Trinity News Volume 70 Issue 3 by Trinity News

TR INIT Y NEWS ESTA BLISHED 1953

Special Report:

Artificial Intelligence in higher education

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USSR symbols and modern communism on campus

Life Pullout

Roleplaying Adulthood

Tuesday 17 October 2023

Ireland’s Oldest Student Newspaper

Vol. 70, Issue. 3

TCDSU criticises “once-off and temporary” measures in Budget 2024

TCDSU and Trinity BDS issue a joint statement standing against Expressing their few”, as only approximately 30% commissioned report in June. sick The union disappointment at the lack of action of postgraduate researchers are leave and parental leave “all forms of on the scarcity and unaffordability funded by the IRC or SFI. They The Postgraduate Workers described it as an of student accommodation, they similarly criticised the fact that the Organisation (PWO) also violence” in said: “As asked for by the Union of €3,000 increase is below both the expressed their disappointment “election budget” Students Ireland (USI), we believe minimum wage and living wage, at Budget 2024, saying: “PhD Israel and budget surplus could have and falls below the €25,000 amount that aims to “dazzle the Continued on page 2>> been used to alleviate the student recommended by a governmentPalestine accommodation crisis”. students” “While we appreciate that

Aidan Cusack

News Managing Editor

RINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN STUDENTS’ UNION (TCDSU) RELEASED A STATEMENT ON Budget 2024, criticising its “onceoff and temporary” nature. In a statement released, it welcomed some measures that alleviate the burden of the cost of education on students, ultimately describing it as an “election budget” that “aims to dazzle students with once-off measures”. The union said Budget 2024 ultimately misses the opportunity to provide “long-term and sustainable funding to the students, staff and the third-level sector as a whole”. The union welcomed the €1000/€1500 reduction in thirdlevel fees but expressed regret at the “once-off and temporary” nature of the reduction, stating their belief that the reduction should be made permanent to help tackle the financial barriers to education. They also welcomed the It noted that students’ unions had asked for significantly higher increases in the Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) maintenance grant rate, namely a €615 increase to all non-adjacent rates and a 10% increase to all adjacent rates from September 2024.

students will receive a €750 reimbursement, we note that the tax break worth between €600 to €1,000 for landlords signifies the continuation of the government’s reliance on the market to deliver housing. “Furthermore, with the housing and the cost-of-living crisis there are significant concerns that despite the tweaks, students will continue to have a difficult time accessing education, and further dropping out or deferring their studies.” The statement also criticised the Budget for increasing the minimum wage to €12.70 instead of the estimated €14.80 living wage for a full-time worker, also reiterating calls for abolishing subminimum wage rates for under20s. On postgraduate researchers and staff, it said that they were left in a “difficult” position compared to students who benefited from once-off measures. Expressing their concern that “overworked, underpaid and exploited staff are delivering teaching under increasing pressure in our academic institution”, TCDSU said that despite a €35m investment into core funding for pay, there is no guarantee that it will be used to address the situation of precarious academic staff. From January, postgraduate researchers funded by the Irish Research Council (IRC) and Science Foundation will have their stipends increased by €3,000, a move which TCDSU described as “breadcrumbs for a select

Gabriela Gazaniga Deputy Analysis Editor

RINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN STUDENTS’ UNION (TCDSU) and Trinity Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions group (Trinity BDS) have issued a joint statement standing against “all forms of violence” while reaffirming their “solidarity with the Palestinian people”. The statement comes following a major escalation of conflict in occupied Gaza over the weekend which continues to intensify. In the statement issued over social media on October 11, the union said they are “deeply disturbed by the enormous bloodshed over the past five days”, acknowledging the “tragic loss of life caused by this war”. Continued on page 2>>

trinitynews.ie Trinity_News PHOTO BY RORY CHINN FOR TRINITY NEWS

Palestine solidarity protest

trinitynews

Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union supported an “emergency solidarity protest” following escalation of conflict in Israel and Palestine. Read more on page 3

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Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

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>> Continued from front page

Campanile features in Rugby World Cup collector coin Analysis: Budget 2024 – What’s in it for students?

Features The stories behind the vests: getting to know Trinity Security

Comment Misdiagnosis and the portrayal of mental illness on TikTok

SciTech

Sport

When alcohol takes the piss

Emotional Ireland team exits World Cup after loss to New Zealand

TRINITY NEWS EDITORIAL STAFF Editor-in-Chief Deputy Editor Assistant Editor Managing Editor Online Editor Deputy Online Editor Life Editor Deputy Life Editor

Kate Henshaw Ellen Kenny Ella Sloane David Wolfe Eve Conway Kay Williams Abby Cleaver Lara Monahan

News Manager News Editors

Aidan Cusack Evan Skidmore O-Reilly Charlotte Kent

News Analysis Editor Features Editor Comment Editor Scitech Editor Sport Co-Editors

Alan Nolan Wilson Ruby Topalian Nina Crofts Sebastien Laymond Séaghan Ó Domhnalláin Jane Prendergast

Head Photographer Art Editor Head Videographer Head Copyeditors

Niko Evans Alice Gogarty Ruby Tyson Meave Hopkins Lindsey Brown

TCDSU criticises “once-off and temporary” measures in Budget 2024 researchers receive an average stipend of €16,490 per annum. And while measures such as the increase of minimum wage by €1.40 per hour or the approval of a rent tax credit of €750 for tenants presumably aim to relieve some of the burden of the increasing cost of living crisis, PhD researchers are not only excluded from any of these due to their ‘student’ status but are actively harmed”. PWO expressed similar disappointment at the increasing gap between PhD stipends and the minimum wage, the fact that PhD researchers are not entitled to sick leave or parental leave, and the failure to match the recommended stipend of €25,000 by a government-commissioned independent report. On investment in infrastructure, fixing student-staff ratios, and improving student services such as counselling and health, TCDSU said that “the €307 million gap that was identified by the government received €40 million in 2023, and

€60 million in 2024, but this falls short of what is needed”. “Also, despite the introduction of the Research and Innovation Bill 2023, which, if passed, will alter the research landscape in Ireland, the research budget has decreased by 3% since last year.” The statement ended with an assertion that the Budget “follows laissez-faire economic policies, and puts the mantle in the hands of the market to deliver on housing, healthcare and education, in line with previous actions of the coalition”. “Overall, the TCDSU see this as an election budget, which aims to dazzle students with onceoff measures, but is ultimately a missed opportunity to provide long-term and sustainable funding to the students, staff and the thirdlevel sector as a whole.” The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) earlier last week expressed similar sentiments to TCDSU, welcoming some of the once-off measures to help with

the high cost of going to college, ultimately describing the Budget as “an overall disappointment”. Referencing the demonstration a week previous which called on government to use some of its projected €65bn “rainy day fund” to tackle the student accommodation crisis and the rising cost of going to college, USI President Chris Clifford said that “while there was tinkering at the edges, and some support given, this just didn’t happen today”. “As far as USI is concerned, that was a deliberate choice made by this Government.” “There were signs today that government [have] heard and seen our protests. They obviously know the Student Contribution is way too high, rent is a nightmare, and the supports available aren’t enough. But they haven’t done what is needed”, he added. Clifford ended with a promise: “We will absolutely be keeping the pressure on”.

>> Continued from front page

TCDSU and Trinity BDS condemn “all forms of violence” in Israel and Palestine The statement further notes that the Union’s support for Palestine “does not mean that we stand for violence”. The statement read: “Israel’s military forces are unmatched internationally and the blockade has prevented food, water and electricity being supplied to injured people in medical need.” “This cycle of violence is caused by systemic oppression, apartheid and occupation of Palestinian territories while the international community has stood back and watched for almost a century, despite the warnings of human rights organisations and the UN”.

“There can be no peace without justice, and justice is the end of Israeli occupation”, the statement continued. Citing international law, the union noted that via Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention of 1949, wars of national liberation are “a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere”. On October 9, TCDSU took part in an “emergency solidarity protest” outside Leinster House organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM), showcasing their support for Palestine. Prior to the protest TCDSU

President László Molnárfi told Trinity News: “Palestinians have the right to resist the brutal conditions imposed on them by the apartheid regime of Israel. This is all a result of decades of Israel’s apartheid policies which oppress, suppress and brutalize Palestinian men, women and children every day.” “If we want peace, we must have justice, and that is the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and a free democratic state in which all the people from the river to the sea can live on equal terms”, he added.

Get in touch at editor@trinitynews.ie This publication is funded by Trinity Publications, House 6, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2. This publication claims no special rights of privileges. Serious complaints can be directed to the Chair of Trinity Publications. Get involved with Trinity Publications through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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PHOTO BY DAVID WOLFE FOR TRINITY NEWS

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

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Attendees heard calls for an end to the bombardment and blockade of Gaza, and for more support and solidarity for Palestinians from government after the outbreak of renewed conflict Evan Skidmore O’Reilly News Co-Editor

ROWDS RALLIED IN SUPPORT OF PALESTINE OUTSIDE Leinster House at a demonstration on October 9 organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) alongside students’ unions and People Before Profit (PBP). The “emergency solidarity protest”, supported by Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) and the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), was called following major escalation

of conflict in occupied Gaza which continues to intensify. Speakers at the event included USI Vice President for Campaigns Zaid Albarghouthi, Richard Boyd Barrett TD of PBP, Ibrahim Halawa, and a number of Palestinian voices. Albarghouthi, who is of Palestinian origin, told attendees that they were taking “a position against war [and] killing.” “We are, of course, in favour of liberty for the Palestinian people, equal rights for the Palestinian people, a livelihood for the Palestinian people.” Former TCDSU International Officer Albarghouthi continued: “The values of standing against oppression, standing against war, are clearly apparent in the student movement, and they will still be apparent in the student movement.” “We are against war and we are against people losing their lives. This is what this crowd is here to advocate for,” he said as he concluded his remarks. Attendees heard calls for an end to the bombardment and blockade of Gaza, and for more support and solidarity for Palestinians from government and the wider international community. Following the conclusion of the rally, protestors began marching from the front of Leinster House towards the Israeli Embassy. In a press release, the IAWM called for a de-escalation and an immediate ceasefire, citing the need for “meaningful peace

PHOTO BY RORY CHINN FOR TRINITY NEWS

TCDSU members and USI partake in “emergency” rally in support of Palestine

negotiations that recognises as an objective a just peace for the people of Palestine”. “Only a diplomatic peace process that ends the Israeli occupation, ends the Israeli siege of Gaza and ends the Israeli system

of apartheid will ensure an end to the continued violence and offer the possibility of a peaceful future for both Israelis and Palestinians,” the IAWM said. The movement also called on government to take “immediate and urgent action to stop Israel’s revenge and reprisal against Gaza’s civilian population”. On Saturday, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a full-scale military operation against Israel entitled Operation

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Standing against oppression, standing against war, are clearly apparent in the student movement PHOTO BY NIKO EVANS FOR TRINITY NEWS

Al-Aqsa Flood, the first such direct incursion into what is broadlyrecognised Israeli territory since the latter’s declaration of independence in 1948. In retaliation, Israel launched its own counter-offensive, shelling the Gaza strip and cutting off all water and electricity to the enclave, which, according to the United Nations, has been subject to a long-standing illegal Israeli blockade. On Sunday, Israel declared a “state of war” against Hamas. As of writing, more than 1300 people are reported to have been killed since the outbreak of the conflict, including over 800 in Israel and some 500 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In a post to Twitter on Saturday, TCDSU President László Molnárfi said: “Palestinians have the right to resist the brutal conditions imposed on them by the apartheid regime of Israel.” Molnárfi was responding to a Tweet by Táinaiste Mícheál Martin, who “strongly condemned the firing of rockets” by Hamas and called for “an immediate cessation of all hostilities”. Government has condemned the Hamas attack on Israel and have called for the renewal of efforts to facilitate a peace process to bring hostilities to an end. Additional reporting by Emily Sheehan and Conor Healy.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

News

Analysis: Budget 2024 – What’s in it for students? Alan Nolan Wilson News Analysis Editor

UDGET 2024 WAS ANNOUNCED ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2024 was announced on Tuesday, October 11, with a package of measures worth €14bn. Within that hefty package, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science’s budget has increased from €3.2bn in Budget 2023 to €4.148bn - but how does a budget equivalent to the GDP of the country of Eswatini actually support the College experience? The increased funding allocation includes €60m to address staff-to-student ratios going into the new year, over €4m to increase the number of places in medicine, and €67m to increase the total number of apprenticeships available in the country. Undergraduates As was implemented in previous years, the student contribution charge is set to be reduced by €1,000 for all third-level students. Students who live in households earning less than €100,000 will qualify for additional fee reductions via SUSI’s student contribution grant. This grant provides students with an additional €500 towards their student contribution charge thus halving these students’ fees down to €1,500. Those who wish to avail of this grant must make an application through the SUSI website. Students who have already paid their fees need not worry, as overpayments are set to be refunded, similar to previous years. Those who have paid for half of their €3,000 student contribution charge, and who qualify for the student contribution grant will not be required to pay anything in addition to what they have already paid. Those who do not qualify for this grant are still liable to pay the balance of their fees in the second semester. While these reductions are certainly of benefit to students, one should be aware that these measures are, as has been in the case with many measures in the past, a once-off. This means that the €3,000 contribution charge – the highest third-level fees in the European Union – remains the default fee amount and students will remain liable to pay this in the 2024/25 academic year, pending any further reduction in next year’s budget. Government first indicated it was considering introducing the

fee reduction for this budget at the beginning of the summer, and it will be a long while yet before we know what to expect from government in the next academic year. In response to the once-off measures, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) said that it is difficult to view Budget 2024 “as anything other than an overall disappointment”. “The package will put some money back in students’ pockets, however, Budget 2024 had no measures that will have a medium or long-term impact on the cost of third-level education,” the union said. USI pointed towards the issue of affordability and availability of student accommodation in the country as a major concern to be addressed by the government. Free third-level education This budget’s progress towards free third-level education has been viewed more favourably. From September 2024, students who live in households with an income of less that €55,924 will not pay any fees, as the minimum threshold for students to receive 100% SUSI funding for their fees is increased. All students partaking in Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) coursers are also to have their fees wiped from September 2024. These initiatives represent positive steps towards zero thirdlevel-fees, and interestingly have not been described as a once-off by government, in contrast to the emphasis on once-off measures that apply to the undergraduate student contribution charge. Undergraduate students who receive SUSI grant funding will also be pleased to hear that maintenance grants are being increased from January. Students will receive as much as an additional €342 from January to March, depending on their grant rate. During the 2024/25 academic year, maintenance grants will increase by €615 for all nonadjacent rates, and will range from €54 to €294 for adjacent rates. Commenting on his department’s work, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris said: “We are pursuing our ambition to reduce the cost of education as much as possible while also providing students with much needed relief by putting money back into their pockets.” Rent Tax Credit This year’s budget has seen the Rent Tax Credit (RTC) increased

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[USI said] Budget 2024 had no measures that will have a medium or long-term impact on third-level education from €500 to €750. The RTC has also been extended to those living in digs, something Minister Simon Harris previously said was a particular concern for him. Newly eligible residents in digs can also claim the backdated payments of €500 for both this year and last. Those who wish to avail of this measure must live in a property which is registered with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB). When the Rent Tax Credit was previously introduced, several tenants failed to claim it as they were worried their tenancy was not RTB registered or their landlord would not provide it. Many reports suggested tenants feared increased rents or even eviction if they approached their landlord for the RTB number. However, the RTB website states that tenants don’t need to have an RTB registration number

to claim the credit, as long as they have tried to confirm it. Those living in student accommodation can also find their Student Specific Accommodation (SSA) number on the RTB website. It is also important to highlight that this tax credit is available on an individual basis, meaning the €750 credit is available for each individual resident, not the entire property. Parents who pay for their child’s accommodation can claim the credit through their own Revenue account. Postgraduates This year’s budget is to see postgraduate maintenance payments reintroduced for the first time since the financial crisis. These payments will be available to postgraduates from January with eligible students expected to receive amounts ranging from €340 to €2,384 during the January to March period. During the 2024/25 academic year, these grants will range from €1,666 to €4,292 for those receiving the non-adjacent rate, and from €612 to €1,774 for those receiving the adjacent rate. Postgraduate students in receipt of the Postgraduate Fee Contribution Grant are to receive an additional €1,000 this year. This brings the grant’s value to €5,000 for the 2023/24 academic year. These measures have caused backlash from the Postgraduate Workers’ Organisation (PWO) who took to Twitter saying: “Budget 2024 fails to address any of the issues faced by PhD workers.” The organisation criticised the government for failing to increase PhD researchers’ stipends, thus increasing the gap between PhD stipends and the minimum wage, and for failing to introduce parental or sick leave. The PWO called the situation “unacceptable” and raised the possibility of industrial action. Apprenticeships Budget 2024 has announced an additional €67m towards apprenticeships. This additional funding is set to bring the number of apprenticeships available in 2024

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The PWO called the situation “unacceptable” and raised the possibility of industrial action to 16,000, an increase of 3,000 places from 2022. This additional funding is hoped to reduce waiting times, increase the availability of this route among under-represented groups, and “make apprenticeships an attractive career path for young people”. Apprentices are also set to benefit from a 33% reduction in their contribution fee. Speaking on these developments, Minister of State for Skills and Further Education Niall Collins said: “With today’s Budget, I am further committed to investing in our apprentices nationwide who will be key to meeting the challenges of today and those that lie ahead.” Additional developments Budget 2024 includes a range of other measures which are of benefit to students, such as the maintenance and expansion of half-price public transport fares to young adults. The scheme is being extended to those who are 24 and 25 years of age. Other developments include funding towards Ireland’s application for associate membership of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the start of a new scheme to help employers with the cost of upskilling their staff, and additional funding to support the National Tertiary Office (NTO), thus delivering additional access to Level 8 courses without the need for a CAO application.

IMAGE VIA UNSPLASH

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

News

Beyond Trinity

Campanile features in Rugby World Cup collector coin

University of Galway:

Ireland was one of five countries chosen to feature in the collection for the 2023 Rugby World Cup

University College Dublin: US-based data analytics and digital operations provider EXL will expand into Ireland following a new collaboration with University College Dublin. Some 200 jobs are expected to be created at its new base in Dublin, including artificial intelligence and data engineers, over the next three years. To support this expansion the company has undertaken an enterprise partnership with UCD utilising the Irish Government’s Human Capital Initiative. The new collaboration will begin with the UCD / EXL Innovation and AI Lab in November, a joint programme delivered by the UCD Innovation Academy and CeADAR, Ireland’s national centre for Artificial Intelligence. University College Cork: One of the largest libraries in the world, Japan’s National Diet Library, has agreed to give University College Cork access to its contents, in an agreement that is the first for any university in Ireland or the UK. Under the agreement scholars and students will be able to access extensive Japanese archives, research dissertations and millions of books and articles. The collection includes important items in Irish-Japanese cultural relations – notably over 200 original printings of works by Lafcadio Hearn, an Irishman famous globally for bringing understanding of modern Japanese culture to a Western readership for the first time. Asian Studies Professor Kiri Paramore said: “This is the first time since the foundation of the state that a significant collection of Japanese materials will be available in Ireland.

Ellen Kenny Deputy Editor

HE CAMPANILE HAS BEEN CHOSEN AS the symbol for Ireland in the 2023 Rugby World Cup collector

coin. The coin was made as part of a collection by coinmakers Monnaie de Paris in collaboration with the Rugby World Cup. French Ambassador Vincent Guérend presented the collectors’ piece to Provost Linda Doyle, College Director of Sport Michelle

most iconic players. Sexton praised the fans that have made the journey to France: “How can you be prouder to be Irish when you see what’s happened over the last six weeks really?” “We get behind the team like no other, it’s incredible and it’s not wasted on us,” he said. Sexton noted how this was “so hard to take” because they “didn’t give [the fans] another couple of weekends”. The Law Society announced Sexton as one of several guest

speakers this year, however the date of his visit is not yet confirmed. Ireland Head Coach Andy Farrell said: “Over the next 24 hours, it’s time to make sure that we get a smile back on our faces as soon as we possibly can and celebrate what has been some unbelievable careers and what they have done for Irish rugby.” “I’m unbelievably proud of the group, how they handled themselves, not just today but all through the tournament, over the last couple of years. That will be my overriding feeling.”

PHOTO VIA MONNAIE DE PARIS

The University of Galway has been nominated for a prestigious Times Higher Education (THE) Award in the category of “Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year.” The University of Galway is the only Irish university nominated in this category and the recognition comes in honour of the groundbreaking collaboration between the University’s Student Services team and AI-startup Galvia, resulting in the development of Cara, an AI-powered student engagement platform. To date, Cara has responded to 30,000 student queries. Director of Student Services at the University of Galway John Hannon said: “Cara represents a transformative leap forward in higher education, enabling us to provide exceptional support to our students while optimising our resources.”

Tanner, Trinity Men’s Captain Diarmuid McCormack and Trinity Women’s Rugby Player Alana Fusciardi Wallace. The front of the coin features the College monument, a rugby player making a defensive gesture, the Irish rugby flag and is inscribed with “Ireland” written in both English and French. The back of the coin shows the Webb Ellis Trophy and the Rugby World Cup logo. Ireland was one of three countries chosen to feature in the collection for the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Other coins feature France, which shows the Eiffel Tower and England, which features Big Ben, Scotland, which shows the Wallace Monument, and Wales, where the medieval towers of Caernarfon Castle are depicted. The coins are available to buy online and cost €7. Ireland was knocked out of the 2023 Rugby World Cup on Saturday, October 14, in the quarter final. Losing to New Zealand 28-24, the game marked the end of Captain Johnny Sexton’s career and the last World Cup campaign for several of the squad’s

Library launches “Race and Ethnicity Reading List” in celebration of Black History Month The list consists of a number of titles from the library’s collection Charlotte Kent News Co-Editor

HE COLLEGE LIBRARY HAS LAUNCHED A “RACE AND ETHNICITY READING List” to mark Black History Month 2023. The library is encouraging students to “dip into [the collection] all year round”. The list, which can be found on the library’s website, contains nearly 200 titles from the library’s collection which examine race and equality, including books, articles, and documentaries. A display of books from the collection has been placed in the library. The stand was unveiled by College Equality Officer Dr. Siobán O’Brien Green on Friday, October 13. This week, the library is also hosting an “open discussion”

event with Trinity Inclusive Curriculum Project (Trinity-INC) in celebration of Black History Month. The event, “Celebrating Black People Who Inspire”, is set to take place this Thursday in the global room from 2-3 PM. Black History Month is currently being celebrated across the country this October, coinciding with the United Kingdom’s observation of the month. Last April, the College Board decided to dename the Berkeley Library, following a report by the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group and a public consultation. The Library was named after 18th Century philosopher George Berkely. As documented in a paper by Trinity academics, Berkeley had bought at least four slaves, recorded as Philip, Anthony, Edward and Agnes Berkeley, to work on his Rhode Island, and sought to advance ideological support for slavery. In an email to the college community, Senior Dean Professor Eoin O’Sullivan said that the continued use of the name was “inconsistent with the University’s core values of human dignity, freedom, inclusivity and equality”. Provost Patrick Prendergast

first said that College would be open to renaming the library in 2021, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement which gave rise

to global debate surrounding the legacies of colonialism and racism. The library has yet to be renamed.

PHOTO VIA TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

News

Analysis: Lack of uniformity in the Inclusive Trinity Curriculum

Gabriela Gazaniga Deputy Analysis Editor

N 2020, COLLEGE PUT THE INCLUSIVE TRINITY CURRICULUM PROJECT INTO ACTION. THE INC project was set up as a research mechanism to make higher education more accessible to students of all backgrounds, utilising the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in its framework. Disadvantage in higher education includes disability but also matters of age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, language, employment, and more. The UDL is a model of education that ensures equal opportunity for all students. It does so through three principles of “multiple means”: engagement, representation and action/ expression. The term “multiple means” refers to providing a

variety of manners for students to learn. In applying the UDL, the principles are at the core of module development and instruction. By nature, an inclusive curriculum takes into account that not every student learns in the same manner or has the means to learn in a singular manner. For example, a student may struggle deciding whether to prioritise a work shift over a lecture due to financial instability. As INC was launched during COVID-19, College lectures were required to be recorded and uploaded, with slides given out to students in advance. Postlockdown, College continues to advise and “requires” lecturers from all departments to record and upload their lectures to Blackboard. However, each department, and even each lecturer, has a different interpretation of College’s inclusive learning mandates. In a higher education setting, lectures consist of hundreds of

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Only one of [Werneck’s] lecturers records and posts the lectures online students from diverse backgrounds with the uniting factor being the degree they are pursuing. Such diversity directly correlates with exclusions in the accessibility of modules. The three principles of the UDL reflect that students

engage with material in different ways; vary in learning styles; and demonstrate mastery of material in different ways. The third principle primarily refers to the flexibility that should be practised in assessing modules. Some students excel at examinations whilst others perform better in essays or other forms of assessment. The UDL states students should be given the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and mastery of material to the best of their ability, having the option to choose which mode of assessment best suits their learning style, abilities, or circumstances. Junior Sophister Philosophy, Political Science, Economics and Sociology (PPES) student Eduarda Werneck talked with Trinity News about lecture accessibility and inclusivity. Werneck explained how only one of her lecturers records and posts the lectures online. She continued, stating that “a couple of [lecturers] broadcast them live as well, but don’t keep them up at all” on Blackboard. In reference to lectures themselves, Werneck noted how most of her lectures are two hours long which makes it difficult to effectively concentrate on the material. Although it is common practice for lecturers to provide a

10-minute break during two-hour lectures, Werneck disclosed that one of her lecturers does not do so. Students report similar experiences across almost all departments within College. Analysing this within the framework of UDL, these inconsistencies in College practice make modules inaccessible for a wide range of reasons. For example, two-hour lectures make concentration difficult but also disregard the reality of students who need to work, as well as those with disabilities like autism and ADHD. The lack of consistent lecture recordings also negatively impacts students across a spectrum of demographics. The INC webpage provides a useful graphic for understanding the various forms of diversity that should be reflected in module development and delivery. The INC project was developed in order to improve accessibility and awareness of educational diversity within College. The recommendations by the INC and contained within the UDL framework are not reflected in modules across College. Students continue to be negatively impacted by the manner in which modules are delivered and assessed as well as by the inconsistencies of lecture practices.

College launches strategic initiative aimed at integrating sustainable development education into curriculum Five fellows were appointed to develop the Education for Sustainable Development programme Ayesha Ahmed Contributing Writer

OLLEGE HAS ANNOUNCED A NEW STRATEGIC initiative aimed at incorporating Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) throughout the curriculum. Under the initiative, five members of academic staff from all three faculties have been appointed Fellows in ESD. The appointed fellows, Dr. Carlos Rocha, Dr. Sarah-Jane

Cullinane, Dr. John Gallagher, Dr. Felix Mezzanotte, and Dr. Cicely Roche, will work with Trinity Teaching & Learning and Trinity Sustainability to develop a programme which aims to “empower students and staff to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to act as agents of change for a sustainable future”. Through the initiative, College aims to identify relevant competencies for sustainability, create a shared vision for ESDs as part of undergraduate and postgraduate education, and map existing ESD provision at Trinity. Dr. Pauline Rooney serves as programme director, with Nicola Byrne serving as the programme manager and Trinity Vice President for Biodiversity and Climate Action, Professor Jane Stout serving as programme sponsor. Commenting on the programme, Professor Stout said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for us to advance our sustainability goals and embed education for sustainable development in the curriculum for all Trinity students.” “By building upon the incredible work already taking

place across all three faculties, this project allows us to consolidate and enhance our sustainability education, ensuring that all Trinity degrees become sustainability degrees in the future,” she added. Trinity’s Academic Secretary Patricia Callaghan said: “Empowering our students and staff to tackle the complex challenges of sustainable development is a strategic priority for Trinity. Teaching and learning innovation will be a key enabler

of this, equipping our College community with the knowledge and skills required to take action for a more sustainable future.” Trinity’s efforts in developing the programme are in alignment with the government’s national strategy on sustainable development education “ESD to 2030”. The initiative also aims to support international efforts in sustainable development by addressing Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) which aims to “ensure that

all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development”. The funding for the ESD Fellows is provided by the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Funding in Higher Education (SATLE), a National Forum and Higher Education Authority (HEA) led initiative designed to “drive teaching and learning innovation and enhancement across Irish higher education”.

PHOTO BY NIKO EVANS FOR TRINITY NEWS

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

News

Analysis: How opposition budgets differ from and echo Budget 2024

Stephen Conneely Deputy Analysis Editor

AST WEEK, THE FINE GAEL, FIANNA FÁIL, GREEN PARTY COALITION GOVERNMENT RELEASED their highly anticipated Budget 2024, thus setting forth their economic plan for their social and political agenda for this coming year. Government delivered for third-level students in many instances - an expansion of the Rent Tax Credit to students living in digs, an increase in the SUSI Grant rates, another €1,000 discount on fees, to name a few - however this, of course, does not deter interested parties from critiquing their measures. The Union for Students in Ireland (USI) labelled Budget 2024 as “an overall disappointment”, Sinn Féin called it a missed opportunity, and Holly Cairns TD opined that it was “an attempt to buy votes in the short term”. These strong statements would naturally lead one to question the alternative, and the validity of the arguments made by opposition parties such as the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, and Sinn Féin. What could be done differently? Is government availing of its resources to the best of its ability? What would society look like if a leftist coalition gained a majority in the Dáil? It will come as a surprise to few that these three parties, all being distinctly left of centre, agree with many of the same alternative measures there exists, however, still a certain amount of contrast between them, most probably as they range from left of centre to distinctly socialist.

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The Social Democrats agree tentatively with measures taken by government this week

The Social Democrats The Social Democrats were the first party to preemptively publish their Alternative Budget, titled Unlocking the Future, close to a full week ahead of government’s publication of Budget 2024. With a commitment to large scale social projects, particularly pertaining to youth issues and infrastructure, it is undoubtedly titled appropriately. A document comprising exactly 60 pages, it read, in part: “Budget 2024 must strike a balance between providing relief to hard-pressed families and individuals as Ireland’s greatest inflationary surge in four decades continues, and dealing with the long-term challenges we face as a society.” This statement straddles the thin yet distinct line that the Social Democrats often toe - through stressing “relief to hard-pressed families’’ (often called by Fine Gael ‘the squeezed middle’), they agree tentatively with measures taken by government this week, examples of which include double social welfare payments in December and renewed credit for energy bills. It cements, however, the SocDem’s position on “long term challenges” that government may have forgotten, these being “building 10,000 affordable homes in 2024” and introducing a Culture and Media Card designed to encourage young people to take part in social, cultural, and artistic events. This idea is exemplary of the ambition and innovation that many believe government lacks, and has become a mainstay in the Social Democrats’ brand and image. The SocDems further made the case for targeting financial supports to citizens on a means based scale, a belief from which government notably often exempts itself. This policy may serve as the basis for the reforms they propose regarding the SUSI Grant, which include an increase of 15% in grant rates and household reckonable income thresholds, as well as the expansion of access to SUSI to part-time students. Moreover, they proposed a €1,000 cut in third-level fees for this academic year, a measure that government took in Budget 2024, but the Social Democrats advocated for this to be a stepping stone towards a permanent reduction. When analysing Unlocking the Future, one can obtain a clear picture of the Social Democrats’ plan of action, and of the voter which they hope to attract in the next election. They share government’s most appealing

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People Before Profit argued, above all else, for the tackling of the cost of living crisis measures that are relatively easy to implement, however they separate themselves on the basis of championing long-term, largescale projects which they trace back to their philosophy of social and economic protection of the citizen from the State. To put it simply: they would drop the ‘cash back in pockets’ policies and work to address the root causes of our society’s woes. People Before Profit As Ireland’s arguably sole mainstream socialist party, People Before Profit’s popularity with young voters can oftentimes result in their receiving warranted criticism at best, and harsh mockery at worst. What cannot be denied is the unrivalled ambition of their alternative budget, called A Better Future is Possible. Although relatively scarce in descriptions and long-from writing, they make up for this with precisely balanced books - €35.9 Billion in spending, supported by €36.3 Billion in revenue raised by the State. A significant portion of these revenue streams come from a wealth tax on the top 1% and 5% of earners, as well as a tax on excess profits of businesses. Owing to the “economic inequality and manufactured scarcity of housing and public services”, People Before Profit argued, above all else, for the tackling of the cost of living crisis, and the provision of high quality, free public services from the State. They, of course lended, special attention to young people, a major support base of theirs, such as recognising the effect of rising rents on young people’s quality of life, and made policy pledges, namely to increase the maximum age to claim a child benefit to 19 years old. In an amalgam of two of their

highest priorities - housing and education - People Before Profit, if in the position of power, would provide 30,000 extra affordable student beds by 2029, which would cost €300 million in the first year alone. Abolition was a consistent motif which appeared throughout their budget, and by listing graduate and postgraduate fees, the student contribution charge, and PLC fees as a select few of the charges of which they would rid students, they effectively showed their commitment to eradicating all barriers to access to further education. Postgraduate students and workers were also the recipient of specific attention, as the document vowed to “pay all postgraduate workers a living wage” and “fund towards abolishing fees for EU postgraduates and mature/ repeating students”. Following the trend of SUSI expansion, People Before Profit advocated for a doubling of the maintenance grants, and a reduction of the adjacent rate, which is currently set at 30 kilometres, to 24 kilometres. Following the specific policy points raised here, ranging from student housing to postgraduate workers’ rights, we see People Before Profit’s staunch commitment to the pillars of the Student Movement. Nearly every need of a student is met in this document, from their basic needs to final self-actualisation. The trouble, however, lies in the cost of it all. There simply is not, at the moment, the level of necessary funds for all of these projects, and it is highly questionable whether or not the political will of the people is in favour of such high spending during an inflationary period, in spite of the plans being undoubtedly admirable. Sinn Féin Most probably owing to Sinn Féin’s heightened popularity, and thus the high probability of their entering government after the next general election, it is understandable that their

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Sinn Féin proposed a €40 million injection of recurrent funding for higher education

alternative budget echoes and mirrors Budget 2024 in a multitude of manners. This, however, does not deter Sinn Féin from either harshly critiquing government actions, or somewhat taking credit for the most welcomed measures from the two previous budgets, namely the Rent Tax Credit. Culminating in a total spending of €6.8 billion, the Sinn Féin budget plainly titled Investing in Housing, Health and Climate Action may claim the title of the ‘most responsible’ alternative, although critics may disagree, preferring the terms ‘most neoliberal’ or ‘least radical’. Although Sinn Féin opined that “Budget 2024 should have been a housing budget”, their focus also found itself on youth issues, such as immigration, climate change, and education. Indirect measures proposed to help young people include increasing the minimum wage by €1.50, only a ten cent difference from government policy, tackling the housing crisis that has resulted in young people “forced to live with their parents”, and reducing public transport fares for young people and students by 50%. In the realm of third-level education, Sinn Féin proposed the abolition of third-level student fees, however this begins with “reduction of up to €1,000”, which has now become a staple in all leftist alternative budgets along with government’s Budget 2024. They found an equilibrium between the Social Democrats and People Before Profit when addressing the issue of the SUSI Grant, advocating for an increase of 15% in the maintenance grants (identical to the SocDems’s position) and an expansion in the eligibility for the non-adjacent rate to include 24 kilometres away from their institution (also proposed by PBP). They further established their support for postgraduate students’ access to the SUSI Grant. In the most general sense, Sinn Féin proposed a €40 million injection of recurrent funding for higher education, specifically “to increase places in fields such as health and social care”. This shows us their understanding that a fiscal investment in education will eventually culminate in an improvement in the public sector workforce and professions essential to the Irish economy and society. They furthermore cemented their loyalty to diversity and inclusion through the proposed introduction of a bursary to aid Irish Traveller and Roma students’ access to further and higher education, priced at €600,000 in the first year. A scheme for Irish language classes directed at postsecondary students, totalling half a million euro, moreover demonstrates a possible reason for Sinn Féin being the most popular nationalist party both north and south of the border.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

News

Anailís: Cad atá i ndán don Ghaeilge i mBuiséad 2024? What they

Gráinne Ní Ailín Scríbhneoir Ranníocach

OGRAÍODH BUISÉAD 2024 AG AM LÓN AR MÁIRT, 10Ú DE MHÍ Deireadh Fómhair. Leagann an Buiséad amach gach ní de chaiteachais an rialtais, ach cad atá i ndán don Ghaeilge i 2024? Gealann Buiséad 2024 chun tacaíocht a thabhairt don Ghaeilge trí níos mó ná €100m a chur i dtreo na Gaeilge, trí thacaíocht d’Údarás na Gaeilge, Foras na Gaeilge, scéimeanna tacaíochta Gaeltachta agus Gaeilge, agus próiséas pleanála an teanga chun an Ghaeilge a chur chun cinn. Ach an leor é seo? Cuireann Buiséad 2024 €100.1 millún i leataobh don Ghaeilge, méadú 4% ar an airgead a leagadh amach don Ghaeilge i mBuiséad 2023. Ach, tá buiséad caipitil Udarás na Gaeltachta laghdaithe ó €25.5 milliún in 2008 go €14.5 mhilliún i 2021 agus tá maoiniú Fhoras na Gaeilge tithe go €16.265 milliúin le 20 bliain anuas. Tharla léirsiú Gaeilge4All i mí Márta 2023 nuair a d’fhreastail níos mó ná 500 mic léinn, daltaí Méanscoile, múinteoirí, ionadaithe ó cheardlainn múinteoirí agus eile ar an léirsiú Gaeilge4All chun cúinsí Gaeilge scoile nios fearr a éileamh ón Rialtas agus an Roinn Oideachais trí Pholsaí don Ghaeilge sa Chóras Oideachais ón

Oideachas Luath-Óige go dtí an Tríú Leibhéal. I 2023, fograíodh go raibh múineadh na Gaeilge i mbunscoileanna a mhúineann trí mhéan na Béarla chun laghdú leath uair an chloig an tseachtain ó 2025 ar aghaidh . De réir Daonáireamh 2022 deir 55% den 1,873,997 millún duine a dúirt go raibh Gaeilge acu nach raibh cumas ard sa teanga acu. Tá líon na ndaoine a labhraíonn na Gaeilge gach lá agus líon na ndaoine a labhraíonn na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht ag titim le cúpla bliana anuas mar a leagadh amach i nDaonáireamh 2022. De réir taighde an ERSI bíonn thart ar 23% den daonra ag éileamh ar scolaíocht trí Ghaeilge ach níl ach thart ar 8% de Bunscoilenna na hÉireann agus 3.6% de Meánscoileanna na hÉireann ag múineadh trí Ghaeilge faoi láthair. De réir taighde Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn, mothaíonn 19% de dhaltaí a fhreastlaónn ar Bhuscoileanna lán-Béarla nach bhfuil aon chumas acu sa teanga, agus deir 59% de dhaltaí nach féidir leo ach cúpla abairt Gaeilge a chur le chéile. Dúirt 67% de na daltaí sin nach raibh aon bhéim curtha ar úsáid na Gaeilge lasmuigh den seomra ranga. D’fhoilsigh Conradh na Gaeilge ‘Plean Fáis 2024 -2029 Plean Infheistíochta don Ghaeilge agus don Ghaeltacht’ le déanaí agus tá Conradh na Gaeilge ag éileamh ar infheistíocht de bhreis is €195 mhillún i dtreo na Gaeilge idir

PHOTO VIA DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE

2024 agus 2029. Leagann an phlean fáis amach plean chuimsitheach le tacaíocht a thabhairt don Ghaeilge trí níos mó ná 9000 post nua a chur ar fáil , €50 millún a chur i dtreo infrastruchtúir na Gaeilge, agus níos mó ná €3 mhillún a chur i dtreo na hEalaíona.Chomh maith le sin, tá Conradh na Gaeilge ag iarraidh an stáisiúin raidió ‘ Rí Rá’ a chur ar FM , go mbunófar lárionaid Gaeilge i mbailte ar

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Ní dóigh linn gur leor an méid breise atá fógartha fud fad na tíre, agus go gcuirfear €5 mhilliún i Scéim Thithíochta Gaeilge a chuirfeadh tithe ar fáil don phobal agus eile. Ba mhaith leis an gConradh caiteachas an Rialtais ar an nGaeilge a mhéadú ón 0.17% a leagadh amach i mBuiseád 2024 go 0.4% faoi 2029. Dúirt Julian de Spáinn, Ard-Rúnaí Chonradh na Gaeilge i ndiaidh seoladh Buiséad 2024: ‘’Ní dóigh linn gur leor an méid breise atá fógartha. Ní dóigh linn go bhfuil uaillmhian ag baint

said

leis agus ní thagann sé leis na héilimh atá déanta ag breis is 130 grúpa Gaeilge agus Gaeltachta sa Phlean Fáis a cuireadh os comhair “Luas is back…and free.” an rialtais le tamall anuas”. As an €1,171,176 millún a Journalist Gavan Reilly bheidh curtha i dtreo an Roinn after all Luas services Turasóireachta, Cultúir, Ealaíon, were briefly halted due to Gaeltachta agus Meáin i mBuiséad “suspicious activity” 2024, ní bheidh ach 8.5% curtha i dtreo na Gaeilge agus an Gaeltacht i compráid le 31% curtha i dtreo an Chultúr agus 16% don Spórt. “It’s not in Lana we trust, but Tá agus beidh iarmhairtí easpa God we submit.” infheistíochta sa Ghaeilge le feiceáil ar fud fad na tíre. De Proposition speaker réir ‘An Straitéis 20 Bliain don from the Phil debate “This Ghaeilge’ an rialtais, tá pleananna House Regrets the Fall of forbartha aitiúla le forbairt i 26 Religion cheantair pleannála Gaeltachta difrúla le tacaíocht a thabhairt do Phobal na Gaeilge agus Gaeltachta leis an nGaeilge a chur chun cinn agus a chaomhnú. Ach de réir “Chuck Feeny’s incredible Daonáireamh 2022, tá líon na generosity and outstanding ndaoine ag caint as Gaeilge sna vision was utterly Gaeltachtaí ag laghdú agus tá transformative, particularly for méadú ag teacht ar líon na ndaoine Higher Education in Ireland” ag bogadh ó cheantair Gaeltachta agus iad sa tóir ar lóistín agus fostaíocht in áiteanna eile in Éirinn Linda Doyle on the is thar lear. Dar le Sinn Féin, is buiséad passing of Chuck Feeny on Twitter “Frith-Ghaeltachta” é Buiséad 2024, cháin urlabhraí Airgeadais Shinn Féin Pearse Doherty Buiséad an Rialtais ag rá : “Don dara daonáireamh as “How can you be prouder a chéile tá líon na gcainteoirí to be Irish when you see what’s laethúla tar éis titim, agus níl ach happened over the last six teaghlach amháin as gach cúigear weeks really?” ag tógáil a gclainne trí Ghaeilge”. Tá buiséad malartach molta Outgoing Irish Rugby ag Sinn Féin ina chuirtear €34 Captain Johnny Sexton mhillún breise i dreo na Gaeilge following Ireland’s loss san iomlán, sin €12 mhillún breise against New Zealand in don Ghaeltacht, €11 millún breise the World Cup Quarter do cheantair neamh Gaeltachta agus €10 millún breise do TG4. Final Leagann Buiséad Malartach Pháirtí an Lucht Oibre moltaí amach chun maoiniú do sheirbhísí “In the immediate aftermath Ghaeilge a chur ar chomhchéim leis an S4C sa Bhreatain Bheag, of horror, we need voices for rud atá leagtha amach i bPlean de-escalation and peace” Infheistíocta Chonradh na Gaeilge Jeremy Corbyn on the i measc moltaí eile atá ag Páirtí an Lucht Oibre, cosúil le pacáiste Israel-Palestine conflict infheistíochta poist ar luach €5 mhillún a chur ar fáil d’Udarás na Gaeltachta chomh maith. Agus an tAire Catherine Martin “Staff working conditions are ag preasráiteas de chuid an Roinn student learning conditions” Turasóireachta, Cultúir, Ealaíon, Gaeltachta dúirt sí gur Buiséad TCDSU President ‘crua’ don Ghaeilge a bhí ann ach László Molnárfi go ndearna sí a ‘dícheall ‘ don teanga. Is léir go bhfuil todhcaí na Gaeilge ag brath ar sheirbhísí agus tacaíochtaí ar ard-chaighdeáin ón “The Irish Language is rialtas ar fud na tíre. Is léir faoi at a crisis point in terms of láthair nach dar le heagraíocthaí preservation of the Gaeltacht Gaeilge gur leor an méid atá ar and the language itself and the siúl ag an Rialtas ar son na Gaeilge Government doesn’t seem to agus ar son todhchaí na Gaeilge. Tá eagraíochtaí Gaeilge ag éileamh acknowledge that. If we are to do dheis cothramaíoctha agus believe this Government has forbartha don Ghaeilge ón rialtas aspirations for the future of the ach tá an cuma ar an scéal nach language, then we need to see dtiocfaidh aon athrú ar chúrsaí action” Gaeilge go tapa muna bhfuil infheistíocht ceart agus cóir déanta USI on Budget 2024 sa Ghaeilge agus sna Gaeltachtaí go luath.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

News

All Luas services halted as Gardaí investigate “security alert” on board tram Passengers and drivers aboard trams were instructed to disembark at around 6pm on October 9 David Wolfe Managing Editor

LL LUAS SERVICES WERE HALTED ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 9 DUE

to “suspicious activity”. Gardaí said they were working with Luas operators after a suspicious phone call was received, forcing them to halt all activity on the Red and Green lines. Passengers and drivers aboard trams were instructed to disembark at around 6pm October 9. All Luas services were halted immediately. In a statement, Luas said: “Passengers please be advised that there are currently no Red or Green Line services operating. We will update passengers in due course. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.” The statement also advised that all Luas tickets were valid on Dublin Bus for the duration of the disruption. All Luas services resumed by 7:17pm.

In a further statement from Luas they said: “Passengers, please be advised that the Red and Green Lines have now reopened. Please expect delays while we regulate

services. Luas tickets remain valid on Dublin Bus. We will update passengers in due course. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

A further disruption occured on the Luas red line on October 11 when a medical emergency at Abbey Street caused delays.

PWO denies claims of electoral misconduct alleged by TCDSU TCDSU has rebuffed the PWO’s statement, maintaining that PWO engaged in a “breach of election regulations” Alan Nolan Wilson, Kate Henshaw News Analysis Editor, Editorin-Chief

HE TCD P O S T G R A D UA T E W O R K E R S O R G A N I S AT I O N (TCD PWO) has denied claims of electoral misconduct and harassment made by Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU). On October 5, TCD PWO claimed voters had been turned away from ballot boxes at TCDSU’s postgraduate committee elections, and that there had been “no online voting option” available. The group also said that there had been no postgraduate consultation on the running of elections. In response, TCDSU told Trinity News it planned to rerun postgraduate committee elections due to PWO TCD endorsing its own members as candidates, labelling it “election interference”.

At the time of writing these elections have not been rerun. Responding to these claims online, TCD PWO said: “Allegations that PWO election canvassing violated EC [Electoral Commission] rules have no basis in any past precedent, in former EC communications, or written communications to PWO members, officials, or candidates.” “Former PWO campaigns last year used our exact same approach openly, and this was permitted in all cases by the EC at the time”, it continued. TCD PWO also said that if its actions had violated any rules, “then these rules have either been changed or knowingly reinterpreted by the EC without any communication”. TCDSU rebuffed this statement, saying that TCD PWO engaged in a “breach of election regulations”. TCD PWO also criticised TCDSU over an alleged lack of communication, claiming it was not told the ballots were pulled as a result of any investigation into electoral conduct. “An ‘investigation’ that does not contact the PWO Trinity team that allegedly violated any rules is not an investigation,” it said. In a statement to Trinity News, TCDSU said: “The endorsement of candidates on behalf of recognised groups as well as the use of electronic mailing lists for this endorsement has long been banned by electoral commission rules and is interpreted as a serious breach.” “Under normal circumstances this would have led to candidates found in breach of this to be struck from the ballot – but instead the EC ruled to rerun the election to

allow for the PWO to run their candidates again in a fair manner which was communicated to PWO representatives in a meeting [on October 5].” They continued by acknowledging “that postgraduate voters were informed that the ballots had run out on instructions from the EC while an investigation was being undertaken”. “This was taken to ensure undue panic was not caused and with the hope the investigation would resolve all issues within 30 minutes.” However, “it was deemed that the election would have been unduly influenced and would disadvantage other candidates on the ballot”, which TCDSU said “would’ve required sufficient action to ensure free and fair elections”. TCDSU also said yesterday it was “extremely disappointed by the behaviour of some PWO members who harassed polling clerks in-person”. TCD PWO denied these claims and said that it has “received no evidence from the Electoral Commission with regard to any (let alone multiple) claims of harassment by PWO members”. TCD PWO also said TCDSU chose to “air their allegations in student media” without investigating the matter. PWO TCD went on to express its frustration with the union’s failure to verify that the accused were PWO members. TCDSU defended its stance today, saying it “stands by the victims of this behaviour and strives to ensure the welfare of all Union members, postgraduate or undergraduate, is protected”.

“These allegations will be rightfully referred to the Junior Dean for independent investigation as any allegation of a breach of the Dignity and Respect policy must be investigated. It is our duty of care to our members that this will be done.” TCD PWO then called on the EC to initiate an “evidencebased” investigation into claims of harassment and retract its initial statement until this investigation is complete. The organisation says that they have sent an email to the EC requesting for a return to a good faith approach, open communications, and to move on. TCD PWO says that this email has been ignored. TCDSU denies these claims saying: “The PWO and representatives of the TCDSU sabbatical board as well as a member of the EC met in the aforementioned meeting [on October 5] at 4:30 to discuss the issues at hand.” “The result of which was an amicable agreement to rerun the election as well as an apology offered on behalf of the PWO executive addressing the election interference allegations.” In a statement posted to Twitter, TCDSU President László Molnárfi, who asked Trinity News to note his dissent to the first TCDSU statement on October 5, called for undergraduate students to stand in solidarity with the PWO and TCD PWO. He said: “It is crucial that undergraduate students stand in solidarity with @PWO_Ireland @PWO_TCD demands for a living wage and workers’ rights, especially as we inch closer to

postgraduate researchers taking disruptive action.” “Firstly, because the same system that exploits postgraduate researchers is the same system that charges unaffordable tuition fees, increases rents and underfunds student services. We are fighting the same neoliberal and austeritydriven approach to academia” he continued. He noted that “staff working conditions are student learning conditions”, and “postgraduate researchers work as teaching assistants for meagre pay, are overworked and stressed”. He believes “solidarity is the only way for us to stand up to this government and their neoliberal approach that causes undeniable harm to our communities and perpetuates social murder”. “Solidarity is when we support each other even if we are not directly involved” he concluded. TCDSU concluded their statement on October 6 by saying: “We have expressed to the PWO our solidarity in their cause and following our meeting [on October 5] have already agreed to their demands set out in their open letter.” “We believe we are working in good faith, and it is in that good faith that we hold all members of the college community accountable for actions that cause undue stress on students.” They also “hope that the PWO can reconsider their communication strategies with the TCDSU while keeping in mind that we are all fighting for the same cause”, which they say are “improvements to the education system and for the betterment of the welfare of students”.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Features

Street Doctors Ireland

The USSR and student communism

Hazel Mulkeen page 12

Ruby Topalian page 14

Clara Jonckheere Contributing Writer

n Monday, October 9, 2023, the official launch of Printing House Square took place outside the brand new complex. Tasked with accommodating 249 student bedrooms, the Trinity Health Centre, Trinity DisAbility Hub, and a modern Sports Centre facility, the design team of Printing House Square had a lot on its hands. Trinity News spoke with officials responsible for this “4 birds with one stone” project who revealed how they got it done. Following ribbon-cuttings in front of each of the four defining features of the new complex, everyone gathered in one of the new Squash Courts for the speeches of Provost Linda Doyle and Project Sponsor and Dean of Students Kevin O’Kelly. The road may not have been a smooth one, but everyone involved in the building’s construction, including McCullough Mulvin Architects, the architects tasked with the design of the building, seemed proud to finally see this behemoth of a project completed. While the square is the home of multiple Trinity administrative offices, both Doyle and O’Kelly emphasised that the “primary” function of Printing House is to serve as an accommodation for Trinity students. 4 birds with one stone In its planning stage, the designs for Printing House Square were extensive. Not only was the task to build a space that would accommodate 249 bedrooms, as well as shared living rooms, but

also to include a Health Centre, DisAbility Hub, and Sports Centre – long-overdue services previously pushed out by other projects. Heritage: Constraint and opportunity The history of Printing House also had to be factored into the architecture of the square, something which Lead Architect Valerie Mulvin saw as both a constraint and an opportunity. For one, Mulvin and her team couldn’t radically renovate the historic building and had to try and conserve as much of its traditional integrity as possible. While this was certainly a challenge, Mulvin saw this as an opportunity from an aesthetic and architectural perspective. In the end, the team created an extension to the already existing Trinity squares, and connected it to the city through a new entrance. Another problem the team ran into was the strict construction restrictions imposed by Dublin City Council. The original design included an additional floor, but this plan was squashed by the Council. Faced with this limitation, the main concern for Mulvin and O’Kelly was to not lose a single student bed which meant that their solution was lowering the floor of the Health and Sports services. This led to some of the bedrooms creeping into the roof, but allowed for all bedrooms to have access to sunlight. Responsibility to students As both Doyle and O’Kelly highlighted, the predominant concern was their responsibility to provide student accommodation, as well as create a residence that would foster a sense of community and belonging. The creation of clusters of rooms within houses that are each assigned a defining colour were designed to strengthen the sense of living in a house, rather than a “block”. The social character they strived to create was further enhanced by glass walls, separating the common areas, devised to increase the social atmosphere by allowing students to always know when their housemates are home. This decision caused controversy, as it was argued that tourists would not appreciate this voyeuristic feature. But O’Kelly “stuck his foot down”, considering it crucial to prioritise students’ social well-being over potential tourists’ protestations. Sustainability & accessibility Some of the main aspects factoring into the building of

Printing House were sustainability, accessibility, and durability. The building incorporates solar panels, rainwater harvesting and is made out of GGBS concrete, a form of concrete designed to reduce the building’s carbon footprint while increasing its durability. Student Houses are equipped with water metres, measuring the water usage of each House in order to instil a sense of ownership in the students; to nudge them to change their behaviour voluntarily, rather than creating an environment of enforcement and penalties. It goes without saying that these sustainable factors came with corresponding costs. However, O’Kelly emphasised the necessity of thinking about the durability of the building, stressing that “what you build now, you’re going to live with”. Battle between commercial vs students Currently, the most pressing issue students are faced with across Ireland is the housing crisis and the difficulty of finding both affordable and livable student accommodation. Thus, another primary objective for the Square was to avoid a tiered system of prices between the varying Trinity student accommodations. When asked how this factored into the making of Printing House, O’Kelly argued that their a dominant concern was to take such financial pressure off of students, and to find varying ways to accomplish this while still being able to finance

the new building. One way this is being done is by renting out the accommodation to tourists and conferences during the summer months. This consideration is evident in the construction of ensuite bedrooms, which not only serve students but also contribute to the comfort of tourists, crosssubsidising the cost of the investment. A viable solution? Amidst the lack of funding for Third Education and the Housing Crisis, there has rarely

been a more urgent need for student accommodation and welfare services. Printing House Square seems, at least from a sustainability point of view, like a durable investment. However, as many students have pointed out, the additional 249 rooms, while helpful, do not sufficiently address the acute need for affordable student accommodation. Printing House Square is certainly a step in the right direction but we need to keep walking.

PHOTO BY PAUL SHARPE FOR TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Trinity News spoke with the officials responsible for Printing House’s construction to find out what their vision was and how they got it done

PHOTO BY MAYA MANN FOR TRINITY NEWS

Printing House Square: Hitting 4 birds with one stone?

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Features

The story behind the vests: Getting to know Trinity security The Trinity security team is responsible for the safety of thousands who arrive on campus daily, but who are these individuals behind the bright yellow vests they wear? Dana Richie Contributing Writer

This article contains brief mention of suicide.

eering over a computer screen displaying different camera angles of campus, security officer Trevor Ward shared a smile and a hello with the staff and students who entered the front gate security office to clock in or ask for a key. It was a rainy Tuesday morning, and campus was just beginning to wake up. “Over time, you do get to know them, and they get to know you,” Ward said. Trinity Security is a visible fixture of campus. Their yellow vests stand out amidst the bustling crowds, and their white vans navigate the narrow cobblestone roads. Trinity News sat down with three security employees to learn more about their backgrounds, interests and the journeys that led them to Trinity. Speaking to Trinity News in the control room of 200 Pearse Street, Dale Maguire said that he prefers the patrol aspect of his job as backup superintendent. “I’m more outdoorsy,” he said, reminiscing about his experience working as a fisherman in Howth. Maguire was originally born in Skerries, a place he proudly labelled as the “safest town in Ireland,” but he moved to England at the age of 11. After completing secondary school, he returned to Ireland and “forgot to go home to England”. When he was 17, he started fishing, and he said it was “really tough” at first. He joked that his favourite part was “being ashore”. “I was on a little wooden boat puking

all the time for the first couple of months,” Maguire recalled. “Plus, I came back [to Ireland] at the wrong time, so the nets were coming up with lots of jellyfish.” He said he typically worked 15 hour work days while on his twelve-day fishing expeditions. In the midst of the labour, Maguire was able to find moments of solace. “One thing you can’t beat about being at sea is the night time and the sky,” he said. “I was just fascinated by the stars.” This feeling of peaceful midnight contemplation is something which he is also able to appreciate in his current job at Trinity. Sometimes, when he’s working the night shift on security from 10pm to 7am, Maguire walks around “with [his] eyes in the sky”. Maguire started working at Trinity in 2002, originally as a guard in the Ussher Library. After working there for 4 months, he interviewed with Trinity Security and has been working with them ever since. He said that this career switch was motivated by his family. “The kids came along so that was the end of fishing and everything else”, Maguire added

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Sometimes, when he’s working the night shift on security from 10pm to 7 am, Maguire walks around “with [his] eyes in the sky” with a chuckle. He also explained that security at Trinity has shifted over the years as the university started outsourcing to private security companies. Maguire estimated that there are about 30 people who are employed directly by Trinity Security. Given the high degree of turnover within the outside contractors, Maguire said that “the community spirit is gone”. He said that in the past, he “knew everybody”. Now, he does not know all of their names. Despite this, Maguire held that

PHOTO BY NIKO EVANS FOR TRINITY NEWS

his favourite part about the job is interacting with students and staff. “I always treat them like they’re my own,” he said. “I’ve never had any problem with any student over the years.” Yet, working with students has, on occasion, led to Maguire witnessing difficult things on the job; on the day before his 40th birthday, he was the first on the scene for a student suicide. He said that he “never got over it” because the student “reminded [him] of [his] own son”. As Maguire was speaking, Garrett Murphy, also a backup superintendent, entered the control room and relieved Maguire of his post. He’s been working the job for 11 years. Motioning to the live feed from the cameras, Murphy said that some might think of security as “actively doing nothing”. However, contrary to these beliefs, he explained that the stress-reactive nature of their work means that they always have to be attentive and responsive if “something awful were to happen”. The gravity of this critical position is not lost on Murphy. He explained that anything from the control room can be used as a legal document. In fact, he will be a witness in a court case in October. Prior to becoming a security guard, Murphy worked in the world of civil engineering as a procurement officer for 30 years. He really enjoyed the job, but as a result of the economic crash of 2012, he was let go. “I thought I was indispensable, but it turns out, I wasn’t,” Murphy said. In his early 50s at the time, Murphy did not think he would get another job. “When you get to a certain age, you don’t have that option”, he

added. When he started for the security team at Trinity, he found that there were many differences from his prior work experience. For one, he will “never get used to working through the night”. He also added that you’re “not on your own a lot”, saying that he often finds himself in the company of students or his colleagues for most of his day at work. One thing that surprised him about the job is that “people can be pretty honest”. He said that students often lose things, but they have their ways of turning up. “It’s nice to see it”, he added. Murphy currently lives with his

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One thing that surprised him about the job is that “people can be pretty honest” wife in Kildare, and they both love to travel. He said that he’s been all over mainland Europe, and he particularly “loved the colours and aromas” he experienced when he was in Asia. Out of all of the places they’ve visited, Germany is their

favourite, so Murphy hopes to retire in Dusseldorf. Ward, who typically works at the front gate, said that even though he’s stationed at a different location than other security officers, “we all have to work together as a team”. Ward started working with Trinity Security as an attendant in 2010 after Weatherglaze, the window company he worked for, was liquidated. He joined the security team in 2016, and he said that he’s met “so many different people from so many different backgrounds” since then. In addition to working graduation, Freshers Week, and Trinity Ball, Ward recalled servicing VIP details. In particular, he remembered working with Hillary Clinton’s team when she came to visit campus. “You wouldn’t know what to expect working at Trinity”, Ward added with a chuckle. He also stated that despite students sometimes “trying to push their luck” to get into campus late at night, he’s never had an issue, adding that he’s heard his fair share of interesting anecdotes. “What I laugh about is a story I’ve heard about…a student who hid up a tree one day, the time of the Trinity Ball”, Ward said: “He was up there all day, but he was told to come down later in the evening by security.” Rare and somewhat comical clashes aside, Ward encourages students and staff to ask security officers for help at any time. “I know a lot of people are pretty shy, especially when it comes to security, but from myself, if anybody needs a hand, we can help”, Ward said.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Features

Trinity News speaks to College students trying to empower at-risk youth in a unique way Hazel Mulkeen Contributing Writer

n 2013, Street Doctors Ireland set out for the first time to deliver their first aid classes at the now closed St Patrick’s Institution, a penal facility for 16 to 21 year olds. Overwhelmingly, the feedback that they got was, “it’s too late for me”; the 17 and 18 year olds had enjoyed learning CPR, but they were already committed to their trajectory in life. If only they had known these skills when they were younger. Street Doctors Ireland is a charity group, made up of Trinity medicine students and recent graduates, with one mission: to teach first aid to at-risk youth. The students that Street Doctors teach are in their mid-teens, but many have already been affected by knife crime. It’s very much a grassroots organisation; interviewees told Trinity News that they only knew about the charity via word of mouth. While they’re not affiliated with College, they rely on enthusiastic students to keep their organisation going. Based on the feedback from St Patrick’s, Street Doctors began to target youth centres around central Dublin - familiar and comfortable places for disadvantaged youth. “We’ve no premises,” Dr Stiofán Hatton - chair of the Street Doctors board - told Trinity News, and he plans on keeping it that way. Once they’ve got their group of teenagers together, they teach two classes, an hour each and typically a week apart. Class one: how to help someone who’s bleeding. Class two: how to help someone who’s unconscious. They try to use what a young person would have at the scene, like socks, or hoodies. Dr Stephen Flannery, a first aid instructor and Street Doctors board member, told Trinity News that while the explicit curriculum might just be the basics of first aid, the implicit goal is to challenge the students’ ideas of violent crime. He explains that many probably see a stabbing as something you either survive or you don’t; it’s important to show them that being stabbed

will have medical consequences for the rest of your life. There’s not a lot of information about the rates of violent crime in Dublin. Specific and evocative stories might gain media attention, but there’s a distinct lack of reliable statistics. Dr. Flannery, a surgeon who returned to Trinity to teach last year, told Trinity News that doctors are seeing more complex abdominal problems in surgery than they would have even a few years ago, indicating an increase in knife crime and its lethality. One of the problems with collecting data, he pointed out, is a disproportionate rate of illiteracy within communities affected by knife crime, making it hard for people to communicate their experiences. “We created a divide by assuming our students were literate,” Stiofán said. “When we wrote on a flip chart, words like “danger”, “response”, … some students couldn’t read those words.” They’ve now adapted to using pictures for their class demonstrations: they draw a stickman on the board, or a heart.

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They expect us to come in here lecturing ...Our teaching model is the exact opposite of that “It’s really nice seeing people come out of their shells,” said Lisa Codros, a third-year medicine student and current Team Manager for Street Doctors Ireland. Her responsibility is co-ordinating all the volunteers across Trinity. Volunteering can be intimidating at first, she said, especially when you’re dealing with teenagers - a notoriously challenging age-group to teach. But she’s never had any difficulty getting her students engaged. “We crack a few jokes, we loosen up and they realise, oh hey, they’re actually on our level”, she told Trinity News. Most instructors working for Street Doctors Ireland are only a few years older than their students; it’s a near-peer model of teaching. “We’re not some youth worker in their thirties or forties,” Stiofán

PHOTO BY HAZEL MULKEEN FOR TRINITY NEWS

Street Doctors Ireland: A public health approach to reducing street violence

said. The most important thing to do when you teach at-risk youth is build rapport; if you’re asking the students to list vital organs, and somebody calls out “dick”, you draw that on the board. It’s a point of pride for Stiofán that Street Doctors Ireland has never had to abort a session, something he attributes to their non-judgmental method of teaching. A common question they ask to start off a session is, “what is the safest place to stab someone?” The students are often taken aback that a doctor would say something like that - but it helps to break down the barriers. “They expect us to come in here lecturing,” Stiofán told Trinity News. “Our teaching model is the exact opposite of that.” “They’ve been so lovely to teach,” Lisa said. “I think my biggest surprise when I started teaching sessions is that they’re all really sound people. If it wasn’t for ‘we’re standing here, you’re standing there,’ we could have been mates” she said. “I didn’t come from the best area …There was always a really big difference between the teachers that would baby us, versus the teachers that would take us seriously. It’s that respect, I think that’s really important. “ Stiofán emphasised the importance of a good first impression. “When the student walks in, I stand there, say “hello, my name is Stiofán, nice to meet you” and I shake their hand, and look them in the eyes”, he said. Whatever perception a young person might have of a Street Doctor volunteer, it can be overcome by showing respect, he explains, “saying I see you as a person, I respect you … I’m going to remember your name.” Just as eliminating power imbalance is key to good

communication, acknowledging the difference in experience between the students and instructors is vital: “Don’t pretend you have the same life that the young people you teach do. You’re in university, you’ve had incredible opportunities…This isn’t something to be embarrassed about, it’s just something to acknowledge.” Stiofán added: “We’ve got two opposite ends of the social spectrum in terms of privilege and opportunities in life. Putting those people into a room and having a closed space where they can talk, there’s lots of value in that.” Róisín, a final year medicine student, has been teaching with Street Doctors since her first year. Her experience volunteering in a Dublin youth detention centre, she told Trinity News, taught her how to better interact with patients on her clinical placements in hospitals. “It changed how I

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It changed how I approach my placements approach my placements”, Róisín said. Last year as Team Manager she fundraised for the charity by doing bag packing at Christmas. Roísín added that the majority of her students weren’t from Dublin, but from deprived areas in the

Midlands, or Limerick, which she wasn’t expecting. Many of the young people she taught were from marginalised groups, such as the traveller community. Several, if they’d continued in mainstream education, would have had a Special Needs Assistant (SNA) to help them in school. Instead, they were in the detention centre. While poverty and deprivation have long been issues for youth workers in Dublin to contend with, the pandemic left young people without safe spaces or meaningful community support. “I think they’ve lost something they didn’t even know they were meant to have,” Stiofán said. The Irish media’s focus on “feral youth” doesn’t help matters: for disenfranchised youth, antisocial behaviour is a major way to regain the agency they’ve lost. “It almost becomes a status symbol,” Stiofán added: “If they can be “nothing of value”, at least they can be something powerful.” Through teaching first aid, Street Doctors wants their students to feel like they could be a positive force: “We paint the picture of a hero”, Stiofán said, “and we say you could be a hero… I get the impression that’s not something students hear very often, or at all.” While not everyone can teach first aid, everyone can help. “Volunteering as a football coach in the morning has the same charitable purpose as us”, Stiofán added. “Just helping young people get through a very difficult period of their lives.” Street Doctors plans on holding several on-campus fundraisers this year, and hopes people can come out to show support for them. It’s not the kind of work that gets a lot of funding or attention, but, all the volunteers agreed, it has its own rewards.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Features

The overlooked issue of passport privilege

Dusk Mac Buideach Contributing Writer

PHOTO BY RUY TOPALIAN FOR TRINITY NEWS

ravel is often viewed as a core part of the student experience at Trinity. From society trips to spontaneous weekend flights with budget airlines, travel is integral to the Irish and European university experience. For most students at Trinity – Irish, EU, American, Canadian, Australian, British, Swiss, etc. – travel is accessible and is as simple as flying to the destination and quickly going through border control. But for others, travel is a privilege locked behind bureaucracy, colonial border policies, and geopolitics. Passport privilege is an often overlooked issue, especially in Trinity where the majority of the student body is Irish, EU/EAA, British, or from a

country with significant passport power such as the US, Canada, Australia, etc. But what about the international students who come from countries where one’s ability to travel is restricted by their passport? Trinity News sat down with students from India, China, Russia, and Turkiye to explore their college travelling experiences. Sanjana, an Indian student from the United Arab Emirates, explained the bureaucratic challenge she faced to even come to Ireland: “I applied for [a visa] last year, it was pretty long, I had to get a lot of different documents.” Using her hands, she showed that the documents were about two and a half iPhones thick. She continued: “Yeah, I wasn’t sure how long it would take to process it. Every week, the consulate in Abu Dhabi would give updates on different applications that were processed, so every week, I would check to see if my number was there.” She continued: “It was a bit like a waiting game. I only got my visa, a week before the orientation week started. It was very extensive. And while they had a list of documents that they said you needed, I’d also hear from a lot of different sources that ‘oh, maybe we should have a few other sets of documents just in case.’” The Irish Consulate-General visa process in Abu Dhabi was evidently a stressinducing one. With long processing times and a risk of applicants’ visas being delayed, students could miss weeks of classes, or even be flat-out denied. There is also the element of travel costs, as Sanjana explained: “A lot of people did book their tickets in advance, even if they hadn’t got their visa. But I kind of put it off because I wasn’t sure.”

She then “had to buy a ticket last minute and it was incredibly expensive”. Fem, a Turkish student, echoed this struggle over visa applications: “I was trying to get a student visa so that I [could] do sixth year in [Ireland], finish secondary school, and then go on to the college application process, it’s just very difficult, it’s very long, you give them all of your transcripts, your birth certificate, all the previous visas you’ve ever had, the properties you might have in your name, if you do have any of those.” She said that “every single [piece of] personal information, every single address you’ve ever lived in, all of these things you have to give over”. The visa process for Ireland is evidently extraordinarily invasive, a procedure which American, Australian, British, and EU citizens aren’t subjected to. Aryan, who hails from India but who has lived in Dubai and Poland remarked: “Just applying for any kind of visa, not just a student [or] tourist visa … heavily depends on what passport you’re holding. I found that [waiting times] depend on the country I’m applying from.” He said that “before [he] shifted to Poland ... [he] used to live in Dubai [and] the waiting times would be really low”. Noting: “Like, maybe, I’d get it within a week or two weeks. But in India however … I think [a visa] to Europe took about a month once.” The visa process is also very strict about how much time the visa gives you in the country. Jingmiao, a student from China, recalled: “Once you get your visa and you go to Ireland, you have to apply for your IRP card within 30 days, so it’s actually usually very hard to cooperate with your flight date and the day you apply for visa.” Students who have to apply for tourist visas to leave Ireland often miss out on the travel opportunities that the majority of students at Trinity can otherwise access. “I have to apply for a tourist visa. I just finished [my application for a study visa which was [a] really long process last year and that was very exhausting.” said Sanjana. While all international students must pay the 300 euro registration fee for immigration, students who require visas to even come to Ireland have to pay that fee as well, which adds up. For some students, however, there are even further barriers. Due to the war in Ukraine, Russian students are facing new obstacles to travel, and hostility from immigration officials in certain countries. Nastya, who holds a Russian passport, recalled the time her Russian friend went to Estonia: “When you get a Schengen visa, you can visit all Schengen countries, which are all European countries, plus Switzerland, except Ireland. And when [my friend] went to Estonia,

PHOTO BY GORDII KODUBOVSKYI FOR TRINITY NEWS

To get at the bottom of what passport privilege really looks like, Trinity News spoke with students whose passports have been a constant barrier to their travel and immigration plans

a European country, to go back to Russia, they told her she cannot go through.” She said that “it doesn’t make any sense and they did not allow her to go to Estonia even though … it’s a Schengen zone … basically they put a stamp on her passport saying she tried to enter the country illegally”. Nastya further expanded on travel difficulties remarking: “My experience [with travelling] is good because I’m a resident [of Spain]. [But] right now, me and my friends are planning a trip to Poland, and two of my friends can’t go because they have Russian passports … [That one friend] just has to watch the stories of how his

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The visa process is also very strict about how much time the visa gives you in the country friends are having fun … it’s just very sad.” Each interviewee also pointed to a takeaway they would like readers to get from the article. Aryan offered advice to students in a similar situation to him: “You just need to make sure that you

plan out exactly what documents you need well in advance. And also book your appointment with the embassy or whatever company issues [the visa] really well in advance. And just be clear when you plan on flying, stuff like that.” Jingmiao agreed, encouraging students in her position not to limit their educational opportunities because of travel documentation: “If you know that you are going to study abroad, that means your visa will be an issue so you have to consider [this]. But just go for it. Don’t be afraid.” Sanjana, conversely, addressed students who aren’t in a similar situation: “People don’t realise it, I guess. We do live in different worlds. We can’t just look for cheap tickets on Ryanair. It is a very different world.” Nastya similarly implored students to be mindful of other students: “I feel, just don’t be hostile to people depending on their nationality. Think about your friends with weaker passports when you’re going on trips and maybe try to be more inclusive”. She said though “it’s cool to try and explore different parts of Europe”, students should “also try to do some domestic Irish tours or just ask their friends if it’s okay, what they feel about it”. She added: “I feel like travelling is very important. It’s a very big source of happiness for everyone.” Fem agreed saying: “I know when you’re born into something like this, you don’t necessarily realise how big of a privilege it is, but just acknowledge the fact that it’s a very big privilege to have a passport that allows you to do certain things ... [and] use it to the best of your ability.”

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Features

Trinity News sits down with students and government officials to discuss the flying of the USSR flag at the freshers’ fair Ruby Topalian Features Editor

hen secondyear EstonianA m e r i c a n student Kaia walked through the front gates of Trinity to volunteer at her freshers’ fair table at the end of September, she was expecting crowds pillaging for slices of pizza and energy drinks, exhausted society leadership teams pitching to hungover freshers, and endless stacks of coupons for free doughnuts scattered across Front Square. Instead, Kaia broke down into tears as she was met with the bright red flag of the Soviet Union (USSR), flying proudly next to the Campanile. The campus-based branch of the pro-communist Workers’ Party was the group responsible for the flying of the flag. Workers’ Party TCD (WPTCD) told Trinity News that it aims to promote “a democratic, secular, socialist Irish Republic, and to cultivate an understanding of the policies of the Workers’ Party of Ireland among the students of Trinity College”. Founded in 2018, the society has earned a substantial social media following, and many College students feel it is pushing the agenda of the future. In fact, seen by many as the only viable means of reconstructing society equitably and democratically, an affinity with communism amongst Gen-Zers has become widespread. But for many whose families lived under the USSR, seeing the proud display of the hammer and sickle was horrifying; for them, this symbol does not represent a brighter future, but is a reminder of a genocidal past. The flying of the flag of the USSR at the freshers’ fair raises an important question: does a line need to be drawn between communist theory (i.e. Marxist doctrine) and the reallife implications of the USSR? Though the hammer and sickle

have become the hallmark of communist ideology, does displaying such imagery endorse genocide? The ideological concept of communism originated in 18thcentury Western Europe as a result of the work of German philosopher Karl Marx. In his famous texts, Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto, Marx advocated for the rights of the worker and explained that to eliminate the power imbalance that had formed during the industrial revolution, a “proletarian revolution” was inevitable and necessary. After this revolution, in which masses of workers would take the streets in revolt, the proletariat would abolish private property and give voting rights to all members of society. The “new” society that followed would be free of crippling class distinctions. The USSR was nominally an attempt to apply these Marxist

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Flags are charged symbols. A flag may always offend some group ideas to the real world and in many ways, these Marxist policies worked. Under the USSR, forced industrialisation led to impressive rates of production and literacy rates skyrocketed as the state invested in education. However, communism did not produce the utopia Marx had calculated. The brutal totalitarian practices initiated by the USSR’s leaders, particularly Joseph Stalin, lead to enormous suffering. Purges and show trials eliminated political dissent, and state-mandated famines caused millions of deaths in modern-day Ukraine and beyond. According to the University of Hawaii, it is estimated that from 1917 to 1987, anywhere between 28,326,000 and 126,891,000 people were killed by the actions of the Soviet state. Today, those who live in former Soviet nations have mixed opinions of the USSR. Trinity student Elizaveta Makarova spoke

to Trinity News about what she has observed being born and raised in Russia: “Some people (especially the older generation) are nostalgic for the times of the Soviet Union… Others remember those times as difficult due to the difficult economic situation and the lack of human rights and freedom of speech. They speak with bitterness about friends who would become informers at any moment.” Elizaveta added: “The majority of the younger generation treats the Soviet Union either indifferently or negatively, knowing the experience of their ancestors and families.” Conversely, for the students of WPTCD, attitudes towards the USSR are more straightforward: “The loss of the Soviet Union was a disaster for the working class of the world, and ever since then there have been rollbacks on social democracy and workers’ rights worldwide. Countries like Yugoslavia, Libya, and Iraq have all been illegally invaded, destroyed, and plundered by the US and the EU.” Ukrainian student Maksym Tieriekhov disagreed, pointing to the tragedy his family experienced under the USSR: “The greatest horror of the USSR was manmade hunger or Holodomor … I have not met a lot of members of my family because they died from hunger at a very young age.” He added: “I would say that it is a miracle that I have been born into this world. My grandfather, on my father’s side, survived only because his mother sent him to an orphanage, as her property was confiscated by the government, and she was left with nothing.” He continued: “She did not have food to feed her own child, and she could barely feed herself ” he continued. “To survive, she had to eat grass and rotten potato, as those were the only crops that were not taken by the state.” Given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s use of the flag to bolster Russian nationalism since the start of the ongoing war in Ukraine, part of the frustration felt by many Eastern Europeans over this specific case is that the timing feels insensitive. In an interview with Trinity News, the Ambassador of Ukraine to Ireland Larysa Gerasko expressed her disappointment: “The red Soviet flag is used by President Putin’s regime and the Russian army in the ongoing brutal war against Ukraine which caused the biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe … it is very sad that such a flag is displayed in the heart of a country where almost 100,000 people found protection from Russia’s occupation and war.” Acknowledging the controversial nature of its decision

PHOTO BY RUBY TOPALIAN FOR TRINITY NEWS

The USSR and student communism: A controversial combination

to display the hammer and sickle, WPTCD said: “Flags are charged symbols. A flag may always offend some group.” However, they emphasised that “a good majority of the people who came to talk to us during freshers’ fair expressed positive views towards us flying the flag, including people from the

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Seeing the flag was truly one of [his] proudest moments as a TCD student

former Soviet Union.” Anton Tishkovsky, a WPTCD member whose parents lived under the USSR, is one such student: “I was … extremely proud that someone was upholding the legacy of the soviet union … my great grandfathers fought to defeat fascism (one dying even). My family and grandparents all recall warmly of their lives in USSR and were forced to leave during the huge social upheaval and extremely poor conditions during the [19]90s, after the Soviet Union was dissolved by Yeltsin”. He said that “seeing the flag was truly one of [his] proudest moments as a TCD student”. Trinity College Dublin Students Union (TCDSU) President László Molnárfi shares similar views. In a statement issued to Trinity News, he offered his perspective: “I am from Eastern Europe. I am a communist. I am not offended by the display of this flag … [The hammer and sickle] is a symbol of the communist movement

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

globally, and this is a movement of equality, justice and the liberation of humankind.” Molnárfi acknowledged, however, that “this flag has traditionally been associated with the state capitalist regimes of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc”. He said that “state capitalism is discredited and is not a viable political project, nor should we seek to replicate it” and “there is a nuanced discussion to be had about these regimes”. He concluded saying: “We should learn from the past mistakes and criticise them, as well as understand the reasons for the degeneration of the socialist experiments of the 20th century, namely the interventions of the Western imperialist powers. Socialism is the system best suited for human life, but it has to be bottom-up and democratic.” WPTCD member Joshua from Dublin agreed: “The old flag was the flag of the tsar and his family and that didn’t represent everyone whereas the flag of the USSR was meant for workers and peasants, meant for everyone … my stepfather is from Estonia and he said that before [during the USSR], everyone got along in Estonia.” But for Kaia, the lack of personal connection to the Soviet Union amongst the students she encountered representing WPTCD during freshers’ pointed to ignorance: “People really don’t get it unless they’ve experienced it or had family who were part of it … I asked the two people at the booth “Do you have any family connection to the USSR?” and the response I got was laughing at me and saying that the USSR doesn’t exist anymore ... I clarified … and neither of them had any family connection whatsoever …. It’s confusing because it’s both ignorance but they also know what they’re doing and don’t want to acknowledge it.” She added that the WPTCD’s Instagram page filled with memes like Ryan Gosling dressed in Soviet military costume, compounded her impression of ignorance. When asked about this, WPTCD said: “All of our posts on @workerspartytcd are 100% serious.” Trinity student Nastya, who was born in Russia and whose family comes from St. Petersburg (formerly known as Leningrad) agrees with Kaia: “I’d like to buy a ticket back to the past and send some fans of USSR in Trinity to live in 30m² Khrushchevka for an internship in a Soviet factory. They will want to go home very quickly.” With all of this in mind, the question becomes: what action – if any – needs to be taken to address the effects the flying of this flag has had on students? While Nastya was shocked and disappointed by the flag, she does not believe WPTCD has crossed any lines in regards to freedom of speech: “I don’t think that any censure should apply to any society, including cultural societies.” she continued: “Obviously they should be ready for an opposite reaction.” Others believe this does cross a line: “Are you okay with

supporting genocide or not? I feel like it’s an easy choice to make ... it’s hate speech,” Kaia said. Both Kaia and Elizaveta called for acknowledgement of students

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Do you support genocide or not? I feel like it’s an easy choice to make...it’s hate speech affected by this from the College administration: “Unfortunately, at the moment the situation … has already happened and cannot be changed. However, the college could provide help and support to those who were negatively impacted by this story,” Elizaveta said. For Ukranian student Cherep Dariia, education is the answer: “Using Soviet Union symbols in public events is not appropriate … It is worth organising a series of informative events that would debunk the myth of the strong Soviet growth with truthful facts and illustrate the methods used by the Stalinist totalitarian regime to achieve its technical goals.” She added: “The [Workers’] party should consider other ways to identify itself and its activities.” Unlike Cherep, Anton does

not believe that WPTCD needs to find alternative means of identification: “The flag of the Soviet Union represents the worldwide workers’ movement and stands as a testament to its immense achievements, the emancipation of the working class from Tsarist brutality, the guarantee of a decent standard of living, education, healthcare, literacy, housing, women’s rights, the development of industry and essential infrastructure, and the defeat of fascism in the second world war.” WPTCD member Lance, from France, agreed, asserting that the flag of the USSR is no different from any other national flag: “You can look back at the history of any flag and see that it is associated with genocide … you don’t see people flying a French flag and ask them: do you stand for colonisation?” He added: “If the USSR flag isn’t okay then no flag is … [the USSR flag is] just a logo at this point, the logo of communism more than the flag of the USSR.” Speaking to Trinity News, Lithuanian Ambassador to Ireland Marijus Gudynas condemned the flying of the flag, describing Lithuania’s approach to matters concerning the USSR. In Lithuania, “Nazi and Soviet symbols… public denial of the crimes committed by [these regimes and] expressed support for both blood-stained regimes … are banned by law”. He continued: “We have familiarised ourselves with communism not only from the text in history books but from the very real and very tragic stories of our own families. I personally strongly believe that Soviet symbols alongside Nazi ones should be banned in all of the democracy-loving world to prevent these criminal ill-ideologies from poisoning the minds of young generations. universities could become the driving force behind such discussions.”

When asked for the College’s opinion about this matter, a College spokesperson said: “The freshers’ fair is organised by the Central Societies Committee and the Students’ Union. The College respects their autonomy in coordinating this initiative each year. While it is important that freedom of speech is maintained, we do sympathise with students who experience upset by the display of particular symbols and images.” They added that “it is important for those who coordinate such initiatives to always be mindful of this” and “student feedback received by the college is shared with the student organisations regularly”. For most of the Eastern European students who spoke with Trinity News, the seriousness of this situation cannot be overstated: “You really just cannot separate the flag and support of the Soviet Union from the genocide of countless people and their ancestors who I am [one] of … None of our lives would be the same if that had never happened and it’s a very concerning thing to see people supporting [and] being really nonchalant about it,” Kaia said.

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You really just cannot separate the flag and support of the Soviet Union from the genocide of countless people and their ancestors Stay tuned for the online edition to read full interviews from the Ambassadors and Workers’ Party TCD.

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Features

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

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Is the full college experience a myth? Aoibhínn Clancy page 17

Budget 2024 won’t buy students’ ballots in 2025 Editorial page 21

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Misdiagnosis and the portrayal of mental illness on TikTok Isabella Roussel Contributing Writer

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There was borderline personality disorder In a statement issued to the widespread and autism. I was not alone: the health and wellness platform hashtag MentalHealth has been EverydayHealth, retired disseminatiom viewed 108 billion times on psychologist John F. Tholen TikTok. warned that a key part to the of health misn the spring of 2020, at the The problem with teenagers subtle art of diagnosis was lacking information peak of Covid-19’s reign of being force-fed a diet of mental on social media platforms like

terror and amidst the chaos of watching helplessly as our politicians scrambled to conquer our modern day Goliath, I became part of the mass of teenagers who sought refuge on the rapidly-growing platform TikTok. Like a cat with a string, I was hypnotised by the endless stream of easily-digestible, lowcommitment entertainment. A clean, quick, temporary break from the crumbling world around us, TikTok felt like an old friend, accessible with only the touch of a finger in a time of mass-isolation and loneliness. As the attentive algorithm’s eye noticed me lingering on these types of videos, more and more began to trickle into my feed. Suddenly I was watching videos daily describing the symptoms of disorders such as ADHD, OCD,

health content making sweeping claims that small, nervous habits such as bouncing one’s leg or chewing the inside of your cheek are signs of bigger mental problems, is that coupled with an algorithm notorious for enforcing confirmation bias, it creates the illusion that such signs are concrete evidence pointing towards larger mental issues. Though I had never previously had any reason to believe I had a mental disorder, nor had I ever struggled significantly in school or in my social life, it was impossible not to see myself in the onslaught of videos pushed my way. Could it be that the anxiety that had been gnawing at me since the beginning of confinement, that my incessant scratching and picking at the already-angry red skin in the crook of my arm were signs of an abnormality in my brain?

TikTok: the important distinction between experiencing symptoms and having a disorder. In evaluating the reliability of self-diagnosis and TikTok mental illness content, it’s important to investigate the influencers promoting these things. The creators behind these types of videos can include mental health professionals, however more often than not they are individuals describing their own personal struggles and experiences. A study published in the National Library of Medicine analysing the mental health literacy of such influencers found that only a limited number of content creators were verified, and that many of the posts studied were created for the purpose of entertainment, to boost engagement, and in some cases to promote products rather than to educate.

In a separate study which narrowed the focus down to just ADHD content on TikTok, it was found that half of the analysed content was misleading, and that there was widespread dissemination of health misinformation on the platform. The result? An explosion in the number of young people believing they are mentally ill. Though unfortunately the exact statistics haven’t been gathered nationally, several health centres around the U.S have reported this increase. Donald Gilbert, a neurologist at a paediatric hospital in Ohio specialising in movement disorders reported that since the pandemic, the number of teens coming in every month believing they have tics has increased tenfold.

Other clinics across the U.S have reported similar increases. Some doctors have further noted that TikTok has contributed to mass confusion and misunderstanding of the correlation between symptoms and disorders, pointing out that there is an overlap of symptoms, particularly depression and anxiety, across several conditions. The existence of these feelings on their own are not necessarily proof of neurodivergence, and can just as easily be a natural response to stressful and threatening external conditions. When the pandemic restrictions began to ease up and everyday life started to regain a semblance of normalcy, I felt my previously ever-present anxiety ebb away. I was happy again. It has become a truism to say that social media platforms have revolutionised the way we consume news and information. While the pandemic may have shepherded millions of people onto TikTok, the end of Covid-19 restrictions hasn’t led to a decrease in TikTok users. The pervasive presence of TikTok in our lives is unlikely to disappear entirely any time soon, however, a healthy dose of scepticism and a reminder to place our faith in professionals when consuming content can help us navigate social media with the caution and nuance needed to address such delicate subject matters.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

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Is the full college experience a myth? Aoibhínn Clancy Deputy News Editor

tarting college can elicit anxieties in students around ensuring they get the so-called “full college experience.” While of course we all come to college to get an education and (hopefully) leave with a degree after of years of hard work, college life encompasses much more than just your studies. College was the first time I had some small spotlight of adulthood shown to me after Covid-19 overshadowed both the end of my teen years and the start of my adult life. I became set on parking in this full college experience which had been preached repeatedly to me. Navigating academics, going out, making new friends, maintaining old friendships, a job, going for pints (which is a different task than going on a night out), relationships, and keeping in touch with your family are not easy obligations to balance. While yes, my astrological sign is Libra, meaning I strive to attain balance in all aspects of life, I struggled, and still struggle tremendously trying to keep everything harmonious. It is unavoidable for many college students to find themselves overwhelmed and burned out. I was unable to remove myself from the cynical cycle of constantly being on the go in order to feel as though I was taking full advantage of my college years as these are supposed to be the best years of my life. Right? Unfortunately, the dreams many of us have been sold about college are exaggerated tales of fiction. Media and pop culture have not helped, setting students up with unrealistic expectations of what to expect once embarking into their college careers. This does not mean it’s all doom and gloom. Some of my fondest memories have been made during my time in Trinity, but that doesn't negate that at times it can be equally as overwhelming and isolating. A large part of the college experience for many is spending weekends and evenings working part time jobs. The soaring cost of living is news to nobody. It was recently revealed that the living wage in Ireland has increased to €14.80 which is nowhere near the amount students would be making. Not working throughout college is a luxury many cannot afford and working 40 hours a week to achieve a living wage is

unfeasible. Over two-thirds of college students work part time during college according to a study done in 2016 by Irish League of Credit Unions into the cost of 3rd level education. It's no secret that the cost of attending college is a burden on many. While your coursework should be the main priority, having to pay for fees, rent, utilities and general student life puts many in a position where not working is impossible. I have worked, and continue to work, during my time in college. Finding a balance between college life and work life can be particularly difficult and many times, despite meticulous planning and attempts to manage my time, I have found myself doing assignments on my lunch break in order to meet assignment deadlines. 15 hours per week is the maximum amount of hours college students are recommended to work or else they risk their job impeding upon their studies. If one is working a minimum wage job of €11.30 an hour this means they will get €168 a week or €672 a month. If you were renting a single bedroom en-suite within an apartment in Trinity Halls from the duration of September 16th to May 10th it would cost €7267 which works out at approximately €807 a month.

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There is a clear disparity between what is advised for students and what is realistic for them I am not a mathematician, however it is clear to me that there is a clear disparity between what is advised for students and what is realistic for them to work in order to survive. If one was working those hours, they would not even have enough for their rent, let alone enough for groceries, and then also having some spare money for day to day life. This makes it virtually impossible to live away from home and attend college unless ones parents are subsidising and supporting you or you have worked previously to save enough.

I am fortunate enough to be in a position where I can easily commute to college. The experience of many students is far different, with many of my peers forced to wake up in the early hours of the morning in order to commute long distances to attend lectures as they could not access or afford accommodation near college. FOMO is a quintessential aspect of the college experience for many students. As unbelievably happy as I was to start my course, I was just as eager to begin my descent into going out. There was a significant and sustained period of my life where I would find myself going out four to five nights a week, terrified at the idea that I would possibly miss out on something. I do not recommend this. Ultimately, your body will break down leaving you with some horrendous illness forcing you to be bedridden for days, but it is an unavoidable event for many a college student. At the time, I felt as though I had cracked the code on how to navigate college. I was successfully attending all my classes, going to the library, working part time, exercising and having an active social life — at times you could say it was perhaps overly active. Looking back now, two years later, I realise that all of this came at the detriment of my mental health, and I now understand we do need sleep to function. The way I was choosing to partake in college was unsustainable at best and dangerous at worst. My experience with college has without doubt changed slightly since my days in first year. The novelty of buying overpriced

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drinks and the ever sticky Workmans floor wore off slightly, which is bittersweet. I still go out, don't get me wrong, but the once-present burning desire to constantly be in the thick of the action has diminished. It is only now in my third year that I am seeing college through a different lens. I do not have to do it all and I can not do

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Many feel stuck and overwhelmed trying to balance things such as being a fulltime student and parttime worker alongside trying to meet unrealistic social expectations as one attempts to carve out their place in the social hierarchy it all. The experience of each student during their time is unique and deeply personal. It must be acknowledged that college is not an equal experience for all. While it is seen as a period of growth and transition into adulthood, many feel stuck and overwhelmed trying to balance things such as being a full-time student and part-time worker alongside trying to meet unrealistic social expectations as one attempts to carve out their place in the social hierarchy of college. It is naive and at times dangerous to preach to students the necessity to attain the full college experience when so many external factors hinder them from doing so. It encourages burning the candle from both ends, a tried and tested recipe for disaster.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

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2023: The year we still continue to pit women against each other PHOTO BY MAYA MANN FOR TRINITY NEWS

Emma Rouine

Student Living Co-Editor

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hile social m e d i a is an incredible way to connect and build community, moments like this only create extreme division instead of bringing people together." These were the words of Hailey Bieber last March when she took to Instagram amid her alleged feud with Selena Gomez. Seven months on, have people learnt from this? Have people learnt that their words are dragging women down and creating “extreme division?” In light of Hailey’s words here, it is important to consider the distinction between our online presence and our personal identity. Our culture has always made us believe that it’s those with the perfect body shape and those with the defining facial features that attract all the attention. It’s been

illustrated through the media for as long as imaginable. But what happens when women in the public light step out of these expectations? What happens when those in question are younger women emerging into the spotlight? It’s always the same story that gains attraction. Essentially, it’s just in a different font with different people’s lives being derailed for public entertainment. Yet, this is not something as frivolous as watching a repeat episode of your favourite TV show, these are people’s real lives that have been made a mockery of. We have to ask ourselves, though: why is it always women who are targeted? Think of all the women's feuds that have created so much attraction in the media, from the “WAG wars” to the alleged feuds in the royal family between Kate and Meghan. There are countless examples. Now, think of all the feuds among men in the media. It’s not as easy to do, right? Concerning this media obsession with women's alleged feuds, Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu has said the media uses this story repeatedly as it “helps the patriarchy stay in

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power”. She expanded on this by saying, "If it's a board meeting of all women and there's only one seat for a man, the men will start becoming competitive. It's about the scarcity, not gender." With such few opportunities for women in specific industries, the competitiveness of this turns into a cutthroat competition no longer for the job, but rather amongst each potential “threat”. Consequently, speculations about the dynamics of women in the music industry have gained media attention in recent years. In addition to tarnishing the artists' domestic lives, media outlets now intrude on their professional lives too. Olivia Rodrigo is a prime example of this. At the outbreak of her career, when her single “Driver’s License” broke the global charts, the media became engrossed in an alleged love triangle revolving around herself, fellow co-star at the time Joshua Bassett, and Sabrina Carpenter (whom Bassett was romantically linked with). The media could not let the song live on its own. They showcased her personal life and tried to find some mere connection within it to the song. It degraded the essence of the

song so that when one listens to it now, one can only hear lyrics that are supposedly directed towards Carpenter. Now, two years on, the media has moved on from the Driver's Licence love triangle. However, Rodrigo’s relationships are still a main topic in the entertainment world. What has been dominating entertainment outlets in recent weeks, is this so-called feud between Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo. It is linked back to Rodrigo’s 2021 debut album, Sour, where she gave up half of her royalties on her track “Deja Vu” due to the similarity to the bridge of Taylor’s 2019 hit track, “Cruel Summer”. Although, all we have are rumours. Yes, Swift now holds 50% of Rodrigo’s royalties for “Deja Vu”, this is a fact. However, this so-called feud they have going on as a result? This is not a fact. We don’t know the truth and we may never know unless one party releases a statement. Even then, in saying this, the media will never be satisfied. The Selena-Hailey trope still trends online when both parties have already released statements about the controversy. One has to ask themselves - truly, what is so fascinating about imagining these fake scenarios between artists? What is the excitement in picking one side and choosing to cancel the other? Nothing but the core of an extremely toxic culture. Instead of empowering these women, we choose to break them down. We do not know their story and we certainly do not know the context, because we are the public and we should stay the public. These artists have not invited us into their homes and lives, therefore we don’t have a say in their dynamics with other people. What I find so horrific on social media is the comments underneath well-known pop culture news sources, such as Pop Base and Pop Crave, who choose to broadcast these alleged stories. Fans of Rodrigo will slate Swift and her fans, while the same process will operate from the other party.

It’s always “Which team are you: Taylor or Olivia?” Through this, social media illustrates that there’s only one spotlight available for these pop artists. Why do we as women feel the need to tear down other women in the spotlight when it is so incredibly difficult for them to break into the industry in the first place? Rodrigo has even noted this in a previous interview, where she said: "Young women are constantly compared to each other. I'm the 'new this' or 'this woman meets that woman,' and that can be reductive.” We should be empowering women, not belittling them. Fair enough, you may have a preferred music taste, but dragging them and their fans across social media is a step too far The trolling online does not just stay in the comment section on a Twitter post, it becomes internalised. It’s no longer just a problem that lingers every time we scroll through our social media feeds. Growing up in a generation where we see the media broadcasting comparisons between someone’s ex-partner to their new partner or slandering the success of someone new to the industry makes us automatically target them as part of some superficial hate campaign. It becomes a part of our mindset to believe that it’s normal to put a woman down due to our dislike of who she is dating. What does that leave us with? If this continues, this form of misogyny will become embedded in each generation. It becomes normalised and seen as a rational response. That being said, it’s already practised in our own lives. It’s ingrained in us to envy the partner of the person we fancied or that girl who nabbed the job position we were dying to get. It’s not just something that we read in the news any longer, but something that has become a staple of our everyday lives. It’s 2023, for crying out loud. It’s time to put this pettiness where it’s meant to be - in the past.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Trinity is not a business, so why does the College Board treat it like one? Finn Rogerson

Contributing Writer

he College Board in Trinity has been opaque in nature from the beginning. Sure, the minutes for each meeting are available online. The goals outlined in the 2020-2025 Strategic Plan are there to view. However, unless you are willing to sift through all of these documents in order to ascertain how the Board is run, and to find out its goals, it can remain quite distant to your day-to-day life. It is only in the college-wide emails or official Trinity press releases that you can catch a glimpse of the decision-making machine that runs the College. So, when it was announced on September 21 that the Board was undergoing a restructuring, bringing in 6 new members, 2 new staff and 2 new student members, I was curious to see what the impact of these changes would be. In essence, the change in board structure can be seen as an attempt by the College to maintain its autonomy and increase the number of staff and student representatives, which ought to be a good thing. However, the Board has historically always had four student representatives. So this move actually intends to undo the results of the Higher Education

Authority Act 2022 (HEA Act), which forced the Board to reduce its number of student and staff representatives, and increase the number of external members from two to nine. Government influence looms large within Trinity’s internal structure, and under these conditions it will continue to do so, if not get more pronounced. The Board is now less representative

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Why is the Government attempting to make such a forceful move into third level bureaucracy? of the college corpus and while it is important to consider who the new student members should be, it’s equally important that we question government involvement in the first place. Why is the Government attempting to make such a forceful move into third level bureaucracy? The HEA Act 2022 was seen by many as an attempt by

the Department of Education to leverage their control over the running of colleges. Specifically in Trinity's case, the Board had to allow for an increased amount of ‘external’ seats to be allocated by the Department. These replaced student- as well as staffrepresentative positions. The Act also forced the Board to shrink representation more generally to comply with the requirement to decrease the overall board size. On top of this, the Chairperson of the Board, historically the Provost, was replaced by an external member, further constricting the Board’s autonomy. The Department of Education’s explicit reasoning for the allocation of more Board members seems, at face value, to be centered around governance and funding. Regrettably, this not only reinforces the idea that academic courses are supposed to be economic tools, but also risks allowing research to be funded based on economic value rather than intrinsic merit. This makes sense if you’re trying to run a business, where research and development are supposed to increase revenue, but for an academic institution such as Trinity, this is ridiculous when you consider that the vast amount of research is not qualified by its ability to provide profitable results. Many famous cases, such as the invention of penicillin and insulin, provide immense value to economies everywhere, even though they were discovered

accidentally. While the Department of Education argues that it is seeking to make governance better for the College, you might question if the motivation for running a college more like a business somewhat sacrifices intellectual inquiry, discourse, and the pursuit of knowledge. The Government alleged that Trinity was engaging in bad governance by allowing the Provost to maintain the Chairperson position, so instead we now have as Chairperson of the College Board someone who has spent the majority of their career working for private firms. The Board must, by necessity, be run by competent and organized persons in order to manage such a large institution. However, when such organization and drive for efficiency start becoming more important than the very purpose of the university itself, something is lost. The reshaping of Trinity’s governance through public sector reforms is a valid threat to our college.The HEA Act 2022 enabled the Minister for Further Education, Simon Harris, to appoint three members to the Board. It seems deeply contradictory for Mr. Harris to suggest that the Act will allow for healthier discourse about college governance, while proceeding to allocate three positions to lawyers to further undermine other members. While the number and identities of people on the College Board may not seem important, in some sense this is a narrative we’ve been told to accept. What would happen if the Students Union fell out with the Government, and the Department of Education decided to no longer recognize them? Or if an austerity government began to see third level institutions as

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an economic tool? Considering their influence on the Board, it seems within the realm of possibility. It feels like this unfinished entanglement process makes us further complacent in the commercialisation of academia. In the clash between the expenditureorientated and profit-maximizing tendencies of the Government versus the more education-based needs of the College, a healthy Board should mostly be focused on authentically representing the needs of the faculty and students, rather than the ideals of government power. This is not to say that Trinity should be left to its own devices. I think we can all appreciate that some level of financial oversight should be expected, but this seems miles away from the current designs of the government. In a few weeks, students will vote for the appointment of new student representatives. The Board structure pre-HEA Act 2022 was that this position would be filled by another member of the Student Union, which seems to be a reasonable suggestion. Any students who are vocal and passionate about the educational and welfare needs of other students will naturally increase the likelihood of students’ needs being addressed. At any rate, we should want the College Board to represent a wide range of people who are members of the College. Rather than lawyers and those purely with an economic pursuit in mind, we need people committed to pushing for Trinity to have as good an environment as possible. As long as ‘good’ is not defined as profit-maximizing and qualification-oriented, the new student member will be a positive addition.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

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Gender quotas in Ireland: A hasty solution to a serious problem Kate Byrne

Deputy Comment Editor

female usher is groped while on the clock. A man claims he needs to “rein in” a woman who has spoken out against him. His colleague pulls a woman onto his lap against her will. A blonde woman is referred to as Miss Piggy. Another woman is accused of “speaking out of her fanny”. When they speak up, his colleague replies, “sure that’s women for ya”. This is not a recap of the goings-on at your local pub on a Friday evening. This has all occurred within the Houses of the Oireachtas. As someone who got voted “most likely to become the president” in school, you’d think I would dream of entering the political arena in Ireland. However, when you open the Irish Examiner and read the words “there’s no denying Mary Lou’s sex appeal” at the impressionable age of sixteen, you don’t necessarily fancy yourself potentially replacing her name in that headline. Perhaps the fact that women like myself are running in the opposite direction of the Dáil Chamber is surprising, given that in 2012, a law was introduced that obliges political parties to ensure that at least 30% of the candidates they run in general elections are female. From this year onwards, the threshold has risen to 40%. However, just because parties have to run female candidates, does not mean that we have to vote for them. The quota system in Ireland places too much faith in the general public, not only to elect these female politicians, but to treat them with respect and decorum. As a result, Ireland falls behind China and Iraq for women’s representation in national parliaments, ranking an embarrassing 98th in the world. This is not to say that we should vote for female candidates simply because they’re female. Just because a politician is female does not mean that she represents everything that I stand for and every political value that I hold, and why should she? Why is it

that a male politician can run for office and represent his local constituency and the political values he holds, but a woman must not only do this, but also represent the female population as a whole. When I go to the ballot box and cast my vote in the next general election, it will be very likely that I will not identify with any of the female candidates on the ballot in front of me. I don’t exactly see a woman in a centre-right party who aims to cut social welfare payments as a symbol of me and what I stand for. Because of this, it’s evident that gender quotas are a hasty solution to an incredibly complex problem. We expect elected women to advocate on behalf of other women, but we forget that they are constrained by their party policies, which may act to inhibit the discussion of womens’ issues at a desirable level. On top of this, we have to actually get womens’ names on the ballot paper, a more difficult task than you may expect. Dr. Lisa Keenan and Dr. Gail McElroy of the Political Science Department at Trinity College have carried out extensive research on the factors determining female representation

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The quota system in Ireland places too much faith in the general public, not only to elect these female politicians, but to treat them with respect

in Ireland, and have found that in Ireland, despite increased demand for female candidates, women are still hesitant to run for office. We shouldn’t be surprised that so many women are reluctant

to run for office. Some female politicians have actually stopped encouraging other women to run for office. Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan has stated that she has “gone past the stage of recommending politics to people” as a result of years of abuse during her career. Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns, who has faced extensive online abuse, has noted that if she had known what she was getting herself into, she would not have gone into politics. This proves that there is a fundamental issue within Irish society that obstructs women's opportunities, and it is an issue that can not be fixed by a simple quota policy. Even if we put the issue of gendered abuse of politicians to the side, there is a fundamental issue enshrined within our constitution that acts as a hurdle towards female participation in politics. No, I’m not talking about the infamous Article 41.2 discussing a woman’s “life within the home”. I’m talking about our voting system. PR-STV encourages a localist mindset when it comes to voting. The public thinks strategically about what candidates can best support their local area, and, in turn, candidates promise to solve issues that are exclusive to their constituency such as pot-holes and roadworks. These politicians, who are mostly male, are elected time and time again, making it difficult for newer candidates to enter the competition in these constituencies. Let’s be realistic here. Would you, as a woman,

fancy your chances of competing for a seat with the Healy-Raes in Kerry? Quotas do, of course, have positive effects. They normalise the presence of female candidates on the ballot. They have created a space that encourages women to run for office. They do not address how undesirable existing in this space is for women. They do not address the abuse that women get within this space. They do not address systemic issues within this space, such as the voting system. On the surface, the issue is this: we allow women to enter politics, but we don’t let them get too comfortable. Quotas, in the Irish political system, barely scrape the surface of the issues that face female politicians on a daily basis. They do nothing to tackle representation and the abuse of women within the political sphere. They do little to carry out one of their primary functions, which is to encourage women to actually run for office. There are issues evident in the socialisation of Irish people, our unwillingness to look past local issues and our habits of strategic voting that reduce the effectiveness of quotas. The proposal for the creation of four new constituencies and 14 additional seats for the election ahead provides an opportunity for these issues to be discussed at a governmental level. Until these issues are addressed, to the dismay of my former classmates, I won’t be running for office any time soon.

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Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

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Editorial: Budget 2024 won’t buy students’ ballots in 2025

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Budget 2024 shows government would rather move us further down the track rather than slow down the train

IMAGE VIA UNSPLASH

eyond looking after the wellbeing of its citizens, a government budget is a democracy’s acceptable attempt to buy votes. Much like your grandparents will vote for the TD who fixed the pothole on their road, larger demographics across society might look more favourably at a government which they feel has invested in their needs. The current government likely feels this quid pro quo more keenly this year as, unless it changes its tune on an early election, this is its second-last budget to prove the coalition’s value. However, despite the hefty sum of Budget 2024, the brown envelopes handed to students this year are unlikely to send them racing to the ballot box to reelect this government. This year’s budget had a spending of €14bn, a figure on the higher end among budgets of recent years. In terms of investments, government will invest €96.6bn across its departments. The Department of Further and Higher Education received an investment of €4.15bn, roughly a 25% increase compared to last year’s investments, making it the 6th largest budget allocation across 18 departments. These statistics sound like students should be bowing at the coalition’s feet in gratitude, but in reality, the measures they represent struggle to stir any strong reaction from students drained of most faith. It would be unfairly cynical to suggest that Budget 2024 will have no positive impact on students’ lives whatsoever. Getting rid of college fees for all students from households earning below €56,000 annually, for example, is a measure that will support students in years to come. This is particularly the case for the most vulnerable students. According to the Central Statistics Office, the median

household income for single parents was €36,305 in 2022, while the median household income overall was €46,999. Measures taken in this year’s budget means more families can feel that bit more secure in the long-term. Affording higher education is just one part of the problem, however, and effective long-term policies in Budget 2024 don’t go much further than removing fees for more families. The Rent Tax Credit was increased to €750 for single people in this year’s budget and expanded to students living in digs, which is certainly a relief boost. However, it remains a once-off policy government can choose to revoke next year. The credit also doesn’t cover a single month’s rent in the majority of accommodation in Dublin, especially when accommodation in Rent Pressure Zones treat the 2% cap on rent increases as an invitation to increase rent every year than actual restrictions. In Trinity itself, €750 would only just about cover one month in its Pearse Street housing, its cheapest accommodation option. The increased credit also means precisely nothing to students who were unable to find or afford accommodation in the first place and commute, sometimes for hours back and forth, everyday. Reducing college fees by up to €1,500 for all students is also a relief for students once again this year and will leave households with a bit more disposable income. However, like the credit, the onceoff measure isn’t going to make a huge difference in the financial, academic and social life of students in years to come. Pressure has been pushing down on students

like a train approaching someone tied to a track at an increasingly faster rate. Budget 2024 shows government would rather move us further down the track rather than slow down the train. High investments mean little without proper direction. Measures like abolishing fees for more households show that government knows the value of long-term policies, but there are so many more ways the budget could have made this long term difference for students. Government could commit to the decision in 2022 to subsidise 4,500 student accommodation bed spaces in return for cheaper rents for students. Less than a quarter of the promised spaces have been approved for building, with none approved in Trinity, and even though reports suggest money has been allocated to this endeavour already, there has been no updates on this new accommodation since 2022. Budget season could have been the ideal time to announce concrete plans for promises already made, but government chose solely to repeat last year’s once-off measure that only scratches the surface of addressing the lack of affordable student housing. There are also measures that can be taken that wouldn’t cost government any large sum, but would save students considerable stress. The State could work with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) to improve and expand the policies of Student Specific Accommodation (SSA). While those living in student housing are now officially recognised by the RTB, student accommodation exists under a licence agreement rather than a tenancy agreement.

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Government could commit to the decision in 2022 to subsidise 4,500 student bed spaces in return for cheaper rents for students When a college or a private accommodation company is your landlord, they can still increase their “utility charges” to increase costs for students beyond RPZ limits. Students are also left frustrated when they are restricted on how many guests they can have in their accommodation and when they are allowed to invite those guests and when college staff can enter your home without warning. The State could also introduce policies around digs, so students entering adulthood aren’t given rules for when they need to be home by, or when they can even be in that home. A policy that incentivises people to rent out

rooms in their homes for €14,000 tax-free but doesn’t protect students from being kicked out on weekends to make room for Airbnb guests is not a policy truly designed with a student in mind. The government likely imagines that putting restrictions on how someone can treat a student they’re renting a room to would stop them from renting the room altogether; but if someone can be so easily put off letting when told to treat an adult like an adult, perhaps we’re relying on the wrong people to provide housing. As mentioned before, a government budget, and even government policies, are a bargaining chip for political leaders to incentivise people to vote for them in future elections. This budget, while offering some relief to students, shows the government parties are not banking on student votes. This makes some sense, considering, short of giving every student in the country a house and a pony, the majority of young people in Ireland could not be persuaded to vote for Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or, to a lesser extent, the Green Party. Budget 2024 shows the government is not trying to nudge young people to the ballot box for them by repeating the majority of the once-off policies from last year without considering the increasingly dire situation students are in. A 50% discount on public transport for 25-year-olds won’t change lives when so many young people won’t be here to enjoy it. They’ll do what so many young people burned by a lack of housing, lack of saving, lack of life, have done before them and vote with their feet.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

SciTech

Unveiling the electrifying enigma of LK-99 Divyum Singh page 23

How to write a popular science book Róisín Ferguson page 24

Alice Matty Deputy Sex and Relationships Editor

f I had a dime for each time a friend asked “you don’t need to go to the bathroom?” on a night out, I’d have … well, I guess I’d have no dimes, because, as most college students will vouch, once the seal has been broken (as it is commonly coined), there’s no going back (except to the bathroom for the rest of the night of course). A night out can quickly become less fun if you feel like you’re in the bathroom peeing the whole time. So why do we need to urinate excessively after drinking alcohol? The urinary tract is made up of your kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra. The kidneys produce urine, which travels through tubes called ureters into the bladder. When the bladder is full, it sends a signal to your brain alerting it, preparing for urine to exit the body via the urethra, and the bladder is ready to fill up once again. While it’s possible to hold your urine, there is no actual seal involved in your urinary tract. “Breaking the seal” is a myth that once a person urinates for the first time while drinking alcohol, they have broken the seal and will now have to urinate repeatedly as a result. However there is no urinary seal, and peeing after you’ve started drinking won’t make you have to go any more or less in the coming hours. Resisting the urge to urinate won’t make a difference in how much you need to pee, and it can also be harmful. Repeatedly holding in your urine can increase your risk of urinary tract infections (UTIs), which can make you feel like you need to pee even when you don’t. Nonetheless, a person will indeed have to urinate more often when drinking alcohol. There are a few factors at play for why you can feel the need to pee more when you drink alcohol versus when you drink the same amount of

water. Kidneys regulate the amount of water in one’s body by monitoring the plasma osmolality of your blood. Osmolality indicates the concentration of all the particles dissolved in body fluid, by measuring the body’s electrolyte-water balance. It describes the ratio of particles in blood to fluid — if there is more fluid than particles, kidneys tell the body to release more urine, and conversely, when there are more particles than fluid, the kidneys hold onto fluid, and you may not feel the urge to pee. Because alcohol is a liquid, it tips the osmolality in favour of more fluid. As a result, you’ll ultimately pee out the equivalent of what you drink (which is probably more than one pint within the

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Resisting the urge to urinate won’t make a difference in how much you need to pee, and it can also be harmful hour). Additionally, alcohol is a diuretic. A diuretic is any substance that promotes diuresis — the increased production of urine — as well as an increased urine flow rate. Drinking alcohol

inhibits the body’s release of the hormone vasopressin, also commonly referred to as antidiuretic hormone (ADH). The brain signals the release of ADH in response to an increase in particles over fluids (osmolality). ADH then indicates to the kidneys that the water should be held onto. When people drink high quantities of alcohol, it can cause the kidneys to filter more fluids and get rid of them by making the body urinate more frequently. However, when this is suppressed, alcohol can make the kidneys release more water, resulting in a dehydrating effect on your body that will ultimately make you urinate more than usual. The extra urine comes from the liquid you’re taking in, plus your body’s fluid reserves. This depletion of fluid reserves is how alcohol causes dehydration and is partly to blame for hangovers. Essentially, without vasopressin the bladder fills up

more rapidly, causing frequent urination. It is critical to be mindful of hydration levels when drinking. If a person does not drink enough water with alcohol, they can become dehydrated very quickly. It is possible to stay hydrated when drinking alcohol by drinking at least one glass of water for each serving of alcohol. Generally, the diuretic effect of alcohol lasts up to four hours, but this may vary depending on the type of alcoholic beverage a person consumes. Certain factors affect how often we may have to urinate as a result of alcohol. A stronger alcohol strength may result in more frequent urination — cocktails and liquors may induce the irritating urge to pee to a greater extent than a pint. Furthermore, how often you may drink alcohol (your alcohol tolerance) may play a role — when a person consumes alcohol quite frequently, the body becomes

accustomed to the presence of alcohol, and thus over time, the alcohol will have a lower diuretic effect. Many studies have also found that those who were slightly less hydrated before drinking alcohol urinated less than their counterparts who were hydrated, even when drinking the same quantities of alcohol. Essentially, consuming alcohol in moderation and drinking alcoholic beverages with lower amounts of alcohol may be the only ways to prevent urinating so much when drinking (perhaps not the best advice for the first month back in college!). So don’t beat yourself up if you can never beat the ‘‘constantly needs to go to the bathroom on a night out’’ allegations. Science has got your back on this one. Go out, and go out fearlessly (not that that was stopping any of us anyways), just prepare for a night that is fated to be spent as long in the bathroom as in the club. It happens to the best of us.

ARTWORK BY SAOIRSE CORBETT FOR TRINITY NEWS

Alice Matty explores why alcohol makes us urinate like a faucet

PHOTO BY HENRY SYNOTT FOR TRINTIY NEWS

When alcohol takes the piss

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

SciTech

Buzz of summer 2023: Unveiling the electrifying enigma of LK-99

Divyum Singhal Contributing Writer

magine a single substance which has the power to reshape the very foundations of technology and science as we know them. Enter LK-99. A mysterious substance with an equally enigmatic name, it has recently been the centre of a scientific whirlwind. Initially celebrated as a prospective roomtemperature superconductor, LK-99 has since faced rigorous scrutiny, leaving many questions unanswered. LK-99’s journey from the breakthrough of the century to a myth to a possible breakthrough is a fascinating tale of scientific pursuit. In this article, we shall dive headfirst into the bumpy journey of LK-99, from its birth to the heated debate that followed. A Dream Come True Say hello to superconductors, which make electricity flow without resistance and seemingly break the ironclad laws of physics. This marvel of science has limitless potential to turn dreams into reality, and is now leading us down alleyways that were initially deemed blocked. But first, what is a superconductor? A superconductor is a material that has zero electrical resistance below a certain temperature, generally so low that it is very difficult and expensive to achieve. At such a temperature, electricity can flow through the material without any energy loss. In a conventional electrical conductor, such as copper or aluminium, electrons are slowed down by the material’s resistance as they move through it, leading to energy losses, generally in the form of heat. Superconductors, on the other hand, have zero resistance in a certain temperature range, allowing for an uninterrupted flow of electric current with no loss of energy. This unique quality has the power to transform various industries and technologies. With technology like this in our toolbox, engineers can look forward to a future where energy transmission is ultra-efficient, transforming power grids into eco-friendly ventures and building electronic devices which according

to basic laws of mechanics cannot be done! In the medical field in particular, use for superconductors is found in high-resolution MRI machines and advanced treatments for a myriad of diseases. Magnetic levitation trains, once only possible in sci-fi films, glide silently on superconducting tracks. With limitless potential, these materials illuminate a path towards a sustainable, high-tech future, reshaping our world in ways once deemed impossible.

PHOTO VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Myth or marvel: How viable is the supposed discovery of the most revolutionary material of the year?

The Birth of LK-99 The tale of our protagonist, LK99, begins at Korea University in 1999, when researchers Lee Sukbae and Kim Ji-Hoon began their quest to explore the properties of this perplexing material. LK99 is described as a grey-black polycrystalline compound: a copper-doped lead-oxyapatite (a compound containing lead, phosphate and halogen ions) to be precise. Some researchers have described the discovery thus: by partially substituting larger lead ions with smaller copper ions, internal stress was induced within the material, giving rise to a phenomenon known as heterojunction quantum well. In 2015 LK-99 was first introduced as an eventual superconductor, capable of conducting electricity without resistance at temperatures as high as the room temperature. This was a notable advancement, since other superconductors require gelid temperatures to behave in this manner.

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In July 2023, LK-99 made an electrifying entrance into the scientific world LK-99’s Meteoric Rise In July 2023, LK-99 made an electrifying entrance into the scientific world when Korea University researchers claimed it was a room-temperature superconductor, conducting electricity without resistance up to 400 K (127 °C; 260 °F) under normal pressure. What sets LK-99 apart from previous superconductors is its record-breaking critical temperature (Tc). The critical

temperature is the temperature at which a material becomes superconducting. While earlier superconductors required temperatures close to absolute zero (-273.15°C) to exhibit superconductivity, LK-99 can maintain this state at temperatures as high as 127°C. It is effectively this remarkable advancement that brought the superconductor closer to practical applications in everyday technology. The Fall from Grace However, as news of LK-99’s potential breakthrough went viral, doubts flooded in. Other labs rushed to replicate the findings, though they yielded inconsistent results. Some researchers claimed success, while others faced challenges. Social media buzzed with pseudonymous claims of successful replications, including “partial levitation” videos that mostly turned out to be baits and hoaxes. By mid-August 2023, the consensus was clear: LK-99, in its pure form, did not display superconducting traits at any temperature. Instead, it behaved as an insulator, punctuating the meteoric rise with a forlorn fall from grace. The Hurdles Along the Way Several factors contributed to the scepticism surrounding LK99’s superconducting claims. Missing Traits

Superconducting

Superconductors are known for having specific traits such as zero resistance and the Meissner effect, characteristics which LK-99 failed

to demonstrate. Impurity Issues LK-99’s synthesis process often resulted in the presence of impurities, particularly copper sulphide. Copper sulphide and other impurities can result in sudden drops in resistance at certain temperatures and exhibit perfect diamagnetism (anti-magnetism) which can be misunderstood as the Meissner effect. These impurities mimic superconducting behaviour, therefore causing misleading outcomes. Inconsistent Results Different laboratories reported varying results, with some observing magnetic responses that did not align with typical superconductivity, further fuelling doubts. The Ongoing Debate Yet the truth remains elusive. As of now, no replication attempts have undergone the crucible of peer review in scientific journals. Replication attempts have revealed other explanations for observations initially thought to be superconductivity, suggesting they might be due to typical magnetic behaviours instead. The Public Response The public’s response to LK-99 was nothing short of incredible. Social media platforms were abuzz with discussions about “floating rocks” and even meme coins based on the substance were created. Investors in technology stocks briefly experienced surges in

value, only for them to plummet later when doubts surfaced. As the jury votes on the future of superconductors, the world watches, eager for the final verdict. In this ongoing scientific chronicle, LK-99 is a mere chapter in the book of relentless human pursuit of truth and discovery. Conclusion: Continues

The

Quest

Based on the available information, it seems that LK-99 is more likely to be a myth than a breakthrough. The conflicting reports and lack of consensus among researchers, as well as the recent findings suggesting that LK99 is not a superconductor seem to all point to its questionable status in the scientific community. The world of superconductivity had long been bound to the icy realms of extreme cryogenics. Materials that exhibited superconducting properties demanded temperatures approaching absolute zero, making their practical applications limited and costly. But LK-99 promised to rewrite this narrative. With the potential for superconductivity at room temperature, the possibilities seem endless. Hope, however, flickers in the scientific community. Some researchers still have confidence that LK-99 will reveal superconducting properties when exposed to rigorous testing, while others have lingering questions about the role of impurities and are wary of the unconventional and somewhat misleading behaviour they exhibit. As research into LK99 and similar materials continues, we can only imagine the potential transformations they may bring to our world.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

SciTech

How to write a popular science book: In conversation with Kevin Mitchell

Róisín Ferguson Staff Writer

t is a truth universally acknowledged that the closer you get to finishing your degree, the further you get to finishing that book that has been dog-eared on the same page for the last month. As our burgeoning fresher’s have yet to learn; all the reading you do in your final year is exclusively for your degree. But what if there’s a way you can do both, read for pleasure and read for good educational measure? Enter popular science books. Popular science spans such a wide variety of different nonfiction texts but they all intend to make science accessible for the general public. To delve deeper into popular science, I sat down with geneticist, neuroscientist, and author, Dr. Kevin Mitchell to hear what he had to say about writing and communicating scientific discoveries and concepts to a wider audience.

so then you can tell them about it. The challenge with ‘my field’ or trying to cover lots of different areas is then you end up having to give background knowledge on a load of stuff before you even delve into any of the main points in the book because you’ve run out of words! Background knowledge ends up becoming your book. There’s a fine balance between introducing ideas on a needto-know basis, stripping out an overload of detail. But having said that, there’s some cases where you do have to put more detail in so that the reader will really get it and not just feel like they’ve got it because you kind of glossed over it or didn’t give a concrete example.” How important is readability when it comes to writing about science? KM: “It [readability] is the clarity and the work that has been done in stripping out the extraneous details, or the little tangents, or the qualifiers, asides and caveats that normally pepper academic writing. When we as scientists are reading academic papers, we do that filtering all ourselves. We learn how to sift

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There’s a fine balance What do you think is between challenging about writing popular science in your field in introducing particular? ideas on a KM: “My field is kind of funny need-tobecause it’s very interdisciplinary. It’s a mix of neuroscience, know basis, genetics, psychology, evolution, physiatry and sometimes veering stripping out into philosophy, especially with my latest book. The challenge an overload of for me is getting to grips with all that stuff, but my career has detail fortunately spanned those areas. And then, of course, the other challenge is communicating that. The interesting thing is that most scientists are so specialised that to communicate the genetics, say, to those specialised in neuroscience is effectively the same as communicating it to the general educated public. In fact that’s how I got into writing for the general public, through writing interdisciplinary stuff within science. But in order to do that you just can’t assume anything. So the way you end up approaching the communication is by just writing for the general intelligent reader who doesn’t happen to know the stuff that you do happen to know

through it or filter through it a bit more and our eyes are almost trained now to not see these references so as not to interrupt the flow of our reading. So you have to make it readable, and you have to think about the narrative. A lot of science books either describe the personal stories of the individual who carried out the work or some kind of anecdote that you can derive a lesson from, you see that all the time in popular psychology books. It has to have a human interest hook. Personally, I don’t particularly like that model myself and I don’t write that way,

so when I say “you have to think about the narrative” I don’t mean it in that way. I think the hook is the idea, but you still need to have a narrative around the idea so that people can follow and so that it has a flow.”

PHOTO VIA PRINCETON PRESS LIBRARY

Kevin Mitchell speaks to Trinity News about his new book “Free Agents: How Evolution gave us Free Will”

Can there be a case where you make the content so relatable or almost too accessible to the point that it becomes a misrepresentation of the research? KM: “I think that can absolutely be the case. That issue can arise if you’re oversimplifying to the point of being wrong. There’s a difference between synthesising and explaining the big principles that you know are well supported by lots of stuff in that field and making simplistic claims that you know are not well supported in the field. [...] I think there’s a lot of books out there that just rely on individual studies. A lot of popular psychology books are like that but they’ll phrase it as a general rule whereas if you look at it, they’re saying that this one study of 20 people with this teeny tiny effect size, and was never replicated or if it was replicated the results weren’t same, because it’s an inadequate attempt at a scientific study. But suddenly it becomes this fact. And that’s a danger I think, because particular findings are then presented as facts with implications and then you’re several steps away from the actual study that was done but you’re left with these implications that seem huge.” At this point in our conversation, I was reminded of a recent read: ‘Friendaholic’ by Elizabeth Day. Although an amazingly written and deeply insightful book to ponder on, I found her inclusion and discussion of isolated papers to weaken the validity of her argument, not to mention that most of the studies in question were incredibly outdated and required greater testing. While this is no inflection on Day’s character or her integrity as an author, unfortunately, it is simply not how scientific research works. Our obsession with facts and wanting a conclusive and unfaltering answer for anything and everything means we can be blind to the most important and perhaps bewildering fact of all; that science does not have all the answers all of the time and that if it does have an answer, that answer is only a reflection of what we know so far. KM: “This is the key and sometimes people don’t like that. What we can present is our provisional understanding of a topic. At least that’s what I try to do, present our provisional understanding in the round and

not focus on any individual studies in particular; big picture stuff. And that picture is subject to change, and that’s our best understanding right now. To me that’s just honest, because it shows science as a process that is ongoing.” I initially felt bad for rejecting Day’s reference to certain studies. I didn’t want to shun her or others for trying to incorporate science. Dr. Mitchell explained I wasn’t the only one experiencing the same conflict or disappointment of misrepresentative execution. KM: “It’s a problem with the scientific literature. The scientific literature is full of stuff that is wrong, that’s just the harsh truth of it. When science journalists pick up stories and they get into the popular arena or when scientists themselves write books that lean on studies that aren’t well done or best practice science, then things just get out there and stick. [...] There’s a tendency to think science just shows us the truth, and only the truth, that it is entirely objective 100% of the time. What people don’t often realise is that we’re always bringing some kind of assumptions, a certain set of beliefs, thoughts about what’s important to the design of scientific experiments and to their interpretation. And that applies

to everything from quantum physics to mapping neurons in the brain. We, as scientists but more obviously as humans, are always doing some sort of philosophy whether we know we are or not.” Who do you feel popular science books are really for? KM: “I think it varies a lot. Some popular science books are written more with experts in mind and then some are written more with the general public in mind. I think my own work is, I hope, somewhere in the middle. I think a lot about my parents when I’m writing. They’re educated people who are interested in lots of things as everyone is and if they can understand what’s in the book then I’m happy, I’ve hit that sweet spot and I’m satisfied that anyone in the general public could understand it. Whether they can analyse it critically or evaluate it, is a trickier thing because in order for you to be able to really evaluate the claims you’d need to already be aware of the specific data, the pitfalls of certain pieces of data and the initial sources of information or discovery like research papers, which is not something that is entirely accessible for the general public.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Sport

Strong start to the season for DUHC and DULHC Jane Prendergast page 26

Clontarf edge Trinity in AIL opener Joe Downey& Séaghan Ó Domhnalláin

page 28

Emotional Ireland team exits World Cup after loss to New Zealand The game marked the end of Ireland’s campaign and the last World Cup for several iconic players including Captain Johnny Sexton Kate Henshaw Editor-in-Chief

he Irish rugby squad has fallen short at the World Cup Quarter Finals in the Stade de France. Losing to New Zealand 28-24, the game marked the end of Captain Johnny Sexton’s career and the last World Cup campaign for several of the squad’s most iconic players. Going into the second half the Irish were one point down having clawed their way back from a 13-0 deficit in the latter stages of the first half. The “quarter final curse” struck again by the final whistle with Ireland making uncharacteristic errors and having some overall poor luck. Credit must be given to New

Zealand, who went into the game as the underdogs, were quicker to the breakdown with and without possession. Along with their line speed, the All Blacks never allowed Ireland to play on their terms. In a World Cup that was hailed to bring an end to the curse the Irish have once again not seen past a Quarter Final. Entering the second half they were chasing the game. A series of unfortunate errors including Dan Sheehan narrowly missing a kicked ball from Mack Hansen, a missed tackle that led to a New Zealand try from Will Jordan and a missed penalty by Sexton sealed the match for New Zealand. Not even an impressive 37 phases of play from the Irish at the end could close the gap. Many players were visibly emotional as the final whistle was blown. Players including Bundee Aki, Peter O’Mahony, Conor Murray and of course Sexton were captured by the cameras. Given their ages, it’s unlikely any of these players will see another World Cup. Speaking in the press conference after the game Sexton was asked to reflect on his career in green jersey: “It’s been a dream come true for all of us, and I include today as well.” Sexton praised the fans that have made the journey to France: “How can you be prouder to be Irish when you see what’s happened over the last six weeks really? We get behind the team like no other, it’s incredible

and it’s not wasted on us.” He noted how this was “so hard to take” because they “didn’t give [the fans] another couple of weekends”. In the immediate aftermath of the match Sexton could be seen with his son who looked at him and said: “You’re still the best, Dad.” When asked about where Ireland goes from here in the context of his retirement he said: “This group will bounce back. They’re an incredible group, led by the man beside me [Andy Farrell]. The best group I have ever been a part of, bar none.” Speaking about his future he said: “These guys, they will go on and achieve great things, and I’ll be sitting in the stand, having a pint like you lads.” Ireland Head Coach Andy Farrell shared in Sexton’s disappointment saying: “Over the next 24 hours, it’s time to make sure that we get a smile back on our faces as soon as we possibly can and celebrate what has been some unbelievable careers and what they have done for Irish rugby. It’s important to us, that.” “Sport can be cruel sometimes, that’s why we love it so much, but I’ll reflect on it more over the coming days. My initial feeling is that I’m unbelievably proud of the group, how they handled themselves, not just today but all through the tournament, over the last couple of years. That will be my overriding feeling.” Farrell also praised Sexton

and his impact on Irish rugby: “I’ve just said to the group in the changing room that the reason I know they are going to keep on learning is because of this guy sat beside me [Sexton]. The impact he has had on the rest of the team the last four years has been amazing.” “The way that he has conducted himself as a leader, as a rugby player and the way that he has shown the love for playing for Ireland will be remembered and connected to this group for many years to come. So, through his example the younger guys will keep on getting better and striving to be better. There’s no

doubt about that.” A night of disappointment for the Irish and a Quarter Final curse left unbroken by possibly the best Ireland squad we’ve ever seen. With Sexton and others departing in advance of the next World Cup it remains to be seen how younger players will pick up the pieces. If one thing is for certain it’s that both Farrell and Sexton have complete faith in them to do so. Still it remains the biggest disappointment in Irish rugby in recent memory. It can all be summed up by the players’ words in the aftermath: “It’s hard to take.”

PHOTOS VIA @INPHO/BILLY STICKLAND VIA IRFU

Tuesday 17 October| TRINITY NEWS

Sport

Strong start to the season for DUHC and DULHC Trinity hockey has kicked off its campaigns in style, with impressive opening performances from the mens’ and ladies’ squads Jane Prendergast Sport Co-Editor

ome sports enjoy the luxury of a “less is more” approach to competition, but hockey encamps itself firmly and far away from such a stance. Last season saw the assorted teams of both Dublin University Hockey Club (DUHC) and Dublin University Ladies’ Hockey Club (DULHC) average a match per week from

the end of September until March. This season is shaping up to be no different, with a preseason tour and four weekends’ worth of matches due to be completed at the time of print. Mid-September brought about the return of DUHC’s traditional preseason trip to England, with DULHC also in attendance. DUHC enjoyed two stiff battles against Nottingham Trent University Men’s Hockey Club and Loughborough University Student Men’s Hockey Club, while DULHC defeated their female counterparts 4-2 and 3-0 respectively. A weekend of scorching sunshine and great play was an unmistakably positive note on which to kick off their respective seasons, a sentiment clearly felt by the both Clubs. Regular season opened first for DULHC on September 23, with the First XI taking on Kilkenny 1s in Division 1, the Seconds facing up against Pembrokes 2nds in Division 2, and the third and fourth teams taking on UCD 5ths in Division 4 and Carlow 2nds in Division 10 respectively. Two well-matched games culminated in a 1-1 draw

for the Firsts against Kilkenny and a 3-3 game for the Thirds against UCD, while the Seconds and Fourths took losses on board. An immediate refocus had to take place with all four teams out to play again the following weekend. A packed day of action saw the Seconds, Thirds and Fourths take losses against the second teams of Loreto, Glenanne and Newbridge respectively, while the Firsts dug deep to tough out a 1-1 draw against Bray 1s. DUHC, meanwhile, have been kept equally preoccupied as the academic year has restarted. While the men’s club doesn’t reach DULHC’s standards of regularly fielding four teams - an achievement which puts them among the largest competitive female sports clubs in College - DUHC nevertheless regularly compete across three divisions, with a first, second and third XI. DUHC’s season opened on September 16, with the First XI taking an impressive 3-0 win in an away Neville Cup fixture against North Kildare 1s, with goals from Evan Rankin (Captain), Ben Hickmott (Vice Captain) and Liam Bean. This

was followed, however, with a challenging 6-0 defeat at home to Pembroke Wanderers 1sts a fortnight later in Division 1A. The Seconds and Thirds played their opening games on September 30. The Seconds executed well to pull off a 2-2 draw against Wicklow HC 2nds in Division 4, while the Thirds suffered a 3-0 defeat to North Kildare 2nds in Division 6. Outside of their busy competitive and training schedules, both hockey clubs of Trinity are known for their collaborative and vibrant social scene, and the close ties maintained with club alumni. In collaboration with Trinity Sailing, DULHC and DUHC cohosted a Freshers’ Pub Crawl over Freshers Week, and followed that up with an exclusive DULHC x DUHC mixer in the shape of the infamous “cable tie’’ event, wherein a member from each club is connected via cable tie to a member of the opposite club, with the duos then having to complete challenges around Dublin before landing in Doyles’ pub. Last March also saw DUHC and DULHC team up with

Sailing, LawSoc, DUMSS, DU Tennis and DUBES for Trinity Ents’ largest collaborative event of the year, a “Shit Shirt Shindig’’ in aid of Pieta House. Alumni relations are also notably strong for both clubs, both of whom traditionally complete annual challenge matches against their former members. DUHC take on their alumni for the Coulson Cup and DULHC face up to their alumnae for the Wheeler Plate, inaugurated in 2017. DULHC trains exclusively in the Trinity Sports Grounds in Santry. The 1sts train on Mondays, 7:30pm - 9:30pm and Thursdays, 7:30pm - 9:30pm; the 2nds train on Mondays 7:30pm - 9:30pm and Wednesdays, 7:30pm - 9:30pm; the 3rds train on Tuesdays, 6pm - 7:30pm and Thursdays, 6pm - 7:30pm; and the 4ths trains on Wednesdays, 7pm - 8:30 pm and Thursdays, 6pm - 7:30pm. Contact trinitiyladieshockey@ gmail.com with any enquiries. DUHC 1sts and 2nds train in Trinity Sports Grounds, Santry, on Tuesdays, 7:30pm - 9:30pm; the 3rd train at 5pm on Wednesdays in Botany Bay. Contact hockey@ tcd.ie with any queries.

Biosoc’s Med Cup: A striking success The charity soccer event remains popular Miles Crossen Contributing Writer

f you had taken a stroll onto campus on Saturday September 30, you would be forgiven for thinking you had borne witness to a sporting miracle; an exhibition of pure skill and mastery the likes of which would strike envy into the heart of Roy Keane himself. Or you had, at least, stumbled across a really good U-12s community games match. As, on that fateful Saturday, Trinity’s cricket pitch played host to one of the most hotly anticipated sporting events of the academic year: Med Cup. Med Cup is Biosoc’s annual charity soccer tournament and it remains one of the landmark events on every medical student’s calendar. In late September, each year in medicine assembles a team of their best players for the chance to win the ultimate prize: an unengraved shield and a year’s worth of bragging rights. This year, the honour was bestowed upon our final years. The

previous year’s graduates make an appearance as the “Intern Team”’, so they can have one more chance at glory. Med Cup is not a challenge that is taken on lightly and whispers of training programmes and alcohol bans permeate the ranks each year. The fourth year team were even advised to turn up twenty minutes early by their manager, for a gruelling warmup session before the other teams had a chance to tog out. For a dry event, this year’s Med Cup was a complete wash out. The weather being very much off-side did nothing to quell the commendable enthusiasm and competitive spirit of all the teams. Although the rain did eventually cut the matches short, the titans of the day managed to battle it before we retired to a Bóbóssponsored lunch. The third year team gave the final years a run for their money in the final which ended nil-nil. The final years followed tradition, however, and accepted a well-earned victory on penalties. Honourable mentions must go to the fourth year team and supporters, for the spirit and passion they show up with year after year - regardless of the results. You’ll get them next year. The day was a rousing success but what is the best part of Med Cup? All the proceeds raised, by players and supporters, go towards Trinity Med Day. Med Day is a charity run by medical

students which raises vital funds for Trinity’s affiliated teaching hospitals. To date, Med Day has raised over one million euro, which has supported many worthy projects. This year, their chosen beneficiaries include development of hang out space for youth cancer patients at CHI Crumlin, improving walking

ability for people with stroke and Multiple sclerosis through the use of a functional electrical stimulation device at St. James’ hospital and many more. As well as spending November 10 shaking buckets on the streets of Dublin, Med Day have launched their “Make a Difference for Med Day” campaign, which

challenges people to challenge themselves, by running, walking, swimming, golfing, baking etc., or by organising an event, and collecting sponsorship online through RallyUp. Keep up with this year’s Med Day fundraising journey by following their Instagram page @trinitymedday.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BIOSCO

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Sport

Esports’ existential crisis and the road to reinvention A closer look at the realities facing the esports sector Miles Crossen Contributing Writer

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Esports can produce huge viewership, so why is it viewed as some kind of no-go niche product? org, KC Pioneers, in February 2023. Why did KC Pioneers sell WCB? They, too, failed to pay player and staff wages. There is an obvious lack of financial stability in esports. FaZe Clan, perhaps esports’ most iconic org, is also under huge financial stress. Its market capitalization has declined over 99%, from $1.38 billion on August 31st, 2022, to $13 million at the time of writing due to a variety of avoidable scandals too long to list. Colossal financial failures are par for the course in esports, albeit on a smaller scale. The orgs are poorly managed, pay players more than they can afford and are often run by wannabe influencers as opposed to competent businesspeople. For years, the entire industry has been a house of cards solely dependent on investor and sponsor money. At this point, a major culture shift is needed. According to the LA Times, esports fans contribute about $5.30 in revenue per year on average to their esport of choice. In contrast, a survey by LendingTree found American sports fans from ages 18 to 25 planned to spend an average of $464 on their favourite sport in autumn 2022. Things as simple as org merchandise are not as consistent a source of revenue as in traditional sports. Fans don’t want to buy a player’s jersey or a team shirt when esports roster stability is non-existent and it’s always been common for orgs to enter and leave an esport in the span of months. It is difficult for a consumer to get on board when the orgs themselves don’t know what

PHOTO VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

ompetitive gaming, or esports, is huge, yet remains invisible to the average sports fan. It fills arenas with tens of thousands of people, and gets hundreds of thousands to millions of viewers at a time. The recent Rocket League World Championship in Dusseldorf, Germany, attracted up to 468,292 live viewers and had well over 10,000 in attendance. Rocket League is far from the biggest esport, however, with Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and League of Legends regularly attracting over a million viewers at a single time. The League of Legends 2022 World Championship peaked at 5.15 million viewers. Additionally, the Free Fire World Series in 2021 peaked at 5.41 million viewers. The average figures are much lower, but it is clear esports has the potential for high-viewership events. For comparison, the 2023 NHL Playoffs averaged 2.6 million viewers and the 2023 NBA Playoffs averaged 5.47 million viewers. Esports can produce huge viewership, so why is it viewed as some kind of no-go niche product? An esports organisation (org), is defined as “a group of teams under one umbrella, using the same branding, data analytics, and prize pool money to strengthen their group”. Esports orgs pay their players to compete under their banner and sponsors. Esports transfers function similarly to real sports transfers and can involve large buyout clauses. The orgs also sell brand merchandise, host events, and can receive a share of the profits made from in-game item sales. These seem like logical ways of making money, but the esports industry is struggling to turn a profit and is cutting costs. In July, Activision Blizzard, the game publisher behind the failed Overwatch League, laid off “around 50” people from its esports department. 100Thieves, Optic Gaming, and Team Liquid, three of the biggest orgs in esports, laid off undisclosed amounts of employees. eUnited has effectively disbanded, as did The Guard. Beyond the Summit, a beloved event organiser, also shut down in February. A major factor holding esports back is the rampant unprofessionalism in these orgs.

In Rocket League, a large org named G1 was recently involved in a scandal where it didn’t pay the players in its Women’s Car Ball (WCB) circuit from March to August 2023. Even worse, in August 2023 G1 announced a new “multi-million dollar” HQ amid the WCB payments crisis. G1 purchased WCB from another

they want. Watching is also completely free so there is no real incentive to pay for anything except attendance to in-person tournaments, known as LANs. LAN tickets are a good source

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Watching is also completely free so there is no real incentive to pay for anything of revenue but aren’t enough on their own. Most fans have and will never attend a LAN event. Making fans pay to watch could work; the sports esports fans desire to mimic make their viewers pay to watch and those fans generally do not mind. Fans pay hundreds to watch an NFL season and UFC fans pay $80 to watch a fight that might last a few minutes. Obviously, this could decrease viewership and hurt watch parties, but at some point, esports must focus itself on making a profit and not unsustainable growth that has quickly dried up amid a global economic downturn that has hurt sponsor and investor money. The potential for impressive fanfare is there, as seen in the

numbers involved in esports, but most orgs just haven’t unlocked it yet. Orgs that have gone out of their way to connect with their fans have seen success in building large fanbases. In Rocket League, two orgs named Rule One and Version1 have experienced sharp fanbase growth mainly by interacting with the community, whether that be through player meet-andgreets, watch parties, giveaways, or any other community events. The emotional connection between the org and the fanbase cannot be ignored. Some esports orgs have even managed to make a profit. G2 (separate from G1) “has been profitable for the last two years”, according to CEO Alban Dechelotte. G2 has consistently made efforts to reach out to their fans and this has resulted in them having one of the most engaged fanbases in esports. One of G2’s goals is to become less reliant on competitive performance in favour of releasing high-quality content. Dechelotte says G2’s revenue is roughly 60% from brand collaborations, 30% payments from game publishers and 10% from consumer products. Esports earnings alone are not enough to sustain these big orgs with dozens or hundreds of employees. Rather, it’s about maximising exposure and effectively monetizing. Orgs focused on content creation and engaging with fans have hence fared better than more traditional orgs. Esports is not a doomed industry, but it is an industry that lacks an awareness of where

it is. The idea that we’re leaving the growth phase – what many people will look back on as the golden era of esports – is a tough pill to swallow. For esports to be respected and taken seriously it

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For esports to be respected and taken seriously it needs to become a responsible industry needs to become a responsible industry and leave behind the carefree childlikeness that made it so enjoyable in the first place. The esports orgs that have realised that fan bases are not just created out of thin air, but must be earned and interacted with, are the future of the industry. To succeed, esports must exit the shadow of immature ownership and defective monetisation and embark on its own road to reinvention.

Tuesday 17 October| TRINITY NEWS

Sport

DUFC gallant against Clontarf, but struggle against UCD Trinity suffer a heavy loss in the AIL after a spirited display against Clontarf Joe Downey & Séaghan Ó Domhnalláin Contributing Writer, Sports Co-Editor

he All Ireland League (AIL) kicked-off last Saturday the 7th, with a blockbuster clash for supporters of Dublin University, welcoming Clontarf FC to College Park for a 2.30 pm kick off. Clontarf entered this season’s opener after their 50-24 defeat to Terenure in the AIL final last May. The game’s first touch was for Colbert with the kickoff, lifting the ball high and left towards the Business Building. The opening minutes were tight, with huge collisions coming in from both sides in what looked to be the beginning of a very tight game. Clontarf were let into the game with a midfield scrum following an attacking kick from Trinity fullback Davy Colbert unfortunately ran dead. Clontarf and Leinster number 9 Ben Murphy was the beneficiary of a hugely dominant Clontarf scrum, stealing 30 metres on a quick break down the blind side. Making up for his earlier error, Colbert rattled Murphy in the tackle, dislodging the ball in the process. Trinity regathered and Harry Colbert, the fullback’s older brother, put in an astute 5022 kick to put the students back on the front foot inside Clontarf

PHOTO COURTESY OF DUFC

territory. The set piece has historically been a point of pride in the Clontarf DNA, and this season it’s no different. They defended the Trinity lineout by marking the space at 2 and 4, with Connacht second row Josh Murphy and Fionn Gilbert dominating the air in those spaces. Trinity’s Zach Baird was forced to try to throw over the 6 ‘5 and 6’ 6 men, missing his man at the tail by a matter of inches. Clontarf captain Dylan Donnellan gathered up the overthrow well and ate up the metres ahead of him. Clontarf subsequently went on to open up the scoring with a rolling maul off of their strong lineout platform. Trinity were caught on the backfoot before Donnellan quickly broke off the back to sneak over the line. Out half Conor Kelly added the extras, making it 0-7. However, Trinity did not take this lying down. Off the restart, they won the ball back impressively before turning up the tempo of the game, matching their speed and skill. They forced a penalty in front of the posts, with the speed of their play too fast for Clontarf to roll away quickly enough. Harry Colbert slotted the kick to bring Trinity onto the score board (3-7). Clontarf’s pack continued to exert pressure at the set piece, earning consecutive scrum penalties. Trinity’s Tom Connolly was unlucky to be at the end of the yellow card that soon followed the third penalty, but the tighthead knew better than to protest and took his medicine well for the next ten minutes. Before the half ended Trinity won a penalty and nudged the ball over the halfway line. Zach Baird hit the tail of the lineout beautifully and scrum half King feeds centre Jules Fenlon who finds a soft shoulder before offloading to captain Diarmiud McCormack who devours the

space ahead. College recycled quickly and played leftward, where Harry Colbert floated the ball delicately to winger John Francis Campbell. He darts down the left wing, beating two men before offloading to fullback Davy Colbert to dot down between the posts. No doubt Clontarf responded well to the Trinity score, playing some lightning quick ball paired with strong variation through the middle, dragging the students into the centre of the park. McDonagh tried to cover the 15 metre patch of empty space ahead but came up short, with Aitzol King taking a beautifully weighted pass in the corner to score. The second half began with an intensity like the first with loosehead Jerry Cahir winning a mighty jackal just outside of the Trinity 10 metre line. The ball was shipped quickly wide through Fenlon to Taylor Gleeson on the right wing. He chipped ahead to beat Clontarf wing Seni ReillyAshiru. In beating him, Gleeson earned himself a cynical push in the back from this opposite man, preventing Gleeson from regathering the ball and potentially scoring. Reilly-Ashiru won ten minutes in the bin and Trinity won the penalty. They kicked to the corner and set the maul quickly. It was, cynically, sacked by Clontarf short of the line, forcing Trinity to play through the phases before Zach Baird muscled his way over for the score. Trinity continued to punish Clontarf indiscipline in the second half, with Gleeson returning an aimless kick from Clontarf fullback Tadhg Bird. He beat two Clontarf men on his ten metre line before kicking through. Irish U20 star Oscar Cawley nudged it ahead and regathered before putting captain McCormack into the corner for the meat pie. Out half Colbert

really had his kicking boots on, slotting the sideline conversion with relative ease. Cole Kelly was soon given 10 minutes in the bin for dissent, following a midfield scrum penalty that one would have thought could have gone the way of the students. His disbelief got the better of him, a moment of madness costing himself dearly. The resultant penalty for Clontarf was put to the corner and was mauled over from 8 metres out. Kelly remembered his last name isn’t Colbert and missed the touchline conversion (24-24). Trinity then conceded another scrum penalty from around 35 metres out for standing up, with Kelly slotting it over to give Clontarf the lead (24-27). Cole Kelly returned immediately after. You could not doubt Clontarf that day, however. Like any truly great side they figured out a way to seal the deal and deny Trinity a losing bonus point from the fixture. They fed a line out on the half way line to the tail and set the maul. It spun left and began to take on some legs, with Ben Murphy rescuing it on the Trinity 22 metre line. Some tight carries were made by the pack and eventually captain Donnellan made his way over the line to seal the deal for Clontarf. Final score at college park 24-34. A week later, under Friday night lights in the Belfield Bowl, Trinity faced another tough test. DUFC supporters travelled down in good numbers, with a nice crowd turning up to watch the old enemies face off. The pitch was in good condition, considering that there was a League of Ireland soccer match the night before, and the weather was clear, with little to no wind at the ground. Unfortunately, Friday the 13th wasn’t Trinity’s lucky day as they conceded a try within the first minute. After two phases of play, UCD’s scrum-half Michael Moloney returned a the ball

to Trinity with a Garryowen. DUFC’s full-back Taylor Gleeson tried to control it with his foot, but failed to make contact with the ball. UCD’s Ross Deegan was the winner in the following race, as the ball rolled all the way past Trinity’s try-line. Trinity eventually got their score-board moving in the 8th minute, when Harry Colbert slotted over a penalty in the 22, but it would be Trinity’s last score for another 70 or so minutes. However, UCD settled any sort of dissent Trinity was creating, with two penalties in quick succession slotted over by Michael Moloney making the score 11-3. UCD went on to dominate this game, with another try for Deegan in the 28th minute, which Moloney converted from the touch line. All in all, UCD’s linespeed was superior to that of Trinity’s throughout the first half, even though at times other referees would have penalised them for being offside, as well as dominating the break down. After half-time, with Trinity being 18-3 down, the red and black desperately needed a score. DUFC managed to string some attacking phases together, aided by penalties against UCD at the ruck. Trinity opted for the kick to touch and won the succeeding lineout, but their maul fell apart and UCD got a lucky escape. However, DUFC kept the pressure on, but small mistakes cost them dearly. A yellow was flashed for UCD’s De Klerk for a high tackle, but UCD were next to score with another penalty kicked by Moloney, extending the lead to 21-3. UCD substitute Michael Colreavy put the game to bed at the 70th minute, with a converted try. However, Trinity fullback Gleeson managed to get a consolation try with three minutes to go, after Fenlon’s linebreak off a throw-in brought Trinity up to the 5 metre line. A looping skip-pass from O’ Kennedy then found its way to Gleeson, who ran in a try virtually unopposed. UCD’s Chris Cosgrave managed to get the bonus point with his try 4 minutes past the 80 minute mark, which was duly converted by Moloney, leaving us with the full time socre of 35-8. While UCD were dominant throughout the match, there were spirited efforts on show by Trinity. Issues at the set piece and breakdown can always be improved upon, and the hurt from last Friday night will be remembered when UCD come to College Park to play the all important Colours and return fixture after Christmas. DUFC will welcome Limerick’s Young Munster to College Park on Saturday, with kick off at 2:30.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Street art tour page 4

The Essential Guide to Dating Yourself page 8

Ethiopian food page 14

LIFE

Pullout Pullout section section ART BY ALICE GOGARTY FOR TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Table of contents Street art tour

- page 4 Stargazing

- page 8 The essential guide to dating yourself -page 9 Can reading week actually mean reading week?

- page 11

A guide to Trinity Careers Service

- page 13

Roleplaying adulthood

Ya like jazz? Matt Lyne singlehandedly saves the music genre, channelling his inner Ryan Gosling to recommend the scene as a “chill” alternative to the dismal club

recommend putting on ‘There Will Be Better Days’ by Midnight Trio while you read this. I’ll give you a moment. You’re in the smoking area again. You don’t want this cigarette. You’re only out here because it’s so sweaty inside. What’s in there? Techno. Or maybe it’s EDM or Drum and Bass. It doesn’t matter, your ears are ringing now anyway. It was fun, being in there, until your card started getting declined. Now you’re sober, burning your lungs, drenched in sweat, and worse still: standing. All the seats were taken so you’re standing in the smoking area. It’s a shame, you had set aside these clothes to look nice tonight. They only lasted about two hours and thirty-five minutes. They’ll need a wash now.

- page 15

Life staff Editor-in-Chief Life Editor Life Deputy Editor

Kate Henshaw Abby Cleaver Lara Monahan

Arts & Culture Editors Deputy Editors

Jayna Rohslau Ciara Chan Ciana Meyers

Sex & Relationships Editor Deputy Editors

Anna Lyons Catherine Grogan Alice Matty

Societies Editor Deputy Editor

Honey Morris Sofia Rooney Siobhán Walsh

Student Living Editors

Emma Rouine Elisa Eckstein Akshita Hunka

Deputy Editor Food & Drink Editor Deputy Editors

Eoghan Conway Lara Bhakdi Hannah Viljoen

ART BY FAYE DOLAN

You can put on a wash at home. You’ll have to because you’ve no clean clothes left. So you walk home. Broke and stinky. Then as you stroll through the Liberties, and then Smithfield, (I have decided you live in Stoneybatter, you’re welcome). You hear taps and chimes of percussion leak through doors mid-swing as other pub-goers make the same decision as you. To go home. You hear the odd horn, an infrequent tinkling of piano keys, and maybe some bass if you’re lucky. On your way, you think about how your night could have gone if you had gone to a jazz club instead. First, I’d like to disclaim any inferred defamation of DJsor any form of electronic music DJs are essential for sustaining the Dublin music scene. However, the nature of electronic music requires enthusiasm and this enthusiasm, for many, needs fuel. This fuel comes in many forms: alcohol, self-esteem, etc. (I’m sure nothing illegal). Not everyone has the budget or the capacity to take part. There is a presumption when it comes to music that to enjoy it you must be either ready to party or know the artist in advance. This is not true when it comes to jazz. I’m sure you’ve heard the regular pompous remarks from self-proclaimed jazz aficionados, studying hard from their parents’ mansion in D4, that Jazz is “music in its purest form” and is “made to be appreciated, not

just listened to”. I disagree. Jazz is chill. It is not overbearingly loud and therefore encourages conversation. Jazz creates a relaxed social environment that can be appreciated alone or with company. If you want to relax, not break the bank, and have a fun night with friends or solo, I highly recommend exploring Dublin’s sparkling Jazz scene. Pizza Jazz (8:00-11:00pm, Wednesday) - Luckys, 78 Meath Street, The Liberties Get here before 7 pm and enjoy a pizza and pint (or glass of wine) for €13. While you rub your belly and finish your slices, their Jazz trio serenades your post-scran slumber. You can expect a sound similar to Keith Jarret or Charlie Parker. If you like, you can enjoy this evening performance without spending a cent, as entry is free. 24-hour bus lines run nearby, so you need not stress about your route home. 90s bar ‘Jackie’s’ and LGBT pub ‘All My Friends’ are just around the corner, so you’ll have no shortage of lovely spots to escape to if it ends up not being your thing. Live Jazz (7:00-11:30, Thursday) – Dashi, 47 King Street N, Smithfield If you would rather spend money on margaritas that come in a glass, look no further than Dashi’s Jazz Thursdays. The low ceilings of the basement will keep you cosy and the sound compact.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Feel free to grab a chessboard off the wall and, while the music plays, challenge a friend to a match (or a stranger if you don’t have any of those). The cocktails are tasty and the venue is sandwiched between the red and green LUAS lines, so your walk home will be manageable even if you try the whole menu. This event is also free-in so you will also have extra to spend. The Riche Buckley Quartet (8:30p-11:30pm, Thursday) - Frank Ryans, 5 Queen Street, Smithfield If you’ve had enough of trios, or Dashi wasn’t to your liking, just stroll south to Frank Ryans. Entry is free here too, so you might as well pop your head in. Inside you’ll find Riche Buckley himself on sax, along with his guitarist, bassist, and drummer. Buckley has worked alongside Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Elvis Costello and it doesn’t come as a surprise once you hear him. Frank Ryans is laid out like a traditional Irish pub and is exactly as cosy as you’d expect. The Dirty Jazz Club (8:30-11:30 pm, Saturday) – Arthur’s Blues & Jazz Club, 28 Thomas Street, The Liberties This location marks the only paid entry on the list. A ticket will set you back €15, or maybe a little less at the door if you ask really nicely. Arthur’s is an exclusive Jazz and Blues bar, so you could come here any night to hang out and listen to some top-class jazz. Still, I would recommend taking time

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So you’ve gotten the ick... or is it just intuition? Anna Lyons explores how the most arbitrary situations have found their niche on TikTok, while asking if they may be causing more harm than good

There is a presumption when it comes to music that to enjoy it you must be either ready to party or know the artist in he word “ick” has advance. This become one of the most commonly used words is not true in the Gen-Z dating dialogue: there’s seldom when it comes a conversation I have with friends about dating that gives no mention to jazz to the ick. When you’re attracted

to come along on a Saturday and appreciate these guys. The Dirty Jazz Club has been prevalent in the Dublin music scene for the past 15 years, so if you enjoyed any other jazz night in Dublin you owe a portion of that to this band. Needless to say, you can’t get too upset about having to pay in because in minutes you’ll realise the benefit of paying your artists. Recorded & Live Jazz (5:00-6:00-8:30 pm, Sunday) – The Big Romance, 98 Parnell Street, Rotunda Don’t worry, this one is free. From 5 pm, The Big Romance staff will start playing from their extensive record collection. Feel free to bring your own and listen to your vinyl through their amazing sound set-up. Once the clock strikes 6 pm, the music shifts to a live performance from their extremely talented Organ Freeman (Possibly one of the best performer names I’ve ever seen). Anyone who has ever been to The Big Romance has probably told you about it, and rightly so: it rocks. Its speakeasy style of decor results in a comfortable 1920s-feel venue. This event also ends early so a 9 am start on Monday is no excuse to miss it. Many venues such as The Sugar Club, Whelans, The International Bar, and Bar Eile host a variety of Jazz acts throughout the week. I’d recommend keeping your eyes open for them. Usually, these are paid in and I would urge the reader to pay to listen to music if they have the means of doing so. Cost of living is horrendous in Dublin, but its music scene makes things a lot more bearable if you engage with it. Your applause and Instagram stories don’t feed the acts, so… pay up. However, not all of us can afford to and to those I recommend you enjoy the free jazz, it’ll take your mind off things for a while.

to someone, and after [insert arbitrary situation] occurs, or they do [insert innocuous action], you are all of a sudden totally turned off by them. But is there any merit to dating icks, or is it just another way our generation finds to be increasingly critical of each other? Many people can relate to the following scenario: you’re sitting around with friends, and on the topic of dating, you all start declaring your icks; “running for the bus with a backpack on”, “the noise they make after eating something hot”, “watching them tread underwater”, “chasing after a ping pong ball”, the list goes on. You all agree or disagree, coming up with more elaborate and absurd icks as you go on. In my opinion, discussing icks feels like a pretty innocent conversation starter, and a humorous one too. However, it does provide food for thought: where did this all come from? The first time I personally came across the ick was on TikTok, where the concept of an ick took on an interesting form: people would take to TikTok to recount a situation which occurred that gave them the ick from their partner, almost in attempt to have the viewer picture their own partner in that situation, hence stimulating the ick in the viewer. There was almost an explosion of the ick as a

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Shouldn’t you always trust your gut?

trend on TikTok, or ickTok if you will, which saw people trying to trigger the ick in others. It would be naive to presume that the ick was simply born and bred on TikTok. The concept long precedes the slang. The sudden feeling of being repulsed by someone, a feeling of being embarrassed or ashamed of them is a feeling you don’t think you can ever come back from. Perhaps we have only given it a name now, but when you boil it down to its bare bones, the ick seems to be a description of a negative gut reaction to something or someone, and shouldn’t you always trust your gut? There is something to be said for the amount of unconscious communication people do in their relationships, and even if someone is ticking all your boxes, it is still possible to react to them in a way that is outside of direct communication. The newly named phenomenon has been gaining much attention from psychologists and scholars alike, who have often recognised that there could be much merit awarded to it: “I absolutely think it’s fear” says Elizabeth Cohen, Ph.D, clinical psychologist, and claims that at the root of the ick is a defence mechanism telling us to get away from an individual as soon as possible. Or as Sanam Hafeez, Psy.D, neuropsychologist puts it: “You may tell yourself you caught the ick as a way of protecting yourself from another failing relationship, commitment, or even intimacy.” So perhaps getting the ick can provide useful in certain situations, and maybe it is a gut feeling worth trusting. Nonetheless, the ick faces criticism: it’s unreasonable, absurd, and illogical. The backlash on ickTok was immense, and from what I saw, it often came from the stance of men criticising women for declaring their icks. So two big questions beg: are icks irrational, and are they sexist? I’ve often wondered when engaging in those humorous conversations — declaring that I’d be turned off by someone after seeing their swimming trunks inflate in the water, or witnessing them push a pull door — if I am a bad feminist for saying those sorts of things. After all, the declaration of icks is undeniably a female-dominated space. Do icks express some form of disgust for men being vulnerable? Do they prevent men from being human? Through online trends like the ick, it is possible to argue that we are being far too critical of men, and perhaps a trend that seems harmless is one which actually reinforces patriarchal standards of unrealistic masculinity. However, there are two sides to every coin. The criticism by men of women and their icks is vividly reminiscent of the demonisation of gossip amongst women by

men. Gossip historically has been used as a form of comradery and solidarity amongst women, a means of disseminating important information and navigating social hierarchies in societies where women had been left largely responsible for maintaining social networks and communication.

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There is something to be said for allowing men to not fit into such a rigid perception of masculinity This would also have included women sharing information about potentially threatening men, which is how gossip has gotten its bad reputation: men saw gossip as a threat, and there has been misogynistic demonisation of it ever since. I can’t help but think that the ick seems evocative of gossip. Is the ick simply gossip shapeshifting, taking on a contemporary form? After all, maybe this is just women showing other women how to protect themselves against potentially harmful men, and that is possibly why it is subject to so much criticism. Perhaps there is some merit to dating icks. If you’re getting a gut feeling about why someone may not be right for you, maybe there is reason to trust it. The ick might just be the cherry on the cake in a situation which was destined not to work out in the first place. Or maybe the ick is a defence mechanism. However, a catch-22 situation does seem to arise if we’re considering whether it is morally right to discuss our icks as widely as we seem to, especially on social media. On one hand, there is something to be said for allowing men to not fit into such a rigid perception of masculinity. On the other, perhaps the criticism of the ick is a deeply-rooted misogynistic one. It is a fine line, one on which I am not entirely sure where I stand. What I can say, however, is that the ick has provided us all with some entertainment, and perhaps it doesn’t really have that much force. From my experience, discussions over the ick have only ever been humorous, lighthearted and innocent, and I have rarely come across someone who has ended a relationship over the ick and the ick alone.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Walk this way: Street art tour PHOTO BY HENRY SYNNOTT FOR TRINITY NEWS

Kate Ní BhriainOlwill invites us along as she takes a tour through Dublin’s vibrant street art scene

s a student, it’s easy to reduce city life to your journey into college and the coffee shops around college, with occasional trips into Harcourt Street or Temple Bar. Indeed, the oft cited phrase “be a tourist in your own city!” seems more fitting as an ironic Instagram caption for when you spend €9 on a pint in the Temple Bar than it does as a sincerely held belief about how you should interact with your city. However, Dublin practically bleeds art from every gable and electricity box. Alternative Dublin’s Street Art Walking Tour encourages us to recognise that there’s beauty wherever we find ourselves, improving our community and mental health as we venture from one destination to another. Before going on the tour, I expected this article would be a fluff piece highlighting some interesting art around Dublin. It was anything but that. I, along with two New Yorkers, two lads from Belfast, and two Dubliners immersed myself in a vast swathe of information centred around street art culture within Dublin. While standing in front of a beautiful mural outside Yamamori Tengu on Strand Street, tour guide Conor taught us about the history of modern street art and graffiti, from its beginnings in New York, to how it spread via train cars, and how journalist Martha Cooper spread it internationally in the 1980s with her book Subway Art.

IMAGE VIA FLICKR

On Liffey Street, Conor drew our attention to a massive tag on the gable of a building above a travel agent. This unassuming graffiti was in a heaven spot, a loaded term that conveys how high up these spots usually are, their desirability, and as our tour guide aptly phrased it: “If you fall, you’ll end up in heaven.” Here, we learned about the turf wars happening between different artists and collectives in Dublin and how to recognise artists through art spread across the city. During the first half of the tour, which spotlighted art in the Northside, there was an emphasis

on Dublin-based Brazilian artist Brutto, from the techniques he used to achieve his art, to the mural depicting his daughter so that he could see her even while she remained in Brazil, to the massive mural he created on the facade of the Abbey Court hostel; a grand feat given it faces onto the Quays. The latter caused Dublin City Council great agony as they deliberated whether to remove it. Travelling across the Liffey, we made our way into Temple Bar, which has much more to it than overpriced pints. We viewed the Bloom’s Hotel mural created by artist James Easley, a piece of

art that attracted international attention. Now he rarely returns home to Ireland, a sadly common story for Irish artists. While I don’t wish to give too much away, as I hope to convince people to experience this tour for themselves, Conor extensively detailed the mural’s (which spans the entirety of the five exterior walls of the hotel) artistic influences. It was an incredible experience to see this massive artwork and discuss it with strangers from vastly different backgrounds than my own. While in Temple Bar, we popped into The Clockwork Door (www.theclockworkdoor. ie), Ireland’s only timehouse, which houses This Must Be The Place (thismustbetheplace.com), a collective that organises many different events, such as clay workshops, tote bag painting sessions, and speed friending. The space also houses Alternative Dublin, the art collective that organised this tour, as well as many others, such as a true crime tour and tours highlighting Dublin’s LGBTQ and womens’ history. It also functions as a third place that allows people to sit together and chat, play boardgames, play instruments, and generally get to know other like-minded individuals. Iconic. That’s how I would describe our procession down Icon Walk before we went into the Icon Factory. The Factory is a non-profit artist’s co-op in the centre of Temple Bar, where artists can exhibit their art for free in the gallery or work on their art

in the adjoining atelier. Here, you can find postcards, prints, tote bags, wooden busts and more, all created by local artists. Sadly, due to market pressure, the Icon Factory is being threatened out of the space it has resided in for years. Our penultimate piece of street art was the infamous Maser heart which became an international news story causing political uproar during the 2018 referendum. The piece, a red heart inscribed with “Repeal the 8th” was previously painted over, but now exists as a partial heart, half painted over, keeping the recent history alive. Our final visit was to Love Lane, an alleyway made famous by Instagram pics but still unknown to many people. Here there was art from years ago, blasting the government for the Great Recession, as well as linocut prints depicting some alternative women one might expect to see around Temple Bar (or the Arts Building), and finally the installation by Anna Doran devoted to love. This wall, which features dozens of hearts and quotes from movies, books, and songs all about love, is definitely a must-see for anyone in Dublin. While I went into this tour expecting to gain some more appreciation for the art to be found around the city, I left feeling invigorated by the artists and creatives who are fighting to keep Dublin beautiful and lively. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must book my ticket for the True Crime tour.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

The growing disaster that is #FoodTok Sarah O’Donohoe takes a look at the harmful food trends that we consume on TikTok as they increase in volume and popularity across the widely used platform

ikTok has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. Its short-form relatable style of content sets it apart from other social media platforms, such as YouTube and Instagram, which are often perceived as places to find more formal or heavily edited content. Users seek refuge in Tiktok’s easily digestible content and get drawn into the app by extremely userspecific algorithms, resulting in a perfectly curated-for-you page. It’s fun, enticing, and can show you exactly the type of content you want to see. #Foodtok has exploded on the platform, but as with everything on the internet, it has recently begun to unveil a more sinister side. What originally started as innocent and genuinely helpful content, where users could find easy-to-cook recipes, what I eat in a day videos. and other sources of

meal inspiration, has now evolved into an echo chamber further promoting disordered eating and distorted body images. There are content creators purposefully using TikTok as their vice, spreading harmful content in the hopes of furthering their unsustainable lifestyles, to the detriment of an impressionable audience . TikTok has become a breeding ground for the spread of harmful misinformation and nutritional advice. From unqualified fitness coaches, ‘what I eat in a day videos’ and mukbangs, they have all already left a rotten taste in the mouth of an impressionable audience. ‘What I eat in a day’ videos consist of photos/videos of people’s snacks and meals throughout the day. While some people use these videos as a genuine source of inspiration for meal ideas and recipes, especially for those with restricted diets such as veganism or celiac disease, this style of content can often be a trigger to those who struggle with disordered eating, whether that be a purposeful impact of the video or not. On the more extreme side of things, videos including tremendously lowcalorie counts that would be below the recommended caloric intake for that of a toddler, counting cigarettes for dinner, and black coffee with a plain rice cake as dessert, are ever increasing in popularity, and gaining a lot of traction on the app. “Bodychecking” frequently accompanies these videos, where individuals meticulously inspect their bodies in mirrors or other reflective surfaces, reinforcing the notion in the viewer’s mind that

by adhering to a similar diet or lifestyle, they too could attain a similar appearance. This content bears a striking resemblance to the thinspo (thin inspiration) culture that gained prominence in the 2013 Tumblr era, and there are concerns that it might inadvertently contribute to the resurgence of ‘pro-ana’ rhetoric among a new generation of adolescents. The visual and psychological impact of such content can be significant, potentially influencing vulnerable individuals, distorting their perception of beauty and selfworth in exceedingly harmful ways. This type of content can

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#FoodTok has exploded on the platform, but as with everything on the internet, it has recently begun to unveil a more sinister side

infiltrate the minds of the viewer, encouraging disordered eating, and lead to the never-ending pursuit of thinness; which is something that has disastrous impacts on the lives of many. This is having a similar influence on ‘gym-tok’. Unqualified fitness influencers promote absurd nutrition advice to an impressionable audience, when they are in fact on steroids injections to maintain their own physique. An example of this can be demonstrated by Tiktok user Brian Johnson, also known as ‘The Liver King’. Brian originally attributed his muscular physique to his raw carnivore diet, but was later found out to be using steroids. Despite what these fitness influencers might lead one to believe, it is quite simply impossible to gain 50lbs of lean muscle mass overnight, just by eating chicken and rice alone. This type of content leads to the promotion of orthorexia in particular, an eating disorder whereby an individual has an obsession with only eating healthy foods. When people see someone with a so-called ‘healthy’ physique promoting these unsustainable practices, it further perpetuates the normalisation of disordered eating, in a way that just isn’t talked about enough. Contrary to popular belief, eating disorders don’t have a certain type of ‘look’; and a ‘gym bro’ is just as likely to fall victim to this type of harmful content as anybody else. Mukbangs are a form of food-related content whereby the host consumes various types of food while interacting with the audience. The videos generally consist of people eating

PHOTO BY JIMENA ALVAREZ

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American internet personality Nikado Avocado attributed his over 200 pound weight gain to creating these types of videos... excessively large quantities of food in one sitting. While they can be satisfying to watch, and interesting especially when people create interesting meals or meals from various cuisines, oftentimes, these mukbangs contain videos of people’s vast amounts of fast food, to the point where it’s causing these creators serious harm. American internet personality Nikado avocado attributed his over 200 pound weight gain to creating these types of videos, and in the pursuit of fame and views, caused himself grievous bodily harm. Mukbangs have begun to normalise binge and restrict cycles, as creators often boast about fasting in the lead up to their gigantic feast. While TikTok’s ever increasing popularity has been beneficial in certain regards, in truth its content is simply too unregulated. The negative influences of this have been exemplified on #Foodtok. From “what I eat in a day” videos containing nothing but chicken and rice, or a black cup of coffee and a cigarette for dessert, to fitness influencers promoting raw carnivorism, to mukbangs normalising binge eating in the pursuit of views, there’s a clear need for caution when consuming food-related content on TikTok. While TikTok can be a source of inspiration and creativity, it’s essential to remember that not all content is created equal. As consumers, we should try to use our best judgement and critical thinking when engaging with foodrelated videos on the platform. It’s crucial to prioritise our own physical and mental health, as well as our well-being, over fleeting trends and sensational content. By taking what we see on #Foodtok with a grain of salt, we can make more informed choices about our diets and promote a healthier online culture.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Taking campus by storm: Slow Girl Run Aoibhínn Clancy speaks to Samantha Tancredi about founding Trinity’s new female-only running club and encouraging women to get involved in sports

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o make sure anyone who tried it was successful” was the motto of founder of Orangetheory Fitness, Ellen Latham. Master’s student Samantha Tancredi adopted a similar ethos upon founding her new female-only running group Slow Girl Runs. Upon moving over to Ireland from Tennessee to start her undergraduate degree in College, Tancredi was struck by the lack of affordable and accessible workout classes that captured the social aspect she was familiar with as a former Orangetheory Fitness

goer. As someone who participated in sports during the duration of my formative years, I am all too familiar with the joys that come with exercising alongside others as part of a team. It creates a great sense of comradery which encourages you to stick at it. In an era where men are three times more likely to partake in organised sport than women, Tancredi is attempting to alter that narrative and make running “more accessible”. Thus Slow Girl Runs was born. I would consider myself a casual runner, but the notion of joining a running club is something that I never gave much thought to. The idea of running alongside others seemed absurd, unachievable and quite frankly, humiliating. The fear of not being able to keep up and other such anxieties have inhibited myself and many others from considering joining a running club as a viable option despite the copious benefits to be gained from group exercise. Tancredi shared similar concerns, stating that any running groups she encountered were all “super fast paced, super high intensity. Running with guys can be an intimidating barrier too.I didn’t find a group that really met

what I was looking for so started my own which was really sweet.” “This summer felt like a very pro-women summer with Barbie and the Taylor Swift concerts,” she revealed as another one of the contributing factors behind her decision to form the club, later disclosing her current go to running song to be Karma by Taylor Swift. At 10am on 9 September 2023 in the Phoenix Park 70 women showed up to the first run. The second run saw the group meet at the Poolbeg Lighthouse and similar numbers were reached. Acknowledging and emphasising that “not everyone lives in the same area,” Tancredi sets out to make the weekly runs accessible to all who want to join by varying the running locations.“I send out a bunch of polls to see where people want to run..…it’s about what the group wants.” The group has continued to skyrocket, gaining over 250 members on the social platform Meetup within its first week. As for what one of these runs entails, Tancredi revealed “we are doing 5 or 10ks and everyone can run at their own pace” and with interval runs and promises of warm coffee after. It’s no secret that there is a heavy emphasis on alcohol consumption

when it comes to socialising in college. Tancredi shared that a lot of the women who have joined the group wanted the opportunity to meet other women and partake in a wholesome activity without the “party hard vibes.” It seems that Tancredi has successfully tapped into a niche as the diverse group made up with women of various ages and backgrounds continues to grow from strength to strength; each run garners both recurring members and fresh faces, all keen to hit the pavement and get some feel good endorphins flowing. Tancredi is set on continuing the upward trajectory of the group, encouraging freshers and returning students to join, proclaiming it as “something for sure I would have looked for in my undergrad.” It is worth noting that the group is open to all. You do not have to be a Trinity student to join. Slow Girl Runs has also partnered with the newly opened Oakberry meaning discounts are available for running groups on açaí bowls. Tancredi also has plans to partner with an up-and-coming College athletic apparel company which is launching soon. Tancredi believes that it is “important to remember every run is your run. There’s a pace for everyone. It’s not that everyone

is competing type deal. People are clapping for you when you’re finishing or along the way and taking cute little videos.” “It’s about what you’re going to do. I’m going to do this pace or whatever and like interval this but you do you. If you want to walk this you find a buddy and you walk with her.” She continued revealing how it has been “really cool to see people do actually take that spirit to heart.” “The main goal for me anyway is to just recruit more women to do it, to encourage ‘a wholesome female friendship vibe’. It’s a very inclusive group kind of deal.” It is more important than ever to encourage and support women to stay engaged in sport during a time where female participation in physical activity is dwindling. Tancredi is successfully doing so by alleviating some of the pressure, aiming to “encourage you to keep going instead of trying to alienate you.” As a college community it’s time we start breaking down barriers and stigma surrounding running and realise it’s as simple as lacing up our shoes and hitting the tarmac. The schedule for the groups upcoming runs is available via @ slowgirlruns_dublin on Instagram.

The Straker controversy: Diversity in the kitchen Shreya Padmanabhan examines Thomas Straker’s recent controversy along with the broader issue of diversity in the kitchen space

f your TikTok feed looks anything like ours, you probably would have come across chef Thomas Straker’s All Things Butter series where he creates decadent and luxurious dishes with a focus on butter. While the TikTok star-turned-chef takes you around the world with his magnificent butter creations, his restaurant appears to take a less colourful approach when it comes to its staff. The controversy began on Friday, July 28, when Straker shared an image of eight kitchen staff including himself outside his eponymous restaurant with the caption: “Chef team assembled”. While the image itself doesn’t scream offensive, viewers were quick to point out the lack of

diversity in Straker’s team via the comments. One commenter eloquently stated: “The main issue is that in the most diverse city in the world, in the poorest part of the richest borough of the country, not only have you managed to (not) hire any female chefs but not a single POC”. Golborne Road is historically a black/ Moroccan/Spanish/Portuguese community with an incredible history of culture and rebellion in the face of adversity. It became home to the largest Moroccan population in England and the home of Windrush families. (Group of people, primarily from the Caribbean, who migrated to the United Kingdom between 1948 and 1971 in response to a call for labour to help rebuild post-war Britain). How incredible would it be if you searched that community for young rising stars who may not get a chance to flourish otherwise in hospitality rather than hiring friends? Provide them with training and a safe place to grow as chefs. In turn, you’d be putting something into the very community that you’re gentrifying - intentional or not. While a majority of viewers critiqued the “pale, male, stale -ness” of the image, Straker struck back by saying: “Honestly people need to calm down. Firstly there is a shortage of chefs/hospitality

workers. Secondly, if you feel so passionately please go and gather CVs of any chefs you think we’re missing in the team. Solutions not problems. Thank you.” Along with this comment, it was brought to public attention that he also privately messaged the founders of female-led supper club Mam Sham, Maria Georgiou and Rhiannon Butler calling them “bitter and twisted” for criticising his photo. Following the controversy, Straker quickly apologised via Instagram, stating: “On Friday night I put up a post of my chef team and many rightly pointed out the lack of diversity within it. I am very sorry for my initial response, where some queried whether I take this issue seriously. I am absolutely committed to ensuring diversity in my restaurants, unfortunately, we aren’t achieving this in my kitchens currently and this is an area I know I need to improve on, making

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... many defended the young chef ’s moves...

sure it is seen as a welcoming and approachable environment for all. Tom x” While Straker apologised and has since deleted the Instagram post, this entire contention points to a bigger issue- the lack of diversity in the kitchen space. In the Straker case, many defended the young chef ’s moves by stating the shortage of kitchen staff and while this is a pressing issue, it cannot be an excuse to hide under. In a city like London, diversity is woven into the fabric of its identity; so recruiting and training more women and POCs is no impossible feat. Domestic cooking is often associated with women’s work, yet the world of professional cooking is still dominated by men. Excuse us for stating the obvious but it is not because of the lack of talent or ability to thrive in the highpressure environment. Women often find it difficult to get their foot in the door and the ones that actually do, often experience abuse in a multitude of forms. In a recent article by British Vogue titled It’s More Than Possible To Hire A Diverse Kitchen Staff. I Know Because I’ve Done It, chef Asma Khan discussed how men have made cooking into a combat sport and she believes that by creating a harsh, almost brutal environment, they are distancing themselves from the typically “feminine”

energy that cooking in the home is often associated with. She also stated: “Women, after all, are the custodians of recipes. When you ask people what their favourite dish is, they almost always name one made by their mother or grandmother, so why is that familial softness so often absent from professional kitchens?” Leave alone the social responsibility to be inclusive, diversity benefits kitchens as it fosters curiosity and a fresh perspective. Chef Nick Fisell wrote for the Taste of Harmony, AU: “As a chef, the more techniques you can learn from the different cultures you experience, the better your repertoire becomes. It broadens your horizons more than anything else. It gives you the gift of knowledge from places you haven’t even visited. That’s tremendous.” While the exclusively all-white all-male club is what we’ve learnt to associate with chefs, times are changing. We all know the power of media and the popular TV show The Bear showed us what a successful, diverse kitchen can look like. While it’s true that the lead protagonist is a white male, it’s heartwarming to see different cultures come together and you can’t help but root for every character. Maybe it’s time for Straker to take some cues from the show.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Dublin’s Fair City: PolSoc’s first speaker event of the year Isabelle Doyle reviews the Politics Society’s panel discussion on the future of housing in Dublin

IMAGE VIA PEXELS

n the midst of the housing crisis and rising rents for students, finding affordable accommodation is practically impossible. More and more students are having to commute for hours or even defer their college place for a year. To discuss this in more detail, the Politics Society (PolSoc) hosted Dublin’s Fair City: A Panel Discussion on the Future of Housing in Dublin as their first speaker event of the year. With a guest list consisting of TDs, lecturers, and students, they provided a wide range of perspectives to discuss how the housing crisis is being tackled. With increasing housing protests and growing strife over the unfairness students are experiencing, an event like this was the perfect opportunity to empower students with more knowledge on the current housing situation in Ireland from people with first hand experience of how it works. The panel was opened by a speech from the PolSoc’s Chair James McGrane-Ero, who kindly introduced all the speakers and gave an overview of the event. With only an hour to hear from all six speakers, James went straight to asking the Labour Party senator, Rebecca Moynihan, about Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill. Moynihan set the tone for the event by emphasising the importance of fair, secure, and affordable housing. With the majority of student housing in Dublin being owned by private companies, there is very little security for students. The lack of regulation means unfair rent increases are sought by landlords through claims that they have substantial renovations to carry out in a flat, or by adding unnecessary extras to student accommodation such as bowling alleys or cinema rooms. Moynihan explained that these rent increases are pushing students out, which is why government funds are needed for student housing. Leaving it up to the private sector will just lead to more for-profit housing, blocking students from education. Next to speak was Cian O’Callaghan, a TD and the deputy leader of the Social Democrats. He began his talk by emphasising the number of people with key skills

we are losing in Ireland each year as unaffordable housing pushes them out. We cannot continue this way if people in professions like teaching and nursing can barely afford a place to stay. He believes there should be a stricter tax on vacant homes, as there are over 100,000 vacant properties in Ireland which could be put to good use. He also wants to put a stop to no-blame evictions. Currently, tenants can be given just a two month notice for no-fault evictions, leading to very precarious housing situations. He explained that it was a political choice by the Irish Government to not prioritise housing. Irish policy continues to show the Irish Government’s lack of care for housing as a human right. O’Callaghan emphasised that if even 10,000 new homes were built every year in Ireland, it would go a long way. Next up was our very own SU president, László Molnárfi. As one of the main organisers of some of the recent student housing protests in Dublin, it was very insightful to hear his perspective in greater detail. Similarly to the other speakers, he pushed for publicly-built, university-owned accommodation. He highlighted the two-tier college experience we are creating for students by forcing some to commute for hours, leading to them being unable to participate in the social life college has to offer. He then went on to challenge the criticisms made against recent student protests, namely the claim that students do not understand economics. With rent increases happening every year for Trinity accommodation, we are not seeing this money go to student services. Students are made to pay higher and higher

fees that are going to management instead of important services such as free menstrual products. He finished his talk on a hopeful note, emphasising the importance of grassroots organisations such as the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU).

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He [Molnárfi] then went on to challenge the criticisms made against recent student protests, namely the claim that students do not understand economics The People Before Profit TD, Richard Boyd Barrett, furthered the discussion by adding that the type of accommodation we build is just as crucial as the amount. If we

increase student accommodation but continue to let it be controlled by private investors, it will not help anyone and will only continue to make housing unaffordable. Rory Hearne, a senior policy analyst and lecturer, spoke in detail of the Irish Government’s neoliberal policies. Leaving welfare policies up to the market will prioritise profit over the wellbeing of workers. He explained how it is clear through Irish policies that the government does not treat housing as a human right but as a way to gain more profit. The last speaker was Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin. He wanted to push that at least 30% of housing should be publicly owned, again prioritising quality homes over landlords. He wrapped up the talk nicely by stating that we should not only focus on the problems but also highlight and have hope that things can be different. After each speaker went through their points, the PolSoc committee ended the talk by asking some interesting questions. One of these was about the balance between housing Irish citizens and immigrants. Richard Boyd Barret was the first to answer by emphasising that blaming immigrants for the housing crisis is just a way to pit people against each other. There is not an issue with the number of resources available, but the distribution of resources. Eoin Ó Broin continued the conversation by explaining asylum seekers are not taking up space in houses as they are in temporary accommodation. They have a right to housing yet are in some of the worst accommodation available in a separate and distinct system to Irish citizens. This was a very important discussion considering the rise in anti-

immigration attitudes in Ireland. PolSoc set the tone for the year ahead with their first speaker event. It included several great speakers, all from different backgrounds and with different perspectives. Giving a resource like this

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By holding other events like this, students will have more knowledge when facing precarious housing situations to students to help educate them about the current housing situation is extremely important. By holding other events like this, students will have more knowledge when facing precarious housing situations and unfair landlords themselves. PolSoc’s Chair, James, and Social Secretary, Lara Smith, added: “PolSoc was very satisfied with the panel event, we especially found the discussion of the far right’s anti-immigration narrative interesting and we’re planning on going into this topic in more detail in the future.”

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

The evolution of therapy speak in modern relationships Daisy Gambles explores the progression, and potentially harmful misuse, of therapy speak in contemporary relationships

n early July of this year, texts sent from the 21 Jump Street actor Jonah Hill to his exgirlfriend Sarah Brady were posted online, sending the internet into a frenzy over the language and nature of the messages. The texts consisted of Hill expressing his discomfort with photos and videos of Brady, a professional surfer, in swimsuits on her social media. Hill outlined his “boundaries” that more closely resembled demands prohibiting her from being friends with fellow male surfers, and ending friendships with women in “unstable places”. The actor has previously spoken openly about his relationship with therapy and his therapist, advocating its benefits, and giving his counsellor a platform in his documentary, Stutz. Twitter’s outrage, however, posited that Hill was not setting boundaries;

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The Global Observer quoted a 1,742% rise in the use of the word “gaslighting”, also stating it was the most googled word in 2022 instead, he was manipulating his partner under the guise of “therapy speak” and progressive language. These behaviours have become a recent epidemic amongst young people, commonly used on social media sites like Twitter (now titled X) and TikTok. In addition, the 2023 Refinery29 article “Is Therapy-Speak Ruining Our

Relationships?” by Meg Walters discusses the overuse of buzzwords often seen in counselling, and how it is negatively affecting relationships; platonic and romantic. Indeed, there now seems to be trepidation in “oversharing” being referred to as “traumadumping”, enjoying someone’s company as “codependency”, and in the case of Jonah Hill, setting demands for your partner as “boundaries”. In no way am I trying to minimise or downplay the seriousness of these terms; this article is actually hoping to do quite the opposite. By overusing and devaluing words that describe genuine toxicity and abuse amongst interpersonal relationships, we are trivialising these behaviours which have catastrophic consequences. People actually experiencing gaslighting are being told online that everyone is being gaslighted, demeaning and reducing the severity of their experiences, and potentially trapping them in an unsafe environment. The Global Observer quoted a 1,742% rise in the use of the word “gaslighting”, also stating it was the most googled word in 2022. The constant circulation and often incorrect usage of these terms can lead to confusion surrounding the actual definition, so I have compiled definitions and examples below that I found helpful in differentiating TikTok psychology from genuine examples. Gaslighting A manipulative tactic in which a person, to gain power and control of another individual, plants seeds of uncertainty in another person’s mind. What it is not: “My friend said that the sky is green, but I said that it’s blue.” What it is: “My friend said that the sky is green, but I said that it’s blue. We argued because my friend said that the sky is green and I cannot process colour, but by the end of the argument they said that the sky is blue and it always has been. They’re not sure why I would say it’s green, but I convinced them that it’s true.” Boundaries A guide to define what you are comfortable with and how you would like to be treated by others. What it is not: “I don’t like partying, but my partner does so I make them come home early or not go at all.” What it is: “I do not want to go to parties, so I will stay home or do another activity instead of attending; I cannot, however, tell my partner to not go.” Codependency A relationship dynamic when one partner needs the other partner, who in turn, needs to be

needed. What it is not: “I really enjoy hanging out and spending time with this person.” What it is: “I don’t feel complete without this person, I wish they would tell me what to do and we could spend all of our time together as I don’t feel “whole” without them otherwise.” Trauma dumping Unloading traumatic experiences on others without warning or invitation. What it is not: “I’m quite upset at the moment because of [xyz];

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The main takeaway, though, is that healthy relationships should be built on mutual trust, love, and the ability to communicate can I talk about it?” What it is (very subject to nuance as it is a relatively new term): Oversharing very personal details in an inappropriate setting/ to an inappropriate audience to gain attention, validation or sympathy. Circling back to Jonah Hill, we can clearly see that his requested “boundaries” for his ex-girlfriend are actually demands, and defining them as boundaries only leaves room for more people to manipulate and control partners under the guise of protection. Hill is only one example of the rapidly spreading “couch psychology” movement, gaining traction through social media without much regard for analysing its harmful implications, as it devalues real abuse within relationships. These examples are all partial to nuance; in no way am I trying to define how a relationship should be constructed, as healthy relationships between two individuals look very different to everyone. The main takeaway, though, is that healthy relationships should be built on mutual trust, love, and the ability to communicate; all skills that take time to build and develop, but are doable and beneficial for you and the people around you.

Stargazing: What Elena Modesti talks to the Trinity Space Society about stargazing during the coming autumn and winter

ince the beginning of time, people all over the globe have looked up at the sky, fascinated by the thousands of shining spots that brightened the enveloping darkness of the night. From Greek philosophers to Arabian astronomists, from Venetian sailors to Caribbean pirates, stars and planets have always been part of human lives in many different ways: folktales inspiration, calendar benchmarks, sea compasses, fortune tellers and so on. These celestial bodies have never ceased to catch our interest. They stir something in us that goes beyond our material comprehension – the “Sublime”, as Romantic poets would say – and their cyclical movement hypnotises our minds, making us wait in anticipation for their return. So, what should we look out for when stargazing over the

next few months, as the weather turns colder but the nights grow longer? The answers are given to us by the Trinity Space Society, whose members – secretary Brendan Watters and ordinary committee member (OCM) Dominik Kuczynski, – we had the pleasure to speak with. Q: What constellations can we see during the night around this time of the year? B: In Ireland, all year round, you’re going to see the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor), as well as that there’s Cassiopeia which looks like a big “W” (even if many people don’t recognise it!). In October especially, you will also see constellations such as Pegasus, Andromeda, Taurus and Orion. D: If you aren’t an expert it’s really useful to download an app, just like “Constellarium”, that shows you a map of the sky. Q: Is it necessary to have good equipment to watch the stars? B: Not really, all the constellations are visible to the naked eye, even in the centre of Dublin, but you might need to go out into a darker area to see them better. The air will also become clearer later on as winter comes, so it will be easier to stargaze. D: But do keep an eye out for the weather! Q: We’ve talked about stars,

The essential guide Katie Carrig shares her top tips for spending quality time alone without feeling terrified

s an accidental, but habitual, serial monogamist, I’ve only just begun the process of learning to be comfortable in my own company. Since the age of 18, a revolving door of romantic partners has kept me anything but alone. Now that that chapter in my life is closed, basic tasks can seem daunting. Without someone there to just hold your hand in the supermarket, the world can start to feel like a frightening place. As part of this process of getting to know myself and learning to sit in silence, I (very bravely, I know) have decided that the only person I will take on dates for the next year will be myself. Without further ado, here is the unabridged version of how to go

out in public alone without feeling like a loser. A book is your best friend. The first time I sat down in a cafe alone for lunch, I found myself glued to my phone the entire time. I would have rather had everyone assume that I had been waiting for someone or had been stood up than simply getting lunch by myself. It took a long time for me to be comfortable knowing I can just exist and don’t owe anyone an explanation for my presence. A book is a wonderful buffer. You don’t have to actually be reading it. Hell, you can stare at the same page for two hours. It gives you something to do, or rather if you are a self conscious type, like me, it lets people know that you are actually hard at work. Slowly work your way up to journal in public and voila! Self reflection! Watching a match is a great excuse to drink alone. I’ve always considered being left alone in a bar, even if my friends are just in the bathroom, the pinnacle of anxiety. Match day is the perfect excuse to nurse a pint, be out in public and make new

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

not to miss over the next few months but let’s not forget there are also other celestial objects to look at, like planets. Can we spot any? D: Yes of course! It’s a pretty good time to see Jupiter – it might be the brightest object in the sky aside from the Moon.

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It’s a pretty good time to see Jupiter – it might be the brightest object in the sky aside from the Moon. Though it is fairly low in the sky now, it will rise later

Though it is fairly low in the sky now, it will rise later. B: Also, if you feel like getting up early in the morning, Mercury and Venus will be visible just beforee sunrise. Q: And what about the Moon? Any upcoming eclipse? B: There will be a partial but very small Moon eclipse on the 28th of October, from 7pm to 11pm, the peak being at 9pm. Q: Should we look out for any astronomical events of a lifetime? B: Not of a lifetime unfortunately, but from the 2nd of October to the 7th of November there will be a meteor shower coming from near Betelgeuse – on Orion’s shoulder – and the peak will be around the 21st-22nd of October. Q: Can you reveal to our readers the best places in Dublin or nearby to stargaze? D: Phoenix Park for sure, but in general you should go outside of the city. In Ireland there are quite a few places, since the countryside is quite dark. B: Malahide is a great spot, too. Q: Is it also possible to see the ISS (International Space Station) passing by when looking out of our windows at night? D: Yes! It is quite bright, you might need to get lucky but the ISS passes often – every 40 minutes, more or less. It’s possible to see it

e to dating yourself friends. Don’t worry if you don’t actually understand what the rules are, there will undoubtedly be a shameless aul fella there to call you sweetheart and break down every single play to you. Bonus points if he buys the next round. A solo trip is a gateway drug. It can be intimidating doing things alone in your home city. Especially when that city is Dublin and everyone and their mother is on your morning commute. A solo weekend trip can be the perfect little crash course in going out alone. Once you realise your actions have no consequences when you’re away, it’s much easier to bring that mentality back home. Going alone to an art gallery is actually sexy and mysterious. Anything vaguely cultural is a perfect first solo outing. Wandering around a museum, or going to see a play, isn’t something you need another person for anyway. Going to spaces where talking is frowned upon ensures you don’t stick out. It’s also incredibly meditative to just wander around an art gallery with music and a

nice fancy coffee as a treat. Nobody looks twice if your hands are occupied. My final bit of advice is unorthodox and objectively harmful. Smoking is a great way to occupy your hands in public. No one looks twice at someone sitting alone in a park smoking. I know, I know. Smoking is bad. Horrible for you. I am serious, don’t start smoking just for comfort in being alone. BUT, if you already are a smoker you know that nothing brings people together quite like cigarettes. A cig, a book and a coffee are my go-to’s in gaps in my schedule. You are not the centre of everyone’s world. If you’ve only ever been surrounded by people, learning to be okay with your own company is such a daunting task. Just please try and remember, no one observes you half as much as you do. And even if they did, it literally does not matter if the barista thinks you have no friends. And if all else fails, have a cheeky cigarette or fancy coffee. You’ve earned it.

even through a telescope, though it can be a bit difficult as it goes very fast. B: You should look close to the horizon when trying to find it, but there’s a website called www. spotthestation.nasa.gov, where you just need to insert your location and it will tell you the time it will pass by. Q: Finally, a more theoretical question: is it true that we are looking at the past when we look at the stars? D: Well, there are two answers to this question, an easy one and a complicated one. The first would be yes, because light travels at light speed so if it is getting to us just now, it means that it must have started its journey a long time ago. On the other hand, Einstein’s relativity theory tells us that it doesn’t really matter and it’s kind of the same timeline, since nothing else could have gotten here before light and therefore there would be no difference whether it was in the past or not. What are you waiting for, then? Just grab a friend and run to the nicest spot you know to stargaze together! But, if this interview has not stirred your interest yet, just wait until nightfall and, like those who came before you, raise your eyes to the star-filled sky: you will find yourself mesmerised before you know it.

ARTWORK BY JESSIE HUANG FOR TRINITY NEWS

ARTWORK BY EMMA DOHERTY FOR TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

A spectacular night celebrating literature and language that was not lost in translation PHOTO BY AYUSHMAAN KUMAR YADAV FOR TRINITY NEWS

Abby Cleaver covers JoLT’s first launch party of the year and examines its significance in the Irish literary scene

dorning an otherwise typical Friday night at Chaplin’s, this launch event celebrated JoLT’s first issue of volume 12. The issue’s theme “tradition” acquired new resonance as this year’s staff began a new tradition in the journal’s first ever summer issue. Speaking on the decision to implement a third issue, Editor-inChief Eoghan Conway stated the staff discussed and thought: “we might as well give it a shot”. If this commendable expansion wasn’t reason enough for a party already, this issue itself was a huge success in displaying translation pieces from all over Trinity, necessitating an event for them to be read and appreciated. The upstairs room in Chaplin’s became a space for art and language to collide, with everyone in attendance captivated by the passion of the writers as they read their work aloud to the room. Despite the loud atmosphere, the noise downstairs was drowned out as the attendees became completely immersed in the readings – and as one of the general assistant editors and self-appointed bouncer dutifully ensured the door remained shut to provide readers with the respectful absence of distraction. The range of languages covered in this issue, and read aloud

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It was incredible to hear so many languages being spoken and celebrated in the middle of a small pub in Dublin

on the night of the launch, was breathtakingly vast. French, Estonian, Lithuanian, Russian, German, and Chinese were featured, but not even the extent of all the languages available to read and hear on the night. The entire room shared an appreciation for language and art, relishing their collision. It was incredible to hear so many languages being spoken and celebrated in the middle of a small pub in Dublin, and wonderful to see how captivated so many could be as they carefully and thoughtfully listened to languages they could not entirely understand. I found myself equally engaged in the readings through English, Irish and German, which I would find familiar and be ablee to pick words and phrases out from, as I was hearing Russian and Chinese, languages I would be far from familiar with but quickly grew to appreciate for their unique sounds and contrast to their language pairing. The contributors also discussed the thought processes behind their choices and explained the links between their work and the theme of tradition. The incredible artwork featured throughout the journal was a highlight. Penny Stuart, responsible for the cover art and multiple pieces within the issue, spoke about the pieces that she submitted. Stuart has featured in JoLT issues before for her art and has an active instagram account to which she posts her art regularly. Ava Cashell spoke about her artistic contribution, sinéad, a stunning portrait of Sinéad O’Connor. Ella Sloane also spoke about her piece, Sheela-na-gig, which she found

inspiration for after seeing a reallife statue of a Sheela-na-gig while on her holidays. These works are only a taste of the art within JoLT’s summer issue. Many pieces were beautifully crafted, selected, and discussed by the contributors and everyone in attendance at the event. One attendee I spoke to commented that it was lovely to see a journal with such a stunning and ingrained fusion between the written and the visual, and I just

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The range of languages covered in this issue, and read aloud on the night of the launch, was breathtakingly vast. French, Lithuanian, Chinese, Russian... had to agree. The journal itself was a spectacular success. From the cover art to the translations within,

the journal has been laid out by the journal’s talented layout and design editor Ayushmaan Kumar Yadav with JoLT’s classic and tasteful minimalist style. Clean lines and defined edges that are beautiful in its simplicity. The artwork was a welcome splash of visual and colour between the written word, and the pages dedicated to the contributors and their biographies were a nice touch of appreciation and personalisation pairing the work behind these creative acts. Looking at these lines about the contributors, it is clear that JoLT has created a community of writers and contributors who cannot stay away. This is evident as two of the previous Editorin-Chiefs – Anastasia Fedosova 2022/23, and Cian Dunne 2021/22 – contributed to this latest issue. Dunne attended the recent launch and read his chosen poem aloud in the original Russian, the English translation, and his personal translation of the original poem into Irish. Speaking to Dunne after the launch, he said: “I chose to translate a poem written by Joseph Brodsky the year before his exile from the Soviet Union. Brodsky was a perfect choice of poet to translate in response to ‘tradition,’ with his contemporary Anna Akhmatova pronouncing him as ‘the carrier of the embers of Russian verse’ into the twentieth century… I decided to translate Brodsky’s poem from Russian into Irish, given that Irish is the second official language of the journal, and because I’d never attempted a translation between these two languages.” Deputy Editor Caroline

Loughlin stressed the importance of the journal in the Irish literary scene, stating that “JoLT is certainly one of the more niche publications in Trinity, but it’s such an important one given that we have such a linguistically diverse and international student body. It’s great that we get to play a part in showcasing that.” Editorin-Chief Eoghan Conway is of the same mind, believing that “JoLT offers a space for translation to be celebrated and published, unfortunately opportunities are few and far between these days… Translation is not only the interpretation of words, it’s the art of making an entire culture comprehensible. Translators are often the workhorses and unsung heroes of the publishing world. Without them works by nonEnglish writers… could never be appreciated or enjoyed by the anglophone audience.” After attending the launch party, I would have to concur with the editors on JoLT’s significance within the Irish literary scene and translation’s importance to the arts. After all, comprising a great deal of media, from books and poetry to movie adaptations and beyond, translation is the cornerstone of connecting worlds and cultures. To have such a prominent and successful journal embodying this in Trinity is something to appreciate and support. JoLT has now opened submissions for its first term issue on the theme of Modernity. To keep up to date with JoLT, their submission deadlines and planned events, follow them on Instagram and Twitter @trinityjolt.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Can reading week actually mean reading week? Sarah O’Donohoe writes about the pressures and realities of reading week

ith the Michaelmas term breezing by, the oasis of reading week is on the horizon. While in theory reading week is supposed to be used as a time to get some rest and get your head down, in reality, it can be easy to feel the social pressure to spend your week living an insta-worthy lifestyle, taking pictures in the mountains of Italy or exploring a South American jungle. While a Ryanair flash sale might be enticing to some, it is important to recognise that a weeklong breakaway is more than the price of flights. There is a cost to any decision you make, whether it be financially, emotionally or academically. So what’s the best way to spend your reading week? In this article, I’m going to dissect the different directions you can take, how best to delegate your time and how to make the decision that is best for you. Manage expectations. It’s imperative to manage your expectations for the week ahead. You may think that you are going to have the most productive week ever, working 12-hour shifts and going to see your parents, all the while going out every night. Speaking from experience, that may not always be how things turn out. Create a list of your nonnegotiables, in order of their

priority. Whether that be studying for an MCQ during the week or meeting up with that friend you haven’t seen since moving up to college. They should be your priority, and everything else should be a bonus. As painful as it is, life gets in the way sometimes, and it’s just something that you have to prepare yourself for. If you are going away, reading week for you should start the week before. Make sure to get as much of your assignments done as possible before going abroad. Of course, this is easier said than done, but it will allow you to enjoy your time away so much more. Don’t let FOMO get in the way of what you need. FOMO is perhaps the worst part of reading week and not a thing that many people talk about. It’s easy to see people’s extravagant Instagram stories from their villas in France and feel like you’re missing out. But you need to remember, people only post the best part of their lives. We all have different priorities. Plus, some of us might be in a more demanding course, which makes these trips less viable. Or sometimes we might just not have the means to have those experiences for the time being. Try not to let it get you down. Just because you aren’t able to do something extravagant during reading week doesn’t mean that you should deprive yourself of any

enjoyment whatsoever. Speaking from experience, I said no to trips away with friends or nights out I may just have been able to afford it because I was afraid of managing my workload while away and that the trips would not be up to my expectations. Those who are chronic procrastinators (join the club) often result in spending their time thinking about the “social” experiences that they are missing out on and as a result, end up not

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You may feel pressured by your friends to take trips away, but if you feel like deep down all you need is a week at home... you do you

being very productive. So, what’s the solution? Sometimes, you have to take a calculated risk. Is going out the night before your essay is due a good idea? Probably not. But if you have been working all week, and if you know that by not going out you are just going to be sitting in and not getting the essay done anyway, you might as well just enjoy yourself. You need to prioritise yourself, and your wellbeing, but do take that advice with a grain of salt. It’s a fine line trying to balance what’s best for you while also occasionally venturing outside your comfort zone. That being said, everyone is different. You may feel pressured by your friends to take trips away, but if you feel like deep down all you need is a week at home just to rejuvenate in your bed, you do you. Try not to feel peer pressured into agreeing to things you have no interest in. That’ll only result in the stress of having to flake out at the last minute or sit through something you absolutely hate. Be firm with your boundaries; be nice; but at the very end of the day, you don’t have to owe anyone an explanation about what’s best for you. To conclude, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to spend reading week. It should be a week to get some studying done, take some time off and do something fun.

Try not to conform to other people’s expectations, and do whatever feels right for you. Working a minimum wage job or

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The most important thing to remember is that the week flies by, so try at the very least to accomplish one thing on your list studying all week long – while not ideal – may just be the reality for some people and as crap as that is, it’s okay. The most important thing to remember is that the week flies by, so try at the very least to accomplish one thing on your list, and try not to let the week go to waste.

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Don’t let FOMO get in the way of what you need. FOMO is perhaps the worst part of reading week and not a thing that many people talk about ARTWORK BY JESSIE HUANG FOR TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Life in living colour:The work of William McKeown Alice Carroll reviews the new William McKeown exhibition at Kerlin Gallery

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n Open Room’ the recent William McKeown exhibition in the Kerlin gallery (August 30 – September 30) is aptly titled for a series conveying the simple perfection within our environment in a world preoccupied with technology. McKeown (19622011) ignites an appreciation for our natural surroundings through his choice of colour, subject matter and style. The curator masterfully communicates the artist’s innate focus on nature through the arrangement of the artworks. The art hung in this otherwise bare white space emulates planets revolving around the sun, with McKeown’s work serving as celestial bodies within a world where nature and art act as one. A meditation into the mind and work of McKeown begins upon an ascension into this expansive space of alternating differently sized works, with the larger pieces acting

as solitary focal points situated on both sides of the room. Following the curator’s intended layout, a specific yet subtle numbering system ensures optimal viewing. This simple inclusion, combined with the information on the press release, allows for the viewer’s introspection and heightened appreciation for the artist’s work. Beautiful, while an apt description, does not effectively encompass all that McKeown’s work has to offer. The exhibition demands further rhetoric, calling to mind the words intriguing, emotive and hopeful. Following the exhibition, you are taken on a journey through bold blocks of colour, gentle gradients of pastels and naturalistic palettes. This experience feels akin to immersing oneself in McKeown’s vision and art-making process achieved through oils and watercolour. The exhibition begins on a powerful note with the first Untitled piece, a bold rectangle of twilight tones which conjures a dark, brooding, and complex atmosphere. The material, oil on linen, feels to be an important aesthetic note. McKeown does not attempt to distort or hide the process of art making. Upon close inspection, each individual brushstroke of alternate shades and tone have been carefully layered to create this impactful piece.

As the exhibition moves on to the next piece, Untitled 2008, we are introduced to a signature element of McKeown’s style: subtle gradations of tone. Notably, the artist has achieved a raw irregular border through the thick sweeps of his brush. In this piece, he has tactfully eliminated the bottom edge border to draw the viewer’s eye and emphasise the expansiveness of his thematic concerns. This effect would have been easily lost if McKeown painted a conventional border. This border example is a recurring feature of McKeown’s work, which showcases his meticulous decision

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A rt, which is open and accepts without judgement, is expanding, positive and enhancing

How girls steal the moon Diana Stokes on the three Trinity bands that should be on your radar

mmersed within the darkness of Bello Bar’s basement, three bands took to the stage for a night of longing ballads, funky tunes, and some amazing drum solos. The first two bands, Burglar and Evie, were alternative folk-pop inspired bands. They supported Moon Talk, the rock headliner of the show, with Burglar starting off the night. Burglar (@burglar.band) provides a mellow combination of bedroom pop and shoegaze. Their music feels like a sunlit bedroom, muted earth tones and the smell of sage. Overall their sound is both echoey and comforting, with an undercurrent of strong bass guitar and solid drumming. Standout songs from the night included “Mosh”, a song which vocalist and guitarist Eduardo Pinheiro explained was about low self-esteem, with the title being a play on words of the French

word “moche” meaning ugly and “Bombshell,” a self-described funky sounding song, with minor tones galore and a truly funky bassline from bassist Cormac Nugent. Throughout the set, the vocals were a standout, with the harmonies between Eduardo and fellow vocalist/guitarist Willow Hannon ringing throughout the venue. Simultaneously, Ben Coffey worked his magic on the drums, which added to the dynamic atmosphere. Next in the line-up was Evie (@ eviemusicdublin), a five-member group that included a violinist. Their sound is beautifully haunting and folksy; Evie Kelly’s deeper vocals and Jennifer Montgomery’s harmony stick in your head days after you hear it and the band has such a cohesive feel and sound, sure to entrance anyone who listens. Standout songs include “Astronaut,” which sounded very Sufjan Stevens-like, with a layered sound to it like no other, “My Boy,” a song with lyrics heavy on the imagery, a melancholic, twangy guitar and a bass drum that acts as the song’s heartbeat. The set’s second half included more upbeat songs, showcasing Clara Lee’s violin skills through some solos, Matthew Wood’s fascinating

drumstick collection and Joe Barford’s upbeat bass guitar lines. Inspired by alternative folk artists such as Laura Marling and Phoebe Bridgers, check out Evie if you like songs that feel like snow on a quiet day or the energetic crackle of pine wood in a hearth fire. Last and most certainly not least, was the headliner of the night, Moon Talk (@itsmoontalk). A four-man group with a synth as the special addition, a refreshingly retro sounding band with strong vocals from Jack Walsh and some funky synth action from Alessandro Loro. The intro they played was surprisingly jazzy and blues-y in nature, which was a nice tonal change from the previous two bands. My standout songs were “Home to Me,” a straightforward, 80s classic rock, bass-forward sound that brings to mind men’s cologne, a leather jacket, and maybe a little hairspray in the mix, and “My Heart,” a slower song with muted drums that served as a good interlude in the set. There was also an improvised jam session in the middle of all of this, which was an absolute ball to watch, especially when drummer Kevin Huang-Wu had his moment in the spotlight with an insane solo that impressed

making. The first series of works consisting of three pieces is titled Hope Drawing. This series offers a new facet of McKeown’s artistry and the considered positioning of his work within the space. This series punctuates the darker work on either side with its dreamlike pastel palette and the transition in material from oil on linen to watercolour on paper, framed not by brushstrokes but by a naturalistic wooden frame. As he gradually introduces colour to his paintings, an intimacy is afforded between artist and viewer, which is not fully realised in the starker monochromatic works at the beginning of the exhibition. Hence, the viewer is increasingly invited into McKeown’s personal insight into the world. Raining (2008) displays McKeown’s true talent and artist’s eye. In reducing rain to its natural colours, this painting exolores movement while seamlessly communicating its subject without need for the title. Rain commands our attention and appreciation for the natural form’s qualities, evoking feelings of comfort and calm as if watching rain gently reflecting off one’s window pane. As the exhibition continues in its clockwise fashion, the paintings with borders undergo an almost imperceptible transition from

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The intro they played was surprisingly jazzy and blues-y in nature, which was a nice tonal change from the previous two bands the whole venue. Other standouts included, “Are You Bitter”, which came rocking in with a majestic intro, grandiose chords with scattered drumming and a strong bassline from Chris May à la Led Zeppelin - which by the end dialled up the energy in the room to a ten and had everyone jumping

stark dark tones to oak and varying shades of browns. This subtle flow emphasises an airiness throughout the Gallery, with McKeown’s paintings acting as pockets of alternating colour. Overhanging light fixtures illuminate paintings and contribute to this consistent ‘open room’ concept from floor to ceiling. The floor, an unpolished studio grey, is an effective marriage with the light white reflecting McKeown’s acclaimed gradation of tones McKeown’s chief concern in art was to mirror the openness of nature and illuminate the themes of liberty, hope and life. Despite his untimely death, his work is testament to the fulfilment of his aim. As an acute observer of the natural world, the viewer is challenged to rediscover the world and beauty found in simple pleasures. As McKeown declared in 2002, “There are two types of art – open and closed. All closed art is negative and anti-life. Art, which is open and accepted without judgement, is expanding, positive and enhancing”. ‘An Open Room’ exhibition’s launch coincides with the book release ‘William McKeown in an open room’. This apt title is a true celebration of a life dedicated to art’s wild incarnation - not against nature but reconciled with its instinctive beauty.

around - and “Paint Your Lips,” a song with inspired synth using plucky, 70s funk-inspired chords and vintage, slightly higherpitched vocals. The crowd sang along for this one, which made the performance feel so much more intimate. The feeling of fellow audience members jostling around the front of the stage is an experience you can never grow tired of, as the energy is infectious and radiant. When talking to them after their set, I asked them who they were inspired by and what their plans for the future are. They named artists such as Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, and John Mayer as their main musical muses; think indie rock ballads and RnB. As for future plans, continued work as a band on music production and shows are on the programme. Overall, all three bands were incredible. The transition from the gently upbeat sound of Burglar to the melodic melancholy of Evie, and finally to the powerhouse that was Moon Talk, made it a night to remember. If you like the sound of any of them, make sure to check them out online through the Instagram handles by their names, or go to a gig in-person!

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Abby Cleaver speaks with careers consultant Orlaith Tunney to demystify the careers service and give you all the information you need

areer anxiety, that dreaded feeling that creeps up on nearly all students at some stage of their college careers. One day you’re a fresher forgetting about your assignment until the hours before, and the next you’re a soonto-be graduated quasi-adult trying to make plans for the future. No matter how prepared you feel you are, or how much direction you have for what you want to do, looking ahead to post college life can be as stressful as it is exciting, and any help you can get should be taken with both hands. What is that help, you ask? Trinity Careers Service is a great place to start. With multiple services and resources available, there truly is something to gain for every student at any level of their job search. However, with so much on offer, it seems many students are unsure of how to begin engaging with the service. But fear not! I have sat down with Orlaith Tunney, one of the six fabulous careers consultants

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Ultimately, a student reflecting on what they care about, what they’re skilled at, interested in, is really the most important piece

working to help students figure things out. Together we have broken down the Careers Service into the not-so-scary basics of what there is, how to use it, and what to definitely not worry about anymore. After all, as Orlaith would put it, we are not preparing for our whole future, but the next step in our lives after graduatingand that is exciting. What is the careers service and what do they do? Trinity Careers Service is here to support all students in preparation for their future careers. They can help you to fully understand how to market yourself to prospective employers, helping you to identify and articulate your skills and strengths that you have gained through your degree and beyondparticipation in societies, sports, work experience and more. Where can I find this service and their resources? Information about the Career Service can be found on their website. The website has buckets of information for students and graduates, offering advice in areas such as How to Find Work, Applications and Interviews, and Explore Career Options. The website is a great place to start engaging! Trinity students can also avail of the MyCareer online portal, in which you can browse the multitude of resources and services available to you: searching for jobs, booking a place for careers events, and booking appointments with career consultants or with the CV/ LinkedIn Clinic. As well as this, stay on the lookout for emails from the Careers Service, where they send out weekly career updates and information about upcoming career events. You can also follow their instagram @trinity.careers. service to stay up to date with what is going on. When is the right time in college to use the service? Orlaith believes no time is a bad time: “Any time’s a good time when the student feels ready. In my experience many tend to procrastinate. By coming sooner to use the career service, you actually can take more proactive action, and thereby build your confidence and career readiness.” Orlaith explains that while first year may seem early, it can be hugely beneficial to think of your career at this stage because your participation in college life can actively make you more employable. Orlaith emphasises the benefits of taking small proactive steps to gain skills and experience that can make you more employable in the long run (like participation in societies and clubs, writing for a college publication, or being a part of the Student Union). Having fun and

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Unlocking your future and maximising your potential: A guide to Trinity Careers Service

enjoying college life does not have to mean pushing career anxiety aside, in fact preparing in little ways now and adding experiences to your CV can absolutely minimise stress when you come closer to graduation, and know you have an arsenal of skills to sell. I’m a final year student and have never engaged with the service- is it too late? Career anxiety seems to come to a head for most in their last year as they are unavoidably faced with the dreaded question: what happens next? This can be especially true for broad degree students studying humanities and social sciences, who may not know exactly what direction they want to take, never mind where to start. For those students: don’t worry! Orlaith has assured me that they are here to support you at whatever stage you are at, and that it is never too late to start, claiming that no matter how long you have left it, “now is a good time to start”. Pointing out a key feature of the service, Orlaith mentions graduates may avail of all careers services until the end of June in the year following your course ending. So for those worrying about running out of time in fourth year, support will continue to be available to you for a whole year after college is over! I have no idea what I want to do! Can I use the service too? Orlaith explains how the Careers Service can still be of great help even if you’re unclear on what path to take post-college. The resources on the website and the MyCareer portal can help prompt you to reflect on what you want to do. Reflection is key, according to Orlaith, when trying to figure out what you want to do: “Ultimately,

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“A student reflecting on what they care about, what they’re skilled at and interested in, is really the most important piece. What is the next experience you’d like to get? a student reflecting on what they care about, what they’re skilled at and interested in, is really the most important piece. What is the next experience you’d like to get?” Being able to discuss your interests, skills and experience can help spark a conversation about potential career sectors, and begin your career exploration. Alumni to Student Career Mentoring is a practical way to gain insight and make connections with Trinity alumni working globally in a wide range of sectors. CV/LinkedIn clinics sound great, but what exactly do they

entail? CV/LinkedIn Clinics are a very straightforward process. It is a short 15 minute appointment that can be booked easily through MyCareer. You can choose one thing to look over, either LinkedIn or CV or cover letter. Have a CV draft ready to look at, and if you have a specific job in mind or know what job sector you are interested in make sure to think about that when drafting. Tailoring your CV or cover letter is important when it comes to job applications, so the more specific you can be the better! How to prepare for a meeting with a career consultant? So, you have decided to book a Next Step appointment with a career consultant through the MyCareers portal and now you want to know how to prepare. Orlaith recommends uploading your CV to the portal, so that the consultant can review it and get an idea of your experience. She stresses that everything is relevant- from work experience to extracurriculars, everything can be used to strengthen your CV. If you do not have a CV draft, don’t worry either, as when you book your appointment you can briefly jot down your experience. You decide what to discuss as you book your meeting, and your career consultant can help you from there: “It’s up to the student to drive the meeting. So if you want to talk about not knowing where you want to go, you can say that. Maybe you need specific help with an application or an interview. Maybe you have an illness or a disability and you’re wondering how to disclose it. There are all the types of things that we can help with.”

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Cuisine Spotlight: The hidden gem that is Ethiopian food Thana Elshaafi examines the oftentimes overlooked world of Ethiopian cuisine

ome of the most unique dishes can be found in Ethiopian cuisine. It is one of the lesser-known cuisines globally, however, if you are seeking a one-of-akind food experience, Ethiopian cuisines is must try. This makes it an absolute delight to any culinary enthusiasts seeking a truly oneof-a-kind flavour experience. Ethiopian dishes are typically arranged in a colourful and artistic manner on injera bread, creating an appealing visual aspect to the meal. The use of vibrant spices and garnishes also makes the food visually enticing. The star of Ethiopian cuisine is the injera bread. A glutenfree sourdough flatbread that accompanies most dishes and is used as an eating utensil for the various dishes and stews. It has a slightly tangy flavour and a spongy texture that is unique to it due to the fermentation process that occurs, and this adds to the uniqueness of the dishes’ flavour profile . Ethiopian meals are often enjoyed in a communal setting, with several dishes served on the shared injera platter. This style of dining is common and fosters a sense of community and togetherness, making it a more enjoyable social experience. Ethiopian cuisine offers a wide variety of dishes. Some popular options include doro wat (a spicy chicken stew made with berbere spice blend, onions, garlic, and ginger and often served with

injera and sometimes hard-boiled eggs), tibs (grilled or sautéed pieces of meat, usually beef, lamb, or goat which are seasoned with spices, onions, and peppers), kitfo (minced raw beef seasoned with spices, especially mitmita and also often served with injera and various side dishes). There are also other dishes such as firfir (torn injera soaked in a spicy sauce, often with leftover stews. It’s a way to use leftover injera and stews, creating a unique and delicious meal) and dabo kolo (small, crunchy bread bites seasoned with spices and often served as a snack or with coffee). The cuisine is known for its rich and diverse flavour profile and the use of a wide range of spices and herbs, including berbere (a spice blend) and mitmita (a spicy seasoning), gives Ethiopian dishes a complex and satisfying taste. The use of spices a n d

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Ethiopia is known as the birthplace of coffee, and coffee ceremonies are an important cultural tradition seasonings in Ethiopian cuisine is both extensive and unique. Spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and coriander are combined with native Ethiopian spices to create distinctive flavours. This is partly due to the influence of various cultures, including Indian, Middle Eastern, and Italian, on Ethiopian cuisine. These influences have contributed to its diverse and intriguing flavour profiles. In recent years, Ethiopian dishes have attracted both vegan and vegetarian audiences as

IMAGE VIA FLICKR many of its dishes, which focus on legumes, are both delicious and satisfying. The abundance of options for vegans and vegetarians in Ethiopian cuisine adds to its appeal, as other cuisine may have a limited range of vegan options. The plant-based dishes often include lentils, chickpeas and various vegetables with complex and diverse flavours. One vegan dish is Shiro, a type of thick stew made from a combination of legumes such as chickpeas and lentils that is simmered slowly and served with injera bread. There are other dishes such as vegetable wats which are vegetarian or vegan stews made with a variety of vegetables, lentils, or chickpeas. They are cooked with berbere and other spices to

create rich and flavourful dishes. Moreover, the dishes are balanced due to a combination of vegetables and protein sources which are important for a satiating and delicious eating experience. Ethiopia is known as the birthplace of coffee, and coffee ceremonies are an important cultural tradition. The aromatic coffee beans are roasted, ground, and brewed in front of guests, creating a sensory experience that goes beyond the beverage itself. It’s a social activity that is enjoyed throughout the country. Only one restaurant in Ireland serves Ethiopian foods and is known as Gursha. Their menu includes a variety of traditional Ethiopian dishes including doro wat, tibs, yebeg alicha (seasonsed pieces of lamb), gomen (collard greens or other leafy greens cooked with garlic, ginger, and spices, a popular side dish in Ethiopian cuisine) and misir wat (a combination of red lentils and caramelised onions). Their menu is predominantly vegan, and all the dishes are served on the traditional injera bread. It offers a distinctive dining experience for customers that cannot be found anywhere else in the country. Ethiopian cuisine has a rich history and cultural significance. It’s deeply rooted in traditions that have been passed down through generations, making it an integral part of Ethiopian identity and heritage. The beauty of Ethiopian cuisine lies in its diverse flavours, unique dishes, communal dining traditions, and the way it reflects the country’s rich history and culture. Exploring Ethiopian cuisine can be an exciting culinary adventure for anyone looking to experience a truly distinct and flavourful dining experience.

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Danielle Briody reflects on the new chapters and conflicting feelings that come with the beginning of College

verybody tells you how fast the last year of secondary school slips through your fingers, but you don’t fully understand them until you open your emails on CAO offer day. There, in capital letters, the automated email informs you where you are going to spend the next three or four years of your life. The code invites you into a course and you have to scramble through your notes app to confirm that yes, those five digits are what you think they are. And suddenly, after months of deliberation and anxiety over the future, your answer to everybody’s “So, what are your plans after school?” becomes tangible. It isn’t long before your inbox becomes inundated with notifications from your college and you realise that you are entirely responsible for registering, declaring and

submitting. Everything sounds really important and also really should-not-be-trusted-tosomeone-who-only-learned-howto-create-a-spreadhseet-last-June. Within a matter of days, “college next year” turns into “college next week” and despite feeling like you’re only packing for a holiday, people begin calling in to wish you good luck. And goodbye. Your grandmother’s hug grips you tighter than before and your aunts are asking you to promise them you’ll keep safe. The transition into university is unique because it is never just one single change. It is moving to a different school, but also moving to a different educational climate. It is moving to a new city but also moving out of my childhood home for the first time. It is becoming more responsible for myself than ever but also waiting for my eighteenth birthday. It sort of feels like how I would expect my wedding day to go: a momentous occasion that serves to remind you of what a milestone the short space of time is, whilst overwhelming you with so much pressure to take it all in that you cannot actually be present. Before you can even process everything, you’re squashed in the back of a car filled to the brim with shopping bags of sheets and clothes (and pasta). The presence of urban streetlights proves extremely useful and you’re beginning to wonder how you have come to

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PHOTO BY MAYA MANN FOR TRINITY NEWS

Roleplaying adulthood

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The transition into university is unique because it is never just one single change own so much “stuff ” as you haul everything up the narrow staircase of your home for the foreseeable future. You’ve picked your playlist for the commute to college, you’ve double-checked Google Maps a million times, and you’ve practised your introductory smile in front of the mirror longer than you’d care to admit. Freshers’ Week is…intense. It’s forcing yourself to make small talk every time you catch someone’s eye and it’s laughing with someone whose name you’re not completely sure of. It’s reassuring in ways when you meet someone who seems to be a little bit like you, and nobody minds if you take a seat at a crowded table. You begin to scroll through new contacts and try in vain to put names to faces (or at least courses). You’re making new friends and learning new skills (thank you by the way, to the Belfast girls who taught me how to make toast in an oven). You figure out the best entrance to walk in depending on which building you’re going for and you even scope out the gym. You join a million different societies because

you’re easily influenced when tote bags come into the picture, and you’re already bombarded with emails from every single department in the college (I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to be on some of these mailing lists, to be honest). Everything is non-stop and ever-changing, yet you’re also very aware of the fact that you are completely on your own for the first time in your life. And then, of course, there’s the first weekend back home. Your bedroom looks a little eery and family conversations feel a little different. You’re smacked in the face with the reminders of everything you’ve left behind – waiting for your dad to get home from work, the smell of your mum’s perfume, your grandmother’s scones. There are hugs and there are catch-ups and then very quickly, there’s the plans to drive back to the bus stop. If you thought Freshers’ Week flew, the first week of lectures (you know, what you actually signed up for) goes by even faster. Your timetable fills up with classes and reading time (and unnecessary lunches out that your wallet really regrets now). Keeping yourself sane while trying to achieve your absolutely best is a challenge. After lectures, you’re forced to rely on your own self-discipline to keep updated (whilst figuring out what the subject of your course actually is). Of course, after each week, things start to grow a little steadier. It slows down, and walking into a lecture hall feels less daunting. Faces become recognisable – you actually use some of the contact details you took tentatively in the beginning. The novelty wears off of going to the library, but you also feel a lot more comfortable there than the first time you walked in. As we approach Reading Week, and look towards the rest

of the year, everything still feels a little ambiguous. Who knows where you’ll celebrate New Year’s Eve or who you’ll text before coming back to school in January. Everything is still very much up in the air – maybe you’ll fall in love with your course. Maybe you’ll decide that it’s not for you. Perhaps you’ll grow unimaginably close to the classmate who smiles at you when they pass or maybe the long Christmas break at home

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Everything is non-stop and ever-changing, yet you’re also very aware of the fact that you are completely on your own for the first time in your life will make up for the homesickness and uncertainty. Regardless of what happens within the next four years, I’d argue that the most daunting part is over. From here on out, there is a comfort in having (somewhat) an idea of where we are.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Crossword Across 7. TCD graduate and author who became dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral. His best-known work is Gulliver’s Travels (8,5) 9. Masculine pronoun (2) 10. ....... ..... Hamilton, the discoverer of quaternions, and after whom a TCD library is named (7,5) 13. Location of the seat of the ancient High Kings of Ireland (4)

CROSSWORD BY RANDAL HENLY FOR TRINITY NEWS

by Marie and Pierre Curie (7) 24. A student in his or her first or second year in College (7) 25. Aircraft ‘garages’ (7) 27. A quantity that is not a variable (7) 28. Looking at a computer screen for too long can cause this (3,6)

15. Large hall accessed from Front Gate and used for exams and social functions (6,5) 16. Defender of the Faith, from the Latin (2) 18. Large public park at the top of Grafton Street (2,8,5) 20. ‘You’ to a Cork man! (2) 21. This street is a right angles to O’Connell Street (7) 23. Radioactive element first isolated from pitchblende

Crossword solutions from Issue 2

Down 1. The thoroughfare to the north side of Trinity (7,6) 2. Forbearance or tolerance, or a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta (8) 3. Pretence or fake, from mash (4) 4. A short piece of information (4) 5. An abnormally or extremely tall or large person, animal or plant (5) 6. Colourless volatile liquid that was formerly used as an anaesthetic (5) 8. Prizes, trophies or medals from Dawsar (6) 8. Nationality of some of the far Eastern TCD students (7) 11. In Ireland it’s a Co. Offaly town, in the US it’s an island state and in mythology it’s one of the daughters of Danaus (5)

12. Flying stinging insects (5) 14. Assistant, helper or adviser from an idea (4) 16. The main entrance to Trinity (5,4) 17. Legendary dwarfish creatures supposed to guard the Earth’s treasures underground (6) 19. Designation of the Spring term of the academic year (6) 20. This institute is a joint venture of TCD and Science Foundation Ireland aimed at accommodating investors with facilities (8) 21. Nonsense or rubbish from Pfleif! (6) 22. Urge, encourage or persuade (6) 26. A circular sound from a bell (4) 27. 101 in a decimal (2)

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Special report: AI

Special report: How is artificial intelligence set to transform the university sector? Foreword: The AI boom Abeba Birhane

Adjunct Assistant Professsor, School of Computer Science and Statistics

e are currently witnessing an AI boom. Generative AI in particular has captivated the general public, the scientific community, journalists, and legislators. The launch of Dall-E in April 2022, which purportedly attracted over a million users within the first three months of release pushed generative AI into the mainstream. It was followed by the release of Midjourney in July and Stable Diffusion in August the same year and subsequently, the launch of ChatGPT in November 2023. Generative AI is poised to disrupt every corner of life from healthcare, law, education, arts, finance, mental wellbeing, to academia. From Dall-E to ChatGPT, these systems indeed represent an impressive feat of engineering. When ‘fed’ vast amounts of data, these systems ‘learn’ through brute-force iterative processes. Based on the underlying statistical distribution of the training data, large language models, for example, predict the probabilities of co-occurrence of sequences of words with impressive accuracy. Current hype will have us believe that AI is a magic-like omnipotent entity. Far from that, these systems are riddled with drawbacks and limitations, such as brittleness (susceptibility to catastrophic failure), unreliability (they are

known to fabricate seemingly factual nonsense), and encoding and exacerbating societal and historical injustice. Hype around AI is not new and has existed as long as the field itself: “The Navy revealed the embryo of an electronic computer today that it expects will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence” (Rosenblatt 1958). And as generative AI becomes mainstream, hype and misleading information around the capabilities of these systems is also peaking to the extent that not getting on the generative AI bandwagon is, at times, framed as missing out or falling behind. Widely spread hype and misleading claims include that these systems will take over humanity once they become smart enough or that they will replace humans, when in fact, what this often comes down to is humans babysitting these systems. In reality, these are complicated and fancy systems that predict the future based on the past. They cannot replace humans, especially when it comes to complex, contingent, and multifaceted societal, cultural and historical challenges that require subjective care, contextual understanding, and sympathy. Evidently, when these systems are deployed as a “solution” within intricate and sensitive human affairs, the consequences are catastrophic. Meta’s LLM Galactica was shut

down after 3 days of public API access as it was producing seemingly scientific facts that were dangerous and inaccurate; Microsoft’s chatbot Tay was shut down with 24 hours of release after racist, misogynist, white supremacist, and otherwise problematic output; and more recently, a chatbot deployed for therapy has led to death. Although current AI is often framed as technology that “benefits humanity” and shoehorned into any possible systemic social problem, the fact remains that it is developed and owned by the tech corporations which currently hold unprecedented wealth, power, and influence. Frequently, these tools are put forward as a solution in search of a problem, where the problem is imaginary based on hypothetical possible futures. Furthermore, as most of current state-of-the-art AI is corporate proparitory property, with little transparency and accountability, little is known (to anyone outside these corp walls) about these models and underlying training datasets. Subsequently, it is irresponsible to deploy these systems without proper vetting, evaluations, and critical scrutiny. Abeba Birhane is an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Computer Science and Statistics. Last month, Birhane was named in Time Magazine’s inaugural TIME100 AI list.

INSIDE Exlusive: Provost Linda Doyle on the “profound” impacts of AI Feature: Academics embrace potential to accelerate research Comment: Universities must train students to use AI effectively Analysis: ChatGPT set to disrupt dominance of written assessments

PHOTO BY NIKO EVANS FOR TRINITY NEWS

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Special report: AI

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I believe that it will have a profound effect – and probably in ways that we don’t fully know yet In an exclusive interview with David Wolfe, Provost Linda Doyle forecasts vast changes for the university sector

rovost Linda Doyle has said that it is crucial that College “starts exploring” what the advancement and proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools could mean for the university sector. In an exclusive interview with Trinity News, Doyle expressed the belief that AI will have a “profound effect” on research and higher education, adding that its impact will probably be significant “ in ways that we don’t fully know yet”. Doyle said that AI tools such as ChatGPT have “huge numbers of implications” for higher education and how students learn going forward. Taking coding as one example, she highlighted how it has

become standard practice in tech companies to use large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to generate code: “So you then ask yourself, should I be learning code the way we learn code before this existed? And should I be learning different things; should I be focusing on how I test code or check its veracity?” Doyle has previously said that she hopes that the use of AI will contribute to the development of stronger critical thinking skills among its users. She explained to Trinity News that she sees a contradiction between the shocked reactions to AI software producing false claims, while accepting the misleading information online constantly, expressing optimism that the widespread use of AI

will see the application of critical thinking skills across all contexts. “That to me is a really strange kind of juxtaposition… I’d like to [see people] bring the scepticism that they have about AI and understand that anything you read needs to be contested and dug into deeper.” While it shares some flaws with any information technology in this sense, Doyle is quick to rebut those who would say that AI is “nothing new”. She pointed particularly to the notion of “accelerated discovery” which promises to revolutionise scientific research, highlighting that AI tools can save years of work on experimental drugs by ruling out ineffective products from the outset. The same logic of using AI to speed up certain elements of is beginning to be applied across disciplines, as academics in both STEM and the humanities and social sciences utilise the ability of AI to process large amounts of data. both numerical and verbal

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Humans will always continue to do creative, inventive things that AI simply can’t

Starting next year, the living wage will be phased in over a four-year period and set at 60% of the hourly median wage (see below). Although she is supportive of a productive embrace of AI in research, Doyle said she understands the decision taken by a number of scientific journals earlier this year to ban the listing of ChatGPT as an author on papers. “In the absence of knowing exactly what to do at the moment, I understand why they did that,” she said, adding that it’s “a tricky question” and one that is really important in the context of research integrity. Additionally, Doyle emphasised in her view, machines are not likely to come to replace human researchers, saying that this is one area in which the potential of AI is over exaggerated.

“I am very optimistic in the sense that I always think that the human needs to be in the loop. I think humans will always continue to do inventive, creative things that you just simply can’t [with AI].” She added that the integration of AI tools into research will prompt researchers to better identify the human element of their research and what they ultimately do. The same is true in the case of teaching and learning, Doyle also said, pointing to software that allows lecturers to feed virtual avatars a script for a lecture, which then read it and record it to be distributed to students. “Then you ask yourself, what should I be doing as a lecturer? If I’m recording material, what does

Academics across disciplines embrace potential to

cademics across disciplines embrace potential to accelerate research “Too many things are still uncertain to know how it will change things in teaching and research.” Dr Noah Buckley’s comment summarises the general attitude among academics towards the rapidly advancing impact of artificial intelligence (AI). Uncertainty about how powerful AI tools will become, and disagreements about whether we are over or underestimating their potential, impede consensus on how they may come to change the research and education landscape. Despite this ambiguity, many academics have already begun to embrace the power of machine learning (ML) and generative

software to speed up research, while others seek to pioneer its use in their own fields. One such area is that of quantum mechanics, in which Professor Stefano Sanvito says the potential of ML is promising. “There is quite a vibrant activity in that space and the expectation is that ML will speed up otherwise time-consuming computational tasks,” says Sanvito, Professor of Condensed Matter Theory in the School of Physics. “We are actively working in the field and progress is fast.” Sanvito is keen to distinguish this kind of use of ML from “quantum AI”, the direct implementation of ML and AI on quantum computers, about which he is more sceptical. Nonetheless, he expects that the use of ML to solve quantum

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While some have already begun to embrace the power of AI tools to speed up research, others seek to pioneer its use in their own fields, writes David Wolfe

mechanical problems will be integrated into existing processes, to optimise tasks and accelerate the pace of research, a practice usually done with conventional computing software. In other fields, large-scale integration appears less imminent. “I don’t see AI changing how political science is done very drastically, at least in the short

term,” says Buckley, an assistant professor in that department: “We will still be collecting and analysing data, the same as before.” Buckley, particularly emphasises the role human beings will continue to play in research: “Original, interesting ideas for research designs or new studies are still going to come from people – those with real, on-the-ground

experience in the social and political world.” Buckley echoes Sanvito’s view that AI tools will speed up research by automating existing tasks, but does not view this as any profound change. “AI will make some tasks easier to do, which is nice, but those tasks aren’t really what research is all about.”

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 17 October

Special report: AI PHOTO VIA TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

it mean for me to do that, and what does it mean for my personality to be in what I’m saying?” The same goes for students using AI tools to answer questions and complete assignments, Doyle said. “To me, they’re all parts of the same jigsaw puzzle, in terms of what it means to teach and learn.” While she has previously said that the impact of AI on academic integrity in the classroom will be “among the least important”, Doyle clarified that this is merely due to the vast implications in other areas, and not because it is insignificant in itself. Acknowledging the inevitable changes to assessment that widely accessible AI software will necessitate, Doyle said: “I think

there’s only two things you can do: go back to a more traditional exam, or embrace the use of ChatGPT in some way.” Reflecting on these different options, Doyle said “it would be an awful pity” for more considered coursework elements which require deeper engagement than traditional exams to be gotten rid of. “I think you will just have to make this so that you have to be transparent about the tools you used in that process, or to do things in a way that recognises that those tools exist. But I think it is important that not everything reverts to one single exam.” Adding that a third option would be to come up with new forms of assessment which “simply can’t be done by ChatGPT”, Doyle said that she would not recommend any single option over the others, but rather emphasised that different modes assess different strengths, and that it may be a matter for lecturers to decide on a case to case basis the most appropriate form to use. While Doyle is keen to emphasise that she herself is not an authority on the subject, it is evident that she keeps a close eye on the development of AI as it relates to the university sector and is actively preparing for the ways in which universities will have to respond. “To me it’s about what journey do we need to go on to be able to get to a point where we’re actually using it in a productive way for teaching research, learning, for administration for everything to do with the university.”

accelerate research Professor Jane Ohlmeyer is likewise optimistic about the potential for generative software to accelerate historical research, and plans to employ ChatGPT in a research project recently awarded €2.5 million by the European Research Council. VOICES aims to investigate women’s experiences of social upheaval and extreme trauma in early modern Ireland, an undertaking requiring the examination of vast tracts of documents. “ChatGPT can provide remarkably accurate summaries of seventeenth century documents, such as wills, inquisitions, depositions, and allows us, with remarkable speed and accuracy, to interrogate big data and to extract the women and their lived experiences.” While Ohlmeyer’s project, as Buckley forecasts, remains led by human ideas and research designs, theits use of LLM software is likely to quickly catch on in humanities and social science fields. Sanvito highlights that perhaps the greatest application of AI tools will be for the purpose of materials discovery, the process

of discovering new compounds and superalloys for use in technological advancements. ML techniques have already been used to accelerate the synthesis of new materials, including in work led by Sanvito himself. He highlights that LLMs can similarly be used to extract information from scientific literature at ultra-high speed – allowing researchers to “read” up to 250,000 papers in a week – a function which can also be applied to speeding up research in the soft sciences and humanities. The potential for AI tools to massively speed up the pace of research emerges as its most attractive feature across different disciplines. While there are concerns around ethics and integrity, the general consensus among researchers is summed up by professor of biochemistry Luke O’Neill: “AI is to be fully embraced by academics – it’s yet another tool to enhance teaching and learning.” In a world facing increased risk of pandemics and colossal environmental challenges, the potential to accelerate scientific discovery is a welcome boost to an ever more critical sector.

Comment: Prohibition simply won’t work – universities must train their students to use AI

Generative AI is here and students are embracing it with or without their universities, writes Jamie O’Donnell

he ancient institution of the university, with its many traditions and entrenched bureaucracies, will have to be uncharacteristically nimble to adapt to the coming revolutionisation of knowledge work. The ability of large language models (LLMs) to produce threatens to undermine the core rationale of educational assessment as it is currently practiced, all while educators can’t even determine if an essay produced by ChatGPT counts as “plagiarism” per se. Students, unsurprisingly, are well aware of Generative-AI’s potential uses as a study aid (to say nothing of its capacity to simply do the work for them). But as companies across all industries race to incorporate Generative-AI programs into their business models, universities seem instead to be scrambling to preserve the integrity of essaybased assessments and exams. Some educational institutions – including New York State’s Department of Education – have attempted to block access to LLMs entirely, while others have quickly replaced take-home assignments with in-person exams, in an attempt to ensure students are submitting only work they have penned themselves. In the face of a suite of tools so tailored to students’ needs as GenerativeAI, educational institutions will need to accept that prohibition simply won’t work. Instead they will need to embrace it, educate people around it, and in doing so

effectively manage it. There is already a push to explore generative AI’s potential in the classroom. OpenAI are preparing to release a guide for teachers using ChatGPT that will explain how to write effective prompts to design lesson plans or activities, but also draw attention in detail to its limitations and biases. The real power of LLMs in this space though, will be in their direct interactions with students, and the more interesting suggestions for this that I’ve found involve exploiting these very limitations. Amazingly, with the scaling up of computational resources has come a host of “emergent” capabilities like translation, arithmetic and even writing code. Nonetheless, this process has its limitations. Perhaps the biggest worry both in and outside of education has come to be known as “hallucination” – sometimes, these programs just make things up. This is due in part to the breadth of their training data, which includes basically all human language on the internet; but understanding that not everything on the internet is true is a lesson in tech-literacy that comes a few steps back from using LLMs. As well as this, the data-set on which any AI system is trained can lead that system to proffer certain biased “opinions” as fact – it should perhaps come as no surprise that using the whole of the internet to train ChatGPT has not avoided this problem. Despite this seemingly damning issue, however, an adept user can take advantage of even these shortcomings. OpenAI’s aforementioned blog post reports on some teachers encouraging students to use ChatGPT 3.5

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A I offers us a new educational model that is more effective, more inclusive, and better able to work with the needs of individual students

and 4 to role play challenging conversations, or as a stand-in for a debate partner, in order to develop and demonstrate critical thinking skills. Understanding that ChatGPT is fallible can encourage students to pay close attention to the information that they are being given and to scrutinise its accuracy – a skill that truly will remain valuable in the age of generative AI. In essence, users need to avoid using LLMs as search engines. Programmer and tech-blogger Simon Willison has suggested that we instead think of them as “calculators for words”, able to perform functions like summarisation, answering questions about text input, extraction of facts from text input, rewriting in alternative styles, as a very effective thesaurus, or simply for entertainment. These are powerful tools, but they must be understood in order to be used effectively. Rather than trying in vain to detect and punish their use, universities will need to design modules for all disciplines on both how generative AI systems work and how to use them. They must embrace these new technologies alongside their students, and guide them in their use and understanding of them. Generative AI is here, and students are embracing it with or without their universities. This has quite rightly raised difficult questions around academic integrity and the value of traditional coursework. But AI offers us a new educational model that is more effective, more inclusive, and better able to work with the needs of individual students. Rather than having it write for them, students might work with an LLM in a back and forth effort to complete an assignment. I suspect – if done right – that not only would this strategy produce a better end result, but in the process the student may come to learn and understand the material at a deeper level. Which is what both student and educator really want. If a student at university level is tempted to cheat, it is not because they would rather just have the grade than know the material. We are all here to learn for the sake of our own futures. Rather it is likely to be because of the mounting pressures of workload and deadlines, or perhaps because some particular necessary skill – like long-form English prose, for example – eludes them. Certainly then, the established model of higher education is threatened to be undermined at its very foundation, but the tools that are doing so can be used to build something better in its stead.

Tuesday 17 October | TRINITY NEWS

Special report: AI

Analysis: ChatGPT is set to disrupt the post-pandemic dominance of written assessments

Post-pandemic assessment and education as a whole are at odds with user accessibility to artificial intelligence Gabriela Gazaniga

Deputy News Analysis Editor

he onset of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that traditional modes of assessment were no longer compatible with distance learning. Academic officials were not prepared nor understood how to effectively deliver education solely online to all students. An inability to administer live monitored exams gave preference to fully cited written assignments as a measure to counteract cheating

PHOTO VIA ACADEMIC REGISTRY

and academic dishonesty. In the years following the end of the COVID-19 lockdowns, many schools and universities continued with the trend of written assignments rather than returning to pre-pandemic standards. Although many courses reinstated in-person assessments, across every department in College, the large-scale shift away from examinations during the pandemic made a lasting impression. A large proportion of modules have not returned the associated assessments to exactly what they were previously, with some continuing with no examinations, others with mixed written assignments and examinations, and even some with take-home examinations. Enter ChatGPT. Post-pandemic assessment and education as a whole are at odds with user accessibility to artificial intelligence (AI). Software like ChatGPT allow internet users unlimited access to generative AI. Academic institutions must now grapple with yet another imminent issue: what does quality education in the age of AI look like? Artificial intelligence: What has changed? AI is far from a new technology, being in fact a prominent field of computer science since the 1950s. Without even realising, AI has long been a facet of peoples’ everyday lives. A study conducted in 2017 by Pegasystems Inc., a world-leading software company, found that while 84% of people were using some form of AI in their daily lives, only 34% were actually aware of what they were doing. Technologies like Apple’s

Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, faceidentification, Google Maps and countless others frequently used are all forms of AI. So what has changed? Why is AI such a contentious and feared topic now? ChatGPT, as previously stated, has been at the forefront of global media for over a year. At the most basic level, as a form of generative AI, the platform allows the user to prompt a question or command and, in return, the software provides a response. ChatGPT quickly gained traction from its inception and almost immediately conversations began to circulate regarding its implications in education. Not only do generative AI softwares operate in a call-andresponse format, but they have the capacity to do much more. For example, a student may receive a multiple-choice homework assignment and input the questions from it into ChatGPT, generating the answers they require; however, it does not stop there. ChatGPT can also generate complete essays and research papers, even providing a bibliography of sources. In terms of academia, the abilities of generative AI tools are argued to pose a threat to the current model of education. Students are able to easily access a resource that has the potential to complete their assignments, with little to no input of their own. Due to the unreliable nature of AI plagiarism detection softwares, students have been able to pass these works off as their own. The large-scale shift in assessments brought about by the pandemic are at risk of being reversed, with significant emphasis being placed on reinstating in-person

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Students no longer have to conduct research for their studies; what does this mean for the quality of education students will receive? examinations. Even further, the insurgence of generative AI has posed questions regarding the future of education as a whole. In an era where students no longer have to conduct research for their studies, let alone even produce their own work, what does this mean for the quality of education students will receive? Concerns regarding this subject and AI plagiarism have prompted academic institutions around the world to take the initiative, setting guidelines or outright bans against the technology. Trinity’s response to ChatGPT College has been extremely vocal throughout the past year regarding the use of AI in coursework. As can be expected, using generative AI like ChatGPT to complete assignments is

deemed academic dishonesty and therefore banned. The caveat is that apart from plagiarism, each department in College sets out individual guidelines regarding the extent to which students may utilise generative AI as a resource in their studies and assignments. The overarching uncertainty surrounding how to manage AI is reflected within College itself. Nonetheless, Provost Linda Doyle has committed to engaging with AI holistically as universities come to terms with its impact. In July Doyle said: “I have to find a way for our university to fully engage with this space, to become skilled enough to use and challenge these tools, to have the levels of cybersecurity needed to be resilient in a world in which they are widespread.” It appears that in the future, at least in Trinity, AI will likely be embraced rather than resisted. A spokesperson for College told Trinity News that while long-term changes may be needed to teaching and learning, which is currently under review, its “current focus is on supporting the adjustment of teaching and assessment practices” in response to generative AI tools. “Accordingly, we are working to support colleagues to evaluate the pedagogical opportunities presented by GenAI tools and adjust assessments to safeguard their validity and academic integrity”, they said. “Recognizing that GenAI tools present different opportunities and challenges for different disciplines, we are emphasising that all module and course coordinators should make clear in what way (if at all) these tools may be used in the completion of assessments and how this use should be acknowledged”, they continued. More and more schools and universities are recognising that resisting AI’s infiltration in education is unrealistic. While not outright endorsing its use, College understands that generative AI is here to stay. The negative consequences it poses are discussed at length by researchers and academic officials, however, many believe that if wielded properly, AI’s power can positively transform education. It can support teachers and students in its ability to quickly collect data from a plethora of sources and produce in-depth explanations. Over the coming years, students will more than likely see changes in the manner in which their courses are taught and examined. It is difficult to predict in exactly what ways these changes will manifest, other than perhaps a reversal of the post-pandemic assessment trend. There is much about generative AI that is not yet understood, but there appears to be little doubt that it has propelled the world into a new era of education.