UT Radius 10/23

College Radio Sadie Loughman asks whether college radio is the revival of a dying medium, as Trinity FM continues to offer a platform to showcase exciting and eclectic music.

REVIEW

PREVIEW

“Opera is not for the faint of heart”, writes Saskia McDonogh Mooney as she reviews the Gaiety’s opera version of Faust page 9»

As the Sarah Purser exhibition arrives at the National Gallery, Elly Christopher explores the woman behind the canvas page 10»

Faust

Private Worlds

universitytimes.ie/radius

Volume XV, Issue II

Monday 16th October, 2023

Sarah Browne LITERATURE EDITOR

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A Record of Trinity’s Mind

mind can be changed by literature – so, too, can a university. The make-up of Trinity’s campus monumentalises much of its literary heritage. At Front Gate, two bronze statues emerge from the wildflowers. One of these depicts a man whose body lies in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Along the cobbled stones of Front Square, the Graduates Memorial Building (GMB) leans into your periphery. The society this houses takes its name from the prolific Bram Stoker. Passing the terracotta eaves of the Rubrics and Library Square, there lies a theatre, the eponym of which is Samuel Beckett. If you stray as far as the Hamilton, you’re met with Wilde’s name printed in black and white on the ground floor.

Trinity’s literary heritage exists in bronze, limestone, oak and plastic but also, fundamentally, in paper. The magna opera of writers associated with College were, for the most part, written sometime after they were students at Trinity.

But those writers were writing while they were students – just as students today are. So, where did that work go? In those nascent pieces lies a snapshot, not of what alumni went on to create but of what they were creating within the fences of the grounds. As Robert Yelverton Tyrrell considered it, that work exists as a “record of the mind of Trinity College Dublin”.

Tyrrell understood that, in the anglophone world, literary journals are often the first step a writer takes in their long ascent towards a career in print. Journals provide a smaller stage, a platform for promotion and experimentation.

They are an opportunity to rub shoulders with established writers by sharing the same papered spine. Tyrrell himself set up one of Trinity’s most important creative writing journals, Kottabos.

Named after the Greek game which involves flinging splashes of wine at certain targets, Kottabos was formed in 1869 as a journal for translations of Greek and Latin verse as well as select pieces of poetry and prose in English. Between the year of its establishment and 1895, it produced fifty volumes before being discontinued. The magazine is said to have awoken

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 »

Inside:

Radius Reads page 8 »

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Your Week Ahead page 3 »

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In Our Radius: The Complete Trinity and Dublin Events Guide page 14 »

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The University Times Tuesday 18th October, 2022

‘One Cup of Escapism, Please!’: Why We Overspend on Coffee Ella Parry FOOD AND DRINK EDITOR

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funds towards caffeine. I see a good number of students behave in a similar way.

Maybe the reason for this behaviour is more obvious if we consider its alternative: making coffee at home and bringing it in. This is where most have their first cup of the day. The cost of making a cup of coffee at home is a fraction of what it costs in a café. If take-away is that eye-wateringly more expensive, why do students buy coffee?

Caffeine-induced economic irrationality This behaviour makes little sense to any economically rational person. Looking at my spending, this is the easiest area to cut back in.

I tend to overthink every item I swipe my card for – except for coffee. In fact, coffee is one of the last things I will cut down on.

I would rather convince myself that I do not need a new weekly planner or book from Hodges and Figgis, and redistribute the

Common arguments that do not work Some argue that students have just become snobbish, expecting the best of the best while unconcerned with the cost. Of course, the quality of café coffee is better compared to that made at home in a cheap French press. However, students cut back on quality in other areas of their lives. Others might say that students are lazy and lack the necessary time management skills to

ILLUSTRATION BY PRINCESS OMOZUSI FOR THE UNIVERSITY TIMES

am on Ussher 4, desperately trying to learn from last year’s mistakes and catch up on some work. The first hour goes well, I am making significant progress and feeling about as humble as Zeus. The youthly hubris does not last long – hour two sees decreasing productivity. Is Economics even real? Hour three starts and I find myself looking everywhere but at my notes. Time is creeping by.

I am simultaneously bored and overwhelmed. Ah, the college experience! I escape the situation the only way I know how – I reach for my phone and text my friend the magic word: “Coffee?”

I walk down the Ussher stairs, taking care to tread on every bubble I see.

Outside, I meet my friend, who is kind enough to join me in my endeavour and enable my library escapism.

Walking past the cricket pitch, everything seems much less serious. The grey cloud above my head is lifting and I start to develop

an annoying spring in my step.

Before I know it, we have reached our destination.

I open the door to Honey Truffle, my current favourite café just opposite Goldsmith Hall. I order an oat milk (no additional charge here!) cappuccino with two extra shots. We walk back to campus, sit on a bench, and chat. In an estimated 30 to 300 minutes, I will return to the library, refreshed.

The humble coffee break is hardly uncommon in my circle of college friends and acquaintances. But why do we spend so much of our time, and money, on coffee?

set these few minutes aside every morning. I would advise such critics to look at the energy poured into the average arts block outfit.

Does our consumption of coffee solely stem from our lack of self-organisation? I do not believe it does.

I would even argue that it makes me more productive.

If its net effect was negative, why would so many employers provide coffee machines in their place of work? This too encourages social interaction between co-workers and gives them a break from staring at a screen. It encourages the more time-intensive alternative of getting up and making your coffee at your place of work compared to asking employees to bring their own beverages to work. Businesses know the importance of social interactions for productivity. This is a way to combine their employees’ caffeine needs with their social needs.

Alternative explanation: Coffee as a ritual I do not believe that our coffee consumption is a product of our financial

carelessness, but rather a subconscious expression of our need for breaks.

The coffee that you get from a café satisfies a very different set of needs than the coffee that you make at home. Bringing your own coffee or beverage of choice into college means that you can consume it at any time. You could drink it while working, during a lecture, or on the rushed walk to a tutorial. The break it creates in your day is no longer than the time it takes you to unzip your bag and unscrew the lid. It will merge into your routine rather than compartmentalise it. Getting a coffee is the non-smoker’s cigarette break. It enables a change of setting and a change of mindset.

A cup of coffee is a small luxury. Bringing your daily supply of coffee into college means depriving yourself of this expensive, but comparatively affordable, act of self-love. It can be social when you want it to be. It is a time to pause and reflect.

To me, coffee has become a ritual, and not one I am willing to give up for the sake of my budget.

Embarking on a Pub Crawl is Students’ Modern Quest Saskia McDonogh Mooney CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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he pub crawl is probably one of the most common modern quests people embark upon. Participants have a path laid out, a list of pubs to visit throughout the evening, but they don’t really know where they’ll end up or even who they’ll be at the end of the night. A pub crawl is people throwing themselves headfirst into the promise of chaos, arms flung out to embrace whatever life will throw their way.

This quest is a test of fortitude, social battery and tolerance. A test of one’s ability to continue rally-

ing and to seize the night.

It also often becomes an opportunity to meet new people and form stronger connections.

As a result, pub crawls have been the answer PHOTO BY DU FILM VIA INSTAGRAM

for some organisations who want to deepen their bonds. At least this was the thought process for Trinity’s Dublin University Film Society (DU Film) and Dublin University Photography Association (DUPA), who hosted a pub crawl on September 22nd as a part of Freshers’ Week.

“We chose a pub crawl because we thought it’d be a great way to let new freshers loosen up a bit and get to know each other. We have other weekly events but this allowed people to see the local nightlife around Dublin and make new friends”, said Andrew Kingston, DU Film’s ents officer.

The pub crawl began at the Pav and each location afterwards was given a time

limit that the large group of new members could not exceed.

“I think the schedule is the best and worst part of the pub crawl”, said Kingston. “It gives people some excitement of going to the new place, but can be a little intense for some people because it’s a lot of moving around and finishing drinks quickly at times,” he continued.

Beyond this, pub crawls can be intense for other reasons, aside from being riotously fun. Simon Pegg and Edgard Wright’s movie The World’s End captures this in a number of ways, simultaneously dramatising the pub crawl by placing it in the context of the world truly ending, and shedding light on the way

people normalise drinking to an unhealthy degree. The movie explores alcoholism as well as the fun that can be had when drinking is not used to escape your problems.

It’s important to recognize that the romanticisation of pub crawls can also make people feel ostracised if they are unable or unwilling to drink for any reason, as well as perpetuating a culture of binge drinking instead of reaching out for help. However, (if done responsibly and as safely as possible) considering the goals of a pub crawl, they are a guaranteed adventure. “[It] offers something different and a fun and different way to see the local area. People are generally in very high spirits and enjoy

taking part in whatever rules are in play,” Kingston continued.

For anyone looking to organise a pub crawl, the internet has a plethora of advice to give on best practices, including outlets like The Sunday Times. In putting the pub crawl together, one has to keep in mind the distance between the locations, especially considering that, as the night goes on, people may truly be crawling. And if it’s a larger group, the organisers will likely need to reserve tables.

It can also be completely spontaneous. It’s a personal quest. It’s whatever the pub crawlers want to make of it.

The only thing that’s sure is that it won’t be a dull night.

Just drink water and go with the flow.

The University Times Tuesday 18th October, 2022

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Observations

Your Week Ahead

Musings on the Past Month

Maisie Greener

As I write this more than two thousand miles from Dublin, I feel my Trinity withdrawals heightening.

Nothing antagonises my Erasmus-induced FOMO quite like compiling and contributing to an issue of Radius. At this stage in the Michaelmas term, you have hopefully begun to settle into a routine and acclimatise to college life. Alternatively, if you’re still dragging Freshers’ Week out, power to that too. Whatever

your prerogative, this issue of Radius is sure to give you the artistic and cultural fix your college timetable is presumably missing. Sadie Loughman investigates the phenomenon that is student radio, Molly Wetsch reflects on MoLI’s evening offerings and Ella Parry forces us to confront our extreme coffee spending habits.

Alternatively, Alex Payne is back with another instalment of his series ‘The Fast Supper’. This edition brings you a budget friendly and (almost) authentic recipe for a bolognese sauce, perfect for meal prepping and likely to impress someone special.

And this is just scratching the surface.

October is a month of transitions and, to honour that, we’ve supplied this instalment with reviews of what has passed and previews of what to look forward to. As work inevitably ramps up, don’t let it be at the expense of your cultural calendar, especially you freshers. We mandate it.

Barrett, Ella and I are proud to present this second issue of Radius!

There’s sure to be something in these pages for everyone, as well as a complete guide to the cultural events around Dublin this month.

College Radio: Revival of a Dying Medium?

Sadie Loughman MUSIC EDITOR

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erhaps The Buggles were right when they said video killed the radio star, but radio is not yet dead. It is instead probably curled in a heap on the floor, drawing its final raspy breaths. The arrival of television was the first blow to radio’s popularity – where the radio was once a primary source of music and entertainment, images could now take over its pictureless drone. People became accustomed to seeing their favourite music stars on live television, with Top of the Pops broadcasting acts from Nirvana to the Spice Girls. But the radio was still useful in other regards, like the car. Long journeys could be made less boresome with an array of music chosen by radio hosts, chat segments and news updates. Even so, there is now such a prevalence of streaming platforms that we no longer have to rely on the radio, hoping that they might play a song we like. Instead, we can create carefully chosen playlists and listen to podcasts of our niche interests without hassle. So where does this leave radio?

Radio listenership in Dublin remains high. According to a 2023 study by Joint National Listenership Research, 57 per cent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 in Dublin listen to the radio at least once a week. This number increases in older adults to 72 per cent. But it is a sordid affair.

One might tune in to SPIN 1038 to have their ears assaulted by the same Justin Bieber and DJ Snake song that has been playing since 2016, or, more likely, Dermot Kennedy. If not, then perhaps an ad about being an ad-free station, or better yet some incomprehensible game in which listeners must call in to be in with the chance of winning the trip of a lifetime.

The radio today is monotonous. If one listens for too long, they soon

become unable to distinguish where one song ends and another begins, as each bland tune sung by a white man slides imperceptibly into the next.

This dreary homogeneity is enough to leave one in utter defeat.

The statistics don’t lie — Dublin radio plays mainly white, male artists. Between June 2022 and 2023, only one in four songs played were by women, and less than 20 per cent of songs played were by artists of colour. Irish artists have much to offer, but their own radio stations won’t even give them airtime, with 78 per cent of songs played being from international artists. Moreover, the prospects of hearing new or underexposed music are slim. Movements have been made to broaden the platform, with demands for the release of more radio licences, encouraging the creation of niche stations which can offer deep cuts and undiscovered gems to their audience. But with Joe Duffy’s seemingly eternal reign, and the RTÉ conglomerate of radio presenters (all of whom have the same insufferable accent), there is not much hope.

This all begs the question: can college radio offer a better solution?

Although we live in a multimedia world full of choice, having someone else curate our listening can be fun, especially if it is one of our peers.

College radio can offer exposure to less well-known artists and its importance to the culture cannot be overstated. Particularly in the early 90’s, US college radio was a haven for discovering obscure music and subgenres. Bands like R.E.M., U2, The Smiths and The Cure can all attribute their rise to fame to this outlet.

College radio acts as a distributor for fresh, exciting music, often away from the mainstream. It has its finger on the pulse of the younger generations’ interests.

Here in College, Trinity FM (TFM) is Ireland’s only student-run radio station, boasting a broad array of shows.

One can tune in on weekdays from 3 p.m. to midnight to hear anything from jazz, to lively conversation amidst spontaneously chosen songs, to retro hits. As well as their regular broadcasts, TFM’s sub-committee Top Floor Music is host to small, intimate acoustic concerts, highlighting acts on campus such as EVIE, Last Apollo and Lifts. The aim of the society, says chairperson Daisy Speaker, “is to bring a meaningful and accessible platform to students across College”.

With 484 members in 2022 and 166 daily listeners since its new broadcast schedule in October 2023, TFM is an ever-expanding platform.

TFM can be found through its online broadcast. Although it’s a move away from the analogue radio of the 20th century, which relied on limiting radio wave signals, it is no less of a grassroots production. The station maintains a comfortable, easy-going feel for its listeners, while also being accessible worldwide.

Speaker goes on to say: “Many of our members apply for shows just to chat with friends about what they find is important to express: interpretations of art, literature and film, stances on current affairs and our place in the global space, or even just what they’ve been up to as Trinity students.

Others just play music, choosing to share their thoughts, feelings, and anything else they wish to get out there differently”. What college radio boils down to, particularly TFM, is a voice for “passionate students”, functioning dually as a means of self-expression for its members and as entertainment for its listeners.

Radio has the potential to survive its existential crisis through our generation – as long as accessible and approachable communities like TFM continue to exist.

So the next time you turn on the radio and feel the ever-impending doom of hearing the same stale and uninspired rotation of songs, instead tune into Trinity FM.

Our Pick of Events Around Trinity This Week TUESDAY

ELLIE GOULDING AT LAWSOC THE GMB, 10AM You’ve heard of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at Woodstock.

Enter: Ellie Goulding at LawSoc. If you’re a student who identifies as Gen-Z you’ve heard Ellie Goulding before and you know it. If not, you’ve still definitely heard of Ellie Goulding before. As a result of her massive appeal, Law Soc is urging students to show up early to get a seat.

The event starts at 10am, so hopefully you’re well recovered from the night before by then.

WEDNESDAY

STITCH AND BITCH ELIZ ROOM, 5-7PM The Knitting Society will be hosting a Stitch and Bitch on Wednesday evening from 5-7pm. For those not in the know, the event consists of knitting or crocheting and spilling the tea. For those still unconvinced, knitting is really easy to pick up, and knitters are renowned for having the best craic.

THURSDAY

HALLOWEEN HOWLER THE BUTTON FACTORY, 11PM-LATE DU Food and Drink, in collaboration with Ents, will be hosting the ‘Halloween Howler’ at The Button Factory.

“Who’s on for music?” you might be wondering. Luckily for all, it’s DUDJ. If you’re going, make sure to wear a costume, as the scariest dressed attendee will be winning a prize. Tickets are selling on Eventbrite for €5 and the event starts at 11pm, going until late.

FRIDAY

HIST GUINNESS WORLD RECORD CELEBRATORY DINNER THE DINING HALL, 7PM On Friday night the Hist will be hosting a celebratory dinner in recognition of their recently gained Guinness World Record for Oldest Student Society.

Tickets are €20, and if that makes you balk, just remember that this is a once in a lifetime event.

How often have you been peripherally associated with a Guinness World Record? And with all your good friends from the Hist? Now’s your chance.

Don’t miss out.

The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

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Inside the Launch of Ireland’s First Sustainable Boutique Eloise Sherrard and Hanna Valila DEPUTY AND ASSISTANT FASHION EDITOR

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n September 14th, we travelled to the quaint town of Naas to attend the launch of Aoife Rooney’s brand new sustainable fashion assemblage. Conscious Atelier hosted a lavish event showcasing the exceptional pieces produced by some of Ireland’s most esteemed fashion designers who all exemplified different approaches to sustainable and circular fashion in their garments.

The classic interior of the boutique, paired with a free flow of prosecco and the DJ’s techno soundtrack perfectly reflected the opulence of the luxurious clothes and jewellery on display.

Friends and family of Rooney, together with highly esteemed individuals from Ireland’s fashion scene – and of course ourselves from The University Times – had the pleasure of meeting and mingling with the incredible artists behind the pieces. The new concept boutique offers clothes and accessories from Rooney as well as other designers, who all approach sustainability in a different way; from bamboo fabrics to recycled garbage, Conscious Atelier proves that there is more than one approach to shunning fast fashion.

Despite loving every glamorous detail of the event, the highlight of our evening was the opportunity to speak with the incredible woman behind the concept of Conscious Atelier, Aoife Rooney. When asked to summarise Conscious Atelier in a single sentence, Rooney described it as “a boutique for designers championing sustainability”. She went on to comment more specifically on the designers involved: “Some of the designers are

PHOTO BY HANNA VALILA FOR THE UNIVERSITY TIMES

circular, some sustainable.” This double approach to sustainable fashion really highlights the extent of the boutique’s mission, as sustainable fashion focuses on limiting the use of our world’s natural resources in fashion and circular fashion focuses on keeping these resources and materials in circulation rather than creating new ones. Rooney further emphasised this in saying “my products are made from waste and pollution”.

She then went on to share why this is by quoting some insightful yet frightening statistics: “49 per cent of the 79,000 tonnes of waste in the Great Pacific Ocean is actually fishing nets. They float around the ocean killing all sorts of marine life...

They float down to the coral reef, changing the whole atmosphere/ecosystem and we get a lot of our medicines for the many serious diseases like cancer from the coral reef… And plastic just degenerates, it doesn’t biodegrade. They say we eat a credit card of microplastics a week.”

She then went on to highlight Conscious Atelier’s role in combating these terrifying statistics. “We are on a clean-up mission. We work with healthy seas to retrieve all of those fishing nets out of the water. We also donate a percentage of our profits to healthy seas to enable them to create all sorts of educational initiatives for children, teaching them about conservation, because inevitably that’s the generation who are going to have to do the clean up.”

She then concluded by summarising Conscious Atelier’s core philosophy of sustainability. “So our brand is all about a clean-up, it’s all about giving back, it’s a nod to the next generation that we actually care. We want to showcase how we can do things very differently. We’re an award winning circular fashion brand”.

Interview 1: Laoise Carey, Laoise Carey Studio Laoise Carey from Laoise Carey Studio is one of the many fabulous designers showcased by Conscious Atelier. Turning vintage textiles and fabrics into hand-crafted garments, Carey offers a collection of pastel colours in fun patterns and textures. She is an active member of the sustainable design community in Ireland, which is how she met Aoife Rooney, and was invited to display her beautiful pieces at the brand new boutique. Carey praised the concept and event for bringing together designers, consumers and general lovers of sustainable fashion.

Interview 2: Sharon Farren, Kokoro Zenware Sharon Farren got her start in fashion design with her boyfriend’s grandmother’s sewing machine, which she used to pay for rent in college. She had learned to sew

from her own mother and grandmother, and this launched her fascination for fabrics. Farren was driven by the desire to make a difference and, after much research, found her alternative to plastics and polyesters: bamboo. The supergrass replenishes itself in 24 hours, making it easily renewable, as opposed to cotton.

Farren thus created her brilliant brand Kokoro Zenware, which has also found a home at Conscious Atelier.

Interview 3: Julie Lawlor, Bold Lines Jewelry Bold Lines Jewellery is to be available at Conscious Atelier starting in November 2023. Julie Lawlor, the mastermind behind the brand, gets her inspiration from architecture, which is reflected in her minimal geometric designs. Her brass, sterling silver and gold plated pieces come ready-to-wear or on commission basis. Lawlor, originally from France but now working from a studio in Kildare, connected with Aoife Rooney at a networking event. Even though her pieces were not on display yet, Lawlor was more than happy to attend the fabulous Conscious Atelier launch event and tease her involvement with the store at the end of the year, which will no doubt prove to be a beautifully dazzling sight to behold.

Finally, to conclude the launch, as well as to simultaneously mark the exciting beginning of what looks to be a very bright and promising future for Conscious Atelier, Rooney offered a very enticing invitation: “If you want to shop sustainable this Christmas, come down to the Conscious Atelier!” And I think we can speak for everyone, or at least for ourselves, when we say that we would be starry-eyed to wake up to the sight of a Conscious Atelier present under our trees come Christmas morning!

Ten Hail Marys Electrifies the Crowd at Grand Social Caoimhe Bolton CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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he Irish Music Festival kicked off an array of music-oriented events in the week starting October 2nd.

There was something for everyone, ranging from jazz to techno, and all else in-between. There is no doubt that music taste is very personal, but the Irish Musical Festival aims to give people a safe space to enjoy the amazing talent that Ireland has to offer. The Grand Social in Dublin’s City Centre took this opportunity to put on a week-long showcase of Dublin’s newest up-and-coming acts, including Fizzy Orange, Morgana and of course, Ten Hail Marys.

October 5th saw Ten Hail Marys take

The Grand Social stage in true indie-rock fashion to perform some of their most loved singles. The three-piece group didn’t fall short of providing a provocative performance that had the crowd joining in on every hook. Adam Cullen, on guitar and vocals, left nothing to the imagination in his dedication to each song, while Jake Murray on drums and Dillon Doyle on bass provided an unfaltering live rendition of their favourite pieces. Their songs are reminiscent of the sound of Fontaine’s D.C., though perhaps this is a claim that befalls too many Dublin artists. However, the band undeniably also have their own sound too, with hits like ‘Yours Truly, Little Pixie’ drawing on folkier guitar styles.

Ten Hail Marys unfortunately did not play their hit ‘So Young’, despite its popularity amongst their listeners. This

choice would point towards a deliberate attempt to edge their music towards a different sound. The Dublin-based band ended their charged set, after thirty minutes of utter engagement from the crowd, with a genuine message of thanks to all those who have supported the band up until what was arguably one of their most important gigs to date. In the leadup to the end of the year we will hopefullly see more live events scheduled for

this trio to showcase what they have been working on. Ten Hail Marys are proving themselves to be the ones to watch in the saturated scene of indie-rock across Dublin creatives. Undoubtedly their lyrics paint a portrait with the sound to colour it in, it is no wonder the crowd was left begging for “one more tune!”

With several singles released, Ten Hail Marys can be found on Spotify and Apple Music.

PHOTO BY WEAREOKAY VIA INSTAGRAM

The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

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An Evening at MoLI Molly Wetsch DEPUTY LITERATURE EDITOR

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he Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) is a rewarding, if entirely unexpected, place to find yourself on a Friday night. But if you can spare one night a month out of your prior commitments to Coppers, Doyle’s and wherever else you choose to make poor decisions on a night out, the museum will make your noble sacrifice well worth it.

MoLI’s First Friday events take place on the first Friday of every month. During the event, admission to the main exhibition is free, which includes a displayed first edition copy of James Joyce’s

Ulysses, along with a slew of events hosted by various figures in the literary community. An endearing place at night and bolstered by its recent Europa Grand Prix award (the European Commission’s most prestigious award for cultural heritage), MoLI weaves history and literature together for a must-see showcase.

In conjunction with the Dublin History Festival, Donal Fallon and Jimmy Murphy discussed author Anthony Cronin’s iconic memoir Dead as Doornails. Fallon, author of Three Castles Burning, and playwright Murphy led a winding recap of Cronin’s life in bohemian Dublin, taking particular pause to discuss literary pub culture and other writers in Cronin’s life such as Brendan Behan and Patrick

Kavanagh.

The two men’s exchanges were filled with as much sharp wit and frankness as Cronin’s memoir.

They rattled off dates, names and streets so easily that one couldn’t help but walk away a bit humbled and with interest piqued in the Dublin of the past, as well as a respect for Cronin’s craft.

“If he hadn’t existed, so much of our culture would collapse,” Murphy said during the event.

Eva Kenny, one of the first authors to earn a spot in MoLI’s new Writer’s Room (along with Nicole Flattery), also read from a workin-progress piece that is, she said, part of a larger collection of short stories and essays tentatively titled ‘Colonialism with Nowhere to Go’.

The piece reflects on her time

spent in Brooklyn, New York in the era of Obama’s early presidency and the blossoming of social media, when the people around her longed for the comforts of the past. She notably compares her experience to one that is much more provincial, that of pickling and mason jars which seemed to speak to the non-modernity that the city was craving. The story abounds with saloons, general stores and petticoats, somehow all seeming wholly in their place in the modern city overrun by millennials.

Kenny’s ability to keenly and carefully construct such a vivid picture of the time period is remarkable, and it helps that she’s truly funny as well: the audience spent more time laughing at her satire of a modern era than not.

First Friday events offer a new look into the museum, give visitors a chance to see exhibitions without the crowds and are particularly helpful to students who may not want to shell out the full price of a ticket. With attendees both young and old at the event, it’s clear that MoLI is taking advantage of the robust history it represents, never taking a one-sizefits-all approach. As the jury of the European Commission remarked: “This museum is remarkable in its success in reaching out to lovers of literature and non-traditional audiences alike, and in raising awareness of Ireland’s rich literary heritage.”

Tickets to First Fridays are free, but must be booked in advance through the MoLI website..

Ireland Music Week 2023: TikTok and Brand New Sounds Joline Steinhoff CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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he light was kept out by red velvet curtains and scarcely brought back in by dimly lit chandeliers. In this gloomy setting, the wide-eyed, eager audience waited with excitement for the show to start.

Ireland Music Week (IMW) took place for its 21st year last week, from Wednesday through Friday.

Since its inception in 2003, this yearly festival is crucial for new up-and-coming artists to showcase their music, get noticed, and find new listeners. During the day, industry professionals go on and off stage for panels, workshops and masterclasses. At night, emerging artists get a chance to perform and the audience gets the chance to see and hear it. It’s an incredible opportunity for new artists to network and be discovered. Past successes include Fontaines D.C., as well as Hozier in 2013 — the biggest breakthrough act to date.

‘Artist’ rhymes with… TikToker Picture this: you work hard on your new album and, after months of long hours, headache-inducing songwriting sessions, recording and producing, it is finally ready.

Now, you need to work even harder to self-promote it, so that you might go ‘viral’ on TikTok. There is no question that TikTok is a powerful tool for artists — it allows them to boost their career

and build a fanbase. It was made evidently clear throughout the panels and the TikTok workshop that took place at IMW this year.

On music discovery, artist manager Maya Petrovic and Ismay Bourke from Warner Music Ireland agreed that TikTok is an effort worth making. Darina Connolly, the head of label & artist partnerships at TikTok, insisted on the importance of experimenting, keeping the content rolling, and most of all, staying patient.

Fans don’t want good music, they want good music and an artist they can relate to — a friend, an everyday person, somebody that eats, sleeps, laughs and cries, just like them. They want to know more and TikTok is just the place for artists to share more: what kind of cereal they had for breakfast, or what outfits they wore during the week. Rapper SELLÓ says he found navigating the platform difficult, admitting that he gets his little sister to help him with it. On getting over the “cringe” of posting TikToks, he advised new artists to just keep posting: “the more you post, the less you care”. One day, it works, and it makes it all worth it.

So, what does work? How does one ‘go viral’ and ‘blow up’?

The answer is short and sweet: authenticity. Petrovic, Bourke and Connolly insisted on the importance of artists staying authentic and true to themselves. After the Instagram filters craze of the 2010s, we now want something real. The curated, heavily edited content that we were fed for many

RACHAEL LAVELLE, PHOTO BY IMW VIA INSTAGRAM

years is not satisfying us anymore.

Ironically, we’re hungry for less.

Polished content is no longer desirable, but stripped back, funny, awkward, embarrassing and relatable content is all but guaranteed to find success.

TikTok seemed to be at the centre of the panels, but IMW covers other very important topics, such as the mental health of artists, climate consciousness in the industry, accessibility and gender roles.

The talks are extremely valuable, not only for aspiring industry professionals, but for artists themselves. Imagine playing a sport without knowing the rules: just because you are excellent at kicking a ball, it does not mean you are a pro at playing football. The guest speakers at the panels are artist managers, PR agents, sync agents, music supervisors — they are the people you, the artist, will work with. More importantly, they make up the world you choose to enter when embarking on a serious career as a musician. The world that you will work, evolve, grow, and succeed in. This world,

like any world, has its own way of working, with its own rules and its structures. If you are an aspiring artist, I cannot urge you enough to also attend the conferences at IMW, and not just the showcases.

Fresh sounds: Rachael Lavelle, Brad Heidi and Caleb Kunle The showcases of IMW took place on six stages across four different venues. 50 new artists got ready to show everything they had been working on, while industry professionals, and a passionate audience, were ready to hear it.

On the top floor of The Grand Social, the dream-pop sound of Rachael Lavelle echoed through the room. Her voice resonated like the haunting call of a siren, carried by waves of dreamy electro synth, before finally breaking on shore with spoken word passages.

In moments of silence, the floor vibrated with sounds from the showcase happening downstairs, begging to be heard. Dragging us, the audience, into the next world, until Lavelle brought us back.

The Dublin-born artist released

her second single, ‘Let Me Unlock Your Full Potential’, four years after her first. However, she has made herself present on the music scene, performing with various bands, and featuring on Villagers’ album, Fever Dreams. The captivating and unique sound of Rachael Lavelle is one to look out for.

Downstairs, Brad Heidi and his band put on soulful pop. The upbeat melodic sound left the audience tapping their feet and bobbing their heads. All five members of the band squeezed together on the small stage while the heartfelt lyrics spilled into the room, underlined by a punchy bassline and nostalgic keys. Galway-based Brad Heidi has definitely broken through, opening for James Blunt, charting with his debut EP, and becoming the most followed Irish artist on TikTok in 2022.

Onto the next stage, where Caleb Kunle offered a delicious blend of soul, jazz and folk, and a vibrating stage presence. Between each song, Kunle told inspiring stories, about how he recently became a father, about how he started busking on Grafton street.

The singer-songwriter draws on both his Nigerian and Irish background to tell stories full of emotion and authenticity: the good and the bad, the light and the dark. His invigorating voice, accompanied by compelling instrumentals, brought the audience together in a celebration of what it means to be alive in the modern world. Kunle’s name is definitely one to remember.

The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

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« CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

the world to the intellectual potential of the ‘silent sister’ college – the condescending epithet gifted by the other ancient universities to Trinity for its lack of output. The work that appeared in Kottabos, although at times concerned more with style than ideas, was not solely devoted to the classical. With contributors such as Oscar Wilde, Edward Dowden, Arthur Perceval Graves, Standish O’Grady and T. W. Rolleston, the magazine demonstrates the reaches of those early talents with a variety of satirical, tragic and comic pieces. Kottabos, with its innovative scope, went much further than Trinity. On Valentine’s Day 1882, Rolleston wrote in a letter to Walt Whitman: “I sent you a Kottabos yesterday with ‘Calvin Harlowe’ in it”.

With his magazine, Tyrrell left a legacy of a Dublin literary society that nurtured writers – values that are now unquestionable cornerstones of College.

Kottabos was not, however, the first of its kind on campus.

In 1833, a group of Trinity men

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established the Dublin University Magazine. Despite opening its first issue with a pledge to promote Tory principles, the magazine went on to pioneer various political voices and was one of the first periodicals of its kind to print pieces in Irish. The magazine was not officially or financially associated with College but had, in its beginnings, its focal point within Trinity

to write that he was “bound as a convinced intelligence, to be present at your Grand College Breakfast”. It was in this magazine that Sheridan Le Fanu published his first story (he later went on to become editor and owner), which may have been where seventeen-year-old Bram Stoker first encountered the work that later inspired his most famous novel, Dracula.

Despite their successful careers, both magazines were eventually discontinued, as is common amongst smaller university publications.

Icarus, however, succeeds them both. Since its inception in 1950, Icarus has run longer than either Kottabos or the Dublin University Magazine and boasts contributors and editors of equal consequence.

These include Seamus Heaney and Frank O’Connor. As it enters its 74th year, I sat down with the editors, Charlotte Moore and Eloise Rodger, to reflect on the importance of the journal.

The reason for its longevity, Rodger said, could be attributed to the “feeling of universality” it possesses, which “allows it to rise beyond various years, beyond various social groups”.

Agreeing, Moore added: “There are no confines. Icarus is not only looking for the modern and the now but instead for what people around Icarus are making regardless of any other draw or pull”.

Notwithstanding its name, Icarus has largely departed from the classical roots from which many Trinity publications germinated. “We’re in such an era of free verse,” Rodger says.

Forms and ideas may have been freed from the strictness of the past but the same value is placed on skill and precision as in any other epoch. Both Moore and Rodger are interested “in quietudes, in subtlety,” in work that “feels very intentional, slowly created, created with

In those nascent pieces lies a snapshot, not of what alumni went on to create but of what they were creating within the fences of the grounds. walls. To celebrate its establishment and to officially launch the magazine, the editors had the idea of inviting the “most distinguished literary characters in the United Kingdom” to Trinity for a College breakfast on July 1st, 1833. They viewed the breakfast as the “most eligible mode of marking the festal nature of the day”.

With typical Trinity ambition, they wrote not to minor figures but instead to the likes of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge – both of whom accepted the invitations. Coleridge went so far as

ICARUS VOL. 73 NO. 1 (2022). COVER: ‘AT THE KITCHEN TABLE’ BY ISOBEL MAHON

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PHOTO BY CATHAL EUSTACE

thought and patience and new ideas”. Icarus accepts poems, short stories, essays, drama, visual art and work that blurs the boundaries between these categories: “It’s art – it includes any kind of creative surge.”

We spoke about the impact social media has on literature.

co-editorship: “We want it to be that if you get into Icarus it means that you meet people – be it publishers, writers or other students on campus who have similar interests.” If ever a pairing was fated, you can trust it was Moore and Rodger. Their complementary visions coupled with their love of the written word make it clear that Icarus has fallen into the right hands.

The past has cemented Trinity’s pillar in the pantheon of literature. Icarus offers students an opportunity to add another. Moore was right in saying that “you don’t know who you could be publishing and what they could go on to do”. The editors of Kottabos and the Dublin University Magazine couldn’t have known what their contributors would go on to do, either.

Submissions for the first issue of the 74th volume of Icarus are open now. Submissions close on October 30th.

There are no confines. Icarus is not only looking for the modern and the now but instead for what people around Icarus are making.

In the age of technology, when everyone has the power to publish their work online without restraint, we agreed that part of the beauty of the printed word is its tangibility, as opposed to unrestrained digital echo chambers. To be published in Icarus is no easy feat, unlike clicking ‘post’ on Instagram. The journal maintains the same standard of excellence as its ancestors and, as such, wants to provide the same opportunities granted to those who came before. Events will be an integral part of this

The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

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Recipes

Bolognese with variations Alex Payne ASSISTANT EDITOR

Makes: 6 portions Takes: 1 hour (but extra rich after 2-3 hours) Cost per portion: €1.47 Ingredients: • 2 tbsp vegetable oil • 250g beef mince • 250g pork mince • Vegetarian option: 2 tins of red kidney beans • 1 large onion • 1 large carrot • 1 stick of celery • 4 cloves of garlic • 5 sprigs of thyme • 1 tbsp tomato purée • 250ml red wine (optional) • 400ml passata • 400g tin chopped tomatoes • salt • pepper Variations: • Moussaka - into the leftovers add some ground cinnamon, dried oregano and a couple of chopped up fresh chillies or chilli flakes, then layer it with thinly sliced pre-baked aubergine, potato and a béchamel sauce, topped with grated cheese and baked in the oven for this Greek classic • ‘Mexican’ chilli - upon reheating, add a tin of kidney beans or black beans, some ground cumin and coriander

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peak to any proud Italian and they will tell you there is only one way to make a proper bolognese. There will be certain points at which to add each ingredient, certain types of each ingredient to use and precise cooking times. The recipe below has come about as a result of my working in restaurants devoted to different cuisines and, as a result, a proud Italian would perhaps turn their nose up at it. However, this is a recipe I find works for me and delivers on what promises to be a rich and enjoyable dinner with plenty of depth of flavour. Perhaps I shouldn’t call this a bolognese but it sounds better than ‘tomatoey meat sauce’…

Method: 1. Brown the mince. Preheat your large pan on the almost-highest hob setting until it is very hot. Add your vegetable oil and leave until it is just starting to smoke. Add your minced meat and season with plenty of salt. As the mince browns break it up with a whisk or spoon. The idea behind this is to get the meat into the smallest pieces possible to maximise the amount of surface area you are browning. More browning equals more depth of flavour. Whilst the mince is browning you can dice your onion, carrot and celery and grate the garlic. If you are going for a vegan bolognese, you can skip this step and replace the browned mince with two tins of kidney beans/black beans in step 4.

2. Sauté onions, carrots and celery. Once the meat is browned off, remove it from the pan and add the diced vegetables to the pan with a pinch of salt. You may notice that the meat has left some sticky bits on the bottom of the pan - this is fine. The water that leaves the onion and carrot as they are cooking will work to deglaze the pan, lifting the sticky bits off the floor of the pan and adding more meaty flavour to the dish. Add your garlic and thyme after about ten minutes.

3. Add tomato. Once the garlic and thyme start to fill your kitchen with more delicious smells, add a tablespoon of tomato purée and give everything a good stir so that the tomato purée is evenly coating all of the individual bits of onion and carrot. Keep cooking this until the tomato purée darkens in colour.

In similar fashion to browning the meat, the change in colour represents an added depth of flavour as well as removing some of the acidity of fresh tomato purée. Then add your passata and can of chopped tomatoes. If you want to add an extra layer of luxury to your dish, add 1/3rd bottle of red wine before the passata and chopped tomatoes and reduce until the steam coming off no longer smells of alcohol.

4. Add browned mince and leave to cook. Once the passata and chopped tomatoes have begun to bubble, add in your previously browned mince. Give everything a good stir and leave to come to a very slow bubble. After 10-20 minutes this will be good enough to eat. However, I like to leave it slowly bubbling for at least an hour (preferably 2-3) to further soften the meat and allow the tomato flavour to develop.

As the tomato bubbles away and reduces, the natural sugars are brought out as there is less water, adding a slight sweetness that highlights the tomato flavour better.

Granola: a morning must-have Ella Parry FOOD AND DRINK EDITOR

Ingredients: • Oats • Pecans • Seeds (I use the Aldi Seed Mix and some chia seeds) • Cinnamon (an industrial amount) • A pinch of salt • Sweetener (both maple syrup and honey work, but the latter makes the granola clumpier, which I like)

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hen I started this role as Food and Drink Editor, I knew exactly what my first recipe would have to be. It is the one food I do not shut up about. Granola provides me with some much needed structure, while being nourishing and delicious. In the morning, it is such a relief to have my breakfast sorted. Granola provides a breakfast that you can prepare well in advance and can make in batches. I keep mine for up to six weeks in airtight containers. This means that you can wake up every morning without the stress of worrying about breakfast.

Granola is also highly customisable. In the following recipe, I will share the ingredients that I have come to love over the years. It is a recipe that you can experiment with. Switch up the flavours and see what you enjoy most. Please do not feel like you have to strictly follow the recipe. I change both some of the ingredients and the measurements every time I make granola. This is just an idea to get you started.

If you need any more persuading, granola is also the best room scent known to man. The soul-healing effects of roasted cinnamon need to be studied by our friends in the Hamilton. I started making my own Granola halfway through my first year of college, and I cannot see myself stopping any time soon. This is an attempt to acquire new members for my little cult.

Method: 1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Ensure that the oil and sweetener of your choice are coating the other ingredients to prevent any dry bits.

2. Spoon the mixture onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. I usually do two to three trays each time. Press it down with the spoon if you want your granola to be clumpy.

3. Put the trays in the oven at 185° C and bake for 40 minutes. After half the time, stir the granola. Do this carefully to avoid breaking up the clumps that have formed. It should resemble a partial turning of the granola.

4. Turn off the heat. Ideally, leave the granola in the slightly opened oven overnight to cool.

5. Mix with dried berries, I like using cranberries. Store in airtight containers.

6. Serve with berries and yoghurt or milk. My personal favourite at this time of year is combining granola with homemade applesauce. Simply chop some apples and boil them down with a little water and cinnamon. If you do not particularly like apples, you can substitute them with most other fruits, such as plums.

The University Times Tuesday 18th October, 2022

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Reads A THREAD OF VIOLENCE

Mark O’Connell GRANTA BOOKS Mark O’Connell’s A Thread of Violence revisits the infamous Malcolm Macarthur case of the 1980s. Macarthur, the wealthy heir to a small estate in Meath, found himself in deep financial trouble.

He decided that the only solution was to rob a bank, armed with a gun. In order to procure the gun and a car, Macarthur brutally murdered two people. Throughout the course of the book, O’Connell grapples with the question of what it means to write a book about a murderer. This tour de force examination of one of Ireland’s most well-known cases is sure to be of interest to fans of Capote’s In Cold Blood.

ALL THIS HAPPENED, MORE OR LESS

Jayne A. Quan SKEIN PRESS Jayne A. Quan’s collection of essays, All this happened, more or less, is a courageous and lyrical debut which explores the intersection between love, grief, identity and memory. With impassioned clarity, Quan demonstrates love’s power in the face of trauma. Through the lens of a body in motion and transition, these essays take the reader on a journey of discovery and pose the question of who we might be, or become when we begin to live our own truth.

A Cinema for Everyone James Mahon CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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he dominance of Netflix and other streaming services has led some to predict the end of cinema-going all together. It seems that the power of film as an artform, to literally bring people together, is slowly but surely on a gradual decline. However, such suggestions simply cannot be correct – the unique communal sensation that cinema possesses, still holds an allure that the likes of Netflix et al. will never be able to compete with. There’s something about putting your phone aside, muting the distractions of everyday life, and watching moving images on the screen with strangers, that simply cannot be beat. As such, through a considerable amount of arduous field work I have selected some of the best cinemas in Dublin - accounting for all tastes of course.

I should not really be promoting Cineworld on Parnell Street or IMC Dun Laoghaire as cinemas worthy of your attention. After all, a large amount of its screenings are composed of Marvel and DC productions which, as the great Martin Scorsese has told us, are more like ‘theme parks’ than actual cinema. Although a great admirer of Marty’s work, he is a little off the mark in denigrating

SOCIETIES EDITOR

Nicole Flattery BLOOMSBURY If you’ve been thinking about hitting up the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Hugh Lane sometime soon, consider reading Nicole Flattery’s latest, Nothing Special, before you go. The book, which is based on a true story, follows seventeen-year-old Mae, who lives in New York and becomes one of Andy Warhol’s typists as he embarks on a mission to write a novel. There, she meets Shelley, with whom she becomes fast friends and begins to explore the social underbelly of the city with. Flattery’s succinct dialogue and vivid description of both New York and its fringe scene gives the whole novel a dreamlike quality: perfect for those looking for an escapist read as autumn rolls in.

PHOTO BY PETER MOLONEY

and snobbery to identify as cineastes, the Irish Film Institute (IFI) just off Dame Street and the Lighthouse cinema in Smithfield are a must. With only a select few screens in both, this is where you will find the latest indie release or a retrospective on a long forgotten Italian neo-realist director. As someone who does have the gall to term himself a cineaste, the Lighthouse is my preference out of the two. It is beautifully designed, has a welcoming atmosphere and simply emanates a pure, unadulterated love for cinema. This is not to dismiss the IFI, with particular credit given to its continuous promotion of domestic films, but for me the Lighthouse edges it.

Irrespective of whether you are a rare cinema goer or a full blown addict like yours truly, anytime you go to a cinema, be it Cineworld or the IFI, is a blow to the streaming machines.

Simon Pegg Awarded Phil Gold Medal Eliora Abramson

NOTHING SPECIAL

a whole genre of movie-making that has brought a lot of joy and satisfaction to people. Cineworld and IMC Dun Laoghaire are perfect for the occasional cinema goer – they might not have the latest Gaspar Noé creation or be screening an anniversary special of Raging Bull, but they do the job. The popcorn is quite nice and the seats, especially in the big, dramatically named Galactic theatres, are really quite comfortable. Plus, if you really do want to make it a roller-coaster, the 4DX experience is always on offer.

The Savoy cinema is seen as somewhat more upmarket in comparison to IMC Dun Laoghaire and the like.

This is somewhat surprising considering that it is also owned by the IMC group. Nonetheless, perhaps its history as the oldest operational cinema in Dublin, or its reputation as the go to spot for film premiers has endowed it with a somewhat greater prestige.

There is an element of substance to this though – it seems to provide a greater range of films and an audience looking to broaden itself beyond the Marvel and DC universe. I can attest to this by the packed audience that was present at the screening of Aftersun upon its release. The Savoy is the go-to cinema for the budding cinema enthusiast who has not quite transitioned to the full blown title of cineaste.

For those with the self-pretension

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ctor, director and comedian Simon Pegg received the Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage from the University Philosophical Society (the Phil) on September 27th.

Pegg’s patronage and following Q&A had generated massive interest from the student population. Excitement was palpable in the long line of students waiting for entrance to the event — some who had gotten there hours before in order to claim seats.

Following a short meet and greet with the Phil committee and a lucky group of Table Quiz winners, Pegg was awarded his Gold Medal by Phil president Jack Palmer and addressed more than 350 students — one of the biggest crowds of any honorary patronage. Pegg expressed his amazement at the honor being bestowed upon him, saying he leapt at the chance for both a free trip to Ireland as well as a return to the student vibe of such

a vibrant university, with a comedic candor that would hold the room at rapt attention.

Pegg, whose credits include the Star Trek and Mission Impossible franchises, then sat down for a Q&A with Palmer, who asked Pegg questions ranging from his work to his mental health journey.

Pegg spoke of his relationships with longtime collaborators and close friends, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost, explaining it’s a “wonderful thing to go to work with your friends”. In his collaborations with Wright and Frost, Pegg explained the pricelessness of the objectivity that working with creative partners allows. He also expressed the importance of male friendships, saying, “women seem far less put upon by their own emotional distress”. Pegg also criticised the cultural phenomenon of “bromances”, saying he finds them tiring and reductive and that the term makes a novelty out of platonic male friendships. Pegg opened up about sobriety and mental health issues, speaking candidly about the dangers of alcohol depen-

dence as well as the importance of asking for help. Pegg also encouraged everyone to think about why they are having a drink and to ask for help if needed, adding this might be particularly hard for young men to do.

When asked about the SAG-AFTRA strike (which at the time of the event, had not yet reached tentative agreement), Pegg said that “the strike had to happen”. Dropping any hint of comedy, Pegg stated “art is what makes us human”, explaining that because AI has never had a human experience, it is simply a simulation and therefore creating a lower standard of art.

A highly engaging speaker, Pegg possesses the unique ability to switch from full sincerity to a biting joke back to genuine all in the blink of an eye. From jokes about heartbreak to stories of his stints as a DJ to his ardent advice to aspiring screenwriters to write what you want to see made, Pegg was a captivating guest and the perfect choice to kick off this year’s series of speakers for the Philosophical Society.

The University Times Tuesday 18th October, 2022

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Faust is a Tumultuous Experience of Love and Suffering Saskia McDonogh Mooney CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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he opera is not for the faint of heart and Faust, a riot of emotion and depravity, is not for everyone.

As the patrons to the Gaiety file into the cavernous, ornate theatre, dressed in semi-formal attire much different than opera goers of centuries past, silence descends upon the space.

Anticipation and curiosity hangs heavy in the air as people murmur about when the curtain will be lifted. And when it does, sound erupts from the stage.

The opening scene immediately throws the audience into a scene of emotional tumult: Faust attempting to end his suffering by drinking poison. You see him, a wealthy nineteenth century doctor, disillusioned with life, full of regret, tortured by emptiness he could never assuage.

This Faust, the suffering Faust, is depicted in these scenes as an old, silent man, while his desires and emotions manifest in young Faust, who voices these feelings through song. So frustrated by this life he is trying to escape, he curses God and Nature, inadvertently summoning the Devil, Mephistopheles.

Being the Devil, Mephistopholes pounces upon the opportunity presented in Faust.

In his state of distress he is easily manipulated into signing

a contract which grants him youth and a promise of love at the price of his freedom or soul.

But being caught up in his longlost bright future, he is blinded to this caveat. In this blindness, the audience can see how this “bright” future might unfold.

At this point old Faust fades away, leaving only young Faust, radiant with hope. This Faust bounds forward high on possibility, essentially falling headfirst into love with the innocent and beautiful Marguerite.

Marguerite – an exhausting paradigm of purity – of course briefly plays hard to get, before being wooed by the jewels and flowers Mephistopheles encourages Faust to give her. Their love story is a tale as old as time: a passive woman swept up by an entitled man. Their supposed passion sparks into being from apparent nothingness. No time is spent in getting to know each other. They just decide they are in love. This is, however, typical of operas which explore a very heightened, unrealistic realm of emotion. Yet this exaggeration of feeling was perhaps why I found it difficult to empathise with Faust and Marguerite as characters. Their love was too sudden, their passion too baseless, and it all burst into existence so quickly you’re left wondering if you missed something.

The music and the singing were admittedly incredible:

PHOTO BY PATRICK REDMOND

soaring, passionate and deeply moving pieces which helped you feel the story in your heart instead of seeing it with your eyes. It was tortured, stressful and sensually all-consuming, and so you understood how Marguerite and Faust were feeling as they fell in love, and how they suffered in the second half when the price of dealing with the devil truly unfolds. And yet, whilst you understood their feelings, it was only because your ears told you – watching the opera and reading the English subtitles for the French singing only left me feeling slightly confused, even with the program.

Perhaps it was the strangely industrial set, or the constant assembling and disassembling of said set by the various supporting characters and singers.

Regardless, the only thing that was easy to grasp was the state of heightened emotion, but in a way those feelings belonged to the audience instead of the characters, and this state of mutual

experience did not connect the two.

And so, as the story concludes with Marguerite dying and Faust being consumed by guilt, sympathy is hard to find even if you can understand the loneliness that drove Marguerite into Faust’s corrupting arms and the despair which led Faust to be so controlled by this corruption.

However, something has to be said for the enigmatic presence of Mephisopheles, who never pretends to be anything more than he is. He is the Devil. He is temptation and sin incarnate — and he owns that role. You like him despite yourself, and that is the sign of a truly well portrayed Devil. Though the presence of Marguerite and Faust was feltless strongly, the way the voices of all the characters blended together was phenomenal.

Beyond the music, and beyond the emotion explored, there was interesting subtext betrayed in the somewhat distracting set.

The industrial, factory-like backdrop might have been referenc-

ing the way in which people are exploited. Just as Marguerite and Faust are exploited by the Devil, the supporting actors and singers who work in this setting are exploited by the wealthy and privileged. They are promised prosperity just as Faust is promised youth, but in the end you see the only person who wins is the person who had power to begin with. So, whilst the set detracted from the sense of immersion due to the lack of cohesion, the symbolism of its design is important to keep in mind. And it was interesting to see that the doors to hell were an innate part of the factory.

Faust was worth watching for the opera itself, but it is a test of will to sit through the three hours and twenty minute run time, and a test of endurance to be caught up in the riot of sound and action without a proper visual anchor. Even if the story itself did not immerse me in the way I wanted it too, I found myself engaged in thinking about the power dynamics and the human desires they explored. The themes are undoubtedly relevant to any time despite aspects of the opera that were outdated. And the experience of listening to an opera, of feeling the music — especially with the student discount — is something I feel people should seek out, if only to form their own opinions of it. If nothing else, it is an experience.

Dublin vs. Paris: How do Students Spend Their Weekends?

Hosanna Boulter NEWS EDITOR

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ecently, I spent a weekend in Paris visiting my friends who are there on Erasmus.

Before I went to Paris, I told my friends that the only thing I wanted to do was see what their lives were actually like.

What follows are my observations on how students spend their weekends in Paris as opposed to Dublin: The big night out of the week is a Saturday and we went to watch Ireland play Scotland in the Rugby World Cup. When there is a sporting event that Ireland is playing in, practically

everyone makes the effort to go to see it. This felt so different to

Dublin, where the nights out are usually during the week as so many people go home every weekend. We went to a fan village in the centre of Paris with huge screens, bars and food stalls, where fans can watch the games for free. Pints of wine were available to buy during the game: many were shared. These pints were, after Ireland’s victory, closely followed by a jubilant trip to an Irish bar.

Speaking of bars, this is where people choose to go on nights out. Paris does have a lot of clubs but they are pretty expensive to get into — most have an entry fee of at least €20. Bars have no entry fee and the majority have some form of dancing after a certain hour. Happy hour

often lasts till 10pm to try and get people to arrive earlier for cheaper drinks, as Paris nightlife generally starts quite late. Wine is the drink of choice as it’s so cheap — half a bottle can be as little as €4.

If people need to do work during the weekend, they don’t go to their college library, as they might in Dublin. Some go to a ‘study café’, where you pay around €5 an hour and get unlimited hot drinks and snacks.

Others go to their accommodations’ study room. Most Irish people on Erasmus in Paris live in the CCI (Centre Culturel Irlandais). At the CCI, this room has charging points available and its own special Wi-fi.

The CCI is home to the Irish

chaplaincy in Paris, with a chapel dedicated to St Patrick and an Irish Catholic Priest in residence.

Mass — which is in English and Irish — is held every Sunday at 11:30 am. Many students on Erasmus, some who wouldn’t even consider themselves very religious, attend mass every Sunday. Quite a few people told me that they went as they found it comforting as well as social because so many people go.

Overall, my weekend in Paris was delightful, with more culture and cheaper drinks than my average weekends in Dublin.

As my friends are only there for the semester or the year they are looking to make the most of their time and weekends feel pretty jam packed.

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The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

A Portrait of the Portraitist: Sarah Purser’s Legacy in Ireland Elly Christopher ART EDITOR

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he task of a portraitist is to capture the life of the subject in one snapshot. And so, when looking into a portrait, often the focus is on the subject rather than the artist. An upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery proves a good opportunity to shift the focus back to one particular artist whose impact on Ireland should not be overlooked: Sarah Purser.

Purser was born in 1848 and died in 1943 at the age of ninety-five. Living through the turn of the century, Purser was a well known and highly respected portraitist throughout.

She was born to a privileged family in Dublin but, when her father went bankrupt, she decided to pursue one of the only careers considered respectable for women: portrait painting.

Purser was born at a time when, culturally, change was occurring and women were finding themselves

with comparatively more opportunities. However, this change was slow and so, although her passion was deemed respectable, it was hard to make a living, especially for a woman.

Additionally, there was not a wide range of painting classes available to women, let alone opportunities to enter the inner circles of Dublin’s artistic community.

Purser attended the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art which, unlike the Royal Hibernian Academy, offered classes to women.

In addition, she studied in Paris for six months at the Académie Julian, funded by her brother. It was here she received her most influential training and discovered her own distinctive artistic style.

This style of painting was largely influenced by the open, brushy style popular in continental Europe at the time. Indeed, part of what made her so impactful for Ireland was the way she brought this style back to Ireland and incorporated it into the domestic art scene.

Although she was not alone

‘LE PETIT DÉJEUNER’ (1881). PHOTO BY NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND

in this venture, she was one of the most popular portraitists and therefore solidified the style in Irish art.

Upon her return to Ireland, she was welcomed warmly. Hannah Baker, who recently received her PhD from Trinity, described the community in Dublin as being very inviting, and shared that newcomers “were accepted into the community quite easily by most other artists… it was quite a positive environment to be a painter at the time.” Baker also empha-

sised that Purser returned the friendliness.

Indeed she became an inspiration for other women in the industry, a symbol of possibility. Loved by the papers, she became one of the most known painters in the city. “As soon as you have a role model,” Baker states, “it’s much easier to see yourself and to see a pathway for yourself to be able to take.” Public figures such as William Butler Yeats were painted by Purser and, to this day, many of her works adorn prominent buildings in Ireland, hon-

ouring subject and artist alike.

Baker humorously noted that Purser had earned a reputation for being stingey. “It seems like it could be a running joke,” she stated, adding that at one point Hugh Lane himself was surprised at her generosity towards burgeoning artists during a trip to London. In fact, Purser and Lane were good friends and she was pivotal in promoting his gallery. She is even credited with lobbying to acquire the gallery’s current Charlemont House site.

Purser was a total champion of the arts, as her position in Dublin society enabled. The studio Tower of Glass or, An Túr Gloine, was launched by Purser in 1903. The mission was to improve the accessibility of stained art. The patterns on the glass were modeled on Celtic and mediaeval art.

The artists recruited were designated one panel each.

Purser recruited artists and gave them fitting commissions. The studio was open until 1944, lasting for several years after Purser’s death, just one indicator of

her cultural legacy.

Throughout her life Purser overcame societal restrictions, both regarding gender and the arts as a whole. She was an advocate for the arts and an inspiration to those who came after her. Her work is scattered throughout many hallowed institutions in Ireland, such as the RHA, Queen’s University, the National Gallery and more.

Furthermore, in 1890 she became an honorary member of the RHA: a testament to her lasting legacy as an artist and advocate.

The exhibition of Purser’s work, titled “Private Worlds”, will fittingly be shown in the Hugh Lane Room. While her work hangs all over Ireland, it is rare for portraits to be hung to honour their painter solely. The exhibition is both an opportunity for Purser to be brought back into the public eye and an opportunity to see her work curated under one roof.

The exhibition will run from October 21st, 2023 to February 25th, 2024, in the National Galley. Admission is free.

Irish Representation in Sex Education Season 4 Matthew Keeley CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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he fourth and final installment of the much beloved comedy drama Sex Education arrived on Netflix on September 21st. With this being the last season of the show, there was much anticipation and hype surrounding the finale and the long-drawn-out romance between principal characters Otis (Asa Butterfield) and Maeve (Emma Mackey).

Nonetheless, as I made my way through each episode, I became much more interested in how the Irish characters were being portrayed within the show’s narrative. Season 4 is the first in which an Irish character has a main role. County Down’s Thaddea Graham

plays ‘O’, a competing sex therapist in Cavendish College and Otis’s main rival within the season. Graham speaks in her own Northern Irish accent throughout the show and her character, though at times cunning and deceitful, grows into a more empathetic and sincere person as the season progresses in what I person-

ally believe to be a positive and well written Irish role.

The same, however, cannot be said for Jack Gleeson’s role in the series, a character called ‘Dodgy Mo’. Gleeson, a Trinity graduate and a former member of DU Players, is a tremendous actor. Many will recognise him as Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones:

arguably one of the best television villains of the past 20 years and a performance so compelling that the actor received death threats from deranged fans who hated the character so passionately.

The role of Dodgy Mo, the mindless stoner friend of Maeve’s troubled brother Sean, therefore seems

beneath such an esteemed actor, while also giving the impression of a tired stereotype. It is unclear whether the producers specifically wished for the Dodgy Mo character to be Irish or whether they merely preferred for Gleeson to use his own accent while performing. Regardless, the character’s depiction seemed awkward and made for uncomfortable viewing, at least from my own perspective.

The dumb, inebriated Irishman trope has been exhausted by countless films and television shows throughout the past century, although the character’s intoxicant of choice has most often been an alcohol of some sort.

Sometimes, these characters can be hilarious and even endearing. Think the perpetually drunken Father

Jack in Father Ted, a beloved icon of Irish television. But in a show that prides itself on its character representation, I found the decision to have the Dodgy Mo character be an Irishman in Sex Education to be particularly striking.

Although I am not personally offended by the role, this is a typecast that has existed on screen for years. I feel that the inclusion of Dodgy Mo in the series, a far from essential character, somewhat taints Graham’s turn as O. As soon as an Irish character has a major part to play in this incredibly successful television show, an unoriginal, uninspired and clichéd character emerges to mar what should have been a celebration of modern Irish representation in television.

Sex Education is available to stream on Netflix.

The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

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In Conversation With: Mary Morrissy Sarah Browne LITERATURE EDITOR

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n real life, Nora Barnacle waited for James Joyce on the day he seemingly abandoned her in Trieste, but what if she hadn’t? In her fourth and latest novel, Mary Morrissy masterfully imagines an alternative life for Nora. With affecting skill, she takes us on an odyssey through her speculative world, one in which “Ulysses has not been written”. Penelope Unbound unhooks various voices from Joyce creating, what is, a true masterwork.

How did you start writing?

“I started writing by accident really when I was about seventeen. I had left school and I wanted to get into journalism so I did a correspondence course. Every week I would type out an assignment and I would send it off to this rather anonymous tutor who I’m presuming was a man, I don’t actually know, who signed his name with his initials. Then a big brown envelope would come back and he’d have commented on some things but he never raved about anything. The last assignment was to write a short story – what that had to do with freelance journalism I really don’t know. So you know, I was at that age when if someone would say do it, I’d do it – I was very biddable. So I wrote a story and I got this extraordinary response back from what I thought was this very buttoned-up man asking was this the first time I’d written?

And had I ever considered a career as a writer? And, of course, the answer was no I hadn’t, it hadn’t entered my head. So it triggered that ambition I suppose or I suddenly saw that that was a possibility.

We’re talking about the early 70s so there weren’t many female writer role models around so you didn’t have the idea, even the idea, that this was something you could be. That’s really how it started”.

I read that the idea for this story came to you back in 2015 while you were at the James Joyce Summer School in Trieste. You mentioned that you had been struck by the story of Nora on the day Joyce seemingly abandoned her. What about that moment struck you to the point that you wanted to write a novel about it?

“Well, I mean it’s very hard to know why some stories resonate with you. It was something about the trajectory of her life. I suddenly thought this is my story and, you know, the hairs go up on the back of your neck and you think oh! It’s possession. Once I heard that story of her, of Nora Barnacle sitting outside the station, on her own, penniless, no language – her boyfriend, someone whom she’d only known a couple of months gone and she’d taken this big risk to leave with him. There was just something

about that image of that young woman stranded, abandoned perhaps. At first, I thought I would write a short story, then I realised there was much more in it and I thought oh, wouldn’t it be interesting if she didn’t wait, wouldn’t that be much more interesting? I was also aware of the weight of Joyce – the influence of Joyce.

I mean it’s impossible to get away from him as an Irish writer. You’ll always be asked about Joyce and there he hovers over everything. I felt the same way about Nora. It’s impossible to free her up from him unless you actually split them up and one of the things I was exploring, or maybe fighting against, was that notion of ‘what do we know of Nora Barnacle except what we know through James Joyce?’ But, you know, I’m doing the same thing. I’m saying here’s my version of Nora. I felt it was important to view her on her own – to say here’s perhaps what she might have been like if she hadn’t stayed with him”.

Was it hard to free Nora from the grip of such a presence?

“I suppose I didn’t actually completely successfully do that because he does appear at the end. Although, it’s left open as to what happens as a result of that but actually once I started writing her on her own, I forgot about him. [Laughs] I mean of course in Nora’s mind she’s thinking what happened, where did he go? Did he intend to do this all along? She has to review the whole relationship. Did all of it mean nothing because he’s done this?

I did vaguely consider whether I would turn her into a writer and then I thought no. Nora had no value for Joyce’s work: she didn’t read it, she wasn’t interested.

The idea that she would have ambitions to be a writer would be too much of an imposition of our twenty-first-century notions of women’s agency. I thought, here she is in a city she doesn’t know, she has no money, she probably has no identifying papers and there’s a limit to the scope of what she can do to save herself.

There’s no going back, she can’t do that, she has to go forward”.

PHOTO BY COLBERT KEARNEY

From a stylistic perspective, after reading so much about Joyce, was it hard trying not to fall into the crevices of imitation?

“Well, what I did for Nora’s voice was I went through the Molly Bloom soliloquy and I looked at words – I picked out a whole load of different words and I thought, you know, this is some kind of version of Nora, even though I resist the notion that it is her but it is a version of her. I also used language that my mother used. My mother was from Kerry and she had an interesting turn of phrase, very colourful phrases, and so it was a very nice thing to almost enshrine her language into Nora’s vocabulary. So the voice was a mixture of those two vocabularies and I suppose where Joyce comes in is really the technique, the stream of consciousness. It’s a third-person focalised narrative so it’s very close but I wanted it

JAMES JOYCE AND NORA BARNACLE ON A WALL IN ZURICH. PHOTO FROM UB JAMES JOYCE COLLECTION

to be third so that I could have the other voices in it as well. In the speculative universe, if you change one person’s life, all the other people’s lives change too. I suppose that’s where Joyce is in it and the fact is that it is in almost everything that’s been written in the last hundred years.

So, you know, there is no escaping him”.

We’ve come to know Nora Barnacle without the ‘h’ at the end of her name.

You’ve spoken about the fact that women for centuries have given up their surnames upon marriage but that being asked to alter ‘your first name is something different because it is so tied up with your singular identity’. Why was it important for you to dignify Nora’s name with the ‘h’ once again?

“It was one of those fortuitous things in Brenda Maddox’s biography of Nora – which is the only place I’ve come across it. Maddox produces the birth cert. and she’s Norah. I think Nora might have had an aunt who was Hanorah. Sometime during Nora and Joyce’s correspondence of early 1904, and they corresponded daily, at some stage she drops the ‘h’. I have always wondered if it had something to do with Ibsen, you know, Nora and A Doll’s House, which is interesting in itself if that’s the character he’s thinking of. That’s me speculating but clearly, she dropped the ‘h’ and it’s something to do with him. It seems such a small thing but it is very significant, it’s that idea of him already fictionalising her, turning her into a creation, his creation”.

Mary Morrissy’s Penelope Unbound is published by Banshee (€15) and was released on October 5th, 2023. A launch even will be held on October 17th at Hodges Figgis.

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The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

Review: Ross O’Carroll Kelly’s Camino Royale Cillian O’Carroll Hickey CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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or those who’ve been living under a (Black)rock, Ross O’Carroll Kelly (RO’CK) is a rugby jock from Dalkey who’s been giving, like, zero focks for over twenty years. He was captain of the Castlerock College team that won the Leinster Schools Senior Cup in 1999 and, according to the Irish Times website, “it’s rare that a day goes by when he doesn’t mention it”. He first appeared in 1998, in the now-defunct Sunday Tribune to be pacific, and since then has been giving a voice to the famously down-trodden and under-spoken residents of South Dublin. The dude’s continued doing this in his Irish Times column and series of 23 novels, the most recent of which, Camino Royale, was published this August, fair focks to him.

Though it’s mostly a lampoon

of Dublin’s most affluent and affected, the series has chorted Ireland’s changing fortunes over the last two decades. In a way, it tells the story of the Celtic Tiger, from its huge excesses, to its eventual collapse and the aftermath. Initially this Paul Howard dude, who’s supposably Ross’s biographer, “wanted to infuriate the people he was

satirising”. But South Siders, being a bookish bunch, ended up becoming his main audience, which is probably a back-handed compliment meaning that his portrayals of their lack of self-awareness and hypocrisy are fairly bang on.

And, in the same way that RO’CK’s fashion style of Dubes, chinos and quiff, has remained lorgely the same over the years, the writing style and subject matter is mostly unchanged.

And that’s all good with me — the style is a major highlight in my books. Those expecting Ross to use a — yeah, no — simile to liken the flight of the Gilbert between the posts to that of some graceful bird will be in for a bit of a let-down. What there is a lot of is birds with great top tens, as the Rossmeister General is a man who’d make that Casanova dude look as frigid as a nun. If you had to give him, like, a ‘real life’ equal for his sexual exploits it’d probably be Lord Byron—except that he wasn’t thick as shit? Anyway, he writes

in a—I think it’s a word—vernacular style? He’s basically a South Dublin Philip Marlowe, but slow on the uptake—yeah, no, famously so? That is, he uses a load of slang from the mean streets of, in fairness, Dalkey.

Sometimes he uses, like, italics and question morks to give statements the questioning intonation you sometimes hear?

Besides that, we’re have what four-eyed linguists would call ‘eye dialect’, so that, instead of ‘car’, it’s cor. Instead of ‘Dart’, it’s Dorsh. Instead of ‘fuck’, it’s fock, (which he uses everywhere, fair focks to him). All of this and the way it’s, like, written in the present tense and first person makes it feel like you’re in his local, The Bridge 1889, listening to the dude tell you the story over a rake of Heinos. If I had a complaint it’d be that he uses single quotation morks (‘ ’), which are easy for the eye to skip over, as opposed to the double ones (“ ”). Then again, maybe the goy just wants every piece of dialogue to be between

a little 69.

At the stort of Camino Royale, Ross is in seriously deep S.H.1.T. After taking his orse out in a pub in Cork in the previous book, he’s been cancelled.

His wife, Sorcha, has cast him into exile with his half-sister, Erika, on the Ailesbury Road.

For various reasons his friends turn their backs on him one by one. But then, from beyond the grave, Father Fehily, their former principal and rugby coach (and big fan of Mein Kampf and its author), sends them on a mission to walk the Camino. Besides this, Ross’s father, Charles O’Carroll Kelly (a man who’d make Charlie Haughey look honest) is the Taoiseach and just enacted Ireland’s exit from the EU: Irexit.

Basically it’s a cracking read.

You won’t grow too many brain cells by reading it, nor will you find lyrical descriptions or complex vocabulary. What you should find is a good few laughs at the expense of those who can best afford it.

LawSoc Presents David Norris with Praeses Elit Award Eliora Abramson SOCIETIES EDITOR

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enator David Norris received the Praeses Elit Award from the Law Society (LawSoc) on the October 11th. Norris was greeted by a crowd of students, who braved the wet and windy weather to see the Senator speak. Upon entering the chamber, Norris, filled with discernible vim, asked every student in his eyesight where they were from and was visibly delighted with each answer.

Before being presented with the award, Secretary Louise Cullen introduced Norris and his many accomplishments including being the first openly gay person to be elected for public office in Ireland, his valiant work in Norris v. Attorney General and Norris v. Ireland which are credited with ending the criminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland, and his consistent efforts as a human rights activist.

Norris then sat down with LawSoc Auditor Eoin Ryan for

a Q&A session. Norris, who graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in English Literature and Language and then went on to teach as a lecturer and tutor, spoke fondly of his time at College saying he “loved it because the people were inspirational”.

Norris spoke at length about his time fighting to legalise homosexuality in Ireland, time and time again emphasising the enjoyment he received from his work. “It was great fun,” he said of his time fighting for gay rights. Even losing Norris v.

Attorney General hadn’t seemed to dampen his spirits. “Losing was an opportunity” he said gleefully, “it gave an opportunity for the public to take what was at the time a revolutionary stance”. Even in the midst of loss and injustice, Norris maintained that the main goal was to “blow away the veil of secrecy” and “the camouflage away from homosexuality”. He shared that though he has felt pride for all his numerous victories, the one that he is the most proud of was when he worked to stop the closure of a home for elderly women, saying with immense

satisfaction that “32 old ladies were saved from being flung out on the street.”

It was evident that Norris feels great pride not just for his achievements but also for the people of Ireland. It was a point he drove home, calling the Irish “generous, decent, and tolerant”. Norris spoke of the day in 2015 that gay marriage was legalised, telling the audience that he walked past celebrations in pubs and went home for a glass of red wine with a beloved neighbour, calling it a moment where the people of Ireland were speaking as a whole.

It was clear his time fighting for equal rights had not come without challenges, though he took these in good humour, often breaking into imitations of those who opposed him on the way to justice. Contextualising just how far we have come, Norris detailed an anecdote of his first pride parade in which one of his seven companions happened to work on the street the parade was being held. The woman took great care to avoid her place of work out of fear of prejudice. Similarly, Norris shared that, after coming out,

PHOTO BY KIM HAUGHTON

a colleague had told him to say that he’d had a nervous breakdown and to simply take it back. Sharing these moments of frustration with an audience who may subconsciously take their rights for granted was a sobering yet poignant reminder that these injustices existed not so far from our lifetime.

Coming to what he saw the next major civil rights fight being, Norris briefly mentioned changes to tax law before looking somewhat sternly at the audience and saying, “it’s up to the next generation… up to you to say what you want”.

When asked by an audience member what advice he would give to said next generation, he answered to establish which

rights were had and which were wanted and to go out and assert them.

Norris was also asked about the current situation between Israel and Palestine, to which he replied that he thought “it’s about time we put an embargo on goods originating in the occupied area”, naming this as a small but significant step.

Norris called it a question of human rights saying, “I didn’t just fight for gay rights, I fought for human rights” and that all human rights are indivisible.

Norris, who seems far younger than 79, brought intellect, humour as well as inspiration to the event, with piercing wit and a unique perspective on Irish and global events.

The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

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Shoe Menders Need Resol(e)d and Sewists Need Saving Clara Potts FASHION EDITOR

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t the intersection of fashion and sustainability is the underutilisation of clothing. Each year, Ireland disposes of 110,000 tonnes of garments which continue to lie limp and unloved in landfills. With these damaging figures persisting globally and threats of diminishing natural resources rising, there seems to be an increased recognition of the environmental damage caused by the production and consumption of clothing. This awareness has resulted in the fashion industry turning towards circular fashion and reusing as solutions to combat textile waste.

Many recognise the importance of prolonging the lifespan of clothing as a central component in the circular fashion system.

Often, this is achieved by supporting second-hand stores or renting clothes. That said, we fail to question why our activities are limited to buying or renting other people’s clothing?

While we are happy to support charity shops, purchasing other people’s knitwear and scuffed-but-mendable boots, we fail to invest and revive our own wardrobes.

By supporting shoe menders and sewists, we can be freed from the stress-inducing situations of rapidly removing layers in the boxlike spaces of thrift store changing rooms, which usually consist of no more than a curtain to cover your torso to thigh region - and if you’re lucky a stool to rest your legs.

When it comes to curating a sustainable wardrobe, the issue appears to be the advice we are given. The consumer conversation time and time again is presented from a buying

PHOTOS BY CLARA POTTS FOR THE UNIVERSITY TIMES

“

perspective, telling us what brands to support or what material will last longest or is most flattering. This becomes overwhelming and confusing as we are fed conflicting advice. This does nothing but prevent us from considering the fact that the most sustainable garments are those right in front of us - those already in

of environmentally damaging consumption. Providing clothes in an accessible manner is a huge incentive for individuals in a society where we find ourselves constantly under pressure.

However, we must reject the rhetoric that is fed to us: newer and faster is not better. Regardless of the monetary value of our fabric, caring to invest time into fixing our garments will encourage us to value them more, to take better care of them, and thus wear them more often. In short, rather than contributing layers to landfill, we must rework the current linear ‘make-takedispose’ model, replacing it with a circular one. Thus, there is no question of the role that aftercare plays in the fashion experience - it is as important, if not more important, than the initial purchase.

The most sustainable garments are those right in front of us those already in our wardrobes. our wardrobes. And, believe it or not, taking care of them is the most sustainable thing that we can do.

So, whilst being aware of shopping habits and making sustainable purchases are crucial, it is arguably of greater importance to shop and mend our pre-existing closets rather than buying more preloved items for them.

Fast fashion vs. the state of slow fashion: a modern-day remake of the tortoise and the hare.

Like our ‘no time’ society, the fast fashion world thrives of the accessible and the instant. Cheap clothing options are provided to the impatient and the impulsive, trapping us in a cycle

We must shift from a buying perspective to an aftercare one.

As solutions such as the renting and reselling of clothes transform from niche to recognised, consumer perception is recalibrated from previous views of clothing as disposable to ones worth keeping. Despite this, we

fail to acknowledge the importance of repairs, which also provide a substantial opportunity for the fashion industry to modify revenue from production and resource use. Unlike resale, which relies on consumption, repairs provide an alternative to throwaway culture, reducing the environmental footprint of our garments by repairing and building the relationship with clothing in all spaces.

As the fashion industry moves towards a more circular economy, many brands offer aftercare services to show support for long-term use. However, post-purchase services haven’t been a priority at scale across the industry.

Even when it’s available, there are often barriers to slow fashion, such as proof

of purchase. Therefore, the focus should be on educating customers on methods of caring for their clothes or visiting menders for all repairs, from small holes and missing buttons to replacing the entire souls of shoes; repair services are a crucial way to influence consumers of the importance of investing in their wardrobe beyond the initial purchase, moving away from a throwaway mindset, and embracing the beauty of repairs.

Recently, there has been a repairs resurgence, gaining popularity alongside other crafts such as knitting.

Mending can drastically slow the buying habits of modern clothes by encouraging us to value the clothes we own instead of buying new items every time they show even the smallest signs of wear.

However, if you fix your clothes and provide them with a second, third, or fourth life, you are saving not only the planet but also your bank balance and hours consumed in changing rooms, experiencing disappointment at how the new sweater doesn’t fit how the one that hangs unworn in your wardrobe does. So, supporting the slow fashion movement by repairing clothes enables us to become aware of our consumption and spending.

Let’s repair the rhetoric and expand the repair

economy. Encouraging post-purchase services must become central to the conscious closet conversation.

Visible mending has become a popular online trend, inspiring many to view the repair process itself as part of the beauty of the garment. By celebrating individual style, instead of concealing stitchwork and patchwork, visible mending showcases not only individuality, but also care for conscious clothing.

Conclusion: The focus needs to shift to how we can make repairs attractive to consumers, altering the mindset to view their clothing as valuable and worth spending money to mend.

Ultimately, it is fast fashion and the marketing machine that drives it which continues to tell us that clothes are disposable.

Fixing a tear or hole in your favourite sweater may seem unexciting, but in reality, it can be both an enjoyable experience and an act of pro-environmentalism. So, embracing the imperfect state of our clothes may be the alternative to fast fashion that we have been searching for, and those hoping to repair their relationship with their clothing and the environment should turn to sewists and shoe menders as answers to lacking creative drive and environmental deterioration.

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The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

In Our Our Pick of Trinity and Dublin’s society, art, life and culture events THEATRE

FIVE OF THE BEST: DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL

PHOTO BY RENATO MANGOLIN

Maisie Greener ASSISTANT RADIUS EDITOR

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ublin’s tradition of theatre is at its most dynamic and vibrant during the Autumn months. Building on the momentum delivered by the inimitable Dublin Fringe Festival, which finished on September 24th, Dublin’s attention turned once more to the city’s many stages. Dublin Theatre Festival spoiled audiences for choice with a programme of almost forty productions. Celebrating international experimentation as well as platforming homegrown talent, the festival holistically celebrated Dublin’s theatre scene and the many players that comprise it. Every year since its inception, Dublin Theatre Festival has dedicated itself to empowering new talent as much as it honours revered alumni. This indiscriminate and unequivocal love of theatre has made the Festival a standout in Ireland’s cultural calendar.

The Loved Ones Erica Murray presents audiences with an Airbnb stay like no other. Inspired by the women in her own life, Murray’s world premiere stages women’s predisposition to resilience and

THEATRE IRONBOUND ABBEY THEATRE PEACOCK STAGE, OCTOBER 3RD-NOVEMBER 11TH, 8PM Written by Martyna Majok, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize and nominee for the 2023 Tony Award for Best Play, Ironbound presents a poignant and wry depiction of a woman manoeuvring through the dangers

grit when confronted by challenges. Encountering four women at four different stages in their grieving journeys, an ensemble cast led by Jane Brennan opens our eyes to individual death’s unifying capacity.

The Loved Ones runs at The Gate until October 21st.

This Solution Subverting genre and theme, Shaun Dunne and Project Arts Centre’s ‘This Solution’ has been called “One of the smartest most ingeniously crafted Irish films in years” by the Irish Examiner. Dance, writing and music blended in a revelatory unveiling of the gay porn industry. Navigating grey areas such as consent becoming a contract, Dunne refused to be intimidated by the taboo shrouding sex work. This Solution ran from October 11th-15t at Project Arts Centre.

Ironbound Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Martyna Majok gives a voice to the voiceless in ‘Ironbound’ which charts a Polish immigrant’s life in New Jersey. For Majok, her investment in articulating the immigrant experience can be explained as a personal one, with the Polish-American playwright’s mother loosely mirroring the protagonist Darja. A sequence of conversations

and opportunities within a dramatically evolving society. The production premieres as part of Dublin Theatre Festival and follows an immigrant worker in New Jersey, as she struggles to survive. Tickets from €13 and can be purchased on the Abbey website.

ART LAVERY. ON LOCATION

transpire at a bus stop, the liminal location communicating the precariousness and instability of Darja’s condition. Running on the Abbey’s Peacock Stage until November 11th, the show is quickly selling out.

Distillation By olfactory means, Luke Casserly addressed the recent end of the peat harvesting industry in Ireland.

Advocating for a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature, Casserly hopes to begin healing our damaged landscapes. Collaboration with esteemed perfume maker Joan Woods facilitated the creation of a mock Midlands bog. ‘Distillation’ ran until October 14th at the Goethe-Institut Ireland.

No Woman Is An Island In a culture obsessed with ‘doing’ and, perhaps even more so, to be seen “doing”, what remains when we are left alone? ‘No Woman Is An Island’ was the culmination of Róisín Stack’s three-year study into the quest for alone time in an overwhelming and overbearing world. Weaving theory with musings on the self, this world premiere perhaps struck a chord with fans of My Year of Rest and Relaxation. ‘No Woman Is An Island’ ran until October 14th at Project Arts Centre.

NATIONAL GALLERY, BEIT WING, OCTOBER 7TH-JANUARY 14TH At the National Gallery, one of the most anticipated exhibitions of the year opened on October 7th, and highlights Sir John Lavery’s impressions of the places and people he experienced during his long life of travel. The exhibition is curated in collaboration with the National Museums

NI and National Galleries of Scotland. Tickets must be booked in advance via the National Gallery’s website and start at €11.25 for students.

FILM AND TV WAKING NIGHTMARES: 1970S THE BIRTH OF MODERN HORROR LIGHTHOUSE CINEMA, OCTOBER 15TH-31ST For those wanting to start Halloween celebrations all through October, the Lighthouse Cinema’s Horror Film Festival is definitely for you. Showing famous classics from the 1970s and also some exclusive deep-cuts, the festival will definitely satisfy a horror fanatic and a casual watcher. Tickets for films can be purchased on the Lighthouse Cinema website, with prices at €11 for students.

LITERATURE RED LINE BOOK FESTIVAL VARIOUS LOCATIONS, OCTOBER 16TH-22ND The Red Line Book Festival has put together a fascinating programme of literary events in six different strands: ‘Family’, ‘Fiction & Poetry’, ‘Performance’, ‘Crime & Horror’, ‘Lifestyle’ and ‘History’. With authors and personalities such as John Banville, Gerry Creighton and Emer McLysaght, the festival is not one to be missed. The programme includes a variety of local cultural and historical events and workshops. As a celebration of all things literary, be it spoken, written or sung, the festival is for everyone from casual readers to bookworms. The events will take place across a range of performance venues including the Civic Theatre, Tallaght Stadium, Rathfarnham Castle, Pearse Museum and many more.

Tickets for the events can be purchased on redlinefestival.ie SOCIETIES ENTS GENERAL MEETING ARTS BUILDING, ROOM 2041B, OCTOBER 18TH, 6PM-8PM Trinity ENTS are hosting its first general meeting on October 18th. ENTS are currently looking for two first-year representatives, two second-year representatives, one third-year representative, one fourthyear representative and one postgraduate representa-

tive. To run for a position, students are asked to fill out the Google Form at @trinityents on Instagram before Tuesday, October 17th at 7pm. If there are more people running than spots available, candidates will be asked to make a 30-second speech as to why they are the best person for the role.

FILM AND TV ‘WARHOL REFRACTING’ HUGH LANE GALLERY, OCTOBER 19TH, 1PM If you are looking to learn a bit more about cinema, this film screening at the Hugh Lane Gallery is for you.

There will be a screening of three films by P. Staff, an artist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, with each film being introduced by curator Alice Butler.

Tickets are free but need to be booked in advance on Eventbrite for what sounds like a unique evening.

ART PERFORMANCE: ATOOSA POUR HOSSEINI, ‘THE MAGIC CIRCLE’ TEMPLE BAR GALLERY AND STUDIOS, OCTOBER 19TH, 6-8:30PM Atoosa Pour Hosseini, through a multimedia performance, creates an experience that combines memory and perception to explore how the elements have impacted human psyche and spirituality throughout history. A multimedia artistic experience, Hosseini blends illusion with reality through the media of film, video installation, sculpture, and performance. Admission is free, but tickets must be purchased ahead of time on Eventbrite.

THEATRE HANGMEN THE GAIETY THEATRE, OCTOBER 19TH-NOVEMBER 4TH, 7:30PM

Martin McDonagh’s play Hangmen makes a triumphant return to the Gaiety stage, having previously enjoyed a successful run in Dublin and Galway earlier this year. Set in a small pub in Oldham, Harry holds a certain degree of local fame. However, with the abolition of hanging, what is the second-best hangman in England supposed to do? This staging of McDonagh’s 2015 play is not one to be missed for fans of The Banshees of Inisherin!

Tickets from €20 and can be purchased on the Gaiety website.

LITERATURE THE FIRST QUARTER LAUNCH BOOKS UPSTAIRS, OCTOBER 19TH, 6PM John Tuomey, one of the most influential Irish architects of the 21st century, has written a memoir, tracing his life from Tralee to Dublin to cities across the globe and, subsequently, his effect on modern Dublin, including the revitalisation of the Temple Bar district.

Books Upstairs and the Lilliput Press are hosting a launch event for the book on October 19th at 6pm, to include journalist Vincent Woods as a guest speaker.

Described by Anne Enright as “light, strong, beautifully balanced and crafted”, The First Quarter is not a memoir to be missed. Tickets are free, but must be reserved in advance through the Books Upstairs website.

SOCIETIES HALLOWEEN HOWLER BUTTON FACTORY, OCTOBER 19TH, 11PM-LATE Kick your Halloween season off right with a festive night out hosted in collaboration with Trinity’s ENT and Food and Drink societies. Tickets are available through both

The University Times Monday 16th October, 2023

societies’ Instagram pages (@trinityents and @dufoodandrink) for €7.

The event is open to those 18+, with valid ID required.

The event will be wheelchair accessible and the venue has gender-neutral bathrooms as well as earplugs available as there will be loud music (along with flashing lights).

SOCIETIES THE HIST GUINNESS WORLD RECORD CELEBRATORY DINNER THE DINING HALL, OCTOBER 20TH, 7PM Along with the gala dinner in celebration of being granted the Guinness World Record for World’s Oldest Student Society, the Hist will additionally have a unticketed keynote address in the afternoon for friends of the society. Tickets to the dinner are €20 and are available at @thehist on Instagram. The dress code is formal so come prepared for a night full of rich history and good company.

ART FESTIVAL OF MAKING RHA, OCTOBER 20TH-29TH The RHA’s Festival of Making includes a ten-day celebration of the Academy’s role in the creation of art. There will be demonstrations, talks, and masterclasses celebrating the RHA’s 200 years of commitment to peer learning.

All activities are open to the public to observe, during select times. Admission is free.

FOOD AND DRINK THE RIOJA WINE FESTIVAL 2023 DAVENPORT HOTEL, OCTOBER 21ST, 1-4PM AND 5:30-8:30PM Leave midterm season behind you at the Davenport Hotel. This celebration of Rioja includes masterclasses with John Wilson and Fergal Tynan and elaborate wine tastings. This event will be split into two sessions, allowing ticket holders to savour a wide variety of wines. Each session will span three hours, providing plenty of time to partake in a 45 minute Masterclass and sample all the wines showcased.

The Rioja Wine Festival is not one to miss if you are a wine lover, or even if you just want to broaden your wine horizons! Tickets range between €35-€40 and can be purchased on

15

REVIEW

BREATHING LIFE INTO DUBLIN BUILDINGS

Maisie Greener ASSISTANT RADIUS EDITOR

O

ver the course of the last couple of weeks, some of Dublin’s finest homes, galleries, embassies and everything in between opened their doors to the general public as Open House Dublin, Festival of Architecture graced the city. In its eighteenth instalment, the festival promised its largest and most accessible rendition yet.

With over one hundred events having been scheduled, spanning from walking tours to debates, the programme was both broad-ranging and focused.

Refreshingly, the IAF’s undertaking to “reveal how Dublin and people reflect and depend on each other” invited and welcomed innovative perspectives on Dublin’s housing crisis.

In September of this year,

wineonline.ie.

FASHION DUBLIN INDEPENDENT FASHION WEEKEND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, OCTOBER 21ST, 12-6PM AND OCTOBER 22ND, 12-4PM A fabulous event aiming to create a platform for Irish Independent Fashion Designers. The event will feature Static Fashion Exhibitions and Pop-up Designer Showrooms from designers such as Laoise Carey, Mar Knitwear, The Zero Waster and Aisling Duffy. Enjoy a live DJ and art installations

by Aisling Phelan as you browse the spectacular collections. Tickets start at €5.27 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

The Irish Times reported that more than 12,000 homes and commercial properties lay vacant across Dublin, and in March the newspaper found that 11,754 people were living in emergency accommodation. Statistics and realities like this have rendered Dublin’s architectural scape hostile and uninhabitable.

However, Open House Dublin did not neglect these essential conversations in favour of less emotive or sensitive topics. Rather, the festival sought to pay equal attention to the past, present and future of architecture in Dublin.

Highlights included: On the weekend of October 14th and 15th, audiences turned their attention from the inside to the outside of the Douglas Hyde Gallery. A tour illuminated the building’s contrasting history, with Gallery 1 epitomising seventies brutalism whilst Gallery 2 roused contem-

FOOD AND DRINK ITALIAN FUSION FESTIVAL, PIZZA & PROSECCO NIGHT THE WELL, OCTOBER 22ND, 6PM Escape the gloomy weather and transport yourself to Italy! As part of the Italian Fusion Festival, Radio Dublino is organising a Pizza and Prosecco Night at The Well on October 22nd.

This event includes live music, an art exhibition, and a dance workshop and aims to promote cultural exchanges between Italy and Ireland. Tickets start at €11.70 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

THEATRE OLIVER CROMWELL IS REALLY VERY SORRY

plation and reflection through less angular means.

The talk ‘I AM AN ARCHITECT: Gender and Professional Identity in Irish Architecture’ took place on October 13th at the Irish Architectural Archive. Dr Dervla MacManus revealed her findings from the Gender Equity in Irish Architecture Research Project which endeavoured to explore the relationship between female architects and their professional lives. Today, women account for only 30 per cent of Registered Architect members. Dr MacManus endeavoured to unpack this fact throughout the course of this event.

‘NewNowNext - Cities Have Feelings’, hosted by the Light House Cinema, assessed architecture’s role in addressing salient issues.

Focusing on architecture’s potential to foster and feed human relationships, the evening breathed new life into the city’s buildings.

PROJECT ARTS CENTRE, OCTOBER 24TH-28TH, 7:30PM Tipped to be “a musical

about a man the English don’t remember and the Irish will never forget”, Oliver Cromwell is Really Very Sorry is set to follow the “Daddy of Democracy, Puritan and total Taurus”.

Winner of Best Ensemble at Dublin Fringe Festival, this production is sure to provide an unforgettable night of laughs. Tickets from €22 and can be purchased through the Project Arts Centre website.

LITERATURE THIS PLAGUE OF SOULS LAUNCH HODGES FIGGIS, OCTOBER 26TH, 6PM Hodges Figgis is celebrating the launch of Booker-longlisted author Mike McCormack’s new thriller, This Plague of Souls, on October 26th. The book follows Nealon as he searches for his family and tries to reconcile an old life with his new one after he’s released from prison.

Described by Hodges Figgis as a “charged thriller,” This Plague of Souls is a perfect read for the Halloween season, dealing with both the metaphysical and more pressing realities and fears of family and fatherhood.

The event begins at 6pm at Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street and is open to the public.

FASHION GENDER-FREE CLOTHES SWAP BECKETT LOCKE, NORTH DOCKS, OCTOBER 28TH, 1-5PM Have you just had an autumn clear-out? Or just realised that you are in need of some preloved pieces to stock up your depleted knitwear selection with winter fast approaching? Do not fear, Sam’s

Collective are hosting a Gender-Free Clothes Swap.

Encouraging label-less garments, the event encourages individuals to purchase pieces that are sustainable.

Arriving with any clothes you would like to donate, and in return, taking whatever catches your eye, all you have to do is arrive ready to hunt! Tickets start at €5 and can be purchased on Eventbrite. This event is the perfect way to get involved and support the creation of slow, sustainable closets this October.

FILM AND TV ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW SCREENING THE SUGAR CLUB, OCTOBER 28TH, 8PM If you’re more into treats than tricks, get yourself to The Sugar Club this Halloweekend for their annual showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Immerse yourself in the spooky-season classic and don your best fishnet tights for a chance to win best dressed. If audience participation isn’t your thing, indulge in a cocktail and watch the festivities from further back.

Tickets are €25 and can be bought through The Sugar Club on Eventbrite.

FOOD AND DRINK AUTUMNAL ALLOTMENT RECIPES, TASTINGS & GARDEN TOUR FESTINA LENTE, OCTOBER 30TH, 11AM-12:30PM Learn more about autumnal cuisine this October bank holiday at Festina Lente! Marvel at the walled gardens and get inspired by head gardener Dr. Sinead O’Connor. Tickets start at €10 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.