The Piranha Election Special 2013 by Dave Byrne

est 1843 vo l clx vii, issue 4, 7th Februar y 2013

Piranha Editors Run Out Of Ideas For Front Page Sub-Headlines

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a p o litic al, literar y & general news- p ap er

Everyone Did Laugh At Bennet - Trinity Come Dancing Review

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7th February 2013

Notes From The Throne

PRESIDENT

p o li ti c a l , l i te r a r y & g e n e r a l news-paper vo l cl x v i i , issu e 3, 7t h Fe b 2013 Hey Hunz, Hannah Mc here! Listen, I’m sick of these shite Piranhas my ‘co-editor’ has been spewing out every now and again. I didn’t take this job to add a publication that wasn’t worth being on my CV to my CV for fucks sake! Painful as it has been I’ve written every single one of these profiles to add some quality to this drivel. Every. Single. One. If you’re a prissy little no-craic bitch and you can’t take a joke - please

read the disclaimer that we’ve placed at the heart of this issue. This stuff took me ages and my time is WAY too fucking valuable for its product to be complained about. I’ve calculated the time as being worth 5 figures. Yes, every now and then we couldn’t figure out what to say about someone but take it from me - rule no. 1 in the satire game: When in doubt - call them a crack addict. Luv ya hunz Hannah McCarthy

Tom Lenihan

37-year-old Tom Lenihan has experienced a rocky start to his campaign. After early sanctions for pre-campaigning, he has now been twice reprimanded by the Student’s Union’s Electoral Commission for defiantly sporting his controversial tiger onesie. In a scene reminiscent of a Somalian stoning, he was brutally dragged into Front Square, his onesie torn from his naked flesh and flailed with a whip by Dan Ferrick, pictured, for his gross breach of the EC’s completely consistent and nonarbitrary rules as a number

Lylas Aljohmani

Belfast-based Rosa Langhammer is a strong contender in this year’s Presidential election. Despite an unenamoured reaction to the unveiling of her two biggest policies at this year’s Trinity Come Dancing, Rosa has little trouble defending her pedigree. Speaking to a Piranha reporter this week, Langhammer explained in prolonged detail why her plethora of minor positions on obscure committees make her a good fit for the job. “As 3rd year rep for DUBES, I have an in-depth knowledge of how inactive, lethargic and

Rosa Langhammer

generally unpopular student organisations can be at doing what they’re supposed to. You can’t deny that, coupled with my time as treasurer of Trinity Netball, I’m the ideal candidate to, for example, run some sort of a failed obscure netball tournament with a registration fee. How many SU Presidents can offer that?” When asked how she would feel about representing Trinity students at a national level and with government representatives, Rosa is quick to point to her depth of diplomatic experience:

“I’m a people person. Back me winning this. I literally in my JCR days; which were don’t care. #GenuineMange after my Trinity Enactus, #thereproachablepresident” Maths Soc and Northern Ireland Soc days but before I got into DUBES, Freerunning Soc and DartsSoc; I succesfully predicted the right amount of pizza to order for event attendees not twice but three times running. You can’t learn that, you’re born with it. And I was born to be Students Union President. Frankly, son, I don’t care if we have to tie each of Tom Lenihan’s balls to two F-16s and fly them off the Empire State building if it means

of Pharisees looked on. Tom was pelted with rocks by the crowd as the JCR committee distributed free pizza and leaflets. Communicating with The Piranha through a complex system of knocks and wood pigeons, for fear of further EC retribution, Lenihan was extremely apologetic for his transgressions:

behind the prohibition of the onesie, Electoral Commission Enforcer Dan Ferrick stated: “We had a huge concern over the impropriety of the tiger ‘onesie’ worn by Thomas Lenihan. After a discussion with church representatives and the Irish branch of Republicans Abroad we ultimately concluded that the one-piece represented a “I have brought shame on serious threat to the integmy family, my god, and Dan rity of the Sabbatical ElecFerrick. I beg forgiveness tions this year. Tom has been from Allah and the found- made an example of, and let ing fathers for the disgrace the raw wounds on his back I have brought on myself.” serve as an example to all for the rest of the campaign.” Speaking on the reasoning Lylas represents the ‘alternative’ candidate in this years Presidential Elections, and describes herself as a “radical option for students who really want change”. Indeed, having changed her name by legal deed poll earlier this year from Charlane Ward to Lylas (standing for her campaign motto; “Lads Yokes Legend Antics Sesh”) it would appear that Ly-

las is a candidate for whom this election is serious business. Aljohmani has built herself a presence on and off of campus over recent weeks, performing a violin piece on Monday as part of her explicit campaigning, but also selling ecstasy in the smoking area of Grand Social on Thursday and Friday nights for the past six months in what has been speculated by some to be

an attempt to gather a support base. Indeed, these efforts seem to be working, with students commenting in equal measures on the calibre of her on-campus performance and the quality of her ‘yokes’, which she sells out of a hollowed-out pineapple and affectionately calls ‘pill-a coladas’. She has shown a willingness to make personal sacrifice for the sake of Trinity

students and the Students Union cause, going so far as to tattoo one of her central campaign promises, pictured here, on her person. Whatever the result of this election, Lylas’ commitment and radical personality are sure to go somewhat noticed by a section of Trinity students this election.

7th February 2013

ENTS

Sean Reynolds Reynolds is a man eager to escape his past. After attaining success in portraying the character of Gimli in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings franchise, Reynolds is now looking to take charge of Trinity College’s SU-run nightlife after a number of unprofitable years out of the Hollywood spotlight. Once a committed stage and film actor, Reynolds is rumoured to have made concerted efforts to completely change his personality and affectations in an attempt to move forward with his life. Close friends have detailed his trajectory towards the Ents position, noting long nights spent sewing denim shirts to denim jackets and teaching himself jazz flute in a Ranelagh basement.

7th February 2013

Cian Mulville

made use of include: - The establishment of a Fishing Society - The promotion of House music as a legitimate form of music - A part-time job as a malfunctioning cement-mixer voiceover for Disney Pixar - A short lived cameo on Modern Family playing himself, albeit as a Mexican migrant With these upcoming elections it would seem that Mr Reynolds is searching for the Sean Reynolds circa 2003 final piece to the jigsaw puzzle of solving the jigsaw puzzle of figuring out how to no longer be associated (word to the haters, thats what we in the business call ‘the intentional garble’) with the role that has stereotyped him for so long. When asked for comment on the matter Reynolds, clearly not amused at the reference, simply stated:

“The furthest from a dwarf is Sean Reynolds last week Other covers Reynolds has an Ent”.

Conor Gleeson

It’s tough to say anything bad about Conor Gleeson when a group the size of the electorate has already ‘liked’ his Facebook page. Charmingly pretending to run a joke campaign whilst at the same time fully prepared to turn you around, bend you over and fuck you straight up your gullible rectum by taking your vote without having made a single genuine promise, Conor ‘Shmeesh’ (lol!) Gleeson’s smoking (lol!), laddish (lol!) behaviour has already attracted the attentions of the Irish media, impressively overtaking a story on Kerry Katona’s ongoing feud with her local Chinese takeaway as being vaguely interesting on newswhip.ie last

Monday, after asking his mates at joe.ie to post “Just Shmaying” on their website. Gleeson is notably the candidate of choice for current Ents mogul Dave Whelan, who notes “we figured out early on in this campaign that we keep going wrong everytime we put someone up for Ents. One night at a lil Frat pre-sesh in Alchemy, somewhere in between spitting at some fat bird and then getting her chucked out, we realised that people get really annoyed when we make promises; like my promise to have a warehouse rave or acoustic sessions in the chapel or a pre-drinks FM or any of my other promises; and don’t keep them. So we decided that the best thing to do would be to run a joke campaign, build momentum and then try and win before people realise that Conor is offering literally nothing to anyone.” Fair fucking play to you lads. Fair. Fucking. Play. No, seriously. Fair play. As of 8/2/13 it appears we got Conor wrong. Soz!

it easy on this one, no point kicking a man when he’s down)

Cian Mulville has always been a man of the people. Whether pissing on homeless men outside MadHaus or burning €20 notes in front of buskers on Grafton Street, he has always had student's best interests at heart. Although after the publication of the “Campanile Electoral Study” his campaign has taken an absolute pasting, with even the two joke candidates sailing ahead of him in the polls, I mean what a ( I actually think this may be too far, I’m all for taking the piss but I mean this guy’s campaign seems to be in an awful state, thoughts? Ed.) (Yeah, fair shout, lets take

Cameron Macaulay Players has serious problems. So extravagant and over ambitious are their productions in this 80th anniversary year that the dramatic society has mired itself in debt, their attempts to perform “Finding Nemo On Ice” at the RDS representing only one of the numerous disasters they have overseen this year. Players Treasurer Jack Toner claims that, despite their black hole of a bank account, “we still got swag n***a!” As the relevance of this society of tortured upper-middle class geniuses has dwindled to nothingness in the past number of years, vast sums have been spent on elaborate photoshoots, exotic beers and paying for the now 37 year old Jack Gleeson to stay in college to make repeated cameos and drive up the views on otherwise unbearably unwatchable content. Indeed, last year the committee position of “Game of Thrones star and rare success story” was created to keep Gleeson from defecting to IADT. Enter Cameron Malarkey. Trinity’s thesps have taken a gamble and spent their last €500 on a joke campaign which they hope to pass off as performance art and win the election with

Mulville is an absolute [TROOPER] running an extremely [INTERESTING] campaign. His proposed FIFA tournaments in the Pav are an absolute [LAUGH]. Mulville has also proposed a unionised LGBT night for all of the large Dublin campuses, including prominent homosexual institution IADT. It would seem here that Mulville [CAN GRASP] the [NON-PATRONISING NON-INSULT] this represents to the LGBT community, who would [ENJOY] being ferried around by Ents and told what is in their best interest by a group that is nigh on being uniformly heteronormative. Anyway, fair play to you Cian, I’m sure the lads in Blackrock would be proud of you, its the taking part that counts, go on lad!

- ultimately positioning themselves to merge Ents with Players in a desperate attempt to turn Trinity Ball into a 24 hour performance of the Vagina Monologues/Waiting for Godot. Yoko will wail, freshers will deliver shit lines and alt gay lads will take dumps on stage in this Dystopian vision of drama as performed by students of economics, philosophy and, of course, the most useful of all degrees.... drama. Mac Amhlaidh hails from Blackrock, and has spent the campaign pretending to be a person pretending to be a person pretending to be a Blackrock ledge, who is in fact a Blackrock ledge, pretend. McOlly proposes replacing all Ents nights with Shakespeare in the Park, hoping to expand the franchise to include Behan in Bed, Synge in the Synge, Plays in Players and Avantgarde in the Offie.

7th February 2013

Jane Casey Jane Casey cites an unsubstantiated amount of medical experience as qualifying her for the role of welfare officer in Trinity College Dublin. When asked to provide credentials for this experience, Casey emphatically insisted that the Piranha “get a face to face reference from ‘Lyndon B Johnson’ and my other fist”, which we politely declined. Hailing from an isolated Mormon-heavy county in Southern Ohio - Casey is reported to believe that personal issues stem from “too heavy an interaction with the devil and not heavy enough an interaction with growing-the-fuck-up” and

that cousin-to-cousin intercourse is “the only truly safe-sex, because if your cousin cheats on you and you need to murder him, no fuckin jury south of Mississippi County is gonna touch that shit. Can you say MIS-TRIAL?” She cites her rival Stephen Garry as a “little bitch, if he even considers not dropping out of this race, I will shove my hand so far up his ass that i’ll be wearing him as a bangle by the time halls hustings comes round!!” Casey has built herself a reputation on campus over the last number of years, having become notorious both for calling the parents of young men she has taken the vir-

ginity of to tell them that she now knows them better than they ever can, and also borrowing money off freshers and aggressively informing them on a next-day basis that she will not be paying it back, and is instead “teaching them a pretty big lesson about life, bitch.”

WELFARE Stephen Garry

Ever since he arrived in Trinity, Stephen has been trying to figure out the best way to get access to non-stop vagina. This year, it would seem that he has finally figured it out. Running under the slogan “Garry for Gash”, the candidate openly admits he will use his office to acquaint himself both with Trinity’s most active ladies - taking a headshot and phone number whenever someone drops by for their complimentary condom - and its most vulnerable. “I guess it’s the dream,” Garry says. “The number one issue facing students today is just figuring out how to get the ride, and I suppose I want to help them,

and lead by example. I was watching ‘Backroom Casting’ at some stage in October and I realised that there are ways to literally coerce and mislead the pussy to come to you! Alongside this, I’ll work closely with Ents to get free in all year for myself and the lads in order to hone the fine art of pussy-slaying. By the time I limp out of House 6 next year, there won’t be a lady on campus who hasn’t wrestled Stone Cold Steve Awesome.” Garry rejects the notion that the Welfare Office can do little to help students in practice apart from referring them to sexual and mental health professionals. “Free condoms aren’t just for Freshers’ Week. Besides, the SU election needs a dud race for nice people

to get involved in. It’s also easier to blackmail and intimidate other potential candidates into not running if they’re incredibly nice. I should know, I’ve fucked them all over, in more ways than one.”

Address all frivolous complaints to: The Provost, 1 Grafton Street, Dublin 2.

Editor-in-Chief

Dave Byrne

Chief Editor & wrote literally all of this Hannah McCarthy Copy Editor Seamus Beirne Disgraced Former Editor John Engle Senior Writers Donal McKeating Cormac Shine Writers Anto Wolfe Life Partners Marc Tiernan Glen Rogers Mascot Damien Carr

Reuters China: Support for Conor Gleeson's online campaign sees high turnout in TCD slave labour enclave

The Piranha is a satirical newspaper and should be regarded as such by all. Be advised that some readers may find the contents of The Piranha to be offensive. If you believe that you may be such a person, please seek advice from a qualified professional before reading. Nothing to do with us, it’s just that you clearly have mental problems. Serious complaints about the content of the publication should be addressed to the Editor, Regent House. All events and people described in The Piranha are fictional. Any resemblance to real events or real people is unintentional, and hilarious. The Piranha is a member of Trinity Publications and a family of omnivorous freshwater fish that live in South American rivers, being funded by a grant from the former. The Piranha is a fully participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. The opinions expressed in The Piranha are not reflective in any way of any view held by anyone, anywhere, at any time. The opinions expressed herein are especially not representative of The Piranha and indeed any creature, inanimate object, institution, or person involved in its production, publication and distribution. The Piranha claims all special rights and privileges, just in case. The Piranha is not an equal opportunity employer, in the sense that it does not employ anybody and therefore is not an employer strictly speaking. The Piranha is recorded in front of a live studio audience.

Letters | 6

12 December 2012

COMMUNICATIONS

Leanna Byrne Leanna Byrne has impressed the student body from the opening of her campaign, essentially basing the entirety of her proposals around a screenshot of a crudely photoshopped atomic pink ‘application’ which manages to confuse the Twitter ‘bird’ for a duck and from which it can be inferred that one of her more cutEveryone did laugh

ting edge features is that the University times will be reduced to ‘News’, ‘Sports’, ‘Features’ and, of course ‘Blog’. Cutting spending by reducing the University Times’ online aesthetic to something from ‘Ask Jeeves’ circa 1995 is also a key component of Byrne’s proposals for the role. Byrne has proposed allowing the same transition year students who designed her application to handle the printing of next year’s UT, citing “[her] Dad’s office on the weekends” as a collaborative alternative source for cheaper printing costs. Accusations that Leanna’s “here, piss off, this is real, check

my mates phone if you don’t believe me!” approach to informing the student body of her policies are apparently not welcome in a sophisticated race. Students, lecturers, administration staff and Trinity Cat[s] are pretty much in universal agreement that she doesn’t really work wonders for the “Never trust a woman in power” stereotype. Trinity Security also made a rare public statement on the matter “dont fukin ask me to vote for yih if ye kant be fuked wih a proper pho-oh shop. I don’t make de signs on de grass ouhra fukin paper mash-ay DO I”. Indeed JP Tayto, indeed.

Ricky McCormack Well...Dave, Hannah, Dónal, Seamus, Cormac, Listen. You are all top lads and I really appreciate you all and obviously you can pick up your Vote Ricky pictures of me anytime, or even a Twibbon is fine. Even just a Twibbon. Now, I know that “3rd Year Ricky”, as well as “November 2012” Ricky, referred to numerous 2012 SU Election candidates as “c*nts”, and I know that, having said that, it seems conspicuous that I am now running for a Sabbatical position myself. But remember before you write this election special, I am your friend. Some of you may have been subject to drunken abuse on my part. I apologise. Dave, I admit that I threw the kitten on your face when you were in bed those mornings to piss you off and to try and get you to get rid of the kitten. I apologise. Hannah, that time you caught me masturbating over a facebook photo of you was a TOTAL MISUNDER-

The prototype app

Matthew Taylor Many question as to why Matt Taylor never cracks a smile. We’ll tell you why. Find Matt Taylor on a late night outside the Arts Block. “How do I find him in such a broad expanse, Piranha?” you may ask. Well reader,

take a cheeky panorama sweep of your immediate surroundings and ascertain for yourself the dingiest, darkest corner in your periphery. It may be indeed to dark a corner for you to investigate its surroundings without being in close proximity. Don’t worry, take a few steps closer to the corner. Then a few more steps. Who is in the corner? Matthew Fucking Taylor. Shooting heroin straight up his nostrils and, past the hours of 22:00, likely mired in a pool of his own faeces and tears. Throw him a euro and at this point walk away. Do not turn around as you walk away until you are at least 200 feet from Matthew Taylor. Under some closer inspection, Matthew’s policies bely those of a man

STANDING. But I also apologise. I apologise to all of you for each and every one of the things I have inflicted upon you, and physically over you. I never meant to hurt you, except at the time. I am a grown up now, and as far as the college public are concerned, I am a top bloke, see what I mean? The lads on campus just don’t need to know about any of this stuff, or any of the other stuff. All of my love Ricky

with a serious addiction to injecting highly potent mixtures of cocaine and heroin (‘snowballing’ is the term Matthew refers to use) in between his toes. Piercing the veil of student apathy, one can easily interpret campaign statements such as “I think this campus really needs some pay-asyou-go-gloryholes” and “if this administration doesn’t raise the roof on SU loans I’m going to fucking cut someone!” as the remarks of a man under pressure.

Tommy Gavin

7th February 2013

EDUCATION

Jack Leahy

bitter (Curtin just doesn’t like Jack) candidates in SU history and had a Jack Leahy has never had it easy, lash at winning the education race. not only did he half to contend with going to a working class, concrete Jack splurged inside the SU back in jungle such as Gonzaga College 2010, when he arrived on campus SJ but he has also had a sticky last oozing with new ideas. Spurting out few months, never mind the last few enthusiasm, he has pumped many years of having to deal with the ire hours into making students’ lives of 17,000 middle class students. He more pleasurable through his explohad originally set his sights on run- sive work at UT and his eruptions ning for communications; however, behind the scenes. He is known to when he started his manifesto with discharge waves of pure joy whenthe phrase “Christ, I’m good at ly- ever he succeeds in helping a stuing” he decided it may be for the best dent. Cum election time, he will be a that he ran against both the youngest serious contender, as he emits policy (Eric Tebay will make his holy com- ideas and his campaign cums to a munion later this month) and most dizzying climax. Jizz.

John Curtin

Eric Tebay

main policy planks include weekly showings of Twilight, cutting library The one thing that can be said for hours to pay for a Paramore gig and Eric Tebay is that it would certainly subsidised hair dye. benefit next years sabbat candidates if he were elected to the office of If you literally had to come up with Education Officer. All it would take something else about Eric Tebay to to get on this young scamp’s good fill page space, you could say that the side would be a lovely lollipop and following is one of the most absurd a brand new 30 Seconds to Mars. proclamations of one’s own candiIndeed, poor little Emo Eric got his dacy to be uttered after the start of little hair all mixed up this year - he campaigning. Take it away Eric: thought Education Officer referred “After 3 years of planning and 3 to primary education, which he is years of silence I'm delighted to fidue to complete in a number of nally announce that I'm running for years. The confusion began when the Education Officer of TCDSU.” What little tweenie, who is going through a did you do for the other two years of particularly angsty period of puber- your life then, Eric? ty, was mistakenly left by his older brother at a Trinity Open Day. His

The Piranha, much like every single other person in Trinity, was wondering why exactly John Curtin was running for the position of Education Officer; so we decided to just ask him ourselves and got this in response:

out a table of all the birds I’ve ridden and concluded that I am literally one degree of riding separation away from having ridden my own sister. In some ways - not cool, but if you ask me, in most ways it just correlates to me being an absolute legend.”

“I mean like to be honest I don’t actually give a shit about Education, I am just not a big fan of the other candidates and €50,860 a year isn’t a bad deal. Just to clarify, I will not be giving a single cent to any charity, you can say “Curtins-call” to that, Hardship Fund. I just think that Ents, no Welfare, FUCK I mean Education, could do with a top lad like me. I’m pretty sure I’ve scored at least 10% of the electorate, and the other day I did

When asked about his policies, Curtin simply pointed at himself, laughed, and punched a Jack Leahy blow-up doll square in the face. Needless to say, the Piranha was both shocked, amused and somewhat charmed by this reply.

body image issues? de-tag and move on feeling crazy? I’m crazier - and will kill you

need a loan? suck my dick Want a condom? I used them all last night fucking your dad

vote casey #1 for welfare

WILL FUCKING KILL YOU I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU I WILL FUCKING YOU I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU - KILL U

I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU I WILL FUCKING YOU I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU - KILL

7th February 2013