do well in the league.” These are very realistic aims considering the Shane O’Donoghue, one of Leinster U21s to inter-provincial season, with O’Donoghue a prominent win at the weekend against Instonians level of quality already in the squad the senior members of the UCD success in 2012 and the Irish member of the squad. After the first in the Irish Senior Cup (ISC)”. before this season, coupled with the men’s first team started off his U-21s to Celtic Cup and European seven league games, they sit fourth O’Donoghue also talked about additions of Shimmins and Brown. hockey career at Glenanne, from success in the same year. in the table on 12 points, matching the influx of new players like Kirk UCD recently beat Instonians where he has continued on a steady Adding to these achievements their points total after the same Shimmins and Peter Brown, who are 3-2 in the first round of the ISC. upward trajectory ever since. at this tender age, O’Donoghue amount of games last season. two of his fellow Irish internationals.

Their reward is a second round O’Donoghue has represented has also amassed 34 caps for the Speaking about team’s start to the “[Their arrival] created a great buzz match up with another Ulster giant, Ireland at U-18, U-21 and senior men’s senior side. Success follows season, O’Donoghue was fair in his and atmosphere amongst the guys Lisnagarvey, and the team will “look level, winning the Europeans and O’Donoghue around and doesn’t look analysis. “Obviously it’s not the best who’ve been here a couple of years”. to do a bit more background research” the Celtic Cup with the U18s in like it is running out any time soon. start to the season with three wins This undoubtedly creates greater since they represent a team UCD 2008. The 21-year-old has also The UCD men’s team have enjoyed and three losses, but we’re getting into competition for a spot in the 16wouldn’t normally come up against. had the honour of captaining the a reasonably impressive start to the a good bit of form now with a good man squad named for each game, The UCD ladies’ first team won november 12th 2013

the league impressively last season and have started this season in the same vein, winning their first five games of the season and they appear to be scoring for fun. Shane admitted that the men’s squad do “try mimic what they have achieved over the last couple of years.”

Both teams won the first piece of silverware on offer over the October bank holiday, which was the Zoti Hockey Intervarsities held in Three Rock Rovers Hockey Club. The men beat a DIT invitational team, containing several Monkstown players, 3-2 after coming from two goals down and the ladies beat University of Ulster 3-1, avenging a group stage defeat earlier in the tournament.

O’Donoghue feels the victories for both sides demonstrates the progress the club is continually making. “There’s obviously a bit of competition… and obviously it was great with both teams winning the Intervarsities.”

When prompted about balancing life as a full-time student and a Senior International Hockey player simultaneously, O’Donoghue said, “It’s not the easiest thing in the world to balance.” Entering his final year of a postgraduate degree here in UCD, he hopes to “stay as committed to the Irish team,” but also make sure his “studies are on track and I go for the best degree that I can get.”

His focus on the international setting for the next few months may be curtailed due to his final year commitments, but he is still going to “make sure that I do everything I can to get UCD a win” and ensure they have the “best chance to win the IHL and the ISC.”