T.C.D.
Learning Japanese
Interview with an artist | Maltese days | Dublinbikes
Tricked out Hallowe’en escapades from Dublin to Derry
Volume 117 | Issue Two | November 2009
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Volume 117, Issue 2 Contents
Editor’s letter Conor James McKinney
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t’s getting colder. The French are going to hammer us. Lenihan wants everyone’s money. My dissertation’s dying. And the other week, somebody stole my bike from the racks on Clarendon Street. Still, for all that, there’s always Miscellany. If you enjoy reading this half as much as I did editing it, your day’s about to explode in a shower of sunshine and lollipops. It’s sometimes hard enough to establish just what any individual Miscellany article is about, let alone discern a unifying theme running through the magazine. (Unless of course, you do what was done in the last two volumes, and impose one.) Nonetheless, looking through this issue, there certainly seems to have been a lot written about disorder and confusion — be that Tara Monaghan describing the amiable mess that is Irish public transport, Catherine Nicholas meandering through the streets of Derry at Hallowe’en, or our own Sehreen Qureshi witnessing her first Trinity fire drill — chaos instutionalised, a cynic might say. Now, chaos is a theme upon which much great writing is predicated. Chaos is cool. Less cool is the task of bringing order from chaos, which is a theme upon which much legal and political writing is based, and isn’t it dull. Trying to wade through our submissions to pick out the gems and construct from them a solid medium (all the while watching out for mixed metaphors) has its own rewards, though. And I’d like to think that our beleagured staff had fun trying to distinguish between “the gonzo piece” (see Matthew Martin’s article on page 28) and “the Gozo piece” (by Rebecca Egan, on page 31). Speaking of fun — and chaos, in fact — the week is drawing to a close and, as I write, Pav Friday is getting into its stride. A comforting thought as the days get longer, I think. Miscellany is a full participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. This scheme, in addition to defending the freedom of the press, offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go to www.pressombudsman.ie.
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A few words with The csc chairman
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Diary of a Fresher Lara Stewart settles down to college life
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Diary of a Graduate Hugh McCafferty jettisons Japanese
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College living on a shoestring budget Aoife O’Reilly pinches pennies
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Back to the future Sarah Walker ponders life after Trinity
10 Heuston, we have a problem Tara Monaghan on commuting catastrophes 12 The Junior Freshman Frappuccino years Sehreen Qureshi wades into first year bess 14 To rank with those poor spirits Andre Madaleno on the meaning of 43rd place 17 Of rosy cheeks, green credentials and near misses Alisha Clancy rides a dublinbike 20 A good first impressionist Kate Rowan portrays artist John Nolan 24 Fashion blogs: the new high-end magazines? Michelle Doyle explores the best of the sartorial net 25 The thrills and spills of Hallowe’en Caroline O’Leary treats us to an account of her tricks 26 A free-for-all in Free Derry Catherine Nicholas returns to a not-so-scary North 28 Change we can’t believe in Matthew Martin comes over all gonzo 31 Speaking in tongues Maria Oleinik castigates our lack of languages 32 I will arise and go to Gozo Rebecca Egan returns to Malta 34 The Last Word With Mark Walsh T.C.D. Miscellany 6 Trinity College Dublin 2 www.miscellany.ie This issue’s cover image is courtesy of seanfderrystudenna on flickr.com. All rights reserved.
editor Conor James McKinney deputy editor Aoife O’Reilly assistant editors Niall Brunell, Elaine Mc Cahill sub editors Rachel Gregg, Louisa McIndoe, Sehreen Quershi chief copy editor Dana Davis copy editors Fionnuala Barrett, Polly Dennison, Sarah-Kate Geraghty layout & design Martin McKenna
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.
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Old Miscellany
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M
ovember is like November. The only real difference is that in November you eke out your pitiful existence in an atmosphere of rain and biting chill, whereas in Movember you grow a moustache for charity and to see a smile on every face. This is mostly to do with the fact that you look absolutely ridiculous with 4
a moustache. Most people do. In that sense, it’s a good follow-on from Halloween, a night on which it doesn’t really matter what you’re wearing so long is you look spectacularly silly. Unlike Hallowe’en, however, Movember at least has some point to it. Last year, Irish participants raised a pretty staggering ¤364,000 for the Irish Cancer Society.
Considering it was only the first year of the initiative on these shores, that wasn’t bad going. It certainly helped that celebrities like Brian O’Driscoll got on board. Even if the campaign’s beneficiaries were the bnp, Drico could probably persuade at least the southern half of the city to emulate his Hitler ’tache and start unlimbering their wallets.
This year, our colleagues at Trinity News are hoping to use their own minor notoriety to raise money for the cause. Michael Armstrong, the editor of TN2, leads the way so far, although reports say that his ginger monstrosity was unleashed long before November 1st, in a flagrant breach of competition rules. One wonders whether he was planning to grow one anyway.
A few words with The CSC chairman
What’s your name? Rob Kearns. Where are you from? Mullingar. Sum up your job in one sentence. I am the chair of the CSC where we fund and support student society activity in College. How do you travel into college in the morning? By bus. The 74A. What’s your favourite thing about College? Probably seeing students start to do things for themselves, without any help from grown-ups! And your least favourite thing? Probably Health & Safety around the place. It’s a disaster! How has college changed in your time here? Well I’ve been here for six years now and College has definitely become more student friendly. When I was first here it was very difficult to get things done. So do you ever go to any student events? Yeah, plenty! Do you ever read any of the student newspapers? I try to read all of them but there’s less and less real news it seems! Ever go for a drink in the Pav? During the summer I do. If it’s cold I try to stay away from it. At least it’s not the Cancer Society’s naked calendar, which tends only to include pretty people. That should be making its appearance in the next few weeks, and is generally worth a quick ogle. Worthy as such efforts are, they represent only a tiny sample of the charitable culture that is admirably strong in the
college. Far less noticeable than a dodgy moustache, but in the end far more worthwhile, are the efforts of students day in and day out on projects such as the Voluntary Tuition Programme and Suas’s Bridge to College. The Free Legal Advice Centre provides just that. And who would have thought that in this
day and age, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul would be Trinity’s largest? So regardless of how unwilling or unable you might be to flaunt either a moustache or yourself in the name of charity, there are plenty of ways in which sudents can give a little back during their time here. Do so. — Ed.
What is your favourite book? At Swim-Two-Birds. What is your favourite ice-cream flavour? Cookies and cream! Got any advice for Freshers? Try to actually get some study done for your exams. College is a lot of fun but you’ve got to do the cramming eventually. 5
Diary of a Fresher Lara Stewart
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THE REALITY OF STUDENT LIFE KICKS IN
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t’s only my second installment of Diary of a Fresher but I can already feel the horror of the deadline. As I write this from my sick bed, recovering from the flu, I realise that I am the queen of procrastination. In fact the only motivator for getting this done is the fact the internet isn’t working. However, writing this article makes a nice change from sleeping, sneezing and watching bad TV. Daytime TV sounds like heaven when you have a ton of college work to do that just isn’t shaking. Hell, I even secretly wanted to contract swine flu for a guiltfree midterm. I proved myself wrong, because in Trinity no time off is guiltfree. Unlike school, I’ve discovered, all learning is self-motivated — a task I’m finding increasingly difficult. Although I love my course, it’s tough learning two languages. College is a lot harder than I expected but it’s pushing me and don’t we all love a challenge. Making friends is okay; one of my subjects is friendly, small and the lecturers and students all seem to be getting along well. My other subject is quite the opposite, but I think it’s because we all are a bit daunted by the course. Another gripe of mine is the fifth floor Arts Building, where most of my Russian classes are held — the stairs there are like Trinity’s Mount Kilimanjaro and I don’t use the lift, as I can’t help but think that there is a disabled student late for a lecture out of my selfishness. Speaking of being late, can someone please direct me to Mr or Mrs Maker-oftimetables? Sweet Jesus, my timetable is dire. I suppose all that can be said for that is “better luck next year”. In the last column, I wrote about accommodation. I thought that the main motivator for moving out was so I could party all the time and stumble into college. Well it’s November now and I’ve only been out in town twice. I know,
embarrassing. To be honest when you’re in college all day and realise how behind in everything you are, the only place you want to be is the library, or asleep. No surprise, really, then, that I’ve moved in with my grandparents in Dublin and get the Luas in. This brings its own challenges. I was involved in a mini Luas crash so now I’m a nervous passenger on all trains, planes and automobiles. Still, worth it when you’re coming home to a cooked meal and a hot water bottle every night. I’m still broke even though I don’t pay city-rate rents. So I was delighted to hear that college fees are not being introduced! (I’m convinced half of us would have dropped out and a mass exodus from Ireland would have ensued.) It’s made living on the cheap seem grand, I feel so lucky not to be paying fees. Well done to the Students’ Union for all their hard work. Hallowe’en has been and gone, a strangely exciting night this year; it seems like the doom and gloom of the big R has made everybody want to relive their bill-free childhood, dress up and make a fool out of themselves. I certainly did, but shopping for a costume when you are female is no easy feat. If you happen to be male you can throw on a black sack, paint your face and look “hilarious”. It’s all a bit of fun. But as a girl, all there is to choose from is sexy sailor, sexy firewoman or sexy cat. And if none of those tickle your fancy, there’s sexy mouse, sexy nurse or sexy vampire. See the pattern? While there’s nothing wrong in wanting to look hot, it turns Hallowe’en into something it’s not, and not everyone wants to go as something sexy. It has to be a group of men that are behind all these costumes. Until the next one, Lara. Lara Stewart is a Junior Freshman student of Russian and French.
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Diary of a Graduate Hugh McCafferty
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LITERACY AN OPTIONAL EXTRA IN THE WORKPLACE oing to college teaches you many important, transferable life-skills: how to use photocopiers, how to cook pasta, how to be poor — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Nothing I learned as a student, however, could have prepared me for the greatest challenge I faced upon entering the workplace: namely, being functionally illiterate. In fairness, I pretty much walked into that one by opting to work in Japan without having actually studied Japanese before. In addition to that, the rather intimidating task of getting to grips with the language has done little to inspire diligent studying on my part. However, the language barrier has motivated both my co-workers and me to devise all sorts of inventive new ways to communicate and bond without having to rely on talking. A few weeks ago, for instance, I was sitting at my desk at school, typing away. I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on around me until I noticed that one teacher had stopped in his tracks and was standing beside my desk. I looked up and saw that it was one of the older staff members who I had previously pegged as a bit aloof and stand-offish. He was looking at my desk with great interest. There wasn’t really much to look at — a calendar, my laptop, a banana and two tangerines I had brought in that morning. I smiled at him a little uneasily, wondering what could possibly be coming next. Then he went to work, picking the fruit up and putting it back down again, rearranging it on the table. After a few seconds, he stood back and a grin broke out across his face. I looked down and saw what he had been doing: making a smiley face with the fruit. We had a bit of a chuckle and he went off on his way. It was a truly excellent moment. Another effective way of breaking down language barriers with co-workers is to get completely wrecked with them. This I discovered at my first enkai, or
staff party, shortly after I arrived in the country. The evening began, as all good social events should, with a trip to a men’s sauna. Needless to say, a small room full of bollock-naked (as is the style) men is not the most fertile environment for animated conversation. However, once the booze started to flow at dinner afterwards, things picked up and it wasn’t long before our rubbish attempts at communicating in each other’s respective language became articulate dialogues, further elucidated by eloquently flailing limbs. Dinner was followed by karaoke where, once again, remembering to accurately conjugate irregular verbs in the past tense was not as important as delivering stirring renditions of early-period Abba hits. Work-ties round our heads, glasses of shochu in our hands, we shook maracas and tambourines and slurred drunkenly into microphones. With our rowdy noisemaking we were all, wordlessly, saying the same thing: drinking and having a laugh is deadly. Of course, if boozing isn’t your thing, then there’s always bribery. Last week, I gave one of the old ladies with whom I work a magnet that had a furry sheep wearing a little green hat on it (Carroll’s Irish Gift Shop’s finest). Generally a bit of a nervous character, she went into a minor state of shock when I produced my gift and thanked me profusely afterwards. The further discovery that, when pressed, said magnet played a little tune nearly killed her. Now we are firm office buddies and often hit up the canteen together for lunch. So, as the old maxim would suggest, actions very often do speak louder than words. Remember, though, that none of this applies if, say, you urgently need to contact emergency services. Then you’re dicked. Hugh McCafferty graduated from Trinity in 2009 with a degree in Psychology. See more at www.whatthefukuoka.blogspot.com.
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student Life
College living on a shoestring budget Eight ways to stretch that miserable budget of yours in the most expensive city in Europe. by Aoife O’Reilly Rent Relatively speaking, this will take up the most amount of your money. Unless you’re living at home, that is, in which case the corresponding annoyances make you pay in stress. One of the few advantages of the recession is that rents have dropped. Many landlords are also offering deals: heating and bin charges included in rent, for example. Chances are you already have your living situation sorted out by now, but if you’re paying ¤600 a month for a house with ten students in Lucan, consider having another browse through rent.ie. There may be a better deal out there. Transport This is a pretty big deal. After rent, it is most likely to gobble up your store of coins. Especially if you live so far out that you have to take the bus or Luas
If you really want your hair short, get out two mirrors and a pair of scissors. It’ll make a good story for your kids every day. If this is your situation I’d guess you’ve already considered walking. Even if this is impossible to do in the morning, i.e. you’d have to be up at six to make a nine a.m. lecture, consider walking home every second or third day. You could save around six euro a week, if not more. Food Rediscover the art of the packed lunch. It’s entirely possible to live on cheese sandwiches and fruit. Also, the Two Euro Shop does some pretty good deals on chocolate and soft drinks, i.e. five bars for two euro. As you should have noticed, most supermarkets have saver rolls for less than two euro, involving either ham or chicken. These things can easily last you the entire day if you 8
eat it in parts — the flavour is still good even when they go cold. Café Sol also do sandwiches for ¤1.50. Hot drinks With winter coming, these may be essential to retain both your sanity as well as a healthy overall body temperature. There’s probably a Thermos flask somewhere in your house. Failing that, Avoca was selling a nice pink one for a tenner, and Dunnes will most likely bring some in for the coming winter. If you’re a lad, colour it black with a permanent marker. Fixed. College books Unless you really need to, don’t buy. Borrow from the library. Then photocopy or manually transcribe everything you need. Manually transcribing will prevent the need to buy a photocopier card, it avoids those dodgy “don’t photocopy more than 10% of the book” rules and may help the information stay in your head for longer. Likewise for lectures — take your notes down. If you miss some information you can always get it off the internet later — assuming your lecturer puts their notes on the internet. If not, it doesn’t matter either way, now does it? Washing It’s perfectly possible to wash your clothes in a basin or sink. All you need is Daz or some other detergent and access to hot water, as well as patience and maybe your iPod — though the radio may be a better choice here as water + technology = broken. Normal soap
simply won’t work to take out stains. I’d recommend wearing rubber gloves, though my hands haven’t started to flake away from my wrists yet. Scrub the clothes in warm water and rinse out ten times with cold. For bloodstains etc., expect to have to wash it twice. Electricity bills This only really applies if you have a coin-operated meter or a meter-read system. If this is the case you’ll have to deal with a standing charge anyway. However you can reduce the overall cost by charging your mobile and laptop in college and doing most or all of your computer work in college. If, like me, you have an immersion heater to work the shower, how about using the showers after you work out in the gym instead? Hair Let it grow. Haircuts cost money. If you really want it short, get out two mirrors and a pair of scissors. It’ll make a good story for your kids. If you Do not buy a piggy want a band bank for your cents. A to keep it out jar will do. of your face, weave together some wool or thread. Or if you have a string belt from an old dress, use that. Pop some beads on the end or a feather to pretty it up. As to hair straightening: if it’s long enough, you can iron it. For me, the best setting was wool. Aoife O’Reilly is a Senior Freshman student of Science.
Student life college
Back to the future As Senior Sophisters emerge from a cloistered college existence to the alarming reality of métro boulot dodo, one student considers possible escape routes. by Sarah Walker
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his was definitely the first time I ever noticed Careers Week, let alone attended any of the presentations. After three and a bit salubrious years at this university, the easy life is finally drawing to a close. I always knew this was coming, “this” being that looming reality where I can’t sleep till one p.m. and get smashed four times a week. In short, the adult world. But I thought I had another couple of months left at least. It was only during one of these “Moving Forward” lectures that I realised that not only are Senior Sophisters already applying for jobs, but some have started interviewing and are even employed. It was quite a blow. So now I have to look to my future and decide what I want to do. Become a real person, with responsibilities, taxes and even a dental plan. I’ll have to take personality tests to see whether I’m better suited to menial labour as a typist or thankless flower arranging. I have compiled a list of options for me, and any other terrified Senior Sophister in my position whose head has been similarly yanked out of the sand.
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Fail That would have been a great idea, if only I had thought of it last year. While I would have had to fork out four grand or so to repeat, I would do so safe in the knowledge that I bought myself a year to ignore the problem. And who says you can’t buy happiness? A similar idea of taking a year off books came to me too late. If I hadn’t registered, I could have lived the life of a college student without any academic restraints on my social life. Obviously I would have to tell my parents at some point that I was, in fact, no longer a student, but what’s another year when you’re living the life of a student without doing any actual work? Even better, you could get all your friends to do it, and
it’ll be like college was meant to be five years!
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Emigrate A year in New York, a year in Cambodia, wherever the dream and fear of responsibility may take you, it will hopefully be on the back of a very large student loan. You never know, I could fall for a Sherpa in Nepal and live out the rest of my life cloaked in wool taming llamas. Obviously I could never go back home after failing to remunerate Bank of Ireland, but who cares when I’ve found myself. And Jangbu, my male bride. If I do come back wiser in the ways of the world then at least I’ll have a vague idea where to direct my life. Or at least after a year without me my parents will allow me to camp out in the basement playing Command and Conquer.
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Further Education Where in first and second year, the vicious rumours being spread were rife with gossip and intrigue, now all I hear is snatched whispers of “it’s only a thousand for a Criminology master’s in Amsterdam” and “I hear it’s free in Sweden…”. The cost of bettering ourselves is rising every year, while our solvency is rapidly declining. Not only that, but competition is pushing us academic middleweights out of the food chain. Nowadays it’s a first or
high 2.1, which for someone who never thought she would actually see fourth year is pretty daunting. Even if I had the cash/brain cells to go straight into a master’s, there’s still the irrefutable fact that I haven’t a clue what I want to do with my life, and will need at least another year to figure that one out.
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Unpaid Internship Ah, the daily grind, only made worse by the fact that you are a) unpaid and b) a primate in the eyes of real professionals. Interning is to the working world what charity is to rich people: tedious, expensive and only necessary until something better comes along. It’s surely a sign of the times when people are fighting each other for the privilege of working
It’s surely a sign of the times when people are fighting each other for the privilege of working for free for free. I can work for free. I’m doing it right now! I’m interning as my own personal assistant. And no matter how many times you tell yourself “It’ll look good on my cv” (the worst old wives’ tale of them all), it still doesn’t take away the sting of the daily toilet bleach you’re made do to develop your “skills”.
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Actual work A real job, with a salary. Aldi are paying ¤60,000 plus a company car to their general managers. That could be me. I could be hawking mass produced German chocolate and liquor to the world right now. The competition for that sweet deal is stiff. If you do manage to whizz through the round of interviews into your dream job, be it at a cut-price supermarket or, as they say in the business, “the most sterile shopping experience since Madonna adopted” or at a high-flying law firm, you’re pretty much sorted for life. And we all hate you. Sarah Walker is a Senior Sophister student of European Studies.
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student life travel
Heuston, we have a problem The vast majority of students do not live on campus — hence, you risk your life every day attempting to come into college on the public transport system. Here’s how to ensure you arrive in one piece. by Tara monaghan
n campus accommodation is undeniably a wonderful experience full of its own pleasantries and trials. However, for those who didn’t manage to secure a room 30 seconds from their next lecture the commuting experience takes on a life of its own and coming from Sallins, Co. Kildare I consider myself an expert (or victim) of public transportation. I offer you my invaluable guidance on how to securely get to class everyday in one piece and inspiration to fill out that accommodation application form on time. The first thing to abandon are your best laid plans. Despite your clever calculations and efforts your plans are doomed to failure. The good people of Iarnród Éireann have put together their timetable purely by rolling a dice 10
and selecting random numbers out of a hat. The 9:58 train will always arrive at 10:14. The 8:49 train does not exist. Within a week of travelling by Irish rail you will be all too familiar with that descending arpeggio ringing around the
“Is this the twenty to two bus?” I asked. The driver looked at his watch. “Not anymore, love” platform alerting you that your train will be arriving approximately fourteen minutes late due to “unforeseen laziness”, “general incompetence” and my personal favourite “adverse weather conditions” as you gaze out into the light drizzle. The Dublin Bus, which I take from Heuston Station to Trinity, also follows in the footsteps of Iarnród Éireann. One memory stands out particularly for
me. The No. 92 bus scheduled to pull up at 1:40 casually turns in at 1:46. “Is this the twenty to two bus?”, I asked. The driver looked at his watch. “Not anymore, love”, he replied and took out his copy of the Metro. When relying on public transport you will find yourself either being an hour early for class or 15 minutes late. The purchase of a monthly student card can save you a fortune. However the hassle it creates is immense. Every month for almost a year and a half I have had the same argument with the woman who is paid to sit in the prefab at Sallins station. Despite my giant schoolbag, shabby clothes and the general air of frugal student radiating from me, not to mention my photographic student travel card id, the woman refuses to believe that I am entitled to a student fare. It’s
almost with an air of disappointment that she takes the travel card from me and scrutinises the picture for any slight defects and asks if I have any other proof Upon silently admitting defeat for the 15th month in a row she produces the standard flimsy paper ticket with a slightly magnetic strip at the back. This magnetic strip is a huge cause of my personal anguish. If the ticket is at all slightly bent or placed within ten meters of anything barely magnetic it becomes redundant and is rejected by every ticket validator you come across. The loud shriek admitted by the validating machine causes an overly zealous attendant to come over and accuse you of trying to destroy public property along with creating the downfall of Iarnród Éireann. If you are lucky enough to get the chance
There is no mention of the subtle body language needed to beat off the masses. Making no eye contact is essential to explain that your ticket is valid you are treated to another round of “where’s your student card?”. My advice to you is to place your ticket inside a book or journal to avoid all this chaos although despite the measures you’ve gone through, sometimes the machines will break and you find yourself rejected by another aspect of daily life.
If you manage to buy a ticket and the train comes at all the next task you will face is getting onto the carriage itself. Studies show that approaching the door vertically as opposed to trying to sneak on from the sides is most successful. However there is no mention of the subtle body language needed to beat off the masses. Making no eye contact is essential. If you meet somebody’s glance you will end up getting into that fake politeness beat into us by our mothers. In the time it takes to end the little dance of “no, you first” several people have jumped ahead of you and you’ll end up standing next to the bathrooms and thus ending up in a&e. The best approach is a focused, shoulders-up, elbows out, in a world of your own, straight forward march which has proven most successful. Upon claiming your seat you then have to deal with your fellow commuters. There are several stereotypes to look out for in particular. Closest to home are the fellow students easily recognisable by the token gesture book laid out on the tiny table with “Property of ucd library” visible to all. They are particularly renowned for slipping words like “lecture”, “college”, “semester”, “freshmen” and “tutorial” into every single sentence they say just in case somebody in the carriage has yet to notice what unbelievably cool and affluent Celtic Tigers they are.
The reliable Iarnród Éireann, occasionally stumped by “adverse weather conditions”.
Surprisingly not everybody takes joy in hearing about their morning after pill experience in the student health clinic before 9 a.m. Most noticeable is the “Gadget Man” who on his 25-minute journey finds simultaneous usage for his laptop, mobile phone, Nintendo DS, Rubik cube and MP3 player complete with DJ head-
Unaccustomed to modern transport etiquette he breaks all social rules and dares to start a conversation phones, which he has yet to learn how to work properly. As a result you are treated to watching the fully-grown, formally dressed business man looking pleased that only he knows he’s listening to Dancing Queen… or so he thought. Notorious to public transport is the “Office Chick” who, dressed in her sharp suit, meticulous make-up, salon styled hair and Nike runners looks fit to kill the next person who makes eye contact with her. When not curling her eyelashes or reapplying her lipstick for the 100th time she is continuing her work, aggressively meeting targets and arranging appointments on her phone while giving you the evil eye for accidentally overhearing her company’s top secret plans. Occasionally you come across the “Friendly Culchie” who happens to board the train somewhere in the middle of Ireland. Unaccustomed to modern transport etiquette he breaks all social rules and dares to start a conversation with the nearest person. His light banter and friendly enquiries are best avoided by putting on a set of headphones and burying your head in a large book. Last but not least is the “Randomer”. Unsure of the Randomer’s origins or purpose, you feel hostile to their selfish ways of sitting in the outside seat (thus blocking the inside one) or placing their stuff on the empty seat. You tend to resent their lack of knowledge of volume control on their MP3 player as you are subjected to their horrible taste in music. The Randomer always manages to take more than their fair share of elbow room, which is a precious commodity. The only way in which to survive the company of your fellow commuters and the public transportation system in general is to remind yourself everyday that for all your pain and suffering at least you are going to Trinity and unlike the rest of the doomed souls adjacent to you, you are doing something worth your while. Tara Monaghan is a Senior Freshman student of Music Education. 11
COLLEGE
The Junior Freshman Frappuccino years What with getting lost in the Arts Building, double lectures at 9 a.m. and Jai Ho going off in class, the life of a first year bess student is no walk in the park. Still, at least it’s not ucd. by Sehreen Qureshi
ollege, according to the Oxford dictionary, is by definition an establishment for further, higher or professional education. However looking at it from my perspective, you’ll actually get to know what college really is! I am a first year bess student and I have very recently come into this sphere that is Trinity College Dublin. As a newcomer I feel excited, anxious, shocked, perplexed and a whole bunch of other things that I really can’t explain in simple words (or in any words). I tried to convince myself initially that it is not all that different from secondary school but my attempts were futile. Take this time of recession for example and my excessive spending on Frappuccinos from Starbucks. The five euro spent on a Venti was equivalent to getting a full meal in school. Bien entendu, there were other differences as well for instance the boisterous fire drills. In school I felt like a soldier marching my way down to the astro pitch, whereas
just two days ago I had my first drill in Trinity and there was a stampede onto the lawn, upon which there is a prosecution charge on trespassers. But, seeing as there was nowhere else to exist, all of us stood there in a chaotic, undisciplined fashion. I’ve even managed to get lost four times just in the Arts building. I mean seriously, this place is completely and entirely different from school; the atmosphere and culture are all new. You in actual fact need to be self-sufficient, self-motivated and self-critical. Which I’m sure are characteristics none of us are born with, but develop over time, which is fine. However, being reliant on others since childhood, it may be a habit we should get out of first. My first visit to Trinity involved me being self-reliant. It was about two years ago, on the open day. My friend and I had split up in search of the rooms we would be in for the bess seminar. Having no indication of where the theatre was, I followed a group of people who seemed to be attending the same
Nobody ever asked Lecky to attend double Law on a Monday morning, and he turned out all right. Photo: Ben Lawlor meeting. At the time attending Trinity seemed out of the question because I had accepted an offer from ucd and I even endured it for a full week. Nevertheless what do you know about life: now I’m on ucd’s loathe list. One of the most awkward things with regards to coming to college was making friends. God how I missed that lot of people in my class to whom I had never spoken the whole year round. But knowing their faces was enough satisfaction.
I had accepted an offer from ucd and I even endured it for a full week I missed them all — my friends, contemporaries and acquaintances... now I was alone. Ultimately I made a decision on the last day of orientation: if I don’t say “Hi” to the girl beside me I will be a very, very lonely person all year. Consequently, after staring blankly around the room absorbing images of laughter and talk, I bluntly said “Hi!”. She replied back happily to my one word ice-breaker. I see her often, we have become pretty good friends and we’ve even transformed ourselves into a little group (open to membership with strings attached). Trinity is right in the city centre which is a fabulous location because I love swivelling in Brown Thomas’s make-up chair!
Well the purpose of coming to Trinity was to receive a quality education, a foundation on which I will be able to build my prospective career and that can only be done by attending my lectures. Lecture timings are great, the exception being the five o’clock one, whose population would be approximately fifty people out of an entire class of two hundred and something students. Most are far too tired by five o’clock to be present at our only late lecture this entire semester. On the contrary, I’m very much proud to declare that I have not missed one single lecture as yet. It did take time to get my head around having late lectures, tutorials, TAs, a semester system and two hours of law first thing on a Monday morning. So it is demanding and to some extent why shouldn’t it be? First class was tough, first year of secondary school was the same, hence why wouldn’t the first year of our third level education be a challenge. But jokes apart, everyone eases you in, in such a way that you become accustomed to the procedures and customs of college life. At this point I can’t imagine myself sitting in a small classroom, with just 30 girls and no PowerPoint slides. My lecturers are as nice as can be; with a strong grasp over all sorts of ideas and concepts which I’m impatient to learn. They’re also incredibly tolerant, just a few days ago my mobile went off during one of the
lectures, it was on full volume and the ringtone was an Indian song that I really liked! The whole class was looking at me and some guys at the back even started dancing, in their seats of course! On top of that, my phone wasn’t turning off because it was stuck in its cover. God, I will
Ultimately I made a decision on the last day of orientation: If I don’t say “Hi” to the girl beside me I will be a very, very lonely person all year never forget that, but my lecturer was lenient enough to let that go. But perhaps these are the kind of memories I want to have of being a fresher, a combination of enjoyable learning and exuberant experiences. Generally being in college doesn’t just involve one particular feeling or emotion, it’s a fusion. There are probably lots of freshers from all over the college across the many subjects at Trinity who share the same thoughts as I do. Coming to college is a part of our life now. There will be slight changes in our lifestyle but being on new territory isn’t a bad thing, if we just try to see how crucial these years will be for our life ahead. Sehreen Qureshi is a Junior Freshman student of Business, Economic and Social Studies.
Massechusetts Institute of Technology: among the top 100 in medicine according to the arwu, despite having no medical school. coLLege science
To rank with those poor spirits As Trinity celebrates another rise in the world rankings, the idea of whether universities can be objectively graded in any meaningful way is still open to question by AnDRe mADAleno
oon after he received his Yale honorary degree, J.F. Kennedy said to John Kerry, a Yale (and Skull and Bones) man, that “Now I have the best of two worlds: a Harvard education and a Yale degree”. The successes and criticisms of worldwide university rankings hinge on this ambiguity between image and reality, fame and merit, and brought to the mass media stage a new dimension of globalisation — that of higher education. Are they statistical artefacts or do they reflect real, internationally recognised quality of education? Not that international competition for honour, students and money is a 21st century innovation; since the Middle Ages and the first European universities students, flocked from all over Christian 14
Europe to Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Salamanca, etc. (not to mention similar phenomena in the early educational centres of Eastern and Muslim cultures or the Ancient Greek academies). However, massification of higher education and public spending scrutiny (in Reagan’s and Thatcher’s 1980’s) created a demand for objectivity that was soon followed by a supply: the US News and World Report Best Colleges Ranking in 1983. A curious sign of the 20th century hegemony of American universities and of the recent development of Asian higher education is that only 20 years later another highly recognised ranking, the Shangai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities (arwu) was developed, soon followed by the Times Higher Education Supplement
and Quacquarelli Symonds Ranking (the‑qs) in 2004 and by a multitude of national, Internet-based or programfocused higher education rankings. How is it possible, however, to rank in the same table such different institutions as mit or Lausanne, or to say that Trinity College and Osaka University deserve exactly the same 43rd place? What are the criteria considered and what ideal of university are they modelled after and do they promote? Is an excellent university the same in Japan and Ireland and should it be so? At this stage, the major criticism of most of these rankings has to be put forward: their obsession about research. This is especially significant in the case of arwu, where 80% of the criteria are about research output, leading to
hilarious phenomena such as the presence of a university with no medical school in the top 100 Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy subject ranking: mit (78th). The dilemma between teaching and research, recognized long ago by great thinkers on the role of a university in society like Cardinal John Henry Newman (who defended the separation between the research-oriented Academy and the education-centred University), is also present in creating university rankings. In fact, even the assessment of research output is in itself a complex and multifaceted question: should we look
Should we look for the best research or just the sheer number of papers? … Do we really need our lecturers to be prolific researchers? for the best research or just the sheer number of papers? Does the dimension of a university matter or should we consider the average productivity of each faculty member instead? Do we really need our lecturers to be prolific researchers? Perhaps the practical answer to these questions lies in innovation, as Professor John O’Hagan, of Trinity’s Department of Economics, explained recently in an interview with Trinity Today: “I think it’s very hard to be a good third-level teacher unless you’re a good researcher. Unless we, as teachers, continue to be stimulated by new things then we cannot expect to stimulate our student’s interests… This cannot be achieved unless tutors are stimulated themselves and that won’t happen unless we are trying new things, which is research. I essentially see Trinity as a research-led University, but teaching is embedded as part of this”. Even though not all faculty members see this almost symbiotic relationship between teaching and research as Professor O’Hagan and end up considering teaching as an auxiliary role and/or have negligible teaching skills, something has to be said about the quality of Trinity’s research. The Leiden Ranking 2008 which assessed research produced by the 250 biggest European universities using different parameters including the total number of publications, the average impact of each publication by a faculty member and both factors multiplied in a total impact indicator, showed a very interesting dichotomy between Trinity and ucd. Whilst our Belfield counterparts produced 7,126 papers between 2000 and 2007 (bringing them to 141st place), Trinity only produced 5,508 papers, a mere 187th at a European level. However, the average impact of each individual
publication of Trinity’s faculty members was only surpassed by Oxbridge and Lausanne leaving Trinity in a catchy 4th place, even though in an overall publications impact 124th place (still ahead of ucd, in 137th). The the‑qs, the most widely known international university ranking is more balanced. Still, it is marked by a big focus on a hotly contested criterion, academic peer review, which some may call a selfpropagating reign of prejudice, where famous names or advertising campaigns replace true value or quality. Aware of this criticism, its promoters have recently improved the quality of the questioning procedures. In 2007 they started preventing respondents from selecting their own institutions and in 2008 started asking separately about national and international universities (especially relevant in making American faculty members remember non-American universities, I imagine). At this stage, however, it continues to be a refined way of collecting gossip, even though it is international university faculty gossip separated into five different subject areas (Science, Biomedicine, Technology, Social Sciences and the Arts and Humanities). Other criteria of the‑qs are much more straightforward and teaching oriented: student faculty ratio and number of international students and staff are very important from a student experience point of view. However, my favourite is the employers’ review (though some questions about bias may be made since the database of employers interviewed is widely based on the corporate contacts of Quacquarelli Symonds). Moreover, in terms of research quality as opposed to quantity is the criterion (i.e. the total citations for the last five years per full time faculty member), allowing medium-sized universities like Trinity to achieve high worldwide positions despite competing against much bigger rivals. Still, the‑qs and most other widely known world university rankings do not include objective employability levels,
1 Harvard University has topped both the thes & arwu rankings since 2004 43
49 53
78 87
Trinity has been rising on the thes ranking since 2005 100
111
200
The arwu ranking does not break down Trinity’s placement within the range 200–300, our position since 2004
300
Last year, Trinity’s 49th place in the thes was on the Metro’s front page
400
which I consider to be a very serious gap (unless you think it is more important that your lecturer is published in Nature than whether you will get a job when you finish college). In fact, other factors like extracurricular activities, student life or character enriching experiences provided by many universities out there are completely ignored even though college is and will always be a critical focus for personal and social improvement (or, ‘04
‘05
‘06
‘07
‘08
500 ‘09 15
Rankings unwrapped The two main league tables explained Shangai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities Staff who have won a Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics, or a Fields Medal in Mathematics.
THES
20% Citations by other academic publications within 21 subject categories. The source used in this evaluation is Thomson ISI.
20%
20%
10%
The total number of the alumni (undergraduate or postgraduate) of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields.
The number of papers published in Nature and Science between 2004 and 2008. Only publications of “Article” and “Proceedings Paper” types are considered.
Total number of papers indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded and So20% cial Science Citation Index. Only publications of “Article” and “Proceedings Paper” types are considered.
10%
The weighted scores of the other five indicators shown in this chart divided by the number of full-time academic staff.
Shanghai PCP
Alumni
Award
HiCi
N&S
PUB
Times Higher education Supplement and Quacquarelli Symonds Ranking Citations by other academic publications. The source used in this evaluation is Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database of research literature.
10% THE
S
N&S
International students and international faculty as a proportion of the whole.
Academic Peer Review, based on an online survey distributed to academics worldwide. The results are compiled based on three years’ worth of responses total40% ing 9,386 in 2009. Weightings are applied both geographically and by discipline to ensure as fair a representative spread as possible.
20%
n Sha ni
at times, decadence). It is a tendency of our times to despise as irrelevant the immeasurable. Important as the rankings may be they should not blind particularly academic and political authorities to what is not assessed by them, like student welfare and the social impact of the university, as a very influential institution at a national and internal level. All in all, is the‑qs the best ranking available? Maybe. Is it, or are any of the other rankings, relevant? Most definitely. As William I. Thomas put it, “Things which are perceived to be real will be real in their consequences” and though the‑qs is good because of its unique PCP
Alum
rd Awa
i gha
i HiC
Faculty/student ratio, the most globally available and accessible measure of commitment to teaching.
16
20% 10% Online employer survey. Results are again based on three years worth of “latest response” data. Geographical weightings are again applied to ensure fair representation from key regions of the world.
balance between objective research and teaching criteria (50%) and subjective academic and employer reviews criteria (50%) it is even better because of its capacity to change what it measures, due to its massive public opinion impact. It produces enough ripple effect to almost turn itself into reality through the shaping of the views of employers, researchers, politicians and prospective students on a particular university, especially if they do not know it through any other sources or personal experience (this includes the general public – last year, Trinity’s 49th place in the the‑qs was on the Metro’s front page).
Moreover, as justifiable criticism to its gossip-based “subjective half” is taken on board, the work of “reality-checking” the‑qs continues with new measures to assure fairness across countries, cultures and subject areas. As Newman put it, “[the University] is a place which attracts the affections of the young by its fame, wins the judgement of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets the memory of the old by its associations”. University rankings are just another way of doing so. Andre Malaleno is a Junior Sophister student of Medicine.
ENVIRONMENT Dublin
Of rosy cheeks, green credentials and near misses The story of Dublin’s free bike scheme, while not without its frightening moments, is so far a successful one. If nothing else, we seem to be less partial to theft than many thought. by Alisha Clancy
T
he invasion of mass-produced bicycles has descended upon Dublin. The trendy, new, urban phenomenon of public bicycle rental is quick, cheap and convenient. As a new postgraduate student to Trinity, I was looking for a means to travel to campus quickly. Also, as an international student, purchasing a bicycle required too much money and responsibility for my taste. The alternative cost of the yearlong dublinbikes card was the tolerable amount of ten euro; and I am off, the crazy Canuck biking down the wrong side of the street. The trendy incentives for the use of dublinbikes need not be overlooked. Firstly, once you make use of this program, you are officially Green. I know I get a self-righteous feeling while weaving between cars and avoiding getting flattened by buses. Secondly, you are getting short stints of cardiovascular exercise, which causes a rosy glow on any rider’s face. Lastly, I find it quite invigorating and exciting to see the city on a bicycle. I could break into a description of the joy of the wind on your face and becoming one with nature. However, I will leave you to experience this for yourself. I am no stranger to the public bicycle rental system. After spending a year living in Paris, the Velib system became my companion on many beautiful days and late nights. Yet, the program encountered problems in Paris that may or may not arise in Dublin. The probability of Velib bicycles being stolen is quite high, as well as the cost to replace them. From the safety of my terribly early airport shuttle to Charles de Gaulle Aeroport, I watched two quite intoxicated Frenchmen shake, in tandem, a Velib bicycle until it broke from its stand. The couple gaily proceeded down the street, one riding on the stolen bicycle and the other
(shirtless, I might add), riding on the handlebars. My eyes were opened to the seedy underworld of the drunken, winesoaked Frenchmen. The deterrent to stealing one of these bikes is the direct charge to your credit card. However, as illustrated, some occurrences avoid the registration element of the process and hurt the entire program. From my limited experience in Dublin, going on two months now, I find most people friendly and law-abiding. The merit of the dublinbikes program is quite clear. It provides accessible transportation without any carbon trail, charges a small membership fee and
guarantees a daily element of exercise. In my opinion, these benefits outweigh the possible shirking of fees or theft of bicycles. The only criticism I have of the dublinbikes system is the under-developed bicycle lanes in the city centre. Travel in other European cities, such as Amsterdam, shows the various possibilities for bicycle lanes in busy city centres. In Dublin, city buses weave in and out of bicycle lanes, which make it extremely dangerous for cyclists. It is especially hazardous for those not wearing an attractive, reflective helmet or jacket. Unfortunately, the reflective gear I sported in Toronto would not fit in my luggage and I am left in a game of chicken with public buses. Despite the imminent threat of death by bus, I swipe my dublinbike card on a daily basis and enjoy the benefits of cheap public transportation. You may find me on the wrong side of the road from time to time or moving at a glacial pace in fear of those sharing the road with me. However, as more and more people take to the streets with their bicycles, more support will grow for the development of better bicycle lanes. For now, I recommend the dublinbikes system for Trinity students looking for a cheap way to be green and healthy. Alisha Clancy is a postgraduate student in the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy.
Plenty of cycles, not so many cycle lanes. Photo by Jessica Pakenham-Money. 17
18
interview CULTURE
A good first impressionist Dublin-based artist John Nolan has sold his paintings — by turn abstract, stylised and impressionistic — all over the world. Not bad for a former Trinity student who dropped out in his first year. by Kate Rowan
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rom the exterior artist John Nolan’s house on Griffith Avenue, Drumcondra is similar to many in the leafy suburb but you just have to cross the threshold to enter a hive of artistic creativity. One of the most striking differences in the Nolan residence compared to most houses is the volume of striking art work; Nolan’s own paintings and then other interesting objets d’art such as clocks and throne-like chairs created by friends of the artist. At the end of the garden there is an inconspicuous looking Seomra timber building but entering it is a bit like stepping through the famous wardrobe and into Narnia. The space is packed with even more of the Phibsborough native’s paintings and works in progress. One can’t help but smile in the artist’s studio because of the riot of bright colour that characterises all of his work. He explains, “the colour is the subject of everything I do”. Nolan paints in a pallet of vivid shades from crimsons to violets, turquoise to cerise pink in three equally enthralling but distinct styles he
describes as “abstract, stylised and impressionistic”. He elaborates on his need to vary his style: “I find painting in the same style all the time quite limiting, if you are working on an abstract piece and you come to a semi-colon and need to pause you can move onto something completely different. You feel more refreshed. I need the different styles and the colour to make things interesting, so I can paint every day”. When asked about where his fascination for colour come from Nolan recollects one of his earliest childhood
“I barely lasted a year [in Trinity] and then I decided I wanted to head off travelling” memories of sitting in Mass on his mother’s knee looking at “an amazing glass brooch she always wore, the way the light was refracted and reflected through it and then looking through it at the church’s stained glass windows… that always stayed with me”. Nolan, the youngest of four children, grew up in a very artistic household in the Shandon area of Phibsborough,
The Sugar Loaf, am impressionistic piece. All images courtesy of John Nolan. 20
Dublin 7. His father John despite working full time as a foreman for cié was also a gifted and passionate painter who was particularly influenced by the Renaissance masters. When Nolan Senior retired from cié he set about recreating Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting on the ceiling of one of the bedrooms in his home. He unfortunately never finished his project as he passed away in 1998 but The Creation of Adam still adorns the ceiling. His mother May was also artistically gifted and worked as a dressmaker. She is still sewing. Both parents gave all their children huge encouragement in the arts. Nolan talks with fondness of how his parents had a blank wall in their kitchen where their children could paint or doodle whatever they wanted and then every couple of months his father would whitewash the wall so that they would have a blank canvas on which to start over. Talking about his formative years most of Nolan’s memories involve the arts and he is very grateful to his parents for this. “It was a very creative environment. We were always encouraged by them.”
He continues about how his family could always see his gift for the visual arts: “I was told by my parents that I could actually draw before I could walk or talk. I was a slow walker and a slow talker but my mother used to sit me up in the pram when I was very young and give me paper and crayons to entertain me and I would be drawing matchstick men and women. I can’t remember that far back but I can remember at about seven entering the Texaco — or as it was then known the CalTex — Art Exhibition”. Family outings were also an arty affair, the artist recalls. “Rather than being brought to a football match our parents would bring us to the National Gallery on a Sunday. Everything (in the gallery) was amazing to me as a child but as a teenager I loved Jack B. Yeats and Picasso. They were modernists, pushing things beyond what was already explored and this really appealed to me.” When it came to school art was also very important to Nolan who attended St. Vincent’s C.B.S. in Glasnevin despite there then being “no actual emphasis on art. We had to do art separately on our own, the chemistry teacher would
come in on a Saturday. He was the guy who got us through art in the Leaving Certificate”. Obviously when it came to choosing a career, “it was always really art I was thinking about” says Nolan but he notes “I had learned so much practically from my father and wanted to develop in some other way and that’s how I decided on
When Nolan Senior retired from CIE he set about recreating Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting on the ceiling of one of the bedrooms going to Trinity and studying the twosubject moderatorship of the History of Art and Architecture with Ancient History and Archaeology”. Nolan entered Trinity after finishing secondary school in 1977 but his time there was short lived. “I barely lasted a year and then I decided I wanted to head off traveling.” However, his studies have had an ongoing influence on his development as an artist. “The history of art is always with me and introduced a continuous interest
in my life”. He also has happy memories of the social life in college: “I met a great new set of people, a diverse group, mature students and school leavers and the Buttery was great!” If he were 18 again and starting out in Trinity, the painter believes “I probably would stay on and finish the course. I had this urge to travel, my parents really wanted me to get my degree. In hindsight, I would get my qualification and then go travelling”. After leaving full-time education Nolan spent a year travelling around France with his school friend Robert Nichol. They worked in vineyards picking grapes. Unfortunately, when he returned home Ireland was in the grip of a recession. In the late 1970s and early 80s the aspiring artist worked at a variety of jobs, including almost two years working in the accounts department of the Racing Board travelling to racecourses around Ireland. However for him “the art was always in the back of my head”. He attended the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) at night working in media such as sculpture and silk-screen printing.
The paintings reproduced in this report are the work of John Nolan, an Irish artist. www.nolanart.com All paintings © John Nolan Front Cover: Woman with Owl Back Cover: Peacock Inside Front Cover: Picasso Head Inside Back Cover: Heliotropes Opposite Contents Page: Three Mackerel Page 6: Rooster Duet Page 12: Still Life Page 34: Palimpsest XV IV
Design by Vermillion Design www.vermilliondesign.com
Pages from the National Treasury Management Agency’s 2008 report, in which Nolan’s art was used. 21
Nolan took the plunge of becoming a full time artist due to a chance encounter that would lead to a lifelong friendship. He happily remembers how he met a German artist. “In 1983 or 1984 when I met Hermann Wagner for the first time, I was exhibiting in the People’s Art, hanging on the railings of Saint Stephen’s Green and he drove up in his battered Volkswagen van, asked if he could hang his paintings next to mine. I started talking to him and we have been talking ever since!” Wagner “continued the influence my father had started and he gave me more focus”. It was he who told the young Nolan to “Go for it!” and that encouragement helped him to decide, “I’m going to go into painting regardless of not doing a full-time course in ncad, I knew I just had to go with it at that stage. I haven’t stopped since”. The pair set up a studio together on Mountjoy Square and worked there for about two years. Nolan explains how the two friends helped each other. “We were just two artists, we got on well, he encouraged me and I helped him put on exhibitions in Dublin. He would go back to Germany and I would keep things going here”. Not long after first meeting Wagner, in the mid 1980s Nolan met his wife Miriam who he also credits with giving him great encouragement to follow his dream. From around the time they were
“I play a lot of music as I work, mainly jazz by Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane” expecting their eldest son Cian, he “was working out on O’Connell Bridge, doing portraits, real art, commercial art to pay the bills during the last recession”. Nolan’s portrait business began because he “got a set of portraits of Irish writers together including Joyce, Yeats, O’Casey and Wilde and people started bringing in photographs, and asking me to do portraits from them”. He would take the photograph home over night and the next day he would present his customers with a framed pencil portrait. During this period the northsider drew portraits for people from all walks of life. He is very animated as he recalls “Kids used to come in with photos of their teachers, I would do caricatures, nice caricatures, not harsh ones and would then give them as presents when they were leaving school”. Upon the arrival of their second son Eoin in 1989, the Nolans moved to their Griffith Avenue home. It was from here Nolan set up his current studio in the late 1990s and has gathered a strong base 22
of dedicated followers of his art. Citing a wide and varied set of influences, Nolan talks with infectious enthusiasm about Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock but says he could “go on and on” about the many other artists who have impacted upon him. He believes that “all art is derivative, this is what inspires me to work, you need that influence”. It is not just visual art that gets his muse flowing but also music. “I play a lot of music as I work, mainly jazz by Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane. Jazz has really inspired my abstract painting.” Nolan displays a very pragmatic attitude to his painting. “An artist is like a tradesman, that’s what I think, like a carpenter can whittle something beautiful from a piece of wood or he can lay floorboards. I can use my skill in a practical way such as decorative art, with interior designers, where you are given colour swatches and you are asked to paint something to match that or portrait commissions”. The Dubliner has sold paintings all over the world from North America to Iceland and South Africa to Russia. Often this work is sold through galleries but once a buyer has one piece they sometimes contact Nolan directly via his website. He talks of how “the internet is fantastic because it puts the business back into the artists’ hands but there are still drawbacks because people do actually want to see the art in the flesh”.
His work can be seen in settings as diverse as the National Treasury, the Department of Defence, Goodbody Stock Brokers, The Berlin Institute of Music and Beshoff’s Fish and Chip restaurant on O’Connell Street! In 1999 Esat Digifone commissioned Nolan to paint a
“The internet is fantastic because it puts the business back into the artists’ hands” piece that was presented to the astronaut Neil Armstrong upon a visit to Ireland to commemorate 30 years since the moon landing. His bright and optimistic images have adorned the most recent report from the National Treasury which makes recommendations about the much talked about National Asset Management Agency (nama). In response to being questioned on his feelings of his work being included in the controversial report Nolan chuckles “ If people can take joy or solace from my paintings, I’m not responsible for the writing or the texts!” As well as vibrant colour, there is another constant in his work and that is a message of optimism. He tells me, “I’m trying to transmit something upbeat. I don’t believe in paintings racked in angst. I want my work to be full of joy and a celebration of colour!” Kate Rowan is a Junior Freshman student of Sociology and French.
The Jazz Process, an abstract piece inspired by music.
TONI
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Fashion review
Fashion blogs: the new high-end magazines? Fashion is a key part of contemporary living. So is the internet. In online blogs they come together to keep us in vogue. by Michelle Doyle
S
ince receiving a laptop over a year ago “for study purposes” I have gone from innocent and uninspired stumbling through such world-renowned blogs as Perez Hilton, to coming out the other side of the tunnel of ignorance to discover a bountiful collection of bold, enamouring and highcalibre fashion blogs. Yes: blogs are out there in abundance, but it seems that there is very little recognition given to their accessibility and on-the-minute accurateness. Fear not however; once the barrier of secrecy is torn down, you too will be constantly on the ball in a matter of mouse-clicks in this spiralling, online world of celebrity cat-fights, fashion trends and victims, art movements, photography, culture, music, politics and whatever else tickles your fancy. If it has an audience, it has a blog. This cyber movement, which has accelerated over the last ten years due to computers and broadband becoming widely accessible, has resulted in a shift. Where in 2001 we were belittled by Cruel Intentions telling us that the internet was “only for geeks and paedophiles”, it seems that now, in 2009, we have stepped upon a new, more militant age whose manifesto states that the internet is here to stay, on our computers, our mobile phones and now our iPods. Where in the past our solitary source of enlightenment was brought via magazine subscriptions and fortnightly copies of gossip rags that we fished into our bus funds to buy, now all we have to do is bookmark a site to find out what is new and explosive in the bright-light kingdoms of la and ny. No longer are magazines the omnipotent connoisseurs of what’s “in vogue”. It seems that at last we are entering an autonomous age where finally it is true to say that “sistas are doin’ it fo’ themselves”. I realised though, for quite the blogging enthusiast, I had no idea 24
what “blog” stood for. After searching Wikipedia to find vague and unspecific information, I decided to check out the Urban Dictionary which begrudgingly informed me that it is short for weblog, and stated that a blog is a “meandering, blatantly uninteresting online diary that gives the author the illusion that people are interested in their pathetic lives”, However, this is not true of presentday blogs. Perez Hilton is rumoured to receive one million hits a day, The Sartorialist over 150,000. In fact, these bloggers are so infamous in the world in which they (net) work that The Sartorialist (Scott Schuman) was named one of The New York Times’s top 100 influences on fashion. And if that is not enough, it seems that global empires such as Topshop, Vogue and The New York Times are all trying to bank in on this new craze and get online, fearing that they’ll be left to linger in the slow lane of this fast-paced modern world. So, where to start? No one enjoys Googling “fashion” or “clothes” to find that there are over 500,000 unspecified hits waiting to draw them in and suffocate them with their potential irrelevancy. So, I decided to do the scouring for you and tease out some potential fashion favourites. Why not check out www.whattowear. com, a site written by the editors of Elle and recent authors of self-titled fashion bible Who What Wear, for a daily update on who is wearing what in the world of celeb. Alternatively, if you want something that smells less of multimillionaire Hollywood stars brandishing more cash than Brad Pitt exposes flesh
in Thelma and Louise, be sure to check out the blogs of fashion guru and photography couple Garance Doré (www. garancedore.fr/en) and Scott Schumann (www.thesartorialist.com), which are not only centred around the welldressed on the street, but are considered to be documentations of the society we live in, equality among the sexes fought out in a “Best Dressed” category. But that is not to say that you can’t find something with a hint of home on the net: Dublin Streets (www.dublinstreets.blogspot.com) gives the reader a glimpse of the fashion parading through this very town on its main streets and in scenic places such as Saint Stephen’s Green. Or better still, if you share an enthusiasm for make-up and are tired of retailers’ biased reviews of their own products, why not see what award-winning Irish beauty blog (www.beaut.ie) has to say on the subject. But maybe this well-dressed “superficiality” bores you? I know I personally love some glitz, glam and drunken debauchery from the likes of Lindsey Lohan and Amy Winehouse, in which case be sure to rummage through the archives of www.thesuperficial.com or, better yet: www.perezhilton.com for pictures of your favourite stars with penises painted on their foreheads and dribbles of spit coming out their already intoxicated, brawling mouths. Finally, if you are looking for something with a more funky, digitalised, girly edge, based on a melting-pot series of subjects, Chanel: the look no further epitomy of style than my personal and elegance. favourite: www. kingdomofstyle.typepad.co.uk, for a Gossip Girl-style “Queen Michelle” and “Marie” repertoire of what’s what and who’s who in the world of cyber. So, there you have it, as set out by a slave to the trend-setting horse’s mouth. I feel it is important to remember that in times of recession it is not necessary to buy glossy magazines to keep up with the Joneses. In fact, why wait till next month’s publication of whatever to find out what is new and hip now when it’s all just a mouse click away? Michelle Doyle is a Senior Freshman student of History of Art and Architecture and Spanish.
Student life recreation
The thrills and spills of Hallowe’en Students everywhere let off steam at this most revered festival, with more effort going into the creation of giant m&m costumes than their dissertations. by Caroline o’leary
H
allowe’en has always been a favourite holiday of mine, possibly due to the fact I love going over the top and dressing up, but probably mostly due to the fact that Hallowe’en also happens to be my birthday. My poor mother was actually quite worried when I arrived on Hallowe’en, thinking it was a terrible day to be associated with, but it seems I was determined; nearly a week late and born just two hours after the midnight change of day, I was marked forever more. As a child, the opposite of my mum’s fears was true. Hallowe’en was a great day to have a birthday! Fancy-dress parties were the norm and the traditional trick-or-treating could be incorporated when necessary as my parents bravely took on the responsibility of escorting a number of overexcited and oversugared children around the long- suffering neighbours’ homes. It was only when I turned 18 and could legally partake in going out and drinking that I was forced into the realisation that my birthday no longer took precedence over the national day of costumes, scares and spooks. The opportunity to dress up and party is one that is just too good for most students to pass up, and as such the number of parties, nights out and trips away means that only my most loyal friends
(and even then…) could be counted on to arrive at any sort of celebration. So I have learned to suck it up, reschedule my own celebrations, and embrace the full Hallowe’en experience — minus the bitterness of my own claim on the day. As a Senior Sophister, many people including myself seemed to have an unspoken determination that this year’s Hallowe’en was to be all out, acutely aware that next year many of us will probably be in different places, different colleges or even depressingly working for the magnificent day! My Hallowe’en festivities began the Thursday before the big day with a Hallowe’en/housewarming party at some friends’ house in Smithfield. Due to a serious lack of organisation over my costume, caused by impending dissertation terror, I decided to recycle a “vintage” outfit from a friend’s 21st birthday party and with the addition of much jewellery, talcum powder and some fake blood decided to be an 18th century vampire courtesan (and yes that did become an annoying mouthful as the night went on!). Worries about having to get the Red Line Luas dressed as such were thankfully appeased by a big strong male friend deciding to head to the party the same time as me. Less fun was his determination to walk the entire way and then complain
by the time we reached the Four Courts about the distance. The party was good-old fashioned Hallowe’en fun with apples on strings and highlights including the friend dressed as Violet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, complete with blue body paint and numerous balloons packed under her clothes, who gave the most comfortable hugs ever! The following night was designated my birthday celebration, with enjoyable drinks with friends and the bizarre experience that is Christmas WAR in Spy. There are few things as funny as watching several hundred Hallowe’encostumed people dancing to Santa Claus is coming to town. I went home that night with a birthday haul of a Santa hat, a stolen pirate sword and a handbag full of fake snow. However, no matter how important the holiday, some traditions must be adhered to, so on Hallowe’en night itself a gang of us piled into a friend’s apartment in Grand Canal Dock for the X Factor, where 20-odd very creatively dressed people shouted and cheered at this year’s hopefuls. The drinks flowed and excitement bubbled over, as one vampire decided
There are few things as funny as watching several hundred Hallowe’en costumed people dancing to “Santa Claus is coming to town” the beaten hooker needed a genuine hickey to perfect her costume and happily obliged. I headed on with two others to a house party on Baggot Street, where the costumes included an m&m, the entire cast of the Wizard of Oz and Henry Cartwright. After some good chat and catching up we moved to a second house party, similarly enjoyable fun and games, until one of the guests, rumoured to be either a Viking or a pirate, decided the most fun he could have on Halloween would be to flash the rather unimpressed neighbours. Four large and equally unimpressed Guards arrived at the door soon after and told everyone to move out or get thrown out. Choosing the former option, we made an ill-advised attempt to locate one last party in the driving rain before calling it quits for the night at 4.30 a.m. Food, home, warm, dry clothes and a DVD seems the ideal way to end the Hallowe’en season. Caroline O’Leary is a Senior Sophister student of Psychology. 25
Recreation Culture
A free-for-all in Free Derry Hallowe’en usually inspires a dynamic menagerie of debauchary. Such was the case in Derry this October when cemeteries, drink and haunted houses combined to make an exciting All Hallow’s Eve. by Catherine nicholas actfully side-stepping the life size statue of the Virgin Mary my mum likes to keep at the doorway, I run towards the taxi. On this occasion I decide not to call shotgun which means I am saved 26
the uneasiness of the usual taxi rant as well as the hardcore country music on medium volume. “Onwards kind sir to the cemetery, please”, I say. “You’re not about to loiter around the final resting place of the dead, are you?”, I hear you ask. Well, technically yes, yes I am, but it’s not satanic grave dancing or anything. There are few things more soul-satisfying and wholesome than a good old session beside a gnarly crypt, where the priceless ages of time become about as meaningless and ineffectual as someone else’s stool sample. As I watch tentatively from the backseat the drama of life unfolds outside. I notice that my bin bag is already starting to crinkle and collapse in on itself. In the spirit of the economic times we live in, I had decided to stay recession-friendly this Halloween and dress up in a black bin bag. This seemed like the sexiest thing in the world to do three hours previously. What I didn’t realise is that due to the grim effect bin bag synthetics have on the skin, they are not really made for knacker drinking in the great outdoors. By the time I realise what a dire misjudgment the whole sordid outfit was (probably around the time I was feeling quite unimpressive standing next to Wonder Woman), it was much too late. Along with the guy who dressed up in a diaper, I had very much entered into that lost category of unimaginative Halloween morons, hidden on the outskirts of the party. Thankfully, I was now deep in the dark underbelly of the Derry cemetery. Courtesy of Ryanair, all our friends had managed to come home for Hallowe’en and brought a few English friends with them. Maybe it’s their
At some point somebody screams, which means everybody screams, which means everybody runs and no one knows where to run naïvety or desire to fit in in Derry, but we decide to take them for a wee jaunt around the bogside to see the murals and the like. Making our way past the growing mass of vampires, goblins and zombies ( just another routine night in Derry), my friends and I are trying to explain the importance of the Free Derry corner when we are approached by a group of youths dressed as Jesus and his followers. Assuming they’ve come to congratulate us on our excellent
costumes, we greet them with the usual “Hello!”, only to find this customary method of introduction forgone; instead we receive a barrage of abuse for our English friends. Somewhat apologetically we quickly escort our guests up to “The Walls”, to what is essentially the real essence of modern day drinking in Derry — no cops, great scenery and queueless toilets. I don’t have the exact statistics but I would be confident in saying that the majority of Derry girls lost their virginity somewhere among this maze of beautifully preserved historical artefacts. Living the high life, we pop a saunter pill and shimmy around the place having a great laugh, finding from time to time little pieces of candy lying around the place. It’s like our own little private mystery trail to nowhere. The general consensus is that it was definitely a good thing we decided not to trick-ortreat this year. Blessed with some sort of freak Indian summer that night, a dancing array of sparkling fairy dust and autumnal cheer lit our way. Derry is actually home to the largest organised Hallowe’en celebration in Europe. Bathed in the crimson glow of the moonlight we merrily finish the last dregs of our potion and move on to the bar. Ever since the English pub “Spoons” made its debut on the drinking scene of Derry, it has caused great rifts in this tight-knit little community. There are those who are against it because the promotion of cheap alcohol makes for lots of little babies and there are those that are for it, because the promotion of cheap alcohol means a guaranteed shag. No matter what your stance on it, none of us know how one lone 85-year-old man keeps getting in every Friday night with hundreds of packets of illegal schmokes down his trousers. That lad knows good drifting! As usual, the bar is packed and it’s basically a night of not getting served and avoiding the local Peter Perverts, but nonetheless, everyone is feeling the buzz. The only thing that ruins the night is some creep who whips his new iPhone out at every available chance. An iPhone is the depressing equivalent of having footnotes on a party. I am half in love
with the idea of tossing it into his plum brandy and yelling “To hell with the devil!” and chasing him out of the bar back to his mummy, who presumably paid for the damned contraption. However,
In the spirit of the economic times we live in, I had decided to stay recession-friendly this Halloween and dress up in a black bin bag I figure this would cause a scene and I decide to get him where it really hurts by telling him that I thought his Dalmation outfit was a cow. It might have been around this time that we decide to leave. We have the good fortune to be blessed with a friend who actually lives in a haunted manor house, so, saying goodbye to “Tights” the local beggar, we make our way back to hers. Like the average citizen, I am so discontent with my life that sometimes I hope scary things will happen so I can recapture the adrenaline rush of bygone childhood years. We all decide to go on a trek through the woods behind her house. At some point somebody screams, which means everybody The Wicked Witch: screams, which a classic costume means everybody choice for many. runs and no one knows where to run. So we just run from one place to the other like hopeless lemmings until someone tells us to calm down and think logically about how to get back. The next day, as I wake up and look around at my companions through my blotchy contact lenses, I see a guy dressed as a giant iud and another as a giant gimp and have a profound, shining moment of how ridiculously simple life was. I walk out of the house to hail a taxi, so deep in thought that I don’t even realise that I am doing the walk of shame in my glorious bin bag dress, now ripped to shreds and wrapping itself around my legs like a magnificent double helix dna. Next year, I think I’ll just go as a Muggle. Catherine Nicholas is a Senior Sophister student of Law. 27
All illustrations by Sinead Mercier. I i don’t know what’s left of those long lazy summers. The ones where you drawl out on drunken days with beautiful girls and lull in shades of trees. For drawn-out days and weeks you wallow. But sing, oh sing! Musical sing! you chime, and all sorts of sporadic ephemeral thoughts bleat out like some drunken raving lunatic. The shell shock of a hazy existence, of continued drinking over a sustained period for many of your woken days. I had to travel to a public house to meet Speccy, on account of the need to go to a bar and hear some music and get fed and such things. And also the requirement to sleep on the couch among his ill and literate flatmates. I remember soaring past a late-teens three-piece band as they whacked out a David Bowie classic as we found our way to the smoking area. Where were these youths from? Had they travelled through time? And people looked on approvingly, jiving and devouring, in it, with it and upon it, in various manners, as if it were
Dublin recreation philosophy
Change we can’t believe in by Matthew Martin 28
indeed the 1970s at the time of hearing these said songs. The Edward Heath government of the early years of the decade was well hung, and had, after much campaigning, a snow-white tan in the shape of the European Economic Community. England failed on international footballing campaigns, the Cold War was a pressure cooker and Auld Maggie Thatcher was on the horizon. And the whole world seemed pent on something, positively on something. But no one seems to have yet distinctly articulated what it is, in this post-economic spurt. Production and Reduction collide, East and West, Hot and Cold, polar opposites. I sense a tornado brewing. People dig it, but don’t get it, it seems, because they’re in no state to see and speak about anything past the walls of the bars we possess, the urinal posters to which we stick our chewing gum, the marks on the bins that ask us to recycle, the nutritional information of canned food, the numerical account of the calories in tinned tomatoes, kippers and beer, the chemical make-up of tobacco, marijuana and chemicals. Or whatever it is that people get up to in their given situations. The Globe, from one fairly warped perspective, was like that on this particular Thursday on South Great George’s Street. Our story seems to begin with a certain Feeling. If I had to try to articulate it, it’s about an unsung devil. It’s about a state of ambiguity. It’s about a nostalgia to the past and history’s gifts. It’s about a global economy. It’s about home-grown terrorists. It’s about a solution. It’s about Change. It’s about a black and white president. It’s about these colours not running. And the soldiers are coming home to protesting, anti-Semitic crowds. Smoked. There’s work to do in the morning. Speccy’s tiny couch was spent with episodes of Futurama and a few smokes. And a disturbed sleep. The suitcase I just emptied was broken shells from Kerry in the West, a tiara, a slightly crazed and baffled folder of notes, an introduction to Logic and a book of philosophical words and problems the size of a Bible. I plan to get to a party at a friend’s place in four days. It’s a fairy tale
theme; I figure going as the Hobbit who carries the one ring ought to be fitting. Something’s going to get destroyed, that’s a certainty. But tomorrow has issues of greater propinquity. Ones of Space and Time. II Some humans can spend their lives imbibing and divulging information through Microsoft Windows, defenestrated from one reality to another, to one where every word is a link to a whole other website of information, be it true or false, sucked up into the vortex like one of those old American barns you can find on YouTube. A world of videos of people falling off of rooftops, preachers of love and hate and kids freaking
Speccy’s tiny couch was spent with episodes of Futurama and a few smokes. And a disturbed sleep out because someone killed their online selves; everything from the execution of former dictators to the would-be private opinions the president holds about a pop-star, the jackass. The obsessed can watch the powerful and obsessed, and any fat kid with a stick can become an overnight comedic anti-hero. Almost the entire population of the human race can spend their days watching fatso take on Darth Vader, watch that Dog On Heat dry hump that defenceless old lady, watch the deceased World of Warcraft kid stick a television remote up his arse in a fit of spasticated rage, and watch two oriental girls throw up and shit on one sorry cup. And we can all publicise our own lives and thoughts every minute of every day like miniature celebrities, surrounded online by friends, family, acquaintances and friends of friends you met only once a distant time ago, with whom you clicked, but never spoke to again. The sum of all your days spent being photographed and updated, right there online, an ameliorated representation of yourself; one that you get to watch and rate and like and of which you can become a fan. In this age of social networking,
free information and interconnectivity, a person can get incredibly inebriated and communicate with people who simply don’t deserve it. Or slightly inebriated and talk for hours to whoever else is awake in America, Mexico or Hong Kong. Or completely sober and proceed like a mindless zombie, solipsistically sitting questionnaires to find out what your Patronus would be, what your future wife’s name will be, how fat and moronic you will become, what day it will be when you die and how. An endless urination of drivel, fitting to the purpose of filling the spare hours of your day with something so meaningless you might as well have sex with a rock, provided, of course, that it doesn’t get filmed. Because any other perverse voyeur, thief, scoundrel or freak can film this sort of shit and subject the rest of us monkeys to it. Nothing of even vague extension, no matter how trivial, can ever remain in the privacy of a photo album or video collection ever again. Goodness knows what someone having sex with a rock would amount to online! It could be huge; it could go orbital, like that dude who broke that pint glass. This I’ve got to see. This ship is setting sail. There’s the important matter of transforming myself into the Shire-dweller in order that I can destroy the ring of power. But there’s never just one.
29
There’s so many rings of power all looped up and hooked in and spinning around us at such speeds that it can leave a man dizzy, wondering why the hell he was playing with that barbed wire fence in the first place. III It’s difficult to know exactly what’s happened over the past seven days. On the one hand, it’s full to the brim with stories of nights spent in trance, fights and social power plays, spit-up red wine, communication breakdowns, the dreaded Fear. Sidling down Grafton Street, an amoeba named Moses sucked me right
a collection of orators holding giant yellow licence plates that read “JOHN 3:7” ... stood like a cobblestone on a busy street down in Temple Bar into a conversation, and I was finding it difficult to move. You have to be reborn, you have to repent, if you want to get into the kingdom of heaven. He was looking at me with eyes of complete sincerity, and my mind was disabled in bewilderment. What? The kingdom of heaven. Where is it? Is it any good? It’s after you die. After I die? Oh no, that’s fine thanks, we’re headed to the Twisted Pepper… Jiminy Cricket I thought, as he advised my associate to stop smoking marijuana; what has this guy been taking? He was with a collection of orators holding giant yellow licence plates that read “JOHN 3:7” at a quarter to one in the morning on a Saturday night, stood like a cobblestone on a busy street down in Temple Bar, surrounded by the piss and vomit of dilapidated young adults like ourselves. It’s not quite clear what the “adult” part of that noun phrase is about: my right to vote? My right to drink alcohol? My right to interfere sexually and publicly with whomever I choose? My right to openly consider someone else’s beliefs to be retarded? It was my mission to participate in these rights before they get pithily pick-pocketed away from the submitters, the PC dummies and dhimmis, and thus from me by default. This was no time to be talking theology with someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word transubstantiation anyway. There are laws to protect, damnit. And so our slovenly descent continued, down Grafton Street, up Westmoreland Street, over O’Connell Bridge to the northside. As an Englishman on the 30
northside of Dublin I was expecting abuse, and I vaguely remember being called a southern prick and a cunt by a perversely obese man. I think he said he was from Bolton. These godforsaken tourists are all the same. Get off our land. The Twisted Pepper had the sweat of stale smoke and spilt drinks from the hoards of people penned inside, all with a serious craving for an area in which to smoke. The lack of one assured our oral fixation was set on guzzling pint after pint of watereddown octane, but it also meant there was enough energy in the lungs to move in any way that seemed fitting to the minimal house music shooting from the sound system. This is surely the music of our generation. The thing about house music is that to the untrained listener it can sound like everything is simply being repeated, loop after loop, so that he is deceived to believe that nothing is happening. The listener is so used to responding to the big hooks and obvious overtones of pop music and politics alike, that he actually cannot see what’s going on right in front of him. This sort can’t see that, bit by bit, minute by minute, change is occurring ever so slowly, and ever so gently, until everything at last comes together in a violent synergy that’ll alter your mindset and your movements and your personality. In a valiant haze, in darkness and light, people can have the most absurd and perverse thoughts. And, given the right conditions, some people can act on these fecundities without thinking. And the slightly altered mindset, brought about by small and progressive change, is where the breakdown of our civilised existence begins. Matthew Martin is a Senior Freshman student of Mental and Moral Science.
Foreign Affairs culture
Speaking in tongues In attempting to break out of monolingualism, we may find ourselves stymied by the poor range and quality of language education on offer in Ireland. by Maria Oleinik
I
f knowledge of foreign languages is the key to world culture, then Irish students are soon likely to find themselves locked out of some of its finest rooms. There is no university in this country that teaches Arabic. For Hebrew there is only Trinity, but the biblical language that it teaches cannot be used in the streets of Tel Aviv. Degrees in Japanese at the University of Limerick will impart knowledge of only 700 Japanese hieroglyphs with a required fluent minimum of 2000. There is undoubtedly a deficiency in foreign language options at third-level in Ireland and equally at second-level. The range of Leaving Certificate language options is helpful to children from immigrant families. It can increase their points total, but merely for knowing and speaking their native tongue. Other than that, the third language requirement in the Leaving Cert is not a serious measure of language competence. Why are students here not interested in learning foreign languages? The main reason, of course, is English. Why would anyone want to speak Arabic or Hebrew or Japanese or Chinese when their native speakers are learning English! The apparent emergence of English as a
global language seems to serve as a disincentive to native English speakers to learn other languages. The more intrinsic problem, however, is the methodology of language teaching in school. The way into a language is through grammar and grammar is not taught systematically in Irish schools. It is likely that
Why are students here not interested in learning foreign languages? The main reason, of course, is English many fluent Irish speakers do not know what a “case” is, despite the fact that in Irish there are five of them. Grammar is too hard. “We will not go into it”, as a teacher in Conradh na Gaeilge once said to me. This approach leads to rote learning where syntax is memorised, but not understood. According to the 2008 Language Education Policy Profile for Ireland, jointly published by The Department of Education and Science and the Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe, Irish society is characterised by restricted English/Irish bilingualism. The Irish language yielding ever more ground to English, Ireland risks becoming a
The Tower of Babel, not to be confused with the Long Room Hub.
restricted monolingual country where language learning is considered to be too specialist and expensive to provide. Irish universities do offer standard French, German, Spanish, Italian and Ancient Greek and Latin. Trinity has Russian and ucd has Chinese. However, there are few other options if a student is interested in anything more exotic. An 18-year-old might not venture directly to the Middle East or Asia; but they can go to the uk with its marvellous choice of language education. In Ireland the critical mass of students is absent, which in government terms would justify the “no funding” approach. However, this critical mass can be fostered. The University of Limerick, which offers Japanese, does not have the funds to send its students to Japan for a year to learn the language. The only option for these students is to go to Japan and teach English through the Japan Exchange and Teaching (jet) programme. Yet, one day they have to come back to Ireland and realise that if they want to take their studies further, they have to go to the uk,or if they decide to stay and look for a job, the best their Japanese can get them is a call centre. The Applied Language Centre at University College Dublin offers a wide range of language modules including Arabic and Japanese but to ucd students only. These are offered as once-off fivecredit two-hour weekly lecture electives. Since 2007 the Arabic module has remained at beginner level and will most likely stay this way. The Centre also offers the standard French, Italian and so on, but at the B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The Goethe Institute, Alliance Française and Instituto Cervantes can take a student all the way to the fluent C2. There may be an alternative to this piecemeal approach to foreign language education. Instead of offering a little of this and that, here and there, why not convert the University of Limerick into a centre of Japanese studies, ucd specialising in Chinese, Trinity in Arabic and Hebrew, given that it already offers the biblical version of Hebrew, and so on. This way Ireland could be educating its own specialists in its own way. Then, perhaps, there might be no need to look in the usa for that brilliant Irish American to do the job. Maria Oleinik is a postgraduate student in the School of Law. She speaks Russian, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, German, French, Japanese, Norwegian and English. 31
The Azure Window, Gozo. Travel
I will arise and go to Gozo Steeped in history, culture and scenes of mesmorising beauty, a summer in Gozo offered one student an idyllic alternative to the usual swarm to the States on J1. by Rebecca egan
“ 32
if int? Tajjeb, grazzi.” Despite having spent three months living and working on the Maltese island of Gozo, the sentences “how are you?” and “fine, thanks” were just about all that I managed to retain of the language. Maltese is a strange mixture of Arabic, Italian, French and English which would make even the most accomplished linguist scratch his head and frown with confusion. Its Latin alphabet means that
words never sound as they are written, leaving Anglophones eager to pick up the lingo lost in a maze of both impossible grammar and deceptive letters. Even with the help of a patient ten-year-old boy, who I befriended during my stay, the convoluted language failed to stick. It was just too difficult. In Gozo, however, difficulty, confusion and complication end here; Gozo is easy. This little nine by five mile island where “peace comes… dropping from the veils of the morning” exudes tranquillity.
To borrow from Yeats’s poem, it is my Innisfree. Once you disembark from Mr. O’Leary’s aircraft and take the 25 minute ferry from Malta, all thoughts of deadlines and exams are left behind. Pulling into Mgarr harbour, you are greeted with the sight of fishing boats painted blue, red and yellow, azure waters, sand coloured buildings and the surprisingly magnificent churches on the hills. Look a little closer and you will see cracks in the paintwork, crevices in the limestone buildings and some ill conceived modern development. This is part of Gozo’s charm; for you will also see the simplicity of the place and marvel at the lack of glossy tourist paraphernalia. There is nothing contrived or painted over on this island, just stand back and squint at it a bit, and you will see true perfection. From the Siege of Malta to its colonial background, Malta is steeped in history. In Gozo, such antiquity manifests itself in the great churches and prehistoric temples that pepper the limestone landscape. Two famous men are said to have been shipwrecked off the coast of Malta – Saint Paul and (perhaps more interestingly for Gozo) Ulysses. The Calypso Caves, the legendary abode of the brave hero Ulysses and the lonely nymph, sit outside Xlendi Bay, and start inside a
Pulling into Mgarr harbour, you are greeted with the sight of fishing boats painted blue, red and yellow... cavern carved out of the cliffs. This is an island not only dripping with history, but which is also shrouded in myth. Though the island is full of references to the Phoenicians, the Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Libyans, Christians from France, Germany, Spain and Portugal, Gozo remains uniquely its own kind of place. The island was originally known as Maleth, meaning “safe haven”. It is exactly that. It is the kind of place where locals leave their keys hanging in their front and car doors for safe keeping; where the only kind of alarm you are likely to hear is the screeches of children as they dive into the turquoise waters; where neighbours proudly offer baskets of home-grown figs and lemons; where a loaf of bread and half a dozen eggs costs ¤1.05 and where it’s still safe to walk home in the dark. Safe is certainly not synonymous with boring. This island is bursting with activity. Gozo, I’m told, is a bit like rural Ireland twenty years ago and the craic
is mighty. Wander into one of the little villages, poke your nose into a local bar and you will discover something that feels not very far from home, except cheaper. For two pizzas and two beers, it’s ten euro and often it’s hard to spend anything. The hospitality of the local people outdoes the Irish desire to get the first round in and all night sessions are a regular Saturday night occurrence. The luminous waters surrounding the island are brimming with exotic fish and attract divers from all over, and for those of us wary of very deep water, it also makes for great snorkelling. The beautiful bays that dot the coastline are usually filled with locals who come in great hoards and send the delicious aromas of barbequed fish; pungent through the sea air. People-watching is my favourite hobby here. The Gozitans have all the feistiness of the Italians with the added charm of modesty. Watching them, it becomes clear that for Gozitans, family is paramount. Men poke at the barbeque coals and prepare the fish, women make bruscetta and gossip and children practice summersaults and back flips that would rival that of trained gymnasts. When the food is ready they gather for what must be hours and their laughter resonates around the jagged golden cliffs. Food in Gozo is a reflection of its people, its agriculture, its waters and its pace. The restaurant where I worked was not so much a restaurant as a shack by the sea, tucked away in the lush valley of Mgarr Ix Xini. The owners, Noel and Sandra, have created, in my opinion, the best kept secret of the Mediterranean. They don’t do pasta; they don’t do pizza
Mgarr Harbour, Gozo. and don’t even ask them for a menu. What they do is the freshest and broadest selection of fish, cooked with olive oil, salt, pepper and no fuss, crispy salads with the most delicious tomatoes you will ever taste and dry, crusty Maltese bread to mop it all up. The Gozitans have a unique way of preparing food. A simple tomato sandwich becomes an explosion of flavour as maltase bread is sprinkled with salt and pepper, drizzled with olive oil and, instead of slicing the fruit, tomatoes are
The hospitality of the local people outdoes the Irish desire to get the first round in cut in half and rubbed into the bread — beats a cheese and soggy tomato Cuisine de France roll from Spar any day. Three years ago when I told my friends that I would be going to Gozo and not joining them on their J1 in New York, they looked at me with both astonishment and confusion. “Where the hell is Gozo?” Now, as I flick through the Sunday papers, I see that reviews of this tiny island are becoming fairly frequent. As I drink my morning coffee, I hear the word creeping into the vocabulary of young couples sitting beside me. I see the billboards with images of Gozo’s beautiful Azure Window and can’t help thinking to myself that Yeats had the right idea in creating a pseudonym for the utopia that we know as Innisfree. Go to Gozo, just go quietly. Rebecca Egan is a Junior Sophister student of English Literature and French. 33
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h. Back to college. The old grind again. Like we never left. I was surprised at just how enthusiastic I was during Freshers’ Week. I was genuinely looking forward to being back. Mainly because college gives me a reason to get up and get dressed. A reason to shave, other than getting rid of the itchiness. A bit of structure to my days. I’m gonna go to every lecture! I’m gonna study during the year instead of just cramming before exams! I’m gonna go to the gym all the time! Hell, may as well give Schols a go! Thing is, lectures start early and are shit. Studying seems unnecessary and shit. The gym would require me bringing in changes of clothes and stuff. And then, being sweaty. And it’s also shit. Schols? Where’s the lolz in Scholz? I was soon reminded of my laziness. I’m also convinced that I have regressed socially. Over the summer I built an image of myself going back to college, seeing everyone I know, being all cool. I saw myself strutting through front square like The Fonz, giving an “eeey!” and a thumbs-up to all those cool cats I’m friends with. I’m just a man about town, baby. The reality was me sheepishly dragging myself through front square and panicking upon seeing one of those people you sort of know, but not enough to comfortably say hello to. If they try to do a stop-and-chat, you’re up shit creek. Nah, just wait until you’re both out drinking some night. I’m already behind in my classes. I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated at the people who seem to know what’s going on in everything. How dare they be on top of things? Knowing when essays are due, having stuff done for tutorials. They’re often the sort of people that adapt to new acronyms too quickly. For example, people calling History of Political Thought, “hpt” from the first day. It’s just too soon. Stick your hpt up your gee. To worsen matters, my lecturers have decided to go all “interactive” this year, asking the class questions. What happened to the days when I could sit in silence in a lecture and take in the cleavage on show instead of paying attention? I now have to pay attention, lest I get asked a question I haven’t heard, and then get mocked by the failed stand-up comic lecturer. There was a bit of an incident with this recently. The woman lecturing us had been asking questions the whole time. Every single question she asked, I sat there slyly grinning at the inappropriate responses my little ol’ brain was thinking up. While talking about the misery J.K. 34
The Last Word With Mark Walsh “I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated at people who seem to know what’s going on in everything. For example calling History Of Political Thought, “hpt” from the first day. Its just too soon. Stick your hpt up your gee”
Rowling suffered while writing her books in Edinburgh cafés, she asked “I mean, if you want to go somewhere to write and be miserable, where would you go?”. Obviously hoping for an “Edinburgh” response. I sat there thinking “Auschwitz Auschwitz Auschwitz”. Alas, I wasn’t asked. Then we had to all write down an answer to her question “What is Marketing?”. She asked someone at the back. Then another. Then she points to me and asks what I wrote. Christ. I look down at my page and see the three words I’ve written — “What is Marketing?”. Why did I even bother writing the fucking question? I then did the biggest cop out imaginable and garbled out some jibberish about having the same answer as the last. The shame. I planned to go in and see Jack White when he was in. I’m not a major fan or anything, but it’s pretty cool that he was there. Then I found out it was on a Sunday. This was a problem for the simple reason that I rarely have plans for Sundays, so it unnerves me a little bit when I do. I can barely remember the last time I did something on a Sunday aside from eating dinner. And then my mam clinched it when she told me what we were having for Sunday dinner. Chicken and ham. Chicken and ham. That’s two meats. Two. That’s twice the amount of meats I normally have with dinner. Soz Jack, it’s nothing personal, but it’s gotta be something really special to outdo a double meater. I’m way out of the loop with nights out too. Where are all these new night clubs coming from? And all these themed nights? I feel like a pensioner baffled and bemused by technology. People ask me if I’m going to things and I don’t know if they’re saying the name of the night’s theme, or the venue. “War”, “Break for the Border” — what is this shit? No, I shan’t be going to Piss Flaps in The Granny Hub on Harcourt Street tonight. I don’t care if you get in for free if you’re wearing soiled wellies and eating a pube. I don’t care if they’re selling Mojitos for two euro and a Tayto crisp. I’m going to go home and have a glass of orange juice and scratch myself. However, if it’s any consolation, I will silently browse through the Facebook photos of your night, so if you could upload them sharpish, I’d be grateful. I’m planning a day of bitter scowling tomorrow so that’d really fit in with my schedule. Oh well. It’s Christmas soon. And we all know what that means! The inevitable disappointment of New Year’s. Mark Walsh is a Senior Freshman student of Business, Economic and Social Studies. See more at www.walsho.net.
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