Dear Trinity - with ire.

Trinity News did one of these, and ever searching for our ‘journalistic niche’ among the dregs of society in the pubs office - we have decided to engage in light plagiarism. Don’t worry anything goes these days in Trinity pubs (See: University Times, issues 1-4).

Dear Trinity -

It’s been a good four years (three if you exclude the times we were on a break), and I’m sad to be calling it quits - but also you are the most toxic and abusive ex I have ever had, and I’ve dated a med student.

Firstly, well done on squeezing 20,000 undergraduates into an acreage smaller than three office blocks. Thanks for never developing that ‘Trinity East’ campus you were vaguely talking about, otherwise I wouldn’t manage to walk past someone I shagged in first year most days. I won’t miss that. Nor will I miss shagging Trinity students, who’s performance in bed is the reason we have only dropped in the QS rankings since I’ve started here.

I guess I will kind of miss not being able to go for coffee or a rollie without having to say hello to about 20 people I don’t actually like that much. It’ll be so much worse when I have to move home and greet the five members of my family I don’t actually like that much. However, I eagerly await a life where no one knows what a ‘hist’ means, and where nobody I speak to cares about society elections. I am eager to inform you that nobody outside of these walls (and plenty inside these walls) do not.

I’m still not really over the time you charged me €350 for meeting up with my friends in the pits of depression during covid, but I liked that you kept lectures online and enforced mask wearing when no one else did. Even though the whole 40-minute library slot thing was really annoying. Thanks for the periodic mass emails which called us ‘brave’ and’ resilient’, though… they were eh nice (?) even though hiring Tony Holohan was a weird move.

However, it was interesting to see where the thousands I pay to live in a tiny Magnolia-painted cave and late fees go. There truly is no better way to get working class students to pay their fees than to charge them more! See Trinity you’re so smart! Even though the quality of your teaching is actually not that good, but luckily everywhere on this tiny island is seemingly worse, so you get away with it. In fairness, you’re kind of pretty, in the right light, and when you don’t have scaffolding over every facade. I do keep falling for your ‘u up’ texts, in the form of Pav Fridays, cricket pitch rollies and rose garden lattés. But that’s not really about you, it’s the people, who’s Pavlov-esque provisions of rollies have tricked me into friendship.

So fair play Trinity, you are overpriced, overrated and a bit of a prick - but you introduced me to the three people I’ll stay in contact with after May, and you never forget your first (degree).

See you soon Trinity, (when you charge me to rent a cap and gown for thirty minutes that you already own and won’t wash between wears), and don’t be a stranger (email me asking me for alumni donations despite the fact that I’ll be living in my parents’ house until I’m 30 cos none of your graduates have yet managed to make any positive contribution to Irish socio economic policy) Cheers x

Middle Class White Boys awarded Nobel Prize for TFM show about being lads and having the craic.

It was a proud day for Trinity College Dublin this week as students Donnacha O’Leary and Fiachra Porter were granted the highest possible honour by the Nobel Committee for their podcast “Lads and Lagers”. Frequent topics of discussion on the show include how Captain Marvel ruined the MCU, the best crypto to buy, and that one story about the time Fiachra almost shit his pants on the Luas. Fiachra and Donnacha were recognised by the Nobel Committee at a small ceremony in Oslo last Friday. Head of the Nobel Committee Lars Kristiansen praised the boys’ show, stating that the Committee was deeply impressed by the boys’ dedication to keeping it one hundred, their commitment to being funny fuckers, and their bravery in sharing their dark sense of humor now that everything has gone so PC.

The show has not only proven itself to be popular with Norwegian academics, but with the public as well, as highlighted by the millions of adoring fans tuning in each week to hear the boys say it how they see it, and forget to talk directly into their microphones. The last episode of “Lads and Lagers” had a record listenership of 8 million live listeners, just beating out Trinity FM’s previous total listenership record of 6, but the station has insisted that nothing is going to change. Committee members at Trinity FM have ensured Piranha readers that the station will still broadcast plenty of your favourite genres of Trinity FM programming such as “Upper class girl playing bad indie music” or "Two white guys talking about bad movies but running out of things to say after 15 minutes"

Having now returned home, it is clear that the boys’ star is still on the rise, with President Joe Biden, while on his visit to Trinity, inviting the lads back to the White House for a couple of cans. The future looks bright for Fiachra and Donnacha, but they insist that they have not changed, and that their mind is on bigger things, such as “Why is everybody so offended these days?”, “What happened to Wibbly Wobbly Wonders?”, and “Why do they call it the Eurosaver menu if nothing is a euro?” p.s this is a light commentary on the current Dublin renting crisis, it's not actually about a bird

Due to rising accommodation prices in our nation’s capital, many young people are calling for the implementation of permanent rent caps in Dublin, fearing that rising rent prices may prevent them from pursuing third level education. According to Arctic Penguin Pingu, though, it is from the youth that this issue stems. We interviewed him to discuss this issue further, here are some of his thoughts:

(All interviews translated from penguinese to English)

Piranha (PR) - So why do you think young people are struggling to find accommodation, Pingu?

Pingu (PG)- “Laziness. It’s as simple as that. They are lazy and they are spoiled. Kids these days, they have no practical skills. They complain about not being able to find anywhere to live, and to some extent that’s valid, but for a second, just think to yourself, have you, in the last 20 years, ever seen a student building themselves an igloo to live in? No, you haven’t because they want luxury. They wouldn’t accept it.. They’d all say it’s too cold or would complain that it’d melt when the weather rises above 0°c.”

PR- Do you think that if young people saved their money better, they’d be able to afford other accommodation

PG- “They definitely could but they aren’t willing to. They could save on food for one. Let me ask you this, what's the last time you saw a young person today fishing out of a little hole in the ground? Think about it.I can’t even remember the last time I saw that. Instead they waste all of their money on takeaway. You can’t have it both ways, you can either eat domino’s and be homeless, or eat raw salmon with some ice above your head”

PR- “Do you think anything will change?”

PG- “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t. They don’t have the work ethic to do anything about it. They spend all of their time drinking and smoking. When I was younger, our idea of fun was lining up on a toboggan and going down the big ice hill in the middle of the glacier. I can’t remember the last time I saw a group of kids get on a toboggan and slide down a big ice hill in the middle of a glacier.”

Is there really a housing crisis, or is there simply a problem with the youth of today? Well, the existence of people like the Arctic Penguin Pingu seems to prove the latter, showing us that if young people could simply find the self-discipline to forgo their spoiled ways, living a simple life, residing in igloos and surviving on diets of raw salmon, then they probably wouldn’t have gotten themselves into this mess in the first place.

A Hard Fortnight for Ireland’s Most Privileged Teenagers

Amidst the housing crisis, cost of living crisis, the atrocities of Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Yemen - our journalists spoke to the real victims; final year Trinity students who live on campus.

Aimëe expressed the difficulty she had walking around the tball stage, forcing her to make the treacherous “long way round” journey from the seat in the Berkeley pit she refuses to give up to any student commuting in from Mullingar, home back to her tcd wifi-ed House 2 apartment complete with desk space.

Another group of girls, who spoke under the condition of anonymity and would only provide their Snapchat group chat name (The BESSt Galz), lamented at the fact that no longer can they leave their MacBooks open for 3 hours while they pay €17 for mediocre salads, due to the reintroduction of the “Library Gestapo”

Tóbyas shared their struggle with ‘session depression’ since tball, “the high was so good but I just haven’t been myself since, like I’ve got with eight girls and felt nothing”, been myself since, like I’ve got with eight girls and felt nothing”, Tóbyas assured us that it’s the effects of a prolonged comedown and not, as Trinity Health suggested, the fact that he’s a psychopath who hates women and can’t feel emotion.

Fionnghuala expressed how much she hated the makeup she had done in Charlotte Tilbury. “I asked for tball vibes and the hun (used as a slur) honestly made me look as if I was going to Maynooth Hurling ball”.