Trinity News, Vol. 67, Issue 5

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Diego Maradona’s complicated legacy

Female STEM mentors are a precious resource

LIFE

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TRINITY NEWS

Ireland’s Oldest Student Newspaper

ESTABLISHED 1953

Vol. 67, Issue. 5

Scholars push back against proposed quota

College Board has proposed a limit on the number of new Scholars elected Finn Purdy Deputy Editor

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HE COLLEGE VISITORS, WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR hearing internal appeals against decisions of the Board and other bodies in Trinity, are due to make a determination on whether a Board decision to impose a quota on the number of

scholars elected for the 2020/21 academic year goes against the College Statutes.

Scholarship is awarded by the College to mainly second year students on the basis of a set of “searching” exams sat after Christmas. Students must achieve an overall first in these exams, to be entitled to “the most prestigious undergraduate award in the country”, of which benefits include free on-campus accommodation and a waiving of all tuition fees for the five year term of the scholarship.

In a submission to the College Visitors seen by Trinity News, the current cohort of scholars have argued that a recent Board move to limit the number of new scholars

elected this year is not a decision within the Board’s power to make.

The submission states that such a decision would be contrary to the College Statutes, the document which sets out the rules of Trinity’s governance.

The submission made on behalf of the scholars was drafted by Eoin O’Dell, an associate professor in the School of Law, and Camilla Persello, the secretary to the scholars. It argues the case against a quota on the number of scholars on the basis that the Board does not have the authority to implement a quota and also that the reasons behind such a quota are “weak”.

The submission states that the Continued on page 3>>

Green Party advertises “volunteer” intern roles to Trinity students despite stance against unpaid internships Kate Henshaw Staff Writer

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Christmas colours

HE GREEN PARTY HAS PUT OUT A CALL FOR “VOLUNTEER” INTERNS TO TRINITY STUDENTS despite advocating in favour of a ban on unpaid internships.

The party’s employment policy supports that all internships should be paid at at least minimum wage in all for-profit organisations.

An email sent to students by the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy advertised a five-day pilot work placement with the party in January 2021. Chosen interns would be assigned to Trinity’s facade lights up with snowflakes one of five units in the party: in anticipation of Christmas Administrative, Communications,

PHOTO BY VICKY SALGANIK FOR TRINITY NEWS

Operations, Parliamentary Party or Research.

The school expressed that they were “delighted” to announce the pilot programme.

In the brochure attached to the email, the party outlined that “a stipend will be provided at the end of all successful participation in recognition of the work contribution made by participants.

Vouched travel, subsistence, and/ or work-related expenses such as mobile phone and/or broadband top-ups will be reimbursed.”

There were no details of any other payment given in this brochure.

Speaking to Trinity News, a woman who interned with the Green Party in 2018 said that she was not paid for her internship.

The former intern saw on

the party’s website that they compensate their interns and she then requested to be paid. She said that she was then told the party did not have the money to pay interns and her requests for payment for both work and for travel expenses were denied.

She felt that this was “hypocritical” of the party given their policy stance on unpaid internships.

She said that given that the internships are full time, many interns “needed that money to get by” and that she “would have been happy with travel expenses even.”

She stated that, to her knowledge, none of the interns that she worked with were paid.

She feels that it is “most important Continued on page 2>>

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

In this issue News

Harris announces government approval for SUSI review - page 5

>>Continued from front page

Features

A look at image-based sexual abuse in Ireland - page 11

Comment

Christine O’Mahony, former chair of UCD Ógra Sinn Féin on why she resigned from the party-page 22

SciTech

The great race of 2020: The frontrunner vaccines against Covid-19 - page 26

Sport

Diego Maradona’s complicated legacy - page 30

TRINITY NEWS EDITORIAL STAFF Editor Deputy Editor Assistant Editor Online Editor Deputy Online Editor Life Editor Deputy Life Editor

Lauren Boland Finn Purdy Jack Kennedy Lisa Jean O’Reilly Saba Malik Maeve Harris Heather Bruton

News Editor News Analysis Editor News Analysis Editor Features Editor Comment Editor Gaeilge Editor Scitech Editor Sport Editor

Shannon Connolly Patrick Coyle Kate Glen Olivia Flaherty-Lovy Dearbháil Kent Gráinne Caulfield Lucy Fitzsimmons Shannon McGreevy

Photo Editor Video Editor Video Editor Art Editor Social Media Editor Head Copyeditor

Vicky Salganik Melanie O’Donnell Kallum Linnie Márta Menta Czinkóczky Brigit Hirsch Ciara Olden

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Green Party advertises “volunteer” intern roles to Trinity students Kate Henshaw Staff Writer

to make parties accountable.” She found it “really disheartening to see people not wanting to come forward with this stuff ” and she wishes that “there were more people advocating for transparency in the government”.

On their website currently, the party outlines the principles it follows with respect to internships.

One such principle states that “interns should be compensated for their work”.

However, in the details given on this principle, it says that interns must either “be benefiting in terms of gaining an academic credit for their time here, or they go onto our

payroll as a temporary employee.”

The Green Party is currently in a coalition government alongside Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and is under the leadership of Minister Eamon Ryan.

A number of high-profile resignations, particularly among younger cohourts, have been made from the party in recent months.

Provost election: Sarah Alyn-Stacy enters application for candidacy The Associate Professor of French and member of the College Board had previously indicated she was not putting her name forward Jack Kennedy Assistant Editor

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ARAH ALYN-STACY, a Trinity Fellow and current member of the College Board, has confirmed that she has applied for candidacy for the provost election.

Dr Alyn-Stacey, who is also an Associate Professor in the Department of French, had previously indicated to Trinity News in late November that she did not plan to enter the race.

In her capacity as a member of the Board, Dr Alyn-Stacey would have sat on the committee which interviews applicants for the role and said that she “must remain neutral about any prospective candidates”.

However, Alyn-Stacey has since confirmed to Trinity News that she put her name forward just before the close of applications on Friday December 4. She will now be obliged to step down from the interview committee.

Professors Linda Doyle, Linda Hogan, and Jane Ohlmeyer have also previously confirmed to Trinity News that they were putting themselves forward for candidacy.

In an email statement sent to Trinity News before the declaration of her candidacy, Alyn-Stacey laid out the themes she believed would be important in the upcoming election.

She identified Trinity’s place in

world university rankings as “a key issue”. She said it was “not acceptable” for the college to be ranked 155th in the world, “as a university established as the equal of Oxford (1) and Cambridge (6).”

In order to raise Trinity’s academic profile, Alyn-Stacey said that the reduction of the staff-student ratio was essential; specifically she would like to see it go from 20-1 to 12-1, “even if this means a reduction in student numbers”.

She also called for the “recruitment of outstanding academics” and an increase in administrative supports for all teaching staff, saying that an increase in administrative responsibilities on academic staff had lowered morale in recent years.

The statement went on to harshly criticise Trinity’s reliance on “underpaid Teaching Assistants”, saying that “what should have been an exciting employment prospect for these early-career researchers has often developed into a quite miserable and disillusioning experience.” Alyn-Stacey said that the work currently being done

by TAs should be transferred to newly recruited, permanently employed academics.

She believes that “the next Provost needs to ensure a sensitive and rational engagement” with topics like ”racism, harassment and inequality”, but is concerned about “radical politicisation of the curriculum” and accusations of sacrificing too much to “political correctness”.

Alyn-Stacey also expressed views on several issues surrounding Trinity’s administration and governance. In reference to the Trinity Education Project, she is concerned about the “danger” of “dogmatic attachment to the concept of a fixed timetable” diminishing the array of “intellectual offerings” available to students. She wants to see “academic judgement, not over-simplistic administrative machinery” at the centre of deci-

sions about the university’s curriculum and overall direction.

She also declared her opposition to government proposals for a reform of Trinity’s Board, saying that “to reduce the size and diverse membership” of the body would constitute “an error of judgement”.

While she thinks additional external advice in College’s governance “should certainly be considered”, that Trinity “must maintain our distinct identity and independent spirit”. She also is against any reduction in the role played by Fellows and Scholars in Trinity’s organisational structure.

Alyn-Stacey also believes that in the interests of “collegiality”, students and academic staff “should be encouraged to live in College” and “dine on Commons” as much as possible. She wants to “reinforce the College’s scholarly identity” among the Trinity community.

Additionally, with reference to both Irish and overseas students, she cited the importance of adequate services, so that no one is “disappointed in their educational experience,” and connected this to “the need to ensure optimal conditions in which academics teach and administrators administer.”

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

>>Continued from front page

Scholars push back against quota Finn Purdy Deputy Editor

only grounds on which the Board may elect scholars is “on the basis of their academic ability and learning” and therefore cannot impose criteria that falls outside of this remit.

The submission concedes that the College Statutes set out that Board “shall determine the qualifications... for Scholarship”, but argues that the fact that the document later goes on to state that this must be done “on the basis of their academic ability and learning”, restrains this power.

Among the scholars, a subsection makes up a group known as the foundation scholars.

This group are made members of the body corporate of Trinity. The submission made on behalf of the current scholars argued that given that the Statutes expressly provide for a specific quota for Foundation Scholars of 70, but does not provide for general quotas for scholars in other circumstances, the Board does not have the authority to impose such a quota.

The submission further argues that the Board may only make decisions regarding scholars with the consent of the College Council, Trinity’s governing body regarding academic matters. It states that this consent was neither sought nor given. The submission quotes minutes from a meeting of the Council which state that when the matter was discussed the provost simply “invited questions and comments”; he informed Council that it was merely being “consulted” on the matter; and did not invite a decision from Council

because, he said, the decision in this matter “resides with Board”.

The submission from the scholars also makes arguments against the decision to introduce a quota based on the reasoning behind the decision but asserts that this reasoning is “irrelevant” if their arguments against the Board having the power to introduce quotas are accepted.

The scholars state that argument that a quota is needed to “address possible grade inflation” does not hold up as only “reliance on the good sense and academic judgment of examiners” is an appropriate way to address grade inflation, and not quotas.

They address the argument that a quota is needed due to “the risk of exposure to a significant financial burden”, stating that this financial risk “is inherent in the nature of Scholarship, and is not unique to this year”.

“The numbers elected to Scholarship vary from year to year: in some years, the number is relatively high; in others, it is relatively low. In the long run, the financial burden of the former years is matched by the savings in the latter years”, the submission goes on to argue.

This submission will be made to the College Visitors, a role held by the Chancellor of the University Mary McAleese, and the government-appointed Judicial Visitor, Justice George Birmingham.

The College Visitors will then make a final determination on whether the quota will be imposed.

In April, a total of 57 new scholars were elected. 58 new scholars were elected the previous year, and 73 in 2018.

Kate Glen News Analysis Editor

Analysis: Trinity survey highlights pitfalls of remote learning

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N AN EMAIL circulated to students on November 27, Provost Patrick Prendergast announced plans to increase the amount of in-person teaching next semester. Following this, students were invited to participate in a survey to evaluate their opinions after a full semester of remote learning.

Of Trinity’s 18,000 students, 6,053 responded to the survey sent out by college. The mandate from students is clear, with 79% in favour of increasing the amount of on-campus learning in semester two. Importantly, the survey results showed that 72% of respondents in Trinity are not able to keep up with their studies under current learning conditions.

While only 28% of respondents said they were keeping up with their studies “reasonably well”, 36% of respondents stated they believed they are managing the current situation well. An overlap between students who are not keeping up with their studies, but still consider themselves to

Four in five students want more inperson teaching under Level Three A survey has found that most students are in favour of an increase in oncampus teaching next semester Lauren Boland Editor

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OUR IN FIVE students want more in-person teaching next semester if Level Three restrictions are in place, a survey by College has found.

79% of respondents said they were in favour of more in-person teaching under Level Three if public health guidelines were adhered to, while 64% want more in-person teaching if restrictions are at Level Five.

A survey conducted by Trinity polled 6,053 students on their opinions of how Hilary Term should be handled and how well they have coped during Michaelmas Term, including 1,066 Masters students and 225 PhD students.

Only 28% of students said they were keeping up with their studying and learning “reasonably well”, while just 8% said that they were managing the current situation overall “very well”.

53% of students are “a bit behind [studying] but still making

progress” and 29% are managing the overall situation “well”.

18% are significantly behind on work and 1% are not studying at all, while 43% are a “little” stressed or worried at the current situation overall and 20% are “very” stressed or worried.

In a statement accompanying the results of the survey, Vice Provost Jürgen Barkhoff said that it is “important to note that if you feel very stressed or worried due to the impact of the current Covid-19 situation on your studies or in other ways, please do not feel that you are alone”.

“I encourage you to avail of the many supports available to you in College,” Barkhoff said, citing the Senior Tutor’s Office, the Postgraduate Support Officer, the Stu-

be managing the situation quite well under the circumstances, suggests a lack of expectation that online learning will allow students to properly keep up with their studies.

The survey follows a November filled with mixed messages to higher education students across Ireland on whether in-person learning will return in 2021.

Both Dublin City University (DCU) and Maynooth University announced in early November that they plan to continue teaching online until the end of the academic year.

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Simon Harris, responded to these online learning announcements by advising universities to increase on-campus teaching in 2021, citing worries about first year drop-out rates increasing should online teaching remain the status quo. After this intervention, Irish universities have remained quiet about their plans for January.

University College Cork (UCC)

for instance, told the Irish Independent on November 6 that they planned to release details of their semester two arrangements by mid-November, but have so far no information has been circulated to students.

While the survey results show that most are in favour of more in-person teaching next semester.

However, the delay in plans had doubtless caused further stress for students in a year where decisions are being made with little information. Some students are deciding whether or not to stay in their accommodation or return home for semester two.

Further, there is still no guarantee from College that inperson teaching will resume next year. With this in mind, it is worth questioning why College waited so long to conduct a survey on student experiences with remote learning when the semester is almost finished and little can be done at this point to improve the online teaching experience of semester one.

dent Counselling Service, and the Chaplaincy.

The survey found that more than half – 52% – of students would like “as much in-person activity as possible” next semester.

Around a third – 31% – want a small increase in in-person activity but are happy to study remotely some of the time, while 13% would prefer to study remotely as much as possible and 4% would prefer “not to return to campus at all”.

Among key concerns that students raised at the prospect of returning to College were using public transport, living with a family member in a high-risk category, and finding accommodation in Dublin.

Others expressed fear of students on campus not adhering to public health guidelines or fear that more students returning to campus would incite outbreaks of the virus.

Some said they would like flexibility to facilitate students both in-person and remotely, with oth-

ers saying online lectures were easier to absorb or that study online was calmer.

However, some students said that they had found a lack of engagement without in-person teaching, that it was hard to be motivated while consistently working from home and that their workload was “overwhelming”.

The loss of contact with lecturers and other students to speak on an individual basis before or after classes in the move to online classes was raised as an issue, as was the difficulty to make friends and integrate into college as a Junior Fresh student.

Students said they missed social activities, that virtual classes were “draining”, that there were practical difficulties around issues such as printing.

Most teaching during Michaelmas Term has taken place online, with the exception of mandatory classes for professional accreditation,

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Analysis: Second consecutive impeachment calls into question how the SU cares for student parents and their officers

Student Parents Offi impeached at SU Co as union urges comp for student represen

Patrick Coyle News Analysis Editor

A future election will be held at Council to fill the role

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HE IMPEACHMENT of the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) Student Parents’ Officer last week has raised a number of questions about how the union takes care of the needs of student parents. This is not the first year that the Student Parents’ officer has been impeached for what has been described by the union’s Oversight Commission as a lack of communication, but the second year in a row. Student parents can be one of the groups most in need of additional supports in college, and recent events may force the SU to rethink how it provides these supports.

One option the SU might consider is the requirements for nomination to the role of Student Parents’ Officer. The TCDSU constitution states that “any member of the Union who identifies as a parent or legal guardian may be nominated to the position of Student Parents’ Officer”. This entry requirement is similar to that of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Officer and the Officer for Students with a Disability, each of which specify that a member must identify as LGBT or as a student with a disability respectively in order to be nominated.

While student parents can bring a degree of experience to the role, by requiring that the officer themselves be a parent the SU may be limiting the pool of candidates that can be nominated.

Student parents naturally have significant responsibilities outside of college and many may feel that they do not have time to take on a Part Time Officer role in the SU. By opening the role up to any member of the union, the SU would widen the pool of candidates. An officer who is not themselves a parent may have

Kate Henshaw Staff Writer

T more time to address the needs of student parents without the need to take care of their own children.

The role of Student Parents’ Officer is not common across students’ unions in Ireland. A number of unions offer support to student parents directly through their welfare office. The University College Dublin Students’ Union (UCDSU) constitution states that the Welfare Officer is responsible for issues relating to student parents. TCDSU’s Oversight Commission noted that, in the period leading up to impeachment this month, the responsibilities of the Student Parents’ Officer were being fulfilled by other officers. With this in mind, the SU may also consider abolishing the role of Student Parents’ Officer entirely, and making the Welfare Officer responsible for addressing the issues faced by student parents.

Whether the SU changes the criteria for nomination to the role of Student Parents’ Officer or not, the election of the next officer will likely be marked by an emphasis on the candidates’ commitment to the role. Those putting themselves forward will need to reassure the SU Council that they can fulfil their responsibilities to student parents, and maintain communication with the union by submitting their officer reports.

RINITY COLLEGE Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) Council has voted to impeach the union’s Student Parents Officer after a report by the Oversight Commission (OC), with sabbatical officers calling for compassion to be shown towards student representatives.

Chair of the Oversight Commission (OC) Cian Walsh Walsh said that the OC had found that the officer had not attended three official meetings and that “no noticeable attempt” had been made to carry out certain mandates.

Walsh said that there had been

“sufficient and significant attempts” made across “multiple channels by officers of the Union, including the Oversight Commission”, to contact the Student Parent Officer to inform them of the situation.

“Our investigation found that the concerns of student parents were still being addressed, but that they were being handled by other officers who have their own mandates and responsibilities, casework and workload,” Walsh explained.

Walsh noted that the OC “understands” that circumstances change, particularly during this year, and noted that there could be “any myriad of personal reasons why the Student Parents Officer appears unwilling or unable to continue in their role this year”.

He said that “this isn’t a position that the Oversight Commission ever wants to be in”.

Mature Students Officer Jimi Donohue expressed concern over whether an impeachment was the “last resort” or if there was another means through which the officer could be removed from their role.

TCDSU Welfare and Equality

“

There could be any myriad of reasons why the Student Parents Officer appears unwilling or unable to continue in their role Officer Leah Keogh said that she “fought tooth and nail” for the union not to get to this position, but that the impeachment of the current officer was the only avenue

Students with disabilities or economic di achieve increased number of places in hig

There has been a 22% increase in places for students on the DARE scheme alongside a 15% increase of students on HEAR Audrey Brown

Deputy News Editor

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HE DISABILITY Access Route to Education (DARE) and Higher Education Access Route (HEAR) published their Annual Report, showing a 22% increase in acceptance of places in higher education by students with disabilities and 15% increase by students experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage for the 2020-21 academic year.

The report shows that almost one in five students who applied to the Central Applications Office (CAO) in 2020 were assessed for HEAR and/or DARE eligibility, and 11,576 places were offered to these applicants.

In addition to the increase in the number of places offered to eligible students from last year, the number of applicants to each scheme also increased, by 28% to DARE and 14% to HEAR. These access schemes were launched in 2010, and since then, they have grown from eight participating Higher Education

Institutes (HEIs) to 25. The number of applicants to DARE in those ten years has increased from 1,836 to 5,642, and for HEAR, the number has increased from 4,229 to 6,555.

HEIs in Ireland now support the schemes. Each HEI reserves at least 5% of its places per year for applicants to DARE and HEAR in partnership with the CAO. Access Manager at the Irish Universities Association Colm Downes, who authored this year’s report, stated that “considering the influence that COVID-19 had on Leaving Certificate students

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

fficer ouncil passion ntatives under the union’s constitution through which a new officer could then be elected.

Keogh and TCDSU President Eoin Hand urged that discussion around the impeachment be respectful and compassionate.

Members of Council voted in favour of a motion to impeach the officer.

Marian Lovett had been elected Student Parents Officer in March alongside the union’s other parttime officers for the 2020/2021 academic year.

A former Student Parents Officer who was elected to the role in 2019/2020 was also removed

by Council during their term after the OC reported a lapse in communication.

The role of Student Parents Officer is one of the part-time officer positions within the union.

Part-time officers conduct their union duties whilst remaining in full-time study, as opposed to sabbatical officers who conduct their union role as a full-time job.

Part-time officers sit on Union Forum, one of the bodies within the union’s governance structure.

isadvantage gher education in 2020, we are delighted to have been able to substantially increase the number of DARE and HEAR applicants accepting reduced points offers for Higher Education this year”.

Iqura Naseem, a Masters student in Accounting currently supported by both DARE and HEAR said that “the access scheme connects everybody like a family.

There’s so much help out there, in every college there is a disability office and they give you all the supports that you need”.

Harris announces government approval for SUSI review

Above: Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris

The review will examine maintenance grants, the possibility of grants for parttime students and supports for postgrads Audrey Brown

Deputy News Editor

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INISTER FOR Further and Higher Education Simon Harris TD announced that plans for a review of the Student Grant Scheme under Student

Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) have been granted government approval.

The SUSI system was established in 2012 following the Student Support Act of 2011 in an endeavour to provide financial grants for students who might otherwise be unable to afford higher education.

For the 2020/21 academic year, SUSI received over 100,000 applications for grants, and over 77,500 students were evaluated to be eligible for support. Out of concern that complications from Covid-19 would have a greater impact this year, the budget for SUSI in 2021 was increased by €20 million.

The review will encompass topics such as examining the value of maintenance grants, availability of student grants for part-time students, adjacent and non-adjacent rates and supports

for postgraduate students.

Additionally, it will monitor how Ireland compares to other student grant services internationally.

Harris stated that Ireland needs “to help reduce the cost of education for families” because for many students, “cost can be a barrier to accessing third level”.

He went on to note that since the establishment of SUSI, there have been “huge changed in the Irish economy and society” and yet “the grant system has remained somewhat static”.

“I am conscious of the difficulties being experienced by students and their families as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and of the importance of the Student Grant Scheme and related supports, such as the Student Assistance Fund and the Fund for Students with Disabilities,” he said.

However, although these supports have played a large role in accessibility of third-level

education, “we must do more,” said Harris.

The government review of the programme will attempt to “consider the current challenges facing students and to ascertain if the correct supports for eligible students are in place”.

Harris detailed that this includes identifying whether or not the grant payments are sufficient in size and scale, pinpointing how better to support students who must move away for college, and determining whether part-time students should be eligible for supports.

Review will begin early in the New Year and will comprise input from “students, parents and stakeholders too”.

In conclusion, Minister Harris said: “We will want to hear from you on this too. We will engage with stakeholders early in the New Year to ensure your voice is heard.”

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Report from Law School recommends a number of key policy changes in the wake of Covid-19 The report includes a recommendation for a state-backed insurance fund to cover pandemics Kate Henshaw Staff Writer

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HE COVID-19 Legal Observatory at Trinity’s School of Law have released a report recommending a number of key policy changes in an attempt to combat the socioeconomic issues that have arisen as a result of the pandemic.

The report, entitled ‘Law and Policy Responses to COVID-19 in Ireland: Supporting Individuals, Communities, Businesses, and the Economy (Response Report)’, made recommendations in the areas of Rental Housing; Banks and Mortgages; Workforce and Employment; Social Protection; Business Interruption and Insurance; Corporate Governance and the EU Recovery Package.

In the area of housing, the report recommends such actions as publicising the expanded protections for tenants with respect to rent increases, a review of the current statutory regime around holiday lettings in the medium term, and limiting nofault evictions to landlords with no more than three residential properties available for let or being let They also recommend the introduction of a code of conduct in respect of dealing with mortgage arrears accruing in respect of commercial premises and in respect of non-primary principal residences.

With regard to employment, the report recommends that employers take due care to protect employees and members of their households from being exposed to Covid-19 and appropriately consider other dimensions of their wellbeing in the workplace, including when working from home.

They recommend that policy consideration is given to enacting measures to directly address protection of the right of an employee to enjoy their leisure time, and that consideration be given to enhancing taxation measures available to workers and employers to fund purchase of appropriate equipment for working from home.

They also recommend the creation of a state-backed insurance fund to cover pandemics, which would eliminate disputes on cover and ensure businesses receive needed economic support in the future.

They noted that, although their findings in this report did not give rise to significant concerns around discrimination in Ireland’s public policy treatment of Covid-19, there is scope to analyse structural inequality concerns in vulnerability towards catching the disease and accessing treatment.

Co-editor of the report and associate professor at the School of Law Dr Deirdre Ahern noted that although the arrival of a Covid-19 vaccine is “welcome”, it is “unlikely to immediately solve economic distress experienced by individuals, communities and businesses.” She also notes that a vaccine will “not address inequalities in dealing with the impacts of the pandemic.”

This is the first in a series of planned reports aiming to shape public policy and law reform through analysing Ireland’s response to Covid-19.

PHOTO BY AISLING GRACE FOR TRINITY NEWS

80% of international students hope to return home for the holidays Patrick O’Mahony discusses plans for both international students returning home and SU supports for those remaining in Dublin Audrey Brown

Deputy News Editor

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4% OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS HAVE expressed a desire to return home over the break between semesters despite potential concerns regarding lockdown, according to a survey conducted by Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) International Students Officer.

TCDSU International Students Officer Patrick O’Mahony launched a survey of international students in late October that aimed to gauge student mental health and engagement with support from the union, along with determining how many students planned to travel to their countries of residence.

Speaking to Trinity News, O’Mahony described an “overwhelming majority” of international students planning on returning home for the winter holidays. 55% of respondents were “definitely” planning on going home, and an additional 29% said they were “considering” returning home In answering follow-up questions about why they were unsure about returning home, most students cited unease about travel restrictions upon their return to Ireland after the break.

O’Mahony referenced an ongoing fear that there may be a reinstatement of more strict lockdown measures after the winter holiday season.

Another question had asked students whether they considered returning home in response to Level Five lockdown restrictions in Ireland.

The six-week lockdown period concluded on December 1, when non-essential retail shops and indoor dining were reopened in phases in a return to a modified Level Three. However, before that

time, O’Mahony wished to gauge whether or not students would remain in Ireland throughout the lockdown period.

He reported that about 65% of respondents considered going home due to Level Five, which he called “quite a high percentage”.

“Because there might be unfortunately the possibility of another lockdown, it would be important to make sure that students, if they want to go home, can. If so many students wanted to go home during the first lockdown there may be that same percentage wanting to go home the second time,” he said.

Although results are unclear as to whether or not such a high proportion of international students have indeed returned to their home countries, O’Mahony explained that those who “stuck through it” may have been doing so because of circumstances beyond their control.

He referenced in-person classes, such as for health sciences majors, who “had one lab maybe every two weeks which was in person”, as a major factor keeping students from returning home.

Additionally, some students expressed concerns about failing to receive refunds on student accommodation, and still others reported being unable to renew their Irish Naturalisation and Immigration (INIS) student visas due to a backlog during Level Five.

Referencing the fears that students may have upon returning to Ireland, O’Mahony saidthat the main concern might be to complete another fourteen days of self-isolation when they got back to Ireland.

62% of respondents to the survey reported that their mental health had been negatively impacted since moving to Ireland, and of these respondents, many cited being “confused by the guidelines” regarding self-isolation and feeling “lonely”.

O’Mahony responded that this feeling was “understandable” as “a lot of people at the moment are feeling quite lonely, but those fourteen days can be quite difficult” However, another statistic that he was proud to report is that 96% of respondents to the survey did say they had restricted their movements for the full fourteen days upon arriving in Ireland.

“That was a very important thing to put out there because I do think newspapers kind of vilified people who travelled at the moment in the pandemic,” he said.

In contrast to this view, he believes that the survey portrays that international students to Ireland were unlikely to disobey guidelines. Of the 4% that did not report self-isolation, O’Mahony says, these may have been students that were “either already in Ireland-they stayed here during the lockdown, or they were students who were coming from Green List countries, so they didn’t need to self-isolate”.

A major goal of the survey was to understand student struggles so that O’Mahony could report them to TCDSU. One of these results has been “how to have people engage with the SU”. O’Mahony said that people felt they were aware of the supports available in college, but results showed that “although a lot of people think that to a certain degree they know what supports are available, we could be doing better”.

Importantly, the results show that although a majority of international students still planned to return home for the holidays, O’Mahony expects to see a greater number of international students remaining in Dublin during the break period.

In response, TCDSU have been working to plan events for international students who plan to spend their holidays away from home.

Last week, they hosted a hot chocolate truck in Front Square for all students, and O’Mahony referenced plans for more food trucks to allow students “an opportunity to get out of the house and get food and maybe see people in a socially distant way”.

Additionally, there are plans in the works for “Twelve Walks of Christmas”, a sea swim, and further plans for engagement over the holiday period including sending information about what shops will remain open for students to visit.

O’Mahony said that while they planned the events in acknowledgement that by December, Level 5 lockdown restrictions would have lessened to Level 3, all of the events planned thus far were still planned to “fit into a Level 5 mentality”.

“Then we have that flexibility where if we plan for stricter restrictions, we’re able to keep on going with events”.

He plans to continue working with the Global Room to determine a support system for the international students who will remain in Ireland after the end of term.

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Student reps to vote as a bloc for Trinity’s next provost With only six student votes in the upcoming provostorial elections, the union Council passed a motion to secure all student votes for one candidate Audrey Brown

Deputy News Editor

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RINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN STUDENTS’ UNION (TCDSU) Council has passed a motion mandating a student-wide survey to determine the majority preference for Trinity’s next provost.

Six SU elected members sit on the committees of University Board and University Council and are thus entitled to a vote in the election to determine Trinity’s next provost As delegates for the student population, the six elected student members are now set to vote in line with the results of the student survey.

Additionally, Council discussed the issuing of a letter to prospective provostorial candidates regarding the necessity for a candidate who understands the severity of the environmental crisis.

As laid out in a statement made prior to the Council meeting, the SU claimed that “a block vote of the student preference in this election is the most effective way to influence the result overall”.

JS Environmental Science Class Representative Dylan Krug, who proposed the motion, stated that there is an “intent” that the six student voters will vote in line with the student body majority, but the passing of this motion has “mandated” that this will be the case.

Deputy STEM Convenor Bev Genockey, who seconded the motion, continued that the motion is “pretty much word-forword” the same as one which was proposed and passed ten years ago for the last provost election.

Because of the short-term nature of SU Council-passed motions, Education Officer Megan O’Connor proposed that Krug and Genockey bring forward the motion as a constitutional amendment so that the practise will be continued for all forthcoming provostorial elections.

Krug echoed this sentiment, stating that for the future, the goal should be to elect a provost who “truly represents students’ needs”.

In response to sceptical statement put forth by BESS Convenor Shore Oluborode, who questioned whether mandating all voters to vote for the same candidate would represent a diverse student voice, O’Connor responded that she “did not see another method” to go about voting.

President Eoin Hand continued by explaining the process of voting, in which provostorial candidates are “knocked out” following a single transferable vote process until there is a head-tohead vote between two candidates.

“If the person we are voting for is knocked out of the race, we will vote for the second most popular,” he explained.

Midway through Council, the attendees were treated to an appearance by Trinity’s current provost, Patrick Prendergast.

He highlighted the fact that during his campaign season, he “didn’t get the student vote.

Therefore, as Hand referenced, although six student votes are not many, they are significant in a prospective provost’s campaign.

Prompted by the impending election season, Council held a discussion about petitioning for an environmental letter to the provostorial candidates.

The letter, presented by SU President Eoin Hand, was drafted prior to the council meeting and highlighted the fact that “the provostorial election of 2021 is the starting point” in the process for making lasting environmental change at a college level.

Hand stated that the upcoming elections “fall nothing short of a huge opportunity for us as

students” in garnering traction for the candidates’ support of environmental issues.

He continued that he believes once one provost candidate agrees to accepting the student-proposed environmental agenda, the rest should follow suit in updating their campaigns in favour of the students’ wishes.

After acknowledging that scientists have made clear that within a decade, we will “pass a point of no return” regarding the environmental crisis, the letter stated that: “We, as students and members of the College community, want to look back in 10 years’ time and say we did everything we could to collectively tackle the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.”

The letter, addressed to each of the provostorial candidates, underlined that a majority of staff and students at Trinity care about the environment but “are overwhelmed and unsure as to how they can translate this reality into their daily roles.” In response, the letter emphasised that this could be changed by the election of “a Provost who recognises the scale and scope of the changes required to respond at a level commensurate with scientific evidence.

It continued by stating that the newly elected provost must also understand “that the environmental emergency is not just one of many other pressing issues, but an existential threat to humanity and intertwined with all the challenges we face”, and that, in order to combat the threat to the environment, the new provost must “translate our platform and intellectual capital into climate action and regeneration of our ecosystem.”

“Some might protest that a

profound transition needs to be balanced against other imperatives such as our finances or our disciplinary investments. However, given the scale and urgency of the issue such trade-offs are moot,” continued the statement.

In response to possible protests that drastic change might further amplify financial and operational instabilities following the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, the letter also claimed that “such experimentation may be the best way to strengthen community and collegiality with a sense of profound purpose.”

Finally, the letter recognised that the continuing pandemic has “exposed the overdependence of third-level institutions on international mobility, flawed ranking systems and narrow promotion incentives which treat education and research as individualistic endeavours”, and that in recovering from the pandemic period, we may be provided with “a unique opportunity to reimagine an educational model which serves our planet.”

The SU called for a prospective provost who would “centre climate action and ecosystem in our Strategic Plan and actions”, “climate-proof and future-proof the College curriculum across all our faculties with a major fund to do so” and “set and achieve specific targets for true sustainability of College operations”, among other requests.

The letter concluded with a note to Trinity in general, stating that it could deal with the environmental crisis in two ways: to “continue with the status quo and further incorporate environmental sustainability…in an incremental manner” or to “become an institutional leader by taking ambitious and positive actions in a manner commensurate with climate and biodiversity science.”

SU emphasised that a greater focus on College’s attentiveness to the environment would attract increasing numbers of prospective students in the future.

“The shift needed to act commensurable is breath-taking but is well within the capacity of a world-leading university under the leadership of a strong visionary,” stated the author of the letter directed at the provostorial candidates.

Hand concluded his presentation of the letter by stating that his goal is to “collect as much clout and influence as possible”.

It is “incredibly important that our voices are heard now,” he said.

Additional reporting by Finn Purdy, Jack Kennedy, Bonnie Gill, Kate Henshaw and Connie Roughan.

What they said “You, in your special circumstances created by Covid-19, are challenged more than others who have had to overcome the hurdle of the first term. I want you to know that, as President, I am aware of these challenges and that you are much valued by those who care for you.”

President Michael D Higgins, addressing students in their first term of University “Distressing statistics published by Nature show the problems of precarious work in academia, including bullying and harassment of postdocs. This is a problem that needs serious attention from university leaders worldwide.”

Linda Hogan, professor of ecumenics and applicant to be the next provost of Trinity “The fact that TDs do not get paid maternity leave does not give out the right signal to encourage full involvement in politics by all as championed by @ HollyCairnsTD.” Linda Doyle, professor of engineering & the arts and applicant to be the next provost of Trinity “I read with dismay that the government has decided against payment to the student nurses in the front line of the current pandemic…. This is a time for the heads of their institutions to speak up and defend them.”

Sarah Alyn-Stacey, associate professor of French and applicant to be the next provost of Trinity

8

Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Beyond Trinity

Nollaig Shona Duit Christmas lights on Dublin’s Grafton Street

A new 24 hour Dublin Bus service has been announced between Ongar and University College Dublin (UCD). The 39a will now run 24 hours a day, seven days a week at half hour intervals. The service is one of the most popular among students at UCD, who can use the service to travel between the UCD campus and the city centre. According to the College Tribune, the results of a recent survey by UCD shows that 41% of its students commute to college by public transport.

Announcing the news of the new 24 hour service, Minister for Transport Eamonn Ryan stated: “As we look forward to a postCovid future, it is important that we resource our public transport system for the recovery.”

PHOTO

BY CIARA GALLAGHER FOR TRINITY NEWS

HEA to seek data on UL to facilitate free race and ethnicity of testing for students higher education staff even without symptoms A new survey of higher education staff will be the first of its kind Shannon Connolly News Editor

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HE HIGHER Education Authority (HEA) is to launch a survey that will look at the race and ethnicity among higher level institutions in Ireland.

The Race Equality Survey will be the first of its kind, and is expected to highlight and tackle any lack of diversity in Irish academia.

The survey will be conducted by the HEA’s Centre of Excellence for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion. It will gather and evaluate the experiences of staff in higher education.

Dr Ross Woods of the HEA has said that historically, there has been a lack of data on minority ethnic groups in higher education in Ireland.

Dr Woods told the Irish Examiner: “Since 2019, the HEA Centre of Excellence has been working with higher education

institutions to progress the collection of national data on ethnicity.

“A key part of this work has been agreeing terminology and categories for ethnicity data collection that may be used across the higher education sector.”

This data needs to ensure that any inequalities that exist can be addressed, he added.

In September, a report published by the British Council in Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy supported the HEA’s move to collect figures on the ethnicity breakdown in Irish academia.

Data on the ethnicity of staff in higher education will be submitted to the HEA from this month.

“Collecting equality data is not a simple case of just asking for it. A lot of groundwork needs to take place to ensure that people from minority ethnic groups feel comfortable giving this information and that any terminology used is not discriminatory itself,” Woods added.

Lack of diversity in higher education has certainly been topical this year, as Trinity students campaigned for and helped establish a Black Studies module in College.

The module was created in June after students in College produced a petition, following the debate on racial education in Ireland.

UL has announced that they are to facilitate free oncampus Covid-19 testing for students before they travel home for Christmas this year Shannon Connolly News Editor

T

HE UNIVERSITY of Limerick (UL) have announced that they are to facilitate oncampus Covid-19 testing for students before they travel home for the Christmas period.

In a press release, the university stated that in collaboration with the HSE, Public Health Mid-West and Mid-West Community Healthcare they have been working to “ensure the best protective measures are in place for the UL community during this Covid-19 pandemic”.

UL students living in the immediate vicinity of the campus will be invited to register for a Covid-19 test without needing to display any symptoms of the virus.

President of UL Professor

Kerstin Mey explained: “The offer of on-campus testing will build upon the myriad of safety protocols we have in place to keep our community safe.”

“It will aim to minimise any virus transmission by helping to identify asymptomatic carriers of Covid-19, particularly among students who intend to return home for the Christmas period,” May added.

The press release said that overall, UL has seen a “high level of compliance” on campus with the Covid-19 precautions it has put in place.

“There have been some cases of Covid-19 among the UL population of 16,500 students and these are due to community and household transmission,” May continued, “Anywhere we can introduce further safety protocols for our students both on and off campus we will take those opportunities and we are very happy now to be in a position to facilitate COVID-19 testing to our student community.”

The press release explained that students at UL have been “repeatedly advised” to follow public health guidelines, to download the Covid tracker app and to self-isolate if they display any symptoms while they await a test.

Last month, UL announced that online teaching will continue for the majority of courses throughout next term.

Residents of campus accommodation at Dublin City University (DCU) have been told that a party held by a resident constitutes a “serious breach of Covid-19 protocols”. The email to residents noted that “a shortstay booking resident, who is in breach of the terms and conditions in relation to gatherings, or any health and safety issues, will not be welcome back to make another booking to stay in campus accommodation”, meanwhile long term residents were told they would receive a “final warning” and a fine if they were to be found to be breaking regulations. The Irish Times have reported that during the party fireworks were set off inside the building, altering accommodation staff when a fire alarm was triggered. The party happened on November 11 within the College Park Residences and reportedly included guests from outside of the university.

Queen’s University Belfast have rolled out a rapid Covid-19 testing programme open to students ahead of their return home for Christmas. The University of Ulster has also initiated a similar programme for students who study at either their Magee or Coleraine campuses.

Queen’s have said that by the end of the year they hope to be testing around 6,000 students a week. In order to be eligible for a test by the university, students must not be displaying any symptoms of the virus. Those who are showing symptoms have been told to book a test through the normal NHS system. Some staff will also be eligible for the tests, although this is to be limited to those working “in close proximity” to the students who have chosen to remain at the university over the christmas break. Queen’s plans to continue testing for asymptomatic students into the second semester in the new year.

9

TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Taoiseach hits on Covid-19, student nurses, and Book of Kells during Trinity visit

President Higgins urges colleges to support student welfare The President of Ireland has acknowledged the “particularly challenging” year that third-level students have faced Shannon Connolly News Editor

P

RESIDENT Michael D. Higgins has urged third level institutions to support students by addressing access challenges faced by student groups during Covid-19 restrictions.

In an address to third-level students, President Higgins acknowledged that third level students have had a “particularly challenging” year and said hat this was especially the case for firstyear students who were unable to sit the traditional Leaving Certificate examination back in June.

“Then, too, the experience of the first term will have been totally changed with the absence of the collective experience of learning,” Higgins said.

“In my own time, some of us even studied together; participating and speaking at

societies, such as the debating societies, be it in English or Irish.

They were for us as important as the lectures.”

Many students across the country have not been able to return to higher level education in person, as the majority of courses are either “blended” between in person and online classes, with nearly all Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) courses being entirely online since March.

The President said: “You, in your special circumstances created

by Covid-19, are challenged more than others who have had to overcome the hurdle of the first term. I want you to know that, as President, I am aware of these challenges and that you are much valued by those who care for you.”

Higgins also paid tribute to staff and management at third-level institutions for their support of students this year, and acknowledged the “momentous transition” they had to make at very short notice.

Higher level institutions across the country closed on March 12, following the government closure of all schools and colleges to stop the spread of coronavirus. While primary and secondary schools have been permitted to reopen with social distancing measures in place, most higher level institutions have not returned to normal teaching.

“While now, of course, there are technological capacities that did not exist when I was a student or a lecturer, they cannot ever fully

replicate the experience of the first year at third level that you may have anticipated,” Higgins said.

“I am very well aware, too, as President, that such technological capacities are not available to all for a multitude of reasons. There are geographical, social, economic, and affordability issues that exacerbate the existing inequalities of access and participation,” he said.

“I am appealing to all thirdlevel colleges to do their best, and I know they are anxious to do so, to address these issues by enabling parts of courses to be transferable to students without the technological means, to innovate with new forms of contact and encouragement, and that you continue to work with great kindness and generosity.”

President Higgins added: “To students, and particularly firstyear students, may I say I will be thinking of you now, and after the Christmas Break and in the New Year. I pay tribute to you all for the special effort you have been asked to make.”

“Do please encourage and watch out for each other now and beyond Covid-19.”

“I hope, too, that the efforts weak or strong that you have been making and will continue to make means that beyond Covid-19 you will have an educational and social experience all the richer in the future,” Higgins continued.

“May I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year.”

Martin emphasised the importance of “collective behaviour” to curb the spread of Covid-19 Audrey Brown

Deputy News Editor

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AOISEACH Micheál Martin touched on higher education and Covid-19 during a visit to Trinity’s campus to see the new Book of Kells exhibition.

Speaking in the Exam Hall, Martin highlighted the importance of personal responsibility in the coming weeks before Christmas in minimising the spread of Covid-19.

Regarding the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) projections for January, which predict a potential rise in virus cases, Martin said that “we enter this phase in a good place compared to the rest of Europe”.

However, he emphasised that it remains “very important we warn people and keep the alert high”.

When asked about the coming

developments of vaccines, Martin responded that he sees the potential for vaccines as a motivator.

“We’ll be in a new phase in the new year,” he related. However, he continued to underline the “importance of our collective behaviour over Christmas”.

He believes that people will be conscious of public health over the holiday period because of a collective desire to adhere to health guidance and get through the problem. He referred to the public as being “grounded in realism” about the situation Regarding questions about allowance for student nurses and midwives, the Taoiseach stated that there is ongoing review into the problem.

Earlier this month, the government voted against a motion to provide pay allowances for student nurses and midwives on placement programmes.

Martin stated that Government has “no issue” in supporting student healthcare workers, and allowances for students will continue to be reviewed.

After touring the new Book of Kells exhibition in the Old Library, Martin described the exhibit as “incredible, really”.

The Book of Kells, he said, is “one of the great jewels of the crown in Ireland…and in one of the most attractive locations in Ireland”.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Funding allocated to support transgender, nonbinary and gender non-conforming students “If this fund helps just one person come a step closer to their true self, it will be enough for me.”

and Equality Officer to ease this process in any way that I could.”

“Having built a positive working relationship with Q Soc this year, I was delighted when they agreed to collaborate with the SU on this project, offering their expertise in the area,” Keogh added.

Shannon Connolly News Editor

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RINITY COLLEGE Dublin’s Students’ Union (TCDSU) has mandated to allocate resources to be given to a fund that will support transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming students.

The proposed “T-fund” will be a total of €20,000.

The resources are to be allocated from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) Fund as per the suggestions outlined in the T-Fund Proposal document.

This motion comes as Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) released statistics stating that 78% of trans people in

the UK and Ireland have thought about ending their lives and 40% have attempted suicide.

The project will be for a ten year period starting September 2021.

Speaking to Trinity News, Leah Keogh, who proposed the motion, said: “The T-Fund is a really exciting project, the third

TAKE A GLOBAL VIEW

of its kind in the country. After hearing anecdotal stories from friends about the mass barriers to transitioning and the sobering statistic that, according to TENI, 78% of trans people in the UK and Ireland have thought about ending their lives, I thought it imperative that I act in my role as Welfare

The Council acknowledged the work of Nation University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway) and Dublin City University (DCU) Students’ Unions on their introduction of a ‘T-Fund’ that provides financial assistance to facilitate social transitioning which refers to the social portion of a transition by which a person makes others aware of their gender identity.

Explaining the fund, Keogh added: “This fund endeavours to facilitate social transitioning, whereby a person makes others aware of their gender identity.”

“Social transitioning can involve a person telling others about their gender identity by officially changing their name and/ or gender and accessing resources that allow them to express themselves.”

Keogh continued: “Beginning and continuing social transition can bring gender affirmation and

relieve gender dysphoria.”

“College is generally a time where students can freely express themselves, often for the first time.

If this fund helps just one person come a step closer to their true self, it will be enough for me.”

At Council, Keogh urged people to vote in favor of this motion and “play your part and be part of history”.

Backing the motion at Council, LGBT+ Officer Brian Hastings said that “it’s really important to help students transitioning in any way possible”.

Council also noted that for many people, “beginning and continuing social transition can bring gender affirmation and relieve gender dysphoria”.

At Council, Keogh stated that the fund will go towards providing “Gender recognition certs, jewellery, make up” or “anything” that can help students who are transitioning.

The Higher Education Authority (HEA) Fund has been established to fund projects that “benefit students and has proved effective by doing so in the past”.

Additional reporting by Finn Purdy, Jack Kennedy, Bonnie Gill, Kate Henshaw and Connie Roughan.

KEEP UP WITH THE NEWS ONLINE, EVEN WHEN YOU’RE NOT ON CAMPUS.

Free subscription for third level students at irishtimes.com/studentsignup

YO U A R E W H AT YO U R E A D

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Features

Students living on the PUP Paul Ralph

page 12

How lecturers have adapted to online learning Sarah Moran

page 14

The Discord dilemma: A look at image-based sexual abuse in Ireland

The sharing of women’s images without their consent highlights the flaws in Ireland’s system of reporting sexual abuse Phoebe Otway-Norwood Deputy Sport Editor

“S

omeone will end up dead.”

This harrowing response by Megan Sims, who was at the centre of the discovery of a server containing over 11,000 non-consenual images of both women and girls, highlights the deeply troubling approach Ireland has to rape culture and specifically image based sexual abuse. Ireland has a chequered history of respecting women’s rights, from restricted access to abortion to the mother and baby homes scandal, and this tragic event is just the most recent in a long line of occasions in which the legislature has failed to protect women and their rights. The concerns raised by victims on the response by the Gardaí, and their inability to prosecute many of the

perpetrators, serves to highlight the misogynistic approach our society takes to women, who are made vulnerable for their choices.

This feeds directly into the selffulfilling perpetual circle of rape culture that pervades our society.

Reform is needed, not just in law, but also in our societal approach to these matters, as we stigmatise women who engage in any sexual activities, be it sharing images online or having an OnlyFans account. By following in the footsteps of international partners such as the UK and Australia, and criminalising image-based sexual abuse, we would address Ireland’s blind spot on the issue and help protect people who suffer as a result of image-based sexual abuse.

It is important to note that image-based sexual abuse does not affect just women; it also affects men. A study conducted by Goldmsiths Univeristy of London and Monash University found that 37.1% of men had been victimised by image-based sexual abuse in the previous two years, a staggeringly high number considering the lack of publicity there is surrounding this issue. However, for the purposes of this article, the abuse of women in a heterosexual relationships will be focused on in light of recent developments.

The server in question contained over 11,000 images of women, shared without their consent or knowledge. Some of these were taken from Instagram, Snapchat or OnlyFans accounts without permission; others were pictures

“

This image leak is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of toxic abuse culture that had been sent privately to men and had been posted onto this server without prior consent.

In some cases, the images were taken without the girl’s knowledge, including underage girls. The server, which was hosted offshore, acted as a forum for some 500 men to share these images amongst themselves on a county-by-county basis, without fear of incrimination due to the lack of legislation criminalising this form of abuse.

The pandemic, and the subsequent lockdowns, have been a direct feeding factor to the increase of abuse, with the UK seeing a 22% rise in incidences.

Appearing before the Policing Authority, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris announced that there are no criminal investigations in this jurisdiction underway due

ARTWORK BY ELLA SLOANE FOR TRINITY NEWS

to the absence of complaints by people affected that they had been victimised in any way. He also stated that all the photos had been checked and as of yet no child abuse or ‘revenge porn’ had been discovered.

This image leak is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the toxic abuse culture which is prevalent within Irish society, yet it is important to understand what toxic or rape culture actually is.

What is the ‘culture’ part of rape?

In short, it is that women are seen as conquests, or inanimate objects purely for pursuance, and ultimately, sexual gratification.

They are objectified, and manhood is legitmised through this. Sexual violence is normalised and accepted against women. It places women at the heart of responsibility by placing the burden on women’s shoulders to protect themselves from attack by not acting in a way that will attract attention. The male support theory, as proposed

by Walter DeKeserdy, author of Male Peer Support and Violence Against Women, embeds this in culture as it places the emphasis not just on the perpetrator but also on the bystanders who help to legitimise and encourage abuse.

While culture informs our beliefs, values and behaviours in society, it is not determinative of them.

Examples of rape culture would be making jokes at the expense of women being raped; the constant objectfication of women in pop music by male artists; Donald Trump claiming he can “grab” women “by the pussy” and dismiss this as “locker-room talk”, and lastly, a direct influence on imagebased sexual abuse, the porn industry.

The portrayal of women in the porn industry revolves around their main role as being available to men for sex. They are characterised as subordinate to men in humiliating and degrading ways through hardcore or ‘gonzo’ porn, whereby sex is used as a weapon.

While this may be a sexual fantasy for both women and men alike, it is the corporate-capitalist industry of porn behind these movies that are the real drivers of rape culture and ownership of women, as they are central to the trafficking of girls and women. These societal norms have the effect of desensitising our societies to sexual violence and normalising the mistreatment and abuse of women, which directly feeds into image-based sexual

abuse.

On the flip side of the coin, women who share images and engage in sex or just dress a certain way are branded a slut by society, and as such in the eyes of the media do not warrant our sympathy.

This reality places women in an impossible situation, where they are demonised no matter which way they turn. In an effort to reclaim their sexuality many movements such as #FreetheNip aim to help women embrace their sexualtiy. As a result the women whose images were contained in that server are direct victims of rape culture in Ireland through image-based sexual abuse. Their trust has been broken in society.

The approach of society to this issue is reflected in the government as the lack of legislation surrounding this area has failed to protect any woman involved in the scandal. Reforms in the UK and Australia which have been in progress since 2015 have criminalised any form of image-based sexual abuse, deterring much of what occurs in Ireland. Despite calls to the Oirechtas to amend the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act in 2018, no such reform was made.

Discussion is due to begin in the Dáil on this issue on December 1, but this is too little too late. A petition organised by Megan Sims to impose a fine or imprisonment for up to seven months for sharing non-consensual images has reached over 65,000 signatures, and represents a societal wish to provide protection to women.

What is important to note is that this scandal has affected a huge number of women, who will have to live with the consequences of something they took no active part in. For some this may mean lost job opportunities, and for others it may be a detrimental effect on mental health. Following on from the knowledge that these files were released there was a huge outpouring of support for the women involved from both men and women. Many men shared posts raising awareness of calling their friends out for behaviour of this kind. Many politicians also came to the defence, as Mary Lou McDonald stated: this is a profound violation of women and girls rights’. Trinity now needs to step up and have increased awareness for their support within College for people who may be affected by this.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Features

Busking for the home Trinity students raising money for homeless charities this Christmas Sean Gordon Dalton Deputy Features Editor

T

he Homelessness Crisis in Ireland has become an increasingly more salient issue, with the issue of housing being voters’ number one priority in February’s General Election.

Students and youth organisations have taken the lead in raising awareness and money, and individual Trinity students have taken on projects to help tackle the scourge of homelessness.

BuskAid is an annual busking festival held in Waterford every Christmas, and will be going ahead this year despite Covid-19, but not in the traditional sense. This year’s fundraiser will see a host of online events happen throughout December and in the lead up to Christmas in an effort to raise

“

The beauty of BuskAid has always been that we’re surrounded by a fantastic group of artists

much needed funds for Tinteán Housing Association, including a very special live stream concert, BuskAid Live.

Since 2015 BuskAid has raised over €22,000 for local homelessness charities in Waterford at Christmas. Now entering its fifth year, they are hoping they can continue raising as much money as possible for their charity partner, Tinteán Housing

Association. Tinteán offers women and families accommodation with support, providing them with the necessary skills and help they need to leave homelessness behind.

BuskAid founder and Trinity History student Tadhg Williams spoke to Trinity News about the charity festival. “Five years ago the homelessness crisis started to get much more attention and people were finally becoming aware that it was a crisis. I was 17 at the time and busking around Waterford quite a lot, and the homelessness situation was quite visual. I always tell people the first buskaid was about 6 years ago, inadvertently. I was busking on New Years Eve in W city, and I wasn’t busking for money at that stage, it was just for fun,” he said.

“I packed up and was heading towards the bus, and between where I was busking and the bus I saw about four or five people in sleeping bags in doorways,” he said.“Because of that experience, I decided the following Christmas, I wanted to do something bigger.”

Discussing the plans for this year, Williams said that “given the current public health situation and although restrictions are set to be eased in time for Christmas we feel

it would be irresponsible of us to ask our incredible volunteers to go out onto the streets, as they have done for the past four years, and be in a situation where they may not be able to effectively socially distance. We’re also aware that some of our buskers have attracted large crowds in the past couple of years especially, which in the past has been utterly fantastic, but this year we have to avoid that. The health of the people of Waterford is our priority and therefore BuskAid will not happen in the traditional format, however we have a really innovative and exciting series of online events planned which I’m really looking forward to!”

BuskAid is setting two challenges for people this year.

They are encouraging people to make the most of the outdoors and do 5K for BuskAid, sharing their progress and their donation link with their friends online. For those who are artistically inclined, they want people to participate in Busk From Your Bedroom – perform a song, poem or dance in your bedroom, upload it to social media, share the donation link and challenge three friends to do the same.

As well as these challenges,

BuskAid has three events lined up for Christmas week. “On Monday the 21st of December we’ve teamed up with Steven Stubbs and StubVid Media to do a special BuskAid Rafflecast live on Facebook. During the stream, we’ll be raffling some bizarre prizes and magic prizes as well as live music and special guests,” said Williams.

“The Rafflecast will no doubt descend into absolute chaos but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

“On Tuesday the 22nd of December we’re invading the now extremely popular Jordan’s Session in the Jordan’s American Bar group page on Facebook.

We’re encouraging people to share a song and a virtual drink to raise funds for Tinteán.”

Their final event on the 23rd of December will be BuskAid Live, live-streamed from the Waterford In Your Pocket Facebook page.

The concert will be a telethon style celebration of the best of local talent, and updates on fundraising targets will be announced throughout the night. People are also encouraged to gather around their laptops or television screens together with a few drinks next to the fire and celebrate Christmas with BuskAid.

“We were left with just €15 after rent”: Students living on the PUP After months of restrictions and two moves into Level Five lockdown, concerns about the government-issued PUP are only rising Paul Ralph Contributing Writer

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n March, the Government was forced to act quickly when it was faced with a growing health and economic crisis that is likely to be remembered as a historic event. The then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, announced that all nonessential retail was to close along with cafes, bars and restaurants.

Ireland had entered lockdown and with that significant step, the state had taken on the responsibility to pay the wages of hundreds of thousands of people.

In those early days of the pandemic, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) was introduced to help the rapidly increasing numbers of people made unemployed by the closure of businesses. At this time, the payment was still covered by the substantial budget surplus from the previous year. As the crisis extended into the Summer, the government was forced to embark on a programme of record borrowing which raised the deficit to levels not seen since the depths of the recession in 2011.

There was consensus between the financially liberal minded and the economic conservatives.

Indeed, the British conservative Government introduced the furlough scheme while governments around Europe introduced similar measures.

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When they put it at €350 it was what I would earn in a week with pretty rubbish tips Nonetheless the Lockdown led to an enormous rise in the levels of youth unemployment. By June, CSO figures suggested that 51%

of people aged 15 to 24 were unemployed and that the overall unemployment rate, when all those who were in receipt of the PUP were taken into account, was 26.1%.

At first, the PUP was a flat rate of €350 given indiscriminately to all who were made unemployed as a result of the pandemic. As time has progressed so too has the discussion around the mounting costs of the PUP. The government came to the conclusion that it would scrap the flat rate and instead introduce a tiered system of payments linked to the wages people earned in their previous job.

According to the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) their analysis of the figures provided by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection in October shows that “a third (32%) of young people under 25 are now on the lowest rate of PUP payment of €203 compared to a fifth (20%) of recipients over 25. Overall,

almost 6 out of 10 (58%) young people under 25 are on the two lower rates of €203 and €250. In comparison, almost two-thirds of older workers are on the highest rate of €300.”

Third year students James O’Donnell and Eoin Macnally spoke to Trinity News about receiving the PUP as a result of the government’s decision to put the country on Level Five restrictions.

O’Donnell had worked in his previous job as a bartender for nine months before the first lockdown.

He has been unable to work since March, “they had reopened but my job was primarily as a mixologist… because I was a student working part-time and since the restaurant was opening, closing and reopening again me and my boss decided it would be better for the other girl to take the hours’’.

This has been an all too common experience for student part-time workers employed in sectors that have been severely affected by the lockdown measures. Employers,

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Features

eless Speaking about the different events, volunteer coordinator Anna Jordan said, “What we really wanted to do was make sure we’re engaging with the community. The beauty of BuskAid has always been that we’re surrounded by a fantastic group of artists dedicating their time and talents for a special cause, and through that reaching people on every street corner in the town.

We want to do the same this year, virtually. It’s been a difficult year

but we really wanted to celebrate togetherness and community as best we could.”

“It’s been a really tough year on everyone, especially charities,” said busking coordinator Derek Flynn.

“Tinteán Housing Association lost a lot of opportunities to raise much needed funds for the project this year so we’re really hoping that the people of Waterford get on board with us and donate as much as possible. This is a totally new area for all of us, we’re being totally stripped right out of our comfort zones but we recognized the importance of making sure BuskAid went ahead this year in some shape or form. Hopefully people can engage with it and enjoy it!”

Williams has set up an online donation link at idonate.ie/

buskaid2020. Within four days of it going up online, they had already raised over a thousand euros. “You should see the size of some of the donations coming in, we’ve had €100, €150 donations coming in constantly.” It seems to have been making a difference and Waterford is showing impressive results when it comes to homelessness, which according to Williams is because of the success of models like Tinteán. “There’s other counties in Ireland that are looking at the model Waterford has in place and using that to adapt and to address their own homeless problems. So if anything it’s even more important now that we keep supporting Tinteán because the difference that they’re making in Waterford is having an effect on the rest of the country.”

Coiste Gaeilge nua sa Choláiste Bhunaigh Gretchen Ganley coiste nua chun Gaeilge a chur in ord tosaíochta san Aontas, agus labhraíonn sí linn faoina taithí leis go dtí seo Gráinne Nic Cathmhaoil Eagarthóir Gaeilge

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paying P especially those running small businesses, have been imploring the government for more clarity about when and how they can reopen fully.

When the payment was first introduced it was welcomed by many part-time student workers as it sufficiently covered their lost earnings, “although I was working part-time I was on a pretty good wage” O’Donnell says, “when they put it at €350 it was what I would earn in a week with pretty rubbish tips”. The PUP due in part to the haste with which it was introduced does not take into consideration income such as tips, “the Government had to choose a number it may have been more trouble than it was worth doing it on a case by case basis.”

As the NYCI research suggests, the move to reduce the payment has disproportionately affected students and young people, many of whom work part-time in sectors affected by lockdowns. O’Donnell explained the harsh realities of

PHOTO BY BUSKAID

the move to the tiered payment system. He and his girlfriend were left in a perilous position when after the PUP was cut, “we were left with just €15 after paying the rent, we were making plans for my girlfriend to move back to Belgium, only Belgium went back into lockdown”.

Fortunately, O’Donnell was awarded a scholarship and they were able to come to an arrangement with the landlord which allowed them to stay.

“When they changed course and did base it off what you were earning previously, I did think it was a bit strange. It seemed like a double standard because they basically said we think €350 a week is the minimum that you’re going to need to live on but then they said we’re going to start scaling it down”.

The introduction of coronavirus restrictions has radically changed the university experience for all students. For those who had a part time job for everyday living expenses, the PUP has diminished the need to work. Eoin Macnally was working in the retail sector until non-essential retail had to close at the end of October and plans to return to his job once the restrictions are lifted. “[When the PUP was announced] I definitely thought it was a good idea” Macnally explains, “beyond myself personally also I was glad of basic income coming in”.

“My college experience has

been 50/50 working and not working so it was nice to return to that especially in 3rd year when there is a bit more going on and it was completely academically focused.” Alleviating the reliance on a part-time job has given students far more time to focus on college work and removed the stress of having to juggle work with academic obligations. In regard to work and college Macnally puts it like this, “I don’t think they blend perfectly”. The idea of giving stipends to students to subsidise their day to day expenditure is not unheard of in Europe. In the Netherlands, every student has the right to receive a grant during his or her studies. It is available as a loan but changes into a grant on graduation.

The pandemic has changed student life in Ireland into something nearly unrecognisable.

Students have had to navigate the world of online learning and zoom with little to no introduction. They have started to be criticised in the press and in certain political circles for perceived recklessness driven by circulation of grainy videos on social media of Spanish Arch in Galway and South William Street in Dublin. Many have had the opportunity to work taken from them and been forced to make difficult decisions. If anything, this crisis has shown the resilience and resolve of students when faced with adversity.

á gluais ar fáil thíos i gcomhair na bhfocal i gcló trom.

Le hathoscailt Sheomra na Gaeilge ar champas le déanaí, tháinig píosa gnáthshaoil ar ais leis chomh maith. Ach bhí mé fágtha ag smaoineamh faoi na cumainn, na clubanna agus na grupaí atá ag déanamh iarracht chun daoine a tharraingt chuig a n-eachtraí, gan spreagthaí cosúil le píosta nó oícheanta amach faoi láthair. Táim mar bhall den Choiste Gaeilge nua atá bunaithe ag TCDSU Oifigeach na Gaeilge Gretchen Ganley, agus mar sin, labhair mé léi faoina taithí ag bunú grúpa nua i rith na staideanna seo.

Le gach rud atá ar siúl, bhí mé fiosrach faoi cad a spreag Gretchen chun coiste nua a chruthú. “I mbliana, tá TCDSU ag glacadh páirte i scéim atá Aontas Mac Léinn na hÉireann ag reáchtáil darbh ainm ‘Bonn na Gaeilge’.” Leanann Gretchen ar aghaidh, ag miniú gur “cineál Gaelbratach atá ann, agus ceann de na tascanna a bhaineann leis ná Coiste Gaeilge a bhunú agus a chur le chéile.” Cuireann sé i gcuimhne orm an Bhratach Ghlas nó an Bhratach Ómra agus mé mar mhac léinn meánscoile.

Dar leis na téarmaí tagartha leagtha amach ag Gretchen, beidh dhá chruinniú ag an gCoiste gach téarma, agus beidh roinnt dualgas ag an gCoiste, cosúil le polasaithe Ghaeilge an Aontais a phlé, aird a tharraingt ar na ceisteanna roimh dhuine ar leith faoi scáth an Aontais, agus tacaíocht a thabhairt d’ionadaíocht na Gaeilge san Aontas.

Bhí me fiosrach faoin bpróiseas ag tosú rud éigin nua faoi láthair — an bhfuil sé níos deacra aird na ndaoine a tharraingt mar níl na spreagthaí tuasluaite ar fáil? Nó an bhfuil sé níos easca mar tá leadrán ar dhaoine, agus ba mhaith leo triail a bhaint as rudaí nua? “Cinnte, tá sé deacair daoine a mheallah. Ag an am seo

sa téarma, níl fonn ar dhaoine níos mó ama a chaitheamh ar Zoom, agus tuigim go hiomlán é sin, táimid go léir bréan de Zoom faoin bpointe seo.”

Sílim go bhfuil sé ar fheabhas go mbíonn eachtraí fós ar siúl mar ceapaim go bhfuil cosúlacht normáltachta ag teastáil ó gach duine, agus sin cad a chuireann na heachtraí ar fáil go rialta.

Bíonn Ciorcal Comhrá ag an gCoiste gach Aoine ag a haon a chlog darbh ainm “Le Chéile ar Líne”. Seans é chun teacht le chéile (ar ndóigh) muna bhfuil tú ar champas agus munar féidir leat dul chuig Seomra na Gaeilge nuair ba mhaith leat. Ní bhíonn brú ann Gaeilge fhoirfe a labhairt, agus cabhródh an Coiste le haon fhocal nó fhrása atá ag teastáil.

Deis mhaith é píosa Gaeilge a fhoghlaim gach seachtain i rith do lóin, gan aon bhrú, i ngrúpa beag agus timpeallacht neamhfhoirmiúil chairdiúil.

Ceapaim go luann Gretchen fadhb mhór na laethanta seo.

Bíonn mic léinn ina suí os comhair an ríomhaire glúine ar feadh an lae ar fad, agus uaireanta bíonn siad tuirseach den scáiléan faoi dheireadh an lae. Deir Gretchen í féin é faoin Aontas: “In amanna normálta, b’fhéidir go mbeadh sé níos spraíúla.

Bheadh deis againn aithne a chur ar a chéile agus píosa craic agus píosa spraoi a chur isteach sna cruinnithe.”

Go pearsanta, is breá liom daoine a fheiceáil atá fós ag coinneáil orthu trí na hamanna seo, agus atá fós ag leanúint ar aghaidh leis an gnáthshaol. Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil vacsaín ar an mbealach más fíor agus nach bhfuilimid faoi dhianghlasáil a thuilleadh, ach tá baol agus imní fós ann faoi gach rud a dhéanaimid, cosúil le pleananna a dhéanamh le do chairde faoi cheann seachtaine, agus ní féidir a bheith cinnte nach mbeidh muid faoi dhianghlasáil arís faoin am sin. Tá a lán le smaoineamh faoi faoi láthair, agus tá meas agam ar na daoine atá ag déanamh iarrachta tairbhe a bhaint as an saol trí gach rud.

Gluais (Glossary) • Spreagthaí - Incentives • Órma - Amber • Iondaíocht - Representation • Thuasluaite Aforementioned • Cosúlacht normáltachta Semblance of normality • Ag coinneáil orthu Persevering • Ag leanúint ar aghaidh Carrying on • A thuilleadh - Anymore • Faoi cheann seachtaine In a week’s time

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Features ARTWORK BY ALENA GERASIMOVAFOR TRINITY NEWS

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Lecturers are appreciative of the work put in by students

The other side of the screen:

How lecturers have adapted to online learning Lecturers discuss the benefits, challenges and methods behind teaching online

Sarah Moran Staff Writer

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s evidenced by the deserted Arts Block and the quiet of the Hamilton, lecture halls remain empty this semester with online teaching having usurped face-to-face classes. While some students lament at the difficulty of studying at home and rejoice at being able to attend their 9am lecture in the comfort of their own bed, lecturers have also had to adjust to this entirely new form of teaching.

The decision to move teaching almost entirely online was made in response to Level Three restrictions just before term began this September, leaving many lecturers who had prepared for inperson classes with the challenge of adjusting to virtual teaching with very little time to adapt to this new online format. The decision primarily affected lecturers in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences faculties, since those in

Health Sciences and Engineering, Mathematics, and Science departments were permitted to continue in the cases of laboratory or practical learning.

The initial response to the prospect of online teaching was not an all-round positive one. Dr Clare Kelly, Associate Professor of Psychology, said she was “initially filled with dread about the prospect of recording my lectures,” not only because she tries to avoid listening to or watching herself back, but because “adapting, preparing, recording, adding captions, editing, etc. takes a long time”.

Dr Miranda Fay Thomas, Assistant Professor of Drama, agreed that virtual classes “take more preparation”, and Dr Neville Cox, Professor of Law, explained that “there was at least a doubling, and arguably a trebling of the amount of work that went into both preparation for and delivery of classes”.

While recording, editing and uploading lectures takes a significant amount of time in comparison to delivering a live lecturer, many lecturers agree that online teaching has been worthwhile, and made so by the students who are encouraging and ready to participate. Dr Cox said that his experience this semester was “largely positive (albeit that obviously all our expectations were framed by the constraints of the pandemic)” and that there

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There was at least a doubling, and arguably a trebling of the amount of work that went into classes were “useful lessons to be learned” from the new format. Dr Kelly said she “much preferred pre-recording to live online lectures - I was able to adopt an animated recording ‘persona’ that I find quite difficult to replicate ‘live’.”

Dr Chris Morash, Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, said that while he misses the live interaction with students in the classroom, he has “learned a whole new set of teaching skills”, and believes that “It’s always good to learn new tricks.”

Dr Thomas remarked that she has “really enjoyed online teaching”, which has been

largely thanks to her students, particularly their “ideas, their curiosity, and their hard work.”

This sentiment was echoed by Dr Cox, who said that his experience was improved by having “truly excellent buy-in from students who really went the extra mile in terms of seeking to participate.” Dr Kelly agreed, stating that the effort has “been worth it” partly because “feedback I received from students has really helped motivate me.”

Continuing this thread of positive aspects of virtual classes, Dr Thomas mentioned a hidden but very important perk: “I’ve been introduced to a whole host of dogs I wouldn’t have otherwise met.”

Former vice-provost Dr Morash revealed what he believes to be the “secret to online teaching”, which is “not to think of it as a live seminar trying to accommodate itself to a technology, but to think of it like radio.” He continued to say that he’s always loved radio for “its uncanny way of making a voice present.” Describing his set-up for recording, Dr. Morash detailed his “big old pair of Sennheiser studio headphones” and “big retro desk microphone”, and added that he “never, ever” watches himself on screen.

Dr Kelly, on the other hand, has “followed CAPSL’s recommendation to break my lectures up into chunks”, whereas Dr. Thomas has another remedy for combatting what she calls “the dreaded Zoom-fatigue.” She

recommends beginning Zoom classes with breakout rooms, which gives students “a chance to warm up a bit and share ideas in a lower-stakes environment”, since, as many students know, “immediately having to announce your views on the reading to a whole screen full of faces can be daunting!” Dr Thomas added that this also gives students a chance to regain some of the social time that they may miss out on with college having moved online. She also tries to include “a couple of breakout activities per session”, which can assist in changing the pace and “provides some welcome structure”.

The chat function on Zoom has also been useful for Dr Thomas, giving her classes “this additional running commentary” which can serve “for students to contribute ideas or back each other up, or even just to make jokes”.

While online teaching poses plenty of challenges to both students and lecturers, and significantly increases the teaching workload, several lecturers acknowledge the necessity of the new format and are appreciative of the work put in by students.

Dr Thomas, believing “people need to know that their efforts are appreciated”, asserted that “students and staff alike need reassurance that despite the problems and the sacrifices it has been worth it to keep people safe.”

So, what is in store for next semester? In an email circulated to students last week, Provost Patrick Prendergast revealed that College intends to “increase the amount of face-to-face teaching in small group seminars and tutorials” in Hilary term. He continued that this increase in face-to-face teaching will focus on courses which “under Level Five have been entirely online.” This means that, with proper adherence to public health guidelines, a considerable portion of teaching will move from the realms of Zoom and Blackboard into lecture halls following Christmas break. Despite recognising the need for online teaching in the current climate, many lecturers are concerned at the prospect of teaching moving online for good, with Dr Cox stating that “the notion that online teaching could or should replace normal face to face engagement either in large group or small group teaching is not a good one.”

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Features

Paving the path to rediscovery With plans in place to pedestrianise Dame Street, Dubliners are afforded the chance to reclaim their city Anna Sheehan Contributing Writer

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s lockdowns infiltrated the world last March, cities experienced a dampening of background noise that was as unprecedented as the pandemic itself. The major boomtowns ceased to boom, and the usual cacophony of traffic was extinguished by unfamiliar harmonies of birdsong, church bells and the rustling of leaves.

Amid the previous whir of engines, city dwellers had relied upon George Berkeley’s “if a tree falls in the woods” theory to verify the existence of such sounds. Suddenly their eyes were being opened to a life beyond the automobile.

Admittedly, Dublin’s revolution might not have been as prominent as that of London, New York or Tokyo. However, the capital’s citizens did begin to breathe fresher air and see clearer, pollution-free skies as vehicles sat idle in driveways.

Lockdowns have provided a taster of life sans-cars and as a result, Dubliners are becoming even more intrigued by the prospect of pedestrianisation further permeating the city.

After pedestrianisation trials on South Anne Street, Dame Court, Drury Street, and South William Street this summer, 95% of respondents to an online survey voted in favour of permanently pedestrianising the areas.

In a continent ruled by outdoor café culture and car-free zones, Dublin lags behind the major European cities in the realm of pedestrianisation. However, governing bodies are beginning to realise the positive impacts such endeavours could catalyse for the capital city. With the aforementioned streets undergoing resurfacing works this month and plans in place to pedestrianise Dame Street, Dublin is slowly closing the gap on its European counterparts.

Air pollution is at critical levels in metropolises around the world – and pedestrianisation is one of the most effective means of fighting it. When Paris went car-free for a day in September 2015, exhaust emissions were

reduced by 40%. Similarly, during the London marathon in 2018, local air pollution was estimated to have reduced by 89% in some parts of the city. Car transport is the largest source of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Pedestrianisation reduces local contamination, while also cutting a city’s carbon emissions and tackling climate change. (RTA, 2018).

Moreover, pedestrianisation could forge a world of opportunity for those living with disabilities in Dublin. Speaking from the experience of her father, who used crutches for years and is more recently using a wheelchair, Trinity graduate Sorcha Feehan described how poor footpath quality, narrow footpaths, or tiles that become slippery with rain pose a massive source of peril for someone using crutches.

“For wheelchair users, if a footpath isn’t flat you won’t be able to wheel your wheelchair on it, the same if it’s not wide enough,” Sorcha explained. “Being able to have two people abreast on a footpath is quite important I think. If you take a lot of the European cities, although they have cobblestones, there’s so much space to walk. The space is really important.”

Navigating a wheelchair through the capital can often land the user in life-threatening situations. Sorcha recalled a nerve-racking episode that occured last Christmas, travelling the short distance from Earlsfort Terrace to Grafton Street. She and her family were forced to repeatedly embark and disembark the footpath because countless points were too rocky or narrow for her father’s wheelchair. “This is obviously so dangerous when you think of the Luases and buses zooming around. You’re essentially risking your life,” she remarked. “Pedestrianisation provides a lot more safety. You have that freedom to wheel wherever you need to on the breast of the area.”

For wheelchair users, traversing the retail hotspots couldn’t be further from therapeutic. “You have to draw a lot of attention to yourself to get help to get inside,” Sorcha added. “There are so many barriers to simply having a nice afternoon in the city, which is just really sad and it shouldn’t be the way it is. It should be easier. I definitely think having access to the road for people rather than for cars would be really beneficial for people with disabilities.”

Sorcha also described how her aunt, who is an architect, spent years neglecting to make her buildings disability-friendly.

“She just didn’t get it. Then she had her first child and realised the hardship of having to drag a buggy around everywhere; planning whether you can get

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I definitely think having access to the road for people rather than for cars would be really beneficial for people with disabilities

in somewhere, are there stairs, paths you can walk on,” she said. “Although buggies and wheelchairs are in different categories, the concept is similar.

It reminds us how people are oblivious to a struggle until it hits them.”

As the access of non-essential vehicles is restricted, walking becomes the more enticing option. When MSc Marketing student Meredith Davis moved from the UK to study at Trinity this September, she was “pretty aghast” at both the expense and unreliability of Dublin’s public transport system. After several turbulent trips, she decided to hang up her Dublin Bus boots and began making her way to college à pied. “I realised it’s just simpler to walk”, she admitted. “I can time it exactly and don’t need to worry about getting to the bus stop on time, or fear the bus not showing up.”

Referring to her walking route to Trinity, she commented: “I do find Dame Street to be quite congested with traffic in the mornings. The footpaths are narrow and busy, which means I’m often knocking into people or stumbling onto the road. My walk would definitely be more leisurely and enjoyable, were the street to be pedestrianised.”

Feljin Jose of Dublin Commuter Coalition echoed Meredith’s concerns about the transport system. “We need to make it attractive to use public transport,” he said. “When assessing pedestrianisation, we have to look at how easy it is to get to bus stops. If pedestrian crossings are lengthening the travel time to a stop, that’s not an incentive for someone to take the bus. At the end of the day, we must remember that public

transport users are pedestrians.”

“It’s about making the best use of our city,” he added.

“Pedestrianisation has the power to create large public spaces, attract more footfall into the city and thereby create massive positives for local businesses.”

Blazing Salads, a small vegetarian gem, stands on Drury Street as testament to Feljin’s claim. With their front area now reclaimed, the café can serve customers safely in the outdoors; a welcome compensation at present when social distancing measures must be accounted for.

“We’ve been here on Drury Street for 20 years,” owner Pamela Fitzmaurice explained. “Where before the street was plagued by a constant loading bay and big trucks coming and going all day, there’s now much less vehicle noise. It’s a lot more comfortable for the people.”

“There’s no longer a kerb or rise in the footpath which is much nicer for both ourselves and

the customers,” she continued.

“We’ve been able to maximise the space and now have all our tables outside. It makes for a fantastic dining experience - especially given the current circumstances.

The summer trials taught us that pedestrianisation is extremely positive, not just for businesses but for the whole city.”

The startling loss of indoor space as a result of the pandemic, further amplifies the need to maximise Dublin’s outdoor areas. Covid aside, however, pedestrianisation has the propensity to enhance the lives of many; from students to businesses to those living with disabilities.

For Dubliners, the prospect of abolishing the royal treatment of cars sparks a glimmer of hope in arduous times. They fantasise a utopia in which engine “vrooms” are undetectable and clouds of exhaust fumes are a thing of the past. As Feljin emphasised: “pedestrianisation is the perfect gateway to a reimagined city.”

PHOTO BY EUAN CARROLL FOR TRINITY NEWS

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Features

Vaccines and misinformation mark end of annus horribillis As the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine begins in other countries, questions are raised about what this means for Ireland and for Trinity Jack Ryan Deputy Features Editor

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t the start of December, the UK became the first country to begin distributing the Pfizer/ BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. Healthcare workers will be the first to be offered the vaccine, followed by those particularly at risk of the virus. The success of the medical community in creating multiple vaccines within a year is a rare good news story in our undeniable annus horribilis. This victory is still a qualified one however.

One could not tell the story of the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland without mentioning the pervasive misinformation that

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In the current climate of uncertainty and anxiety, it seems certain that misinformation against vaccines will be rampant permeated the national discourse from Instagram meme pages to family Whatsapp groupchats.

Viral voice messages alleged that the Aamy would be deployed onto the streets, that 5G caused the virus and that drinking hot water could cure it. Research from the University of Warsaw in 2013 demonstrated that people in highly anxious states are far more likely to believe conspiracy theories.

Researchers found that study

participants were far more likely to believe unfounded theories about Jewish people immediately prior to beginning examinations compared to after the exams. In the current climate of uncertainty and anxiety, it seems certain that antivaccination misinformation will become rampant once the vaccine is rolled out fully. Already, a survey from the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association showed that only 55% of Irish people were sure that they would take the Covid-19 vaccine.

In 1998, a study was published in the British scientific journal Lancet that drew a supposed link between the universal MMR vaccine and autism. Overnight, MMR vaccination rates plummeted, despite the fact that the study was quickly refuted. The outbreak of mumps in Trinity and other Irish universities in 2019 was related to the fact that the generation affected by this study had reached college age. Given a seed of doubt, parents decided to stick with the devil they know and avoid the vaccine, banking on the herd immunity of the population. The study’s author Andrew Wakefield has now become a prominent anti-vaccine campaigner. In 2010 he was struck off the medical register for deliberately falsifying the data in the study to fabricate the link between the vaccine and autism. Although his 1998 study has been totally refuted, it still

has had a measurable negative impact on MMR vaccination rates, demonstrating how misinformation could potentially derail Covid-19 vaccination efforts.

If the proportion of the population taking the vaccine falls below approximately 60%, Ireland may fail in securing herd immunity against Covid-19. For this reason, some scientists and academics have suggested that the vaccine be made compulsory, either outright or made mandatory for flying or attending school.

Speaking to The Conversation, Alberto Giubilini of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics compares a mandatory vaccine to the lockdown: “Lockdown is mandatory. Exactly like mandatory vaccination, it protects vulnerable people from Covid-19. But, unlike mandatory vaccination, lockdown entails very large individual and societal costs.” However there is no consensus on whether this would be constitutional in Ireland, or even desirable.

Roughly a third of European countries have some form of compulsory vaccination.

In Ireland however, there is legal precedent that suggests that such a policy would contravene constitutional protections over bodily autonomy. In 2001 a couple refused a standard PKU test for their newborn, a harmless heel prick test that screens a baby for

ARTWORK BY ZAHRA TORABPOURAN FOR TRINITY NEWS

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An effective information campaign from reputable sources will be necessary to protect against incorrect information a range of illnesses. The Supreme Court later defended their right to this refusal, albeit declaring their decision “disturbing “ and “unwise”. In the absence of a serious and immediate threat to the health of the child, the parents were able to make medical decisions as they saw fit. This case suggests that there is precedent that would make it impossible for access to schools or colleges such as Trinity to be restricted to those who had been vaccinated. However many European jurisdictions permit compulsory vaccination, and may require flight passengers to have been vaccinated to travel.

Another interesting potential future issue surrounding the implementation of the vaccine will be the rights or otherwise of employers to insist that staff be vaccinated. It is unclear whether an employer would have the right to ask a prospective employee if they had been vaccinated. Speaking to Personnel Today, Kathleen Heycock, partner in employment law at Farrar & Co explains that there may be legal impediments to employers making vaccination compulsory, as they did maskwearing and social distancing: “Any employer who requires employees to receive a vaccine could be open to discrimination claims on religious grounds, given gelatine derived from pigs is often used in mass produced vaccines, and some religions disagree with any medical intervention – although it is unclear whether that is the case for the Covid-19 vaccines.”

Much of the evidence in Ireland seems to point to the fact that the population will not be able to be compelled to take the vaccine, and an effective information campaign from reputable sources will be necessary to ensure the public does not fall prey to misinformation and rumour surrounding the safety of the vaccine. Even if compulsion were possible, it is questionable whether it would even be desirable given that the high degree of compliance and willingness to protect others among the public has been critical to the relative success of Ireland’s Covid-19 suppression measures.

The best uplifting Going home after podcasts for Christmas coming out in college page 2 page 11

Making mince pies and mulled wine page 12

LIFE

TRINITY NEWS

Pullout section

Inside: An alternative guide to Christmas

ARTWORK BY MÁRTA MENTA CZINKÓCZKY FOR TRINITY NEWS

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Table of contents

Society spotlight: DU Chess - page 4

A spicy excursion into Indian cooking - page 5

Christmas comic strip - page 8

Team up for Team Hope - page 15 An alternative guide to Christmas - page 6

An interview with the cofounder of End IBSA Ireland - page 10

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

Lauren Boland Maeve Harris Heather Bruton

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Deputies

Claire Stalhuth Elena McCrory Róisín Daly

Food & Drink Editor Food & Drink Deputy

Alfie Fletcher Seán McElroy

Sex & Relationships Editor Sex & Relationships Deputy

Kerry O’Sullivan

Societies Editor Societies Deputy

Ciara Cassidy Grace Fannon

Student Living Editor Student Living Deputy

Cian Dunne Isha Neurgaonkar

Eva O’Beirne

The best uplifting podcas Fern Kelly-Landry shares a selection of podcasts to lift your spirits over the Christmas season from world affairs and music to comedy and mindfulness

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his year has not been easy for any of us, and as it nears its end, we’re gearing up for a Christmas season like never before. How we relax and blow off steam will have to change. Like many others, I’ve found solace in my favourite podcasts to feel connected to the outside world when being inside is all we’ve known over the past couple of months. Be it escapism or piqued curiosity, there is the perfect show out there for you.

Stick on a podcast, crack open your favourite bottle of Tesco wine, and finally tackle the pile of clothes that’s grown so tall you’d almost match with it on Tinder.

Here are my top five podcast recommendations guaranteed to bring some much-needed light and uplift into your life this festive season.

Basically The conveyor belt of coronavirus-related news lost its appeal by the end of March. I was torn between wanting to know every miniscule detail and doing my utmost to maintain normality.

It is all too easy to submerge yourself in a devastating number of updates and, as a result, to end up more confused than when you began. No one needs or deserves to be overwhelmed by the latest announcement of Level 3.587 of governmental restrictions. It can be difficult to sift through the mountain of news updates to find out what is actually relevant. What we need is someone who can make sense of what is happening for us.

Our solution comes in the form of Basically with Stefanie Priessner. According to her, Basically aims to simplify and “make sense” of the plethora of stories we are inundated with daily. First debuted during the panic of the initial outbreak, this podcast succeeds in offering a sensical breakdown of those overwhelming and unavoidable news stories. Priessner removes the ominosity and mystery so we don’t have to. As much as we are tired of hearing about this pandemic that has enveloped our lives, in truth, none of us

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It can be difficult to sift through the mountain of news updates to find out what is actually relevant can escape reality no matter how hard we might try. Basically has helped me to stay up-to-date with what’s going on in the world.

Preissner’s informative and honest discussions are at a pace both comfortable and engaging. Feeling in control of the outside world today is even more paramount, and the first step is understanding what is happening.

Laughs of Your Life If you’re in the market for a good old-fashioned belly laugh, look no further than Laughs Of Your Life with Doireann Garrihy. When this podcast was initially recommended to me, it was followed by the words “wholesome” and “addictive”. It certainly did not disappoint.

Garrihy hosts a number of charismatic guests who endeavour to discover the redeeming power of laughter and sincere conversation. Before you know it, you’re rolling on the floor laughing alongside their hilarious anecdotes. With the seemingly endless gloomy evenings December has to offer, what better way to relax and genuinely laugh out loud. Laughter really is the best medicine. Thank you to Doireann Garrihy for giving us the gift of laughter this Christmas.

Mindfulness Practicing mindfulness and self-reflection is incredibly important, but it is even more important at this time of year.

We look after our bodies with exercise and eating healthily but, more often than not, neglect our mental wellbeing. Prioritising the health of our minds does wonders for our productivity. Mindfulness offers us a mechanism to reflect on our thoughts and emotions, reduces stress and increases focus. Christmas is a time for recuperation and reflection and finding the right mindfulness podcast for you will help you start 2021 in the right headspace.

It’s hard to pick only one to

take as gospel for this. Test a few out and see what works for you; the world is your oyster when it comes to mindfulness podcasts.

If you’re new to mindfulness and mediation, I recommend The Mindful Minute with yogi Meryl Arnett. In this podcast, she introduces techniques that have helped alleviate her anxiety and reclaim her emotions. From there, you can delve into the mindfulness worlds of animal sounds, breathing exercises, or even throw a bit of Enya into the mix.

The Minimalists Joshua Fields Milburn and

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Christmas is a time for reflection and recuperation, so finding the right mindfulness podcastwill help you start 2021 in a good headspace

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

sts for Christmas Societies look to 2021 PHOTO BY SALLY NÍ THUAMA FOR TRINITY NEWS

Although the pandemic has transformed society life, Grace Gageby explores what students can still get involved with in the New Year

A Ryan Nicodemus host The Minimalists, a podcast where they help us to declutter our minds by first decluttering our lives of pointless possessions.

In a materialistic world, The Minimalists rediscovers the appreciation for what we have and not what we feel like we need. Life is about so much more than things. Their journeys are inspiring and leave you yearning for the next spring clean.

In a world obsessed with materialism and showing off, The Minimalists podcast leaves us grateful for what we have. This Christmas will be different: less time with family, less time for shopping, and more time to dwell on the pitfalls that the year has thrown at us. This podcast is the perfect way to uncover the hidden happiness in our lives and find out what really does spark joy in us.

James Acaster’s Perfect Sounds In James Acaster’s podcast, James Acaster’s Perfect Sounds, he invites us to revel in all the amazing music released in 2016 and the impact it had on the music industry and our lives.

This year became known as the year Britain voted to leave the European Union and Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, but it is so much more than that. On Perfect Sounds, both Acaster and his lively guests debate whether 2016 was in fact “the best year ever for music”.

They revisit and uncover the significance of music across a variety of genres. From Beyonce’s provocative Lemonade to Irish singer-songwriter Katie Kim’s alternative solo project album

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This podcast invites us to rediscover the healing and regenerative powers of music Salt, this podcast leaves no stone of 2016’s music left unturned.

Acaster has openly discussed how music saved his life and actively continues to do so. This podcast invites us to rediscover the healing and regenerative powers of music and the extent to which it can bring meaning to our lives.

Episodes are short and so a perfect addition to any bus journey or a stroll to the supermarket.

We are all guilty of living in the past when our present is not idyllic, but this podcast gives us permission to revel in the incredible music even a year like 2016 had to offer. Whether you’re a comedy fan already or indifferent to the genre, there is no doubt that James Acaster’s music podcast will leave you with a genuine smile on your face and an even deeper appreciation for the uplifting power of music.

What more could you ask for on dark winter evenings?

longside the transition to virtual learning, Covid-19 has seen Trinity’s vibrant society life move to exclusively online platforms.

While some societies have been hit harder than others, committee members and college bodies have endeavoured to maintain a sense of normality in a very difficult situation. As we exited Level Five, College expressed an interest in having increased face-to-face learning come January, although what this means for campus life more broadly is currently unclear.

Trinity’s 120 plus societies are overseen by the Central Societies Committee (CSC). Speaking to Trinity News, CSC chair, Ryan Grunwell emphasised that the role of the CSC has fundamentally stayed the same, and “continues to represent the needs and interests of student societies just as we did before”. The Covid-19 related changes to the organisation of the CSC have been predominantly logistical. For example, the membership hub where people join societies is now online, “which is an advantage for many societies, as very few, with the exception of a few larger societies, use card readers.”

When asked about the changing scope of society applications for recognition from the CSC, Grunwell points to both the trend of growing interest in technological based societies, and applicants utilising societies “as a means to facilitate the advancement of their broader career objectives outside of college,” although neither of these trends were necessarily attributable to Covid-19. Like the societies it oversees, the CSC has moved exclusively online, recently holding a virtual town hall “to get a feel for what student societies felt was working and not working in the age of covid, and which was useful for bouncing ideas off one another.”

The CSC is also anticipating Refreshers’ Week; although contingent on Covid-19 restrictions, Grunwell says that Refreshers’ Week could look either one of two ways. “The first being exclusively online, where we would encourage societies to

use what we learned in town hall, or ideally if we could go ahead with it being on campus, and in anticipation of this, we have set up two live streaming/podcast studios on campus, exclusively for society use, in the GMB and Players’ Theatre. It might look a little more like Freshers’ Week usually does.”

In an email to students on December 3, Secretary to College John Coman announced the reopening of the Trinity Sport Centre, as well as the resumption of evening and Saturday opening in the library. While College has alluded to increased oncampus education hours for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences students, a decision is yet to be made on this, and the broader implications this will have for society life. Grunwell continues, “our ideal is to get society life back on campus. We will continue to take into account government regulations, and College rules themselves which currently stipulate that no activities can take place on campus. We hope to see students back on campus, but of course, the health and well-being of students must come first.”

While online society life is far from ideal, it also presents a rare opportunity to cater to students who don’t drink, or necessarily enjoy clubbing or socialising solely in a nightlife centered way.

Here’s a shortlisted selection of societies to get involved with remotely come January.

Trinity FM, Trinity’s 100% student-run radio station, broadcasts from 3pm to midnight Monday to Friday, and 10am to midnight during broadcast week.

Applications for new shows open monthly, and gives students an opportunity to host a programme on a topic of their interest. Robert Quinn, a third year student who co-hosts We’re All Girls Here on TFM, says the show began with three friends being given a platform to “chat about music, eclectic things, or what’s going on

in college”. TFM also hosts Zoom events once a month, and the platform is “always expanding,” with more people listening and engaging as they’re now at home more than ever. The rotating schedule is also a huge plus for new people looking to get involved.

DU Choral Society has been among the hardest hit by Covid-19 for obvious reasons, but they have continued fortnightly rehearsals via Zoom, covering smaller musical works where possible. The society has also hosted workshops for performers on adapting to virtual platforms.

Speaking to Trinity News, secretary of the society, James Kinsella, says new members interested in singing can get involved by joining the mailing list by messaging any of their social media, or emailing choral@ csc.ie.

The Bram Stoker Club, an offshoot of the Phil, hosts paper readings and discussions on topics of interest to the college community. Speaking to Trinity News, the Chair, Amelia Melanson, describes the club as the “silver lining of my experience with societies this year”. Bram typically hosts paper readings in the GMB with tea and biscuits, but all events have now been moved to Instagram live @ bramstagram336.

Melanson cites Instagram live as “accessible and user friendly” which also allows the recordings to reach a larger audience, as it allows the user to save the live recording to your story, and have it shared across the platform. “We’ve hosted 11 paper readings this year over Instagram live, and have had tremendous feedback, and great comments and questions from the audience.”

This term, Bram has hosted papers on topics such as racism in healthcare, George Michael’s political beliefs, and the European witch trials. Submissions for Bram papers are currently open.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Society spotlight

DU Chess society

Ella Bleu-Kiely discusses the reawakening of Trinity’s Chess society

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rinity’s Chess Society was founded by Rev. John McGaul in 1838 during a time when college students were scolded for spending half the day playing chess instead of learning algebra. In 1941, M.B. Yeats, son of the Nobel Poet Laureate W.B. Yeats, served as Honorary Secretary for a session. After their sixth win of the Leinster Chess Union’s Armstrong Cup in 2014, however, the society began to see a loss in activity.

It was at the start of this academic year that the society reemerged from the ashes. It was second year student Rossa Brennan, a new and enthusiastic player of the game and also the society’s current Secretary, who kick-started the society back up again. Working in solidarity alongside society President Conor O’Donnell, Trinity’s very own chess star and one of Ireland’s highest rated players, they organised an official AGM and got the society registered with the Central Societies Committee (CSC).

“Our team’s actually quite good, there are a lot of great chess

players in Trinity,” says O’Donnell, high on the back of the team’s first online match against the University of Warwick, from which Trinity emerged victorious.

The society holds weekly meetings each Thursday via Zoom. They have also wasted no time entering into the 2020 Online Chess Championship League, where they will compete against over 100 teams from around the world. The competition boasts a delightfully worthy first place prize of $2000.

O’Donnell explains that, recently, the society has been receiving a lot of emails from students with very little chess experience who want to get involved and learn more. “The Committee has been trying to facilitate this. So, during our weekly meetings, we’ve been having more experienced players help our beginners improve”.

Turning to how the society, and O’Donnell himself, feels about not being able to partake in real life games due to the world’s ongoing pandemic status, O’Donnell says that chess is “suited to online formats”.

“Since the country’s first lockdown back in March, online chess has seen a big boom overall.

It’s a lot more casual than playing tournaments in person as you could imagine. When you play online it’s pretty quick, which I think is attractive to beginners.”

O’Donnell’s love affair with the chess board began at the age of nine in an after school chess club where his teacher immediately recognised his talent, advising

him to enter into competitions.

“People usually have this image of chess in their heads of being very slow and boring, which can sometimes be the case when you play in person”, he laughs, “but I still get excited about it”.

Now, as the youngest Irish chess player to ever beat a grandmaster at the age of 13, the game has given the fourth year engineering student vast opportunities with regard to travelling for tournaments around the world. “I’ve been to places where I would have never imagined going otherwise. Last year, I went to play at the World Under 20s Championship in India which was really cool. I’ve played for the Irish Senior men’s team in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia, Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria.”

When asked if he sees the big shot chess title of Grandmaster in his future, awarded to players by the World Chess Organisation FIDE after passing a rating of 2500, he gave a modest response: “Realistically I don’t expect it to happen...but I don’t think it’s something that’s impossible.”

The board game of chess is known as “the gymnasium of the mind”, and any and all students, even those with little or no experience who have an interest in this strategic play, are encouraged by the society to give it a try.

O’Donnell and the rest of the committee are looking forward to the society’s future, which - it it continues as it is going - likely holds a string of successes.

A spicy excu Finghín Little discusses the experience of cooking Indian food, advocating it as the cornerstone of any student diet

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or me, food is a celebration. I almost prefer spending long hours in my little galley kitchen preparing and cooking a meal over actually eating it. I get buried in the dazzling scents of ingredients and the wafts of heat from my cooker (and there is plenty of time to taste along the way). In recent months, the perfumed explosions of cumin and turmeric on my hob have turned a casual interest in Indian food into a full-blown obsession. In my mind, there is nothing mad about eating dal several times a week (even, the odd time, for breakfast). South Asian food, I am convinced, suits the student diet perfectly.

It is healthy, exciting, and cheap – even if you might have to go out of your way for spices or ingredients.

It’s worth getting a few things

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South Asian food, I am convinced, suits the student diet perfectly. It is healthy, exciting, and cheap - even if you have to go out of your way for spices or ingredients

out of the way. Many students are no stranger to dal, of which there are many types: masoor (red) dal, moong dal, urad (black) dal. All are split, dried pulses; they are sometimes soaked and always boiled to soften. Unfortunately, and intimidatingly, these are only a few of the many non-English terms that are pervasive when reading about Indian cooking anywhere that isn’t old reliable BBC Good Food.

The base of any good spiced dish is a tadka, meaning ‘tempering’. Most whole and ground spices must be primed and tempered with heat to reveal the full aroma and flavour within them. This is done by dry-frying the spices, either before other ingredients, or adding to the base ingredients of a dal or curry just before adding wet ingredients like tomatoes or yoghurt. Often, this base consists of sautéed onions (nearly always red), crushed garlic, and ginger – these are well worth having in stock, at all times, and they barely go off.

If I had almost nothing to spend on larder ingredients, it would all go on Kashmiri chilli powder, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and garam masala. If I had a bit more to spend, it would go on asafoetida (also known as hing), fenugreek seeds (or methi), amchur (mango powder), nigella seeds (kalonji), and fennel seeds. Mustard oil is inexpensive and has a more full-bodied and wholesome aroma than vegetable oil; I avoid dairy, but ghee (a type of Indian clarified butter) is widely used too.

If you have a pestle and mortar, most spices (bar spice mixes, like garam masala, and the odd exception like turmeric or hing) are best bought whole and ground at home. They are fairly costeffective too - a cheap pestle and mortar set costs a fiver in Dunnes - and stay fresher for longer than jars of ground spices. Cumin seeds are especially nice to have because they are frequently used both whole and ground.

It’s also a lot of fun getting to know my local international food stores. My favourites are the Bengali grocers’ on Thomas Street and Kwality Foods in Rathmines.

There’s also the old reliable for when I’m in town – the Asia Market on Drury Street. A lot of people are hesitant to visit these shops because they are filled with unusual foods and almost nobody is going to know what everything in the shop actually is, which can be intimidating. They have also got a pretty accurate reputation for being quite difficult to navigate, but you get to know and love them in time.

We’re having a house meeting tonight. I usually judge it best not to engage in domestic diplomacy without a full belly, so I’m making

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

ursion into Indian cooking

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A common misconception about Indian cuisine is that it’s all about curries and dal, but Westerners are the ones that love curry, which is why it takes such prominence in restaurants

dinner for everybody first. I’m making masoor dal with jeera aloo and pilau rice. Jeera aloo is often served as a side dish in Indian food: chunks of potatoes spiced with a tadka and whole cumin seeds. It’s not difficult and doesn’t need many fresh ingredients - the hardest part is simply boiling potatoes.

For this, I boil half a kilogramme of baby potatoes (I cut the bigger ones into halves) until softened but not flaky (about eight minutes), drain them, and set them aside to dry. I heat mustard oil (enough to shallowfry and crisp the potatoes) in a wide pan on high heat. When thoroughly hot, I add a tablespoon of cumin seeds and immediately reduce to low-medium heat. As soon as the aroma boldens, I add two chunky green chillies, roughly chopped, mix well, and fry for a few minutes. I stir in my spices: a heaped teaspoon of ground coriander, another of amchur, a teaspoon of chilli flakes, and a half-teaspoon each of turmeric and asafoetida. When the mixture is fragrant, I add the potatoes, increase the heat and stir until covered in the mixed spices, and cover the pan, stirring again every few minutes until the potatoes are nicely fried and a little crispy (this takes around eight to twelve more minutes). Before serving, I

squeeze the juice of a quarter of a lemon and stir through a handful of chopped coriander leaves. The food goes a little better than the diplomacy.

A common misconception about Indian cuisine is that it’s all about curries and dal, but Westerners are the ones that love curry, which is why it takes such prominence in restaurants here.

The variety of Indian food is one of the reasons it has consistently been on my mind throughout this year. There are so many types of chutney and relish: fruity, herby, creamy; flatbreads like roti and paratha that are just as tasty as naan; snacks (chaat) like vada (savoury lentil flour doughnuts) and dosa (rice flour pancakes). I recently made a vegan dahi (curd) from coconut milk. The milk is heated until piping and then let to cool. When you put a finger in and it feels just about warm to the touch, you add the stalks of green chillies. The chillies act as a starter for lactic fermentation, and the mixture is left to sit in an open jar, until it sets somewhat (this takes several days in an Irish climate). It forms a type of live yoghurt, so one batch can be used as a starter for the next one as it empties. I used it in everything from kadhi—a spicy besan (chickpea flour) and curdbased sauce—with aubergine pakoras, to my morning porridge with frozen berries; you can use it to make lassi (a yoghurt-based drink which is usually spiced and sweetened with rosewater or fruit; bhang lassi is an interesting variation which effectively equates to a cannabis milkshake).

A lot of why I’ve been so intrigued by Indian cooking is owed to the ease of researching these dishes online. These days, buying a cookbook (that isn’t Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat) is quite overkill for learning recipes or cooking techniques. You can search pretty much any term and find a simple translation, usually by a knowledgeable source, and often with some nice history or personal notes. Vegetarians may find vegrecipesofindia.com useful, and although I don’t really use Reddit, searching nearly every dish on the ‘indianfood’ subreddit will show you different recipes according to taste and regional variation, which is quite helpful once you get into it.

It’s around 5PM, the city is darkening, teeming, throbbing cold. I walk to the Bengali grocers’ on Thomas Street to pick up some dry ingredients: another pouch of jeera, a bag of moong dal. My accomplice and I wander home by the off-license and a little later I get to work in the kitchen. Tonight, I’m making a cosy Bengali khichdi for myself and two housemates. I’ll leave a little for breakfast, too. I’d

never heard of kedgeree (which, although a dish of smoked haddock and hard-boiled eggs, is apparently based on it) before very recently, but it looks like the latter is about as Indian as a shamrock shake is Irish. It’s a lentil- and rice-based dish, which is quite gently spiced and cooked until it softens to a porridge-like consistency. It’s warm, nourishing and comforting, and is supposedly akin to baby food in India. That won’t stop me.

I first dry roast the moong dal on a tray (about 180g serves 3-4) for several minutes until it is slightly fragrant and remove

it from the heat—this imparts a slightly nutty profile to the dal.

For the tadka, I add a bay leaf to a good tablespoon of hot mustard oil on a pot, with a teaspoon each of cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, and nigella seeds. When the scent is strong, I add a green chilli and a thumb of ginger, both finely chopped. When softened, I mix in another teaspoon each of mustard seeds, ground coriander, ground cumin, turmeric, and Kashmiri powder, along with a good pinch of hing. I let it cook until my nose is happy - the scent will peak after about a minute.

When ready, I stir in three

big plum tomatoes, roughly chopped and salt the mixture, leaving it to cook, covered until jammy and sweetening. I add well-rinsed basmati rice (~150g) and the moong dal along with boiling water to the pot. I cover and let this cook for quite a while, stirring and tasting every five minutes or so until it has softened close enough to a porridge-like consistency, which will take a minimum of fifteen minutes, but can be left for longer for smoother results. I add a teaspoon of garam masala and stir through, top with coriander leaves, and serve with chutney, pickle or bread.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

PHOTO BY NATHAN O’BYRNE FOR TRINITY NEWS

The alternative gu Heather Bruton on how to skip the big chains and shop locally this season

L Dublin’s best parks Seán Holland gives us a tour of the best parks to visit in Dublin

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ublin is home to some of the most spacious and green parks in Europe.

From the calm flowing water of Bushy Park in the southside to the vibrant skating culture of Fairview Park in the northside, Dubliners are spoilt for choice. Any mention of parks, however, must begin with the only park to host a Pope, the largest walled park in Europe: Phoenix Park. The park of choice for Leo to enjoy some topless cans has plenty of character, history, and exotic animals. From a hunting ground for Earl Chesterfield to the haunting ground for plenty of sunny cans, the Phoenix Park is a mainstay of Dublin life.

The sheer size makes it a popular and accessible site for runners of all ages, running from early in the morning into the increasingly early darkness. The beauty in the park is seasonal; we are now at the end of the glorious autumnal colours and the leaves have covered large areas of the park, nestling in for the winter. The green will return in the spring and with it the longer evenings. Crowds gather in their droves for coffee on frosty Sunday mornings, and memories are made every evening as parents and children alike enjoy a kick around on one of the countless pitches. Runners and cyclists know the winding road on the western side of the park leaves a breath-taking view of the city.

The park is home to the annual Bloom flower festival, with huge crowds flocking in early summer to enjoy the stunning flower and

garden displays. The Phoenix Park is also home to the president of Ireland. Michael D. Higgins has now lived in Áras an Uactarán for nine years and has delighted everyone with his larger than life dogs and mild-mannered approach. Before President Higgins, Áras an Uachtaráin housed the first female President, Mary Robinson. The park has a real sense of history to it, with monuments, gardens and the furry glen all visited by Dubliners and from some famous exceptions from beyond the Pale. The roaming deer add personality to the Phoenix Park and their relative tameness and responsiveness to food makes for a friendly addition.

A park that is criminally underrated is Eamonn Ceannt Park in Kimmage. Situated just up the road from the main (and only) street in Kimmage, Ceannt Park is a hidden gem in Dublin. The 83 will take you right out there from town and you will not be disappointed. Ceannt Park has Ireland’s only outdoor velodrome, a basketball court, a tennis court, two or three soccer pitches as well as a children’s playground. Come in the morning and work up a sweat in the courts and then call into Matt the Rashers for the best breakfast for under a tenner in Dublin.

Kimmage is a quintessentially Dublin village and Ceannt Park embodies this. The personalities are on show daily with anyone joining in for pick up games in the basketball court or the local presence tending to the upkeep of the park. It is a place that prides itself on community, and Ceannt park is the hub of the community. It is something physical to protect and to be proud of. This can be said for all of the parks in Dublin. You can walk around every park and there is a sense of safety, with each park having its unique selling point. They all offer a momentary breath of fresh air and somewhere

to go and be present outdoors.

Ringsend Park is situated right in the heart of Ringsend on the south side of the Liffey. Take a walk along the Docklands and find one of the little entrances to this hidden enclave, tucked away behind the rows of red brick houses. The park has a path running throughout so it’s ideal for a quiet stroll and a chat with a friend. The park is full of facilities with football and GAA pitches, tennis and basketball courts, an athletics track as well as a children’s playground. You can guarantee that the grass will be neatly trimmed, with a fresh smell and sight of verdant green. Finishing up a slightly more competitive session of five-a-side than anyone had anticipated, the orange glow of the Aviva stadium in view as the sun sets is one to soothe the pain of those grazed knees.

Fairview Park in Clontarf is another gem. The park boasts GAA and football pitches, a children’s playground, a skatepark and seasonal floral displays. The park was developed in the 1920s and refurbished in 2012. Crossing the Fairview Road is Bram Stoker park, named after the eminent writer born around these parts.

The park is best experienced in autumn, with the leaves lining the path as you amble through with trees shepherding you on either side. Looking up, the sun appears through the cracks in the leafless branches, tinting the tips with flecks of amber.

Dublin has much to offer by way of parks, with these just some of the spaces dotted around the city. With social distancing requirements over the past few months, these parks have been a godsend for many who would otherwise have felt stifled and restricted. These parks offer a sense of freedom, a space to exercise or to walk, or simply to sit on a bench and breathe in the fresh air.

We’re lucky to have them.

ockdown has ended and the once empty streets of Dublin are again filled with people, many of whom are panic buying for the quickly approaching holidays. It’s safe to say that we are experiencing possibly the strangest Christmas of our lifetime and because of this, we are going to want to make it a good one. However, we don’t have to buy the whole world to make Christmas special this year.

Typically, this time of year is characterised by massive material consumption and ultimately, waste. How many times have you received a gift you didn’t really want or need? It’s one of the most wasteful times of the year. Just last year, Ireland was projected to generate over 90,000 tons of waste over the Christmas period alone.

Moving toward a more sustainable way of living is all about the small steps and trying

to buy even a few of your gifts this year from second-hand shops or locally can make a huge difference. Better yet, you could opt for something handmade or plan a really nice day out. I think we can all agree that five years down the line, it will be the experiences we remember rather than the presents. All you need is a little bit of imagination and some love.

Here at Trinity News, we have created an alternative guide to gift giving where the material is abandoned in favour of presents filled with character, love and memories. For each gift idea, there is a list of where one might find this locally or from an online Irish seller. One of the best things we can do right now to support small businesses during the pandemic is to try to buy our Christmas presents locally. So before you go out to buy the latest electronic device or branded jumper, why not take a little look at this guide and see if there’s something else that your loved one might enjoy that won’t have such an impact on the environment.

Second-hand Maybe it’s just me, but I think

PHOTO BY ANDRÉS MURILLO FOR TRINITY NEWS

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

uide to Christmas there is something wonderful about discovering something unique in a vintage or charity shop. There is something special about finding the perfect preloved item, knowing that it has its own mysterious past or story.

It can be fun to imagine where that patterned jumper or pair of earrings may have been before they wound up here, discovered by you.

Jumpers, shirts and jackets are a go-to Christmas present and you can find some really unique items if you are willing to hunt.

If you are shopping on a budget, try Dublin’s many charity shops like Age Action, Enable Ireland, and Irish Cancer Society. Or if you are looking for something different and are willing to splurge a bit more, try a vintage shop like Nine Crows, Lucy’s Lounge, The Harlequin, Om Diva, or Dublin Vintage Factory. I promise you will find something distinctive in any of these shops if you are willing to go in with an open mind and dig around. One thing about shopping second-hand is you can’t be too set on what you want or you probably won’t find it and you will also miss out on all the wonderful treasures there are to discover.

A book is another classic Christmas present and you can actually find some second-hand books in great condition around Dublin such as in Chapters, Oxfam Books in Rathmines and Temple Bar, and Stokes Books. For the budding photographer, you might consider buying a secondhand or vintage camera from John Gunn’s, Conns Cameras, or Bermingham Cameras so they can take some artsy photos in the new year. If you have a tech lover to buy for, consider buying them second-hand electronics and games in CeX or Gamestop rather than spending huge amounts of money on the latest gadget If you can’t find what you are looking for in shops around Dublin, there are many Irish sellers on Depop and Etsy that might have the perfect thing. You can find all kinds of preloved clothes and accessories on these apps for affordable prices.

Low impact There are also plenty of ecofriendly, low-impact present ideas that are not second-hand.

A reusable coffee cup or water bottle can be a great gift for someone who is trying to be more eco-conscious, and there are several Irish companies making great ones at the moment like Edamameeco, Monkey Cups, and Narcissips. If you know your loved one would appreciate a bath bomb or nice soap, try shop for a brand that is kind to the skin and to the environment such as Lush, Reuzi. com, Tree Hills Soap, and The Kind. If you are looking for some unique jewelry as a present and

want to shop local, there are some really talented Irish designers out there making wonderful pieces of jewelry right now like Om Diva, Stonechat Jewellers, and The Collective Dublin.

If you want to forgo buying anything physical at all, why not buy your loved one a subscription to their favourite magazine or streaming platform. A year’s subscription to Apple Music, Spotify, Netflix or Amazon Prime is exactly the kind of present that keeps giving even after the Christmas period has ended. A book voucher is another perfect choice, especially if you’re not sure what books they like. It’s also a great way to support local, independent bookshops too like The Gutter Bookshop, Book Upstairs, and The Last Bookshop.

If you want to add something to sweeten any of these presents, consider buying some chocolate from an Irish producer such as Bean and Goose, Exploding Tree, NearyNógs, The Proper Chocolate Company, and more.

If all else fails, my personal favourite present to receive is a plant. Whether it’s house plants, seeds for planting, or even a succulent, these are such great Christmas gifts because they last.

And who doesn’t want to receive their very own plant baby for Christmas?

Homemade In my mind, nothing can beat the homemade gift. There are so many creative avenues you can explore with this. Why not cook them a meal or bake them some cookies? Alternatively, give them an IOU voucher for a home cooked meal, which they can redeem whenever they like.

Or if you want something more permanent and full of memories, why not try your hand at a scrapbook or photo album?

Designing your own Christmas cards, wrapping paper or Christmas decorations out of recycled materials or things you have about the house is a great way to add a personal touch to your Christmas presents and not harm the environment. You could reuse old wrapping paper, sheets, or clothes to wrap your gifts. Another option is to use newspaper or brown paper and decorate it yourself with paints and markers.

If you find that you’re just useless at making your own presents, you could always support someone else’s endeavours as there are lots of people selling their art and crafts on Etsy at the moment. Christmas is a time for celebrating and now more than ever we need some good in our lives. If you are conscious of how much waste results from Christmas, these present ideas can reduce the impact your gift giving has on the environment this season.

PHOTO BY VICKY SALGANIK FOR TRINITY NEWS

Socially distanced dates

Takeaway pints Kerry O’Sullivan details how to make the most of dating this Christmas

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t’s the most wonderful time of the year, and it can be for your dating life too. In a Christmas unlike any other, you can still make the most of the festivities while keeping within government guidelines. Why not bundle yourselves up in hats, scarves, gloves and all the cosy trimmings and make a trip into the city for takeaway drinks and a stroll around the Christmas lights?

On almost every street corner there’s a pub offering pints, drinks and other Christmassy goodies for you and your date to enjoy. Just keep an eye out for the blackboards strewn haphazardly around cobblestone footpaths detailing all that the publicans of Dublin have to offer to keep us all going during these wintry months where we’re used to being cosied up in Doyle’s after packed lectures.

All your favourite crowd pleasers around college are offering drinks from around five to ten euro, all in to-go cups to take with you to see all of the gorgeous lights and decorations around the city. Some favourites include Mary’s on Wicklow Street’s Bailey’s coffee and The Blind Pig on Suffolk Street’s dreamy takeaway cocktails, complete with a coaster for the bench you’re sitting on and mixology instructions.

Bestseller on Dawson street are offering a mean cup of mulled wine, and if cider is more your scene, the PorterHouse Central on Nassau street always has some mulled cider brewing making it almost too irresistible to walk past. It’s just the thing to warm you and your date up on one of these freezing winter nights.

A takeaway drink is a brilliant way to get to know someone in a socially distanced way; you are outside after all. This way, you don’t have to commit to restaurant bookings which are slightly more formal; and you’re not constrained by the time limits imposed in most indoor spaces for when things inevitably go great and you don’t want to leave. Not to mention it’s a

“

A takeaway drink is a brilliant way to get to know someone in a socially distanced way; you are outside after all super safe way to meet someone online in a public place without killing the vibe while also managing to take advantage of the Christmas atmosphere. The proximity to College definitely lends itself to poststudy session entertainment and though it may be bitterly cold outside, it’s good to get some fresh air and a walk around the city especially during Christmas time when Dublin comes into its own. The lights on Grafton Street are practically made for romantic nighttime strolls, so why not make the most of a leisurely walk and get away from the Christmas rush we’re all far too used to?

It may be best to stay away from town on the busy weekends, especially now that the pubs are back open and areas around South William street and Coppinger Row can become a warzone. However, during weekdays after gruelling days at the library, there’s a lot to be said for suggesting a festive drink to-go. Whether it’s to mix it up from just hanging out at each others’ houses if you’re in a relationship, to the start of something new, support your local this December and enjoy some festive romance over a pint the new-fashioned way.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

ARTWORK BY ZAHRA TORABPOURAN, GENEVIEVE RUESCH, MAE

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

EVE WALSH, ELLA SLOANE, DIYA MICHERI, MEERA ENQELYA AND MÁRTA MENTA CZINKÓCZKY FOR TRINITY NEWS PHOTO BY EUAN CARROLL FOR TRINITY NEWS

What’s on(line) in Dublin Wednesday Mini Origami Hamper Online Workshop Chester Beatty Library, 3.30pm Other Voices: Home at the Guiness Storehouse Othervoices.ie, 8pm Friday Ask the Archivist: Talk Archives of Ireland Culture Club, 2.30pm RTÉ Concert Orchestra Winter Sessions - Musicals 7pm

What’s on(line) in Trinity Tuesday Irish Universities and Imperial Legacies Trinity Long Room Hub, 7pm Wednesday Christmas Day DU Players with DUGES and Q Soc, 12pm-evening Thursday Trinity Christmas Ball streaming live from Workman’s Trinity Ents, 9pm

What we’re listening to

Evermore Taylor Swift

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

“It is disappointing that we have to rally again two years after Repeal�

Eva O’Beirne interviews cofounder of End IBSA Ireland Eboni Burke in the wake of rallies against image-based abuse This article contains mention of abuse, child abuse, and imagebased sexual abuse t the end of November, hundreds of activists gathered virtually to protest against image-based sexual abuse in Ireland. Ten days before, activist and End Image Based Sexual Abuse Ireland (IBSA) co-founder Eboni Burke tweeted asking if anyone would be interested in campaigning in solidarity for victims after a leak of 10,000 images on Discord made national headlines. Speaking to Trinity News over Zoom, Burke reminisces on the online rally and discusses the future of End IBSA Ireland. “It is disappointing that we have to rally again, only two years after Repeal, to secure rights for people across Ireland but I’ve never seen such an amazing, passionate collective of people come together like this before,�

Burke said. Burke first became interested in social and political activism in 2018 through working with the Irish Secondary School’s Union (ISSU). While working with the ISSU, Burke campaigned for adequate sex and consent education, a topic that is close to their heart. “When I saw the aftermath of the mega-leak this month, it created a fire in me to organise a rally.�

Burke notes that the biggest challenge they faced when it came to the rally was the concept of guilt and feeling exposed to online hate. “The harsh comments you see online, it hits close to home, makes you realise that this thought process is real. We’re not as far along as we thought we were. Also finding an emotional balance, you want to put your whole self into the movement but that’s not healthy. Finding time to self care has been a challenge.�

When asked what their personal highlights of the rally were, Burke points to the contributions made by guest speakers, poets and musicians, describing the emotional impact of seeing their mother perform an original song at the rally. “I got extremely emotional at that point.

A

I couldn’t stop sobbing. It was a moment of empowerment for her as well as everyone else.� They also bring attention to the Becoming video featuring poetry from Imelda May and a speech made

by Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) representative Adeline Berry that detailed how Irish state institutions have historically ignored women’s struggles. Burke sums up their goal for the rally in one sentence. “What I wanted to do at the end of the day was give victims an appropriate space to heal and to empower themselves after everything that had happened.�

A phrase mentioned throughout the Rally against IBSA was that “Ireland needs to create a culture of consent�. Burke explains that this is necessary to prevent leaks like this from happening again and points to education as a key factor. Burke mentions how they think early, age appropriate consent education in primary schools could be a key tool used to prevent abuse later on in life. According to Burke, online conduct has been a tough struggle: “It’s easier to engage in combat rather than educate but you’re going to get nowhere from fighting anonymous accounts that are set in their beliefs.� After this, they then detail how the average person can help victims, focusing on how people should “create a safe platform for people to tell their stories. We have this culture of ‘oh if no one talks about it, it doesn’t exist!’, which isn’t acceptable. By platforming victims who are willing to share their stories and having these difficult conversations, little by little, we can dismantle everyday

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misogyny.’’ On November 25, Garda commissioner Drew Harris made a statement that Gardai were not investigating any crimes in relation to the leak. Burke gave their reaction to the headlines: “I felt let down and I’m sure many victims felt let down. When this government came into power, they said they would prioritise the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Other Offences Bill and the reality is, they didn’t.� Burke then discusses their frustration that a leak of this magnitude had to be the tipping point and that previous leaks had not prompted change.

When asked what they think of government action so far, Burke gives a mixed review, explaining how they’re not “a huge believer in the current government�. They then point out what appears to be a lack of understanding of the situation from the Taoiseach and Tanaiste, in particular Leo Varadkar’s use of the outdated colloquial term “revenge porn�, “they’re not really educating themselves on the correct terms and hence it seems like they don’t care.�

Burke moves on to express the need for Gardai to treat victims better, explaining that a lot of the time they often place blame on victims. “It’s not something [the Gardai] specialise in. I think we should incorporate people who understand what it is like to go through image-based sexual abuse and thus can support vulnerable victims better.� Burke then mentions their discomfort of how the media have handled this story, focusing on how RTE platformed two activists for only 30 seconds.

On the topic of journalists, Burke feels that a lot of writers haven’t realised how grim the topic of revenge porn and IBSA is, noting that “it’s been a mixed bag. Some are lovely and accommodating but some may be writing stories for a few clicks and don’t know how much anguish victims are going through.�

The conversation turned to the social media backlash against the campaign. Burke states that they are in “two minds� about those who are silent on social media, noting that although not everyone shares their beliefs on social media, it is disappointing for gender-based issues to be glossed over. “It’s very hard to take a stance on it. I’m also aware people will share posts on Instagram to make themselves look better. It would be nice if more people could stand up and raise awareness, it’s the only way we can stop leaks from happening again.� Some activists

have criticised the lack of support, pointing to how women willingly support men’s issues like Movember.

Burke explains that a lot of the time, people don’t realise the gravity of the situation. “It’s disappointing that we have to ask ourselves the question of how we can get men to support us. I’m currently dealing with a lot of ‘not all men’ comments. I have been villanised for speaking up about IBSA when it affects us all. It is strange to see people who normally share everything on Instagram suddenly become silent.� Burke notes that they think the lack of support is due to victim blaming and a lack of sympathy towards sex workers, noting how often OnlyFans creators are dismissed when they discuss this issue. They explain how sex work can be de-stigmatized through mentions in sex education: “many people do not see sex workers as human.

They take the woman out of the work and think it is okay for them to be publicly humiliated.�

The End IBSA Ireland rally currently has over 3000 views on Facebook and trended first on Twitter trends in Ireland on November 28. With the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill being debated in the Dail, it can appear to some that the movement has achieved its goal in less than a month.

Burke,

however, reveals big plans for the future, explaining that this problem is far from solved. When asked on what’s next for End IBSA Ireland, they muse over the possibility of an in-person demonstration in the new year: “the safety of our demonstrators are our first priority. It is something I feel is worth having, to show solidarity.� Burke also details current funding initiatives such as Creatives Against IBSA and a Go Fund Me set up by the Victim’s Alliance. As the interview concluded, Burke gave some advice to those looking to create change, “all we can and should do is make as much noise as we can.�

If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article, support or further information can be found at the following resources: Women’s Aid Ireland, https:// www.womensaid.ie/ Revenge Porn Helpline UK, https://revengepornhelpline.org. uk/ Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, https://www.drcc.ie/about/ contact/ Samaritans Ireland, https:// www.samaritans.org/ireland/ End IBSA, https://www. facebook.com/endibsaireland/

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

I don’t know if I’m a victim

An anonymous writer shares their story of facing image-based sexual abuse and the anxiety it can cause for victims

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ormally when you text your ex, it’s when you’re inebriated or seeking some sort of closure. This case was different. I never wanted to speak to him again. But I sat, staring at the neon screen, trying to put an impossible question into words.

I tried to think of his thought process when he read my text.

Would he see it as an accusation or a desperate attempt to get in contact? We didn’t end on the best terms — this would be our first conversation in nearly a year. I felt both present yet absent from my body all at once. My hand was trembling; I drafted a text for what

seemed like hours and prepared myself to hit the send button. It was almost an essay’s worth of “I know you’re not like that,” and “It’s been a while, I know…” all to ask one thing: did you share images of me that I sent to you?

Throughout the month of November, Ireland had been shocked with the discovery of several Discord servers, Google Drives and other online forums that have been sharing explicit images of women. Included were all kinds of women; women who were under the impression that their images would not be shared with thousands of strangers; women who were coerced, manipulated, blackmailed; women who had their images stolen, their work stolen. Some were underage.

Whole folders dedicated to “16 y/o” were found amongst these files. Yes, Ireland was shocked.

But it’s almost as if no one cared unless they were directly involved.

What is worse, is that some people are still trying to undermine the situation. They’re saying that Ireland is a good place, a good society; that women should be grateful. To me, Ireland has never been a country where it is safe to

be a woman.

I was a victim before this leak. I wasn’t a woman in the images that were shared of me. I was a child.

I am 15 in those photographs.

At 15 years old, you don’t think that your boyfriend would pass around your pictures like trading cards. At 15, I wasn’t aware that anyone could be that cruel. Even writing this, I’m trying to think of the first time I heard of nude images being leaked. I suppose the first time I heard of it was in 2014, when the infamous iCloud leak of celebrities exposed their explicit images to the entire world, but I don’t think anyone fully understood the implications of this. I had a form of protection: I was nobody. Why would anyone want to share my picture? Why would the person I presumed I loved do this to me? There was nothing I could do. I internalised it and kept it hidden. I didn’t realise how badly it affected me until this November.

I don’t know if these images are in the files that were discovered.

I may never know. I found out I was a victim through someone texting me and saying my name was in several files. I don’t know

where the files are. I don’t know what pictures of me are being spread around. I don’t know who sent them. When approaching the Gardaí, they told me that I had to have the source of the leak in order to make a report.

“How can I have the source?” I asked. “You told us not to look at the files, only to forward on the links.” Everywhere I look, there is a wall of skepticism. There is no real sympathy. There are the people who pretend to care for the social media clout and there are the people who stay silent. I don’t want to paint those who are silent as complicit, but it feels like a slap in the face that social media is so loud about movements like Movember but is so quiet when thousands of women and children are crying out for help.

I wanted to scream whenever I saw someone aimlessly say “not all men” or “I don’t see how being silent means I don’t support you”.

What allowed for these files to be created was silence. What allows for these abuses to continue is silence. Accountability: it’s the bare minimum that so many women, including myself, want.

And for some reason, that’s not

Going home for Christmas after coming out in college

Patrick O’Mahony on how to survive the holidays at home after enjoying the freedom of college

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o you have been living your best life in college: enjoying your freedom and your anonymity.

You are not the new you, you’re just you. College can be a wonderful place where you are able to be your unapologetic self.

But all good things must come to an end, or at least must take a break. Coming home can be an exciting yet nerve-wracking experience, especially when you are out in college but not at home.

If you are feeling nervous about returning home, do not worry; you are not the first to feel that way, and sadly, you probably won’t be the last. The truth is everybody’s experience and situation is different; some things work for some people and not for others. So instead of telling

you “here’s how to cope with going home for Christmas after coming out in college,” I am just going to tell you how I coped and hopefully you can learn from my experience.

Seeing friends from college (if you can) It only dawned on me how much freedom I had in college until I went home for Christmas.

From eating whenever I felt like it to not having to tell people when I was getting home or where I was going because they would be worried, it was bliss. But the one freedom I realised I had lost when I returned home was the freedom to be me. Nobody was stopping me from being me, but I just did not feel comfortable enough to be myself. I did not want to upset anyone: family, friends, even myself. One thing which really did help me through the time at home was seeing friends from college. I was lucky enough to have friends from college in my hometown. I only saw them a handful of times over the month back home, yet those hour-long coffees did me the world of good. I may not have been in Dublin, but it felt like it. For those moments, I felt like myself; I really felt at home.

Staying in touch Now not all of us are lucky enough to have friends from college in our hometown.

Even then, the current climate definitely does not help make impromptu drinks possible. The thing which really kept me sane, especially during that period of time between December 24 and January 1, was talking to friends online. Just a regular snap, text, call or Facetime made such a difference to my morale. Look, chances are, you know someone else who is out in college, but not at home, or at least not to their entire family. Even if none of your friends understand that aspect of being home, there are definitely some counting down the days until they are back in college.

By staying in contact with your friends, you will feel as though you have your little support group.

Telling each other stories about tense family dinners, annoying siblings, and funny encounters with past classmates will help you feel like you are not alone.

This is valid no matter what your situation is. By talking to each other during the holiday season at home, you will feel supported and hopeful of returning to Dublin.

Keep yourself occupied One thing about being home for Christmas is that time can feel as though it is going by really slowly. The break in your fast-paced, busy college life comes to a break, making the days seem much longer and boring, particularly during the “crimbo limbo” week. This is when the break from the liberal environment, full of wonderful opportunities, really hits you hard. The way I dealt with this was to try and have one thing planned for every day; it could be anything. Going on a walk with a friend one day, going grocery shopping another to stock up on those home comforts you may be missing in college, or cleaning out your childhood bedroom are all valuable pastimes. Having at least one thing a day planned, no matter how mundane it was, really helped me maintain my sanity.

I was able to go to bed knowing that I had done something with my day and I was another day closer to being back in Dublin.

Don’t stress, there is no pressure I vividly remember a moment when I felt like I was going to come out but didn’t last

an achievable goal. I shouldn’t have to reduce myself to a sister, a daughter, a mother, a wife or a girlfriend. I am a human being.

I am a woman. Why doesn’t my existence warrant respect?

The harmful communications and related offences bill (2017) does not put women on a pedestal or above men at all. It is a gender-neutral law that will protect everyone. Why are men so opposed to women being protected? Why did the Garda Commissioner underplay what happened to us?

I don’t think I’ll ever find out if I’m a victim of this leak. I don’t have faith in the Gardaí. I shouldn’t have to call ex-partners to beg and plead with them to delete any intimate photographs they have of me on their phone.

The thought of leaking someone’s photos shouldn’t be a reality. But it is. It feels like it’s impossible to combat and it feels like I should give up and let this misogynistic wave drown me. I’m not giving up hope though. I’m making as much noise as I can. All I can hope is that other people will too.

Christmas. I had flown back home with one of my girl friends, let’s call her “Viv”. We were on the same flight so all of my family knew about her. One day, I was having dinner with them, when someone turned and said: “Oh would you ever see yourself going out with Viv?” I nearly choked on my food. I started to panic, thinking that this was the moment, it was too late, I had to come out now, even though I was not ready. In the end, I brushed the question away saying that Viv was just a really good friend and I didn’t see her as anything more than that. When coming home from college, a place where you are out, to a place where you may not be, you can feel pressure to come out at certain instances, some of which you just don’t want to come out in. It’s a personal thing; whatever is right for you is the best possible option. Just because you go home does not mean that you have to come out before going back to college. If it does not feel right, then there is no pressure. You have to do what feels right safest for you.

Look, going home can be a lovely thing, but it can also be a scary thing. These tips may not work for you, but what helped me most of all was knowing that I was not alone. The truth is that you really are not alone in this situation. There are supports out there to help you if ever you need help. If I can give you one last bit of advice: try to enjoy your time at home; it may not be easy, but you will be back in college soon and things will get better, I promise.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

PHOTO BY LAUREN BOLAND FOR TRINITY NEWS

Getting From conservatism to communism, Ciara Cassidy interviews the political societies on campus

G Making: Mince pies and mulled wine Lauren Boland shares how to cook up a winter storm with these two Christmas recipes

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ome mince pie recipes will tell you to leave your filling to sit for 24 hours before you really get stuck into it. Some have the audacity to suggest leaving it for even longer (up to a fortnight).

This is not one of those recipes.

Nobody has that kind of time.

Embrace the chaos and get your mince pies made within hours of buying your ingredients - not only because your article deadline is looming, but because instant gratification is the best kind of medicine for cold winter nights.

There are two elements to mince pies - the filling and the pastry. Both can actually be bought pre-made if you’re keen on skipping the chopping and mixing stages and getting straight to rolling and baking, but if you’re working from scratch, here’s what you’ll need: Pastry 350g of flour 50g of caster sugar 150g of butter Two eggs

Filling 300g of shredded suet; either animal or vegetable. Not as scary as it sounds. Alternatively, Mary Berry says she just uses butter.

500g of dried fruit; any combination of raisins, currants, cranberries or sultanas 85g of chopped mixed peel One lemon One large orange One Bramley apple Finely chopped almonds 250g Brown sugar Six tablespoons of brandy Three teaspoons of nutmeg For the filling, most of the action will happen on your chopping board and in your mixing bowl. Start off by cutting your orange and lemon into halves and squeezing their juice into your bowl, then grate and add their peel. Chop your Bramley apple finely and add it alongside your dried fruit, chopped mixed peel, shredded suet (or butter), chopped almonds, nutmeg and brown sugar. With each ingredient that you add, give your mixture a stir - you want all the flavours to combine.

At this point, all your ingredients for the filling should be added to the mixing bowl except for the brandy. Put the mixture into a pot over medium heat and leave it to simmer for around ten minutes.

While your mixture is simmering, you can get started on your pastry. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the butter and sugar,

working the ingredients together with your hands until they look like breadcrumbs. Crack in your eggs and mix it all together, adding a few tablespoons of water as needed. Pull the pastry together into a ball, wrap it in cling film, and put it in the fridge for ten minutes. Meanwhile, take your filling off the heat and leave it to cool.

When you take the pastry out of the fridge, roll it out on a table or counter with a light sprinkling of flour. Use a cutter (or indeed, if you’re like me and your supplies are limited, the top of a glass) to cut the pastry into circles. For each pie, you’ll need two circles of pastry - one for its base and sides and another for the top. Grease a muffin tray and add a circle of pastry for the base of each pie, shaping it to sit into the tray.

After your filling has cooled, now’s the time to add the brandy.

Pour it in and give your mixture a final stir. Spoon your filling into your muffin tray and add another circle of pastry to the top of each pie, giving the edges a pinch to stick them down on the pastry that’s already in the tin forming your pies’ base and sides. If you’re feeling fancy, crack an egg, beat it, and brush some over the top of each pie. Bake the pies in the oven for around 20 minutes minutes at 180 degrees Celsius in a preheated oven.

You can store any leftover pastry or filling - which you probably will have - in the freezer and use

at another time.

Under most circumstances, I opt for white wine. However, there’s two points in the year I’ll favour red . Both involve throwing copious amounts of fruit into wine and adding ice in summer (sangria) or spices in winter (mulled wine).

Like mince pie filling, mulled wine can be approached with a throw-it-all-in-the-pot-and-hopefor-the-best mindset. You’ll need: Red wine One orange One lemon One lime Caster sugar; you could also use honey or maple syrup Cinnamon stick Grated nutmeg Star anise Juice your orange, lemon and lime into a pot and pour in the red wine. Add your sugar and spices and simmer the mixture at a low heat without letting it boil.

Try it as you go and add more juice, sugar or spices to your own taste. The longer you leave it, the more time the flavours will have to infuse, but five to ten minutes will do the trick.

Serve your mince pies with some whipped cream and pour your mulled wine into your favourite mug. And if you finish the recipes with your kitchen in a mess and pastry that would see you laughed off the set of Bake Off, take solace in knowing that you’re not alone.

lobally, political parties are more polarised than ever before.

While America waits for Biden to take office, we must not forget deep political rivalry also exists in Ireland and within our own campus. We asked a series of questions to each of Trinity’s politically aligned societies in an attempt to lay out who they are, what they do, and what they stand for. Currently, Trinity has a range of political societies encompass a wide variety of ideologies, from economically centrist and pro-business, to communism, republicanism and ecosocialism.

Fianna Fáil (Wolfe Tone Cumann) As one of the initial political societies at Trinity, this college branch has a long history. First established in the 1950s, Fianna Fáil, then named Kevin Barry Cumann, was not exclusive to Trinity. The society welcomed students from University College Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland. Then, in 1967, Trinity formed its own group called the Erskine Childers Cumann. Finally, the Fianna Fáil Trinity branch changed its name to the Wolfe Tone Cumann (WTC) in 1998,

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

g political with Trinity’s societies marking the bicentenary of the 1798 rebellion.

Ideologically, the society describes themselves as a “broad church” of views and opinions.

They regard themselves as economically centrist and support a pro-business stance. The society states that they are in favour of investments into good public services. Furthermore, Crowley highlights that “our Republicanism is also at the forefront of our vision”, meaning that they aim to achieve Irish unity “by following the philosophy of our cumann’s namesake, Wolfe Tone. This is a conciliatory and united approach”.

Crowley refers to the 16th century Irish revolutionary figure Theobald Wolfe Tone, a key leader against British rule in Ireland.

The WTC organises a range of events for their members. Crowley cites interviews with notable public figures, quizzes, panel discussions, and their annual trip to the Dáil which they attend with Fianna Fáil societies from other Dublin colleges. During elections, many of their members help out with canvassing. Moreover, the WTC is a branch of Fianna Fáil’s youth wing - Ógra Fianna Fáil. Due to this affiliation, the society is able to engage with the development of policy and submit their suggestions to the senior party, which has potential to influence the direction of a government bill.

Trinity Young Fine Gael Trinity Young Fine Gael did not respond to communication from Trinity News.

Trinity Young Greens As a result of petitioning by a group of activists, Trinity Young Greens were re-established in

2019. Despite being one of the most recently established political societies in Trinity, the Young Greens have a large membership of 70 students.

Tate Donnelly, the society’s current public relations officer and former committee chair, summarizes the Young Green’s ideology: “We stand for a more equal and more sustainable Ireland, and campaign on issues such as housing, direct provision, transport, and of course mental health.” Though they are a part of the Young Greens, Donnelly states the society does find itself taking separate policy positions on given issues. Nevertheless, the society is united in their pursuit of climate justice.

Unfortunately, the society has recently decided to take a short break due to “the long and difficult year the Young Greens had”. Donnelly mentioned that testing events such as the General Election, leadership election and the vote on the Programme for Government has left many members unhappy with the results. Therefore, “the committee of the Young Greens felt a short break would allow everyone to reflect and decide what the best course of action is when we return”.

Labour Youth Trinity This branch was established in 1969 by anti-war activist Roger Cole, making this committee also one of the longest standing political groups in Trinity.

Despite its longevity, this society has a comparably smaller membership. With just over 30 members this year, current membership is down by over half from last year. Nonetheless, Trinity Labour group has approximately 17 extremely active members that

PHOTO BY VICKY SALGANIK FOR TRINITY NEWS

regularly attend meetings and social events.

Cian Kelly Lyth, former committee member, summarises the society’s overarching philosophies: “We’re democratic socialists, and advocate for feminism, ecosocialism and antiracism.” Membership ideology ranges from centre-left to far-left with the majority identifying as socialist. They are the youth wing of the Irish Labour Party, and, therefore, they align with many of the ideologies of the governmental party. However, the Trinity society maintains that they are a semi-autonomous organisation. They have been noted to take a stand against the government party and call out members of the Irish Party when they are believed to have made a mistake. Lyth cites an example where, two years ago, former committee member Chloe Manahan wrote a piece for Trinity News against the Labour Party leadership in Take Back the City.

As a smaller society, the Trinity Labour Youth is more active than most. They have weekly branch meetings for all members and frequently host guest speakers, panel discussions, film screenings, and debates. Lyth points out that the society has “also been focusing a lot in the past couple of years on progressive drug policy, and [they] had a panel discussion on Supervised Injection Facilities last year which filled out the Swift lecture hall.” Currently, the society is undertaking various grassroots activities such as collaborating with the national Labour Youth campaign, Born Here Belong Here, that launched only last week.

People Before Profit Trinity’s People Before Profit society (PBP) was officially established in 1991 under the name Socialist Workers’ Student Society (SWSS). In 2016, the group changed to its current title to reflect its association with the Socialist Workers’ Network which previously underwent a series of name changes.

Each year the society has approximately 150 to 200 students join the group, which is one of the largest sign-up rates across the board. Clara McCormack, the auditor of the society, describes their demographics as “[having] an even gender balance, and good representation across the faculty of arts, humanities and social sciences, the faculty of engineering, mathematics and sciences and the faculty of health sciences. Also, we always have a number of Erasmus students and LGBTQ+ students join”.

When asked to describe their ideologies, McCormack explains: “we’re a socialist party, so we stand for the rights of workers and those disenfranchised in society by their class, social background, or economic background. We’re ecosocialist, anti-imperialist, feminist, anti-racist, and believe in solidari-

ty across borders.” Indeed, the majority of people within this society are strongly left-wing. However, McCormack explains how there can be degrees of variation in what people think of certain social and economic issues. She notes: “one of the aims...is to develop our understanding of socialism and what it looks like in practice” — a natural point of healthy debate for the society.

PBP organise weekly events that range from casual discussions between members to more formal talks with guest speakers, as well as reading groups and film nights.

Prior to the pandemic, PBP would frequently engage in many forms of grassroots activism, such as protests and organising meetings.

Their activities mainly focus on “issues such as housing, climate, student welfare, workers’ rights, but this activity has been quite limited recently with the Covid-19 restrictions”.

Sinn Féin Ógra Shinn Féin TCD was founded in 1999 as a branch of the official government Sinn Féin party. Mirroring the growing support for the party nationally, the group received its largest membership ever this year.

Liam Kiernan, Sinn Féin’s Cathaoirleach, states that the society’s activism is based around five ideals: “Republicanism, socialism, feminism, internationalism, and environmentalism. Our goal is the establishment of a 32 county socialist republic, as outlined by the 1916 Proclamation.” Kiernan says that the society encompasses a wide collection of views, with their members coming from all parts of the political left. He assures that the society remains “united in [their] commitment to furthering progressive change in Ireland.”

Although the group is firmly associated with the government group of the same name, Kiernan states that they have good relations with other left-leaning political societies on campus. Often forming alliances with Labour and the Young Greens, as seen in a recent open letter they wrote against the TCD LawSoc’s decision to grant Simon Harris TD with the Trinity Praeses Elit award.

Social Democrats The Social Democrats was established in October 2015 by a handful of members. In the five years since it was founded, the society has significantly expanded their presence across Trinity and it is a significant contributor to the political sphere on campus.

Anthony Keane, the secretary of the branch, states that their “membership is relatively small compared to some of the larger societies”, and they have “about a 3:2 ratio of women to men in the branch”. As stated within their name, the Social Democrats society strives to popularise a Nordic model of social democracy in

Ireland. Keane outlines their core values to be “integrity, transparency, and basing our policies in evidence”, and they aim towards achieving “good standard public services in return for taxes, rather than paying some of the highest taxes in Europe and not getting a decent return on investment as we do now”. The Social Democrats would be classified as a party on the centre left. Keane states that their society has close ties to similar groups such as Sinn Féin, the Greens, and Labour. “However, what we feel differentiates us from the latter two is our integrity and our belief in our policies and ideals”.

On a daily basis, the Trinity branch interacts with their parent government party, and supports them in their business. Keane also mentions the society involves themselves in campaigns around housing, direct provision, and climate change.

Workers Party TCD The Trinity branch of the Workers’ Party was re-established in 2018 after a dozen students joined the government parent party in 2016. The society proceeds from the Republican Club which was formed in 1996. However, after the decline in popularity of socialism in the 90s, the Republican club went into decline.

The society attracts around 75 members a year. Fiachra McCann, the society’s auditor, has observed that their members tend to be “young people and students [who] have been badly affected by austerity and neoliberalism”, and have consequently picked up an interest in communism or working class organisations.

When asked what their society stands for, McCann affirms “we stand for socialism and for the working class.” They firmly oppose the policies laid out by the current parties in power - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens. Therefore, the Workers’ Party TCD tends not to collaborate with the associated societies on many of their events or activities. “Our message is simple: communism works. It has worked for hundreds of millions of people and has turned desperately poor societies into places where everyone had decent food, medical care and education.” McCann stresses that “you don’t have to be a diehard communist to join the society. You just have to care about people who work for a living.” There is a spot welcome for everyone to join their group.

It is easy to feel disorientated within the realm of politics when core party values are lost amongst the hostile rhetoric of its leaders.

With so many political parties to choose from, all of which aim to appeal to mass voter bases, it is more difficult than ever to filter through populism and find a party that truly speaks to your personal beliefs and values.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

How to food shop like an anarchist Ella Walsh outlines how to get excited about cooking again

A

couple of weeks ago, I was feeling rather down about my own cooking abilities, given that I live with two professional pizza chefs who regularly whip up delicious, homemade meals with apparent ease. I lived with an ever-present feeling that I paled in comparison with my pastas and sandwiches.

But in the grocery store one day, it struck me how I could shed my food self-consciousness: I needed to act like an anarchist in the supermarket.

The plan was to pick things from the shelves that I would like to eat but had never cooked before. When I got home, I would look into the fridge and see the items I’d acquired in this state of madness and get to work.

My choices were few, but large in size: two butternut squashes and two aubergines. I had made aubergine parmigiana before, but not very well, and I’d never so much as peeled a butternut squash. I chose vegetables for this anarchic style of shopping because it forces you to get more creative with your cooking, and be healthy at the same time. But also, as a fallback plan, if you roast basically any vegetable with salt and pepper and olive oil for long enough, its flavour will intensify and get crispy and delicious.

I peeled and cubed the squash one night while listening to a lecture on my phone and kept it in the fridge so I could cook it the next day. This split up the work appropriately and made me feel like a capable and wise planner. My flatmate’s boyfriend had benevolently left behind some chopped red onion and dayold white rice. The onions were beginning to perfume the fridge, and the rice was bound to go off, so I felt I should put them to use.

I caramelized the red onion with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and tossed in the rice and roasted butternut squash. It looked yummy, and rather colorful, but was lacking distinct flavors. I ground some cumin seeds and coriander seeds in my mortar and pestle (a must-have) and tossed those in. The result was delicious.

I think I basically invented a dish.

In fact, one of the pizza chefs said the food was “tasty” and “surprisingly good”, if I remember correctly.

The aubergine was more

“

I live with two professional pizza chefs who regularly whip up delicious home-made meals. I lived with an everpresent feeling that I paled in comparison with my pastas and sandwiches

elusive, and sat in my fridge for a while after I bought it, beckoning me to its dark and shiny secrets.

I finally gathered up the courage to roast it in the oven so I could have it with pitas and hummus.

I sliced it into discs and followed one of the methods I’ve read about reducing their bitterness: salting and pressing them beneath weights. My flatmate soon came over and took over the operation, informing me that I was doing it all wrong (draining them all over the table instead of into a bowl).

When the aubergines had been made less bitter, I patted them dry and roasted them in the oven with olive oil and salt. I left them in the oven a bit too long, but they became akin to aubergine chips – delicious, full of flavor, and ready to be put on a pita.

But this kind of cooking takes time out of your week, you say. I don’t have time to peel a butternut squash and learn how to cook it.

And don’t even get me started on squeezing an aubergine.

Sure, but cooking even the most simple pasta dish requires some preparation and thought, and it’s much less entertaining. The energy and ego boost you receive from cooking a new dish will propel you for the rest of the week. And when it’s good, it’s great, and it’s yours. Also, who doesn’t have time these days? It’s lockdown, roast some squash!

Fresh from my first anarchic expedition, I embarked on a second: this time, I bought tahini, chickpeas, and black eyed peas.

I confess – there was a recipe for black eyed pea stew which I was following. This was a somewhat more informed adventure. But still, these ingredients supplied an abundance of potential meals to come (especially the tahini, which can be eaten with tons of meals and made into lots of sauces). I came home with my new beige bounty and, over the week, got to work. I made spicy goan stew from Ruta Kahate’s book Five Spices, Fifty Dishes: a coconut-y, tomato-y, flavoursome dish that goes well with white rice.

With the tahini and chickpeas, I got to making some hummus from scratch. Side note, all of these recipes I either found in cookbooks from my mom or online - there’s lots of ways to find out what to make with your found ingredients if you get to looking. I simmered the chickpeas over the stove until they got nice and soft and in the meantime, crushed up garlic with lemon juice in the mortar and pestle.

I then pulverized the chickpeas bit by bit with the mortar along with a couple spoonfuls of tahini, drizzled olive oil, and topped it off with cumin and paprika - boom.

This freestyle method of shopping is nothing to be embarrassed by. In fact, the book I mentioned earlier, Five Spices: Fifty Dishes, is a professional example of such a simple, yet smart, cooking approach. Ruta Kahate says, if you get a few key (perhaps new) spices in your cabinet, you can use them over and over again in unique ways.

Suddenly, your repertoire has expanded tenfold. Similarly, if you choose a few random, but exciting, items to add to your weekly menu each time you shop, your capacity to make nice food will naturally increase. You may not be great at it initially, but the key to cooking with confidence is simply not to care too much about perfection. This is what it means to be an anarchist in the supermarket and in the kitchen.

At the end of the day, I may not be the best chef in the house, but I’m a happy one.

Have yourself a merr This Christmas is bound to be like no other, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, writes Ella Sloane

T

here’s no doubt that Christmas will look very different this year, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be a merry one. For many students, typical Christmas plans have been disrupted, while first years are trying to forge new ones under the strangest of circumstances.

I spoke with some Junior Fresh students to find out how they plan on spending the holiday period.

One student, David Wolfe, admitted to feeling uneasy about the potential risks of simply sharing the day with their grandmother this year, something that we usually take for granted.

“Instead of our usual fifteen, our Christmas dinner guest list this year is just six. It’s difficult not to focus on who’s missing, but I still feel lucky to be able to be with my immediate family, since there’s so many people who won’t be,” Wolfe said.

“Being able to spend Christmas with my grandmother is something I’m greatly looking forward to, in a year we’ve been able to see so little of her, but there’s still that sense of guilt and anxiety, a ‘what-if?’, that comes with it.”

Whilst it’s certainly not going to be the wild fresher’s Christmas that many students had dreamt of, with the usual rite of passage for many that is the infamous Twelve Pubs Dublin edition, followed by endless parties, there is certainly a bright side to

consider when thinking about the holiday this year. The inevitably intimate family gatherings will be more meaningful and create lasting memories, capturing the true spirit of the season, with the opportunity to establish some new Christmas traditions. In a world that is constantly buzzing with activity it’s important to unwind and remember what matters – as cheesy as that sounds. Who knows, maybe it will pose the perfect opportunity to bond with your siblings over a vicious game of Monopoly and escape from that pile of college work you need to catch up on.

Many international students are going to great lengths to ensure that they can be reunited with their family at Christmas and spend it with those who matter most. First-year student Kamonnat Setpattanachai shared her plans for making it home for the Christmas break. She booked her flights for early December to accommodate the mandatory twoweek quarantine period in her home country of Thailand.

“I’ll have to do online learning until the end of the semester with different time zones which I’m sure will prove difficult,” Kamonnat said. I’ll have to quarantine at halls when I come back here too.

That’s one month in total that will be spent in quarantine so I really hope that things will get better next year and that I’ll never have to experience this again.”

Kamonnat added that her flight will be a whopping 13 hours long, excluding transfer time. This journey would be a challenge and exhausting at the best of times, never mind throwing Covid restrictions into the mix. Pair it with having to endure wearing a stifling mask for the entire escapade and painfully slow, socially distanced queues at the airports and you have a potential nightmare before Christmas.

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

PHOTO BY SALLY NÍ THUAMA FOR TRINITY NEWS

Team up for Team Hope Elena McCrory speaks to manager Johnathan Douglas behind this year’s Christmas Shoebox appeal for children in need around the world

ry Covid Christmas For those that are staying in college residences during the Christmas period, do not despair!

Some ideas have been proposed to students who are planning to spend the holiday in Trinity Hall, Kavanagh Court and Binary Hub so it’s sure to still be one to remember. In the running is a daily guided 5km walk with other residents so that you can take in the Yuletide atmosphere, wrapped up warm in your favourite Christmas jumper.

In addition, there will be a free festive food collection on campus and at halls, with no fear of going hungry if you can’t muster up a Christmas dinner, and finally a communal space on campus where students could meet whilst adhering to guidelines.

If none of that tickles your fancy, there are plenty of other ways to make the most of the festive season in Dublin’s fair city.

One thing that remains unchanged this year are the beautiful light displays and decorations, which can still be found around every corner. Indulge yourself in a viewing party; bring along some of your flatmates and, mask-adorned, you will be prepared to take on the busy city streets at night.

Maybe invest in a festive mask for the occasion - go on, you know you want to! Our very own Trinity will be lit up with some colourful wintery scenes, as will the GPO and various other historic buildings. As you roam around the city centre, treat yourself to some warm mulled wine, or if you’re feeling daring opt for something chilly to please your sweet tooth; I’ve heard that Three Twenty Ice Cream Lab is gaining popularity.

Speaking of chilly, taking a splash, or even a dip on Christmas morning could be the perfect way to start the day - or so I’ve been told anyway. I recommend that you go to a local beach with plenty of room for a socially distanced

swim to enjoy it safely, as lots of other people may have the same idea. Perhaps icy seawater crashing over you at the crack of dawn isn’t your idea of fun and you’d prefer a refreshing hike on the Howth cliff trail to start the day instead. Connecting with family and friends has never been easier in the digital age.

Brighten up your evening (after you have stuffed yourself full of turkey and all of the trimmings of course) with some Covidfriendly virtual activities such as conducting a Zoom quiz night or watching a feel-good festive film on Netflix party. In the spirit of giving, why not create some virtual Christmas cards and share your masterpieces with your loved ones.

Many Christmas festivals and events across the country are still going ahead this year, reimagined in outdoor settings to ensure that everyone can enjoy the spectacles safely. If you are travelling home to Waterford you can look forward to Winterval, which will be in its ninth year this Christmas. Cork and Galway will also be hosts to some thrilling winter events.

The Glow Christmas festival in Cork will take place, including a festive window trail - the perfect family day out. There’s plenty of activities to be found, so that you can all make the most of the holiday period, even if you’re not staying in Dublin!

In a year that has been overshadowed by the pandemic, Christmas could be a time to reach out to those that have done the same for you during the year and rekindle some of the joy and hope that’s been dwindling. Whatever your plans for the holiday season, whether you will be with family, in college residences or are travelling overseas to get home, I hope you all can spend it with people you cherish, stay safe and enjoy the break.

T

his season, many people across Ireland may not be feeling so festive. Some of us will wake to the usual cheer, run downstairs to presents, and eat a wholesome turkey roast. But for others, there will be empty spaces at the dinner table, and some will be spending Christmas in the hospital. The issues plaguing 2020 feel far from an end. However, something we all can do to help this Christmas is give hope. The happiness gained from packing a shoe box is through the act of giving, and this year in particular, in a time for charity.

Jonathan Douglas, this years’ Christmas shoebox appeal manager, spoke to me to explain exactly what these shoe boxes mean to those who receive them.

“Normally we have 50 teams across the country in every county that would take in the shoeboxes, check them to make sure they are suitable for the children, and then transport them to the 13 different countries across Africa and Eastern Europe to children in impoverished communities”.

While the shoebox making system is solely online for us in Ireland, the work conducted is immense.

The non-profit organisation Team Hope have been working this appeal system since 2010, delivering to 13 poverty-stricken countries worldwide.

Douglas explains the online process to me. “A shoebox will contain what we call the four W’s,

something to write with, such as colouring pencils or a copy book, something to wear like hats, gloves or scarves, maybe a washing tool, such as a bar of soap, toothbrush, or toothpaste, and something to wow, like a teddy bear, a yoyo, or sunglasses.”

For many children, this will be the only present they receive this year. Once you are on the Team Hope website, you will have the option to click onto a Christmas shoebox appeal button where you can choose your items for your box and see it being virtually built. You will be able to give your €20 donation, more if you choose to, and personalise your box with downloadable pictures to colour in and add, for a child to see. This is when the work is transferred over to Team Hope’s partners overseas, where they are already sourcing fillers for the shoeboxes and are busy building them to be delivered before Christmas, directly to communities.

Douglas describes these presents as “treasure boxes that the children keep forever”. One can only imagine the joy brought by these boxes, and now more than ever, they are a necessity for these kids. In Douglas’ words, they are “life-impacting and everlasting”, and we are lucky to be able to see their impacts through the stories shared by Team Hope. 11-year-old Kaneza from Burundi says: “I have no words really. They say actions speak louder than words, and you have really demonstrated it. Thank you!” Another story brought back from Team Hope is from a little girl called Anna.

“Anna asked why someone would send her a gift. Her mother at the group home where she lives told her that it came from people who love her in Ireland.” Anna told Douglas that “growing up, I never heard the words ‘I love you’ from any of my friends, but then someone who lives far away, that I don’t even know, said they love me!” The emotions evoked from these simple acts of box building affect children’s parents and guardians also, sending joy in a time of desperate need.

As Covid-19 updates continue to proceed, Team Hope will know how many shoeboxes will be possible to build and the process will be undertaken safely overseas, according to the individual country’s guidelines.

Under previous conditions, Team Hope has teams that work yearround. Students can get involved in the future by gathering fillers throughout the year and donating them to their local team. They can volunteer at checkout centres in their neighbourhood. Mostly, however, Douglas is encouraging us to “share, share, share” on social media and spread the word about the online process.

Speaking to Douglas, he said they had received their 10,000th shoe box online, but this is just the beginning — the appeal runs up until the 23rd of December.

Those getting involved include over 2,000 volunteers, primary schools, secondary schools, and corporate companies. “There are so many people involved”, says Douglas, “it wouldn’t be possible without the supporters we have!”

Team Hope recently reached some incredible milestones. Last year the two millionth shoe box was gifted to a child and they also received their highest number of shoeboxes in one year at 270,488.

Looking at these figures puts the act into perspective; something that can seem like such a small act of kindness can amount to something special.

These boxes are based on Team Hope’s ethos of “compassion, social justice and the inherent value and dignity of all people, in line with these beliefs they ensure shoeboxes are given to children, based on need alone”. The ideals embodied in the act of shoebox gifting reminds us of what really matters this Christmas.

With many situations we find ourselves dealing with around the country, these shoeboxes give us a reason to smile. And in times of hopelessness make us feel we are doing positive in our world, however small it may be. This year, let’s team up for Team Hope, and now more than ever, every box counts.

PHOTO BY TEAM HOPE

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Puzzle page Crossword solution, November 24 Across Down 5. Chameleon 1. Buckfast 6. Mink 2. Juno 7. Laois 3. Grizzly 9. Tonic 4. Smithfield 12. Eden 7. Lisbon 13. Cannes 8. Burgundy 14. Poison Ivy 10. Fishnets 17. Robert 11. Westport Smith 14. Parliament 18. Shania 15. Devalera Twain 16. Westham 20. Madison 19. Mango 21. Labradoodle 22. West Egg

Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

CROSSWORD BY DARRAGH CREAN FOR TRINITY NEWS

Across

Down

5. _____ Midnight Runners (5)

2. Reanimated corpse (6)

7. Covid’s Furry Transmitters (4)

3. To take back; to cancel (7)

8. Following Folklore (8)

6. A speeches closing remarks (10)

9. Obsessive, repetitive social media usage (13)

10. Excess meat (5)

4. Sinister, threatening (7)

12. Inhabitants of Western Sahara (7) 14. Welsh National Park (9)

1. The ‘K’ in Pakistan (7)

11. Bolivian Leftists (3) 13. The Lonestar State (5)

WORDSEARCH BY JULES O’TOOLE FOR TRINITY NEWS

Christmas Examination Fantastic Fantasy Festivities Frivolous Humble Magnificent Marvellous Michael Buble Relaxation Romance Traditional

Trinity shouts and murmurs When I google, “stop throwing up repeatedly hangover” I need whoever is writing those stupid little articles to understand that no one is here looking for preventative measures -@furtiso

if u ever feel like you fucked up when dying ur hair, please be aware i tried dying my hair with red food dye when i was 13 and it started running out of my hair midway through the day when it started raining. in school.

-@rectangulrhalos i think i could really benefit from like 6-8 weeks in a sensory deprivation tank -@yupfinglas

I feel like a lot of humanities degrees give people this vast understanding of philosophy and literature while all I know is how to conduct a coup and also how to legally justify tyranny in the 15th c -@NathanOByrne1 I have watched 67 episodes of Glee in the last 5 days.

-@EveBelleSongs PHOTO BY ANDRÉS MURILLO FOR TRINITY NEWS

PHOTO BY EUAN CARROLL FOR TRINITY NEWS

Actually nothing sexier than being out with someone and seeing them whip out a tote bag. Like oh you care about the environment enough to plan in advance in case you end up shopping for something unexpected? ugh. Wow -@HiramEph

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Comment

Library access this semester has left much to be desired Grace Gageby

page 18

Kate Henshaw Staff Writer

The government has a moral responsibility to pay student nurses and midwives on placement

O

ver the course of this tumultuous year, the public have become more aware of the in-and-outs of the Irish Healthcare system than ever before. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic highlighted a number of issues that had not previously seen major public attention. One such issue is that student nurses and midwives in first, second and third year at third level institutions in Ireland are not paid for their mandatory placements. This, especially in the context of a global pandemic, is simply unacceptable.

The Irish Government has a moral responsibility to pay these student nurses and midwives for their placements.

Without our nurses, our healthcare system would completely collapse. It is an

incredibly complex job that requires vocational commitment and the ability to work under immense pressure. As a country we should always consider our moral responsibilities to our nurses very carefully. Student nurses and midwives on placement are essential to the functioning of our strained healthcare system just as fully qualified staff nurses are.

Nursing is a highly stressful course, with students having to balance clinical placements along with academic course work. Many of these students also work as Health Care Assistants (HCA) after first year, a job which many of them are overqualified for. It is not hard to understand the frustration of student nurses when the government deems them to be qualified enough to be paid for their work as HCAs and deems

their mandatory placements to be purely educational.

The refusal by the government to pay the student nurses and midwives is particularly concerning in the context the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

In the last year, the HSE, and the nurses in particular, have received consistent praise from the government for getting us through this pandemic. Nurses and midwives on the front line have been asked to go above and beyond and to put themselves, and their families, at huge risk. This affects thousands of student nurses and midwives; they have been asked to place themselves at risk just like staff nurses have, but they don’t even being paid for their vital work. In a year where the system has consistently relied on them, not paying them for this work is

No power in this union Sophie Furlong Tighe

page 21

completely exploitative.

As a result of the ongoing pandemic student nurses and midwives have been advised not to work outside of their assigned hospital during their placements.

They, therefore, have no source of income except €50 euro per week as travel allowance. After nine long months, on the frontline, it is astounding that nothing has changed: student nurses and midwives are still not being paid. Even with the amount of public pressure on them, both governments that have been in power this year have refused to budge. Many of them rely on part time income to pay their college fees, not to mention those who have to pay for accommodation.

Worrying if they will be able to afford to pay for college is an added stress that these students should not have to face. The longer this continues, the more burnt out the students become. This is having huge repercussions on an individual level; many nurses and midwives experiencing poor mental health and extremely high levels of stress. By not paying them, the government is effectively running the risk of many of them dropping out. This is an incredibly reckless move by the government given the shortage of nurses in the country even before the pandemic.

Despite all these months of battling the pandemic on the frontline, the government has put these students in a position where they simply cannot afford to stop working.

The government response to this issue has been incredibly poor. Last March, amid growing calls for the student nurses and midwives to be paid, Simon Harris, then Minister for Health, announced that the government would be offering the students HCA contracts. This was met with disappointment from students, who believed that they were overqualified and that working during the pandemic warranted more than a HCA contract.

Offering student nurses HCA contacts is not paying them to be nurses. It seems clear that this gesture was merely performative on the part of the government in order to alleviate public pressure on them.

However, when colleges returned in September this issue was thrown back into the spotlight. This year, despite the pandemic continuing into the winter months, students were not even offered basic HCA contracts.

Current Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly added insult to injury when questioned in the Dáil about this by Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit TD. Donnelly admitted that they could and should be doing more for these students but also made no

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After nine long months on the frontline, it is astounding that nothing has changed commitment to do so, citing his concerns over students’ education.

It is clear the Minister does not understand that nursing, like most practical courses, is a science that one learns by doing. The Minister’s suggestion that these nurses and midwives are standing around doing nothing, learning by watching, is beyond insulting.

When a motion to pay the students was tabled in the Dáil on the second of December, the entire government voted it down.

Minister Donnelly didn’t even bother to show up to the debate on the motion. The government’s consistent refusal to act even when prompted with a motion from the opposition bench, constitutes a lack of the most basic respect for these students. This is a complete violation of the government’s moral responsibility to frontline workers.

Trinity’s silence on this issue has not gone unnoticed. The student nurses are still paying full fees to the college, the least college could do is advocate for fair payment for their placements. As it stands these students are paying €3000 a year to work for free. At the very least, student nurses and midwives should be able to expect from their college is public solidarity.

It is completely unacceptable that the college refused to lobby for these students when this motion was being tabled in the Dáil.

It is abundantly clear that both the government and the College are failing to fulfil their moral responsibility to the student nurses and midwives. This kind of exploitation simply cannot be allowed to continue, especially in the context of a global pandemic.

It is time that the College begins amplifying the voices of Trinity’s student nurses and midwives. It is time that the government stops using empty “thank yous” and starts paying student nurses for their vital work. It is more than an issue of money, it is an issue of respect.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Comment PHOTO BY ZAHRA TORABPOURAN FOR TRINITY NEWS

Online ex format to

Grace Gageby

Deputy Comment Editor

Library access this semester has left much to be desired

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s we approach the Christmas season, exams and essay deadlines draw ever closer. Typically, at this time of year, students descend in their droves on the College libraries, desperate for a desk to study at or, in many people’s cases, to dump their belongings onto as they spend two hours nursing a coffee or smoking outside the Arts Building. While it hardly needs to be said that social distancing measures have exacerbated the long ignored issue of lack of seating and space, the problem is all the more glaring when compared to how other colleges have fared when compared to Trinity.

Covid-19 restrictions have been relaxed due to under the government’s modified Level Three for December, meaning the library is operating at increased capacity compared to the stricter measures involved in Level Five.

The updated measures mean students can pre-book study spaces for no more than 25 hours a week, and can virtually check into their seat from 30 minutes beforehand, or 15 minutes after the slot begins.

Students have a 25 hour limit per week, and must present the email confirmation to stewards before entering. In a recent email to students, Head of Reading Room Services and Space Peter Dudley

said: “As we approach exams... demands for library seats will inevitably increase. The measures outlined above will help, but the reality is that the library has lost 80% of its capacity due to social distancing measures.” Of course, the library has done its best to cater to students given the extremely difficult circumstances. However, the fact is that social distancing and pandemic restrictions have not so much created problems in the library, as they have exacerbated existing ones.

In an email to students on December 3, Helen Shenton, library archivist wrote: “following the re-introduction of Level 3 restrictions, the Library will be resuming evening and Saturday opening (with Counter Services) in the Berkeley, Lecky, Ussher and Hamilton libraries from Monday, December 7,” to facilitate students studying for exams. From December 7 to December 20, the BLU will be open from 9am to 8pm and 9.30am to 4pm on Saturdays, while closing on Sundays. In order to prepare Kinsella Hall for evening study, the Ussher Library will close at 7pm, or 3pm on Fridays.

Many have pointed out the superfluity of students checking into their booked seats if they can simply check in from anywhere, meaning a desk can be left needlessly empty if a student

doesn’t arrive for their slot on time.

In Maynooth University, students are given a barcode on the desk sticker at their seats to check in, which seems much more sensible.

The library opening hours in Maynooth are also slightly longer than in Trinity, with the John Paul II Library opening from 10am to 10pm. During Level Five the BLU was open 9am to 5pm. While social distancing and minimising contact with others is of course vital, it is unclear why Covid-19 was previously deemed more likely to spread during the hours after 5pm.

In October of last year, “desk hogging” became such a pervasive problem that College hired teams of postgraduate students to monitor the libraries and leave notes on desks reserved with personal belongings with a time frame given for the students to return. As well as this, the fiasco in Hilary exam season in April last year, which left countless students queuing outside the library frantically hoping to obtain a seat due to reduced opening hours is further testament to the pervasive issue of lack of seating.

While the safety of the college community must come first during the pandemic, had the issue of shortage of space been resolved sooner, the coming exam season would cause much less

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Although the Covid-19 situation is ever-changing, it was evident by the summer that the library would need to facilitate social distancing

unnecessary stress for students at an already extremely taxing time.

This problem is only emphasised when contrasted with the manner in which new buildings such as the Trinity Business School have been prioritised over increased capacity in the libraries. Of course, the library has done their best given the circumstances, but what is frustrating is that the existing circumstances had already proven to be untenable time and time again, without any decisive action taken by the College.

Although the Covid-19 situation is ever changing, it was fairly evident to most people by the summer that the library would need to facilitate social distancing in some capacity, come September. To suggest otherwise would be ludicrous. College had the opportunity to invest in fit for purpose study spaces in the library to make life easier for students come term time, but ultimately chose not to, as it has time and time before.

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t is no secret that online learning has proven to have both advantages and disadvantages. Having the classroom ripped away from students has left many hunched over their laptops at home for what seems to be hours on end.

When everything was changing by the minute back in March, students felt rather left in the dark about the current and future state of their respective educations, whether it be primary school or university attendees. It comes as no shock to hear that students are struggling with online learning, seeing as it has never been done at this widespread of a level before.

Teachers and lecturers are forced to abandon practices that they have used for years and come to terms with this “new normal”.

With the breaks in the day that would come naturally with in-person classes no longer applicable, students are sitting down at their desks or kitchen tables for extended periods of time without relief. It’s no wonder that Trinity has seen spikes in students availing of counselling and support services. It is not easy for anyone—especially academically.

Universities around the globe are handling the situation differently, some moving entirely online and vacating campuses, others utilising a pass/fail option. Trinity however has expected students to perform to the same standards as in the past, but has acknowledged the obstacles that its students are facing. In a recent email to the Trinity community, Provost Prendergast wrote: “We know this is a difficult time for every single person reading this email.”

Trinity has - in some ways - tried to make accommodations, with the decision being made to move Michaelmas online exams to after Christmas. Now that exams are soon to be taken at home, it is proving how arbitrary sitting in a large exam hall and taking a timed assessment can be.

Exams are stressful enough as it is, with much of your final marks riding on a single test. There are so many outside factors that can influence exams that have nothing to do with how well students understand the material ranging

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Comment

Shannon McGreevy

Laura Galvin

Sport Editor

Deputy Comment Editor

xams prove typical be arbitrary from sickness, to running late due to a missed bus, to forgetting a calculator; added anxiety does not help exam performance. Now that a new precedent is being set with sitting exams online, it allows for the avoidance of such stressors that can have a direct impact on an individual’s marks.

With the newfound ability to make exams more comfortable, it will help to ease testing anxiety for Trinity students. If you do best with a cup of tea while you sit your exams, you have the option to do that. If you concentrate better with music playing, you can stick on some headphones. Or, if you find you are able to get the best quality of work done in a coffee shop, that option is (hopefully) available as well. At this point in a student’s academic career they are most likely pretty familiar with what study habits help them achieve the results they want. Allowing for exams to be taken in the comfort of one’s home will no doubt eliminate some of the stressors that taking exams in a formal hall would.

Many exams that Trinity is invigilating will be made available to students for a specific amount

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The most important element is that students can achieve the best marks possible, not having to deal with heightened stress

of time, often more than is needed and would be offered in a traditional setting. This is so that international students are able to take exams in their respective time zones, rather than having to sit them at three in the morning.

Increased time to sit an exam will help put students at ease and allow them to fully process the material being asked. It is probable that most students have had to take a test or quiz and been rushed for time or written a paper and left the classroom thinking to themselves “with another hour I could have written more”.

More time being allotted for students to take exams that carry so much weight on their final marks for the semester will allow them to take the time to fully answer questions to the best of their knowledge, without being rushed and panicked. When sitting an exam while being crunched for time, it’s not uncommon to feel your heart racing and yourself start to perspire in response to the stress. Ultimately the most important element is making sure students can achieve the best marks possible, not having to deal with heightened stress.

Exams are still being supervised as College sees fit, and papers will be run through anti-plagiarism software. Since as much cheating will be eliminated as possible, the allocation for more time to sit exams should not greatly increase the amount of cheating taking place. So, rather than having to write for hours in an uncomfortable and stale exam hall with an administrator looking over your shoulder, it will be much easier to focus on the actual exam material from the comfort and safety of your own desk.

Upon outlining the reasons that formal timed exams taken at a neutral location compound stress on students, it is apparent how arbitrary this form of testing is. With the elimination of increased anxiety caused by external variables, online testing means students are able to focus on the exam material itself.

Perhaps having the ability to sit exams online will be a positive development for students and set a precedent for the future.

Ireland’s dark cultural past of gendered violence is still here

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reland, more than many of our European counterparts, has a distinct history of its blurring of boundaries between the church and the state. Our rich heritage comes at the cost of deeply ingrained archaic Catholic values that are still prevalent in the minds of a large number of our population, as well as our governing bodies and constitution. This has paved the way for state sanctioned misogyny to take place across many aspects of our lives, and hand in hand with that is the attitude of Irish people towards women in general. The past month has given us fresh instances of state sanctioned misogyny in the media, such as the Discord leaks, the debate on access to the mother and baby home records and even young schoolgirls in Carlow being told to not wear provocative clothing.

Such recent events have recalled in many women a deep atavistic disappointment towards the government and a feeling of being let down yet again by our own country, as we have been for many years.

The Discord server, with 500 members, contained thousands photographs of women and minors, many of them Irish.

This is an exploitation of our lack of any sort of legislation against sharing sexual images without the subject of the image’s consent. Now, a bill that could deal with such matters is due to be considered this month, but it is a disgrace that it has only come after such appalling and damaging instances of imagerelated sexual abuse has affected thousands of women from our country. At the end of March, the HSE Sexual Wellbeing Twitter account issued advice on how to curb the spread of Covid-19. The article instructed people to limit their sexual partners to people within their household, and replace sex with video chats or sexting. The fact that people were actively encouraged to engage in the sharing of intimate photos, yet dismissed when these were leaked without consent, is hypocritical and wrong.

The Irish government’s laissezfaire attitude to issues has been evidenced now more than ever in the face of the pandemic, but we

must start holding it accountable for its lack of protections in place for women, and its sponsoring of constitutional misogyny. It is also a chilling reminder of all the women who had to suffer from alienation from Ireland and its constitution in light of the eighth amendment, which was only repealed in 2018. The damage and destruction the eighth amendment caused Irish people is immeasurable, and although it was ultimately repealed, it felt far too late for the many women who have struggled, suffered harm and even died as a result of the country’s condemnation of a woman’s right to her own bodily autonomy.

Another reminder was last month, when the sealing of the records of the mother and baby homes evoked plenty of memories of the Irish government’s institutionalised misogyny, such as the mother and baby homes and the Magdalene laundries.

These didn’t only exist, but were commonplace in Ireland from the 18th century to the final closure in the 1990s. The laundries enslaved many women that were considered unfit for society under the guise of rehabilitation of promiscuous or fallen women, and the mother and baby homes served to hide unmarried pregnant girls, in keeping with our country’s long standing culture of conservative sexual ideals. The sealing of records by the government is further evidence of Ireland yet again condoning the shrouding of its devastating misogynistic history, and further evidence that Ireland has a long way to go in respecting the human rights of our women.

As it stands, survivors will be able to access the records, but only if their request is deemed to pass two legal “tests”.

Another manufacturer of toxically masculine and dangerous environments lies within our education system. Female students of Carlow secondary school Presentation College were allegedly separated from male students and told not to wear certain clothing for PE. The principal not only rejected such claims despite students expressing that they felt degraded, but also claimed that the girls were making their school uniforms “a bit of

a fashion show,” exemplifying that even if the accusations were false, the attitudes towards young girls in school is abhorrent, condescending and unjust. This both flippantly dismissed young women for expressing how they felt in light of comments made against them, and perpetuated the age old idea that girls are shallow and looks-obsessed. This is all the more outrageous given young women grow up in a culture that, at times, can pressure them to be that way. It is situations like these, singling out women and condemning them for what they wear, that fosters misogynistic attitudes from early on in life.

In Trinity specifically, we have a huge culture of privatelyeducated students. There is a disproportionate number of private feeder schools, with many from the Dublin bubble. As a result of this, rugby lad culture is rife here in Trinity. The Belfast rape trial of rugby player Paddy Jackson and the overwhelming support for him was another high profile example that occupied discussion. The hashtag “I Believe Her,” was adopted and trending, but “I Believe Him,” was also a sentiment spouted on Twitter and other social media platforms, with an overwhelming and disgusting amount of support given the circumstances, seeing many rugby players, even at school level, jump to his defence. If these are the attitudes we are nursing in our men, it’s no wonder that according to a recent Women’s Aid study, intimate partner violence and psychological abuse in relationships is on the rise in Ireland, with one in four women experiencing it at some point in their life.

The end of this year’s media coverage of the prevalence of misogyny in this country has proven that we must hold the government and its institutions accountable for their failures in protecting the rights of women.

Women should feel safe in the hands of their government, something the Irish government has failed to do time and time again. We must ensure that the exploitation and degradation of women is something that is illegal, so that devastating situations like this can not happen again.

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Kate Henshaw Staff Writer

The highlights of the social calendar have been snatched away

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n our current times it is difficult to remember what a big part of student life social events were before the pandemic. It is hard enough to remember a world where we could meet a small group of friends without worrying about social distancing, let alone a packed nightclub or society event.

But, until less than a year ago, these things were the norm, a rite of passage for students.

So, here we are, over nine months later. No one believed that when Covid-19 forced colleges to close in March, we’d still be living with these restrictions by Christmas. Now, even summer 2021 might be in danger. Even with vaccine shaped light at the end of the Covid tunnel, there’s still a long way to go. But, time hasn’t stopped during the pandemic to allow us to catch up on the experiences we have missed when we return to normal.

College students have missed out a lot during this pandemic and

a lot of us have realised that we don’t cope with isolation all that well. Our social calendar has become virtually non-existent and older generations often underestimate the effect this has on students. The time a person spends being a student is very limited in the grand scheme of someone’s life. Students pursuing a bachelor’s degree may only spend three or four years of their lives in college. Missing almost an entire year of college experiences is something that cannot be replaced.

After six years of secondary school, many students are looking forward to the fresh start that college can offer. The promise of what student life offers helps to get people through the many stresses of the Leaving Cert, knowing that at the end

of it all waits a world of exciting new experiences for them. These experiences come in the form of Freshers’ Week, society events, and Trinity Ball, along with the many other nights out in various pubs and nightclubs.

Now that the pandemic has forced all of these things to be cancelled, students who struggled their way through six years of secondary school have been robbed of a significant chunk of the experiences that they had looked forward to having in college.

This is particularly relevant for Junior Fresh students, some of whom have yet to even step on campus as a Trinity student.

These students will never get to experience their own Freshers Week in person, a huge rite of

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The thought of missing out on potentially once in a lifetime social events plays on your mind, especially during quarantine when you have endless time to think about it

passage for every college student.

That first whirlwind week is where many of us meet the friends that we retain for the remainder of our college years, something many freshers haven’t been able to do this year. Even though that first week can be very overwhelming for incoming students, it is also very gratifying for those who worked tirelessly to get into college. It is an experience that cannot be replicated down the line either.

For students who were

PHOTO BY TCDSU ENTS

first years last year, like myself, our first year certainly didn’t end up looking like we had thought it would. We have never experienced Trinity Ball or many of the big end of year society events we had looked forward to last year. Our college life was ripped out from under us just as we had settled in. Now, with whether or not these events will happen this year being in doubt, many of us feel our college experience is being cut in half.

For last year’s final year students, Covid-19 took away the very end of their college experience. From missing out on their final Trinity Ball and their last drinks in the Pav after final exams to losing out their last society events as students.

This was without a doubt an anticlimactic ending to their lives as students. Though this was inconsequential in the context of a global pandemic, these last events are something those students can never replace.

The uncertainty surrounding next term and the probable cancellation of many of the rest of the year’s events is now weighing heavily on students.

The slow nature of the roll out of a Covid-19 vaccine makes it unlikely that things will return to any sort of normal by the end of the college year. A decision on major events like Trinity Ball has yet to have been made but at present it is very difficult to imagine any sort of large gatherings will be allowed to go ahead in the near future.

The prospect of missing out on another full term of college events is miserable to think about when we’ve already missed so much.

I, like many others, have struggled with the concept of time passing this year. The thought of missing out on potentially once in a lifetime social events plays on your mind especially during quarantine when you have endless time to think about it. The unfortunate reality is that nothing can be done to replace the experiences Covid-19 has taken away from us and it’s ok to be frustrated or even bitter over that. These things are a big deal and represent huge milestones in many student’s lives.

This pandemic is a lot bigger than us. The restrictions are important and it is important to follow them, especially so if we want things to go back to normal.

The sadness and bitterness that students feel for missing out on their entire college lives during the pandemic can coexist with the knowledge that we are doing this for the public good. We should be allowed to acknowledge everything that we’re missing out on and how scary it is that time continues to pass anyway in this weird reality, whether we want it to or not. There is nothing that can be done to replace all of the things we’ve missed in the last year and the time in college that Covid-19 has taken from us. But we can acknowledge this while following the guidelines, washing our hands, and wearing a mask.

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

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Sophie Furlong Tighe Staff Writer

No power in this union

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he recent so-called “omnibus” student union referendum was significantly more complex than was presented to us. Originally branded as a vote to fix typos within the constitution – though it remains viscerally unclear why the union’s constitution ever had so many – it became clear that of the seventy-seven changes, many existed notably beyond the domain of copyediting.

From the voting rights of the Graduate Students’ Union president to the size of the Electoral Commission, there were many proposed changes which were not presented to students in a meaningful way. These amendments, among some others, make small but important changes

to the process of decision making within the students’ union.

Regardless of where you stand on the referendum, how the SU makes its decisions is relevant to every student in Trinity.

One of those changes was altering the criteria for becoming an Officer for Students with Disabilities. Under the proposed change, a candidate must personally identify as being a student with a disability.

Previously, any member of the union could hold that position.

This is an admirable and important change; why it was folded into a referendum apparently only about typos and “inconsistencies” in the first place is quite unclear.

Given the complete lack of attention being brought to the referendum, it would be

reasonable for a student to have opened their weekly email, read that this was exclusively about typos, and take that as fact. The precedent of our representative body being allowed to mislead us without significant pushback is not one we should be comfortable with setting. The SU has put us in the uncomfortable position where the most reasonable thing to do is assume they are not telling the truth. This is unbecoming of a body ostensibly at our service.

This isn’t the fault of any particular member of the SU, but it is emblematic of a deeper issue with the body’s opinion on the people it supposedly represents. The SU did apologise for the mistake, but the mindset which prompted it is telling: there are students who are involved, and there are students

Phoebe Otway-Norwood Deputy Sport Editor

Post-Christmas exams are a necessary evil

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or people who are in their fourth year of college or have been in Trinity for four years, they will have now studied under a total of three different exam structures; the most recent being exams after Christmas. This new exam structure was implemented after the coronavirus pandemic shut college down a number of weeks early last year and forced the majority of teaching and mentoring online. This also led to the introduction of online exams in the summer term and has now evolved into online exams after Christmas during the break. While for some this is a welcome relief as the pressures of assignments, unwatched lectures and too many hours spent on Netflix builds up, for others this is yet another one of Academic

Registry’s solutions that don’t have the benefits of the student in mind.

The academic year of 2017/2018 was the last of many years in which exams from both the first and second semesters were held at the end of the academic year, usually in May. While this undoubtedly left a lot of time at Christmas to get involved with the dinners and society events which are typical of that time of year, there was an inordinate amount of pressure placed on the end of year exams as topics from Michaelmas Term were examined at the end of the second semester. The following year, Trinity changed to the model we are more familiar with now, that of exams at both Christmas and Summer, a much more balanced and equitable system where it avoids the Leaving Cert

style scramble at the end of the year for exams.

While students were becoming adjusted to this, the pandemic hit, altering the lives of students to the point that they are almost unrecognisable. For the first semester, all lectures were online to avoid people going into college and all non-essential seminars and labs were also online. There was also a move by many of the schools within the college to have assessments focused more on continual assignments rather than on exams. Coupled with the fact that the majority of restaurants, bars and clubs were shut due to increased restrictions this meant there was more perceived pressure on students to study and attend lectures as there was quite literally nothing else to do. A healthy balanced academic life also involves extracurricular activities

who aren’t. If you fall into the latter category, you don’t need to worry about the details of our silly little referendum.

For all of the SU’s capitulating about the importance of student engagement, it remains unclear why informing students about the capacity they have to make change remains an afterthought. Sticking the details of a referendum which changes voting procedures – affecting the way student issues are decided upon – in a spreadsheet on the weekly email simply is not good enough. If the SU wants its population engaged, it should begin by providing them with correct information and making an active effort to engage students in their decision making process.

The decisions the SU makes can significantly affect the lives of students, and yet year after year, the turnout in both elections and referenda is notably poor. This cannot be blamed on anyone but the SU itself. With the move to online voting, this is the easiest year to vote in union referenda to date — all you had to do was log onto your Trinity email and click a box. Despite this, only 652 people voted.

This number should be deeply embarrassing to the SU. It represents just under four percent of the 17,000 voices in Trinity; 17,000 voices whose student contributions pay for their

existence. The way to increase turnout isn’t through sending more emails, it is to fulfill the mandate of the SU: to represent the students of Trinity. It is naive to expect students to become engaged in a representative body when they have been given no reason to.

This lack of engagement is actively limiting the SU’s capacity to make effective change. How can they be expected to be taken seriously by College when it appears that they are only representing 652 students? The more important question is, why is the SU not even trying?

The misinformation surrounding the typo referendum is incredibly relevant to this. I don’t doubt that their apology was sincere. I’m sure it genuinely didn’t occur to them that students would want to know about the vote. But that idea is deeply telling.

Our union made it clear that they aren’t interested in the voices of students and that they don’t view us as important enough to make our own decisions about how that union operates.

TCDSU has a duty to take the people they represent seriously.

They have failed in that duty.

We must demand more from an organisation with so much potential. Until their mandate to represent all students is fulfilled, they will not see the engagement they claim to want from us.

and socialising; no one can sit at a desk every day of the week and expect to be sane by the end of it. As a result, the Christmas break would have been a perfect opportunity to relax and unwind following a hectic semester but now, as exams are after Christmas, there will not be the possibility for this. The potential for burn out early on in the academic year as students are understandably fed up with studying increases as exam timetables are also released.

Having exams before Christmas would avoid this potential for burnout and allow people the chance to relax in front of the TV and focus on their mental and physical health, rather than sitting at a desk studying and stressing all day.

This potential for burnout will also be coupled with an undeniable sense of guilt as a number of people return home for the Christmas holidays to spend time with their families and friends while attempting to balance the pressure of studying. For many this will be the first time home during the academic year as the threat the coronavirus poses has prevented many from traveling home due to fear of spreading the virus.

Many students will likely have planned to use this time as a break from academics, and with the constant pressure of exams hanging over them it would only be natural to feel even more stressed and worried. Christmas is meant to be a holiday and taking this away from students is just another way in which they have been disadvantaged due to the

pandemic.

Normally at this time of year people’s social calendars are blocked solid as Christmas dinners, 12 Pubs and general nights out come in a steady stream of chaotic craic. This year, the lead-up to Christmas unfortunately is not the same.

Instead of standing in a crowd in Front Square watching the Christmas tree light up, we were informed of it online. Christmas dinners are booked as separate tables of six and everyone should be home by 11; in short, it’s a dismal social scene, but at least there is one. For the last month and a half students have been confined to college or home by the restrictions. Now finally over Christmas there is a chance to socialise again except this time, due to exams these nights will be associated with guilt and stress as people are afraid of writing themselves off. It has reduced students’ capacity to socialise, something that is much-needed during this time.

While moving exams to Christmas was a necessary evil on behalf of the college as teaching was delayed at the start of the semester, more could have been done to facilitate students.

Teaching could have been started a week earlier to compensate for this problem. By preventing students from having the time to recuperate and socialise after a heavy first semester that was tainted by restrictions, there is a real risk of burnout and lack of motivation for students who are already under a lot of stress.

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Editorial: College must step up for students next term

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n Week 11 of Michaelmas Term, Trinity released the results of its survey, offering valuable insight into how students are coping with learning under the pandemic.

College’s focus was on the significant majority who said they were in favour of more in-person teaching in the new year, but the respondents’ answers about their own wellbeing were arguably much more significant.

Of the 6,000 who filled out the poll, 67% said they were “a little” or “very” stressed or worried by the current situation.

Additionally, just 28% said they were keeping up “reasonably well” with their studies, compared to 71% who said they were “a bit” or “significantly” behind where they felt they should be.

This is reflective of feelings many students have been having in private for weeks now. People have been, very understandably, struggling with their mental health and the workload of their courses, and feeling like they’re just about managing to tread water most of the time. The social isolation inherent to distancelearning, combined with the ever-present stigma of admitting

you’re grappling with these issues, means that there’s been little acknowledgement that we’re all feeling basically the same way.

If we were physically together, in tutorials and drinking coffee outside the Arts Block, we’d be able to sense the common anxiety and frustration, but stuck in our individual homes it’s easy to feel like the problem is just you.

College can and should address this problem with more in-person classes, within the bounds of public health advice. The plans to do so are a welcome move and will hopefully be more closely adhered to than comparable commitments made before the start of Michaelmas term. But there’s always going to be a limit; even as vaccines are rolled out in the new year, there will likely remain significant limitations on medium to large gatherings for much of 2021. Other measures will be necessary to safeguard students’ wellbeing.

For a start, there should be significantly more effort and resources put into taking care of students’ mental health directly. Emails from the Provost advising us to “stay well” in this “extraordinary year” are fine,

but access to therapy is better.

Trinity’s Student Counselling Services received more than 200 enquiries per week during October, and is simply not able to provide adequate assistance to everyone who needs it. While the service is full of wonderful people who provide invaluable help to the students they work with, it is severely limited by a lack of resources. Students are limited to just eight counselling appointments per calendar year, and there are frequently waiting periods even for those. Many of the counsellors are themselves still in training. SCS’s website says that “for longer term counselling we can refer you to external service providers”, but given “non-urgent” patients frequently wait multiple years for appointments with HSE mental health services and private providers are prohibitively expensive, this isn’t enough.

College has a duty of care to its students and should significantly increase its investment in this service.

The government should also boost funding for student mental health. The €5 million allocated in August was welcome, but this was a once-off grant that translates

to €21 per third-level student in Ireland. A vastly increased budget in the long-term is needed, not to mention the decades-overdue investment in general public mental health services.

More generally though, there needs to be a cultural shift in how College views its duties to students. More than a third of Trinity’s student body signed petitions last April calling for a “no-detriment” policy for summer assessments, reasonably pointing out that they could not be expected to perform as normal under pandemic conditions. But the University Council categorically rejected the proposal, citing their commitment to “preserving the integrity of the academic qualifications Trinity students can expect to hold on graduation”. Simply put, College views the reputation and prestige attached to its name as more important than our mental health and will always act accordingly.

This arrangement is framed like it’s undertaken with students in mind, but that line of reasoning simply isn’t credible when it’s being used to shout down the voices of students themselves.

Even aside from the absurdity

of the notion that a couple of semesters of slightly easier exams in them middle of a once-in-acentury crisis would do noticeable damage to Trinity’s global brand, this is a decision students should be allowed to make for themselves. It’s shameful that College’s deep-rooted academic elitism made it so ignorant to the needs of its community.

The “no-detriment” petitions were circulated when Ireland had been under Covid-related restrictions for just one month. It has now been eleven months. As we know from our experiences and from the results of the survey, it gets more difficult over time, not easier.

Now more than ever, it’s time for Trinity to fundamentally reassess what it considers important. Always, but especially in a pandemic, the welfare of students should be at the centre of everything a university does and every decision it makes. That doesn’t seem to be true right now as Michaelmas Term comes to a close. College must do better in the new year ahead.

Op-ed: Why I decided to resign from Sinn Féin People who are meant to be “comrades” need to treat each other better Christine O’Mahony

Former chair of UCD Ógra Sinn Féin

M

y name is Christine O’Mahony. I am a 22-year-old Human Rights Law student at University College Dublin (UCD).

I was a member of Sinn Féin and chair of my college’s Ógra branch.

I resigned from the party after my neighbour, who works for Sinn Féin, was sent a screenshot of my public criticism of Brian Stanley’s tweet (which had a homophobic undertone to it) by Sinn Féin head office, who asked him to contact me and request that I delete my own tweet.

Many believe my resignation is just over a tweet or a knock on my door. However, there were a variety of factors that led to my leaving. When I joined Sinn Féin in January, I was so excited to be part of a political party. I

canvassed for Darren O’Rourke in Meath East and promoted him all over my social media. On Twitter I was soon followed by many Sinn Féin-supporting accounts who would like all my posts promoting the party. I’m no fan of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael and when debating with others, I could mention so many horrible policies attached to FF and FG to prove to people that Sinn Féin was the party of change.

About a month after the general election, a well known Sinn Féin member announced that she had resigned from the party. She gave an account of all that she went through that caused her to leave.

Her complaints were not dealt with. Like me, she could be quite critical of Sinn Féin sometimes, as some of the policies don’t appeal to young members like us.

As soon as she publicly criticised the party on her Twitter, she was treated differently by other Ógra Shinn Féin members. When she was made aware of another female ex-Sinn Féin member who was bullied, she asked for more information. Male Ógra members told her to “ignore her, she is a psycho”. As she was being so critical on her social media, lies started being spread about her to new members, who were advised to block her. She was told that she was a “careerist” despite the fact she left the party because of her principles, while others stayed and

were even co-opted as Councillors.

While Ógra Shinn Féin prefer to keep quiet about their antifascist activity, this female member was really active in that sphere. An event happened between her and a fascist and she faced horrendous online abuse from Far-Right accounts. She was told by members in Ógra that she deserved that abuse, which included rape threats. Even though she has left, she is still being talked about and slandered in non-political group chats. She also received abuse from Ógra members on her Curious Cat. When she went public about her abuse and the lack of action from the Senior Party, I started to get worried. I felt guilty that I stayed in the party after seeing all this, but I thought I could change the party.

I was in contact with two exSinn Féin councillors who prefer to be kept anonymous, in fear that they would start getting abuse again from members. One councillor said there was so much misogyny and nepotism in the party. She fears this will put women off getting into politics. The online abuse she received was on another level and she could barely cope with it. She says that there was also a smear campaign against her. She has since left and joined another party. Another councillor was actually physically assaulted and when she complained,

nothing was done about it. The party protected her assailants and distanced themselves from her.

Sinn Féin claims to be against homophobia, racism and sexism, but that didn’t stop her from being labelled with horrendous names like “whore”. The TD that she worked for, she claims, has said extremely homophobic and racist stuff behind closed doors. She complains that the party fears they would lose votes from conspiracy theorists and that is why they do nothing about their association with Yellow Vests, the racists, the Trumpism, anti-vaxxers, and antilockdown protestors. She told me that she doesn’t believe that the bullying in Sinn Féin is fixable and that Mary Lou McDonald is “no great defender of women’s rights”.

Many councillors have resigned from the Sinn Féin party over the years, with a significant proportion of them over bullying.

Being told to delete tweets critical of the party, my “comrades” reporting me to Ógra leadership over tweets on my private account, homophobia, racism and death threats coming from our own supporters and members, the failure of the party to deal with bullying complaints, and seeing councillors and members who have given their blood, sweat and tears for the party resign after being bullied - all of these influenced my decision to resign. I

have received a lot of online abuse, but also support from my friends in Sinn Féin since my decision. My TD, Darren O’Rourke, apologised to me on behalf of the party, and other Sinn Féin councillors told me to be proud of myself for sticking to my beliefs. However, I cannot ignore the abuse coming from our own members and the rumours being spread about me. Some think I am a “Fine Gael plant” and some think I was putting my name forward to become a TD but was not selected and now I’m just trying to sabotage the party out of jealousy. None of this is true. As I said in my public statement, “my principles before party”.

Since my story has been in the media, I have received a lot of support from my family and friends, but also called an “attention seeker”. I didn’t like the way politicians used my story to complain about IRA culture, but I believe FF and FG will always do that.

I think Sinn Féin need to deal with complaints of bullying. They are losing lots of members and councillors over these issues. If we are “comrades”, then why are we treating each other so awfully?

Sinn Féin needs to discipline and suspend members who engage in these behaviours. Bullies should have no place in the party. Most of all, no political party should be more important than friendship.

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Female mentors in STEM are a precious resource Lucy Fitzsimmons page 24

The frontrunner vaccines against Covid-19 Aoife Kiernan page 26

Trinity report on sexual violence in Ireland is the first of its kind in two decades The research highlights the importance of the availability of mental health supports for survivors Nina Chen Deputy SciTech Editor

A

study published by Trinity alongside Maynooth University shows that one-third of all adults have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lives. The study is based on a sample of 1,000 Irish adults, and the research was focused on the rates of sexual assault, as well as the mental difficulties survivors of sexual assault face.

The study has been accepted for the publication of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, a journal which is devoted to the studies focused on addressing causes, effects, treatment, and prevention on all types of violence. This will be the first study on the effects and prevalence of sexual violence in the Republic of Ireland since the ‘Sexual Assault and Violence in Ireland’ (SAVI) report was published in 2002.

The landmark SAVI report, now nearly two decades old, surveyed 3,000 people and found nearly 20% of women experienced sexual assault as adults, as did 10% of men. However, the recent study outlines substantial differences in rates of sexual violence between men and women, showing that 50% of women have experienced any form of sexual violence, compared to 19% of men.

Dr Frédérique Vallières, Director of the Trinity Centre for Global Health, Trinity College and study co-lead said: “We noted substantial differences in the rates of sexual violence between men

and women, whereby women were found to be significantly more likely than men to have experienced sexual violence.”

While this can be seen from the report, the reason for the increased proportion of women who have

“

The new report writes that ‘Irish society has undergone substantial liberalisation and secularisation’

A protest at the Spire in 2018 after rugby players accused of rape in Belfast were found Not Guilty.

PHOTO BY AISLING GRACE FOR TRINITY NEWS

survived sexual assault is not clear.

Within the two decades that these studies have been published, many social changes have come across the Republic of Ireland.

The new report writes that “Irish society has undergone substantial liberalisation and secularisation”, and this can be seen in the rise of the #MeToo movement, a hashtag that went viral in 2017 which allowed all women to publicly speak about their experiences with sexual harassment, and the Belfast Rape Trial, a highly publicised trial where many of the public came to support a survivor of sexual assault.

These high profile events have led to a change in attitude in young people. While an explanation for the differences in the statistics between the 2002 report and the 2020 one could be that more people are willing to report, a survey done by the Union of Students in Ireland shows that 44% of students in third-level education reported experiencing non-consensual behaviour, but less than 5% had disclosed their experience to the Garda Síochána.

Many college students do not feel that it is safe to report; 74% of those who did report stated that

they felt ashamed or embarrassed.

17% did not believe that the gardaí would do anything.

To combat sexual violence in higher-level institutions, the Department of Education published “Framework for Consent in Higher Education Institutions” in January 2020, which outlined key outcomes in preventing and reporting cases of sexual assault. This included having institutions record statistics on harassment, assault, and rape, as well as having an easy system for students to disclose and report incidents. Following its publication, nine Irish colleges including Trinity, NUI Galway, and Maynooth have signed up to an €80,000 online system which allows students to anonymously report incidents of assault.

Whilst a means of reporting is necessary and beneficial, the recent study also shows that those who have suffered sexual assault and violence were more likely to experience mental health problems in their lifetime. The study’s colead author, Dr Philip Hyland, of the Department of Psychology at Maynooth University, states that the findings “show that people who had been raped or sexually

harassed were more likely to suffer from a range of mental health problems in adulthood including complex post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and generalised anxiety.” Additionally, the report shows that survivors of sexual violence were not experiencing greater disruption to their social functioning.

Organisations like the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (RCC) offer services such as one-onone counselling and web chat support.

However, Noeline Blackwell, the CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, says that the findings “clearly demonstrate the pernicious mental health effects of sexual violence and the need to increase access to mental health services for survivors of sexual violence”.

Better counselling services and mental health resources are necessary to help combat the issue of sexual assault in Ireland.

Supports such as Women’s Aid, Men’s Aid Ireland, and Dublin Rape Crisis Centre are available and free for those who need them, but more are needed to help survivors of sexual abuse, especially in college health services. Currently, Trinity does not provide counselling specifically for survivors of rape or sexual assault but does have Sexual Consent Workshops, which are run in August alongside orientation.

Blackwell says that “ensuring that available and accessible mental health services are integrated into sexual violence response programmes is central to achieving this [increasing mental health service usage by survivors].

The research finding that survivors have great resilience mirrors our similar experience of their strength.”

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Dear Demystifying Medicine Every issue, Trinity News’ SciTech section bringing you this new column called Dear Demystifying Medicine, where students can ask questions that spark their curiosity about health, fitness, or human biology.

Dear Demystifying Medicine: How do vaccines work and how is the Covid-19 vaccine different from the others?

The introduction of vaccines has eradicated deadly diseases such as smallpox and saved millions of lives. Vaccines are also critical to prevent the spread of many diseases. The purpose of a vaccine is to show your immune system a noninfectious version of a dangerous pathogen such as a bacteria or virus so that your body can make antibodies against it. Antibodies are molecules in the immune system that are important for fighting pathogens. When the immune system has already been primed with a vaccine against a certain pathogen, your body will produce a rapid immune response against the infectious pathogen if you come into contact with it in the external environment. Your body essentially remembers that it has seen this pathogen before and attacks it right away. This ultimately prevents you from getting sick.

Vaccines can be simplified into three main categories: attenuated, killed, and component or subunit vaccines. An attenuated vaccine is a live vaccine in which a virus for example, is grown over and over again on a specific culture.

This culture has optimal growth conditions for the virus so it doesn’t have to work hard to continue growing. In this sense, it gets used to the “good life” and actually loses its virulence or infectious nature. This noninfectious strain is then used as a vaccine. Killed vaccines are where viruses or bacteria are completely killed by various chemical agents. Finally, subunit vaccines essentially take only a part of the pathogen and use it in order to stimulate an immune response.

Overall, all of the vaccines elicit an immune response against a non-infectious pathogen, however the formulation or preparation of the vaccine can differ.

Some of the proposed Covid-19 vaccines have a different formulation to the ones described above since they are a type of RNA vaccine. Our cells use RNA as a blueprint in order to make proteins. These vaccines are made by taking a specific type of RNA from Covid-19 that encodes a specific protein to the virus. When this is injected into humans, our own cells will use that RNA as a blueprint to make the specific protein. The protein will then be presented to our cells and we are then able to make antibodies against it. This is the same thing that the other vaccines

do - the difference is that our cells are using their own machinery to make a protein in our body so our immune system can generate a response against it. This is some ground-breaking science that’s happening in the midst of the pandemic and could pave the way for future RNA vaccines.

Dear Demystifying Medicine: Can germs or viruses spread through items like clothes or packages in the post?

First things first, “germ” is an umbrella term that includes bacteria, fungi, and viruses.

Bacteria are mostly single-celled organisms that produce their own energy and can live outside of a host, whereas viruses require a host in order to survive and reproduce.

Bacteria are essential components of the human body. The human microbiome is estimated to have over 10 trillion bacteria. Bacteria is found everywhere and on every surface, including on our own skin. So, why don’t we get sick every time we touch something? Firstly, most bacteria can’t penetrate through the skin in order to get into our bodies. Secondly, there are many types of bacteria that are actually not harmful and can happily colonize within our bodies. If bacteria are everywhere, it’s pretty clear that they will be on surfaces such as clothing and items in the post. How long bacteria can last under different conditions really depends on the resilience of the species of bacteria and the external environment the bacteria is exposed to. For example, when you go outside, some bacteria on your clothes may not survive because of the cooler temperature.

In terms of viruses, a similar argument is true, except viruses need to enter your body in some way in order to reproduce and cause illness. Viruses can technically exist on surfaces, but once again, it depends on the nature of the virus itself. For example, you would not get HIV without direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids from an infected individual. From what scientists know, Covid-19 can be spread via aerosol droplets.

Droplets from an infected individual could possibly linger in the air for a period of time, as well as fall onto surfaces. Technically, you could have already come into contact with Covid-19 viral droplets on surfaces, but not have gotten sick. This is the case because the sickness is proportional to the viral load you are in contact with. A viral load is how many viral particles you are directly in contact with in a specific environment. The higher the viral load, the more likely you are to get sick. Therefore, it is more likely you would get Covid-19 speaking to an infected individual at a close distance without a mask on, rather than

getting it from surfaces. This is because the viral load is much bigger when you interact with an infected individual since you breathe in millions of viral aerosol particles that are expelled from their mouth and nose. In terms of Covid-19 on surfaces, even if you have been exposed to it, the viral load is most likely to be so low that your immune system can deal with a small amount of these particles. Furthermore, since viruses need to enter your body in order to reproduce, touching your nose and mouth can increase the risk of transmission. This is why it’s very important to maintain good hand hygiene.

Overall, there is no black and white answer to what is 100% safe and what is not safe in this pandemic. What is important however, is a risk assessment of your actions. Every action will have some sort of risk associated with it, however the lower the risk, the less likely your chances are of getting the virus. Therefore, the likelihood of you getting the virus from clothes or packages in the post is small because of a lower viral load. So overall, keep following public health guidelines and we’ll get through this together! Stay healthy and safe everyone.

Dear Demystifying Medicine says: As a medicine student, I get asked a lot of questions about body functions, overall health, and fitness. Most of the questions I get from people who are in a nonbiology/medical field are based on their own personal curiosity or from reading articles on the internet, where it can be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.

We’re putting together this column to give students a space to ask basic medical, health, and fitness questions. As a Bachelor of Science graduate, a medicine student, and a member of a professional fitness organisation, I’ll be looking into the most recent and high-quality research to help answer your questions in a way that everyone can understand with the support of a team of peers in science and medicine.

I will not be providing medical advice or diagnoses, so please don’t write in and ask for a cure or a diagnosis.

The information that is presented is for educational use only and should not be a substitute for professional medical advice.

Consult with your doctor or qualified health professional for any advice.

Female mentors precious resour In the wake of a controversial paper, Trinity academics weigh in on mentorship in their careers Lucy Fitzsimmons SciTech Editor

W

hen you embark on a STEM course as a woman, you are aware from the start that although the gender balance in STEM leadership and mentoring roles has greatly improved in recent decades, the number of women in leadership positions is still lower than their male counterparts. In the Engineering, Maths, and Science (EMS) Faculty, women still held only 24% of academic positions in 2017/2018, according to the annual equality monitoring report. This is significantly lower than the college-wide 45% of female academic staff in the same time frame.

In addition to this, a 2017 report from the Trinity Centre for Gender Equality and Leadership showed that as a percentage of total female academic staff, 65% supervised PhD students, compared to 79% of male academic staff. In short, the number of women in crucial mentoring positions, guiding students and young academics through their formative career stages, are significantly fewer in comparison with men.

It is to a similar worldwide backdrop that a recent study in the renowned journal Nature was published, and has caused outrage amongst many academics.

The paper, authored by Bedoor AlShebli, Kinga Makovi and Talal Rahwan, looked at the links between early career academic mentorship and the quality of papers published by the mentee after this mentorship. The study concludes: “Increasing the proportion of female mentors is associated not only with a reduction in post-mentorship impact of female protégés, but also a reduction in the gain of female mentors.”

This finding could have had a significant impact on the already significant struggles of both female mentors and students.“Female protégés who remain in academia reap more benefits when mentored by males

rather than equally-impactful females,” the study states. It has been previously shown that increasing the number of female mentors increases the likelihood of women staying in academia and also improves their career outcomes. So to say the recommendations by AlShebli et al. have the potential to throw a curveball for recent progress is an understatement.

However, a few holes in the methodology of the study have been called into question, and Nature is currently investigating concerns that the data interpretation in the paper “undermines the role of female mentors and mentees”. The study was based on the Microsoft Academic Graph data set of scientists and papers. Firstly it identified mentors as paper authors with at least seven years of experience publishing scientific papers, who are co-authors on the same paper as the mentee. This is the first major flaw with this study, as many have pointed out co-authoring a paper does not inherently mean there was any significant degree of mentorship or guidance given by the “mentor” to the “mentee”.

The study also identified both the mentor’s and mentee’s gender based on their names, using an algorithm. There is obvious room for errors here, including the existence of gender-neutral names and the many cases where a person’s name does not reflect their gender. The algorithm also does not take into account gender non-binary mentors or mentees.

This use of names to guess at gender is standard practice however in studies of this nature, and though it may be flawed the researchers cannot be faulted for going with the standard modus operandi for determining genders of large groups.

In addition to this, the measure with which the study determined the “post-mentorship impact” of mentees was by the number of citations they received postmentorship. This itself is a biased way of judging the success of a scientist, one in which men will likely come out on top due to a pattern of citing their own papers on average 70% more than women, and due to a prevalence of academics rating a paper to be of higher quality if they think it is written by a man. No control was used to allow for this inherent skewing of citation levels.

But even if the methods used by the paper are not flawed, and with an impressive 225 million scientists data examined and 222 million papers the study is certainly rigorous, it is less the findings that are troublesome and

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

SciTech

s in STEM fields are a rce, not a disadvantage PHOTOS BY ZAHRA TORABPOURAN FOR TRINITY NEWS

more that the recommendations of the authors seem too far a leap based on their data. They suggest: “While current diversity policies encourage same-gender mentorships to retain women in academia, our findings raise the possibility that opposite-gender mentorship may actually increase the impact of women who pursue a scientific career.” This seems to take the leap to “women shouldn’t mentor other women” instead of suggesting a further investigation into institutional bias affecting their data.

In the wake of this paper’s publication and public outrage, Trinity scientists were amongst those appalled by the conclusions of the study. Dr Cristina Trujillo, a Trinity research fellow in computational chemistry reflects on a female professor in her final college year that inspired her to pursue quantum chemistry: “During my last year at college, I had a female professor teaching Quantum Chemistry. She was absolutely brilliant, intelligent, tough but at the same time modest and very approachable.

After her lectures, I was utterly in love with Quantum Chemistry and I positively knew it, that’s what I wanted to do.”

“I had the great fortune to have male and female [Ph.D.] supervisors, both of whom were the best mentors I could have ever wished for. They guided me, taught me, and provided me with so much more. They became one of the most important role models in my scientific life, and even now I still ask for their opinion and unconditional support in any of my scientific endeavours,” says Trujillo.

Female mentors weren’t always in ready supply earlier in Trajillo’s career: “When I was a postgraduate student there were only two female PIs [Principal Investigators] in the whole department, and I was lucky to have one as my co-supervisor.

After my Ph.D., I have held several postdoctoral positions and in six years I only had one female supervisor, here in Trinity. She has been brilliant and nowadays we still collaborate at a scientific level but also we are great friends.

We are always supportive and honest with one another. As a PI myself now, I must say that I am currently the only female fully computational chemist in the School of Chemistry, which unfortunately means, the students are rarely given the opportunity

of having a female theoretician supervisor.”

On the controversial Nature paper, Trujillo says that “by diminishing female mentors they are reinforcing the well-accepted and old-fashioned perspective of what so many of us are fighting against throughout our entire careers: that the best path to success is by working with a big name, white male faculty members and that’s not true.

Women have a strong impact on science and it’s well-recognized that we can achieve exactly the same as any other male scientist.”

Aside from their roles as scientific mentors, female mentors can be instrumental in keeping other women in science and academia, and showing that a work-life balance is achievable.

Dr. Daniela Angione, a senior research fellow at CRANN, thinks the suggestions of the study are “nonsense”. She feels so strongly about the article because of the impact a female Ph.D. supervisor had on driving her career: “Back then she was building her career. I started with her, she was kind of at the beginning of her career, with a family with two kids. And so for me, it was absolutely an inspiration. She was the reason why I fell in love with research and academia. Because not only was she very good at what she was doing, but also very good at transferring enthusiasm and motivation for what she was doing. On top of that, she was a successful woman and she had a family, for me all values that I believed in. She was fundamental for my career in science, in academia.”

“I don’t really understand how a female mentor could create a barrier or slow down a career, I don’t understand. I don’t think that should be the right message to pass on,” Angione says. If anything, she thinks that a particular female mentor can sometimes aid a career by setting an example of work-life balance but also by pushing their mentee to expand their horizons. Angione says it was her supervisor who gave her the opportunity to work briefly in the US and pushed her to apply for a Marie Curie Fellowship which brought her to Manchester, shaping her career. Angione, once starting her work in Trinity, also had a mentor in Professor Paula Colavita, Angione saw how she balanced her research and teaching responsibilities with three children. “I stress this part because now I’m a mother, I have a three years old and I know how hard it is. But without these inspirational figures, I would have never thought that that could be

possible to actually to achieve.”

“The question about the paper is how an editor can actually let a publication like that, with so many flaws, and so many comments from reviewers that weren’t taken into account, to be published,” says Angione. Mentorship, she insists is “not about gender. It’s about how a mentor gives you the opportunity to grow, to develop in your career, the opportunity to learn from the best people in the world. A mentor gives you the tools to understand what you’re doing: writing publications, doing research, being independent. It’s not about gender. So we shouldn’t be taking this into account. I mean, nowadays we are in 2020, there’s not just male or female.”

Professor Isabel Rozas, a medicinal chemist with 20 years of experience lecturing at Trinity, says her early career in Spain she had an unusual surplus of female mentors and contemporaries: “Until I went to Canada as a postdoc, I never had that feeling that being a woman in chemistry was such a big deal. In the Institute of Medicinal Chemistry [in Madrid] where I was doing my research, 90% of the staff were women. It’s unusual, I’m not dreaming that it’s all the same in Spain, but in the particular Institute, most of the researchers were women, so for me, it was the normal thing. Women with kids, without kids, there was a big variety.”

When working in Canada after this she was faced with the polar opposite, there were no female professors or lecturers in the department at all. She was surprised by questions from

“

It all depends on the quality of the mentor, independent of gender

Canadian colleagues about how she dealt with being a woman in the field of chemistry, “I don’t “deal” with it! I mean, it’s a normal thing! I never felt weird for being a woman in Chemistry or that I was an exception or anything like that.”

Rozas states that so many mentors shaped her career and that their gender naturally had no place in the impact they had: “I find any way in which you force one situation or another very dangerous. I don’t think by any means that having a female mentor is going to damage the career of a female mentee. It all depends on the quality of the mentor, independent of gender.”

She also points out that the traditional academic hierarchy doesn’t have a place in her idea of mentorship; that she learns so much from less senior colleagues, from her own mentees, and from students. She gives an example: during lockdown, she received an unexpected email from a researcher she had formerly supervised for her Ph.D. that had spotted a connection with a compound in a paper she was reading and the main compounds focused on by Rozas’ research group which she felt could have applications within Rozas’ work.

A couple a weeks later Rozas was surprised again by another former mentee reaching out; she had found a separate compound which could also have implications for the group’s work and had got in touch. Rozas illustrates how the act of mentoring, is not only beneficial to the mentor, but also a symbiotic relationship where both parties can learn from one another.

The one resounding experience that seems common to all these fantastic women in STEM is this: gender plays no role in their ability to mentor, a successful mentorship partnering is down to the work put in by the mentor and mentee. Though they all agree that we haven’t yet reached gender equality in STEM and that representation and inspiration of other women were integral to their careers, they are in unison that when it comes to mentorship, gender should never be a deciding factor.

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Tuesday 15 December | TRINITY NEWS

Scitech PHOTO BY JOE MCCALLION FOR TRINITY NEWS

The great race of 2020: A look at the frontrunner vaccines against Covid-19 Aoife Kiernan Contributing Writer

O

ver the last few months spent in and out of lockdown, we have seen cycles of the easing and then tightening of restrictions, and decreases and then spikes in the incidence rate of Covid-19. Many have begun to wonder how long we can sustain this new life, and it has become clear that until a vaccine is introduced any change is unlikely. Now, as clinical trials conclude for several coronavirus vaccines, the wait for approval from regulatory bodies and subsequent distribution begins.

The race for a vaccine is currently dominated by frontrunners from Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca/ Oxford, and Johnson and Johnson, with the Pfizer vaccine having already received approval for emergency use from several regulatory authorities. The main technologies used are different from the conventional live attenuated vaccines, which use weakeaned versions of the pathogen, or inactivated vaccines, such as the flu shot, which contains a killed virus.

Vaccines are created to trigger an immune response to an adapted form of a pathogen without causing illness, so the body has the correct systems in place in case it ever encounters the actual pathogen. The protein spikes on the surface of SARS-

CoV-2 are antigens and when they are detected by cells in the immune system, specific proteins called antibodies are produced to attack the virus. Once these antibodies have been created, they remain in the bloodstream looking for pathogens to attack, and the immune system will quickly fight off any SARS-CoV-2 it encounters. The body is also able to produce more antibodies quickly, as the groundwork was already carried out on first exposure to the antigen. This provides long-term immunity to the disease.

The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines differ from traditional vaccines as they do not directly contain the specific antigen, but instead contain viral mRNA (messenger RNA); a type of genetic material that carries information about what proteins are to be made between parts of the cell. The mRNA used in these vaccines encodes the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

When injected into the body, cells cannot differentiate between viral and human mRNA and proceed to build the protein spikes. The body can now recognise the SARS-CoV-2 virus without having encountered the actual virus at all, and with no risk of catching the disease. This causes antibody production and leads to immunity.

The Johnson and Johnson and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines use another method called viral vectors, where a different virus is modified genetically so that it can

produce the SARS-CoV-2 protein spikes. A similar technique has been used for vaccines against the Zika virus. Oxford/AstraZeneca has used a common cold virus that used to infect chimpanzees.

The virus itself cannot replicate in humans, but the protein spike on it still causes an immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Due to the unstable nature of RNA, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines must be stored at a low temperature, which is a concern for vaccine distribution and administration as we reach this critical stage. “The logistics of vaccine administration will depend on the specific vaccine used”, says Trinity immunologist, and Head of the School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Professor Ed Lavelle. “For example, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine can be stored at fridge temperature. At the other end of the scale, the Pfizer/BioNTec RNA vaccine must be stored at -70C but can be stored in a fridge for 5 days.”

Chains of distribution that keep the vaccines at these temperatures will be key, explains Lavelle: “Thermal shipping boxes have been developed that will allow storage for 15 days so if there are central facilities with low-temperature freezers, the vaccines can then be transported to standard vaccine administration sites, for example, GP surgeries. The Moderna vaccine (another RNA vaccine) is stable at -20C (the temperature of a household freezer) for 6 months

and it is thought to be stable in a fridge for 30 days. We will likely use a number of vaccines next year so there will be different protocols for the specific vaccine concerned.”

The speed at which these vaccines have been developed and trialed is an incredible feat: “This has been remarkable, and a testament to the transformation in vaccine development facilitated by new technologies including RNA vaccines and viral vectors. This is likely to have a major impact on the development of new vaccines in the future. However, in addition to the advantages of new technologies, other factors, particularly the enormous financial investment to support Covid-19 vaccine initiatives have been vital.”

These vaccines have been developed very quickly, but that does not mean they have rushed through safety protocols or are unsafe. The effect Covid-19 has had on the world means that the research and testing for these vaccines became the number one priority, resulting in the elimination of many barriers that usually slow down developments.

Traditionally much of the time spent developing vaccines consists of writing grant applications, coordinating with manufacturers, and waiting for approval for trials. These processes accelerated as they were prioritised, and proposals for research related to Covid-19 were reviewed before anything else.

In addition to this, previous

experiences with other coronaviruses, namely SARSCoV-1, meant that scientists had a good understanding of how the immune system responded to the virus and could quickly select the protein spike as a focus for the vaccine, saving significant amounts of time that would have otherwise been spent determining the antigen to focus on. The genetic sequence was made publicly available on January 10 before the World Health Organisation had even declared a public health emergency, meaning research could begin straight away. These newer, gene-based vaccines are much quicker to develop than live attenuated vaccines, as only the genetic code is needed. Massive amounts of funding have been dedicated to developing these vaccines as quickly as possible, which has alleviated any financial barrier that would have slowed down research, trials, or testing.

Usually, companies will not fund development unless they believe their product is likely to succeed. They only fund each stage when the previous phase is completed and the results are promising, which slows down development. In the race to produce a Covid-19 vaccine, money was allocated before previous phases were completed, so planning and preparation could begin in anticipation of a positive result. In short, the next phase was ready to go as soon as the go-ahead was clear from the earlier trial phase. No time was wasted, but no steps were skipped.

In some cases, phases of trials were running simultaneously. This overlap of trials did not cut down the time allocated but simply overlapped some parts of them.

For example, Moderna began its first phase of clinical trials on humans while still testing on primates.

With the final stretch of the marathon in sight, some vaccines are finished clinical trials and are being approved by regulatory bodies, so companies have begun to estimate the number of doses they will be capable of manufacturing.

The overestimation of capacity “is a possibility but the first vaccines, likely to be approved soon, are based on technologies that are very amenable to scale up so we hope that the ambitious targets set by these companies are achievable”, says Lavelle. Pfizer plans to manufacture 100 million doses in 2020 and 1.3 billion in 2021, with each person needing two doses to be adequately protected.

As the public, we can be confident that the Covid-19 vaccines are being tested as rigorously as any others, with the eyes of the entire medical and immunology community firmly fixed on ensuring their efficacy and safety. The speed of their development can be accredited, not to any oversights or carelessness, but to global collaboration and a shared goal of bringing an end to this pandemic.

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Sport

Women in Sport: Why is there so much dropout?

Phoebe Otway-Norwood page 28

Prestigious Pinks announced at Trinity Sports Awards Shannon McGreevy page 30

Six ways to stay active this Christmas

Phoebe Otway-Norwood Deputy Sport Editor

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ecember is here and that means one thing: Christmas holidays.

Assignments are finally done – minus exams. Netflix playing: time to feast. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to sit back, relax and not move a muscle until they remember they have exams and the annual panic begins. However maybe this year is the year to focus on staying active through this festive time to avoid the stress and anxiety that is bound to happen come January as we all realise that we’re going to have to get back to normality.

With no ski trip planned for the Christmas holidays, we are going to have to look someplace else to get our fresh air fix. Here are seven ways that you can stay active over the Chritsmas holidays. Start small and aim for one, as even that will help!

Hiking/Walking If there’s one thing we have in abundance in Dublin, aside from pubs, is a huge amount of beautiful trails for hiking, running, walking, or cycling with the family. While swapping a chilled couch day watching Netflix and eating chocolate for a fresh brisk walk in the cold may not sound that appetising after the fourth day of a Christmas movie marathon, a walk outside will do wonders for your health and also your mood. For those of you who don’t fancy panting up the side of a hill, walks such as the Howth walk or the Dodder walk are brilliant and scenic along with a number of coffee shops for that cheeky half-way latte. For the more adventurous of you, the Dublin Mountains provide a brilliant area for scenic views over Dublin as well as leafy forests and picnic spots. Try out the beginning of the Dublin way in Shankill and hike through Rathmichael woods up to the lead mines and over

to Carrickgolligan to gorgeous panoramic views of Dublin and Wicklow. Try Ticknock for a number of trails that lead to the fairy fort or up to the viewpoint over Dublin.

Swimming One thing we can all take away from Movember, or Coldvember, is that swimming in the sea during the winter is actually not as bad as it may sound. During November there was a huge increase in the amount of people taking the plunge in aid of men’s mental health and judging by the amount of dry robes purchased in the name of warmth, it looks like it’s a trend that is here to stay. While freezing yourself is not everyones cup of tea, there are a large number of health benefits associated with it ranging from reducing stress to improving your circulation.

For the sporty ones among you it can be great for sore muscles by increasing blood flow and reducing inflammation leading to a speedy recovery. Always make sure you are safe while participating in an activity like this. Acclimatise to the water so that shock can be avoided and never go alone. So text a friend over the Christmas period and head off for a dip!

Classes with Trinity Sport Over the first lockdown many of you mastered the art of the online fitness class. Whether that was jump squats in your kitchen or burpees in the garden there was a large uptake in the number

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We sometimes underestimate the health benefits of walking and forget that even the smallest bit of exercise can be beneficial

of people participating in these online classes. Gyms were closed and it became much easier to take part in fitness. It could conveniently be done from the home instead of at the gym and provided a way for people that led particularly hectic lives to no longer skip the gym. Lockdown provided a time whereby we could spend time looking sweaty and ungainly without fear of judgement. In response to this rise, Trinity Sport has released Trinity Sport+; an online platform of fitness classes both live and on demand online with hundreds of videos for all your fitness needs.

With very simple registration and the possibility of paying for more live stream classes, it’s Trinity’s response to the increased demand for online classes so why not try out Zumba or an abs workout. Be sure to give this one a look over!

Yoga For many Christmas is a time of high stress and worry as presents must be bought, food organised and trees decorated. Sometimes just taking a minute to sit and breathe is needed and what better way to do this then through yoga.

There is a huge volume of free yoga classes on YouTube ranging from beginners to master that can help to relax and focus the mind. It can also be a great way to get the body moving and circulation flowing.

Try out five parks yoga for a no frills session or Yoga with Adrienne on

YouTube for a number of targeted classes including ones for your mood. There’s no better time to take a look inwards and reflect on what has undoubtedly been a crazy year.

Ditch the Car We are all guilty of driving the 200m down the road to the local shop instead of just walking. I know I certainly have done that a number of times. We sometimes underestimate the health benefits of walking and forget that even the smallest bit of exercise can be beneficial. Even something as small as walking to the shop helps improve your health. This Christmas try to ditch the car, stick in some headphones and get those steps in.

Enjoy Christmas Many people find the Christmas period a difficult time to manage their expectations around eating and enjoying food. It is everywhere in mainstream media that we must counteract the “damage” we do over the Christmas period by joining gyms and making mad new year’s resolutions to work out like crazy and start working on the summer body we all so crave. The stress surrounding just enjoying your meal time this year is also heightened by having exams after Christmas whereby we will naturally be spending more time sitting down at desks.

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PHOTO BY VICKY SALGANIK FOR TRINITY NEWS

Ditch the car or take a walk in our seven recommendations on what to do this Christmas to stay healthy

There’s no better time to take a look inwards and reflect on what has undoubtedly been a crazy year

It’s important to remember that Christmas is a time for people to come together and spend time with their family, friends, or loved ones eating, drinking and being merry. Enjoy your Christmas dinner - you deserve it.

Above all stay safe this Christmas time and be sure to check in on family and friends alike to see how they are getting on over this stressful year. Happy Christmas!

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Tuesday 15 December| TRINITY NEWS

Sport

Women in Sport: Why is there such a high dropout rate?

We need to have a serious look at how we approach sports Phoebe Otway-Norwood Deputy Sport Editor

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very one in two girls drop out of sport before they reach the age of 20, according to the Women's Sports Federation. That is a ridiculously high number for a country that prides itself on the great outdoors.

Assuming the population is 50% girls and 50% boys: that is 25% of the population that is not taking part in any physical activity on a regular basis. These worrying statistics highlight the need for a revolution in the way in which we approach women’s sports. I don't mean just from the media and the top down; I mean in the way each and every one of us does.

Unfortunately, this is not just a phenomenon that is specific to Ireland as there are similar levels of drop out rates across Europe and the developed world, with the Scandinavian countries typically reporting higher rates of participation. According to the Australian Youth and Confidence Research, over half of the girls quit sport by the age of 17 with a similar trend in Canada which has seen a constant decline in participation rates over the last twenty years. The Women's Sport Federation (WSF) and project Play have concluded that girls of color play less sport than white girls—a worrying statistic for bodies looking to increase their diversity. So why is it that so many girls stop taking part in sports?

The gender gap in sport participation is a situation that has gained recognition recently as brands such as Nike and national federations such as the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) have begun increasing the awareness around women in sport and facilitating easier access through improving sportswear and active campaigns. Although these are having an impact by destigmatizing the reality of women participating in sport, there is still a long way to go to reach parity in genders being physically active.

When looking at the reasons driving women to drop out there seems to be a general theme: fear. Women taking part in sport is only a recent development and for years there has been a general stigma surrounding this

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T here is a perception that boys have superior sporting skills than girls with more resources and time being devoted to male sports as a result participation. This is mostly due in part to the historical emphasis placed on men being the only engagers of sport. Traditionally, women would only do so for leisure and must at all times retain decorum. As a result, men have had hundreds of years of a head start in mastering and monopolising the industry leading to little space for women to make an impact. Examples of this are the gender pay gap whereby outside of tennis which introduced equal pay in 2001.

The highest base salary for a star in the WNBA is $117,000 and for the NBA it's $40 million, a gap of $39,883,000. A similar scene arises in soccer. The best

paid footballer ever was Lionel Messi who made £141 million in comparison with Carli Lloyd who earned $518,000. Messi earned 272 times more than Lloyd. While this large gap can be explained by the lack of publicity surrounding women's championships, it is only the beginning of the selffulfilling perpetual circle of gender disparity in sport. It is also only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reasons for girls dropping out of sport.

As previously mentioned, fear plays a large part in the drop out rate of women which can largely be attributed to the cultural messages we are sending to young girls. It is very common in mixed schools that priority is given to male teams who typically gain more supporters and more funding from the school. On a familial level, it historically was very rare for a family to sit down and watch the Saturday night women's game or the women’s Six Nations, if they could even find coverage of them. Educationally, girls are receiving an entire set of messages at institutional, instructional and interpersonal levels which does not include women in sport, thus failing to help young girls acclimatise to the normality of women in sport.

This is also further supported by the lack of sporting role models for girls both on social media and mainstream media. 65% of girls don’t know of any sporting role models in their chosen sport but could name a male one, which was discovered in a study done by the WSF. To fill this vacuum, many girls have turned to Instagram models and influencers for their role models where impossible beauty standards are prevalent,

many of these body types are unachievable if partaking in sport due to the lack of visible muscle which develops through exercise.

For many girls this is a deterrent as women who are perceived as muscly are likened to men and deemed too big to be attractive: an understandable disincentive for even the most confident of girls. A girl's experience of sport is constantly being devalued by the prevailing social norms.

As a corollary to the stigma surrounding athletic female builds, a large number of girls feel insecure and self conscious about their bodies. According to Vera Lopez of Arizona State University, girls often felt ashamed of their knowledge of sports, especially if they didn't play them when they were younger. They were afraid to make mistakes in case of teasing so it is easier to not participate at all and avoid this possibility. There is also a general perception that boys have superior sporting skills than girls with more resources and time being devoted to male sports as a result.

Through the lack of participation girls are missing out on a number of opportunities which can be afforded to them as a result, both mentally and physically. According to the State of the Nation’s Teenage Girls and Sport quantitative report, 96% of females belonging to the C suite (higher positions such as CEOs) played sport at a young age. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, was on the French synchronized swimming team and Hilary Clinton played Soccer and baseball at university level. Being physically active releases endorphins which help

to improve focus and as such productivity contributing to a healthier lifestyle. It also teaches perseverance and grit which teaches girls to keep going even in the face of adversity.

Fortunately there has been an improvement in the outlook for women in sport as the movement begins to gain more traction.

The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) have put women's rugby front and centre of their recent strategic plan and the Irish Times have announced their Sportswoman of the Year Awards, which will both help to increase the visibility of women in sport. The Federation of Irish Sport has introduced its 20x20 platform which has three aims: increase media coverage, increase female participation and increase attendance with the motto: “if she can't see it, then she can't be it”.

These will help to create a cultural shift in our perception of women in sport. There is also an increase in sports role models such as Katie Taylor or Ellen Keane, the para-swimming European Champion, and the women's hockey team which recently qualified for the Olympics. On a more international level, Mikaele Shiffrin is en route to become the best alpine ski racer in the world aged 23.

With this increased visibility and resources being invested in women's sport, it is now an exciting time to be a girl in the sporting world. The traditional old guard which has monopolised the sporting world for years is disappearing, as can be seen with the new committee of the OFI and a new age of sport is occurring that is much more women focused.

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TRINITY NEWS | Tuesday 15 December

Sport

Tábhacht na folláine do mhic léinn Labhraíonn mac léinn Folláine Aclaíochta agus Sláinte in Ollscoil Luimnigh faoi bhuntáistí aclaíochta agus cothú cothrom do mhic léinn Hazel Ní Bhroin Leas Eagarthóir Gaeilge

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’fhéadfadh, dar liomsa, go mbeadh deacrachtaí ag formhór na mac léinn chun a bheith spreagtha staidéar a dhéanamh an t-am ar fad. Bíonn deacrachtaí agam go minic le spreagadh agus tagann frustrachas orm nuair nach féidir liom díriú ar mo chuid oibre.

Cinnte go bhfuil aithne mhaith ag daoine ar na buntáistí a bhaineann le haclaíocht don folláine ghinearálta, ach, caitear labhairt faoin gcabhair a bhaineann leis maidir le spreagadh d’obair choláiste chomh maith. Chuir mé Mollie faoi agallamh, mac léinn Folláine Aclaíocht agus Sláinte, chun cúpla nod a fháil faoi aclaíocht agus cothú, agus labhraíonn sí faoi conas is féidir leo cuidiú le mic léinn faoi bhrú.

Tá sé an-tábhachtach aire a thabhairt duit féin le linn na bliana acadúla. Bíonn go leor mic léinn faoi bhrú le spriocdhátaí agus scrúdaithe éagsúla, go háirithe um Nollaig, agus deireann Mollie go, “[gcabhraíonn] aclaíocht liom go mór agus mé ag staidéar sa choláiste. Bím níos dírithe ar m’obair tar éis sos a thógáil agus píosa aclaíochta a dhéanamh.”

Bíonn go leor struis ar mhic léinn sa choláiste mar bhíonn freagracht na hoibre ar fad orainn féin amháin. “Ba chóir aclaíocht a dhéanamh go rialta mar chabhraíonn sé le do chuimhne”, a dheireann Mollie, “Fiú muna bhfuil traenáil i gcomhair trí-atlan ar siúl agam, déanaim aclaíocht ar aon nós ionas nach n-imíonn m’intinn ar strae agus mé ag staidéar”.

Níor smaoinigh mé mórán faoin nasc idir réim chothrom bia agus staidéar fiúntach. Tá a fhios ag gach éinne go bhfuil aiste bia cothrom riachtanach i gcomhair sláinte ghinearálta an duine ach, ní dóigh liom go dtuigeann gach duine go gcabhraíonn cothú maith le mic léinn agus iad ag staidéar. “Má tá aiste bia sláintiúil agat, cinntíonn sé go mbeidh tú lán le fuinneamh i rith an lae”. Bíonn sé deacair tú féin a choinneáil spreagtha nuair atá tuirseach ort agus na léachtaí

ar fad ar líne, ach molann Mollie “aiste bia cothrom [a ithe] chun cuidiú leis an bhfadhb seo.” Freisin, i gcaitheamh an gheimhridh, éiríonn daoine tinn go minic ach deireann Mollie go “neartaíonn cothú maith do chóras imdhíonachta, rud a laghdaíonn an seans go mbeidh tinneas ort agus nach mbeidh tú in ann freastal ar an gcoláiste”. Is léir go bhfuil ról ríthábhachtach ag an aiste bia atá agat ar do shláinte chun lántairbhe a bhaint as do staidéar mar mhac léinn. In ainneoin sin, deireann Mollie nár chóir go mbeidh “aiste bia ró-dhian agat ach an oiread”.

Leanann sí ar aghaidh á rá, “is léir na buntáistí a bhaineann le cothú maith, ach, ná bí ró-chrua ort féin - tá sé deacair a bheith sláintiúil 24/7”.

“Má ghlacann tú le mo chomhairle”, a dheireann Mollie, “ba chóir duit plean a leagan amach agus liosta a scríobh le do chuid spriocanna ar fad air.” Nuair atá tú eagraithe, tá sé níos éasca do chuid cuspóirí ar fad a bhaint amach. Is rud fíorthábhachtach é a bheith eagraithe agus tú ag staidéar sa choláiste mar is féidir leis an ualach oibre a bheith iomarcach do dhaoine. “Chroch mé póstaeirí éagsúla timpeall mo sheomra le mo chuid spriocanna ar fad orthu, agus uaireanta éistim le hóráidí spreagúla chun mé féin a choinneáil dearfach”.

Anuas ar sin, ná bíodh aon drogall ort cúnamh a lorg má tá tú ag streachailt. Tá go leor scrúdaithe agus spriocdhátaí ag teacht suas do mhic léinn ar fud na tíre, agus tá sé go hiomlán normálta a bheith ag mothú trína chéile. Ná déan dearmad go bhfuil tacaíocht ar fáil timpeall ort i gcónaí.

Tar éis an agallaimh seo a dhéanamh, tá dearcadh go hiomlán difriúil agam i leith na folláine.

Léiríonn Mollie dúinn an rud is tábhachtaí ar chóir dúinn smaoineamh faoi i gcónaí: cothromaíocht. Cinnte, tá aiste bia agus

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Léiríonn Mollie dúinn an rud is tábhachtaí ar chóir dúinn smaoineamh faoi i gcónaí: cothromaíocht an aclaíocht tábhachtach do mhic léinn mar cabhraíonn siad linn díriú ar ár gcuid oibre, ach, caithfimid sult a bhaint as an t-am atá againn sa choláiste chomh maith.

Ba chóir go mbeidh cothromaíocht agus comhsheasmhacht á lorg againn, ní foirfeacht. “Is é an rud is deacra ná ag seasamh suas agus é a dhéanamh, ach nuair atá sé déanta, beidh tú chomh sásta leat féin”.

Gluais (Glossary) • Cothú - nutrition • Aithne fhorleathan - well-known • Folláine ghinearálta - general fitness • Freagracht - responsibility • Trí-atlan - triathlon • Fiúntach - productive • Córas imdhíonachta - immune system • Ról ríthábhachtach - vital role • Ualach oibre - workload • Iomarcach - excessive • Cothromaíocht - balance • Comhsheasmhacht - consistency • Foirfeacht - perfection

PHOTO BY ZAHRA LOCKETT FOR TRINITY NEWS

Out of Left Field: DU Kayak and Canoe Beginner friendly and also appealing to those more advanced, DUCK offers something for everyone.

Shannon McGreevy Sport Editor

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t’s the ideal sport for not particularly sporty people and athletes alike,” says DU Kayak and Canoe (DUCK) Secretary Bob McLarnon. It is no secret that many mainstream sports like rugby and football can seem intimidating, especially with no prior experience. DUCK is a great club at Trinity for newcomers, as well as those with more advanced skills. Trinity Sport has such a wide range of clubs to choose from, and the DU Kayak and Canoe club is definitely one to try out and become involved in over the next semester.

It's important to engage in activities that can be done in a safe and socially distanced manner in compliance with government guidelines and DUCK is a great place to start. Amaia McDonnell, the club’s treasurer, noted, “My advice to any prospective member is that, especially during Covid times, it is essential for your mental health to get out into the fresh air and get some exercise. Even just one session a week with the kayakers will greatly improve your mood.” Offering a place where students are able to engage in outdoor sport is a selling point for DUCK. McLarnon speaks of this as well, “Since we’re outside and socially distant, we can run activities now that we are back in Level 3. Not many clubs can these days.” All of the lockdowns and changing government restrictions undoubtedly has been hard on the sport clubs at Trinity, but luckily enough, DUCK has been able to stay afloat and continue to build the community they’re so proud of.

Competition Officer Shauna Gurhy speaks of how welcoming those at DUCK really are, “Whether you show up once a week or once a year, you’ll be treated the

exact same. Everyone’s always up for a bit of fun and there’s a great social aspect to this club.” It’s hard to replicate such an open environment in sport, so it is impressive to see here at Trinity and it is definitely worth taking advantage of.

No matter your individual skill with kayaking or canoeing, this club offers a great place to meet some new people when socialising is not the easiest.

However, for those that do have a background in kayaking and canoeing, DUCK does offer avenues to increase those skills and even compete. There’s opportunities to go on more intense trips and discover different kinds of kayaking, as well as an option to get certificates in kayaking and complete a safety course. The club has made some major accomplishments over the years in intervarsities and ICUPS, the Irish College/University Polo Championships. The most recent time the club competed they came in first place in varsities. They also received a nomination by Trinity for their campaign Bridge the Gap, an initiative to try and promote women in the sport.

Oisin Cousins, the club’s OCM, explains that there is a lot more to kayaking than most people think.

“Under the banner of kayaking, there’s actually the opportunity for all types of activities which the club offers access to: freestyle for advanced technical challenges, polo for team-based sport and running rivers for adrenaline infused fun.”

So, if you are interested in a team sport or would prefer to train individually, then the DU Kayak and Canoe club can facilitate this. Some of those on the committee actually had quite a bit of experience. Gurhy says, “I’m a canoe polo player and have been playing for the last six years now. My whole family is quite into kayaking so I would’ve been out on the water a bit when I was younger.” This is nothing to be intimidated by, but rather goes to show that there is a diverse range of experience by those involved.

“All you need to bring is togs, a wetsuit (if you have one), shoes that can get wet and an ability to swim,” says outings officer Cian Butterly. He sums it up quite well.

While this club undeniably has succeeded in high level competitions, it is also a place for a friendly chat out on the water and very beginner friendly.

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Tuesday 15 December| TRINITY NEWS

Sport

Prestigious Pinks announced at Trinity Sports Awards Basketball took home the Club of the Year award for its successes over the last year at the Sports Awards Shannon McGreevy Sport Editor

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ive student-athletes have been awards “Pinks” at the Trinity Sports Awards, the highest sporting award bestowed

by College.

This year’s Pinks were awarded to Conall Hayes from Athletics, Miriam McGinley from Athletics, Robbie Kearns from the Equestrian Club, Diarmuid McGowan from SubAqua and Manon Nouvain from Fencing. These five new names will now accompany many athletes that have been awarded Pinks over the last 93 years.

“University Pinks” are awarded to well-deserving athletes at Trinity who fulfill a set of strict criteria while competing for a University Club at both inter-collegiate competitions and at an international level. They correspond to the Oxford and Cambridge ‘Blues’, and are awarded to a select few every year who have displayed phenomenal performance while studying in Trinity.

Chair of DUCAC Jemil Saidi announced the winners of the nine Trinity Sports Awards last night on December 9.

Opening the awards, Saidi said: “Congratulations to everyone who was nominated for these awards, it shows great determination and commitment on your part and your peers saw this and have nominated you for this award.”

Those nominated for the Volunteer of the Year Award for this year were Ailbhe Noon from the Camogie Club, Simran Saini from the Volleyball Club and Patrick Lynch from the Rifle Club with Saini being the ultimate winner.

Saini volunteered for Volleyball Ireland which included coach training to run social sessions back in college. Her efforts had a large impact on participants and the Trinity club as a whole.

Manus Darby from Basketball, Clodagh Nerney from Karate and Saini again from Volleyball were nominated for the Alum of the Year Award, with Darby winning the category. Darby graduated from Trinity in 2018 and moved to Australia but since then has remained connected to the club.

He has been an active mentor to the club and helped steer them on their path to success.

Maria Jimenez from Volleyball won the Coach of the Year Award,

beating out Shane Noonan from Camogie and Jamie Headon from Trinity Barbell who were also nominated. She has been with Trinity Volleyball for over 6 years, both as a player and a coach. Her coaching has led the club to many victories and it was said that she has been an inspiration to the team.

The Performance of the Year Award nominees were Laura Stack from Camogie for her performance in the Fr Meaghair Cup Final, James Woods from the Men’s Soccer Farquhar Cup Final and the Men’s Volleyball Intervarsity Team. Stack was given the award for her outstanding play in the Fr Meaghair Cup Final, scoring all but two of the points for Trinity over the weekend. She was also named among the best 15 players over all three divisions for the course of the cup.

A long awaited award was the Best Social Media Campaign of the year 2019/2020. The most votes were cast for this award this year.

Among the nominees were Trinity Camogie, DU Kayak and Canoe, Trinity Women’s Rugby and Trinity Barbell, with Trinity Barbell ultimately winning. The campaign helped to grow the female powerlifting team by over 150%.

Next announced was the Club Administrator of the Year Award.

Heather Doyle from Camogie, Aisling O’Driscoll from Basketball, Patrick Devaney from DU Kayak and Canoe, Mark Escoto from Volleyball and Eszti Lujber from the Rifle Club were all nominated for this year’s award. Escoto eventually came out on top when the votes were in. He managed the difficult task of keeping the club organised and active among all of the changes that the pandemic has brought.

The Camogie team won the team of the year award this year, beating out the Volleyball Women’s SSI League Team and the Women’s Varsity Basketball Team.

They won the Fr Meaghair Championship cup this past year after being runners up last year which was a great achievement for the team as a whole.

Stack again from Camogie, Edel Thornton from Basketball and Jill Pitcher Farrell from DU Kayak and Canoe were nominated for the Sports Person of the Year award.

Thornton won for her outstanding performance in both the basketball club and Trinity Meteors and was awarded Player of the Month from Basketball Ireland in December 2019 for Women’s Division I and NBCC’s Female Player of the Year.

Finally, the Club of the Year Award was announced and awarded to the Basketball Club, with Camogie, DU Fencing and Sub Aqua having also been nominated. The men’s team was promoted from Division III and qualified for varsities for the first time in years and the women’s varsity team had an undefeated season.

ARTW

Diego Maradona leaves a complicated legacy Cameron Hill Columnist

“T

he most human of immortals” is the headline of Diego Maradona’s obituary by Rory Smith of The New York Times.

French sports magazine L’Equipe went with “Dieu est mort” on the cover of their November 26 issue. Journalist Ewan MacKenna tweeted that Maradona was “like most true geniuses, a deeply flawed, human, and tortured soul”. One does not need to look too far or do too much digging to understand the legacy of “El Diego.” If your parents are of a certain age and have at least a passive interest in football, even they will have memories of Maradona at the 1986 World Cup. They may have even been at Lansdowne Road in 1980

to see a 20-year-old Dieguito play in an international friendly against Ireland.

That they never experienced first-hand the Argentinian superstar in his pomp is the sort of thing that makes later generations green with envy. It belongs with Italia ‘90 and Ireland’s Eurovision glory years — in that collection of magical moments you feel you missed out on by being born too late. Of course, there is far more to the Maradona narrative than his on-field brilliance. His extravagant lifestyle — dubbed “samba y caramba” by Colm Toibin — was subject to plenty of criticism, and his drug abuse, his short fuse and his friendships with Mafia figures left a sour taste. However, the tragedy of El Pibe de Oro (‘the golden boy’) was ultimately caused

by the tendency of the public to see figures as representative of something larger, a notion alluded to in the headline on the front page of Argentina’s La Nacion: “[Maradona], metaphor of a poor nation”.

Argentina’s intriguing and messy political situation served as the backdrop as Dieguito took his first steps into the world of international football. He made his senior debut for Argentina in 1977, aged 16. A year earlier, the military had seized power after two years of unrest in the country.

Led by General Jorge Rafael Videla, the junta was ruthless in silencing its opponents; thousands of men and women who did not adhere to its ideals were made to “disappear”. According to Esquire, 30,000 people were killed during

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s behind the junta’s seven-year reign. With Argentina set to host the 1978 FIFA World Cup, there was growing international concern that Videla’s regime would use the tournament for political gain.

The 1978 World Cup remains one of the most controversial in the competition’s history. Under the stewardship of Cesar Luis Menotti, who left then-17-yearold Maradona out of his squad for the finals, the hosts won their first World Cup, but their triumph is mired in allegations of cheating and corruption. There were questions raised about Argentina’s 6-0 win over Peru, with some speculating that the match was fixed due to an economic deal between the two countries. But the circumstances around the final were especially suspicious. Argentina’s opponents, a heavily tipped Holland side, fell prey to a range of intimidation tactics. Their team bus was mobbed by Argentinian fans en route to the stadium, and their opponents emerged from the dressing room five minutes late, leaving the Oranje exposed to the vitriol of the home crowd.

Whether these allegations are true or not, the damage had been done, and the national side’s triumph had been tainted.

Add to the World Cup scandal

the catastrophe that was the Falklands War and one begins to see why Argentina’s international reputation was in tatters by the time the junta had been ousted from power in 1983. Safe to say, the country was in dire need of a reason to be cheerful by the time of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

During all the political turmoil, the national football team was going from strength to strength. Carlos Bilardo replaced Menotti in 1982 and began to shape a team at the cutting edge of tactical innovation, with Maradona employed as an attacking midfielder. There were some teething problems at the start — when presented with such an outstanding footballing talent, the problem that plagues many coaches is how you set up a team to best facilitate that player’s abilities. As Jonathan Wilson notes: “[Presenting] one of the most system-driven managers of all time with arguably the greatest individual player of all time could have been one of football’s greatest jokes.”

Bilardo made it work, and when Mexico ‘86 rolled around, he had adopted what he termed viveza, an ultra-attacking style of play designed to give Maradona “freedom to roam” as a second striker. After a reasonably comfortable path through the first two rounds, it was the infamous quarter-final against England that came to define the Maradona and Argentina of that tournament. The first goal — yes, that one — was, in Wilson’s words, “viveza at its worst”; the second goal, sublime.

Maradona captained his side to the final and, with five minutes left and surrounded by three West Germans in the centre circle, he knocked the ball through to Jorge Burruchaga, who would run on to

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Mexico ‘86 is remembered as “the Maradona tournament”, establishing Dieguito’s place alongside Pele, Johan Cruyff, and Ferenc Puskas as one of the greatest to ever play the game

score the cup-winning goal.

Mexico ‘86 is remembered as “the Maradona tournament”, establishing Dieguito’s place alongside Pele, Johan Cruyff, and Ferenc Puskas as one of the greatest to ever play the game.

These comparisons were where the trouble started. Returning to Italy for preseason training with his club side Napoli, he guided them to the first-ever Serie A league championship in 1986/87. But Maradona had been using cocaine since his time at Barcelona, and by the late 80’s, it was beginning to affect his playing abilities.

Moreover, he had played a major role in a violent brawl between Barcelona and Real Madrid players during the 1984 Copa del Rey final and had developed a thuggish reputation.

Meanwhile, Maradona was rapidly falling out of favour back home. Colm Toibin was sent by Esquire to Argentina for a piece on Maradona’s deteriorating popularity among his country’s people. From his correspondence with locals in Maradona’s hometown of Buenos Aires, Toibin was beginning to understand the Argentinian perspectives on their one-time hero, and that the criticism of their Pibe de Oro often had racial undertones.

“Words started to come in, like the word negrito, or ‘a little black guy’,” he revealed on RTE Radio 1 in 2019. According to Toibin, Maradona’s extravagant lifestyle was also becoming a problem: “Some people were talking about his wedding as the most vulgar event to have ever taken place in the history of Argentina.”

Perhaps Maradona was a victim of his own footballing success.

Being compared to other legends of the game meant that Maradona’s flaws were thrown into sharp relief.

As Toibin notes: “There’s a sort of great melancholy in those years especially because they realised what the Falklands War had looked like to the rest of the world and what the ‘disappearances’ had looked like, and now here was Maradona, who was supposed to be a sporting hero. And people looked at Pele as an example - ‘look at the dignity of that man, look at how he comports himself, look at how respectable he is compared to this guy’.”

Maradona ran into a similar problem at Napoli. The Neapolitan public could empathise with Maradona’s status as an outcast; theirs was a city in the deprived Southern part of Italy, looked down upon by the wealthier North.

Writing in The New Yorker, Daniel Alarcon explains that Naples was “thought of as backward, barely part of Italy at all”. The fans showered their cult hero with adulation, which was brilliantly captured in Asif Kapadia’s 2019 documentary, Diego Maradona.

However, they also turned on him. During the 1990 World Cup, Argentina faced hosts Italy in the semi-final in Napoli.

Seeking to exploit their feelings of disenfranchisement, Maradona implored his Neapolitan fans to back Argentina instead. This did

not go down well, and Maradona became a persona non grata in his adoptive home city. Alienated, Maradona increasingly sought comfort in his drug habits and, in Alarcon’s words, “his partying spun out of control”. A doping scandal and the ensuing 15-month ban from football was the final straw, and Maradona returned to Argentina in disgrace.

It’s the occupational hazard of being an unparalleled talent; the eagerness of people to cast you as a symbol of something grander. It is unfortunate that Maradona came along at a time when Argentinians were desperate for a brief respite from fear and shame. Their subsequent depiction of him as a messianic figure was inevitable.

Sport is defined by its characters, those whose personality shines through in their performances.

However, it is often the most compelling characters that make poor role models; indeed, one could argue that the two are mutually exclusive. Pele was a role model. Maradona was a character.

This closing tribute is going to sound strange, given that it is written by someone far too young to have seen Maradona play football live at all, let alone in his pomp - trust me, it wasn’t my decision. But perhaps that is the beauty of Dieguito; merely watching that second goal against England in 1986 is pure joy for any fan of the beautiful game. That image condenses the transcendental figure into

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There were questions raised about Argentina’s 6-0 win over Peru, with some speculating that the match was fixed

his purest form, unburdened by symbolism.

Diego Maradona was an exceptional footballing talent, possibly the finest player that has ever played and will ever play the game. Having read the obituaries following his death it rightly seems to have been enough.

PHOTO BY VINOD DIVAKARAN / COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG

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Out of Left Field: DU Kayak and Canoe Shannon McGreevy page 29

Diego Maradona’s complicated legacy Cameron Hill page 30

PHOTO BY WILLIAM MURPHY / COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG

An autopsy of the inaugural Autumn Nations Cup Will the new tournament become a permanent fixture?

Conor Doyle Staff Writer

N

o v e m b e r internationals are one of the key dates in the rugby calendar.

The last chance for coaches to try out new teams and tactics ahead of the following year’s Six Nations Championship.

It is also one of the few occasions where clashes between Northern and Southern Hemisphere teams are on display. But as with most things, the impact of Covid-19 has changed the lay of the land.

Hampered by the limitations on travel imposed by the pandemic, World Rugby decided to organise a new tournament, the Autumn Nations Cup, instead of the traditional winter fixtures. So how does this new competition work, how has it gone and are we likely to see it again in the future?

Eight teams were invited to take part in the inaugural Autumn Nations Cup: the Six Nations roster

of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales France and Italy as well as perennial European outcasts Georgia and high-flying Fiji.

Teams were broken into two pools of four, where it then operated as a round robin. After those three matches, fixtures would be held between the corresponding positions in each pool (first would play first, second would play second etc.) to determine the winner. This promised at least four games of Test rugby, one more than the traditional November series. Due to the similar lineup, some have wondered if this competition is intended to replace the 2021 Six Nations. While it is an understandable concern, World Rugby have confirmed that this is not the case.

The inclusion of the two new teams offered a few interesting dimensions to the tournament.

Northern Hemisphere rugby has often been accused of being overly-reliant on forwards and not attractive to watch, especially when compared to that played in the Southern Hemisphere.

Many would have hoped that the inclusion of Fiji, a team renowned for their fast-paced and offloadcentric style of rugby might have forced the European nations to adapt or at least posed a new set of problems for them. Alas, we will never know as Fiji were unable

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Georgia have only scored 10 points across three games, all of them coming against Ireland

to participate in any of their pool matches due to an outbreak of Covid-19 within the team.

Georgia, however, will not have seen this as a chance to break the mould but as an opportunity to be included within it. For a number of years, there have been calls for Georgia to be included in the Six Nations and they are not unfounded. The team won’t improve if they only play significantly weaker opposition

and Italy, who were added to the Six Nations roster in 2000, have been below Georgia in the Rugby World Rankings since 2017. In spite of this, Georgia remains on the fringes of European rugby. They weren’t even originally invited to take part in the tournament, but replaced Japan who declined due to their national travel restrictions.

The Autumn Nations Cup provided a golden opportunity for Georgia to show the world why they must be included going forward.

Unfortunately, they haven’t really taken it. Georgia have only scored 10 points across three games, all of them coming against Ireland.

And while the try scored by Giorgi Kveseladze was sensational, it is still a disappointing return.

Of the nine games that have been played thus far, it is safe to say that there have been no upsets. England have performed with the ruthless efficiency expected of Eddie Jones’ men, securing their place at the top of their pool. Their line speed in defence has been particularly impressive as opposition teams find it next to impossible to make any ground. They are now set to take on France in the final.

France, meanwhile, has been flourishing under new leadership.

Head coach Fabien Galthié has shown a lot of confidence in his younger players, such as Antoine Dupont and Matthieu Jalibert,

and it is certainly paying off. Their play is fluid and clever, making full advantage of the numerous playmakers in their backs. France’s versatility is proving to be one of their strongest assets. Having comfortably dispatched Ireland during the remaining fixtures of the 2020 Six Nations, France are just beginning to hit their stride.

And while they’re by no means perfect, the final of the Autumn Nations Cup is sure to be a brilliant game.

The other teams with new head coaches have not been faring as well. Wayne Pivac’s Wales side managed to end a six game losing streak by beating Georgia but have been poor even so. Their organisation across the park is lacklustre and they seem to be lacking any coherent plan of attack.

Just ahead of the tournament, Wales fired their defence coach Byron Hayward. While that can’t be said to explain away all of Wales’ problems, a reshuffle ahead of a competition, especially in an area as crucial as defending, is going to create a number of issues.

Ireland, now being helmed

by Andy Farrell, have also been underperforming of late. Having thrown away a chance to win the Six Nations, many expected the Autumn Nations Cup to be Ireland’s chance to bounce back.

There was also a lot of hype around new caps coming into the fold, particularly Leinster’s James Lowe who is an exceptionally prolific winger. However, despite the shiny new toys at his disposal, Farrell’s men let themselves down by neglecting the basics. Ireland have made an uncharacteristic number of unforced errors and their set pieces, which used to be a key attacking platform, are now a liability.

All in all, the tournament has been a middling success. Fiji being absent from the competition certainly took some of the shine off the first incarnation of the Autumn Nations Cup as every round included a cancelled fixture, rewarding the other team a 28-0 victory. Instead of standing on its own as a new event, the tournament ostensibly felt like Six Nations Lite with half the matches and one team doing nothing every weekend.

It has yet to be announced if the tournament will stay around in the years to come. It seems hard to imagine that the Autumn Nations Cup as it is now could replace the draw of a clash against the All Blacks or South Africa. However, conceptually, the addition of new teams to the European fixture list will only improve the quality of rugby across the continent as time goes on. It may not become a staple of the rugby calendar but the Autumn Nations Cup has been an experiment worth carrying out.