Gabriel Akujobi / Hennessy / Benson Trinity Tales: Trinity College Dublin in the 2000s

Trinity College Dublin in the 2000s
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-84351-817-4
Verlag: The Lilliput Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 232 Seiten

This, the fifth and final volume in the Trinity Tales series, completes a cycle that began with tales from the 1960s. It invites readers to step into the world of Trinity College as it was in the first decade of this century through the reflections of students who attended the university during those years. Within its pages lie the stories of twenty-eight graduates from a mix of diverse backgrounds whose experiences may dispel the myths of what it means to be a 'Trinity student'. The collection reveals the rapidly changing world of the early 2000s. This was a time of the internet revolution, when social media first affected student life, when mobile phones and laptops became ubiquitous, when handwritten work was passing into history, when The Buttery closed its doors - and all this coming against the backdrop of an overheating then imploding Irish economy. This kaleidoscope of recollections captures a student body in transformation and features stories of personal discovery and achievement against the odds. For some it proved a life-changing era when sexual, racial or class barriers were confronted. This volume concludes a remarkable half-century journey, portraying the lives of others, and of ourselves.

Sorcha Pollak is a journalist with The Irish Times and writes the popular New to the Parish series. Her first book was New to the Parish: Stories of Love, War and Adventure from Ireland's Immigrants (2018). She has also worked for the Guardian and TIME Magazine. She has a BA in European Studies from Trinity and an MSc in Media, Communications and Development from the London School of Economics. 'Katie Dickson studied English Literature and Philosophy in Trinity from 2000 to 2005 with a sabbatical year as Deputy President of the Students' Union. She was also the Manager of Trinity FM and Editor of the University Record. She has a Masters in Library and Information Studies from UCD and is the school librarian at St Dominic's College, Cabra. She sits on the committees of the Library Association of Ireland's Youth Library Group and the School Library Association of the Republic of Ireland.'

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gabriel Akujobi, Uché

Hennessy, Claire

Benson, Sarah

Hodson, Hal

Crothers, Adam

Ibrahim, Khalid

Fychan, Heledd

Jordan, Wayne

Gatling, Annie

Kennedy, Kate

Gleeson, Emma

Lally, Caitríona

Jarla,

Loughnane, Cliona

Majekodunmi, Jess

Matu-Garnett, Sallay

McCausland, Darragh

Murray, Erica

O'Connell, Paul

O'Sullivan, Katriona

Quinn, Kieran

Rahill, Elske

Ring, Dave

Ryan, Alice

Schachter, Jonathan

Whyte, Carl

Gregory, Jarlath

Haskins, Dylan

Hearne, Rory

Dickson, Katie

Pollak, Sorcha

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION • katie dickson and sorcha pollak

In the summer of 2003, I did a brief internship for the Lilliput Press, shortly before starting a year-long sabbatical position as Deputy President of the TCD Students’ Union. After graduating from Trinity with a BA in English Literature and Philosophy, my career path took a leisurely stroll through teaching and into librarianship. I therefore hesitated before agreeing to take on this project; I knew that my own professional experience lay far outside the realm of editorial work. I am a school librarian by trade.

I was in Trinity in May 2019 for a dinner for ex-Students’ Union officers. We were taken on a tour of House 6. (For those uninitiated, House 6 is the building in Front Square that hosts the Students’ Union shop, the SU offices, the Publications Office and many of the society rooms.) We were brought upstairs and I was shocked to find that the SU Bookshop was no more. This had been a space that was central to my own Trinity experience, and now there were only couches and microwaves where once there had been shelves of books.

I started working in the SU Bookshop around Christmas of my First Year. I had applied for a position in the co-op in a spur-of-the-moment whim when I saw an ad outside the SU shop downstairs in House 6. At the time I didn’t realize how important this job would be. The SU Bookshop became my Trinity experience. And, other than a small, faded sign above the door, there is no longer a trace of it. No longer a physical trace, but of course the friendships and the stories live on. I regularly come across books on my shelf with the familiar pencil pricing and code, letting me know what month and year we bought the book. My many years sitting behind the counter of the SU Bookshop allowed me to meet a vast array of Trinity students. And it was ultimately the idea of sharing these stories – the student-centric, realistic, tea-drinking, counter-leaning stories of the college I knew – that finally tempted me. I believed that by revealing the authentic tales of those who graced its cobbles from 2000 to 2010 we would open people’s eyes to what real ‘noughties’ Trinity was like. This would be a Trinity less austere than the tourists’ Trinity, but one that alumni might recognize more. The school librarian in me even hoped school-aged readers might see themselves in some of the contributors, opening Trinity up to those who might have otherwise dismissed it.

When Sorcha and I sat down to compile the list of potential contributors, we were united in our desire to represent a wide spectrum of campus life at the time. We asked our contributors to write as honestly as possible, and they obliged beautifully. Our writers dropped their masks and exposed vulnerabilities, opening up in a way we couldn’t have predicted. It was clear that each person’s Trinity, despite the overlap of time, was a different university, a different place. Contributors who I knew at the time – who I still know now – had huge, life-changing events that coloured their college experiences.

I loved being a Trinity student. Unlike many, my path to Trinity was an easy one. I grew up playing on the carpeted blocks in the foyer of the Department of Modern History and knew my way around campus as a teenager. I didn’t question this advantage. I threw myself into every aspect of student life – writing for Trinity News (later defecting to the University Record), managing Trinity FM and taking up all sorts of Students’ Union positions. Of course it caught up with me later, but that’s a different tale.

Recalling old memories and contacting Trinity friends and connections for this project has been a happy experience. For some it might not have been so easy. To our contributors, thank you for your openness and willingness to share your stories. I have had many lovely interactions by email, phone and Zoom. You have all been so patient with us throughout the whole project.

And thank you to Sorcha: from the beginning, it has been comforting to have a co-editor with publishing experience, and one who attended Trinity in the second half of the decade. Meeting Sorcha in person added to my relief. From the beginning, our vision for the book aligned. If Sorcha had reservations about working with someone outside of publishing, she didn’t let it show. I hope our vision for Trinity Tales has translated onto the page and that we have done justice to this project and to the stories shared by our contributors.

Katie Dickson

In February 2019, an email appeared in my inbox inviting me to edit a collection of essays by Trinity graduates. It was not my first time hearing about the Trinity Tales collection – I had leafed through a copy of the 1970s edition I’d unearthed in my parents’ living room a few months before, interested in reading a snapshot of what life on College Green was like three decades before I stepped through Front Arch.

Neither of my parents attended Trinity (although my dad did dream of going but missed out on the scholarship despite travelling from London in the spring of 1966 to sit the exam), and I didn’t give it much thought during school. My plan was to study drama, become an actress and make it as a star on the Abbey, Gate and West End stages. This ambition did creep into my college years – I was never far from Players’ Theatre during my time at Trinity – but I ended up studying for a degree in European Studies. For a curious, overly excitable, eager-to-do-everything-and-anything nineteen-year-old, it was the perfect choice.

Admittedly, Lilliput Press’ request that I co-edit the latest collection of stories from former students gave me mixed feelings. I adored Trinity. I fell in love for the first time on the cobblestones of Front Square; I met fascinating, kind and talented people I’m lucky to still call my friends; I jetted away to Seville for a sun-soaked Erasmus programme in the south of Spain.

I also struggled with depression for the first time in my life during the whirlwind of First Year; I fell out of love and shed many tears over my on-again, off-again college boyfriend; I pitted myself against my highly intelligent classmates in European Studies only to fall to pieces, questioning my ability to do just about anything. I thrived off the unpredictability and erratic nature of college life. 2006–10 was an impulsive, intense and beautiful period in my life.

However, it took time for me to realize just how lucky I was to have this kind of university experience. The truth is, I have come to reflect on my undergraduate years with a tinge of unease. It was only after graduating, and leaving Dublin, that I started to properly appreciate the privilege I had enjoyed at that time.

I had been a middle-class Dublin girl, living at home, working as a waitress on the weekends in a popular Temple Bar restaurant, acting in plays, gigging and busking with friends, dining in apartments at Botany Bay, popping into the library for an occasional quick flick through a tome on the Spanish Civil War or the French Revolution. I didn’t have to pay bills, and our annual fees – the so-called student ‘contribution’ payment – were a meagre €700 when compared to the €3,000 plus Irish students pay today for ‘free’ third-level education.

I wasn’t involved in student politics and only briefly dipped my toes into student journalism in my final few months before graduation. I was aware of the financial chaos unfolding in the world around me but chose to hide away in the comfort of Players’ front of house.

I knew I was the stereotypical Trinity student and became uncomfortable with that label, particularly given the route my work took in the years that followed, meeting and interviewing people from some of Ireland’s most marginalized and forgotten communities. I reflected on my college years with great fondness, but a big part of me wanted to go back and give my 21-year-old self a good talking to. A reminder to open my eyes and take stock of the diversity all around me.

Because, contrary to popular belief, Trinity was slowly but steadily diversifying in the first decade of the 2000s. Yes, it was still predominantly white, and its student body included some of the wealthiest people I’d ever met. But I also had classmates who relied on scholarships to make it through to Final Year and who worked long hours to cover rent and food. I met students who had made it in through the invaluable Trinity Access Programme (TAP) which, as you will read from this collection, really does transform people’s lives.

And so I embarked on editing this collection in large part to give a platform to these voices – the people in Irish society who may not immediately connect to the privilege associated with Trinity College. The finished book is a fusion of voices – male, female, black, white, gay, straight, middle-class, working-class, Irish, Nigerian, Welsh, Iraqi, Canadian.

I owe huge thanks to my co-editor Katie Dickson for the brilliant contributors she sourced from the early years of the 2000s, and, more importantly, for her support and friendship as we worked through this project. When we first started on the book, we met in bustling coffeeshops to chat through plans, blissfully unaware that these real-life catch-ups would abruptly...