Layout 1

The College View DCU’s Independent Student Newspaper

ARTS

INSIDE...

Vol.8 No.1

NEWS

Simple Kid interview

Parking Uproar Pg.2

UCD poach lecturers THE PRESIDENTS of the country’s seven universities endorsed a new agreement last month to bring UCD’s summer of staff ‘poaching’ to an end. Dr Hugh Brady, UCD’s President, finally agreed to back the

Rowdy students threaten bar licence

The release of 500 balloons marked World Mental Health Day

THE FUTURE of the Old Bar hangs in the balance due to complaints from residents around the Collins Avenue and Shanowen areas about levels of noise pollution late at night. The residents association are rejecting the student bar licence on no less than four counts.

Talking to SU president, Charlene Connolly, who attended a meeting recently with the residents association, it is clear they are far from happy. "They have likened the noise in Shanowen to that of a 'jungle'.

Residents have complained about

October 2006

Pg.9

Eoin O’Neill

Janet Newenham

SPORTS

www.thecollegeview.com

finding students collapsed in their gardens, students stealing garden ornaments and their gardens being used as urinals".

They complained of parties starting in the early evening and continuing late into the night and a further increase in noise levels after 2am when students are returning from nightclubs or Hub bar extensions.

The bar licence was up for renewal on September 29. However, the SU exec have postponed that until early November to give them a chance to meet residents halfway and try to sort out problems without involving the law.

If the court case goes ahead and the residents win their case, DCU is set to have their licence taken away for a period of six weeks which would be disastrous for both clubs and societies and all students in general.

Various measures have been taken to try to keep noise levels down at night around the Shanowen/ Collins Avenue areas over the last few weeks. The university has introduced a Disciplinary Code to deal with serious claims of vandalism which could taint the reputation of the university and result in students being expelled from DCU. Signs have been erected around The Hub asking students to keep noise levels to a minimum and SU members have distributed leaflets around Shanowen asking students to return to their apartments quietly after nights out.

The return of €3 Tuesdays last week was a momentous day for many students. Talking to 2nd year student John McMaw it’s clear they are a strong part of many student’s social lives. “If it weren't for €3 Tuesdays last year I wouldn’t know half the people I know today.”

Some students like Sinead Moriarty see them as vital, “I live for €3 euro Tuesdays!” However, if noise levels continue to rise and complaints continue to be made the SU have been assured that €3 Tuesdays will be abruptly stopped.

Another ongoing dispute concerning the student bar is over membership. At present, the Nu Bar is open all day until 8pm, with the main function of serving food. The Old Bar doesn’t open until 5pm.

This year, to gain access to both bars one must have paid for bar membership which is unavailable to

accord after his refusal to sign the initial draft caused concern amongst other universities, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education, Ms Mary Hanafin.

The new protocol, which calls for open and transparent recruitment, became a necessity among the coun-

people under 18. This is seen as unfair to those who are underage and just want to buy food at lunchtime. The SU are promising to make every effort to get the bouncer removed allowing under 18’s to access the Nu Bar during the day.

Regarding bar membership fees, the Registry have confirmed that the price of bar membership will increase to €27 on Monday October 23 and encourage people to pay up now. Students who turn 18 after this date and students currently on Intra will be accommodated for and

Britton makes Irish seniors Pg.23 try’s universities as many of them lost their top researchers to UCD during the summer.

DCU was one of the first universities to be approached by UCD recruiters over 12 months ago, when a group of five researchers were offered better facilities and larger research groups by the country’s largest university. None of the researchers transferred to the Belfield campus and Professor Maria Slowey, Vice-President for Learning Innovation at DCU, said that the university still has a good working relationship with UCD. No other attempts have been made since to ‘poach’ DCU staff.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 allowed to pay the basic €12. Any students who have paid the €27 already will be refunded the €15 immediately.

The reason for all this hassle is that the student bar is under a Club licence and all students wishing to avail of its services must pay for membership. It is now no longer possible to sign friends who are current students, but not bar members, into the bar anymore. Students must become members themselves to gain entry.

DCU Freshers Ball; Photo taken by Sarah Cramer

2

DCU

SU President’s uproar over parking

The College View October 2006

NEWS

Celina Murphy

UNION STUDENTS’ president Ms Charlene Connolly has expressed dissatisfaction with new parking regulations introduced to on-campus car parks.

Rises in multi-storey fees, a reduction in the amount of free spaces and a new annual parking policy have all added to parking problems within the college.

In an open letter published in CAMPUS magazine, Ms Connolly said “Parking has developed into a huge issue within the last year as there

are not enough parking spaces in the campus to cater for the student and staff population”.

Parking for students and staff is free in car park 2, beside the Henry Grattan Building, and also in car park 3, in front of the Invent Centre.

The car park beside the Larkfield apartments, which was free of charge last year, is now only available to campus residents at a cost of €85 per year.

Parking capacity has also been strained recently due to the closure of the under-

ground car park to the rear of Campus Residences. The car park is currently undergoing maintenance to modify the fire alarm system and is expected to be available for use within four weeks.

Multi-pass tickets for the multi-storey car park are now available for double last year’s price at a cost of €7.00. The ticket allows six entries and exits into car park 1, saving students from regular fees which stand at approximately €1.10 per hour.

Michael Kelly, director of the Estates Office told The

Out with the old and in with the new?

Michelle Crawley THIS YEAR DCU moved to an online registration system requiring most students to register through their portal page. The online registration ran over a two week period from Thursday, August 30 to Thursday, September 14. Instructions were given to help students navigate their way through the various steps of the online registration process.

The page offered details about registering, changing module choices, the payment of fees and the collection of student ID cards.

The online registration system is designed to be as simple and straightforward as possible. The CSD stated: “If a student possesses the ability to log onto their own

portal page, they will be more than able to complete registration.”

DCU hoped that the online registration process would save students and staff time. The university also anticipated that students would prefer possessing the ability to register from different locations.

Kevin Griffin, Director of Registry at DCU, says it frees up time for students at the end of their summer. “It is convenient for students who can avoid the queues that up until now have been part of the registration process.”

Unfortunately, there were a few minor hiccups which overshadowed the university’s advance into online registration. DCU did not account for students who had no internet access from their homes. The online registration was also only acces-

sible to broadband users, the Windows 2000 operating system or Internet Explorer Version 6. This oversight by DCU caused problems for many students with older systems. An incalculable amount of students experienced difficulty with the registration process, proving the CSD wrong on their previous quote.

Large numbers of students experienced the shock of finding themselves billed three times the payment fees amount. Due to technical problems, many students could not register their module choices at all. “The module was not even listed. I waited days for it to appear on screen”, complained a business student. Many students were registered for either too little or too many academic subjects.

One student exclaimed: “I am registered for CS1 modules that I passed last year. I am CS2 and very annoyed by this. I can’t even access my CS2 timetable.”

Another student was registered for both CS1 and CS2: “I have two timetables on my portal page and it is all very perplexing.”

The teething problems of online registration caused both the registry and CSD a large amount of work that could have been avoided.

Furthermore, first years, transfer students and exchange students still had to register the old fashioned way.

Photo taken by Sarah Cramer

College View, “It is true to say that there were some days last year, when the Helix had daytime performances, when it was impossible to find a parking space on campus.

Ms. Connolly has also expressed concern about the policy that only students that were members of the car park last year can avail of annually paid parking this year. “Students who were unlucky enough to not have a space last year or those

who were on INTRA or Erasmus were not considered at all when it came to allocating spaces.”

Mr. Kelly has denied this, confirming that staff and students who were away from DCU on University business are indeed eligible for readmission to annually paid parking.

The SU president is also calling for special reduced rates for students. “Probably the most annoying fact is that staff and students are

charged the same rate for parking spaces even though staff are obviously earning and students are not.”

Students and staff are also subject to the same parking sanctions and pay the same fines for illegal parking (€80 for a first offence, €190 for a second).

Ms. Connolly plans to tackle these problems by starting a student petition to pass on to university management

then, most major soft-drink producers have made some attempt to gain a foothold in this niche market and the basic ingredients have remained the same.

While their original purpose remains the main selling point, sports drinks are increasingly being bought for other reasons. One that will no doubt be familiar to many students is the use of drinks like 'Lucozade Sport' as a hangover cure – based on the same principals of rehydration that are intended to assist athletes However, the unique ingredients in the drinks mean that they are high in sugar and, as a result, high in calories. Chris Woolston of

vhihealth.com advises that consuming sports-drinks when you are not burning calories could impact on your health and certainly undermine any attempted dieting.

Conventional wisdom would seem to agree that the most important thing is to keep yourself properly hydrated at all times. Now, with scientific evidence suggesting that the benefits of a specific type of “sports drink” have been significantly exaggerated, it remains to be seen whether the popularity of such drinks will be influenced by the findings.

New study questions energy drinks Ruth Ní Eidhin

A NEW study by the DCU Department of Health & Human Performance seeks to disprove the claims of sports-drink manufacturers that their products can enhance and improve an athlete's performance.

The study, conducted by head of the department Professor Niall Moyna, reproduced the tests originally undertaken by 'Lucozade' in 1995. Nine male athletes were tested by giving them either a carbohydrate-electrolyte (e.g.

'Lucozade Sport') or a noncarbohydrate placebo. Each athlete was tested twice, with blood samples taken before, during and after the trials.

The original results – which GlaxoSmithKline, makers of Lucozade, maintain as accurate – form the basis of advertising claims that Lucozade Sport can enhance sporting performance by up to 33pc.

However, the results of the latest DCU study seem to fly in the face of these findings, concluding that in most cases there were little or no benefits to be gained from sports-drinks.

Sports drinks have been on the market since 1966 when 'Gatorade' was launched in the United States by Pepsi. Designed to aid the rapid rehydration of athletes, the original beverage was made of water, glucose-fructose sugar, syrups, citric acid, salt and flavouring/colouring. Since

Photo taken by Elaine Burke

DCU

The College View October 2006

DCU lecturer awarded €10,000

Alan Deeley THE EQUALITY Tribunal has awarded €10,000 to a DCU lecturer over the summer, raising further concerns of sexual discrimination on campus.

Dr Jane Horgan, a senior lecturer in Statistics, brought the case to court over an apparent inappropriateness in the appointment of asso-

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 university still has a good working relationship with UCD. No other attempts have been made since to ‘poach’ DCU staff.

Other universities were not so lucky. In June, Professor Michael Gibney, the State’s foremost nutritionist, transferred to UCD from Trinity, along with his research team of 19 people. In a letter to the national newspapers, Gibney declared that he had gone through the legitimate procedures for a transfer and rejected suggestions that he had been ‘poached’ by UCD. Attempts at poaching also occurred at NUI Maynooth, NUI Galway and UCC during the summer. All were for scientific research groups who were receiving special funding for investigations in their various fields.

The Government has committed €300m to a new strategic innovation fund for higher education and a further €3.8b to a new science, technology and innovation initiative.

Therefore competition between the universities for the country’s best scientific minds was at its highest during the summer break.

In UCD, current staff are questioning whether or not the university’s new recruits received monetary inducements to leave their old positions. They feared that if they were, this would inevitably have an effect on the funding for their own research.

Tom Boland of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) says that he is confident that no financial incentives have ever been offered to university personnel, adding that it would be of great concern to the authority if they discovered otherwise.

However, the newly formed

ciate professors at DCU in 2002.

Four male candidates running for the post were successful – but Horgan, who had worldwide lecturing experience, was turned down.

She told the tribunal that she believed she was better qualified for the position than each of the male candidates. Yet upon consulting the President, she was told agreement, which has gone to the HEA for approval, will not only have the effect of putting a stop to ‘poaching’ but will also encourage collaborations between universities.

DCU President, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, maintains that universities must be active in recruiting researchers from abroad and facilitating the work of researchers between universities through collaborative partnerships.

“It is therefore perfectly in order for them to apply for jobs in other universities at any time,” he continues, “Nothing must be done to restrict that. Allowing that it is not poaching.”

Professor Slowey explains “Mobility of staff is part of the life blood of universities”. Despite the current climate of migratory researchers, she insists that there is “No fear of colleagues joining and moving on from DCU.” Minister Hanafin says that collaboration between universities is a vital part of the State’s effort to develop world-class teaching and research facilities within the Irish higher education system. “The relatively small size of individual Irish higher education institutions in international terms means that a collaborative approach is imperative if we are to achieve the full potential of the Government’s investment in higher education,” she concludes.

The UCD Conway Institute houses their new bio-molecular and biomedical research units, the Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology and the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre, the university’s flagships for research and development. With these departments now staffed by Ireland’s best, UCD plans to make a bid for the top 30 universities in the world list.

that “her research output should ideally have been higher”. Dr Horgan had been published in ten journals at the time, compared to one successful candidate’s six.

DCU put up a vigorous defence, claiming the appointment process judged lecturers’ national and international academic record, rather than their performance against one another. The universi-

ty maintained this position until May 23, when the Equality Tribunal – which makes no compromise in its “legally binding decision” – ruled against it.

Full necessary back pay and other benefits are to be paid to her, along with €10,000 compensation for the distress the discrimination had caused her.

Further to Dr Horgan’s compensation, Mr Jackson said the Tribunal required DCU to decide upon and make vital “a minimum requirement in respect of the gender composition of Interview Panels”.

This obvious element of hiring procedure was not present despite the fact the DCU Equality Review and Action Plan had been in process since April 12, 2005.

There is nothing new in the mixed feelings towards the Equality Review. Its initial stages had involved a survey of staff members about working in DCU, which controversially revealed that 26pc of respondents felt they had been bullied in the workplace.

18pc said they had been harassed, 4.5pc of which believed they had been sexually harassed in the past three years.

However, only a third of the staff responded to the survey making the results less conclusive.

At the time, NewsTalk 106 interviewed SIPTU branch secretary for third level education, Chris Roland, for his views on the

NEWS

disturbing survey evidence. “We should look at this in a positive light insofar as that, because the Union is in DCU, people are prepared to step forward and say ‘Yes, I have been subject to bullying and harassment and I want something done about it.’”

DCU President, Ferdinand Von Prondzynski, also appeared to take a positive view of the survey despite the lack of response. “It was a good thing to do to find out to what extent we had issues that needed to be addressed.”

In Dr Horgan’s case, these issues still required an address to combat discrimination on the basis of gender in DCU. The Equality Officer recommended that the Director of Personnel “sit in on, and indeed play a full and active part in, selection of candidates at interviews”.

Further to issues of employment, in comments made to the College View in April 2005, President Von Prondzynski promised a similar survey and equality review regarding students in DCU. Student Union President Charlene Connolly now reveals that in her meetings with President Von Prondzynski she has “never heard anything about that. We would definitely push for something like this to happen. If the University were willing to put time and effort into it, the Students’ Union would be fully supportive of it.”

New soccer pitches for college campus Sean Callery

SOCCER ADDICTS in DCU now have another place to get their fix as the college’s new AstroTurf pitches opened recently. The new complex comprises eight state of the art all-weather soccer pitches, which ensure a quality playing surface, rain or shine.

The pitches are located on campus, between the library and campus residences, and come complete with protective fences and floodlights. Construction of the facility began towards the end of term last year and was completed only weeks ago. The pitches are already in high demand with students and outside groups alike flocking to take advantage of the new complex.

The total cost of constructing the complex was approximately €1.5m and was financed through internal private funding.

However, the pitches will pay for themselves over time if bookings for the pitches continue like they have so far.

The pitches are based on a third generation rubber crumb surface.

This means that a layer of small rubber crumbs is spread across the artificial grass. These rubber particles soak up moisture to ensure that the pitches remain dry when it rains. The revolutionary

3

new surface has also been adopted by a number of high profile soccer clubs such as Scottish Premier League side Dunfermline and Eircom League first division high flyers Dundalk FC. Chief executive of DCU sport, Ken Robinson is delighted with the new pitches. “They’re a great facility for students and provide a much better surface than most grass pitches… This new addition will supplement the existing sports facilities at St. Claire’s and the sports centre on campus and will make DCU a real haven for those interested in sport.”

Mr. Robinson was also keen to

Photo taken by Yvette Poufong

highlight the great value the pitches offer DCU students and staff. “The pitches can be booked by students and staff at a discounted rate of €30 per hour during peak times and €20 per hour at off peak times.” Off peak times are before 5pm on weekdays and weekends and bookings can be made at the sports centre reception.

The pitches have also been booked by a number of local soccer clubs such as Bohemians, St. Kevin’s Boys and Tolka Rovers as part of DCU’s community initiative. The new pitches will also be the venue for the much antici-

4

DCU

NEWS

Style Soc ‘cut’ by charity money rumours

The College View October 2006

Nursing students fear for grades

Dave McGovern DCU STYLE SOCIETY has faced allegations this semester of keeping charity money raised by The DCU Fashion Show 2006. It has been claimed that the organisers have kept €10,000 and only donated a small sum to Crumlin’s Children Hospital.

The new organising committee came under fire when rumours circulated concerning the current whereabouts of the charity donations.

It was argued that the society is not only keeping the profits from the show but that it has not donated any money to the charity.

The producer of next year’s show, Ms Hazel Hayes, admitted the money has yet to be presented to Crumlin’s Children Hospital, but explained that the reason for the delay is due to time constraints.

“Between preparing portfolios for the DCU Clubs and Societies Awards and the BICS, electing a new committee, and the final year students having to complete their theses, we couldn’t find the time”.

Michael Robinson, producer of The DCU Fashion Show 2006, added that the €10,000 rumoured to have been raised was a “phantom figure”. “The €5,000 collected was a dream figure right from the start, neither the hospital nor us expected the show to be so successful”.

Concerning the issue of the actual amount the charity will receive, Michael Robinson explained that although the sell-out show did make a lot of money through ticket sales and sponsorship “shows like that also cost a lot of money…right down to paying for false eyelashes”.

The Style Society committee state that the money raised needs to be presented publically with “fanfare”. Hayes says, “It is a huge amount to be raised by a society. There’s no point three of us driving down to Crumlin with a giro, we wanted to make it a proper event and celebrate all our work.”

“No other society in DCU has raised this much for charity; a celebratory party would provide publicity for both us and Crumlin, and gets people excited about next year’s show.”

Robinson described the rumour that money is being kept by the organisers as “absolutely ridiculous” and says it “puts a dampner on all the hard work done for the show.

“People have to realize the society is made up of people, not numbers and figures.”

One student source claims the student body had been misled by the advertising campaign into believing that all proceeds would go to charity. Hazel Hayes commented, “Right from the start Crumlin knew all the money raised couldn’t go to them. We were always clear about this, especially in the promotion. It was ‘in aid of Crumlin’, but some money had to be left over to fund next year’s show, which will also be in aid of charity”.

Photo taken by Sinéad Keane

Michelle Crawley THIS YEAR, the standards for Nurse Education (An Bord Altranais) has introduced a policy on attendance. The standard operating procedure requires that every student within the school attend a minimum of 80pc of lectures, tutorials, seminars and other elements per module.

This attendance will be recorded and monitored using a barcode reader to scan student ID cards. This standard operating procedure is designed to monitor and ultimately increase attendance levels. The procedure of making attendance manditory is backed up in each case by a programme specific

policy.

Students have to swipe their student ID card upon entry to a room. As a result, students must possess their ID cards at all times. Any student that forgets or misplaces their student card, must collect a sheet at the nursing reception. They must complete the form and obtain the lecturer’s signature at the end of the class, as confirmation of the individuals attendance.

Nursing students are able to view their attendance history via reports available on their portal page.

Students who fail to attend 80pc or more of their module classes will not be permitted to sit examinations or submit the assessment for the module.

Students will automatically for-

feit their first attempt at the module and will be expected to complete supplementary work, given by the module co-ordinator, prior to the examination.

Students who fail to attend 50pc of module classes will automatically have to repeat the year, thus bearing a huge cost to the student on their financial provider.

DCU sees this new policy as a way of utilising the benefits of technology to improve student education. The more lectures attended, the more knowledge acquired.

However, few students celebrate DCU’s achievement of progressing with technology.

One student grumbled: “I am simply put out!” Another student made comparisons to

“It’s a useful tool to identify work that hasn’t been written by the student,” says Communications lecturer Dr. Des McGuinness. “I use it to run a check on work I already suspected to be plagiarised.”

When students submit their essay through Turnitin.com, their work is compared to billions of other documents from Internet sources, student papers and commercial databases using a proprietary algorithm.

A customised Originality Report then shows whether the work is that of the student or has been copied from another source.

According to the Turnitin.com website, a study of the use of Turnitin at a large California Public University showed an almost 40pc reduction in student plagiarism after just one year in service. But has its introduction been equally as successful in DCU? “I was quite daunted by Turnitin.com at first, but I found it pleasantly user friendly” says third year journalism student Sebastian O’Driscoll.

Turnitin.com is surprisingly easy to use and requires about as much computer know-how as it takes to send an email.

Resistance to the program is

coming rather, not from claims of computer illiteracy or technophobia, but from those students who simply do not like surrendering their hard work to what is essentially an impersonal and, it must be said, not infallible program.

“It’s a helpful device in catching the tiny minority of students who engage in the fraudulent activity of plagiarism,” continues Dr. McGuinness. “That said, it’s not without its problems. It will detect certain forms of cheating but it’s not foolproof.”

The main criticism of

Has turnitin.com turned it around?

Andrea Bonnie

PLAGIARISM IS a word that strikes fear into the hearts of many students. For the honest majority, plagiarism is a concern only in that it compels them to be doubly vigilant in their writing, meticulously referencing any word or idea that isn’t their own. For the minority who intentionally try to take credit for somebody else’s hard work, concern stems only from the thought that they could be caught out in their deception.

This is where Turnitin.com comes in. In the last year, DCU introduced this anti-plagiarism software program in an attempt to combat what is clearly a growing problem both nationally and internationally. With the internet offering reams of information on virtually every subject imaginable, the perfect “cut-and-paste” essay can be assembled with a few strategic clicks of the mouse.

Already in use in nearly one hundred countries, Turnitin.com is designed to determine if students have produced original work. In doing so, it has helped provide a practical solution to online plagiarism.

prison and refered to it as a form of “secondary school”.

“Attendance capture treats us like children when, infact, we are responsible adults.”

A large amount of Nursing school students have complained that clocking in wastes too much time. It is believed that, on average, ten minutes are lost at the beginning of each lecture.

Big lectures have already proved to generate chaos due to long queues of students waiting to swipe in. It waste class time, especially when floods of students get up out of their seats, to clock in again, half way through double lectures.

Nursing students feel that they have been singled out as a minority group within the university. Unfortunately, they are the present ‘guinea pigs’ for this new procedure, however, a similar policy is currently in motion to be introduced to the Engineering faculty in the near future.

Nursing students believe that the regimental system can be outsmarted, however, by getting one student to swipe in numerous student cards, giving the illusion that the students are present.

However, the university has counteracted this abuse of the system by threatening to carry out spotchecks, whereby random ID card pictures will be chosen and displayed on screen.

The students in question will have to stand up and re-confirm their attendance. Failure to stand up will result in serious disciplinary action.

Turnitin.com is that it places a presumption of guilt upon the While Dr. student.

McGuinness concedes that plagiarism in general creates “an atmosphere of suspicion,” he stresses that it is important we keep a sense of perspective and balance about the issue.

“I think we have a good culture here in DCU in doing creative, engaging, original academic work. There’s no witchhunt. We all (the lecturers) want to encourage students to produce the best work that they can.” .

NEWS

The College View October 2006

Oireachtas na Samhna

‘GAME-OVER’ after Hub break-in

Clár Ní Mhuiris

CHUAIGH SCAIFTE as beagnach gach aon ollscoil chuig Oireachtas na Samhna i gcathair Chorcaigh ar an bhliain seo caite, mé féin san áireamh. Is céiliúradh é Féile an Oireachtais, céiliúradh ollmhór dár gcultúr, dár gcuid ealaín thraidisiúnta: amhránaíocht. ceol, litríocht, scéalaíocht agus drámaíocht.

Maireann an t-oireachtas thar 5 lá agus bíonn cuid mhaith comórtais agus taispeántais ag dul ar aghaigh ar na laetha sin. Is mór an onóir do dhuine ar bith a bhaineann aon de na comórtais seo. Bíonn aniomaíocht ann sna comórtais go léir ach go háirithe bíonn gach duine ag iarraidh a gcuid lámha a chur ar chorn uí riada, an chorn don duine is fearr ar cheol an sean-nóis.

Ghlac gach duine páirt sna imeachtaí idir óg agus sean. Rinne muidne triall as damhsa an seannóis agus muid ar an damhsa úrláir agus caithfidh mé a admháil go bhfuil sé i bhfad níos cásta ná an chuma a bhíonn air! Bhí cuid mhaith daoine thar barr ar a gcuid cósa ach ar an drochuair ní raibh muidne. Craic mhaith a bhí ann ar aon nós.

Freastalaíonn daoine ón scoil agus ón ollscoil atá ag foghlaim na Gaeilge, daoine ó eagraithe gaelacha, daoine ón Ghaeltacht, daoine a bhfuil suim acu sa teanga Gaeilge agus fiú daoine ó tíortha eile atá ag iarraidh cultúr saibhir s’againne a bhlaiseadh, ar Oireachtas na Samhna..

Chuir muid brú óige in áirthe a bhí suite i lar na cathrach. Nuair a bhain muid an brú óige amach fuair muid amach go raibh slua ollmhór ó hollscoilleanna na nÉireann eile ag fánacht ann. Thosaigh an chraic agus an ragnaire d’oíche ansin.

Bhuail mé le han-chuid daoine a raibh aithne agam orthu ó imeachtaí gaelacha eile nó fiú ón Ghaeltacht. Is deis iontach é chun bualadh le pobal na Gaeilge Is rud ar leith é an t-Oireachtas mar meallann sé scoth na ceoltóirí, scoth na rinceorí agus scoth na seanchaí agus ní hamháin sin tugtar seans don óg agus aosta páirt a ghlacadh sna comórtais go léir.

Mar sin de, tagann na seangnéithe dár gcuid cúltúir agus na húr-gnéithe le chéile. Is sampla maith é den rud seo ná na gnáthcheoltóirí agus ceoltóirí an sean-nóis. Tá rud eigin ann do gach duine.

Is iad sin mo chuid cuimhní ó Fhéile an Oireachtais ón bhliain seo caite agus tar éis dom iad a scríobh síos anseo ní thig liom fánacht chun dul ar ais i mbliana, turas go cathair eile agus le cuidiú Dé an chraic chéanna a bheith agam arís i mbliana.

Beidh Oireachtas na Samhna 2006 ar siúl i cathair Dhoire ón 1-5 Samhain. Beidh An Chumann Gaelach DCU ag dul ann. Bí i dteagmháil leo ar www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~cumanng nó ag cumanngaelach.club@clubsandsocs.dcu.ie chun do spás ar an turas iontach seo a fháil.

Mhólfainn go hard é do dhuine ar bith a bhfuil spéis acu inár gcultúr féin agus inár dteanga álainn.

REVIEW

Photo by Sinead Keane

Joey Kavanagh THOUSANDS OF euros worth of DCU societies’ equipment was stolen after a break-in to the Societies and Publications Committee store-room during the summer.

The worst hit society was Games Soc, who essentially lost all of their games

and consoles, including several rare items that are no longer in production and can only be purchased through the second-hand market. Other societies to be affected by the break-in included Music Soc and DCU Drama.

The incident occurred in mid-July, although the exact date of the break-in is unknown. It is believed that the intruders gained

The month in politics

Alan Deeley

THEY SAY a week is a long time in politics but the memory of Bertie’s hellish fortnight won’t be fading any time soon from Fianna Fail minds.

The first half of September, however, was all about Mary Harney. On September 7 she stood resplendent under the diamond chandeliers of the Merrion Hotel and told the crowd exactly what Michael McDowell wanted to hear.

After thirteen years at the helm of the Progressive Democrats’ rubber dinghy, Harney apparently could finally declare, “I am 100pc happy”. The party tightened their life jackets. Some quite anonymously stated that the ex-Tanaiste was irresponsible.

The woman to take her place was Liz O’ Donnell, to go by the bookies’ hunch.

Michael McDowell, however, not known for his feminine touch, would get in if it took going in drag.

Reassured by the number of hard-line Dowellers, Michael (not for the first time in his life) betted that a philosophy of all or nothing would see him through. Liz O’ Donnell would be guaranteed deputy leader if she backed him.

Tom Parlon would be party presi-

entry to the storeroom through an open window on the roof of the Hub and were then able to let themselves out through the door.

SPC member, John Doyle, discovered the break-in and promptly alerted SU President, Charlene Connolly, who in turn informed the Gardaí.

The Gardaí assured Connolly that they would be in DCU within an hour

dent. God help them if they didn’t.

Parlon was a bit iffy initially.

Meeting McDowell at Leopardstown races to talk terms, he conveniently “couldn’t hear” the Justice Minister over the punters and suggested they leave each other alone for a while. But Parlon was always going to come in third, and he eventually accepted McDowell’s offer to become a non-runner for the top job with dignity intact.

So by September 11 it was back to school time for the PDs, some of whom were hoping McDowell would keep the dunce hat off, now that he was in the altogether more important position of Tanaiste (and not just Justice Minister). The Taoiseach would have no messing.

On September 21, the Irish Times broke the story on Ahern, businessman David McKenna and monies of “between €50,000 and €100,000”.

The considerable margin of error of around €50,000 was to form the centre of the Taoiseach’s early defences.

Likewise McDowell kept silent.

The pressure built.

The Taoiseach tried to shift the attention away from him and onto whoever had leaked the Mahon Tribunal Confidential Documents to the press. Journalist Colm

but never arrived.

Several days later, the Gardaí made contact with the Students’ Union and asked them to give an account of the incident. A report was filed but, because of uncertainty regarding the precise date of the break-in, Gardaí informed the Union that they would not prioritise the investigation.

Chairperson, SPC Roibeard O’ Murchu, expressed his disappointment regarding the breakin, saying, “It’s a real shame for something like this to happen. Without their equipment, many of our societies are unable to function. I’m especially sympathetic to Games Soc who lost practically all of their equipment.”

O’ Murchu believes that, as well as members of the SPC, individual societies must take responsibility for the security of the storeroom. “Every member of a society in possession of a key to that room must ensure that it is locked up securely after use and that all windows are firmly closed. We all need to be vigilant to prevent something like this happening again.”

The SPC storeroom break-in was the second major breach of security at The Hub in recent months.

Earlier, in June, valuable equipment that had recently

Keena and Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy could apparently be in jail for the next two years, but still the scandal held Ireland rapt.

Sepember 26 yielded a chat with Bryan Dobson, in a plum interview the Dail envied RTE News for.

This was when Bertie decided to mention his other important arrangement circa 1993 – the Manchester one. It was either this or the embarrassment of the boss getting out his hanky for a cry that at last got McDowell angry, and declare that nothing less than a full Dail account would keep the PDs in government.

5

been purchased by Music Soc was stolen from ‘The Glass Room’.

The equipment was removed at some point between Tuesday 20 and Friday 23 June, while the DCU Annual Fund Telethon was being held in the room.

Other than Music Soc, the only other people with access to this room are DCU Security, who were supposed to ensure that the room was securely locked each evening after the telethon.

Having been previously assured that it would be safe for her society to store equipment in this room, Music Soc Chairperson, Susan Hurley is decidedly unimpressed with the level of professionalism displayed by DCU Security.

“It’s just really frustrating that our new members have to do without basic equipment such as microphones and microphone-stands.

We really need this equipment for the events that we have lined up for the beginning of the semester like the ‘Open-Mic Nights’ due to kick off in week four.”

As a result of the incident, Hurley says that Music Soc are now applying for funding for a cage to store their equipment in.

“It’s a pity that we’ve had to resort to this but unfortunately we’ve been left with no alternative.”

However, a good sleep appears to soothe both cranky babies and the Tanaiste. Several Dail outings, repaid loans, an alleged secret deal and an audacious charity cheque later, the Government may be get back to autopilot before October is out.

Labour’s Pat Rabbitte explained it best. “In any life, you take gifts from friends and loans from strangers. But the Taoiseach took loans from his friends and gifts from strangers.” That’s our opposition. Pity the country isn’t Mr Rabbitte’s rehearsal mirror.

FEATURES

The College View October 2006

Building awareness of the universe

6

Sean McCabe “LET US give the child a vision of the whole universe…for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.”

Dr. Montessori, Paris 2001 Last Autumn I wrote an article for The College View about a wonderfully ambitious project called Awareness Universe (UNAWE). This dream,

which was conceived by Professor George Miley, envisaged a worldwide network of professionals working together to expose economically disadvantaged children to the inspirational aspects of the universe.

This week, Professor Miley's dream is taking a step towards positive becoming a reality. I am writing this evening from the quaint town of Leiden in the Netherlands. Here, at the Lorenz Center in Leiden

University, men and women from around the globe have gathered to share in George Miley's visionary ideas.

The 45 participants, representing 20 countries, come from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds but all are united in their desire to devise a feasible program which will stimulate children the world over, using the beauty and scale of the universe as their muse.

The project hopes to

involve children of ages four to ten, a formative age range where children develop a human value system and can readily appreciate the beauty of astronomical objects. UNAWE aims to entertain the children while they learn. Instead of leaning on traditional teaching methods, the wonder of the night sky and the universe will be conveyed through games, inspiring imagery, songs and crafts.

The workshop in Leiden has only begun, yet already it has been a feast of positivity. The participants have heard heart warming stories from two successful UNAWE pilot projects in Venezuela and Tunisia.

Earlier this year, Dr Cecilla Scorza de Appl visited Venezuela twice to test the various aspects of Universe Awareness in the countries varying environments. She told of how, on her first night in the country, she visited Chuao a remote village on the northern coast which can only be reached by boat. Cecilla hoped to show the children of the village the moon through a

small telescope. However, the first man to look through the eyepiece screamed in terror and fled the scene.

This caused general panic amongst the children and onlookers leaving Cecilla standing alone with her scope in the town square.

Despite this early setback, Cecilla succeeded in organizing two teacher training workshops where just under a hundred primary and pre-primary school teachers attended.

Their enthusiasm was plain to see, some travelling for a day to attend the four day long workshops involving the teachers own children.

Upon her return two months later, she was delighted to find the project had been a huge success. The teachers were passing on the lessons learned at the workshops and the children were immersed in the magical world of astronomy.

In Tunisia, Dr Naoufel Ben Maaouia has set up a traveling “Astro-bus”.

Thousands of children have already seen the universe in this mobile planetarium and explored different stellar

wonders by way of a computer lab in the back of the bus. Dr Ben Maaouia has also developed an interactive Astronomy CD-ROM, the first of its kind in Arabic. His work has been very well received and covered substantially by the Tunisian media.

On the crest of these two successful projects and having received endorsement from several distinguished personalities, including several Nobel Prize winning scientists and the ever incandescent Bob Geldof, the participants in Leiden are confident UNAWE can be ready for full implementation by 2009, the International Year of Astronomy.

If the study of stars can help children around the world cast a rational light on abstractions like racial or religious discrimination, war or powerlessness, then George Miley's Universe Awareness will have been a dream worth dreaming.

TRAVEL

Only in KENYA!!!

The College View October 2006

Janet Newenham TRIBAL TURKANA men herding their goats along narrow sandy streets. Local children in torn, tatty clothes with wide smiles and eyes brightly shining, singing and playing around rat infested rubbish heaps. Older kids chasing us down roads looking for bananas, repeatedly shouting “How are you FINE! How are you FINE!”

In Africa, attempting to reach your destination is all part of the adventure itself. In our case, we jumped onto an already packed bus and were hit by a lovely mixture of heat and dust.

When the bus was full they removed all the head rests and used them as seats on the ground. When the roof was full, they put a herd of goats in the luggage compartment below us. When the petrol ran out, they refilled with sunflower oil.

“We did not speak Swahili or Turkana but what scared us more was the fact that we had no running water”

Meanwhile local tribal women sit around weaving baskets, cooking porridge or attempting to sell us green oranges. This scene is happening to the beat of booming Congolese tunes, played by the local bad boys sitting around sipping beers and eyeing up the local school girls. Welcome to Lodwar.

Beth, Kerrie and I were now teachers here, in this dodgy outback town in the Turkana region of Northern Kenya. Not many people travel here as the road has been destroyed over the last ten years by convoys of UN trucks using it to get to Sudan.

Travelling from Nairobi took us three days of non stop bus journeys.

The woman next to me happily breast-fed her child while her other kids sat on the ground near by.

Miraculously, after a few breakdowns, near shootings and extreme dehydration we made it safely to Lodwar.

The reality of our new life hit us hard at first. We were living in the desert. We were the only white people out of 40,000 locals in the area.

We were not part of the Turkana tribe nor did we understand their way of life. We did not speak Swahili or Turkana but what scared us more was the fact that we had no running water.

We were given a small bucket of water to live on each day. First, we

would wash ourselves very carefully and then recycle it for our dirty clothes and dishes. Then if there was any left, we could flush our reeking toilet at the end of the day.

Every day was both an adventure and a challenge. Day after day, having walked miles to school and had a hard day teaching, a nice cold shower would be a distant dream but never a reality. Nights were spent listening to the only tape we could find in the area, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, watching the moon rise, counting stars or listening to the locals screaming, drumming and laughing during their monthly full moon rituals.

Teaching English in St. Kevin’s secondary school was bliss. The children were so keen to learn, it blew me away. They were always asking for more homework or extra help. Some of their stories were heart breaking yet their smiles always heart warming.

tribal women adorned with animal skins, traditional beads and piercings and scars on their arms to mark how many people they had killed, chanting ‘Oh Hokey Pokey’ - an unforgettable experience.

One weekend we decided to venture east to the Famous Lake Turkana, the biggest desert lake in the world. We left Lodwar early one Friday morning in the most pimped out mini-bus taxi we could find.

Once in Kalokol we trekked to the lake across the desert, followed by a group of local kids. It didn’t take long to accumulate over 120 kids. The first glimpse of the lake was an image I will never forget.

The water was gleaming blue against the yellow desert sand. It was stunning, like Zanzibar or the Caribbean.

For the first time in weeks all three of us were speechless. At that moment I knew that this weekend was going to be amazing, like heav-

“Walking along that desert road I couldn’t help thinking that I was going to die”

It was impossible to stay angry with any of them for long. The younger kids would flock to us day in day out to practice the only bit of English they knew, ‘How are you FINE!’ Once they got over their initial fear of our white skin, hearing t h e m s c r e a m ‘Mzungos mzungos mzungos’ (meaning white person in Swahili) Information Panel was our call to teach them the We flew with British airways from Dublin to Nairobi h o k e y via London. Our tickets cost 750 Euro return including pokey. taxes.

Imagine the scene: The bus from Nairobi to Lodwar takes over two days T h r e e and costs around 1000 Ksh, which is about 10 Euro. strange white peoLake Turkana, although famous for being the biggest ple kneedeep in sand desert lake in the world, is fairly inaccessible unless surrounded you have four wheel drive or the guts to hitchhike in by up to 200 Bandit County where tribal wars are not uncommon! local children being closely watched by

en on earth. Could I have been more wrong?

We were immediately taken in by who we later figured out was a corrupt tour guide, who insisted on finding us food and water at outrageous prices.

We were charged to sleep outside a derelict fishing lodge where we were pestered by locals all night long.

He insisted on taking us to Central Island National Park the next day as it had the largest concentration of crocodiles in the world, for ‘good, cheap price’.

We walked for miles to buy ‘tickets’ which we would never use. He gave us ‘life jackthat ets’ wouldn’t float and piled us into a dug out canoe fit for four peo-

7

ple in gale force winds along with eight locals. The waves crashed over us, our daily food rations fell in the water and our cameras got drenched. Tired, annoyed, hungry, wet and broke we’d had enough.

We wanted to go home and get away from this hellhole.

To make things worse our ‘tour guide’ managed to get his hands on the remainder of our money and legged it.

As we trekked through the channel, waist deep in water, all the children started shouting ‘Crocodile.

Crocodile.’ I have never been so scared in my life. My heart was pounding. My eyes were darting all over the channel searching for movement. However, we had to keep going and eventually made it to the other side with all body parts intact.

Another 10km to get back to the village and only one bottle of dirty water left between the three of us.

We hadn’t eaten in 24 hours and we were sweating profusely. Walking along that desert road I couldn’t help thinking that I was going to die.

Nobody knew where we were or where we were going.

We trekked on and eventually reached a small village where they sat us in a hen house and fed us chips and flies! I ate every last one.

Kerrie searched for a lift home but we were too late, they had all departed. Suddenly the owner of the hen house told us there was a lorry leaving for Lodwar with three spaces on the roof left leaving right now. We ran outside, scrambled up the side and fell into the huge piles of fish.

As we sat there, wind blowing in our hair, the sun setting over the desert, ten men sitting on the roof of the truck staring at us, all we could do was laugh about the disastrous weekend and think ‘Will anyone back home ever believe us…?’

8

8

DCU LECTURER PROFILE

The College View October 2006

Life’s little dramas explained

Claire Ryan “I DON’T think anyone ever takes the route they thought they were going to take.”

So says Marie-Louise O’Donnell, a member of the communications staff in DCU for whom this sentiment rings particularly true. Ms. O’Donnell began her career studying Drama, and is now lecturing in Radio in DCU. She began her third-level education at the University of Nottingham in England, where she studied Drama and English. Her decision to leave Ireland was influenced by the lack of options available in the country to study Drama at the time.

Following this, Ms. O’Donnell went to the Guild Hall School of Music and Drama in London where she studied acting and theatre. After completing her third level training in England she returned to Ireland, and promptly joined the Young Abbey Players and also took up a position as a radio actress, which she views as great training for her future career.

While acting she continued her education, spending time in both Maynooth and UCD. “I went on to do an M.Ed in education and then I went on to do an M.A. in Modern Drama. I was very lucky to be at Nottingham, the Guild Hall, Maynooth and UCD. It was quite an amount of study but between it I was always involved practically in the arts, in theatre and in drama.”

Radio has always been a feature of O’Donnell’s life; she trained and worked with the BBC Radio 4 in Production and Presentation

and worked for them in Europe making programmes and interviewing.

Her background in drama proved useful in her first part-time jobs, where she managed to couple her theatre experience with teaching. “I wanted to work in third level and I wanted to teach in my art form which was theatre and drama. I had both a teaching life and a practical theatre life as well and I tried to marry the two.”

Ms. O’Donnell’s first full time job, with Carysfort Teacher Training College, came as a surprise to her; she went to the interview with no expectations of ever being hired.

She spent ten years at the college, where she taught the primary school teachers of the future. The job gave her great scope to introduce teaching through drama.

“I worked there for ten years and I loved every minute of it because I had in my hands young teachers who were going to go into the national schools of Ireland and teach 5 – 12 year olds and I had the job of teaching them how to teach drama, how to bring drama into the classrooms for the young children.”

This job came to an end ten years later when the college was closed, and it was then that she was approached by DCU lecturer Farrell Corcoran. He asked her to come to DCU, and even though she had no experience in areas such as print media, her fears were quickly put to rest with Corcoran telling her that her skills in theatre, drama and expressive arts could be used in the school of communications.

She arrived in 1989, the year that DCU became a University, and was shocked at the lack of arts on the campus.

“I couldn’t get over that there were no arts in the campus in 1989, they had no piano, no music.

It had very few societies and it had no sense of culture, because it was only developing.”

On arrival Ms. O’Donnell was

given a carte blanche to carry out any artistic projects that she felt would be of benefit to the college.

“I was given free reign to do all the things I wanted to do, maybe they thought I was a loose cannon but I delivered. I started trying to start things like the Larkin Concert series, the Royal Shakespeare on campus and the writer in residence.”

She also began lecturing in radio, which was where she had first started her career. “It was the very first place I had begun, radio drama. Radio for me is a creative process of communication, I was back, I really had made a full circle.”

One of the biggest projects that Ms. O’Donnell undertook was the setting up of the Helix on DCU campus. She was involved from the earliest stages of the project, seeing it develop from the imagination stage through to building and opening. She then took a break from DCU for four years to work as a programmer with the Helix, returning to her roots in drama and theatre.

Following this, she was again given leave from DCU in 2000 to go back on the stage and tour with the International Theatre Company Northern Broadsides for a year in Ireland, England and Europe where she played in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and “King John”. At present she is back in DCU, lecturing in the School of Communications once again.

“I’m back teaching radio which is my first love, and I also have a course on Cultural Performance and Popular Entertainment which I’d like to develop over the next three years.”

Now that she has returned to DCU, she would like to continue

to promote the arts, but also to promote the art of teaching.

Her other main aim is to encourage faculties outside of humanities to embrace the ideas of expression through drama.

“I’d like to get involved in the whole area of using the arts as a method of expression in every subject, in finding a module that has arts and arts expression. I think the whole area of arts needs to be looked at in the university.”

She feels that the best way to do this is not through the lecturers but through the students.

“Somebody once asked me ‘how do you develop the arts on the campus?’ and my answer is you develop the arts on the campus through the students’ societies.”

Currently she has no plans to leave DCU in the near future, even though she feels that ten years is the longest anyone should stay in one job.

“I’ve never believed that people should stay in the same place for 25 or 30 years, I’ve always thought that you should move on after every ten years.” Even though it’s now seventeen years since she joined DCU, it’s the students and her love of teaching that is keeping her here.

“When I go into the classroom and there are young minds there and they’re alive and they’re open, I always come away thinking I’m in the right place…The imparting of knowledge and confidence to students, where they have a sense of confidence in themselves I think is the most important thing and that keeps me here, that’s the hook. That and that I love my subject, I think if you don’t love your subject you shouldn’t be teaching it to students.”

Photo taken by Kenneth Barrett

ARTS

The 12 College View October 2006

Return of the Simple Kid Claire Byrne

SIMPLE KID walks in, looking slightly worse for wear, and requests something with Vitamin C in it. When asked if he has a sore throat he replies "No, I was on the piss last night, I only got out of bed a minute ago".

Simple Kid (aka Ciarán Mc Feely) is a laidback, quirky guy, down-to-earth and honest, who, despite huge critical acclaim, seems to be in no rush for glory.

On the release of his second album, SK2, he has a lot to be excited about. This is his first musical venture since his debut album SK1 in

2003.

In the intervening period known as “The Great Hibernation of 2004/5” Simp, (as he refers to himself on his album cover) spent the time working in his local video store and watching alternative sci-fi movies.

Without this time away, he feels this album would not have been as good.

"It’s a real fish bowl, touring, so many bands deliver great albums and then the next album is like 'oh life on the road is so difficult’.

I don’t really want to write those kind of albums. You need to kind of live a bit and then you’ve got something to complain about.”

The time away also seems to have triggered a cult following for the singer. “While I’ve been busy doing absolutely nothing people have been taping the record and giving it to friends, it’s ridiculous, I don’t know what’s going on, its f**king amazing!”

“I think the record companies need a kick in the ass anyway” Simple Kid has had an unprecedented return to music. Already this year he has opened for Richard Ashcroft, David Gray, and Erasure, playing at a number of big festivals over the summer and selling out a four week residency at London’s Old Blue Last and also the ICA in London. Things are definitely on the up for this Cork-born musician.

His voice and musical style have been compared to artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Super Furry Animals and Beck, and listening to his album it’s easy to see why. There are songs that are funky and upbeat, such as Self-Help Book while others like You and Serotonin are dreamy and melancholic. This array of styles is probably due to the method in which he writes and records his music; choosing to record on an 8-track at home rather than using studio equipment.

When writing songs, McFeely says he doesn’t enter into it with any agenda “When you’re writing the stuff you’re not really conscious of anything,” he says “I’ve never sat down and thought I’ve got to get a slow one for the album, it’s basically just stuff that appeals to myself”.

Life on tour can be very ‘rock n’ roll’ he admits but it depends on how you choose to live it. “I’ve done tours where I haven’t drank a thing and I’ve been so bored actually. You play your gig and then you go back to your hotel room and sort of sit there. I haven’t mastered that thing about going out and not drinking.”

Although Simple Kid seems to have a laid back attitude to most things, he is nervous about the album. He has had great feedback from critics and early signs show the fans like it too.

“I’m not being funny but the reception...has been actually humbling.” He hasn’t got a big head about his singing talents either “It sounds a bit ropy, I’ve got a builders voice”.

On the album his voice is both rough and melodic as he has a huge range, although he attributes this to his mixer. His own opinions of the album SK2 are mixed. He changes his favourites everyday, but says that he thinks Serotonin, (the debut single from the album, which was a double A side with The Ballad of Elton John) is probably the best song on the album while he holds a special fondness for You. Having left several big labels such as Sony, McFeely is enjoying the flexibility and freedom of his own independent label, ‘Country Gentleman Recordings’. He refers to his time with big labels as being “lost in a horrible machine”, although he also warns of the unreliability of some indie labels that he has been with.

“By the time we got to any stage, they’d got

VIEW

9

bust.”

On the matter of illegal downloads, McFeely thinks it has been a great help to many indie artists, including himself, in getting their music heard.

“If people really like a record, they’ll go ahead and buy it in the end anyway. I think the record companies need a kick in the ass anyway, so it’s no harm, it’s great, the suits are terrified.”

He says of his role in his record company that he lets the business people look after their side of things, but he is learning.

“I’m sort of the coolest one, but you do, despite yourself, pick up things along the way”.

He has been at this business for quite a while, discovering music at the age of eleven and it was starting at this early age that may have triggered Simple Kid’s need to get out of it for a while.

“You listen to music when you’re a kid and it’s great. But you do lots of other things and it’s a very special part of your life and it moves you and stuff. But then you’re in a situation where your doing it all the time and you’re not doing any of the other things in your life,” he explains.

“When I took a little break it was like ‘It’s amazing’…. I remember coming back one afternoon and just watching rubbish brain-dead television and just like nearly weeping with joy, it was so relaxing and enjoyable and that just really turned into two years because I just clearly didn’t have any huge desire to get back into it.”

Simple Kid is happy to be back but acknowledges the need for a balance in life.

“I’m kinda glad that I am back into it now. I just think people are amazed that you might just stop doing music for a while, (but) there’s a lot more stuff going on in your life that you can do.”

And on the matter of where the name Simple

“You need to kind of live a bit and then you’ve got something to complain about” Kid came from, in case you were wondering, rumour has it that he picked it up on the streets of New York from a hobo he befriended.

However he cleared the matter up for us. “I said that at the time but it wasn’t true, I coined the name because I liked the sound of it.

“I like the name it’s got that attitude which I’m into, keeping it simple, you don’t have to have huge ad campaigns”.

In a year when the alternative is becoming the mainstream and artists like Sufjan Stevens are increasingly popular, Simple Kid’s album SK2 is definitely one to be added to your CD collections. It has acoustic and techno rolled into one and like the artist himself, has depth without being depressing.

And before we get worried, he has no intention of disappearing again.

10

Rising from the ashes

10

INTER VIEW

James Ward

IT’S BEEN a rough ride for the Kittster.

The phoenix from the flames act is by no means an easy one to pull off. It takes hardcore determination and a genuine passion for music to do so. David Kitt has both of these by the bucket load.

Going from being Ireland’s next big thing to getting dropped by your record label must be heartbreaking, to say the least. But becoming ‘that guy who used to sing that Headphones song’ was not on the agenda for Kitt. Rather than fading to obscurity, he set up his own

label and is, in his own words “getting back to the place where I made music”.

When Kitt released his second album The Big Romance in 2001 it seemed that he could do no wrong.

Critics believed that Kitt was a genre-defying wizard, finally getting his dues, and the album achieved double platinum status in Ireland. But with the release of its follow up Square One it was a case of one step forward, two steps back.

“With Square One I was trying to write in a kind of simple, perhaps naive way, which is something a lot of people took the wrong way.”

On the album Kitt steered towards simple arrangements which he felt captured the essence of Square One, an album seen as the soundtrack to his falling in love. He also added a lot of instrumentation such as strings

“It was getting back to a time when music was a source of solace, a source of escape” and brass, and began recording with other musicians for the first time.

In hindsight, he recognises that this probably wasn’t the best route for him. “With Square One I tried something that was very much out of my natural territory.” Kitt also realises that his motives for choosing that route were far from valid.

“I was doing something I hadn’t really tried before, basically for that very reason, just to try something different”.

In other words Square One was experimentation for experimentations sake.

Despite hitting the top spot in the Irish album charts, the release was mauled by critics and just one month after its release Kitt was dropped by his label. This left him at a loose end and feeling very disillusioned with

GIG REVIEW When the Chips are down Ann-Marie Gannon

Hot Chip are a five-part band from England who are currently touring with their second album entitled The Warning.

Their recent show in The Ambassador was so energetic it was almost theatrical.

Appearance-wise they couldn’t be any less hip with each of the members looking goofier than the next.

Alexis Taylor, the main singer, takes the proverbial biscuit by bearing an uncanny resemblance to Kip from Napoleon Dynamite.

This electro-funk band seems to be playing on its goofiness and using it as their ‘thing’.

They didn’t just play for an hour; they danced too.

And these are the type of guys who probably shouldn’t dance, but they do it in such a humorous way that the audience found it very difficult not to mirror them.

(Even though they are probably not going for the look-alike thing, I think it’s important to note that Joe, the other singer, looks like Boris Becker.)

One of the other fellas must be a relation of Kip’s because he was doing absolutely nothing up on stage except swaying to the music.

The nerdy-look about this ensemble might put you off if their music wasn’t the best thing that has ever happened. No exaggeration.

Hot Chip use a wide array of instruments, with Kip’s cousin taking out a tambourine and maracas at one point.

Their music is ‘laid back’ dance music and it’s really quite funny.

The most annoying thing about their performance, however, was the encore. They finished, at first, after about an hour. When the crowd screamed for more they re-emerged and performed three songs. They concluded with what is probably their biggest hit; Over and Over.

I often wonder why bands do this and in this case I wasn’t happy. This ‘going-off-and-coming-back-on’ can only have been buying them time to stretch out the length of the concert or simply to give them an ego boost. Well, this is a false ego boost boys; if people pay 30 euro to see them in concert and then don’t hear their biggest hit, of course they are going to scream for more.

Unfortunately the Irish leg of the tour is over so if you are a fan of electronica - buy the album.

They are so hot right now.

the industry. But there was never any chance of him quitting the business. “It was a case of what do I do now? Do I get another job, or go

“It was such a long journey to get that sound, and I’m really into it” down to the local pub and drown my sorrows all the time or just keep busy?”

Subconsciously perhaps, Kitt took this as an opportunity to better himself as an artist.

Given that he no longer belonged to a label to release any new material through, Kitt began to work on an album of cover versions, The Black & Red Notebook.

“I’d never really properly studied other people’s songs and I thought it was about time I did. Trying to get under the surface of other people’s songs and see where other people wrote from”.

There was little chance of Kitt signing to another label at this stage, so he took the initiative himself.

“I was forced to come up with my own label really … I just got a bank loan and set it up.

Paid for the first record then licensed that to ‘Rough Trade’”.

It was a step into the unknown once again for Kitt, not to mention a huge risk, but his gamble paid off. After licensing The Black & Red Notebook to ‘Rough Trade Records’, the label agreed to help fund his next album. An older and wiser David Kitt had been thrown a rope.

Writing an album is no mean feat at the best of times, but writing the album that will make or break your career is like squatting in a pressure cooker. This probably explains why it took Kitt the guts of three years to release the new album, the aptly titled Not Fade Away.

He acknowledges that it was a slow process.

“It was such a long journey to get that sound, and I’m really into it.”

The making of Not Fade Away seems to have been an important lesson for Kitt, bringing him back to his roots. “It was getting back to a time when music was a source of solace, a source of escape and it came at a time when I needed it more than ever.”.

There’s a definite sense of achievement in

The College View October 2006

his voice as he compares it to Square One. “Not Fade Away, it’s a more sophisticated palate of instruments and has a lot more attention to detail”. And it seems that for the first time in a long while Kitt is enjoying making music. “With Square One it got to a point where it was like ‘Okay lets just leave it here, it’s got a nice kind of thing going on’, but with Not Fade Away I spent a lot of time finishing it. It’s just a better album.”

There’s no danger of fans enduring another three year wait for new material. Kitt has already written ten songs for the next album, which he describes as “more than promising, they’re pretty f**king good”.

And that’s not all. At the moment Kitt is preparing to embark on a tour of Britain with The Magic Numbers. He describes them as close friends: “It’s as much of an opportunity for us to hang out as it is for me to play to a lot of people I wouldn’t get to play to otherwise”.

But Kitt is much wiser now; he knows that he can’t always play the great gig in the sky, and that sometimes the smaller gigs are more important. As an artist still very much establishing himself, he takes what he can get.

Just last week he played the UCD Fresher’s ball, or as he describes it, “A load of drunken eighteen-year olds who weren’t picking up on the subtleties of what we were doing”. But despite a frosty reception from the UCDheads, Kitt can see things from the students point of view.

“For them it was more about putting on the war paint and involving themselves in the mating rituals” (Yep, that’s pretty much it).

Learning to take the bad with the good is a must for any musician and Kitt has it down to a fine art. He is completely unaffected by the fact that his last gig was to a crowd of intoxicated students when just last month he was playing the Electric Picnic, to a crowd of some 30,000 people. He’s simply grateful for having played it.

But music can be a cruel mistress and he is finally accepting that if he wants to make music he will have to make compromises. You could call him a sell-out, but you’d be wrong.

How many artists have brought what he has to the mainstream? Not nearly enough. Kitt has determination and passion for music, it’s the only plan he’s got.

“Just to keep doing this for as long as I can do it. As long as I can get away with it”.

FESTIVAL

“Sunshine is for pussies” The College View October 2006

AA

Photo taken by Colin Boylan

Anne Marie Conlon

OXYGEN REVIEW SO THERE I was, standing in the pouring rain in the middle of a field in Co. Meath. But I wasn't alone in my crazy wetness, oh no.

Instead, I was surrounded by 30,000 likeminded music fans, knowing that no amount of rain could dampen our weekend fun.

Over the course of the next two days we were to see hundreds of bands with thousands of people, consume worryingly large amounts of alcohol and unquantifiable amounts of truly dodgy food. This was the true festival experience. If you came home

dry and clean you knew you'd missed out on something.

“Sunshine is for pussies” was the opening line of Alex Turner, lead singer with The Arctic Monkeys, and it became our weekend motto. We didn't need the sun, we had headliners like James Brown, The Who, Primal Scream, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Paul Weller, and many more, across six muddy stages of musical magic.

There was something for everyone – dance, indie, pop and of course, good old fashioned rock 'n' roll. Up-and-coming Aussie band Wolfmother proved to be the flag-bearers of this particular genre, playing

Something like a phenomenon Nigel Wheatley

THE ELECTRIC picnic meant something different to each of the 30,000 people who attended the sold-out festival, held in Stradbally, Co. Laois in early September.

To many it was all about the relaxed security, sense of community and care-free atmosphere. To others, the huge range of lifestyle, art and cultural attractions will have lured them in. Some may even have had such a good time hanging on the camp-site, that they forgot the primary reason we were camping in some guy’s back garden in the midlands; the music.

After an amazingly blurry Friday and Saturday, Sunday was all about the YYYs. Their infectious rock songs and the live reputation of front-woman Karen O made them one of the biggest attractions of the festival.

This meant the main stage was packed within a few minutes of their first song. Undeterred by the sheer volume of people, we used the traditional, time-tested festival method of “annoyingdrunkencrowdsplittingforwardbouncing™” to weasel our way to within a few feet of the barrier.

It’s not uncommon for bands to throw stuff into the crowd at gigs. Usually though, this results in getting hit in the eye with a drum-

to an eager crowd of long-haired Black Sabbath fans on Sunday morning. “Do you want to get heavy?” they asked, and we cheered in reply. The second day of the festival was about to begin - heavy rock was just what we needed.

Word of the weekend was that the rain did big favours for many of the smaller, lesser known acts on the bill. Confined to small dark tents, they usually expect to play to a small crowd of curious punters. But this year, seeking shelter from the omnipresent wetness, hundreds of people ran to see whoever was on within the dry confines of their nearest venue. stick or a half-finished bottle of Ballygowan.

When Karen O threw her towel in our direction, there was the inevitable surge in its direction and approximately a dozen fans all managed to hold on to it.

In a civilised, utopian society a rock-paperscissors tournament would have followed to see who got to bring home this deified rag.

Inversely, if it were the Oxegen festival and this were Flea’s towel, the towel would have gone home with a sweaty, topless 320lb man who was stronger than his only other competition, his sweaty, topless 310lb cousin.

Initially the masses held onto the towel in the hope that everyone else will let go and they’ll be left with it. Obviously, this doesn’t happen (it would make for a pretty lousy conclusion to my article if it did…). Instead, someone in the group of towelees proposes

Fringe Frenzy Joey Kavanagh

Photo taken by Joey Kavanagh

WITH ANNUAL attendances of almost 200,000 people and in excess of 28,000 performances, the Edinburgh Fringe can only be described as the mother of all arts festivals.

This year, I was fortunate enough to find myself among the droves of revelers who descended on the city of Edinburgh to see the world's biggest names in comedy, music, theatre, literature, contemporary art and street theatre perform over the course of three weeks.

With so much on offer, it's difficult to choose which performances to check out and, seeing as pretty much anybody can put on a show in the festival, the quality of the shows varies hugely.

Of the performances I saw, my personal

VIEW

11

And of course free ponchos were on hand to help out the determined festival goers, as well as those of us who just needed to get from place to place. The helpful folk at the Oxegen festival also gave away numerous handy freebies, including a useful flashlight keyring which helped in the search for many dropped items, people, and tents.

With so many distractions it would've been easy to ignore the music – to miss Bell X1 throwing marshmallows into the crowd, The Zutons getting an entire field of weary onlookers to dance like mad, Death Cab for Cutie blast through their debut Irish gig, Primal Scream rocking like no one else can, the Chilli Peppers putting on a show with the kind of personality that only true ‘greats’ possess. Yes, it's all too easy to get stuck in a queue for pies or a portaloo, and end up missing a great moment of the festival. You can never be sure you've seen everything, but you can at least hope to catch some of the stars of the weekend.

And in this case that was undoubtedly Saturday main stage headliners, The Who. Perhaps the biggest crowd of the festival watched in awe as Pete Townsend delighted all by announcing that tonight they would play their old hits, before launching into a string of classics including My Generation and Pinball Wizard. Time hadn't taken its toll on the band, and Townsend proved this by yelping and swinging his microphone madly over his head.

Somewhere between the guitar riff of Pinball Wizard and the sing-along chorus of Baba O'Reilly you stop caring about the wetness, the muck, or the fact that you were born years after the band's demise. All that matters now is that you're here, in a field in Co. Meath, surrounded by thousands of people, and that rock and roll, and The Who, are still very much alive.

that we do what our parents always recommended in similar situations; learn to share.

And so, with a bizarre sense of community spirit, people begin to tear the towel to shreds with their hands and teeth, take whatever scraps of white thread they could, and pass it on to the next devotee. I was lucky enough to get a sizable ball of white thread which is pictured above and currently lives in my wallet. Some people claim they still smell some Karen off it, though I’m not so sure.

favourite was 'Macbeth: Re-Arisen'; an original piece by Australian Theatre Group, White Whale Theatre, that sees the slain Macbeth rise from his grave and lead a zombie revolution to avenge his death and overthrow King Malcolm.

Another highlight was 'Ha Ha, Yum!’ a comedy/baking experience featuring Irish comic Maeve Higgins and her sister Lily.

One piece of advice I would offer to potential festival-goers is to steer clear of hostelaccommodation that involves sharing large dormitories. It may be cheap but it's really not worth spending the last day of your Edinburgh experience doing your best impression of a narcoleptic because a smelly, drunk couple kept you awake the whole night before as they repeatedly copulated in the bunk-bed above you.

Yuck.

RE

Shortt changed

12

12

The College View October 2006

VIEW

Naoimi Linehan THERE WAS a full house at Vicar Street for Pat Shortt’s new show ‘You Won’t Get Away With That Here’.

The night opened with Ian Coppinger, who proved to be an excellent curtain raiser for the main act. His material covered everything from new money to package holidays and his laid back style went down well with the punters. Coppinger is a comedian on the rise, and certainly worth watching for the future.

All too quickly the lights dimmed for the second half, the audience hushed, and in an

The Exonerated Eimear Keller

HAVE YOU ever felt that you’d lost a few hours in your day? What if it was sixteen years, not lost, but stolen by a corrupt judicial system?

Sixteen years were taken away from Sunny Jacobs, convicted and sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit. However we see that her story is not unique as The Exonerated weaves the stories of six innocent individuals who escaped death row.

With successful New York, Los Angeles and Edinburgh runs already under its belt, Jessica Blank and Erika Jensen’s powerful play comes to the Dublin Theatre Festival brimming with confidence.

This quietly compelling production skilfully bases its script on interview material, court transcripts and letters relating to the cases featured. Much of the strength of the play's message lies in its simplicity.

Using the simplest of productions, a panel of actors sit across a harshly-lit stage and read from lecterns.

Each story is direct and straight from the heart especially that of Sunny Jacobs, a gentle hippie type, who along with her husband was framed for the murder of two policemen.

instant, the intimate Vicar Street theatre was transformed into the local town hall in the village of Rathmuff. The central idea of the show is that various local characters have gathered to bid farewell to the hall on the day it is due to be demolished.

The first character in Shortt’s revue is the gregarious cinema manager who parades up and down the aisle shining his torch at unsuspecting audience members. When he spots some inappropriate activity between a couple in the back of the theatre, he races down and hoists them out of their seats, shaming them in front of the village.

Next in line is an archetypal builder, with a

plastic arse hanging out of his trousers, who has been sent to survey the hall. He opens his tool box and takes out everything he’ll need for the day- a kettle, cup and a few tea bags.

We meet various other characters along the way, including the flirtatious airhostess Dympna who fills us in on all the scandalous parochial gossip, much of which revolves around herself.

Of course, the night wouldn‘t have been complete without a lively rendition of The Jumbo Breakfast Roll and other numbers such as I can’t get over you till you come out from under him!

There’s no denying Shortt is a talented

Sixteen years before she was released, the true culprit had made a full confession and, though she eventually walked free, it was without her equally misjudged husband Jess, who’s brutally blundered execution made headlines in 1989.

As in America, the Irish run of The Exonerated has attracted a guest cast list which includes Aidan Quinn as Texan Kerry Max Cook. His performance is both harrowing and humorous as he recalls the painful memories of his time on death row for a crime he did not commit.

It is unlikely that you will find a more affecting theatre production in Dublin at present. When it was revealed at the end of Saturday’s performance that the fragile woman playing Sunny Jacobs really was Sunny Jacobs telling her own tale of surviving 16 years on death row, the audience rose to a standing ovation.

If there is one thing that the production lacks, however, it is a sense of balance.

It reaffirms the fears that many already hold about the American justice system, without attempting to enter into a debate about it.

Nevertheless, whether you're for or against the death penalty, you'll be moved by the potency with which these particular experiences are brought to life.

Saturday night fever with RTE Concert Orchestra Norma Sammon and Leah Culhane

MEDALLIONS, DISCO BALLS and a collection of the Bee Gee’s most famous hits.

The formula for a good Saturday night out?

We were skeptical.

‘You Should be Dancing’, a once off production, fused the jaw-dropping talent of the RTE Concert Orchestra with six singers in an attempt to recreate the magic of the disco era.

The orchestra opened the show by warming

entertainer, but at times the material seemed strained, as he tried to compensate for a limited script by pushing his characters almost to the point of frenzy. He struggles to keep the tempo up for over an hour, constantly changing characters and using short video clips between scene changes.

Pat Shortt without Jon Kenny, the other half of the famous D’Unbelievables, is like Laurel without Hardy. The fool without the foil has a tendency to create two dimensional characters rather than real comedic drama. No pun intended- Shortt’s show fell far short of expectation and you would wonder how much longer he will get away with that here.

up the crowd with a booming instrumental piece that let us know exactly what we were in store for. The music was amazing but the addition of the vocalists was when the show really began.

The singers had absolutely no problems competing with the instruments and what astounded me was the transformation of the simple Bee Gees tunes into full orchestral performances.

The first half saw such classics as Disco Inferno and Emotion and concluded with the old favorite Staying Alive. Although the crowd

were clearly pleased (proved by the mass head bopping and toe tapping) we couldn’t help but feel it was somewhat aesthetically lacking.

For fans of the musical Saturday Night Fever, and even the film, it was visually disappointing. The absence of any sort of costume in the first half was noticeable, and for a show titled 'You should Be Dancing' the performers seemed slightly wooden with no routines or even synchronised swaying.

Part Two of the production was an improvement. A cheer rose as the three male vocalists appeared wearing those classic white dia-

mante- encrusted suits, and Jive Talkin set the audience in motion, creating a lively atmosphere.

While the singing was very professional, the interaction between the performers was minimal. Night Fever was a great choice for the penultimate song. A surprising number of people even got up to dance. Finishing with a medley of the classics that they just couldn't fit in we found ourselves unable to resist singing along.

Who said disco was dead? Not us!

RE

The College View October 2006

Still OutKasts

Eoin O’Neill IDLEWILD, THE soundtrack to André Benjamin’s (André 3000) and Antwan Patton’s (Big Boi) feature film of the same name, is the newest sound to be conceived by musical duo Outkast. As the musical is set in Prohibition-era America, the album is an unlikely mix of 20s style swing music and modern day hip-hop,

which, despite how it sounds, seems to work.

The tracks where Outkast appear as a duo are of an average quality but nothing really stands out, even N2U, whose countless sexual innuendos becomes a little too silly.

It’s in their separate ventures that each show their real worth.

Chronomentrophobia, which André 3000 informs us means a fear of clocks and time, is a ludicrously strange song which will no doubt be a big hit among the ‘it’s weird so it’s art’ crowd.

In Makes No Sense at All he deliberately mocks his own obscure lyrics, pretty much suggesting that he makes them up on the spot. When listening to André’s contributions to this CD one can’t help but think that he’s decided to devote his time to a more lucrative acting career or perhaps roses do eventually smell like poo poo, when the freshness is all used up.

It’s not all bad though. Idlewild Blue, which will be coming out as a

single, and PJ & Rooster are examples of André 3000 at his best.

However, it’s Big Boi’s tracks that really shine. His collaborations with Sleepy Brown and Scar in The Train and Morris Brown produce fast tempo dance numbers that will have people doing the jitter bug on table tops. Call the Law, with the piano and base rhythm running and dictating throughout, is probably my favourite track on the album. Janelle Monae’s vocals contrast perfectly with the deep deep coursing beat, conceived by N8, to make a brilliant song that will surely be even better on celluloid.

All in all, Outkast’s latest offering has attempted to try something different in mixing 1920s speakeasy piano tunes with modern hip-hop, and, for the most part, it succeeds. I can’t wait to see the movie.

Conor O’Hagan

Lights, Camera...Action!

Claire Ryan DCU DRAMA are attempting to become the first Irish student society to write, direct and produce their own feature length film. Six Semesters, which was written by Communications student John McKeown, is set entirely in DCU, and will be filmed on the campus over the coming year.

The film focuses on the life of Eddie, a student who spends his spare time breaking up

THE MUCH anticipated follow-up to Kasabian’s highly successful, self-titled debut album came with the promise of another dose of infectious Indie Rock anthems. With the prom-

happy couples for money. It’s set over a three year period, hence the title, and follows the complications that arise when he falls in love himself.

McKeown initially approached DCU Drama at the end of last year with the idea of making the film, a project which Drama Chair Stephen Grimes was keen to be involved in.

“John approached us about the script he was planning on writing and said ‘I’d really like to record this next year and I want to do it with Drama.’ He approached us at the end of the

VIEW

ise of no added electronic effects, (which I feel plagued the first album) Empire was hot off the shelves all around the country.

Although the lack of effects does help give the album a huge boost in terms of sounding real and personal, Empire seems to lack that cutting edge and doesn’t measure up to the contagious melodies of L.S.F (Lost Souls Forever) and Club Foot from the first album. Although I wasn’t overcome by a need to leap around the room like I did with their debut, it is fair to say that Empire is a very adequate follow-up. A number of songs pack a punch that will remind you of

second semester and he hadn’t written the script at all, he’d just written a twelve page general idea. We told everyone that there was going to be a movie and he wrote it.”

McKeown wanted Drama to be involved in the production rather than sell the script to a major organisation as he himself wanted the experience of producing a film, rather than any monetary gain.

“I wanted to make it, I wanted the experience. It’s mainly about experience, it’s not about money. I never got involved in any societies in the last two years and I wanted to get involved. I’d been to a lot of drama shows and that was the area I could do, writing and directing.”

The production is mostly being paid for by Drama and the Media Production Society (MPS), with both societies applying for funding from the SPC in their grant applications.

Drama have applied for €3,500, a relatively small amount, but one which Grimes explains will cover the cost of this production. “It’s low budget but it’s very professional. We’re not paying any actors, we’re not paying any actresses; we’re not paying anyone for their job.”

Producer Eoin O’Callaghan also hopes to get the college involved in funding some of the production.

“We’re looking for the college to get behind us in whatever way they can because it is a first for the entire college. “ After a week or two of rehearsals, Grimes hopes to begin filming close to the end of the first semester.

“We’ll start recording at the end of semester one, hopefully over the break and finish by the start of semester two. The editing will take a couple of weeks and it should by finished by the last week of semester two.”

Having the film set entirely on campus has

13

their previous melodic anthems.

In particular, By My Side shows that Kasabian can still create irrepressible, infectious music and the songs Doberman and British Legion bring out a previously unseen personal and sentimental side of songwriter Sergio Pizzorno.

Their future single, Shoot the Runner, taken from the album, follows the trend of rhythmic riffs with an intricate hook, and will be released next month.

Capped off with some intriguing artwork, Empire is well worth the listen, especially if you enjoyed the first album.

Give Empire a chance and it will grow on you.

both good and bad aspects, as noted by O’Callaghan. Permission has been obtained from both the Hub and the Old Bar to film at those locations, but most of the filming will have to take place at weekends to avoid disturbing daily college life.

“We won’t just go into the Hub, set up a tripod and hope for the best because obviously you don’t want to go into an editing process and have some randomer walking naked across the back of the shot; because this is DCU and this happens occasionally.”

It is hoped that the film’s first screening will take place in the Terence Larkin lecture theatre at the end of semester two, with any money raised here going to charity.

After that, it’s up to the makers to decide where they want to take it, with the Cork and Galway film festivals being mentioned as possibilities.

O’Callaghan hopes that the production will encourage other students in the coming years to produce their own scripts and movies.

“If people are interested in making films its so much better for the college. What we have every year is..people who have ideas for films, it’s just that either they don’t know how to go about it or they’re told you can’t really go out and make a film.”

Whether Six Semesters proves to be a hit or not, O’ Callaghan is confident that it will be a positive experience for the university.

“If people come back next year and they want to do the same thing it’s fantastic. It means it’s better for the college, because if you have one film its great and if you have ten films following it it’s even better and obviously the bar raises...If this film turns out to be the worst film ever made, then let the people next year go off and make something better.”

14

14

YOUR

The College View October 2006

VIEW

Alan Flanagan I FIND French hangovers to be infinitely more intriguing than the ones I've spent a sizeable portion of my life experiencing back home. Not only is there the excitement of having been drunk in a whole other country (on wine, no less), there's also the piecing together of what you may or may not have done the night before.

"I'm in France," you say to yourself, "home of Jean Paul Sartre and Jacques Cousteau. I was probably riding a horse down a moonlit beach, screaming poetry at the top of my lungs, waving a baguette like it was Excalibur itself, all the while as naked as the day I was born."

The fact that you were more than likely repeatedly missing the urinal in a pub which has been described by critics as "not worth vomiting on" doesn't even cross your mind. In fact, it doesn't have time to, because before you know it, you're out of bed and off to your first class.

I arrived in Toulouse over a month ago, and I'm still a tad confused as to the thinking behind the course I'm doing.

The joy of the Erasmus program, I've always found, is its sheer lack of attention to detail. Its aim appears to be to launch students as forcefully as possible out of their home countries, without the smallest consideration given to what they might actually do once they arrive in the heartlands of the Serengeti (or wherever). The equivalent of Neil Armstrong getting to the moon and realising he'd brought

the wrong flag. This means that students studying law will find themselves taking classes in car maintenance because posse comitatus and Porsche are roughly around the same place in the dictionary.

With this infallible logic in mind, and after three years of a journalism degree, I'm now bowing down at the altar of the devil himself: marketing. Or le marketing, if you like.

Needless to say, any ethics I picked up in DCU I jettisoned somewhere over the Irish sea, so any glaring omissions or downright lies in this article can only be blamed on my now significantly more pronounced manipulative streak.

But any objections I may have to the path I'm being lead down don't have the will to assert themselves on a blurry Thursday morning.

It doesn't seem ironic (or, at the very least, deeply disturbing) to anyone in France that classes begin at eight to make way for the mandatory two-hour lunch break. Apparently it hasn't crossed anyone's mind that an extra hour in bed might be worth shaving the precious time you spend with your baguette down to a mere sixty minutes.

After my painfully slow lunch “hour”, I have some sorely overdue French classes, which involves a group of people, who can barely ask where the bathroom is, being shoved into a room like a bunch of multicultural sardines and forced to learn the native tongue. Fun is not the word for it. After going six rounds with a Kazakhstani volleyball player trying to find out why the hell he travelled 3,000 miles just to sample brioche, you'll think it's easier just to learn Russian.

That is apparently what they speak in

A module in manners

Cartoon by Conor Lynch

Catherine Carr WELL, DIDN’T I get a shock when helping out at the Alumni Golf Tournament at the start of September.

DCU’s past students ganged together to raise money for the college’s annual fund by playing a few rounds out on the green in Portmarnock.

Accountants, journalists, business people, and more, appeared in a collective effort to raise money for the cause.

These alumni represent the good spirit of DCU, helping the students that now attend the college that made them what they are.

It’s a pity DCU never offered them a module in manners though!

As I sat at the Welcome Desk, having given up a day to help with the event, I must admit to

Kazakhstan, and that would be the sum total of the knowledge I picked up in the class. But that didn't stop the teacher playing a song dedicated to Toulouse, imaginatively titled “O Toulouse”. I've been here less than a month and I could have written something substantially more melodious and a hell of a lot more accurate.

The average night out for an Erasmus student in Toulouse involves a trip to any number of pubs, which have happy hours lasting anywhere between two hours and four years. But before you even think of hitting the town, you must make sure you are accompanied by at least seventy Spanish students, all of whom chatter excitedly in their own language, presumably about why your skin is so pale and how come you aren't able to dance.

And so, ensuring that all stereotypes are strictly adhered to, I indulge in one or two alcoholic beverages, which are of course being offered at painfully low prices. As I down my umpteenth pint of GenericBraü, my mind inevitably turns to thoughts of the green, green grass of home.

Leprechauns, fairy forts, old people with three teeth between them dancing at the local fair to a merry jig; these and hundreds of other completely false memories flitter through my mind as I think of home. I long for a simpler place, where people hold doors open for each other, where I don't require a photocopy of my passport to buy a SIM card, and where, o for the love of sweet mercy, where people speak ENGLISH. And then, just as quickly, I snap out of it, realising that a) Ireland was never as great as I remember it and b) I'm surrounded by sweaty, drunken and very, very attractive Spanish people. At which point I attempt to dance, with mixed results.

Fickle, moi?

being somewhat excited at having a possible preview of what everyone I know might be like in another twenty years.

I looked forward to chatting to some of the would-be golfers, but do you think that they saw a lowly volunteer as being worthy of a smile, God forbid an actual sentence or two?

I handed out welcome packs and leaflets to people who barely looked at me and a few who were charitable enough to actually say ‘Hello’ or ‘Thank You’.

I spent hours listening to conversations where everyone was in competition with everyone else, whether it was over their latest holiday, or which big name they met up with for lunch.

I’m pretty sure I heard somebody mention the name ‘Sorcha’ at some stage too!

So is that what we’re going to end up as?

Shallow, rude, inconsiderate, self-absorbed muppets!? I’m sure these people weren’t that way at our age, so what happened in between?

I guess we can blame the new ‘Corporate Ireland’ and simply say that these people were the side effects of the Celtic Tiger.

Or maybe it’s just what happens ….out there.

When we’re away from the warm Glasnevin

cocoon that is DCU, the working world will change our values and outlooks. Experience will make us cold and hard. And by the looks of things, our IQ’s will drop, alroysh Oisín?

Or maybe that’s just that awful thing we hear about called ‘growing up’.

Experience has made them feel as though they know everything and at this stage they position themselves on their pedestals, where they can adequately look down on the rest of us.

Nice view, lads?

In my opinion, their charitable acts were ruined by their rotten attitudes. It’s very easy to throw your money around, but maybe the real good deed would be treating people like people and not unworthy peasants.

Well, I for one, am perfectly happy where I am. I may be broke and blissfully ignorant, but at least I’m me and I’m a nice person (well, nice when I have chocolate).

So goys, please remember that this isn’t, loike, UCD, and we actually have personalities, roysh. Oh and always thank the deli woman when they make your breakfast roll!

The College View October 2006

RANDOM

VIEW

15

Video of the week

I have never seen a video that provoked so much feeling in me as My Hands Are Bananas did. The extreme feelings were triggered by the tragic (though edible) disabilities suffered by one unfortunate German with shaggy hair and... banana hands.

Although critics will argue that this video tries to recreate the same human emotions that Edward

Comic by David McGovern Cartoon by Colm O’Fearghail Crossword by Conor Higgins

The College View Crossword Number 9 Across 1. A large group of musicians. (9) 7. A petty quarrel. (4) 8. Four wheeled horse drawn vehicle. (7) 10. Past tense of 22 down. (3) 11. ‘There’s something worthwhile in that drawer’. (6) 13. Any flexible elongated organ used for feeding or grasping. (8) 15. A daughter of ones sister or brother. (5) 16. Moon Safari. (3) 18. Something that has survived from the past. (5) 20. A light with transparent protective case.

(7) 23. Not down. (2) 25. Counting device. (6) 27. Female member of a religious order. (3) 28. To bite or chew. (4) 29. To invigorate. (8) 31. Cunning or tricky. (6) 33. To have neglected to do or include. (7) 34. Not return. (3-3) 35. Close lipped, not open or communicative. (8)

Down 2. The Grim _______. (6) 3. ________ Melville, author of Moby Dick. (6) 4. To come in again. (2-5) 5. The second largest of the continents. (6) 6. ‘Remind me to get someone to look after the kids’. (6) 7. An underground passageway. (6) 9. An assistant. (4) 12. ‘Eric, what’s for dinner?’ (4) 14. In place of, in ____ of. (4) 17. The capital city of Mongolia. (4,5) 19. Green vegetable of the marrow family.

(9) 21. XIX (8) 22. Faster than a walk. (3) 24. ‘He stands around all day reading prose and looking good’. (5) 25. Excellent…. dude. (7) 26. Type of beer. (3) 28. Large round Dutch cheese. (5) 30. An exclamation of annoyance. (3,2)

Scissorhand’s evoked, I believe Nandrews goes one step further.

This technotic German is chased by monkeys and behold...The Milky Pirate! We are taken on a journey with our German friend who starts seeing everything in "Doppelganger".

My Hands Are Bananas features the full-blown debate - Frau Spots or Frau Stripes? Even after watching this video I still didn’t know my stance on this argument. Entertaining nonetheless.

Other highlights of the video worth mentioning are banana hands clapping, the jaw-dropping talent of our banana-handed German friend to shake his head along to the music so well and the fact that every ‘w’ is pronounced as a ‘v’.

Vatch this video and be sure to keep the monkeys away from his hands. Here is the Url kids; www.thecollegeview.com/video Karen Howley SEND IN YOUR SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE WEEK TO thecollegeviewarts@gmail.com

Please send in your comic strips, cartoons, crosswords and random views to thecollegeviewarts@gmail.com

Scribble Box

16

STUDENT

LIFE

The thought of beer as a pioneer

The College View October 2006

Alan Flanagan discusses the lack of imagination in DCU student events STUDENTS LIKE to drink.

Wander into the bar any given night and you’ll see it. You’ll see a heady mix of pints and shots wandering left, right and centre, accompanied by the appropriate behaviour. Check your inhibitions at the door.

It’s like our motto. One for all and all for the bar because they just called last orders and I swear I can carry four pints at once if I try really hard.

We like to drink and we do it in spades. We do it heavy, we do it well and we do it to the point where we know we shouldn’t do it any more. And then we do it all over again.

Students like to drink. Hell, scrap that. Students love to drink.

But what if you don’t?

And therein lies the problem. It’s a fact that university social life does not cater to the needs of people who can’t or won’t drink alcohol, and DCU is no different. There are more students and staff on campus in the hours from nine to five and yet sometimes it feels like the campus is barely alive. It’s just a bunch of people rushing from one class to the next.

Every year we have Fresher’s Week in semester one and Rag Week in semester two. There will be a rodeo bull. There will be a bouncy castle. There will be people dressed as sumo wrestlers trying to beat each other senseless. But apart from these two weeks it’s nearly impossible to find an event on campus in daylight hours.

More and more, DCU is becoming a commuter college for those living in the greater Dublin area. Just because a person does not live within striking distance of the univerity it doesn’t mean that they should be unable to attend any of the myriad of events that the Students’ Union, clubs and societies run throughout the year.

In a recent survey on irishhealth.com, it was found that 75pc of teenagers aged between fifteen and eighteen

either drink or have experimented with drink in the past.

This leaves a relatively small percentage choosing to live that (often feared) life of sobriety. However, though their pockets may be heavier than those dedicated visitors to the bar, they may find themselves in awkward drunken situations involving frequent hair-holding or taxi-hailing.

Not to be put off abstaining from alcohol however, students who don't drink can pat themselves on the back for hanging onto their brain cells, only suffering blackouts due to stressful collge deadlines and managing to maintain a healthy complexion void of tell-tale puffy cheeks and red eyes.

The problem with having every event serving alcohol is that a lot of first year students can’t attend. Just because an event is held in the evening doesn’t mean it has to serve alcohol and just because it doesn’t serve alcohol, it doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.

This is a point that needs to be drilled home for the Students’ Union and Clubs and Societies who insist on using the bar as the main focal point for their events. If they want to stage a memorable event, try not wiping the memories of all involved in the process.

That isn’t to say that all students are out to get hammered at every event on campus, but a bit of variety from the alcohol-fuelled norm wouldn’t go astray every once in a while.

It’s a simple courtesy to those who choose not to or who are too young to legally drink.

Events that do not pander to people’s desire to get as drunk as humanly possible offer an alternative that is sorely lacking in DCU at the moment.

With the bar’s opening hours dwindling rapidly, non-alcohol events are a way for the university to prove itself as the vibrant, inclusive and inventive establishment that it so often claims itself to be.

Whether the students of DCU are willing to take hold of this opportunity remains to be seen.

LETTERS AND COMMENTS

The College View April 2006

Editorial

FOR ALL who are new to DCU welcome to The College View. This is one of only two independent publications in DCU. This newspaper along with its sister magazine, Flashback, is written and edited by DCU students, for DCU students. The editorial team are not paid and give up their free time (and sanity) to bring this paper to the student body. This is our second issue as an editorial team, and the first of this semester.

If you would like to write anything or take photographs for us you can contact our editor Aisling at thecollegevieweditor@gmail.com. This week also sees the launch of our re-designed website, www.thecollegeview.com.

Week Two saw two successful Clubs and Socs days where first years are traditionally exposed to extracurricular life in DCU. Too often, DCU’s clubs and societies are pigeon-holed into stereotypes that may have been created years before.

For instance, for anyone to say ‘I hate (insert relevant name here) Club/Soc’ at the beginning of a new academic year defeats the whole purpose of electing new committees. It suggests that any new blood is ineffective and therefore void.

Negativity towards each other is a problem that we are all guilty of and it is something that needs to be addressed. Only with increased student cooperation and the development of a genuine pride in DCU can we reach our potential as an interactive university.

Central to university life is a united student body despite our separate interests. The more positive interaction between students, clubs and societies, the better our standard of university life will be.

The College View Editor News Editor Arts Editor Sports Editor Image Editor Layout Editor Sub Editors

Letters to the Editor Just Another Toxic Tuesday

Dear Editor, With all the recent problems that have been surrounding DCU being granted a bar licence, I find it ridiculous that the Students’ Union are now advertising ?3 Tuesday nights as “Toxic Tuesdays”.

The residents of Shanowen Road’s complaints about constant drunken behaviour in their area was one of the main issues surrounding DCU’s bar licence renewal. Surely the Students’ Union would want to minimise the reputation that DCU has acquired regarding drunken behaviour, not encourage it.

Students are already stereotyped as a crowd of disorderly drunks, the Toxic Tuesdays posters can only help to reinforce that stereotype.

I understand that most students will take advantage of a night with lower priced drinks, and I’m not saying they shouldn’t.

But the bar licence will presumably have to be renewed again next year, and if the SU don’t want to face the same problems they did this year in getting one, maybe it would be better if they considered a more discreet type of advertising campaign.

Yours, Disgruntled Student

Clubs and Socs Days farce

Dear Editor, While I acknowledge that, in many respects, the new Students’ Union are doing a fantastic job, the decision to meddle with the Clubs and Societies Day format this year was a major gaffe on their part.

Traditionally, clubs and societies take over The Hub on the Wednesday on Thursday of Week 2 but, this year, in order to facilitate the Freshers' Ball being held on the Wednesday night, they were asked to set up on the Tuesday and Wednesday instead.

Personally, I believe that the significant drop in membership that many clubs and societies experienced this year was largely a result of the decision to do this.

For clubs and societies to be asked to dismantle their displays at 3pm on the Wednesday was a complete and utter farce.

Surely preparations for the ball, which wasn't scheduled to begin until 9pm could have been held off for another hour at least. The Union should have taken into consideration that many people hadn't been able to join clubs and societies because of faulty ATM machines and the fact that Campus Res had run a fire and safety talk at 2pm on the Wednesday.

Vol 8 No 1

Aisling O’ Rourke Sarahlee Madigan Clare O’Reilly Alan Waldron Josephine Enright Karen Howley Aoife Connors Catherine Carr Lyndsay McGregor Webmaster Nigel Wheatley Advertising Leah Yeung

Contributors: Kenneth Barrett, Andrea Bonnie, Elaine Burke, Claire Byrne, Sean Callery, Ann-Marie Conlon, Aoife Connors, Michelle Crawley, Eoghan Cregan, Leah Culhane, Allan Dixon, Alan Deeley, Cathal Dennehy, Mark Dowdall, Peter Doyle, Stephanie Dwyer, Alan Flanagan., Alan Gallagher,Ann-Marie Gannon, Darren Gleeson, Conor Higgins, Karen Howley, Joey Kavanagh, Sinead Keane, Eimear Keller, Naomi Linehan, Sean McCabe, David McGovern, Claire Morris, Celina Murphy, Cillian Murphy, Liam Murray, Janet Newenham, Colm O’ Fearghaill, Conor O’ Hagan, Nora O’ Keefe, Eoin O’ Neill, Yvette Poufong, Claire Ryan, Denise Sammon, Norma Sammon, James Ward and Nigel Wheatley, Special Thanks To:

Fionnuala Britton, Charlene and the Students’ Union, Dan Oggly and Friction PR, DCU Archery, Eoin Byrne, David Dowling, Kevin Griffin, Susan Hurley, Hazel Hayes, Michael Kelly, John McKeown, Des McGuiness, Nandrews, Marie-Louise O’Donnell, Sorcha O’Flanagan, Roibeard O’Mhurchu, Aisling

LETTERS & COMMENTS 17

The College View team laid out two hours before deadline

I would call for the original format of Clubs and Socs Day to be restored next year and I sincerely hope that the Union will consider the implications of such rash decisions in the future.

Yours, Disgruntled club member

A re-freshing event

Dear Editor, People are often too quick to criticise the Students’ Union at any available opportunity. However after attending the Freshers Ball I must commend the students’ union on their sound organisation of the event. This, along with some energetic props and two good DJ’s. made for an entertaining evening all-round.

Compared to the accident frenzy that was, the summer ball 2006, the Freshers Ball ran smoothly and was without any major hiccups. Credit where credit’s due.

May the good nights continue, Yours, Happy customer

18

DCU

SPORTS

The College View October 2006

DCU co-hosts world interuniversity games

18

Alan Waldron

DCU WELCOMED students from four different continents for the IFIUS (International Federation for Interuniversity Sport) last week. The games visited Ireland for the first time in their 8th year of activity.

80 teams from around the world participated in soccer, futsal (indoor soccer), basketball and volleyball. DCU co-hosted the event

along with Blanchardstown IT (BIT), University College Dublin (UCD) and the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght.

DCU hosted the men’s futsal in the Sports Centre while DCU’s Sports Grounds showcased two of the men’s soccer pools. The fields of Glasnevin were graced by a vast range of third level students.

Varying from the Iranian Islamic Azad University and the cruelly named Austrian University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt meant that those reporting on the

Match Reports

event certainly had their work cut out.

The games, which are non-profit, involve an astounding 1,700 athletes and staff, housed all over the city. Despite the games being nonprofit, teams are required to pay a significant entrance fee.

To enter the soccer tournament, universities have to fork out €1,495 per team or €2,490 for a men’s and women’s team. Basketball, volleyball and futsal are at a more reasonable €995 while ladies volleyball was being trialled this year and

Men’s Soccer Liam Murray

AN EXPERIMENTAL DCU side began slowly in the World University Games at DCU’s Sports Grounds last Tuesday. They had three 2-0 defeats against stronger opposition in Pool 3 before they restored some pride with a 2-1 victory against the Galatasary University (Turkey).

Their campaign kicked off against South Russian State University (SRSU) who seemed to

Men’s basketball Peter Doyle

DCU MEN’S basketball team found themselves competing against the world’s best third level teams, at the World Interuniversity Games, at the National Basketball Arena. Without some key players for the opening game, the team went down by 15 points against the students from ESSC Angers, France.

However an impressive run was

2006/07 - A DCU sporting preview Photo taken by Sarah Cramer

Aoife Connors

BY FAR the most widely anticipated sporting event that will hit DCU this year is the 35’s. The 35’s is an annual event that takes place between Maynooth and DCU and encompasses a broad spectrum of sports. Many of DCU’s sports clubs will be hoping to run some competition of their own within the event - from rugby to climbing. As DCU won last year, the level of competition is expected to make the 35’s the must-see event of the year.

It goes without saying that this year’s most watched club team will be the men’s gaelic football team.

After their victory last year along with the enhanced media coverage of Sigerson football, there will be even more interest in the Sigerson Cup 2007. The weekend will be hosted by Queens University Belfast in March 2007.

With the upcoming Collingwood Cup it’s a good time to focus on the DCU soccer club. The event will be held in the DCU sports grounds from Monday February 26 until Thursday March 1. During these three days, third level institutions from across the country will come

to Glasnevin to compete for the coveted trophy.

One of the core sports that DCU has focused on is athletics. This has paid dividends as the club now have some of Ireland’s top athletes competing for DCU in both national and international competitions.

This year DCU will be hosting the IMAA Track and field championships in the Santry Stadium on Friday 13th and Saturday 14th April 2007. The Athletics club cater for a broad range of students with different levels of expertise and interests, focusing on events as diverse as the women’s mini marathon and the European and World Cross Country competitions.

If you’re looking for a club to follow this year that guarantees competitive games and has many talented players then look no further than the DCU ladies’ basketball club. Another focus sport in DCU, providing scholarships and continuous development, the ladies’ basketball team are the team to watch this year. The club is hoping to take part in a number of competitions including the freshers tournament, the All-Ireland colleges cup, 35’s tournament, shield, varsities tournament and the college league.

DCU GAA wouldn’t be complete without the ladies, hurling and the handball. These clubs are similarly full of talented, highly skilled and dedicated players.

DCU hurling will have three teams competing in the intervarsity competitions with the senior team playing in division two of the higher education league and in the Ryan cup. Elsewhere the ladies gaelic football side will be looking to build on their success of last year when they achieved a remarkable B League and Cup double.

The Tennis Club are a club that thrive throughout the year with the intervarsity and on-campus tournaments held along with ladder competitions. They also compete in the DLTC floodlit and winter tennis leagues. This club have a number of top players that are ranked alongside some of the top European tennis players.

Archery is a club to watch this year as they will be hosting this year’s intervarsity competition.

The ‘Archery Weekend One’ will be held in the main sports hall on November 11th. Over the weekend DCU will compete at a number of different levels.

DCU’s men’s rugby side will be looking to win the Division 2

entry was free as a result.

DCU entered a men’s and women’s soccer team and a men’s basketball team. The Irish universities involved seemed to be considerably less well prepared for the event than their foreign counterparts.

Many of the travelling universities have been preparing for the event for months in comparison to the Irish students who have only just begun their training schedules.

This is reflected strongly in the results as on the first day of compe-

tition as only three Irish victories were achieved from a possible seventeen. The victors being the NUI Maynooth men’s soccer team and the UCD men’s basketball team, who won two games on Day One, the first of which being a walkover against Trinity College.

Five of Ireland’s Third level institutions competed in the games; DCU, UCD, Trinity College, NUI Maynooth and Letterkenny IT.

put together by DCU through scores from guards, Flynn and Grace, leaving DCU trailing by only four at half-time. DCU struggled in the second half, similar to the first.

Big men, Furlong and Stanton worked tirelessly in the post and some late pointers from Doyle and Robinson were too little too late.

Finally it was the accurate outside shooting that resulted in a comfortable 20 point victory for the French.

In their second game of the day, DCU competed against University of Leningrad, the champions of the

previous year.

DCU were buoyed by the arrival of some extra back-up for the afternoon. The team rallied but found it difficult against the well drilled Russian opposition.

Great inside play from Furlong and a 15 point 4th quarter scoring blitz, from rookie Shane Robinson, just wasn’t enough in the end as the Russians cantered to a 25 point win.

An unfortunate series of injuries to key players meant the team had to forfeit their third game, ending their hopes of qualification to the semi-finals.

League after suffering defeat in the semi-final last year. The women’s rugby club has gone from strength to strength in recent years and already plans are set for a year with plenty of challenges and competi-

tion. The club will be taking part in the college league along with the intervarsity and the 35’s.

have the measure of their Irish opponents from the offset. Early pressure resulted in a goal for the Russians but DCU eventually began to settle.

SRSU added a late goal, giving the scoreline a more realistic reflection of the game.

DCU then suffered their second 2-0 defeat, at the hands of the Austrian University of Applied Sciences, Wiener Neustadt early on Wednesday morning.

Unfortunately in the afternoon the DCU players suffered yet another 20 defeat to the German University of Karlsruhe. The Germans were

clearly fitter and physically stronger and they raced to an early lead.

DCU vastly improved in the second half and were unlucky to concede a second goal with just ten minutes remaining. It was a disappointing result for DCU who may have snatched a point with several decent chances towards the end.

In DCU’s final group game last Thursday, goals from Eric McNulty and Stephen Campbell saw them victorious against the Turks.

Manager Fran Butler won’t be too disheartened as his players showed good spirit against very strong and well prepared opposition.

SPORTS

The College View October 2006

VIEW 19

19

Caver becomes first Irish woman to conquer Berger Stephanie Dwyer

THE FRENCH Berger Cave extravaganza started with an exodus of the campsite, on Monday, to the holy temple of Decathlon, a gear shop that caters for all needs.

On Tuesday August 1, John and I prepared ourselves for one of the most challenging and amazing trips of our lives. The following day we awoke at 7am and started the downhill hike to the Berger entrance, one of the deepest caves in the world.

The cave is over 1000 metres deep and several kilometres long and if successful I would be the 1st Irish woman to reach the bottom

and the second Irish woman to have made it over a kilometre deep underground.

We entered the Berger at 10.30am handicapped by our bags which proved awkward during the endless meanders and traverses.

On the way down we stopped at Camp One, with the comforting thought that we had another 29 hours of caving ahead of us.

We set off for the lower, more daunting sections of the cave which have a very active series of rivers and cascades racing through it and rain above ground could prove treacherous for any tired caver.

Immediately below Camp One

was Sale Germain, undoubtedly one of the most spectacular parts of the cave. The gour pools (big calcite pools) were enormous and some were filled with water so crystal clear it was almost transparent.

The pitches and chambers that followed were breathtakingly beautiful whilst being incredibly intimidating. In Sale Germain the hiking was up and down mountains of pristine white calcite.

My biggest memory of going deeper and deeper into the Berger was the bellowing sound of the water, getting louder and louder as you absailed down beside another

Students represent Ireland in Canoe Polo

Nora O’Keefe

THE WORLDChampionships of canoe polo were held in Amsterdam this August.

Ireland was represented in the women’s senior event and the men’s senior and under-21 events. Playing for the Irish women’s team were three members of the DCU Canoe Club; Pauline Griffin, Ruth Dimond and Mary Comey.

An external member of the club, Derek Conway was goalkeeper for the U-21 team.

The Irish women’s team had a good start, winning their first game against the Czech Republic 6-0. The first four goals were scored in the first half with the final two goals coming from Griffin and Dimond in the second half.

The Irish lost their games against Denmark and

Germany, who claimed first place overall. They were also defeated by the Netherlands, who came third, leaving the Irish out of the top eight teams. At the final stages the Irish were equal on points with Spain and Canada but lost out on goal difference.

The Irish women finished 13th overall in the competition. were The under-21’s defeated badly by Poland but came back impressively in their second game to beat Italy by 5 goals to 3. The Italians had the last laugh however as they later beat the Irish to put them in 9th place overall, by one goal. In their final match they were defeated by Germany. However on day two they drew with Denmark, following this with a victory over Japan and finally beating the USA having

thundering waterfall while praying that it wasn’t raining above ground.

The most nerve-racking part was looking nervously at the old, rusty bolts you let your life depend on.

After a pleasant ‘slog out’, we finally reached the exit at 5pm on Thursday August 3rd, after a few humorous falls (due to wellies that have no grip at all!). After all of our ups and downs we completed the Berger in 31 hours with no sleep for me and only four hours for my companion, John.

The trip included a number of highlights including sitting on a rock in awe of the 1000m inlet and a massive cascading waterfall. The

scored eleven goals.

The Irish men’s U-21 team finished 10th. This is a promising result for the young team which will retain the same players for the next world championships in two years time.

The best Irish result came from the senior men’s team.

They finished in 7th place having won their first three games, beating Iran and Spain by one goal followed by a 6-0 win over Singapore. After losing 4-2 to the Germans and 1-0 against Italy, their luck was down. The team had one substitute who got sick midway through the tournament, leaving them to play with no subs for three matches.

All three teams have qualified to play in the forthcoming World Championships to be held in Canada in 2008.

Fencing year begins at ‘The Vinnie’ in Belfield Eoghan Cregan

LAST SUNDAY "The Vinnie" Sabre Fencing competition was held in UCD. Although I have little experience with a fencing weapon I decided to go along to test my abilities.

"The Vinnie" celebrates the fencing career of Vincent Duffy, one of Ireland's greatest sabreurs and one of the founding members of the

excitement I felt when I reached the bottom was indescribable. My professional equipment and the padded straps on my bag certainly made the adventure slightly more comfortable. At the end of the gruelling adventure, we received a welldeserved glass of celebratory wine which made it all that bit sweeter.

Despite the highlights there were a few hiccups along the way including the tendonitis in both of my feet, harness rash and my ponytail getting stuck in my descender and remembering the up-hill walk back to the car park, just when I thought that the pain was all over.

renowned Salle Duffy.

With a strong presence from UCD fencing club, the standard was high and the fencing frenetic.

Sabre is by far the fastest of the weapons and is both confounding and thrilling to watch. Bouts resolve quickly as exchanges of blows fly backward and forward between the combatants as spectators struggle to keep up with the pace.

Though I was knocked out quite early in the competition, the positive and friendly atmosphere made the experience enjoyable. The seasoned fencing player Owen McNamee finally defeated rising star Stephen Concannon in the final, with Marcos Simpson and Yves Carnec finishing third.

Eimear Kennedy took the women's trophy having defeated Sarah Drumm in the final, while Suzanne

Rush and Maria Treach took third place.

The day ended with a mixed team competition, the teams were written up, on the spot, which made interesting sides. Though my sabre had improved slightly by this stage, it still proved insufficent and the winning team consisted of Yves Carnec, Ali Mahavirad and Maria Treacy.

Even for a beginner, the day

proved to be enjoyable and a valuable fencing experience. The competition was run very well by UCD and with the addition of the team competition I certainly got my entry fees worth. It is back to training now however as the next competition on the calendar is the Trinity Cup which will be DCU fencing club's first team competition of the new season.

SPORTS

Web Watch;

20

The College View October 2006

VIEW

Time for the extreme

Mark Dowdall AS THE evenings grow shorter and as the central heating is turned on, your attention may turn to those sports best suited to winter weather.

Snowboarding is growing in popularity especially in DCU with the dedicated core of snowboarders. www.snowboard.com will cater for

all your needs whether you have an active or passive interest in the sport.

This action packed site is cleverly designed and provides numerous weird, wild and wacky photos with videos to keep you entertained.

Snowboard.com has an online store providing outdoor clothing, snowboarding accessories and much more. The site contains the largest snowboarding community in the

Beat The Bookies

Liam Murray

THE RETURN of Premiership football after the international break hasn’t come a moment too soon for several club managers. Alan Pardew, Stuart Pearce and Glenn Roeder have made unimpressive starts to the new campaign, and questions are already being asked about their futures.

Stuart Pearce made a remarkable beginning to his managerial career by guiding Manchester City to 8th in the league and within a penalty kick of European football. Last seasons’ disappointing finish of 15th, coupled with a shaky start to this campaign may cause Pearce’s employers to become impatient. He looks likely to become this season’s first managerial casualty at 13-2.

West Ham have yet to be inspired

by Alan Pardew’s leadership this season as they have slumped to 16th in the table. Although Pardew is the favourite to be the first manager to leave his current club at 5-4, he may be given time to reap the rewards of shock signings, Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. Huge hype surrounded the club after they acquired the Argentinian internationals but Pardew could find his dreams of European football to be very distant

as West Ham head towards a relegation battle.

Glenn Roeder has the unenviable task of bringing a trophy to St. James Park for the first time in over fifty years. Chairman Freddy Shephard is notoriously intolerant of unsuccessful managers and Roeder may be worth a shot at 9-1.

This years’ Heineken Cup looks set to be the most competitive in years. Munster’s victory in Cardiff last May ended years of English and French dominance in this competition. The French clubs remain favourite however to lift the trophy this time around.

Biarritz (3-1), Toulouse (9-2) and Stade Francais (13-2) will be difficult to beat, but odds like that are not really worth a gamble. The best value bet may well be Leinster at 11-1. They have world class players like Brian O’ Driscoll, Dennis Hickie and Gordon D’arcy that can destroy defences, often at will.

Leinster have recruited well over the summer with experienced Aussies Chris Whitaker and Owen Finegan on board. That combined with the obvious talent of Robert Kearney and Luke Fitzgerald, Leinster mean Leinster are certainly going to pose some questions in European rugby this year.

Padraig Harrington capped a great

world and is a must for all you DCU daredevils!!

Some of you not interested in crashing down a slope at 100km/hr may swap the snow for the sea by learning to surf.

If you have never surfed before, don’t be alarmed because www.surfing-waves.com offers the perfect beginners guide and will take you step by step through the process of catching and riding the perfect wave.

An online shop for web surfers has a range of surfing products from board wax to videos. Despite the website’s dedication to the surf, I found it quite repetitive and would attract greater interest if offering more free videos and images. Yet its information and vibrant surf forum make this an ideal place to learn the art of surfing without getting wet.

A site that will ensure you pass away those long winter hours in humourous solitude is www.funnyoldgame.net.

Free games, videos, songs and jokes are in endless supply and the intelligent design makes everything easily accessible.

This site appeals to anyone who likes to be entertained by childish humour and useless sporting information.

The games are basic, but oddly satisfying, including the ‘Zidane head butt game’ where you vent your frustration by trying to head butt as many Marco Matterazzis as possible.

A big effort has been made in this site to view soccer in a more humorous light, something which has been hard to do recently, considering the fortunes of the Irish soccer team.

year for Irish golf by claiming the Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews last week. With two events remaining this leaves the Dubliner second in the Order of Merit behind Englishman Paul Casey. This has been a fairytale year for Harrington after he helped the Europeans to win the Ryder Cup at the K Club in September.

On a personal level, he had a very unsatisfactory return of half a point from a possible 5 at the K Club. As a result he now seems like a man with something to prove. At 11-4, it would take a brave man to bet against him claiming his first Order of Merit title in 2006.

The disastrous defeat to Cyprus left many soccer fans wondering whether Ireland should abandon all hopes of qualifying for Euro 2008 and try to build a squad capable of qualifying for the world cup in 2010. We should put this defeat into context. It was only our second qualification game. We were missing nine senior players.

Ireland are currently 200-1 to qualify for next summers championships. There is a long way to go but stranger things have happened.

Remember football minnows Greece are the current holders of the Henri Delaunay trophy!

Sport in short 4 DCU footballers nominated for GPA team of the year

THE GAELIC Players Association has announced the nominees for the Opel Gaelic football team of the year. DCU’s Conor Mortimer (Mayo), Ross Munnelly (Laois) and the Dublin duo of Bryan Cullen and Stephen Cluxton. were nominated on the 45 player list.

2006 is the first year the GPA has selected teams of the year and Opel are providing significant financial incentives for the players involved. Those selected on the team of the year are rewarded with €2,500 while the winner of the Player of the Year award takes home an Opel car valued at €25,000.

Kerry’s inspirational full forward, Kieran Donaghy, is the early favourite to add to his garage, while his team-mate and stand in captain, Colm Cooper was a notable omission from the list.

The nominees were selected by a committee of GAA experts, chaired by former Galway boss, John O’Mahony. The GPA prides themselves on these awards and their player involvement, allowing the players to select the team of the year, similar to the system in English soccer. The team of the year will be announced at the GPA annual Gala and Awards ceremony on November 10th.

Keenan tastes AllIreland glory

NONE OF DCU’s senior players lifted Sam in September but one of the universities newest footballers managed to lift the minor equivalent, the Tom Markham Cup. In a summer that told an enthralling Connacht football fairytale of a remarkable double 55 year All-Ireland drought, Roscommon’s minors rather than Mayo’s seniors succeeded in setting the province alight.

After a troublesome league campaign that saw defeats to neighbours Mayo and a highly fancied Galway outfit, Roscommon’s minors overcame all the odds to capture the AllIreland title against Kerry after a replay in Cusack Park, Ennis. After the thrilling drawn game before the

Merciless start made by ladies basketball team

LADIES BASKETBALL began its life as a DCU ‘core’ sport in impressive style as DCU hosted a ladies super league basketball tournament earlier this month. The tournament featured 8 of Ireland’s top ladies basketball teams, including newly formed DCU Mercy.

Mark Ingle’s DCU Mercy won the tournament with a 31-point victory over the Waterford Wildcats.

DCU Mercy is an amalgamation of DCU ladies basketball and Mercy Coolock, last years’ National League winners and one of the country’s strongest club sides. Four of DCU’s ladies basketball players are strongly involved with DCU Mercy. This investment of time and money into the sport should help DCU’s ladies to build on their significant success from last year.

As freshers champions, runners up in the college’s league and with a painfully narrow AllIreland cup defeat to University of Limerick, DCU’s ladies basketball stars clearly weren’t far off the pace in 2005/06. They will now surely be aiming to upset the traditional dominance of University College Dublin (UCD) and University of Limerick (UL) in the coming months.

Mayo and Kerry final, many critics still had their doubts about this Roscommon minor side.

Roscommon were never given a chance by football experts after some hefty losses in challenge matches, their poor league form and the fact that they had no Irish Under-17 players. DCU first David year, Keenan played a pivotal role at midfield for Roscommon throughout which saw them also beat Galway, Mayo and Meath on their way to AllIreland glory.

If your Club would like to arrange coverage or submit articles on upcoming events, please email thecollegeviewsports@gmail.com

SPORTS

Ken Robinson: The Man Behind DCU Sport

The College View October 2006

VIEW

21

1993 Sports Complex open 1997 Gym open New aerobic studio 2000 Sports Grounds added to facilities

Darren Gleeson YOU COULD forgive Ken Robinson for being brusque; with an increasing range of sports to preside over, from hockey to judo, his workload is heavy and his time, strictly rationed. Fortunately for me, however, DCU's CEO of Sport is in garrulous form, and my tape runs out long before he finishes talking.

It stands to reason that the man is passionate about the world of sport, considering that he's still lining out for Lucan Sarsfields in his fifth decade. He also spent twenty years administering a number of health clubs, and a spell as Sports Director of Kiltiernan Golf and Country Club.

However, it was his arrival as CEO of DCU Sport in 2004 that he really came into his own.

DCU Sport came from humble beginnings indeed. When I mention a coach's lament that he used to scour the gym for cross-country athletes, he laughs heartily and contrasts the present situation. Sporting luminaries now grace DCU such as European hurdling silver medallist Derval O'Rourke, this season's top All-Ireland Gaelic football championship scorer Conor Mortimer, Bohemians midfielder Kevin Hunt and Dublin football captain Bryan Cullen.

Robinson says: "DCU is getting such good publicity that we branded St.Claire's as DCU Sports Grounds, so that prospective athletes would recognise our facilities. Our gaelic footballers won the Sigerson, and we won national titles in ten other events across a variety of sports."

"We have a super hall for basketball, we have several GAA pitches, and we have plans to develop athletics facilities within the college. We plan to build a 75m sprinting track

and develop a field area for shot-putting, discus, hammer-throwing and that sort of thing."

DCU awards scholarships in four 'core' sports, men's gaelic football, tennis, ladies basketball and athletics. Robinson is adamant that DCU shouldn't overstretch themselves awarding scholarships in which they lack expertise or adequate facilities.

In other words, 'quality, not quantity'.

He said: "If we had 15 core sports, we'd have to seriously question our strategy. We have our four core sports, which we want to demonstrate that we have the prowess, facilities and expertise in. Secondly, how many core sports can we actually manage?"

"If you look at the University of Bath, which is very well-known as a sports college, they have nine or ten core sports. In time, we will take on perhaps seven more core sports, which we would do very well. But in terms of your mix, we have four core ones, but we're looking at rowing, sailing, golf etc. So if someone has very good credentials, we'd be delighted to give scholarships."

"However, if you're looking at a sport that has very little tradition here or that we lack facilities to cater for, it jeopardises the integrity of the scholarship scheme. So we concentrate on core sports and individuals and as we move forward, we will certainly look at other core sports."

Robinson is proud of the Sports Department's professionalism and business-like way of doing things, and he stresses this from the offset.

He also stresses the university backing that DCU Sport receives. There is an obvious aim to blend academic quality and sporting excellence.

"DCU introduced sports scholarships in 1997 and we were looking

Photo taken by Sinéad Keane

for differentiation from the other major sports colleges. DCU Sport is run and recognised as a sports company, let me stress that. It was set up like that to be a sustainable model for the future, because heretofore sport would have been on the periphery. But now it's a serious business, and we have 39 staff in the Sports Department".

Robinson praises the governmentbacked Strategy for Sport, upon which DCU bases its ethos for college sport. According to him, DCU used these guidelines to attract elite sports people to the college, through investment in sporting infrastructure.

He says: "We followed the core points of the Strategy for Sport, i.e. providing for elite athletes, increasing participation amongst staff and pupils, and to develop sports clubs within the college. Now we have the best facilities to train in, we provide discounts to students using our facilities, and we focus on recreational sport also."

Having stated his department's objectives, the CEO then describes the department's sporting ethos. He insists that the policy of DCU Sport is to develop a 'wider' education, beyond the rostrum and dressing room.

"DCU provides an extremely healthy environment and platform to attain academic prowess, that's number one. If you talk to athletes, I know one athlete that said in a scholarship interview, ‘do you know Ken, I have better facilities here and a better academic environment than in my American university.' " This raises a thorny question in the intrepid interviewer’s mind. Has DCU, in its quest for sporting excellence, allocated places to sports people at the expense of current pupils

who may well play sport in college?

"Listen, success breeds success and you're going to have good sports people who want to come here.

Unfortunately, you're never going to be able to accommodate everybody.

In five years time, I can see top-class tennis players who went to DCU reaching a high level, getting their academic qualifications and becoming well-rounded people as a result.

Success will always mean demand will outstrip supply because people will want to come."

Asked to speculate on his plans for the future, Ken chatters excitedly about the possibility of soccer being awarded scholarship status. With DCU being located in the heart of Northside Dublin, it seems almost an oversight that the beautiful game is omitted.

Bohemians have already started using DCU Sports Grounds for their training, as well as the Republic of Ireland U-21 squad having trained there. Bohemians' captain Kevin Hunt has also recently commenced a business degree here.

Robinson acknowledges that Hunt “will be a great role-model for our young footballers; we have a 'Total Footballer' programme here which we will launch with Bohemians.

That means that if a young footballer is wondering 'should I go across to England to play?’, we can offer them another option. That is, to stay in their home city or country, to get top quality soccer coaching while gaining a fully functional degree at the end of it all. That's what we strive for."

Fifteen minutes has elapsed and Ken has talked my Dictaphone into submission. Somehow, I feel DCU Sports is headed forwards. Fast.

2004 New sport strategy New sport structure 2005 Pool open Fitness center open High Performance Gym open 2006 Sports Grounds upgrade and pavilion upgrade Soccer centre opens

SPORTS

The Ryder Cup: On a par

22

The College View October 2006

VIEW

Naomi Linehan THE ALARM clock sounds. It’s six a.m., training day, and I am ready for action. I feel as though I am starring in my own AIB ad. I can hear the voice-over in my head as I march across O'Connell bridge in the lashing rain, "This will be where the Titans clash . . . This will be where the world is watching . . . This will be the sound of half a billion people holding their breath . . . This will be the Ryder Cup . . . This will be epic."

The excitement is rising, the preparations are all in order, and I can feel the tension in the air. In a few hours, the opponents will arrive, and the four day battle will commence. The tables are set, the glasses angled perfectly, ready for the first course of the day. I don’t know how they do it; the constant travelling, the long hours, and the pressure to perform.

There’s nothing easy about being a waiter at the K Club.

We arrive at the chalets and the

French manager Pierre comes over to brief the team. He explains that the table service is to be carried out like a choreographed dance. Dressed in our black shirts, long aprons and golden ties, with about three weeks of waitressing experience between us, I get the feeling we are not quite the agile, eloquent troop he had hoped for.

By day two we are all a little less disillusioned about the day ahead. I join the ranks of sleepy students sitting in the back of the bus. The scent of caffeine fills the air as we fuel ourselves for the day ahead, knowing we will be lucky to get even a 20 minute break during our eleven hour shift.

As the clumsy service routine continues unabated, we fret over linen table cloths and shining champagne flutes, unaware of the historic event happening on the green just meters away. On Saturday September 23, with five up, and five to play, the European team felt confident that victory was fast approaching when England's Paul Casey made Ryder

Cup history as he hit a sensational hole-in-one at the 14th hole to seal the deal.

Ignoring Captain Ian Woosnam's advice on club selection, Casey aced the 213 yard hole with a four-iron and the K club crowd erupted in celebration. It was only the fifth hole-inone in Ryder Cup history and the first since Howard Clark's in 1995.

Back in the Delphi chalets our American clients are growing ever more anxious. As the day wears on, orders at the bar turn from Virgin to Bloody Marys as hope for an American victory is clearly on the rocks.

Out in the chalets everything is running smoothly. There’s a full house to contend with as the clients shelter from the rain, enjoying the open bar, course after course of delicious food and endless cups of lemon tea.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes the staff’s over 60’s contingent have decided enough is enough as the six old Dublin women from chalet nine

Sport of the month: Archery Alan Waldron

LATE ON a miserable Friday afternoon I decided to forget my sporting short mindedness and wait for the traffic to ease. Instead of running laps of my local fields under the instruction of a lunatic, I traded my football boots for a bow and arrow.

I had forgotten how enjoyable it can be to learn a new sport no matter how abstract it may be. As I strode into the DCU Sports Hall, I hadn’t a notion what awaited.

I found the archers to be extremely welcoming and there was a definite energy, not only for archery itself but there was a strong enthusiasm to teach. This can only be founded on a true love for the sport.

Archery is far from difficult to try; being accurate is the difficult bit. I was relieved as my original fears of my arrow traveling no further than my size nines were conquered early on.

The equipment did look rather daunting at first but once holding the bow, it feels like no more than a very impressive slingshot. Archers use bracers which resembled those wrist guards sported during the

famous 90’s rollerblading phase while tabs are required for finger protection and they resemble a somewhat bland finger puppet.

Archery is a sport of technique like very few others. My first question-What’s the key to being a good archer? The response - The ability to do the same thing over and over again. Apparently this is the reason why blind people can be very successful at archery or so I’m told.

Archery dates back 5,000 years, long before the gang in Nottingham brought it to our widescreens.

Archers were a key component of the ancient military forces but they became obsolete in conflict as some bright spark realized guns were more effective.

There are nine Irish universities that compete in the intervarsity, with seven of them hosting their own event throughout the year.

DCU are set to host their intervarsity on November 11.

Arrow One, Well it left my bow and didn’t hit the ground, wall, or a lucky spectator so I assume it hit the target. I found that following the arrow was near impossible as I was more concerned making sure it had actually left the bow.

sit down in protest. So, we leave the “Siptu six” to sit and polish cutlery for the rest of the day, and the drama seems to subside.

The managers grow weary of their 17 hour shift, and as the stress mounts the lack of sleep is testing everyone’s nerves. Even our very own Pierre seems to be at the end of his tether. In an indignant rage he marches through the hall, mumbling French profanities and tells his team if they need him, they will find him asleep under the buffet table.

It is an emotional time for Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke, as he helps his team to an 18.5-9.5 victory only six weeks after his wife, Heather, died of breast cancer.

"Everybody this week has been unbelievably kind to me and sympathetic.

The American team and their wives as well, giving me hugs, which has been amazing," he says. "I just wish Heather was here."

When all the excitement is over, speeches made, kegs emptied, and the greens deserted, it’s time to pack

The first arrow ignited a rare sporting enthusiasm and the adrenalin certainly began to flow. The thoughts of emulating Robin Hood had been tossing around in my head all day and now perhaps I had found my natural sport. This feeling was soon extinguished however once I embarrassingly loaded my second arrow into the bow, the wrong way around.

I think I can safely say that had I been around the time of William Wallace, I would have been kept well behind the front line with the Scot’s weapon of choice.

Archery as a sport certainly has a market and perhaps if we were all more athletically adventurous many would find that archery might well be for them. The session went smoothly apart from a few incidents with ultimate Frisbee players trusting their lives with us as they blindly ran in to retrieve their wayward discs.

I can safely say that I won’t be competing in Beijing or London in coming years but archery is a sport I would definitely like to try again.

It’s nice to renege on the physical training now and again.

Photo taken by Denise Sammon

everything away. 96 hours and 50,000 meals later the Delphi chalets are nothing but an empty shell.

There was no recycling, they threw everything away. There were no breaks; they pushed everyone to the limit. So, what was all the fuss really about? Can a few rounds of golf really claim to carry on the legacy of Sam Ryder's 1927 vision of a competition to "influence a cordial, friendly and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilised world?".

The eight kilometre "security cordon" around Straffan village may not have been the type of "cordial" feeling Ryder had envisaged. Perhaps the story of a man, standing on the 16th green playing for his country, continent, and the memory of the woman he loved; maybe that's what it's all about.

The next time you watch an epic event spare a thought for the Siptu Six in chalet nine, for Pierre asleep beneath the table, and for all those golden ties who keep on dancing, just left of the fairway.

SPORTS

Britton promoted to Irish senior squad

The College View October 2006

Cathal Dennehy

Fionnuala Britton walked out of the call room at the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg and looked up.

Before her were a large crowd, 35 barriers, and the best female steeplechasers in Europe.

“It was a bit scary,” she says. “We had to walk miles through the call room from the warm-up track and the whole time, you’re thinking: ‘my God, I don’t want to go back out there again.’”

Nerves were only natural, for Britton who was competing in her first major senior athletics championships. She had cleared many barriers to get there, and she wasn’t going to let the occasion get to her.

Rewind 15 years, to Britton’s entrance into the sport of athletics.

“I joined a club when I was seven; it was all about fun back then. It still is, but you’d play games and everyone else joined in,” she says.

It was almost a decade later when she won her first Irish title, bursting onto the national scene by winning the National Junior Cross Country title in Monaghan, beating girls three years her senior.

Since then, she has worn the Irish singlet many times both on the track and in cross country. In March, she won the Irish Intervarsity Cross Country title for the third time, and was placed sixth at the World University Cross Country Championships in Algeria.

Standing at 5ft 2 and with a petite build, Britton runs with a surprisingly long stride. She strikes the ground aggressively and bounces along as though she bears a grudge against

the grass.

She has blonde hair and speaks with a soft Wicklow twang. As we speak, she fiddles energetically with a receipt, all that nervous energy seeking release.

The 22-year-old is in her final year studying Sport Science and Health. She came to DCU in 2003, and is satisfied with the current setup.

She says: “DCU works well for me, having a good place to train, people to train with, and then you have things like the gym, the pool and the ice baths.”

The facilities proved useful to Britton earlier this year, when she injured herself preparing for the track season. She undertook a rigorous cross-training program, churning out countless laps of aquajogging in the pool and mile after mile on the stationary bike.

With the help of her Wicklowbased coach Pat Diskin and physiotherapy on the injured area, she soon returned to form focusing on the Europeans in August.

So, did she ever panic and fear that her chance to run in Gothenburg had elapsed? “You kind of do, I suppose, but by the time the summer came, I’d forgotten about the injury,” she says.

This seems to be something Britton thrives on, clearing barriers, moving on, forgetting the last obstacle and adjusting to meet the next one.

She set personal bests in both the 1500 metres and 3000 metre steeplechase over the summer, and captured bronze in the 1500 metres at the National Senior championships in Santry.

Then it was Gothenburg. She says: “The day before the race, we went down to watch the races and you see it for the first time and think, ‘tomorrow I’m going to be here.’

Britton kept her cool and ran well to finish 11th in her heat in a personal best time of 9 minutes 49 seconds, failing to reach the final by just 4 seconds.

She says: “I couldn’t really have expected more than getting a PB. It was always going to be difficult to make the final. The achievement was in getting there.”

She was encouraged by her experience in Gothenburg, and will continue to pursue glory in the steeplechase, despite the demands of the event.

For seven and a half laps of the track, she is required to clear five barriers a lap, one of which has a 12ft long water pit on the other side.

“I like it. It’s more interesting than doing laps, although sometimes it’s hard to practice, because not many tracks have the adjustable barriers,” she says.

She is currently logging about 70 miles a week in preparation for the cross country season, where the European Under-23s in Italy are her prime target. “This is my last year under-23, so I’ve got one chance at it,” she says.

Looking to the future, she is unsure of what career she would like to pursue. “Professional athlete?” I suggest. “I suppose everyone would like to be, but it’d be hard for me so you have to think about working,” she says.

But does she have any hobbies when she takes off her running

shoes? “Not really,” she says. “Run, a bit of camogie, that’s about it. I’m not into music at all.”

The tunnel vision that has brought her so much success is apparent.

Her eyes have now switched from Sweden to Italy, and her chance to make her mark at the European Cross Country Championships in December.

Next time you wander sleepily

Summer 06, a festival of sport

Liam Murray AS MANY of us finished our exams, Munster made it third time lucky in their quest to capture European rugby’s most prestigious club trophy, the Heineken cup. The red army descended on Cardiff to see their team defeat French champions Biarritz, 23-19.

Munster had twice previously fallen at the final stage to English teams and seemed determined to

feel that pain of defeat once more.

Man-of-the-match Peter Stringer, and South African Trevor Halstead scored Munster’s two tries while Dimitry Yachvili kept the French team in contention with flawless goal kicking throughout.

This was a famous Irish victory that came just two months after Shane Horgan’s last minute try defeated England at Twickenham to claim the Triple Crown. A wonderful season for Irish rugby ended in some disappointment after two

defeats against the All-Blacks in June.

Irish soccer fans had little to cheer for as the World Cup commenced in Munich on June 9. As expected the South American teams of Brazil and Argentina entered the tournament as favourites, but it was eventually the European teams who excelled as the tournament progressed.

Ecuador and Ghana were the surprise packages of the group stages, both qualifying from their groups.

Other than that, it was the big names who reached the last sixteen.

The last sixteen saw only one surprise as the French regained their composure to dump Spain out of the competition. The quarter-finals saw several heavyweight battles as hot favourites Brazil lost to a vastly improved French side. England crashed out of another major tournament on penalties, this time at the hands of Portugal.

France reached the final as they beat the Portuguese 1-0 in a dull game. Germany failed in their bid to set up a fairytale final as the Italians proved to be just too strong, winning 2-0 in extra time.

The final, sadly, will be remembered more for the infamous Zidane headbutt than for the Italian win on penalties. After repeated abuse from Italian defender Marco Materazzi, Zidane drove his head into the Italian’s chest and received a red card for his sins. It was a sad end for the midfield genius who retired from international football immediately after the game.

Mayo lost another All-Ireland final as Kerry were crowned Bank of Ireland senior football champions after a one-sided final in Croke Park. The Kingdom showed their vast experience and pulled away comfortably in the second half.

Dublin had been runaway favourites for the title after dominant performances against Offaly and Laois. They eventually met their match in an epic semi-final clash against Mayo. This match was the clear highlight of the champi-

VIEW

23

through the morning mist in Albert College Park, keep an eye out for Fionnuala Britton circling the perimeter with unfair ease.

She’ll be waiting for that next hurdle to appear on the horizon, chopping that bouncy stride to clear it.

onship as the men from the West edged out the Dubs by the narrowest of margins.

In ‘the clash of the ash’, Kilkenny got sweet revenge as they spoiled Cork’s attempt of an historic three in a row. The Cats showed exceptional drive and hunger and were a yard ahead of their opponents for the entire game. As the game progressed they went from strength to strength, eventually winning 1-16 to 1-13.

The highlight of the summer was without doubt the Ryder Cup which graced our shores as autumn began to fall. The K Club in Co. Kildare hosted the event as Ireland was struck down with Ryder Cup fever.

Europe romped home to victory with by a record equalling 18.5 points to 9.5. Captain Ian Woosnam inspired his team to a wonderful win in which all twelve European players contributed points to the final tally.

Tyrone man Darren Clarke was in inspirational from. He was making an emotionally- charged comeback to the golfing scene after the tragic death of his wife Heather. He performed with dignity throughout and provided the Europeans with three invaluable points.

The Ryder Cup was a fitting end to an exciting summer of sport. We can now look forward with slight trepidation to an interesting sporting calendar including, Ireland’s European 2008 qualification campaign, the weekly frenzy of premiership football and the Six Nations championship next spring.

24

SPORTS

Staunton’s Ireland Czech out of Cypriot Slump

The College View October 2006

VIEW

Cilian Murphy NOT SINCE the Saipan incident of 2002 has the old adage - a week is a long time in football- had so much relevance.

After Ireland’s dismal performance against Cyprus, both Steve Staunton and John Delaney’s heads were on the chopping board and most of the players were abused by the Irish fans and media.

Less than a week later, pride was somewhat restored in Irish football when the team displayed determination and guts to

draw 1-1 with the Czech Republic.

That night in Cyprus was one of the most humiliating nights in Irish football history. It was Ireland’s worst defeat since 1970 where they were thrashed 6-0 by Austria in Linz in the European Championship qualifiers. In that game however, there were ten League of Ireland players in the Irish starting line up.

The manager’s relentless assertion that “we are in a transition period” grated on the ears of Irish fans in the aftermath of the Nicosia drubbing.

Although the team is not as strong as in

previous years, never before has such a gutless and shameful performance been witnessed by Irish fans.

There was a lack of appetite evident. In particular, Andy O’Brien looked like a cork adrift at sea as he made mistake after mistake.

His lack of Premiership football this season was acutely evident, making Konstantinou look like Ronaldinho.

Up front, Robbie Keane and Clinton Morrison were anonymous. They showed a lack of class and were easily marshalled by the Cypriot defence. The manner of the Tottenham man’s perform-

DCU soccer gets its chance to shine

Sean Callery THIS YEAR, for the first time, DCU hosts the Collingwood Cup tournament; the premier intervarsity soccer competition in Ireland.

The DCU team, under the steward-

ship of Fran Butler, will be hoping to emulate the success of last year’s Sigerson football team by winning an intervarsity title on home soil.

DCU’s record in the Collingwood Cup tournament is far from spectacular, as soccer club chairman David Dowling

ances of late puts his credentials as captain in doubt.

What went wrong? How has the deterioration of Irish soccer happened so suddenly? Who is to blame? What can we do to remedy the situation? These are all questions which have been asked since that game, some of which were answered on Wednesday night.

Of course, the buck rests with Staunton and his managerial team but it was the FAI who hired him in the first place. What seemed like a bold move at the time, appointing a manager with virtually no experience apart from being an assistant man-

explained. “Honestly we’ve been rubbish in the Collingwood previously, but its something we really want to push on and progress in.

“We’ve got home advantage so it’s a pretty big thing for us. It’s a good chance to get your best players out and show everyone what we’re all about. It will be a great chance to show off DCU and show people what we can do.”

The Collingwood tournament kicks off in February. However, DCU soccer club will be very competitive in the mean time. Last week the club participated in the World Interuniversity Games, which DCU is co-hosting. The club also have two teams positioned strongly in the Leinster Senior League.

“Our Leinster Senior League sides are doing pretty well and playing a pretty decent standard of football. The Sunday team has been promoted, the last four years on the trot and is currently in third place in the Senior 1 Division. The Saturday side is more experimental but it gives us a chance to gauge how some of our players are progressing.”

So it appears times are bright for DCU soccer with membership of the club over 150 and good numbers participating in first year trials.

“We were delighted with the turn out. We had over forty lads there which was one of the highest numbers ever. That’s encouraging to see because to maintain our progress we have to keep bringing in new talent.”

However, Dowling is disappointed that the college doesn’t

ager of third division side Walsall, looked as if it had come back and slapped John Delaney and other FAI hierarchy in the face.

On Wednesday night, however, there were six changes to the Irish team and from the moment the team stepped out on the pitch, chants of ‘Ireland, Ireland’ and ‘come on you boys in green’ echoed through the dated Lansdowne arena.

The game began with the reinstated Lee Carsley flying into tackles, reminiscent of the retired Roy Keane. This set the tone for the night as all over the pitch, our players put their bodies on the

offer more scholarships to rising soccer stars. “We should try to become more like Gaelic and rugby where the top players all receive third level education. Too many young lads go in search of professional contracts at an early age because the opportunities in colleges aren’t there.”

Kevin McArdle is one such player who chose to pursue a professional career in soccer rather than finishing out his third level degree in DCU. “He’s the type of guy we should be trying to keep in DCU. He’s an underage international footballer and that calibre of player doesn’t come around very often” Dowling doesn’t lay the blame totally on DCU however.

“Its not just the university; it’s a whole attitude towards soccer in Ireland. Hopefully something will change but until it does we will keep losing our best players.”

Training conditions haven’t been ideal either. The soccer team recently lost one of their training slots due to a problem with over booking. The team now train only once a week, a situation which worries Dowling. “The training facilities are some of the best you’ll get anywhere, but at the moment we’ve only got one night a week, which isn’t ideal.”

Funding is another area which DCU soccer club hope can be improved. “Like every other club we want more money. Our biggest expenditure, unlike many other clubs, is our coaching staff.

“We have a coaching staff, which is pretty much full time and our coach, Fran Butler, is one of the

line and let the classy Czechs know that they weren’t going to lie down.

The jury is still out on Staunton’s managerial credentials and it would be foolish to say otherwise.

Wednesdays result was inspired by the players’ desire to put things right and they were helped enormously by the Lansdowne faithful. It will be interesting to see if the manager can inspire the team regularly from now on and maintain the levels of hunger and endeavor that were exhibited against the Czechs.

best in the country. He’s got better coaching badges than our current senior international manager and only around ten other people in the country are at his level. So it’s very important that we keep him.

“We put in a big funding request the other day, so hopefully that will come through.”

Funding will be a pivotal factor for the club’s expansion plans.

DCU soccer hope to branch into other areas and become a more community based club in order to sustain progress. The club intends to follow the example of local clubs such as Home Farm, Shelbourne and Tolka Rovers by developing an underage structure to tap into the vast resources of underage talent on the north side of Dublin.

However, in the short term, what is Chairman David Dowling’s biggest hope this year for DCU soccer? “Silverware”, he replies.

“We definitely want to win something this year and I think we can.

We have a lot of good players coming through and a great manager who has set up a very good system for us.

We’ve got the potential to go on and at least get to one or two of the major finals, but I’d really like to win something.”

2006/07 will be a big chance for DCU soccer club to increase the profile of soccer in the college. If the potential is fulfilled a Collingwood Cup title is certainly within reach. But, much will depend on the support the club receives from the college and the ability of the team to translate potential into results.