Miscellany, Volume 117, Issue 1

T.C.D.

Fresher’s diary | College couples | Camping in Yorkshire | orangutans

Heading for Government?

Ruairi Quinn’s thoughts on fees, jobs & Lisbon

Volume 117 | Issue One | September 2009

Editor’s letter Conor James McKinney

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ollege is back, and so is Miscellany, both bigger and better than before.

Trinity has been improved by the expansion and refurbishment of the Pav (not yet, alas, open for business) and by the addition of a nice big building site behind the 1937. Miscellany has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century by virtue of a comprehensive refurbishment of our own, thanks to Martin McKenna. With so much changing, the fact that we haven’t quite covered our printing costs is a deliberate nod to this publication’s proud traditions.

In a rather more orthodox tribute to our past, we’ve introduced an Old Miscellany section on pages 4 and 5, which ought to help new readers appreciate the richness of our 116-year stint as a publication. You don’t have to have been in Trinity forever to know something about the history of the institution – as Junior Freshman Paul Cassidy proves on page 32 with his insightful review of Trinity Tales, which was written by students from the 1960s.

There’s always a danger, of course, that those with an interest in history immerse themselves in past achievements with scant regard for the goings-on of the present – Trinity students and graduates very often fall prey to this tendency. Hence, the bulk of our issue is resolutely forward-looking – whether it’s Domhnall O’Sullivan anticipating the major events of the academic year on page 8, Ruairi Quinn TD giving us his take on the fees controversy on page 18 or Tara Monaghan plugging that most modern of sports, Ultimate Frisbee, on page 10.

With contributors taking us through the cultural nuances of Japanese society and analysing new contributions to Egyptian literature, there’s a truely international perspective to the issue – which makes it all the more remarkable that nobody chose to write about the impending vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Perhaps I should have ordered someone to cover it – but that wouldn’t have felt quite right. This is, after all, a miscellany.

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ENVIRONMENT TRAVEL POLITICS

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Conservation work in London didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t prove quite as fascinating as this may suggest.

Photo illustration: Martin McKenna.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Charity Muggers. Hunt in packs.

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30

INTERVIEW POLITICS

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Volume 117, Issue 1 Contents

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;To succeed in most areas of activity, and particularly in academia, we need to specialise: knowing more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothingâ&#x20AC;?

5

A few words with The Senior Tutor

6

Diary of a Fresher Lara Stewart is raring to go

7

Diary of a Graduate Hugh McCafferty is gone

8

Ten things to look forward to in 2009/10 Domhnall Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Sullivan peers ahead

10 Trinityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sporting life: not all rugby, rowing and cricket Tara Monaghan pleads the case for Ultimate Frisbee 11

Getting the most out of your Freshersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Week Thomas Broe on having the banter

12 The meaning of it all Andre Madaleno gets metaphysical 14 A Fresherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide to Dublin Aoife Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Reilly dispenses pearls of wisom

12 RECREATION TRAVEL

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TPbh c^ Q^bb Pa^d]S cWXb cda]TS ^dc c^ QT d]cadT 0]hfPh fT WPS P cT]c b[TT_ X]V QPVb adVb P [Xcc[T Q[dT VPb bc^eT b^ bfTTc _a^QPQ[h \h UPe^daXcT _XTRT ^U RP\_X]V T`dX_\T]c P [Xcc[T ZTcc[T P]S bPdRT_P] Rd_b _[PcTb b_^^]b TcR cX] ^_T]Ta Q^cc[T ^_T]Ta QXV Q^cc[T ^U fPcTa cTP c^fT[ b^P_ 5aXbQTT \^c^a eTWXR[T QXRhR[Tb aT YTRcTS Qh [Xcc[T bXbcTa 0[[ cWTbT cWX]Vb bW^d[S WPeT QTT] RPaTUd[[h _PRZTS d_ cWT SPh QTU^aT fT fT]c P[^]V fXcW cWT X]bcP]c R^UUTT P]S cWT cX]]TS aXRT _dSSX]V 1dc \h abc \XbcPZT fPb [TPeX]V P[[ cWT ^aVP]XbPcX^] d]cX[ cWT PRcdP[ \^a]X]V ^U bTccX]V ^UU P]S cWXb [TS c^ b[XVWc SXbPbcTab 8] _PacXRd[Pa U^aVTc cX]V \h bfX\\X]V R^bcd\T fPb eTah SXb P__^X]cX]V P]S WPeX]V c^ fTPa cWT ^][h ^]T 8 R^d[S ]S X] P [^RP[ RWPaXch bW^_ fPb _^cT]cXP[[h \^acXUhX]V 1dc 8 fPb ]^c X] 2P[XU^a]XP ^a fWTaTeTa Qdc ^][h X] 4Pbc H^aZbWXaT b^ Xc SXS ]^c \PccTa BTT cWPczb cWT QTPdch ^U QTX]V ]TPa W^\T h^d S^]zc WPeT c^ cah WPaS CWT \PaeT[ [^db X]cTa]Tc cda]TS ^dc c^ QT QaX[[XP]c U^a ]SX]V RP\_bXcTb P]S fT _aTcch \dRW WPS P _[P] Ydbc [XZT cWPc Qh [^^Z X]V ^][X]T P]S aTPSX]V aTeXTfb ^U RP\_bXcTb P[^]V cWT QXc ^U R^Pbc[X]T fT fP]cTS c^ U^[ [^f 0]S cWT _[PRT fWTaT fT bcPhTS fPb `dXTc P]S _aTcch P]S _TaUTRc aTS QaXRZ UPa\ VaTT] ^_T] R^d] cahbXST bTPbXST ]TPaQh RP\_ X]V S^Tb]zc WPeT c^ QT T] \PbbT fXcW $ RPaPeP]b P]S P RWX_ bW^_ ^] bXcT Qdc cWPc \XVWc QT Ud] Pb fT[[ =Tgc hTPa B^ fT bTc ^UU CWT fPhfPaS bXbcTa \PST \T [XbcT] c^ 1aTc^] U^[Z \dbXR X] cWT RPa fWXRW fPb eTah fTXaS P]S WPS bcaP]VT TUUTRcb ^] cWT \^^S 0UcTa cWPc 8 RWTTaTS d_ fXcW P QXc ^U bd]]h bP]Sh QTPRW \PST bcaP]VT Qh cWT adX]b ^U P] ^[S caPX] [X]T cWPc dbTS c^ ad] P[^]V cWT R^Pbc P]S WPb ]^f QTT] b\PbWTS P]S TPcT] d_ Qh cWT bTP CWT fPeTb PaT VaPSdP[[h ]XQQ[X]V PfPh Pc cWT fW^[T bcaTcRW ^U b^Uc R[Ph [XZT R[XUUb QTcfTT] B_da] ?^X]c P]S 5[P\Q^a^dVW 7TPS >da RP\_bXcT fPb S^f] cWT a^PS Ua^\ B_da] P[^]V P [P]T cWPc V^Tb cWa^dVW b^\T eTah b\P[[ eX[[PVTb X] P] T\_ch QXc ^U R^d]cahbXST `dXTc T]^dVW c^ P[b^ R^]cPX] P WdVT P]S P[XT] [^^ZX]V VPb aT ]Tah fWXRW WPS P] ^SS TUUTRc ^] cWT eXTf ?aTbd\PQ[h Xc

26

15 Playing the field Louisa McIndoe promotes promiscuity, a bit 18 Coming out of the shadows Former Labour leader Ruairi Quinn on fees, jobs & Europe 24 Tomatoes, puppies and oil prices, innit?

Jean Morley on her summer suburban sojourn 26 Without a bedroll Joanna Staunton goes camping 29 Pay for what you learn Sarah Werner on buying books when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re broke 30 Fire in the belly Michael Wynne gets to grips with Egyptian fiction 32 The Swinging Sixties: Trinity Tales reviewed Paul Cassidy wallows in other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nostalgia 34 The Last Word With Mark Walsh T.C.D. Miscellany 6 Trinity College Dublin 2 www.miscellany.ie editor@miscellany.ie

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T.C.D. Miscellany is funded by a grant from DU Publications Committee. This publication claims no special rights or privileges. Serious complaints should be addressed to: The Editor, T.C.D. Miscellany, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. Appeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland.

32

Miscellany is a full participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman.

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3

Old Miscellany

1959

Ten times the students but half the student experience

A

ccording to the Higher Education Authority, 2,617 new full-time undergraduates entered Trinity in 2007/08.

This is almost exactly ten times the number allowed by the Board 50 years ago, according to the extract above.

Assuming a similar intake this year, it seems that the intake of new undergraduates in 2009 is equal to the entire population of the university 4

in 1959.

Trinity’s population growth over that half-century, together with an accompanying if not commensurate increase in academic standards, is welcome. We are no longer a second-rate British institution but the premier Irish university. The tradition noted by Miscellany 50 years ago of Oxbridge rejects crossing the Irish Sea to indulge themselves in Trin-

ity’s “easy tempo of life” is a phenomenon more prevelant in discussion than reality nowadays.

This is in many ways a shame, because those English students that do make the journey often stand out as the most interesting and diverse portion of a student body now almost entirely homogenous in its Irishness. The sense that Trinity is “different” to its contem-

poraries — as is communicated wonderfully in the recently published Trinity Tales (reviewed on page 32) — has vanished. Our student population does contain diversity, but no more so than comparable institutions. UCD annually takes in more visiting Americans. It is hard to discern any general culture that, taking into account diverse elements, parts ways from the mainstream of Irish society. Our foreigners, in other words, rather keep their heads down, which is why the ebulliance of our English collegiates should be celebrated and encouraged.

The other major conse-

A few words with The Senior Tutor What’s your name?

Myra O’Regan.

Where are you from?

I’m from Cork originally.

Sum up your job in one sentence.

My job here, as Senior Tutor, is to take care of and listen to students.

How do you travel into College?

Bus! I thoroughly enjoy it.

Favourite thing about College?

I love walking across Front Square at eight o’clock in the morning when there’s nobody here. I just love that time of the morning, you forget how beautiful it is.

And your least favourite thing?

The busyness, at times, that I don’t have enough time to do things that I’d like to.

How has College changed in your time here?

It’s got busier, it’s more bureaucratic maybe.

Do you ever go to any student society events?

I go to some of them - the peer mentoring, I’ve been to that, and I do read the student newspapers.

quence of large-scale expansion is the welldocumented commercialisation of education.

The phrase that most aptly describes Trinity for many students today is “undergraduate factory”.

There are many ways in which the College seeks to counter this impression, not the least of which is its support — or at least tolerance — of the various student societies, clubs and publications that are currently plying their wares to potential members. The system of personal tutors (overseen

by Myra O’Regan, oppo-

site) makes a good stab at putting a human face on College in theory but is less effective in practice.

Whereas several of the contributors to Trinity Tales speak of their tutors with affection — or exasperation, but at any rate with some knowledge of their character — today having a real relationship with one’s tutor is rare indeed for any student not facing severe personal or disciplinary issues.

However things may stand for the academically gifted or relentlessly pushy, who may enjoy more time with their

teachers, it seems that for the ordinary student lecturers generally are distant; the administrators, at times, openly hostile. Of those staff holding College office, only Dr. O’Regan and Professor Gerry Whyte, the Dean of Students, give any impression of being approachable — and few student could pick them out of a line-up.

The “Trinity Experience” and sense of “college community” are worthy aspirations. For the moment, though, they remain no more than that. — Ed.

Ever go for a drink in the Pav? I don’t regularly now go for a drink there, I’m not really a pub person in that sense, but I love a pint of Guinness every now and then.

What’s your favourite book?

Oh, that’s an impossible one. I don’t have a favourite. I love good detective fiction.

What’s your favourite ice-cream flavour?

Maple & walnut.

Got any advice for Freshers?

Enjoy yourselves, join societies, enter into the spirit of college.

There are loads of things on, join the clubs, become active in the clubs... and obviously go to lectures as well, but try to find a balance between everything.

5

Diary of a Fresher Lara Stewart

“

6

GETTING READY TO TAKE THE PLUNGE ’ve made it! I can officially say that I am a college student — a “fresher”, to be precise.

After scouring through countless prospectuses and knuckling down for the Leaving Cert (well, kinda), I’ve landed in the intimidating hands of Trinity College.

Trinity was an obvious choice for me.

Its convenient location — lots of shops and pubs just a stone’s throw away — picturesque campus and extensive libraries meant that my CAO form was filled with “TR” codes.

However, like many others, I have some anxieties about college. Will I be completely out of my depth with the course I’ve chosen? (French and Russian TSM if you’re asking.) I didn’t do as well in Leaving Cert French as I’d anticipated so I fear I’ll be lost. Will I make friends easily or will I be doomed to initiating awkward conversations with the Doyle’s barman every night? Also will I enjoy it?

Of course, joining societies will help on the friends front.

The Phil and the Hist I’ve been told are pretty much obligatory. I’m also hoping to get involved in the Saint Vincent de Paul society. It’s good to give back and all that! I’ll of course be joining the Russian society. If I’m studying this language for four years I’ll definitely be attending the famed Chai Tea Parties that are held!

Aside from joining societies and taking full advantage of all the freebies on offer I’m really looking forward to attending some events this week. After all, Freshers’ Week is famed for socialising and all that comes with it. Although after a hectic week, and a summer of lie-ins and internet trolling, will I be able to keep up with the actual work involved in pursuing a degree? Hauling myself to nine o’clock lectures in wet, windy weather with a raging hangover sounds like hard work! However, it all depends on where I’m sleeping. Yes, this diary en-

try wouldn’t be complete without a mention of Accommodation. The family home is in Naas, not that far away but commuting would suck the fun out of college life in my opinion. Constantly exhausted and turning down “You heading out?” offers because I’ve a bus to catch. I can’t figure out whether living in town would be detrimental to my studying or not. On one hand I’ll be near college and more likely to go in. But also, I’ll be nearer the local watering hole. Hmm... decisions, decisions.

For those of us in a relationship, college is kind of a “make or break” environment. I have a boyfriend and I’m hoping that our relationship won’t be hit too hard when I start college. Then again, if there is one place to be single, it’s here.

There’ll be a lot of temptation and I fear trust issues will come into play.

My school friends are mostly going to college in the country — NUIG, UL and one unfortunate soul is going to UCD. Still, this gives plenty of opportunity for trips away for when I get tired of the big smoke.

The leap from secondary school to college is daunting but there are so many plus sides to it (I hope). I am about to embark on an adventure that I will never have the chance to experience as a bright-eyed teenager again! I have an idealistic vision of myself attending every single lecture, going to the gym/library between lectures and looking half-decent this year. After talking to some second year Trinity students that vision was brutally rebuffed! In saying that, first year is the one year we can take enjoyment out of things both social and academic without one affecting the other too much.

So now it starts — college life, and if it lives up to half of my expectations I will be a happy fresher!

Lara Stewart is a Junior Freshman student of Russian and French.

”

Diary of a Graduate Hugh McCafferty

“

A (NOT ENTIRELY) BRIEF ENCOUNTER efore describing the life lesson I recently learned after a run-in with a middle-aged Japanese housewife, it is perhaps necessary to explain how such an encounter came about. Last year, like most of my fellow soon-to-be-graduates, I was faced with the horrifying prospect of having to finally enter the real world after several years of arseing about in college. Again, like many of my peers, I chose to avoid this most undesirable fate and high-tail it out of the country. Since Japan is pretty much as far away on Earth as you can get from Ireland (and they give away free jet-packs upon arrival), it seemed like the ideal location for such a retreat from responsibility. At the moment, then, I am teaching English to high school students in Kitakyushu city on the west coast of Japan. It certainly beats queuing for the dole in the rain.

So, there I was, on my first visit to Kitakyushu’s central district, having a bit of a read outside a coffee shop, when a pleasant, homely-looking Japanese lady approached my table and sat down. We exchanged friendly glances — all that my lamentably limited Japanese would allow — and I returned to my book. Taking out a packet of menthols, my new companion puffed away contentedly for a minute or two before she ventured to offer me a greeting in English.

“Ah, lovely,” I thought to myself, “this nice lady would like to try out some of her eigo on me” — and who was I to prevent her getting a bit of practice in? We exchanged (or, rather, attempted to exchange) the usual banter — what is your name, where are you from, etc — and I rolled her a cigarette (a source of much intrigue) in exchange for one of her menthols. All very pleasant. After about ten minutes, I decided that it was probably time for me to move on. Before I could say anything, though, my new friend asked me to wait and disappeared off inside.

Not wanting to be rude, I sat there and after a few minutes she returned with a fresh cup of coffee. It was clear that our little natter

was not over.

At home, striking up a conversation with a stranger in a café in the cold light of day is a rare occurrence. I was somewhat taken aback, then, by this lady’s desire to speak to me at such great length, especially when the quality of our conversation was less than scintillating. I was even more surprised when she asked me to be her new English conversation teacher and inquired into whether I would be around the following weekend for our first lesson. My initial reaction was one of considerable discomfort and I agreed to meet her again partly so I could run away as soon as possible.

Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong about a stranger asking you to help them improve their language skills in a safe, easy-going manner. Now, undeniably, this lady didn’t fail to ask me some awkward questions — such as the predictable (in Japan) “Do you have a girlfriend?” and, coupled with that, the slightly more unsettling “How old do you think I look?” However, there was nothing undesirable (or, indeed, amorous) in her intent. She was merely attempting to communicate with me as much as her limited capacity would allow.

Afterwards, I described the encounter to some friends with the smug irony typical of a young Westerner like myself. During the week, I toyed with the idea of not turning up to our first language lesson; thinking that slightly cruel, though, I arrived punctually, if a little reluctantly, at our rendezvous point the following weekend. After a lengthy wait, it became clear to me that either there had been a serious miscommunication or I had been ruthlessly stood up. Since we never exchanged contact details, I’ll never know, but I like to think that my would-be student just wanted to teach me a little lesson about cultural humility. That or she found another impressionable young man to abduct.

Hugh McCafferty graduated from Trinity in 2009 with a degree in Psychology. See more at www.whatthefukuoka.blogspot.com.

”

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Ten things to look forward to in 2009/10

by Domhnall o’sullivan

1

Swine Flu It’s hard to imagine an area more suited to the spread of H1N1 than a university. About 10,000 dirty students crammed together into a couple of square kilometres in the middle of Dublin, and huddled whispering in the library, a shared rollie outside the arts block or a cheeky smooch behind the Pav on a Friday night are all hotbeds for a H1N1 headache. Several Irish Colleges have had to send their students home this summer as a result of swine flu scares and Irish universities have been said to be stocking up on various types of anti-viral protection in the run-up to the new college term. Reports claiming that these include preventative oinkments have not been confirmed.

2

Bigger Pav Remember those wintry Friday nights in the Pav when the only options were to sweat your balls off inside the cramped bar or freeze your balls off sitting at a table outside? It’s all change this year, as you might have noticed from the extensive work that our precious student bar has been undergoing during the summer.

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Gone will be long queues for the bogs, gone will be the seating areas to either side of the bar, and in will come more floor space and what’s been described as a “function room” available to sports clubs. The only drawback is that the works may not be finished by the time term begins, which means importation of your cans of Bavaria from the Londis across the road and knacker drinking of said cans beside the cricket pitch.

Sounds good.

3

Semesterisation Are we selling out in abandoning the centuries-old, proud structure of Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity? Or by “semesterising” ourselves are we finally making a sensible decision, necessary in order to keep pace with other dynamic and modern universities such as, eh, UCD? Either way the fact is that the new system is going to make feck all difference to our academic lives; lectures simply start two weeks earlier than before and summer exams end two weeks earlier. There’s no new GPA grading system or Christmas exams counting for half of the year’s result. So basically the centuries-old,

proud structure of doing nothing all year until May and then scraping a 2.1 should remain alive and well.

4

End of the emos This is just hopeful speculation really, but it seems like the “emo” fad should be nearing the end of its life-cycle sometime soon. It’s been a couple of years since Topshop created a generational sub-culture with sales of something they called “skinny-jeans”, which with purple hairstyles swept over one eye and Thursday nights in Wax took the arts block by storm. So what’s the new craze this year? Retro farmer, complete with peaked hat and wellies? Or inner-city gentleman, consisting of tracksuits and Nike trainers? Dont miss the train.

5

Another Lisbon vote Remember that thing we had a referendum about last summer? We voted no just to be awkward, and most of Europe sighed with exasperation and told us to get it right the next time or we’d be in trouble.

So on October 2nd, unless you’re a particularly fresh faced fresher, you’ll be

The Pav spreads its wings as workers put in some much-needed extra toilet space.

Photo: Martin McKenna. asked to ratify the Lisbon Treaty once again. The government hasn’t exactly exerted itself in securing the student vote, but it affects our future equally, if not more, than most. So ignore the propaganda posters and try to read the information leaflets on the Treaty next time you’re sitting on the bog so you can head back to the polling station in Mayo to make an informed vote.

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Unemployment Unless you have something lined up, don’t bank on the prospect of finding a part-time job to fund your full-time drinking habits. This summer witnessed the largest number of unemployed students wandering aimlessly around Ireland in quite a while. Unless Brian Lenihan manages to pull a whole warren of rabbits out of his hat, things don’t look like changing any time soon. Likewise for those of you hoping to graduate in 2010. During the Celtic Tiger, you would have spent the last four years drinking and snoozing your way to an arts degree before walking into a cushy office or teaching number. Now, however, you’ve spent the last 4 years drinking and snoozing your way to an arts degree but are going to be walking into your local social welfare office. Sorry.

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Cheap rent Two years ago you needed to sell your granny just to keep up with the rent payments on your rat-infested student gaff in Drumcondra. The R-word has apparently resulted in a “flooded property market”, which means cheaper rent and more availability. So even though your parents probably don’t have any money left, if they did you’d be able to afford a nice place in Ranelagh this year. Likewise, whether it’s Burger Kings “recessionbuster” meal deals or Dunnes Stores’ “Buy one get six free” offer on necessities such as industrial strength loo-roll, prices everywhere are lower than my chances of scoring a BESS bird. While nothing is exactly free, it’s apparently become more expensive to live in Jersusalem than in Dublin. Take advantage while it lasts. Snickers duo-pack for ¤1.20? Lunchtime.

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Less cars on College Green July saw the introduction of new traffic restrictions on College Green, requiring all traffic (except buses and taxis) to avoid the area during morning and evening rush hours. Will this make a difference to your life? Unless you drive a car into college or have a particular penchant for jaywalking your way up Dame Street, no. College Green was never exactly a traffic-jam blackspot, which makes the

decision to impose these restrictions a bit mystifying.

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No more exemptions For those of you who studied your arse off to get a 6-month summer holiday last year, congratulations. From 2010 onwards, Schol is only going to reward the brainiest of the boffins (or the swottiest of the swots), with no more exemptions being handed out for acheiving an overall 2.1 in the exams. With the foundation exams becoming virtually pointless for anybody not confident in getting a first, this means less chancers giving it a go at Easter to try and win themselves more time to spend on J1. Probably what prompted College’s decision.

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Hegarty’s swansong He doesn’t actually reach the end of his 10 year term as Provost until 2011, but I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel by this stage to find 10 things that are new this year. Has he any projects up his sleeve that would ensure he goes out with a bang? The introduction of an entrance exam or an interview to get into Trinity? A ban on fake tan in the Arts block? A clampdown on pointless speculation in student magazines? Watch this space.

Domhnall O’Sullivan is a Senior Sophister student of European Studies.

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L

ooking back on my first year at Trinity it rewhere the Ultimate community take over a local hosally wouldn’t have been complete without my tel, play seven or eight matches, attend some awedecision to join the Ultimate Frisbee club. Havsome themed parties and take home the prize. Last ing heard almost nothing about it before enrolling in year Trinity won Women’s Indoor Intervarsities, Trinity I presumed it was just a society for people came second in Women’s Outdoor Intervarsities, who loved throwing discs. Never had I anticipated it first in Mixed Intervarsities, Open Intervarsities and being a fast-paced, exciting and enjoyable sport acColours and finished highly seeded in both the Cork tive in most Irish colleges, not to mention highly popOpen and Siege of Limerick. All these tournaments ular abroad. As far as sports go Ultimate has a small are held in the best interests of the poor, recessionbut growing population of dedicated players and befighting student and costs are kept to a minimum. Because of this it is impossible not to make friends not ginner tournaments are organised early in the year only from Trinity but also from many other colleges to help you get to grips with the game. Notably fun at home and beginner tournaabroad. ments are DCU’s sport College Be warned, “Whacking Day” Ultimate is and “Cage Rage”, truly an adboth of which dictive sport. will get you eager Once you start and ready for the learning your Cork Open at the basic throws end of October. you will find So what sepayourself reachrates Ultimate ing for dinner Frisbee from the plates, vinyl rest? Apart from records, lamp the best parties, shades — anymost friendly thing circular players, beautiAs Trinity’s 50 sports clubs clamour for in shape, with ful women and your attention this Freshers’ Week, one of a compulsion fun on and off the to throw it at pitch? Well, aside last year’s crop reflects on her time in one of the nearest from all that Trinity’s small, often overlooked clubs. person. Luckthere is an eleily to help this ment of the game situation Trincalled “Spirit”

by Tara Monaghan ity hold trainwhich is critical ing sessions — to the game and typically two its appeal. Spirit to three times in a nutshell is rea week — and spect for all other rest assured there is always somebody with a disk players, friendly yet competitive play and following on campus itching for a throw. Most people take up the rules. As Ultimate is a self-refereed game it is reultimate at college level and you don’t have to be at ally up to the individual players to ensure a fair and the height of fitness to join. On the contrary, I being fun game. Besides which, the community is far too five foot four, with minimal muscle and missing that small to make enemies: most of the time you’ll be desired Y chromosome couldn’t have been further playing against your best friends. If this sounds like away from the definition of the “perfect applicant.” the kind of sport you’d like to get involved with you However in just one short year of Ultimate, I can can join us any time. We will have a stand open durfeel the difference the sport has made to my fitness ing Freshers’ Week and training times will be postand activity. Trinity usually begin an optional fitness ed on our website so feel free to join in. You have training session once a week around November. already made a great college choice; why not make Most beginner players find they learn most about your next best decision and join the ultimate Trinthe game during the amazing intervarsity tournaity club? ments which are held by different colleges over the year and are not to be missed. The typical tournaTara Monaghan is a Senior Freshman student of ment for Trinity students spans a whole weekend Music Education. See more at www.ultimate.tcdlife.ie

Trinity’s sporting life: not all rugby, rowing & cricket

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D

uring Freshers’ Week, chances are you be assured your opinion will be valued by at least will talk to a multitude of interesting peosomeone in college. Just remember: conclusions ple, most of whose names you’ll have are irrelevant, it’s the discussions that matter. forgotten before you’re even finished your caLet’s not forget our elected officials, the sual conversation with them. Your head will Students’ Union which strives to highlight be filled with a patchwork of faces, their imstudent issues and remove some of the ages drawn from vague recollections of stress from college life with organised induction talks, the Buttery and nights activities. Thankfully they don’t get out whose numbers appear on your expenses on top of their wages phone under names like Rhonda otherwise the Arts Block might or Fernando. be forced to close.

Freshers’ Week would be During Freshers’ Week you’re incomplete likely to make without socimany new college recreation eties adorning friends from Front Square amongst your with their new housecolourful parmates, from aphernalia your course and and undying from socialising enthusiasm in the evenings. for recruitIf you’re lucky ing memyou’ll be able to bers. Monday go out with an doesn’t end entirely differuntil you’ve ent set of people signed up for each night. Don’t at least a dozworry if you end Political partying, new mates and the en societies up trying to blossoming importance of irrelevant and people lose friends you think you’re made during opinions kick off your College experience — heading for Freshers’ Week but it’s all downhill from here. the airport bein your quest cause of the for friendship as all baggage we all have that by thomas broe you’re carrycross to bear. ing. Before we And then, forget about much too soon, the societies Saturday dawns let me give a and you return few words of warning. Don’t get seduced by politihome for a reprieve from the fast life you’ve been cal parties who use models to promote their views, thrust into. While at home you’ll reflect on the or societies who fail to tell you that their “many” week with satisfaction as you recount all the excitemembers are all actually on the stand at the one ment of Freshers’ Week to your friends (the nottime. so-academic ones who think the CAO is a teachers’ Also, during Freshers’ Week there is something union). in the rain. It’s still wet and all that but it has never Unfortunately not every week at college is like felt so good getting soaked. I’ve never seen so many Freshers’ or comes even remotely close to matchsmiling faces while the drains are literally overflowing the madness and energy on display. Nostalgia ing in the downpour. towards Freshers’ Week comes sooner than one One of the first lessons I learned at college came might expect. All it takes is a week with a heavy long before I’d entered a lecture theatre. I was workload and you’re left wishing it was still that asked my opinion. College was invented so people first Monday. could have endless arguments over inconsequential details. Whether it’s post-colonial settlements in Thomas Broe, not pictured above, is a Senior Pakistan or that Yorkie bars are nicer than Wispas, Sophister student of Pharmacy.

Getting the most out of your Freshers’ Week

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student life Philosophy

The meaning of it all The importance of education for its own sake is often overlooked by policy-makers.

Students need to recognise it, however, and take advantage of the rich experiences that college has to offer. by andre madaleno

resherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s week is busy, for some extremely busy. It was certainly not in my plans to consider the purpose and philosophical roots of university education when I arrived in college. I was too busy with new things: new country on Saturday, new language on Sunday, new house on Monday, new college on Tuesday, new course on Wednesday, new classmates on Thursday and new friends on Friday, and all these in the frenetic background noise of Front Square. Still, the quest for a purpose might be delayed but is never cancelled, regardless of why we consciously or unconsciously came to college: family 12

Hazards of excessive study: neck strain, twitchy eye, a hunched back and an inky face. expectations, money or the romantic pursuit of knowledge or a personal cause or vocation — or an odd mix of some or all of these reasons or more. So, why not stop to think about what college really delivers and what is it that we would want it to deliver?

Money or culture, instruction or education, a jet or being a gentleman? Hopefully all? This binomial is as much our existential problem as a question of College policies — reference to an attitude to education and life is unavoidable simply because it comes down to every decision that is made: curriculum restructuring, support given to societies, importance given to the college community, etc.

Moreover, it is not hard to find proponents for the priority of one or the other goals. Edmund Burke wrote in 1747: “Whatever therefore can make us better men, whatever might render us fitter, and more agreeable members of the happy community of which we live; that shou’d be the study and the practice (and rightly pursued might be the entertainment) of our youth.”

However, Building Ireland’s Smart Economy, a governmental paper released this year, proposes something quite different: “The challenge to the higher education sector itself is to create new possibilities through new alliances and new organisational arrangements that can advance our knowledge capacity and generate opportunity for new levels of efficiency, performance, innovation and growth.”

I don’t think these goals are mutually exclusive. I am as shocked by the futility of the studies most universities provided

in Charles Darwin’s time as by the narrow-mindedness of most highly employable graduates of nowadays. However, is it really possible, in practice, to get an education and a job at the same time?

Unlike professional instruction, especially that administered by bodies like The King’s Inns, education is an uncommonly nebulous idea. The best analogy I found compares it with good health — if a healthy body is good in itself why is not a healthy intellect? We exercise our muscles to be resistant, strong and elastic (don’t we?...), so why should we not exercise our memory, original enquiry and imagination simply to become better versions of ourselves?

“Because it’s not useful”, Locke would

To succeed in most areas of activity, and particularly in academia, we need to specialise: knowing more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing say, as he complained that the children of his time were being “stuffed with a deal of trash, a great part whereof they usually never do think on again as long as they live; and so much of it as does stick by them they are only the worse for”, sounding a bit like the Kaiser Chiefs singing “it’s cool to know nothing”.

Still, Milton would answer that this view is short-sighted because Locke neglects that a liberal education “fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of Peace, and War”, being useful

indirectly, as physical health is useful for a manual job.

However, it is so easy for government authorities to miss this reality, since, as John Henry Newman pointed out in his Idea of a University “although the art itself is advanced by this concentration of mind in its service, the individual who is confined to it goes back” — hence while Burke is looking for the improvement of individuals, the government is looking for an increase in the output of engineers and PhDs, forgetting that each one of these engineers also contributes to society “as a friend, as a companion, as a citizen at large; in the connections of domestic life” i.e. as a modern gentleman.

Still, to succeed in most areas of activity, and particularly in academia, we need to specialise: knowing more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing. But then what is left? Freshers’ Week is left.

Having a passion or an interest outside your course, a hobby, a sport, working hard and playing hard at the same time — that’s what’s left. Besides, to a certain extent changing of activity is as necessary to relax as to correct the defects of personality each course brings with it: the nervous timidity of the scientist, the intolerable verbosity of the talented law student, the irritating narrow-mindedness of the accountant, the misanthropic character of the skilful engineer are all diluted in a phrase — having a life.

Trinity provides this possibility in a much more comprehensive and attractive way than most other colleges in Ireland but when even colleges like the University of California are having their federal budget cut by 25%, we realise that cuts will have to be made here as well (with or without an increase in “registration” fees) and the failure to recognise the value of this so-called liberal education for society is shorthand for saying where to start cutting. After all, its role in raising the intellectual tone of society, cultivating the public mind and refining and giving breath of thought to the leaders of tomorrow is not only irreplaceable but crucial for a coherent and human modern world. I finish with T.S. Eliot, who at his graduation in 1905 said of the 20th century what I hope I will be able to say of the 21st: “Standing upon the shore of all we know, We linger for a moment doubtfully, Then with a song upon our lips, sail we Across the harbour bar — no chart to show No light to warn of rocks which lie below, But let us yet put forth courageously.”

Andre Madaleno is a Junior Sophister student of Medicine.

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Student life dublin

A Fresher’s Guide to Dublin (or, Things to be afraid of)

colour them grey? Why grey? The entire city is grey. They should be lime green or neon orange.

Dublin Bus. Stand well back as they come in towards your stop. Especially important in the winter when there are large murky puddles on the side of the road.

The path to that state of blissful indolence to which all first years should aspire is beset by dangers. Here’s how to avoid them.

Diseases and Ailments Hangover. Let’s be polite and say its caused by excessive tiredness. Cure: rest and a shot of gin.

Swine flu. A lovely little number in that it’s difficult to tell it from normal flu. By the time you reckon Lemsip and a tough face aren’t the answer, you’ve

by aoife o’reilly

F

riends, first years, visitors — lend me your ears.

During the numbing, examinduced terror of last term, I came upon an inspiring sentence on the inside cover of this magazine. It wondered if I had warnings to distribute to incoming students and, indeed, the student body in general. Born from that small question is the general conglomeration you see below. Enjoy.

Predatory species Cyclists. A predatory species native to Dublin. Diet consists almost entirely of unwary pedestrians. Main method of attack is to run you over as you attempt to cross the street — regardless of traffic lights.

Charity Muggers. Hunt in packs. Different subspecies can be identified by differently coloured vests.

Strategically placed around the entrances to Trinity and the streets around, so that there is no escape. Refrain from making eye-contact at all costs, no matter how friendly/intimidating the approach. This can send them into a clipboard waving frenzy.

Randomers with perfume samples.

Probably just an urban legend... but the idea is that someone offers you a perfume sample on a piece of paper to sniff. Don’t. It’s a chemical that causes disorientation or collapse, and when you recover everything in your pockets has been nicked and already been sold on a stall somewhere.

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Pigeons: Not like normal birds in smaller towns or the country. These multi-coloured, beady-eyed sky-rats fear nothing. When the Pav is open again, bring your food onto one of the outside tables. The feathery little so-and-sos will be sitting on the end of the bench within minutes. Solution: Take up archery/falconry/join the rifle club.

Aside: If you are really pigeon-phobic, try to avoid the Geology building.

Pigeons sometimes crawl into the attic here, get stuck and die. Also Connolly and Pearse station, both of which are home to one or two pigeons that are missing a few toes on each foot.

Transport hazards Cyclists. See above.

Note that it is also hazardous to be a cyclist in Dublin.

Two words: bus sandwich.

The Nitelink bus. Now only runs at the weekends, so you’ll be paying for a taxi home if you want to boogie of a Wednesday Dublin Bus’s buses: night. For the full dangerous by day Nitelink experiand night. ence a kebab and multiple pints of beer are required, but you can have a taster by swinging over to YouTube and searching “Fightlink”.

The Luas. Not the Irish for speed, as the authorities would have you believe.

No, the title is inspired by those who populate this neo-tram. Lu, as in Lunatic. As, as in Asshole.

Aside: whose bright idea was it to

Charity Muggers. Hunt in packs. Different subspecies can be identified by differently coloured vests already spread it to half your class.

Congratulations. Though let’s face it, if you’re in Dublin you’re exposed to a quarter of the country’s germ-filled exhalations anyway. We’re all DOOMED. Bizarre rashes: Oh dear. Off to the sexual health clinic with you.

Places Dark alleys. Where you will trip over stuff, like sleeping drunks and used syringes. Of course, they are used only in the interests of advancing medical science by subjecting the human body to various substances.

Arts block. It’s creepy and enclosed upstairs, so that the Film students can realistically recreate slasher flicks.

That’s why the radio is piped over the intercom downstairs. To hide the screams.

Liffey boardwalk. Riddled with cokeheads, users, abusers and choosers. Also massive, noisy, dive-bombing seagulls whose main aim in life is to take an eye out of one’s head.

Moore Street. Home of cheap vegetables and extraordinary Dublin accents.

Watch the pockets.

Temple Bar. Fun, but riddled with strange people. Again, watch the pockets.

Doubtless one will discover more hazards for oneself in the coming year and perhaps be inspired to warn your fellow students. Or, alternatively, you can let them discover various obstacles for themselves while laughing up your sleeve. Decide which one sounds more fun.

Aoife O’Reilly is a Senior Freshman student of Science.

Student Life relationships

Playing the field Freshers’ Week is an exciting time. New place, new friends, new books and sports clubs. But perhaps the instinct to pick up a new armpiece is best avoided.

by Louisa Mcindoe

A

s a naïve young fresher wandering through the corridors of the arts block, attempting to navigate the warren, I was approached by a fellow student. Obviously, the English girl succumbed to the renowned Irish brogue and charm, and the rest, as they very often say, is history. Because I am happy with the one I have at the moment, I am not going to advocate steering clear of all your fellow students.

The contrary, in fact. The only problem with my situation is that we met during Freshers’ Week, which is where an element of caution comes in.

Meeting someone in Freshers’ Week stopped me playing the field, to a large extent. I went out a lot, made a lot of friends that I still have, and enjoyed myself immensely (the reason why I came back from England early was to revel in the festivities a second time around). So, I got to do a huge amount of experimentation in terms of friendships — some people I met on a night and didn’t even bother to take their number down, or get them to repeat their name, as I knew that although they were good fun it wasn’t exactly best friend material.

And this is part of what Freshers’ Week is — talking to complete strangers, assessing people, forging new friendships. But the other side of it, if you are that way inclined, is to find a significant other.

A good few of my friends went to universities still with their high school sweethearts, whereas I took the slightly harsh decision to sever that tie, and would urge many to consider it. What was a

short, clean break with no betrayal on either side could have stretched out and ruined my first term or, in some cases, my first year. Because I had taken a gap year, I had been single for a while when I arrived. And that can very easily be a problem — you want to go out and see everything this city has to offer, both in terms of friends and also partners. And whilst a great deal of bed-hopping isn’t exactly safe and gets you an interesting reputation (one girl I was in Halls with was known for an incident in the Halls weekend before Freshers’ Week), tightening the chastity belt isn’t much fun either. Meeting so many people opens you up to a wealth of new experiences and new people, the type of which you may never have met before. This can be the

reason why so many of those high school relationships break down.

In my case, the best scenario happened, but it easily couldn’t have been.

Both of us had moved, me from England, him from the other end of the country.

We had both come without any school friends, both starting over completely.

The temptation to enshrine ourselves within a little “coupley” bubble was overwhelming. It is easy to take shelter in one person, to hide behind your “established” status. The couches in the Arts Block invite you to stop, linger and watch people, safe in the knowledge that you at least have one good, close person to you, whilst so many drift in and out of your life in that first term.

So, my advice? Unless you find someone where the link is undeniable, hold off putting the label on your relationship.

A lot of people coming to college have not had the intense relationships that the environment promotes, what with seeing a lot of the same people everyday.

So, look around, keep your options open, make sure you don’t settle because you’re looking for some stability in those first whirlwind three months.

There is a lot of time for that, and you need to make sure you don’t isolate yourself.

The whole point of college is to have fun, catch the Freshers’ flu, party yourself out. Time for the significant other comes later. Don’t use someone as your anchor, as you’ll limit yourself later on.

Louisa McIndoe is a Senior Freshman student of English and Philosophy.

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Trinity’s local barber

Located on Townsend Street Around the corner from Front Arch, opposite the Long Stone Pub Open Monday – Friday 9.30 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.

Special discount for students: Basic t u hairc

0 5 .

2 €1

TONI

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interview politics

Coming out of the shadows The former Minister for Finance and leader of the Labour Party has been out of power since 1997. With the opposition storming up the polls, Ruairi Quinn may be in a position to put his ideas into practice sooner rather than later. In an exclusive interview with T.C.D. Miscellany, he gives his thoughts on thirdlevel fees, Lisbon and the economy. by the editor

he Economist’s Bagehot columnist once described Ruairi Quinn as “a shrewd analyst who’s always worth listening to”. Far be it from Miscellany to disagree, so round to Kildare Street with us to canvass the former Labour leader’s views on the great issues of the day (apart from NAMA — life’s too short).

Ruairi Quinn first held public office as Minister for Labour under Garrett FitzGerald in the mid-1980s. He was Minister for Enterprise in the shortlived Fianna Fail/Labour coalition government from 1993-1994 and was most recently Minister for Finance in the Rainbow administration from 1994 to 1997. He has represented Dublin South-East — a veritable bearpit of a constituency — since 1977, with a short 18

break in 1981/82. He is currently the Labour Party Spokesperson on Education.

For such a major political figure, he’s been content to shun the limelight of late, allowing his successors Pat Rabbitte and Eamon Gilmore to make the running for Labour. During the last general election he quietly knocked on doors in Dublin South-East as the likes of Michael McDowell and John Gormley got into high profile argy-bargy.

(Not that it did him any harm in the end, of course.) Even his most recent brief seems, at first glance, like an odd one for a man whose experience has generally been in the economic offices of state.

With 85% of voters unhappy with the government’s performance, according to the latest TNS mrbi poll, this period of relative inactivity may be about to come to an end. If, as expected, there is an election next year — or if the Green grassroots finally throw the rattle out of the crib over NAMA — Fine Gael and Labour might just find that their policy differences disappear overnight. If such is the case, Ruairi Quinn will soon be out of the shadows and back in the sobering spotlight of political responsibility.

It’s a place he clearly wants to be.

Quinn appears most at ease when discussing nuances of policy detail, and one senses that mastery of a brief is by now second nature to him. Unlike other opposition politicians on the left, who more explicitly peddle protest, his potshots at the government seem hatched from genuine exasperation at ill-thought-out policy or management — clearly he still thinks he could do a far better job himself if parachuted into Government Buildings in the morning.

Denouncing Batt O’Keeffe’s handling of the meandering fees saga as “unbelievably incompetent” is, of course, par for the political course, but there is a clear impression that Quinn is raring to go if and when a chance at government comes along.

Just how unlikely it is that Labour will ever lead a government in his lifetime can shown by one of his own statistics. Ireland, says Quinn, is “the only country in the European Union that has never had a Social Democrat or Labour Prime Minister. We’ve never had a majority Labour-led government.”

But if another chance at coalition came knocking on the door, you sense he’d be in there so fast Batt wouldn’t have time to clear his desk.

What exactly Labour would do in those circumstances is an interesting question. As Quinn notes below, maintaining public services is an article of

faith for his party, and the introduction of free undergraduate tutition — by a Labour Minister, Niamh Bhreathnach. as we have heard so often — could hardly be rolled back upon by a subsequent Labour-backed administration. For Quinn, the situation can be reduced to a simple dichotomy: “Either you reduce the level of public services

Turn over for full text of our interview with Ruairi Quinn TD, Labour Party Spokesperson on Education.

If another chance at coalition came knocking on the door, you sense he’d be in there so fast Batt wouldn’t have time to clear his desk to meet the revenue that’s coming in, or else you broaden the revenue base and maintain the services. That’s the critical choice.”

You don’t have to read much into this to realise that tax increases are on the menu if, given the State’s current financial woes, free fees, expanded state internship schemes and the current levels of expenditure on health are to be maintained. That much is standard Labour, but Quinn’s experience in the big economic offices clearly tells when the subject of the economy is raised. Far from being reassured that the crisis has passed (“it’s going to get far worse. It’s still the lull before the storm, we’re still in a kind of Phoney War.”), he is convinced of the need for harsh medicine in the coming years. As has been well documented, the Celtic Tiger years inflated wages and pushed up costs throughout the economy. This now hinders our chances of recovery.

In order to get back on our feet: “We’re basically going to have to reduce our costs to return to competitiveness, and the way the Germans did that over the last seven or eight years is literally to freeze wages. The logic of that applies to the Irish situation.”

Yikes. Can’t we at least emigrate?

No, “there’s nowhere to emigrate”.

Well, if we’re in it for the long haul, at least we’ll have some great schools and hospitals, even if we’ll be paying more out of our meagre wages to maintain them. This isn’t a problem for Labour, of course, who would like nothing better than for us to move to a societal model more proximate to the Scandinavian, with higher taxes paying for better services.

If you agree — and we students do incline more centre-left than most Quinn’s message is to get out and do something about it. “Look at Barack Obama and what happened there. Look at what happened in Japan ... it is the political process that brings about the change.”

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19

ou studied architecture at UCD in the ‘60s. That’s an interesting time to be at college.

It was very interesting — UCD was going through a kind of transformation.

It really was more of a Catholic academy than a university.

For example, philosophy was taught from a Thomist perspective, and every other philosophical position was measured against the benchmark of Thomism. Marxism as such didn’t exist, and the idea that there was an alternative to orthodox liberal market economics just wasn’t considered. And there was a very restrictive sort of social attitude — for example, women were not allowed wear slacks or jeans.

There were a whole series of anachronisms like that which were really waiting to be challenged, and the exuberance of the 1960s, starting with the student movement in Berkeley and then the events of May in Paris, plus the live coverage of television and the communications revolution meant, in the words of Marshall McClune, “the medium became the message”. It was a very optimistic and radical time worldwide.

There had been a continuous increase in prosperity since 1945 and the Second World War. The oil crisis didn’t hit until 1973, so it was an optimistic mood.

Would you contrast that to the atmosphere, as you see it, in universities now? Students maybe are more apathetic, not as politically engaged?

The restrictions on personal freedom were very real in those days, like the dress code for women —

The “under-resourcing” of education at all levels must end - but where would Labour find the money?

Photo courtesy of the Labour Party.

20

which was challenged. We just declared one day was to be a Jeans Day and every woman in UCD, every female student, came in in slacks, and the thing was nonsense.

To put up posters (for example, advertising meetings) you had to have the posters authorised and stamped.

Brian Farrell, the former TV presenter for Prime Time — that was one of his jobs, he was in the Secretariat in UCD. And there were certain speakers who couldn’t be invited. Owen SheehySkeffington, for example, was one, a very liberal former Trinity senator, first cousin of Conor Cruise O’Brien. And at one stage Noel Browne was on a prohibited list. So that kind of censorship — petty restrictions — they were things

Where and how you spend the money becomes a secondary issue, as distinct from reaching the target. We are underfunded that intruded into personal lives, so you were able to mobilise people’s support for those kinds of changes, because it affected the lifestyle that they had.

So would you say that nowadays the reason students aren’t as militant is because of the changes that were brought in at that time?

There aren’t pebbles in their feet anymore, in that respect. The issues that now confront them are, first of all, the academic world has changed considerably. I mean, a general Arts degree in UCD consisted of a mandatory exam that you had to do at the end of first year, which was an NUI exam, your second year was a College exam and it didn’t matter if you failed it or not, and your third year then was your BA degree, which meant that for a lot of people

there was enormous amount of social activity like Dramsoc, sport of whatever kind you wanted to do. Now, with the semesterisation of the curriculum.... I get the sense talking to the Labour Party branches in the different universities around the country — the Labour Youth branches — there just isn’t the same amount of time available for those kind of extra-curricular activities. Which in a way is a pity, because many of the activities that are engaged upon — as well as the normal socialising ones, just having fun — are very much what university is about.

Yours is one of the only major parties now to oppose fees. Do you not think that it’s a done deal at this stage?

Well, whether it’s a done deal or not doesn’t necessarily mean we have to accept it, from a political point of view.

The government objective, which we support, is to move from 55% of [secondary school] students participating in third level education up to 70% by the year 2020, in line with the aspiration towards a knowledge-based economy and a knowledge-based society. It also has to be broadened in terms of the socioeconomic groupings that participate in it, and there’s some evidence that that is happening, when you take the entire sector.

Third-level education is not free.

There’s a cost to it, and that cost is borne substantially by the families and by the students themselves. And the student service charge, that’s effectively a fee now, that’s 1,500. That was a kind of clawback on fees introduced by the back door.

We believe that that fee cost... should come out of general taxation. Dedicated taxes, ringfenced taxes are fraught with problems, and the Department of Finance hates that kind of ringfenced revenue.

Students and graduates in particular tend to earn above-average wages in any society. You deal with that, then, by having a progressive taxation system, that the more you earn the more tax you pay.

I also have reservations about the practicalities attached to what Mr. O’Keeffe seems to be proposing.

That’s right, you spoke to Ferdinand von Prondzynski of DCU in

July, and you told him that there were practical problems with this, “there is a time lag in the availability of money”, it’s not going to bring in the type of revenue that the Department seem to think. Why do you think that is?

First of all, we’re dealing in a vacuum in relation to this, because the Minister hasn’t published the full details of what he’s actually recommending — he’s set out the options — but on the assumption that he stays with the Australia/ New Zealand model... the 1,500 student service charge is going to be rolled up into the fee.

So it’ll be free at the point of entry, is the point they’re making there.

Free at the point of entry, well that’s like using an ATM card, you know, the cash is free at the point of receipt but you have to pay for the interest on it or you have to have the money there at the end of the day. And assuming that most students are doing at least a four year course, and then looking for employment after that, they’re not going to be in a job with a salary that will allow them to start paying back on the fee for between six and eight years.

So you don’t see any (short term) financial gains from this at all?

Well there’s a big cashflow problem, and the government at the present time has a major cashflow problem. I mean, one of the reasons why the Student Support Bill hasn’t been moved forward — this is to deal with the grants system, to rationalise it and streamline it — it has been deliberately put on hold, because they reckon there would be a cashflow problem if they were to streamline it and improve it. You may have seen recently in Sligo — five hundred students — they’re not going to get their money until probably February.

You’ve said of course that government is in dire need of money due to the problem with the public finances, and you said back in March that Fianna Fail and the Greens were “cyncially taking advantage” of this situation to bring in fees. You see this then as an ideological thing, not a response to the current problem at all?

I do, yeah.

The pro-fees side [are] saying you have middle class families sending their kids to third level who could well afford to pay at point of entry and solve this [third-level] funding crisis. Why shouldn’t they pay?

The Labour Party’s ideological position is that we believe in public services free at the point of usage, whether it’s

medicine, whether it’s health service, whether it’s primary or secondary or tertiary education. Because two things flow from that: if everyone’s using those services, the standard and the quality will be maintained. If you divide the service, as they do in the United States,

When we qualified to join the single currency... instead of learning to behave like Germans we continued to act as if we were Italians between people who are dependant on the public quality, public hospitals for example, and the middle class who have private insurance, the standard of delivery in the public sector hospitals drops dramatically. In countries like Finland and Sweden and Denmark and the Netherlands the standard of public services is very high because everyone’s using them and they won’t tolerate bad standards.

In a globalised world economy, we need to have a very intelligent and creative and well-educated workforce.

That’s the primary argument. So we’re investing in this, it has a cost, the participants are paying an awful lot of the cost directly themselves... there’s a lot of part-time working, which, apropos my earlier comments, given the semesterisation and the intensity of academic compliance, part-time work can be extremely difficult.

There is a sense in which the section of the community that we want to increase their participation in third-level is not middle class — they’re doing it, there’s a culture of middle class [participation] — it’s lower middle class and working class families who have no generational experience of third-level.

The evidence is conflicting on whether there’s a direct link between the Rainbow Government bringing in free fees [in 1995] and uptake in third-level education in certain disadvantaged areas. Last month you had Maureen O’Sullivan TD, representing the inner city, saying that she in fact would welcome the return of fees, because the problem isn’t that fees [would put off ] a whole cohort of third-level students; it is, as you said, that there’s no generational experience. The problem isn’t third-level fees, it’s at first- and second-level.

We have 80% of our second-level students go through to the process of the Leaving Cert, and the outcomes, by and large, tend to be good... But what we don’t recognise and what is ignored by policymakers and by the Department of Education is the very high dropout rate

that has remained constant and which is affecting one particular socio-economic group particularly hard, that is the male, working class student. Go to school to learn to read so that you can read to learn — that’s our primary school paradigm, that’s the way it functions. And if you can’t read comfortably by fourth class, you’re starting to fall behind.

In terms of increasing the participation rate in education, for third level, that’s an issue that has to be addressed as well. It’s not an either/or. The two of them run parallel.

The DCU President spoke in Trinity last year and made a very similar point about primary education, preschool education. But if you’re talking about increased investment in those areas as well as maintaining free fees, with the current problems in the budget, where is the money coming from for this?

We have to, as a society, decide that education is sufficiently important that we’re going to increase [spending] from 4.7 percent of GDP up to about 6 or 7 percent. If you look at the way in which we agreed over many years to reach the UN target of overseas development cooperation — go up to the 0.7%, we were at 0.3%, and we’re going now in the direction of 0.7% — where and how you spend the money becomes a secondary issue, as distinct from reaching the target. We are underfunded. Our system is only actually achieving the outcomes... because of the quality of teaching and the qualifications of teachers.

But unless we get to the point of saying we’re going to have a good international-quality education system that’s going to cost somewhere between 6 and 7% of GDP — likewise with our health system, which is actually closer there, our problem with the health system is while we are spending a significant amount of money, around 8 or 9% of GDP, it’s badly spent. It’s wasted. So the issue in education is quite different to the issue in health.

You see it as just pure under-resourcing, not putting the money in?

Yeah. Under-resourcing. And the management of it. We have 3,200 schools in the primary school system and 75 percent of those schools cater for 25 percent of the pupil population. Now, I’m not talking about amalgamating or closing schools, there are arguments about clustering and getting better resources and better use of, we’ll say, 10 or 12 rural schools, given modern transport now. I mean, those schools were built at a time when every primary school kid walked to school. We’d look at the network of schools and say “How can you actually 21

combine them?” — maybe turn them into campuses and colleges, maybe send the junior infants up to third class in one campus in one school and two miles down the road, the other side of it — that kind of thing.

You oppose the Australia-style reform that Batt O’Keeffe’s advocating. Two questions: is the Fine Gael graduate tax scheme any better, and secondly what’s your alternative?

The Australian model will have an immediate short term cashflow implication, and there’s no evidence from the thinking that Batt O’Keeffe has put forth so far — and he’s been at this for over a year now, this time last year he was talking about reintroducing fees, it’s unbelievably incompetent — and it’s not going to address the short term cashflow problem. So what is he going to do in the meantime?

What would you do?

Well, you just have to look at the Commission report on taxation and see how you can spread the burden. The Irish people have a very simple choice. Either you reduce the level of public services to meet the revenue that’s coming in, or else you broaden the revenue base and maintain the services. That’s the critical choice.

You probably accept, then, that given the need to repair the public finances and the fact that it’s not very likely that much extra money will be found over the next few years, a Labour government would have to be making these cost savings rather than pumping in extra resources.

Yep. We have an economic crisis now, and we haven’t seen the worst of it yet, incidentally. It’s going to get far worse.

It’s still the lull before the storm, we’re still in a kind of Phoney War. As regards unemployment?

As regards unemployment, as regards business failures… because we have the strength of the single currency (which has saved our bacon in one respect), we have the discipline of the single currency [which] is that we can’t devalue.

We can’t devalue ourselves back into competitiveness. So we’re basically going to have to reduce our costs to return to competitiveness, and the way the Germans did that over the last seven or eight years is literally to freeze wages.

The logic of that applies to the Irish situation. Our problem was when we qualified to join the single currency — and I was centrally involved in those negotiations — instead of learning to behave like Germans we continued to act as if we 22

were Italians.

As regards third-level graduates, do you think the outlook’s bleak over the next three to five years, are we all going to be emigrating again?

No, I don’t think you will be emigrating again, because there’s nowhere to emigrate, in the sense that that was the option back in the 1980s. I think what the government need to be looking at is graduate internships... We should be looking at other ways of actually employing people. The Office of Public Works, for example, are reintroducing a two-year internship for recently qualified architects to give them some experience. We should be availing of the number of people who are coming out of the educational system. For example, take all the trainee teachers that are coming onto the labour market. Rather

If the whole of the European Union had a common policy in relation to energy... the Russians wouldn’t be able to bully us than pay them dole, I would say let’s give them part-time work in the classroom, give them some work experience, let them take on a kind of temporary apprenticeship.

The Department of Finance, and each department, they’re like deep siloes.

There’s very little horizontal thinking.

What is the cost of a remedial teacher as distinct from the cost of a juvenile criminal who comes out of an education system not able to read? So look at the totality of the cost and then see how you can maximise the outcomes. I did it when I was Minister for Labour, I introduced a thing called the Social Employment Scheme, which is now the Community Employment Scheme, which is an option for people who are unemployed. That’s what we have to do.

I wanted to talk briefly about the second referendum on Lisbon. You’re quite a committed European, I think it’s fair to say. What would you say to students about how they should vote on this and why?

We’re the only country in the European Union that has never had a Social Democrat or Labour Prime Minister.

We’ve never had a majority Labour-led government. As a consequence, most if not all of the progressive social legislation — women’s rights, environmental protection, labour law, workers’ rights — arose out of the social consensus that was within the European Union, of which we became a part when we were in Brussels, but not necessarily here.

So Europe has been a progressive and liberating experience for Ireland. We didn’t really ever exercise our sovereignty after we got independence from Britain in 1921/22 until we agreed to share and pool some of that sovereignty in 1973 with the European Union. That unlocked the potential of the Irish people and the Irish economy because it severed the near-colonial relationship between Ireland and its dominant neighbour and dominant marketplace.

What the present Lisbon Treaty does is it improves the transparancy and the democracy of a Union of 27 Member States. I’ll give you two concrete examples. When the Commission proposes a draft piece of legislation, it’s sent to the Council of Ministers and to the European Parliament at the same time.

Then they go through the process of the Council of Ministers signing off on it, voting for it and then it goes to the European Parliament. The European Parliament is subsidiary in many respects to the Council of Ministers. They’re not two equal legislative chambers. The Lisbon Treaty will make them equal.

I’ve been a Minister during two Irish presidencies — it rotates, as you know, every six months — but when you’ve got 27 [member states], that rotation means that you’re going to have a whole lot of different people — you know, it’ll be 13 and a half years before you can do anything more. And you won’t have the same memory. Now, the proposal is to have a President of the Council for, in effect, five years, [which] would give a certain kind of authority to the European Union on the international stage.

So you see this as giving more direction to Europe?

Look, the big issues facing Europe in your lifetime, in the present student’s lifetime, is going to be energy security, climate change and migration... Ireland on its own can’t negotiate with China or India on terms of trade, nor can Denmark, nor can Italy. That’s why negotiating in the Doha Round on behalf of all of the members states makes sense. If the Doha Round is agreed and if we extend it — for example, if the whole of the European Union had a common policy in relation to energy procurement and energy conservation and neutralisation, the Russians wouldn’t be able to bully us. If we stand alone, we won’t be able to maximise [our] strength.

A lot of the opposition to the re-run of the Treaty is on the left, they see Europe as being “neo-liberal”, “a bosses’ Europe” and all the rest of it. Do you think there’s enough of Social Europe there, specifically in this treaty, to

ameliorate that?

Well first of all, the European Union and the Lisbon Treaty and the Charter [of Fundamental Rights] are committed to creating a social market economy, with full employment or low levels of unemployment. The United States constitution doesn’t do that. The economic policies that are pursued by Member States within the European Union are the outcome of the way in which the electorate vote. If your team’s performing badly, you can’t blame the rules of soccer because you’ve a shite team. If the Irish people decide to vote right-of-centre governments and if right-of centre governments are the dominant group, elected freely and without any question of proper elections, then that’s the political process at work. It’s got nothing to do with the rules and the principles of European Union policy.

We’ve seen the development in this campaign of youth-focused campaigns — Generations Yes is the prime example, there’s a lot of ex-Students’ Union wannabe politicians involved in that.

Do you see any need for them?

I think an awful lot of young people take the whole European achievement to date for granted — and so they should.

The fact that you can get onto a plane and fly pretty much anywhere within Europe and produce your Euro from your own wallet and not be asked for your passport at every border is something that, you know, you say “Great, that’s the way it should be.” — but it’s only become like that because of the operation of the European Union and its political culture.

So do you think these campaigns like Generation Yes are getting this exact message across?

Well I don’t know because they’re not speaking to me, they’re speaking to their own. I think people have become very disillusioned because of the corruption that was exposed in the Mahon Tribunal, with the level of incompetence and the wastage and the expenses scandals, John O’Donoghue and others. That’s to be understood. But, you know, we’ve had...25 years minus three of Fianna Fail, that domination — but it can be swept aside very quickly. Look at Barack Obama and what happened there. Look at what happened in Japan — a party that had been in government effectively for 55 years, with the exception of 12 months, virtually wiped out. It is the political process that brings about the change. So if people are disillusioned because they don’t like what’s there, and therefore they don’t bother voting, they get more of what’s there.

“Europe has been a progressive and liberating experience for Ireland.“ Photo courtesy of the Labour Party.

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environment travel politics

Tomatoes, puppies and oil prices, innit?

Far from combing an orangutan and fending off poachers with her bare hands, a student finds that work at the clerical end of conservation carries its own hazards.

by Jean morley

en minutes later, I still hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t found a tomato. Where were the off-pink, leathery specimens from my previous life? Centraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s children, the comforting mush between the ham and the bread? Not in Sainsburyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Harpenden, the labels barked.

Sun-ripened, organic, cherry, on the vine - I had more in common with a tomato than the red monsters staring back at me.

My first day buying lunch cemented my position as a Hertfordshire local.

Here, in the heart of the Home Counties, food is mulled over for its life-giving properties. Where full-fat milk is a dirty phrase, about as excusable as a Labrador leaving poop, one feels compelled to 24

make an eco-driven choice.

I certainly did, picking a rugby-ball shaped fruit from one of the baskets. My entire summer was an eco-friendly oper-

A sustainable enterprise, the potential to be green; if it didnt fast-track me into heaven past my inebriated J1 buddies, it might just boost an anaemic CV ation. For three months, I was an intern with an orangutan conservation company, based in the suburbs of North London. In return for my time in an office, I got free accommodation and experience

doing PR for a sustainable business.

Way Out Experiences (WOX) organises volunteer projects to orangutan centres in Borneo, Indonesia and Malaysia. The company revolves around the concept that ordinary people are willing to pay time and money to become involved at the frontline of conservation.

Moreover, working as a business rather than a charity, WOX seeks to create grassroots employment for local people, inspiring wealth creation from natural resources. Even now, outside the shackles of PR and marketing, I can recognise the worthy principles convincing me to send off a CV. Besides, framed by rainy Trinity and deepest, grey December, I thought it

sounded exotic when I saw the vacancy online. London and orangutans, although not usually compatible in sentence form, would be an interesting alternative to scrabbling for work. Too many of my summers have been T.S. Eliots: Wastelands devoid of structure and meaning.

And, being the kind of English student who drops obsolete literary references into everyday speech, I haven’t been the most amenable to practical employment. A sustainable enterprise, the potential to be green; if it didn’t fast-track me into heaven past my inebriated J1 buddies, it might just boost an anaemic CV. Any disgustingly career-focused leanings were, thankfully, exorcised by a few months abroad. Like anyone who

I wasn’t quite working handson with the apes. People like my granny have visions of me sitting placating gorillas which only a cretin would allow reality to taint embarks on a trip “out foreign”, I had moments which could never possibly be filtered into interview-speak. Day one, le jour du tomate, I exposed my ignorance of animals and evolution in one admirable swoop. “Aw, look at the monkeys” I smiled, pointing to pictures on the office wall. All sounds of keyboard keys raced to a halt, as I confused four stages of Darwinian theory. Turns out great apes aren’t monkeys, they’re a little more progressed, in the same way Great Aunt Mary isn’t a chimp.

Despite the fiery baptism in

wildlife classification, I began to get hooked on the plight of the ape. Skype-ing scientists working out in the field, writing proposals for grants, it is difficult to be icecold about wildlife surrounded by a team of people who care.

Forget watercooler weariness and people plodSainsbury’s ding through their Harpenden, as nine-to-five, my seen by the author. colleagues had a passion for their work far surpassing office roles.

Most surprising of all were the past volunteers who were delighted to discuss their recent trips. For many people returning to England after time spent at the project, the rainforest interrogates their day-to-day life. Spend enough time around orangutans, sunbears, binturongs and macaques and extinction becomes more than a global crisis. It is a personal tragedy, prompting people to sell their cars, take cold showers and save up their cash to buy ropes for orangutans.

Of course, immersed in London suburbia, I was still at some distance from jungle life. Despite the expectations of my friends back home, I wasn’t quite working hands-on with the apes. People like my granny have visions of me sitting placating gorillas which only a cretin would allow reality to taint. But really, my forests were the leafy streets of the commuter belt, the most high-octane sounds were the screeching families and children running to and fro in beautiful parks. Or groups of jeering cricketers in the bar where I worked, a red-bricked establishment boasting its own

ales and a striking similarity to the set of Emmerdale. Clients waltzed to the bar with puppies and wellies, always a difficult look to carry off. Even more so

Turns out great apes aren’t monkeys, they’re a little more progressed, in the same way Great Aunt Mary isn’t a chimp when yelling into a Blackberry about the price of oil.

I imagine that the effects of returning from Borneo are more exciting than memories of Harpenden North. Thankfully, I don’t have Kurtz moments in the middle of the night, waking to rant about the impenetrable dark. The horror of the boxwood hedge has yet to impinge on my nightly dreams. But the Guardian Belt will have some gentle influence on my values. Carefully considering sandwich fillings or re-evaluating my bike, I can’t escape my new knowledge of cause and effect. London herself, the veritable maiden of England, her influence will seep out in more mysterious ways. A quick “innit” at the end of my sentences?

A desire to dress fashionably unseasonably - berets in Summer and shorts in midwinter? Coffee as the first principle of any social interaction?

Probably, mate, Dublin won’t be the same.

Jean Morley is a Senior Sophister student of English Studies.

Conservation work in London didn’t prove quite as fascinating as this may suggest.

Photo illustration: Martin McKenna.

25

Recreation Travel

Without a bedroll Trips abroad don’t always produce the ideal holiday. Yet a break from everyday life is often required to retain one’s sanity. So how about a summertime escape located a little closer to home?

by Joanna Staunton

T

his August I was at home in England with no desire to go anywhere else. A month of unemployment lay out before me, like a sunbather lazing on the beach, and I wanted to spend all my time within a ten-mile radius of home. It sounds like a rather dull ambition, but I’d had enough of horrible grey hot crowded airports, buses and taxis, and hidden extra charges everywhere. Seafood risotto and Turkish mezze had been enjoyed quite enough last year and the one before. Give me fish and chips, I thought, and give me strawberry ice-cream, eaten walking along the seafront.

It’s not that travelling had genuinely lost its attractions, or that I’d

26

started to think there was something wrong with it. But there’s a certain attitude you have to take towards visiting other countries that can become forced. If travelling always offered the kind of experiences that genuinely open your mind, extend your understanding of other people’s ways of life, and of the history of people’s lives on earth, then it would always be worth taking the time to do, and worth spending the money and dealing with the various hassles. I think it does really work sometimes and it’s a very, very good feeling. But often it feels as if places are selling tourists a shiny ideal of traditional villages or historic cities, or total isolation and peace. What’s really there is a lazy act of wishful thinking on both sides.

It’s not news that holidays aren’t perfect or that locals try hard to flog something that doesn’t really exist; but it’s not really the locals’ fault if they’re selling a bit of a lie because it’s their local area so

it’s their place to lie about if they want to. I just began to wonder why I bothered going along with it. For example, I really love Dublin for its atmosphere and its beauty, but I just wonder if all those people who learn about how Guinness is made, and roar like Vikings as they storm down Dawson Street, really do enjoy these gimmicky “attractions” and they’re not sometimes pretending that they do to make the whole trip seem more worthwhile. The real thing to discover is the people, the way everyone lives in another place, but the tourist board can’t easily point you in the right direction.

What you‘re looking for is elusive and very chancy — you might meet some great people, and have an amazing time, or you might not be so lucky. The tourist’s daily life is just too different to the daily habits of the person who lives and works in a town or a city, even if Dublin’s inhabitants also enjoy the interesting history, or picturesque architecture.

It takes a lot of effort on both sides to really begin to get a grip on the differences in lifestyle and outlook that make travel, as a learning, growing experience, worthwhile. It seems hard to believe in some ways that native English speakers go abroad simply expecting to speak their own language when they are there.

That sounds mildly lazy if going to Spain, France, maybe Germany, but further afield, no one seems to expect tourists in Turkey to have learnt Turkish before setting off, or backpackers headed to South-East Asia to have got their heads around Thai and Khmer, or drivers in the Mongol rally to have mastered Mongolian. Meanwhile, any tourist to the UK or Ireland might be expected to have more than just a few token words of English accompanied by silly sign language to get by on. Even stranger, a German or an Italian or a tourist from any other non-English speaking country, is constantly addressed in English — not their language or the language of the country they‘re visiting, and yet they have to speak it if they want to visit, say, Malaysia or Kenya, because by whatever chance or for historical reason, that’s the international tongue and it seems that‘s not going to change.

Meanwhile, if we don’t speak the languages of the countries we visit then there’s obviously a limit to the aspects of their culture we can take in, making the ostensible reasons for the big trip (learning about other ways of life etc) look a little difficult to achieve. Of course, we go to just enjoy ourselves too, but sometimes it’s at the expense of local people and businesses. Sometimes towns practically built on the tourist market, are overrun with businesses that form no part of any

real local identity. Look at the waves of Stag Night parties in Temple Bar every weekend for an example of tourism doing damage to local culture. As for other countries, in popular cities streets get clogged with depressing Irish Pubs™ everywhere. These seem OK if you’re exhausted and hungry; they’re easy to go to, and they’re fun, it’s just that they’re the opposite of what you really came for, and they obscure other better places, more unusual, or interesting, or real.

I’m really not trying to criticise

Forgetting my swimming costume was very disappointing, and having to wear the only one I could find in a local charity shop was potentially mortifying tourists or the people whose job it is to provide for them, I just want to examine a few recent anxieties about trips and travel — obviously I’m not actually going to start learning every language in the world, or renounce Irish pubs (that’s a laugh). I’m just going to go around with a lame sense of guilt, and this year, I decided to spend time just in England in the hope that it might somehow be helping someone by just staying away for a while, and not buying into a shiny well-sold lie.

Plus, my local economy needs my help! And I might not actually be exploiting anyone by staying in my native land. Amazingly, it’s sunny sometimes right here at home, at least this August it has been, and another bonus is that the UK and Ireland are a series of islands, meaning we’re never ever far from the beach. So, I was at home, in England, and I needed to do something at least, because although I have detailed my growing cynicism as regards going abroad, I couldn’t actually stay at home for an entire month and keep my sanity as well.

Was camping was the answer? I’d done a small amount of it in my time, I’m still quite devoted to the idea of it at least, and contemplated my camping trip with pleasure. I would wake up in a green field with the trees waving in the breeze and maybe the sea just over the hill.

Nearby would be a farmhouse whose kindly inhabitants would provide milk and eggs and homemade butter. Also on the scene, bicycles, and a lot of Swallows and Amazons-related fantasy. Would I and my companions find gold in the hills? Would we discover a smuggling ring? Possibly.

Camping trips need quite a lot of planning and also lots of equipment.

Also, you can’t go alone, so I enlisted my little sister, because I thought she’d be

easy to boss around (this turned out to be untrue). Anyway we had a tent, sleeping bags, rugs, a little blue gas stove (so sweet, probably my favourite piece of camping equipment), a little kettle and saucepan, cups, plates, spoons etc, tin opener, bottle opener, big bottle of water, tea towel, soap, Frisbee, motor vehicle (bicycles rejected by little sister). All these things should have been carefully packed up the day before we went along with the instant coffee and the tinned rice pudding. But my first mistake was leaving all the organisation until the actual morning of setting off and this led to slight disasters. In particular, forgetting my swimming costume was very disappointing, and having to wear the only one I could find in a local charity shop was potentially mortifying. But I was not in California or wherever but only in East Yorkshire, so it did not matter! See, that’s the beauty of being near home — you don’t have to try hard. The marvellous internet turned out to be brilliant for finding campsites and we pretty much had a plan just like that, by looking online and reading reviews of campsites along the bit of coastline we wanted to follow. And the place where we stayed was quiet and pretty and perfect — red brick farm, green open countryside, seaside nearby — camping doesn’t have to be en masse with 1,500 caravans and a chip shop on site, but that might be fun as well.

Next year.

So we set off. The wayward sister made me listen to Breton folk music in the car, which was very weird and had strange effects on the mood.

After that I cheered up with a bit of sunny, sandy beach made strange by the ruins of an old train line that used to run along the coast and has now been smashed and eaten up by the sea. The waves are gradually nibbling away at the whole stretch of soft, clay-like cliffs between Spurn Point and Flamborough Head. Our campsite was down the road from Spurn, along a lane that goes through some very small villages in an empty bit of countryside, quiet enough to also contain a huge and alien-looking gas refinery which had an odd effect on the view. Presumably it 27

also provides a few jobs in an otherwise tame area so its difficult to know what to think. Hard not to be a little bit resentful on behalf of all the people who have to look at it all the time. Millions of people in cities far away need enough gas to mean a huge refinery, but they never have to see it.

But there were also big square farm-

I’d had enough of horrible grey hot crowded airports, buses and taxis, and extra hidden charges everywhere houses gently aging and being allowed to drift into scruffiness. The campsite was in a little village constantly getting nearer to the sea (the distance currently being about half a mile). A little paddock at the back of a tiny farmyard, with a couple of shy horses and some colourful chickens, it had a hot shower and a sink and all you could want. There was also a pub across the road.

The best thing, probably, about the whole camping trip, was the quietness of that first evening in the campsite.

The sun blazed down behind a clump of trees and nettles, and our Frisbee floated with sublime spinning ease in the still air. I can’t say our meal of spaghetti hoops and spam was unreservedly well-received but we were warm and full and the evening was perfect. We sat outside in the last light with what my dad amusingly calls a tranny (transistor radio) and every tune that it offered seemed alive and searing and touching. We had little candles in the shape of gnomes that I’d got from Oxfam that morning and the three gnomes stood there and lit us in pompous poses. I think they disapproved of the people in the caravan the other side of the field who could be seen watching a DVD on the little telly inside their hut on wheels.

I didn’t mind because these people were adhering to the new code of enjoying holidays near home, and also, everything seemed just perfect on that clear cool evening. When we went inside our little green canvas dome, our beautiful waterproof bower, we discovered that tents are extremely homely places when lit by a torch and carpeted with picnic rugs. In pyjamas and cocooned in a squashy sleep28

ing bag, I think life was almost at its simple best. The sleepy little campers all went to sleep at a very early hour, since once it’s dark camping becomes quite inconvenient. Nine thirty pm, and all the campers were tucked up in their sleeping bags and cosily asleep.

Before dawn I was definitely, painfully, awake. The picnic blankets were NOT adequate mattresses; every single one of my vertebrae ached, and so did my hip bones. The cool dark green of the tent had become a sickly yellowish colour in the earliest light, and the birds were making not delightful morning music but an annoying racket. Though I eventually managed to doze a bit more, the rest of the day we were just tired and aching. We packed up and paid.

Our stay cost us £6, plus 50p for my hot shower in the morning, which did make me feel a bit better, and we set off to do a little tour of the coastline. There were things to see, particularly the sea, the pretty towns and the chalky cliffs and lighthouses. We had some fish and chips in Bridlington and they were marvellous. We arrived at Filey, our destination for the day, where we went for a sea swim, possibly my favourite activity in the whole world. I can just feel my soul expanding into the space, the huge body of water around me, and I love to feel the coolness all over my skin and on the inside as well. I think every individual organ and limb and possibly every cell is somehow given new health and vigour by the dip.

It was cold but in a good sort of way, a little muddy and shallow, but ennobled by the surrounding cliffs and hills. Yet we weren’t really recovered from the most uncomfortable night ever, and enthusiasm in the camping party was waning. It was sunny again after an onand-off day, and I put it to sister that we should find somewhere to camp another night. However her rejection of this idea was resounding. So we turned around the car and I drove all the way home again, slightly sad and defeated, but also extremely pleased to be sleeping on a mattress and pillows and not outside where it had turned rainy.

I wish the camping trip had been longer and I’m extremely tempted to blame lack of enthusiasm in my crew. The Swallows and Amazons chums wouldn’t

Staying at home »» Joanna’s not the only one to spend her summer exploring her native country. Domestic tourism is on the rise as Britons increasingly spurn foreign holiday destinations. »» The boom in trips within the UK has been put down to the effects of recession and a weak pound, rather than any disillusionment with trips abroad. »» Tourism is Britain’s fifth-largest industry, contributing 8.2% to GDP in 2007. have had these failures of nerve. But I have done camping on a more serious level in the past, particularly one Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expedition when on the first night in a Peak District campsite, a huge storm filled our tent with lightening, and tried to wrench it out of the ground with gales.

For the next three days everything on our lives was soggy and smelly, and honestly, it wasn’t quite worth it even for the freshest purest air in the world on top of some craggy peak. This time our downfall was not having those foam

For the next three days everything on our lives was soggy and smelly, and honestly, it wasn’t quite worth it strips of padding that roll out like reptiles’ tongues and make sleep possible. I do worry that this inadequate planning has shown up the difference between me and the adventure heroes of derringdo stories of old. But I might get it right another time.

And I still maintain that holidays near home, when they go well, are the very best holidays. I could write a whole tract about the extreme joys of surfing, sailing, and seaweed baths in Mayo, or a brilliant time I had hostelling and mountain-boarding in Cornwall two years ago, when, while the rest of the UK lay under evil brown floods, Cornwall was sunny and bright. And I firmly believe that, if you see them when the weather is right, home beaches are the most beautiful, sandy, picturesque stretches of beaches that exist; wonderful in themselves, and even better because they‘re yours and they‘re near where you live. No rent-out sun loungers to rent out thwart your course, the sea is cold but blue, and the ice-cream van is on hand.

Joanna Staunton is a Senior Sophister student of English Studies.

CULTURE student life

Keeping cultured in the depths of recession Books are increasingly falling out of fashion, particularly in these parlous economic times. But is knowledge a luxury that should be jettisoned to save money?

by Sarah WERNER

I

am one of the rare lucky youngsters who did manage to find a job this summer. And while I earn — and carefully save — my precious money, I also happen to be surrounded by books.

Working in a bookshop is probably the most heavenly summer job I have found so far. It is quite telling as well. When I am not gathering the nectar of a golden classic or some rubbish of the P.S. I Love You type, I just end up observing my customers’ buying behaviours for the hell of it. It is quite worrying, sometimes. Or, rather - depressing. Aye, there really is no room for bookworms during a recession.

In the summer, our bookshop buys and sells second-hand school books.

At the beginning of June, the shop was just packed with people trying to sell their old science books for as much money as they could. You could explain three times in a row that we give a fixed percentage of the original price of the book - still they were trying to negotiate a higher price. Not that I blame them. I would have done exactly the same. Some of the youngest ones even stole books from their schoolmates or from the library to get money out of them. It probably worked out quite well without us realising most of the time. At the same time, however, they did not find our voucher system appealing at all. They wanted their money back. Immediately.

I tried to show them the great novels or comic books they could have purchased

with that piece of paper: in vain. To tell you the truth, even the books that we sold for one euro or 50 cents during the annual clearance sale were not very popular. All right, we did have fascinating books on the sex life of birds that may not have looked very stylish on their shelves — but still.

So where are all the bibliophiles gone? I would not claim that culture is out of fashion or that books are now obsolete. Some social scientists have indeed pointed out that erudition no longer prevails as a criterion for politicians to be elected: yet the problem at the present time is a question of priority.

When people have no money, spending on books, records, plays, ballets purely and simply becomes superfluous. While in our society consumption used to meet a need for indulgence, it is now reduced to strict necessities for ever more people: thus superfluous spending is, of course, out of the question.

Naturally, we students are leading the

way. Everyday people are truly adopting the student way of life. Spend a tenner for the latest film — excuse me?

Everybody knows it is trendier to watch it on the internet. As for museums, if it is not free in, you simply peer through the window. No need for records to democratise music — you now “deezer” or “youtube” your favourite song, and who knows if that unknown band giving gigs in your local pub every Sunday is the future U2. No need for paper, be thrifty, be green: books are now readable on your Toshiba screen. And those second-hand shops — if you haven’t tried yet, you soon will.

Of course, telling people to walk to save petrol or to have a roll of bread for dinner may not be the fairest thing to do. Reduced prices for students and the unemployed every Saturday night at the IFI, outdoor theatre plays or concerts, offers on opera tickets every first Friday of the month, or whatever you like, would surely be a better solution than my apocalyptic tone. But wait, would that not be contrary to the laws of profit?

Oh. Now that commodification of education is the operative word — for soon the only students left in college will be those who can afford to pay for it — you would not expect culture to be nonprofit-making. In one word: be rich or be ignorant. I admit that this is a very simplistic formula. Yet with that kind of mentality, being learned will become — overtly — a privilege, one more mark of distinction between the rich and the masses. We certainly would not want that. I wouldn’t.

Sarah Werner is a Junior Sophister student of European Studies.

Value for money Dublin Culture Night takes place on September 25th. Places like museums, galleries, churches and artists’ studios will stay open up to midnight for talks, exhibitions, film screenings and concerts.

See more at www.culturenight.ie.

The humble book: no longer a priority in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

29

Review politics

Fire in the belly Friendly Fire examines extremes of human character, from misantrophic outsider to soul-crushing senior doctors, through the medium of short story.

by Michael Wynne

t is an ironic fate that drives man to seek his demise with his own hand, muses the narrator in a short piece about a specific episode in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is included in Alaa Al Aswany’s Friendly Fire, the latest installment of his scorching (no odious pun intended) fiction writings to be made available in the English-speaking world, through another of Humphrey Davies’s excellent translations from Arabic.

If Al Aswany’s fiction can be said to sustain a philosophy, a case could be made that the above sentiment would 30

seem to sum it up — or one aspect of it, at least — a philosophy that posits humankind, in its largely unconscious fatalism, helplessly abetting the inevitably defeating conditions it faces. It is as true to say that this position is unfashionable as it is to insist that it could not, all the same, be more relevant — in the way that Bernard Malamud’s statement that “all men are Jews” (i.e., alienated) remains relevant.

The short story from which I’ve quoted depicts its unnamed narrator in the midst of recounting to an unspecified audience a “boorish Arab tale” about Jenin, a Palestinian country town whose main source of revenue is orange-growing and whose “black fate” it is to be set, as the narrator puts it with devastating irony, “right on the border with the respected Jewish State”. When the Jordanian army

Al Aswany’s prose has been called “addictively readable”, and for once this is spot on: he writes of emotional imbroglios and of everyday, accepted horrors with a composed energy and directness comes to defend this front-line town upon its deciding to enter the impending war, the warriors are greeted joyously, as heroes, only for the forces to suddenly withdraw once the actual fighting breaks out twenty-four hours later, replaced by what the townspeople have been promised will be the protecting presence of Iraqi tanks — which, when they arrive, proceed to raze the town with shellfire, while disgorging occupying Jewish soldiers...

The strange bitter serenity and heightened sardonic control with which this tragic slice of fictionalised history is told exemplifies the astonishing humanity of the sixteen vignettes and one short novel (The Isam Abd el-Ati Papers, banned for a decade in Egypt) included here — as indeed it does in the case of everything Al Aswany has written. Malamud’s remark about Jews may be taken in one sense to refer to the self-alienation that accrues from an untoward conformity, a turning away from one’s own vital imperatives that not only has personally but also, very often, societally disastrous ramifications, a human phenomenon Al Aswany explores in depth elsewhere (in his famous novel The Yacoubian Building), and in many stories here (hence the collection’s title).

Almost (though not quite) the reverse is suggested in the novella: that a certain variety of unreflecting non-conformity can be just as deadly.

The latter work in particular superbly

demonstrates Al Aswany’s range and skill: it opens, on the one hand, with the young, bookish, West-infatuated protagonist’s attack on the sterility and servility of a modern Egypt that continues to pride itself ridiculously on the glories of a remote past and, on the other, with reflections on the implacability of Fate.

After an extended treatment of the central character’s wretched home and work life that is shot through with a misanthropy as hilarious as it is harsh, and born of a despair the reasonableness of which makes it all the more horrible, the work moves to an alarming conclusion which sees the recalcitrant hero slip into what seems a state of paranoid psychosis, precipitated by an imagined (but was it?) romantic encounter with a German girl — and which seems to be his punishment for fulfilling all along the role of non-conforming, self-consciously “superior” outsider.

Psychosis, mild or otherwise, or psychopathic tendencies, are recurring conditions among Al Aswany’s characters — as with the senior doctors that make up the Department of General Surgery in the typically disturbing story The Kitchen Boy: this grotesquely perverse pair of authority figures use their clout to rou-

The strange bitter serenity and heightened sardonic control with which this tragic slice of fictionalised history is told exemplifies the astonishing humanity of the sixteen vignettes tinely crush the surgical ambitions of the newer residents (or student doctors) until they (the residents) learn to tyrannize over and humiliate those working under them in a similar manner. Such blithely disordered behaviour, when imaginatively examined thus, serves not only to point up the manifold oppressions, whether domestic or institutional, that inescapably infect a non-democratic society, but also may call to mind the often subtle, ineradicable tyrannies to be found riddling “freer” societies such as our own.

Al Aswany’s prose has been called “addictively readable”, and for once this is spot on: he writes of emotional imbro-

glios and of everyday, accepted horrors with a composed energy and directness — and savage humour — that no one with a naked interest in human nature, or in the mystery of human motivation, or in the excitement and wonder of imaginatively dramatic and genuinely compelled story-telling, could be expected to resist.

Several of the stories depict the air of disposability imposed on women by their powerlessness in a male-dominated dictatorship. They suggest that pracThe latest book by tically everyone Alaa Al Aswany to is susceptible to be translated into exploitation in English. an atmosphere of such extremely hidebound and prejudicial orthodoxy. It is fair to say in addition that, where men diminish and demonise women on behalf of their own monstrous lusts, this gives rise in turn to self-protective hypocrisies on a grand scale on the part of both sexes.

Al Aswany is a truly first-class writer, greatly above many who have had prizes bestowed upon them (usually more from concerns to do with fashion and politics than for real literary merit), and he is, quite simply, one of the very best short story writers around (his stories have been compared, not unreasonably, to Chekhov’s). Testament to his integrity and substance lies in the sheer humanity of the harrowing dramas arising from the highly natural situations presented in each tale — a striking element of quietly indignant humanity which emerges, as it were, from the heart of each story itself, and is, thus, in no sense calculated or forced. In this book the subversively truth-telling and compassionately engaged imagination is in full control at every stage — a singular enough achievement these days.

It has been assumed by some of those in the literary know that the form of the short story is effectively dead, something that, if accepted at face value, might be taken as a sign of our morbidly attention-deficient, spiritually impoverished, hopelessly philistine times. Alaa Al Aswany’s remarkably immediate, relentlessly truthful stories give the lie, in a very meaningful and powerful sense, to this assumption.

Michael Wynne is a postgraduate student in the School of English.

31

history college review

The Swinging Sixties: Trinity Tales reviewed The Sixties. Decade of big hair, psychedelic hippies, the rise of feminism, social and sexual revolution, the Beatles, rampant drug use, the moon landing and a few random Trinity students who can remember the times and thus weren’t really there.

by Paul Cassidy

his book, as its title indicates, is a collection of essays written by Trinity alumni who attended the university during the 1960s, with some contributions extending into the decades preceding and succeeding this period. In the preface the editors are open about the nature of the essays. They make no claims that the essays are representative of an absolute cross section of the students attending the university at the time, with many of the contributors being friends and acquaintances of the editorial team.

This is both a strength and weakness of the book, which while being narrow in scope at some points, is rich in character, with most of the essays complimenting each other particularly well for such a collection.

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I approached this book as an uninformed incoming Trinity student, unaware of much of the historical, social and cultural aspects of the university. I took up the opportunity to read the book as a chance to get myself back into some form of academic mindset, and because

While this book has definite moments of brilliance, it does descend into self-indulgent nostalgia in several places I felt it would give me an insight into the institution in which I will be spending the next four years of my life. I hadn’t thought about college much at all during the summer, but this book set the gears of my mind, which had been quietly

rusting since the end of my exams in June, back in motion.

I quickly found aspects of the contributors I could identify with in some of the essays. Bernard Adams describes himself as a “very young, very unpolished eighteen-year-old” on his entrance to Trinity, something I would think many freshers will understand. His essay The Greenhorn was immediately appealing to me due to its honesty; he doesn’t hesitate in criticising certain departments of the university, and has no shame in describing his younger self as a greenhorn, “remarkably green and certainly horny”. His enthusiastic descriptions of college life held my attention, and his closing paragraph stating his willingness to take his place amongst the first years again is a testament to his

enjoyment of his time at university.

Terence Brady’s wonderfully atmospheric essay The Quays describes his arrival in Trinity, to an unfamiliar city.

After being scammed by cab drivers, and stuck with incompatible room mates, his initial unease quickly passed and he embraced the life of a student of Trinity.

At the end of his first week he recalls beginning “four tumultuous unforgettable incredible riotous enlightening edifying astounding and wonderful years”.

Such enthusiasm grabs the attention of the reader and I couldn’t resist allowing Brady’s essay to create in me a sense of anticipation and enthusiasm towards student life.

While this book has definite mo-

The Greenhorn was immediately appealing to me due to its honesty; he doesn’t hesitate in criticising certain departments of the university ments of brilliance, it does descend into self-indulgent nostalgia in several places.

I will concede that this is hard to avoid in a book such as this, but I found my interest waning during a number of the essays. In some cases the tales are a bit too focused on the pranks and exploits of people the reader is neither aware of nor introduced to. Not much of general interest is being related, but I guess you had to be there!

I found interesting the manner in which views have changed so greatly since many of contributors attended Trinity. For example, Peter Hinchliffe recalls fighting to keep women out of the Hist, which he did successfully at the time. He can’t recall a particular reason for this, other than the fact that “females had been banned since 1747, Edmund Burke having been our founder. So why spoil it all now?”. Sentiments such as this are unthinkable and unacceptable now, and rightly so. This, if anything, is a positive thing. It demonstrates that change takes place in the university, and that it is a constantly evolving and developing institution.

By far my favourite contribution in this collection comes from Michael de Larrabeitti. His essay fits perfectly with the idea of Trinity Tales. It is an honest account of his memories of his student life, told as a tale, a deftly woven story.

He doesn’t deem it necessary to place too much emphasis on the university as an institution in his piece, with few of the events actually taking place within the boundaries of the campus, yet this doesn’t detract in any way from the sense of the place that permeates his stories.

The joy the university brought to his life,

through his friends, his wife and the many events to which he was a party, is absolutely tangible throughout his writing.

It is genuinely uplifting, something I don’t find often in books.

I feel I’ve gained a lot from reading and analysing this book. As a result I know more about Trinity than I ever could have hoped for at this point in my academic journey.

I have gained an insight into a portion of the university’s history without ever having set foot on the campus as a student. It has given me the motivation to make the most of my time at university, to accept the challenges that will be presented to me, and relish the diversity of opportunities I will be presented with.

In my opinion this book will be appealing to many students of Trinity, both past and present. It is a veritable treasury of anecdotes and tales of the college during the Sixties which will be read and enjoyed for generations to come.

The essence of the book to me can be distilled into one simple sentence taken from co-editor Sebastian Balfour’s submission: “Memories of TCD are worn smooth, like precious stones waiting on the mantelpiece to be fondled and passed around.”

I hope that these memories will be treasured for a long time, and that many more will be added to them by the evergrowing and diversifying population of the college. Maybe in forty years or more some of us will be giving our accounts for publication, I can only hope they’ll be as enthralling as those contained in this book.

Held up as an example for other generations of Trinity students to follow.

Photo: Martin McKenna.

Paul Cassidy is a Junior Freshman student of Science.

33

The Last Word With Mark Walsh o How Was Your Summer?

Ah sure. You know yourself. Grand.

I look forward to summer all year long. But after a few weeks of arsing around, you realise it’s actually pretty shit. When you’re off galavanting and doing things with your life it’s good, but that doesn’t happen to me that often.

What’s worse is the pressure to go and do something. Because you just know that in a few months’ time, people are going to be asking you the question that titles this “article”. Sometimes I find myself doing things solely so I can have a good answer for that.

Can’t I just vegetate in my own filth please?

Similarly, whenever I do something remotely interesting, there’s that little voice at the back of my mind telling me that this’ll make a fuckin’ whopper Facebook status. People’ll comment on it, “like” it — the whole shebang.

It can be depressing at times. A particular moment springs to mind here. It was a Friday evening, five pm. The start of the weekend, and I’m a free man. I could do anything I want to. Anything.

But there I find myself — unshowered, unshaved.

Having not eaten at all that day. Not even dressed yet. On the toilet. Laptop at my feet. Playing Connect 4 online. Listening to old school wrestling music to remind me of my childhood. Times like those really make your day y’know? The times you realise you are totally fulfilling your potential.

And then people go asking you what you’ve done with your day. And I have to lie or at least sugar-coat the truth. “Oh you know, just chilled really. Took it handy.”

I guess it’d be a tad unsociable to tell them you woke up at four pm, had half a Moro for breakfast (left over from yesterday), masturbated, went on Facebook, lost track of time looking at photos of people you don’t know, then considered masturbating again but got distracted by them asking you on MSN how your day has gone.

My summer wasn’t all play though. There was some drama thrown in there. Oh yes. You better believe it.

There was an incident with the lunch I was making one day. I decided to go a bit mad and do some proper cooking. Naturally, I went for beans on toast.

I threw some beans in a cup, and bunged ‘em into the microwave. Stuck the toast in the toaster.

Less than a minute later I hear a sort of splashing noise.

Oh Christ.

The worst has happened.

All hope is lost.

It’s a disaster of Chernobyl proportions.

I forgot to cover the beans while microwaving them.

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“Most of you would think I couldn’t possibly cram more drama into the three months of summer.

You’d be wrong... on not one, not two, but three separate occasions, a daddy longlegs found its way into my bedroom”

I open the microwave and see bean juice scattered everywhere. Pandemonium ensues. What do I do first, eat or clean? The age-old question. If I eat first, the bean juice’ll harden and be a cunt to clean. If I clean, the beans’ll go cold.

Then the toast pops up.

I had to make a mad dash for the fridge to ensure I got that butter before it went past the point whereby it wouldn’t melt into the toast properly.

I’m not sure anyone else could so catastrophically prepare a meal of beans on toast. It’s up there with Homer Simpson setting the cereal on fire.

Most of you would think I couldn’t possibly cram more drama into the three months of summer.

You’d be wrong. Catastrophically wrong.

On not one, not two, but three separate occasions, a daddy long-legs found its way into my bedroom. I’ve learned that a spider coming into the room is an event that nobody will ever, ever become comfortable with. Every time I see a spider in the room I go into full-on panic mode, as if I’ve just had a gun pointed in my face.

Kill him! No, kill it! Don’t personify what you intend to kill.

I leap up, and then begin the frantic search for a murder weapon. My mind then works out the trade-off between my desperation to kill the spider while it’s still in sight, and my unwillingness to use a birthday card to do the deed. But then, genius strikes. The Argos catalogue. The book given to us by the gods for all our spider-killing needs. It’s probably out of date by now anyway.

And as I scoop the frail little spider corpse into the bin, in what has to be the most undignified funeral the world had ever seen, remorse sets in.

Did I really have to kill the spider? He could have had a family. He might just have been looking for food to bring back to the nest or whatever it is spiders live in. Then again, he might have walked on my pillow during the night. Fuck it, good decision.

So that was my summer. Oh, I also went interrailing. The problem here is that when people hear I interrailed, they get very excited and ask me what it was like. All I can usually muster is a mumbled “Ah yeah, it was good...”.

There it is folks. “It was good.” Isn’t that the exciting answer you were hoping for? Are you all atwitter now? Three words, one syllable each.

IT. WAS. GOOD. Don’t get me wrong, it actually was good — amazing in fact — I just feel like a total fraud for not having a more exciting response.

But yeah, summer’s alright innit?

Mark Walsh is a Senior Freshman student of Economic and Social Studies. See more at www.walsho.net.

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