Most notable amongst these achievements was the successful campaign against the reintroduction of 3^rd level fees, an issue that has dominated the student landscape for the last couple of years. Though by no means exclusively the result of the UCDSU, Redmond feels it could not have happened without them.

“The resources from the UCD SU were vital. Myself and Conan, current President of Trinity College SU, sat down very early and decided that the campaign that had been run the previous year wasn’t working and we needed to go at this from a new tack.”

This new approach involved placing a much greater emphasis on lobbying and contacting individual TDs directly, an approach that took full advantage of the Green Party’s precarious position within Government. Of course, the lack of direct student involvement has seen Redmond draw much criticism but he insists that, if offered the chance, he wouldn’t change a thing.

“When I’ve a choice between knocking on the doors of Res or going and lobbying a TD who might stop that student paying five grand in fees next year, my choice will always be on the background lobbying work because I think it achieves far more.”

With the reintroduction of fees off the immediate agenda, it is difficult to argue with him. However, his concentration on this national issue, and the methods he employed have hindered Redmond’s performance closer to home. According to a study carried out by The University Observer, less than 40 per cent of the student population could recognise the President.

“I’m always worried. Every student should know who their SU President is,” admits Redmond slowly, pausing for breath. He is then quick to dispute the significance of these results, lamenting that “students only come to the Union when they have a problem. They don’t see the work that’s going on. ” Though there is certainly much merit in his claim, Redmond’s methods certainly did little to improve his visibility levels.

Whilst progress on many of his more substantial manifesto promises is evident, the pace of their delivery has often left much to be desired. In an age where the internet has surpassed all other media outlets, it is notable that plans for a SU website to keep students updated have only just come to fruition.

Likewise work to ameliorate the parking situation in UCD, an issue close to the hearts of many students, has shown little concrete progress during Redmond’s tenure. He is adamant that the new transport plans drawn up will alleviate UCD’s current parking shortage but for the time being they remain merely plans. Similarly, Redmond is in “protracted negotiations with the bursar” over the high level of residential fees and hopes “to tidy that up” before his term ends.

The return of the number 10 bus service to Belfield, the extension of library hours and fruitful negotiations over the student centre levy, all achieved whilst cutting the budget by seven per cent, bears testament to Redmond’s talent in dealing with the university. He puts this down to the trust he had earned from his role as Entertainments Vice-President last year.

Another area where Redmond is suitably pleased is the Student Health Service, something he prioritised in his manifesto. “Health services are working a lot better,” he beams. “We’ve been able to reintroduce the contraceptive clinic and move the STI clinic on campus.”

Yet, these successes cannot hide perhaps the greatest blemish on Redmond’s record. “Infighting between sabbatical officers is not good enough,” he admits. “But in the UCDSU, the President of the SU has no power to discipline the sabbats so you’re at the mercy of the sabbats that are elected.”

Arguing that this meant he was powerless to deal with internal disputes and allegations of incompetence, Redmond believes that a review of the SU structures is necessary to ensure that sabbatical officers can be held accountable in the future. Despite these complaints, little effort has thus far been expended trying to overhaul the current SU structures.

When challenged over his promises to reduce resit/repeat fees, Redmond explained that he could not do this because it would contravene established SU policy designed to spread the costs of more practical subjects across all faculties. “As president I am merely a tool to implement the policy of the SU. My opinion doesn’t really count. Particularly going forward to the USI, I will merely be a tool to implement the policy.”

As Redmond’s year draws to a close, it appears his legacy is still very much up in the air. Beyond the fight against fees and the reintroduction of library and bus services, Redmond is heavily reliant on the future to prove he has been as successful a President as he claims.

“While the work is started now, I suppose the benefits will only be seen long after I’m gone,” muses Redmond. This is the difficulty facing any political leader and Redmond could not hope to be the exception. With any luck by the time Redmond takes up his position as USI President next year, the dividends will already be evident. Otherwise incoming President Paul Lynam will face a year of even tougher decisions.

The word ‘Ultras’ cannot escape its footballing connotations. It immediately evokes images of flare waving Italians or street fighting Serbians. So when I received the call to check out the ‘UCD Ultras’, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Was this in fact a job better suited to Danny Dyer, football’s official hardest man? I needn’t have worried.

“Do we have to be called the Ultras?” exclaimed Mark Connors, ring leader of the group, seconds into our meeting. “We’d prefer to be called something a little more gay! Maybe we could be the ‘Blue Army’ instead?”

It’s a remarkable comment considering the widely held stereotypes that young, particularly male, football fans enjoy nothing better than fighting. As Mark made clear, that’s just not what the ‘Blue Army’ is about.

“It’s a bunch of lads having a bit of craic,” he began, musingly. “We’ve always gone to League of Ireland games but not really to support one team. We just said this year we’re going to take on a team and reckoned UCD would be the team with the least fans. So we decided we’d be their fans.”

The idea was born before the Christmas break but remained a pipe dream right up until the final week of pre-season. Between college, jobs and girlfriends the group that would become the ‘Blue Army’ had little time to discuss the details much further. But when the first game against Drogheda United came round, the lads were there to witness a 3-0 victory for UCD.

With the Students’ league attendances rarely surpassing the hundreds, new groups of supporters are hard to miss. After 90 minutes of continuous chanting, disrupted only by their copious use of drums, no one in the ground could possibly remain unaware of the ‘Blue Army’.

“We just went to the first game and the [UCD] PR lads came over to us and basically said ‘Look, are you planning on going to all the games?’” explained Mark matter of factly. “We said ‘yes’ so they gave us free season tickets.”

“He wants us there because if we definitely go they’ll have some supporters,” chimed in Jamie Conroy, a fellow member of the ‘Blue Army’. “Then other supporters just start coming over and sitting around us.”

Five games into the season and it’s looking like the club’s investment has already started to pay off.  “Last Friday, there was about fifty people joining us,” continued Lee McEneff, a member currently attending UCD, enthusiastically. “Compare that to pictures of the first match where it was literally just us.”

“The other night there was the seven of us with a load of people around us which was great,” added Mark, nodding his head in agreement. “That’s the aim. Just keep adding people to us.”

It is often wondered, by the boys amongst many others, why the football team of a college that caters to over 20,000 members has such poor attendance levels and a reputation for fairly passive crowds.

“Not everyone at UCD is going to like football but surely at least 5,000 do?” Mark opines. “Would they not be interested in going to a game?”

Of course the college has made several attempts to entice students into matches, most notably the discount price for tickets purchased with a student card, but Lee feels even more could be done. “There’s enough tellys around here, especially in the Student Bar and Centre, with nothing on them which could be used to tell students about the matches. Most people on campus just aren’t aware that the matches are going on.” It’s a fair criticism. Games regularly occur on Friday evenings but from walking through campus it would be almost impossible to tell. There are no announcements, no fanfare and no posters.

“If people went once or twice, they’d see there was a bit of an atmosphere,” bemoans Mark. “UCD are a pretty exciting team, they’re all still young fellows but they play good football. If they can just get people into the stadium, they’ll see there’s a bit of craic going on.”

However, that’s no easy task. The Airtricity League is, and perhaps forever will be, firmly in the shadows of its more illustrious neighbours. Leinster’s renaissance makes them a favourite destination for Friday’s sporting fix, whilst outside Dublin, interest in the GAA is as strong as ever. Even within football, UCD faces stiff competition. From their more successful Irish rivals to the behemoth that is the English Premier League, there exist numerous drains on the College’s fan base.

Still, if you’re ever stuck for something to do, UCD are playing Sporting Fingal this Thursday. The boys would be more than happy to see you.

War Cries

UCD’s Ultras share their own inimitable chants

“UCD, UCD,

College are the team for me

With a knick, knack paddy-whack, Give a dog a bone,

f*** off Bohs, Go on home!”

(To the tune of ‘New York, New York’)

“Start spreading the news, he’s playing today

He’s gonna score a goal for us, Kilduff, Kilduff;

If he can score from there, he’ll score from anywhere

It’s up to you Kilduff, Kilduff!”

Ciaran Kilduff he’s our man, hero of our nation

Ciaran Kilduff scores a goal, it’s college jubilation!

“Oh when the U! (Oh when the U!)

The UCD! (The UCD!)

When UCD go marching in!

Oh how I want to be in that number

When UCD go marching in!”

“Low lie the fields of Belfield Bowl

Where once we watched the great college play

Evan McMillian is our captain

We have dreams and songs to sing

Of the glory round the fields of Belfield Bowl…”

Living in UCD is like living in your own self-contained universe. In fact, you could quite conceivably survive an entire week without setting foot outside Belfield and feel none the worse for it. Need something to eat? Well, just pop down to Centra. Can’t cook? Not a problem, the Restaurant or Elements will cater to all your nutritional needs. If that’s all a bit too heavy, you’re never more than five minutes away from one of the campus’s numerous delis.

Of course, there are other things in life besides food, entertainment being an essential one. UCD seems to have that pretty much covered as well: Two bars, free WiFi, a pool hall, a gym, countless pitches, even a hairdresser – it’s hard to imagine anyone running out of things to do on campus. If worst comes to worst, you could even study in one of the many libraries scattered across campus (I particularly recommend Health Sciences; the most comfortable chairs bar none).

Its facilities are hardly surprising when you think that UCD caters to roughly twenty thousand students alone. If UCD was listed as an individual town its population would see them slot in as eleventh biggest in the country, just ahead of Tralee and Naas. As a county, it wouldn’t be much smaller than Leitrim.

However, Belfield is not a separate entity.

It can sometimes be hard to remember that life in Donnybrook does not begin and end with students. There was a neighbourhood here before UCD relocated from its city centre buildings in the 1970s. Truth be told, we’re just part of what makes up the larger Dublin 4 community. But what does the community think of us? It’s time to meet the neighbours.

Having been to my fair share of house parties and seen firsthand the chaos that often ensues, I did wonder if UCD’s neighbours would have anything to say. So it was with a deserved sense of trepidation that I ventured out on a cold Wednesday night, through the Clonskeagh gate and into the real world.

As I approached the first in a long line of Georgian houses, it was not difficult to establish which ones I could skip over. Driveways with a Fiat Punto, a dented Micra and a couple of bikes lashed to railings overrun by ivy, were unlikely to know much about the problems of living in an area dominated by students.

A patio lined with potted plants, though, seemed more promising. Taking a moment to compose myself, I quickly ran over the questions I’d prepared before ringing the bell. Nothing. Maybe they hadn’t heard me? I rang again, then conceded defeat.

This pattern was repeated until I struck the fourth house. Sheltering in the doorway, contemplating moving on again, the curtain nearest me snapped back to reveal an aged women peering out at me. Expecting her to at least hear me out, I tentatively moved back towards the door.

She recoiled, even with a heavy set door between us, and gave me a look that said “Not tonight, sunshine.”  I retreated, tail firmly between my legs, and wondering what could possibly have evoked such a vehement reaction.

Soon after, it struck me how suspicious I must have seemed – walking up each drive, ringing the doorbell, peering through the entrance, desperate for the sign of movement that would herald an invitation in from the cold. I could quite easily have been casing the joint. Suddenly, her reaction seemed perfectly acceptable. Normal even.

I found myself wishing the Observer made official press badges – and not just to feel self important. Knocking door to door, they would have come in real handy. Slightly crestfallen, and now really regretting jettisoning my scarf back at the office, I continued to work my way up the street.

Briefly after crossing over to the other side, my luck began to change. Maybe this wouldn’t be a waste of an evening after all.

“It’s a bit of a mixed bag,” admits Michael, walking me into the kitchen. “There are good and bad sides. I mean, it’s nice having all that open space behind me, but students going out at night can cause quite a lot of noise.”

Beyond this, Michael’s only gripe with living in such close proximity to UCD is the extra traffic clogging up his entrance every morning. After a quick discussion of the George Lee subject (“a bottler”, in case you hadn’t heard), I was on my way.

Though brief, my visit had exponential benefits. As a veteran of the neighbourhood, Michael was able to point out which houses were definitely not students and, more importantly, which ones’ occupants wouldn’t mind giving up their time to help me.

His first tip was an instant success. Following a couple of seconds spent weighing up my back story, mother-of-two Jane beckoned me into her living room and placed a mug of reassuringly hot tea in front of me.

“Well, there are a lot of students living down in The Maples and they do tend to have a lot of parties. So just noise would be my only problem,” she says settling into the chair opposite me. “Though, to be honest, I wouldn’t really have any interaction with students.”

On the other hand, Jane is particularly positive about “the lovely grounds” UCD has and believes that, if nothing else, the college provides a great place to walk the dog. Though not the intended purpose of any third level centre of education, walking featured highly on the important advantages offered to the local community. In fact, to some it seemed important enough to balance out the sporadic noise problems.

It certainly featured prominently in Sarah’s assessment of living in such a student dominated area. “Maybe it’s an advantage because people can walk there,” she begins. “Yes on the basis that it’s a green area, I’d say it’s good for the community.”

However, this is not to say she doesn’t have her grievances. “Students coming home very late at night, drinking their cans on the corner outside the house, drive me demented,” she pauses, the sound of her vegetable chopping filling the kitchen. “I have a small child who sleeps at the front and it would be lovely if they just noticed that people do live around here or stayed further towards the centre of campus.”

Though an understandable problem, a funny pattern concerning noise pollution began to emerge. Funnily enough, those closest to students often complained the least. Brendan lives with his family, fast approaching middle age and practically encircled by student digs, but seems rather blasé about the whole situation.

“Truthfully, you rarely see your neighbours when they’re students. It’s no advantage to them and no advantage to me because there’s no interaction,” he points out the window, across the way. “There’s a few sets of students in that redbrick house there. I mean they have parties, because I hear them leaving late enough but they just, sort of… have their party and leave.”

“You’ll get a gang coming home in the morning and they’ll literally just walk up the road talking really loudly, then they’re gone,” he continues matter of factly. “The occasional vodka bottle will come flying but no real damage. We have no issues really.”

His daughter Sally, hereto silent, interjects that it’s just the facts of college life.

“Exactly. Somebody going down the other night, for a bit of fun, put all the plants on top of the car. You don’t usually expect the plants to be there, but that’s no damage,” Brendan trails off into laughter.

And maybe that’s the truth of the matter. For the large part, living so near to students doesn’t have that much of an effect. Aside from intermittent noise disturbances, our neighbours go about their lives in pretty much the same way we do: in almost blissful ignorance of each other.

“I feel we’re two separate blocks,” mused Michael. “If there wasn’t beer up here, I don’t think we’d ever see each other!”

Case Study: Living next door to University

Brendan lives close to UCD’s Belfield campus. He initially found that his personal difficulties were exacerbated when a group of students moved in near his house, but soon came to a workable compromise.

“I was a bit stressed, and the next thing the gang moved in next door, and there was a party rocking on until quite late. So I went in [to the student house] and I was very nasty. The next morning, I got up and I was really sorry, so I scribbled a little note and I put it in the letter box. I said: ‘Well, look, we’ll come to an agreement here… make as much noise as you like up to eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, and then we’ll have a curfew at that point – we’ll all get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll all be happy’. I think it’s worked out very well since.

I’m happy with that, as long as everyone else is happy with that. There are no issues at all.

Late nights and trips away from home, along with an energetic alias, are just some of the pleasures of leading a double life. Last week, someone even approached her after a gig and offered to market her quite unusual talent.

C.C. Cooper is UCD’s very own country and western singer.

From a very young age, Christine had frequent exposure to country music. Her grandfather was an original member of the Clipper Carlton Showband, an innovative Irish musical outfit from the post-war era, and it seems that his musical touch was not lost to his generation.

“My Mam has always loved music. Whenever she was growing up, she and her siblings, they could all play instruments and sing and stuff,” she explains animatedly. “So anytime that we were on journeys back up to the North it would just be pure country in the car. From a really young age that would’ve been the music I’d be listening to.”

However, it hasn’t always been her style. After a yearlong media course, Christine auditioned for a show similar to ITV’s Popstars (the one that brought the lovely Nadine Coyle, and the lovelier Cheryl Cole, to our attention) where she was paired up with two other girls to form a group called ‘Nickel and Dime’. Unfortunately, they weren’t quite as catchy as Girls Aloud, though some of their songs did enjoy slightly longer shelf lives.

“We sang two original songs on the show that BMG Records gave to us but in the end they didn’t take us on or whatever,” she mutters wistfully, visibly deflated for the first time. “Instead, those they were given to Luanne Pearl who went on to win five Meteor Awards that year with the songs. I was devastated but, like, she kind of had changed the songs a little bit, made them a bit more moody and not as fun and poppy as we had them.”

Though a kick in the teeth, it was during her brief sojourn in ‘Nickel and Dime’ that Christine realised Country and Western music was her real calling. So when a country radio show launched a nationwide singing competition, with a trip to Country and Western’s Mecca – Nashville, Tennessee – as the prize, she leapt at the opportunity.

“I applied online, and then I got a phone call not too long afterward about the Dublin heats,” she begins, her enthusiasm making a welcome return. “I won that so I went on to the final which was held in The Well, in Moate.”

Going into the final, Christine was confident but certainly far from assured of victory. In fact, she’d already booked holidays to Australia that overlapped with the Nashville jamboree. Nevertheless, playing with Martin Cuff’s amusingly named band, ‘Off the Cuff’, Christine blew the judges away to secure first place and her dream trip to Nashville. Australia – not for the first time – would have to wait.

“I’d been to Nashville before, two years ago now, and that was actually the first time I’d planned to go to Australia. It seems every time I plan to go, I get redirected to Nashville.” Suggestions that it was her ‘destiny calling’, however, are quickly laughed off.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of her victory was the opportunity to perform at UTV’s annual Country Fest. Christine herself admits that she probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without that performance and the contacts she made there.

Now halfway through her first year of Children’s and General Nursing here at UCD, Christine seems decidedly non-commital when pressed on her future. However, one thing she seems very certain about is raising the profile of country and western music around campus.

“I’d love to perform in UCD. There’s no country and western society, but Ents run events, or I could do an open mic night. I know the girls in my class and all of them are dying to hear me sing. Maybe UCD could hold a country night?”

Nervous laughter. Would dungarees finally become acceptable apparel around Belfield?

“Sure! If they wanted, I could probably dress them all up! I’ve got about a million cowboy hats,” she exclaims enthusiastically. “Given half the opportunity, I’d love to work with the Ents crew or whatever to design UCD’s very own barn dance.”

Now there’s an original manifesto idea.

However, many staff felt the guidelines failed to prescribe the appropriate action to take if they were lecturing when news of an emergency broke, as retreating to their office would constitute a dereliction of duty towards their students who would be left alone in classrooms or theatres. Confusion arose following a presentation by members of the University’s Critical Incident Response and Management team on Tuesday 26^th January.

Dr Padraic Conway, the co-ordinator of UCD’s Emergency Response Plan, suggested at the meeting that the choice of whether to leave students in a classroom would be that of individual staff member involved, but remarked that it would be prudent for a lecturer to stay with their students, particularly if the theatre was equipped with a working computer or telephone.

It is understood that staff would be informed of an emergency situation through a combination of text messages, emails and phone calls. However, this system has been deemed unreliable and overly dependent on external networks which not be able to support the level of traffic required to spread the information quickly across campus.

The primary aim of UCD’s Emergency Response Plan is to “provide a framework for the co-ordination of the university’s response to any critical incidents.” The plan defines a critical incident as anything that “could cause a major disruption to the operation of the university” or “cause injury or loss of life to staff, students and visitors to the university”. The University Observer understands that any incident which could cause environmental damage will also be dealt with under the Emergency Response Plan.

Foreseeable incidents have been graded along a three-tier system ranging from smaller inconveniences such as burst pipes, to worst-case scenarios such as “a hostage situation involving multiple students”, with tailored strategies created for each.

It has also emerged that UCD is presently applying for planning permission to install a campus-wide siren system, which would be activated on the development of an emergency, providing instant notification to the UCD community of any emergency conditions.

Dr Conway expressed satisfaction with the progress the Emergency Response Plan within the campus, pointing to the relatively small impact of Swine Flu on campus as evidence of its success. However, Dr Conway was keen to emphasise that development of the plan could never be completed, as the plan be need to be continuously updated as new situations came to light.

I can’t be the only one amused by the fact that, of all the well-documented threats to stability in Northern Ireland, it was something as unremarkable as one woman’s fall from grace which grabbed the headlines, and much of the vitriol, over the last couple of weeks.

Of course, I’m not condoning the behaviour of Iris Robinson. What she did was at the very least dishonest, though probably short of illegal, and she certainly deserves to be held accountable by the public for it. But at the same time, I just can’t help but wonder if the reaction to the whole thing hasn’t been blown far out of proportion.

Mrs Robinson is not the first, and certainly won’t be the last, politician to cheat on their spouse. In fact, she’s not even the most notorious or vigorous philanderer to have graced the political stage in recent years. Politically she has lost everything, but many of her brethren have gone from strength to strength. For some of them, being seen to be sexually virile even seems to be as effective in stirring up support as hitting the campaign trail.

Take a look at Silvio Berlusconi. Arguably one of Italy’s more successful politicians, his larger-than-life personality is perhaps the key reason that Italian voters continually return him to office. Though many Italians are embarrassed to have him as their leader, a great deal more absolutely love his brazen approach.

Berlusconi’s chauvinistic behaviour has never really been in doubt. He is, after all, the man who suggested, with his country deep in recession, that the best way for an attractive woman to find a job was to try and marry his son. Then, in perhaps the most memorable moment of his 2008 election campaign, he sought support because the female members of his right-wing party were far more attractive than their leftist counterparts. With a former Miss Italy amongst their ranks, he may not be too far wrong.

It was therefore not a huge surprise when news of his frequent liaisons with women much younger than himself and his entanglement in a prostitution scandal came to light last year. These allegations, which led to his wife Veronica Lario finally filing for divorce, appeared merely to confirm what many had suspected for a while. AC Milan, the football team of which Berlusconi is owner, weren’t the only ones playing away from home.

Yet far from destroying his career, Berlusconi remains an object of admiration, even jealousy. He is seen as the ultimate chancer; the hedonistic playboy. We just can’t get enough of him. Even allegations that Berlusconi was a frequent purveyor of prostitution failed to topple him, he provides so many with vicarious pleasure. Every man wants to be him; every woman wants to be with him. He’s powerful man, a rich man – a “real man”?

Of course, the fact that Berlusconi also owns much of his national media may be a factor overlooked in the positioning of his playboy image – where even his hair transplants and fake tan are glamorised.

Poor old Iris Robinson. When allegations of her indiscretions came to light, she was whisked away from the public gaze. Instead of brazening it out like Berlusconi and saying, “Why of course, I’m in my ski lodge in Chamonix”, she was committed to a psychiatric ward post-haste.

Robinson set herself up like a Shakespearean tragic figure… or was it the Oedipus tragedy? I can’t remember. Putting aside the raising of funds through her position of influence and her borrowings to help fund a business venture of her toyboy Kirk McCambley, Robinson had already drawn the spotlight on herself with statements such as “homosexuality, like all sin, is an abomination” and asserting that “the government has a responsibility to uphold God’s laws morally” – hardly representative of her political office.

In an age of so called equality, the odds are stacked against her: somehow an older woman with a younger man is still considered more shocking. With hindsight, it’s hard to see who was seducing whom and for what benefit.

Meanwhile, McCambley’s restaurant will forever be on the tourist trail. His business is booming, and he’s paid back the money. He’s being offered photo shoots as a gay icon for bedding her. And he can earn six figure sums per story sold. Having sex with Mrs Robinson was the best piece of publicity Kirk McCambley ever pulled. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory. Ask the man in the street and you’re guaranteed he’ll question at least one of history’s accepted facts. America’s moon landing in 1969? Never happened: all just filmed in a Hollywood basement. Fluoride in our water reducing tooth decay? More like fluoride, the Government mind-control drug. Global warming? A sinister plot to spread socialism.

But none of these is nearly as enthralling as the search for UFOs and extraterrestrial life. People just can’t help but be fascinated by what, if anything at all, is out there amongst the star-speckled sky. A quick search on Google reveals over thirty million hits and an astronomical number of sites, offering to reveal all.

The only problem is that, to anyone with a healthy dose of cynicism, it can be very hard to trust even half the things you hear on the subject. The study of UFOs is a field renowned for hoaxes and lunatics. For men still living at home well beyond their thirties and women with an unhealthy attachment to cats, finding people with serious and sincere claims can be an uphill struggle.

To help me sift the chaff from the wheat, I turned to the president of Ireland’s UFO Society.

Thirteen years ago, Betty Meyler was reading a copy of the Sunday World when an article piqued her interest. There had been a mysterious crash in the Curlew Mountains near where she lived in Boyle, County Roscommon and rumours quickly spread that the vehicle in question wasn’t just a car or a van, but a UFO. In fact so many conflicting reports emerged that an investigation was launched by two UFO researchers, who presented their findings in one of Boyle’s many pubs. Though their findings were inconclusive, Boyle was bitten by the UFO bug.

“Talking to the townspeople afterwards, I was surprised to find that quite a lot of people who had had experiences of some description or another,” explains Meyler in a voice that’s in equal parts sincere and reassuring. “So we decided to form a little society called the Western UFO Society.”

Originally, the group was hugely popular but very quickly attendances started dropping off and the group petered out before the end of the year. Meyler feels this was because people felt that once they had described their own experiences, there was little more to discuss. The stigma attached to being part of a group that believed in UFOs certainly didn’t help its longevity either.

“People were getting embarrassed being seen going up to a meeting labelled ‘UFO Society.’ That was considered for the weirdos,” she says, the disappointment in her voice barely concealed. “Don’t forget that this was 1996 and people have expanded their ways of thinking a lot more since then.”

That could have been the end of Meyler’s brainchild. Instead, three years later, her society witnessed a dramatic revival after the magazine Woman’s Way ran a piece on her. Suddenly, radio stations across the country were calling her in to explain Ireland’s official UFO situation. The response was overwhelming, and Meyler was flooded with stories from across the country of people’s everyday encounters with UFOs.

“Everybody around here knows me so they know who to contact where as if they see something in Galway or Cork they don’t know who to contact. I felt it was silly for me to just confine my activities to the west of Ireland so we became nationwide. Overnight I had become President of the UFO Society of Ireland.”

Somewhat surprisingly, these stories were not limited to your average stereotypical UFOers, but included down to earth pillars of the community. In fact, it was while receiving oncology treatment that she heard some news that might solve one of the great unexplained mysteries in ufology.

“We know that the starship Capricorn has been circling the Earth for a good long time and every now and then it sends down these sort of probes,” she explains matter-of-factly. “But what they send them down for, we’re not quite sure.”

Her hospital consultant, on the other hand, appeared to have the answer. “He says that UFOs use radon to fuel their craft, which I thought was very interesting. Nobody I’d spoken to seems to have heard of that but if it’s true, that’s what they come down for: to collect the radon.”

Now in its tenth year, Meyler explains that the main aim of her organisation is to bring awareness of the UFO scene to the general public and act as a forum for those who are interested in searching out the truth. The centrepiece of their calendar is the annual conference, this year held in Boyle’s King Hotel on the third of October. It attracted prominent speakers in the field from across the globe and Meyler now feels her function has become an important part of the international circuit.

A quick perusal of their latest newsletter had left me intrigued. Just what was this ‘portal’ she’d discovered off the coast of Church Island? “There’s something there but it’s nothing structural. It’s like an esoteric thing that they go into. But it does explain the many sightings around the Lough Key area.”

The discovery was quite by accident. An acquaintance of hers had been photographing Church Island to use as a screensaver for his computer. But when he developed the photos, he found more than the idyllic background he’d been looking for.

“He saw a big white light in the middle of the island. Nobody had seen it. So he phoned me and asked if I’d like to take a look at it because everybody around here knows I’m ‘Mrs UFO’,” she beams. “As he was leaving he said, ‘There’s a portal there.’ And I thought, ‘That was a very strange thing for him to say’.” Her interest aroused, Meyler began investigating.

“Are you familiar with pendulums?” she suddenly interjected.

I was stumped. Racking my brain, I could only manage to stumble out an embarrassingly stuttered “no”.

“I have a rose quartz pendulum on a little silver chain,” she continued, undeterred. “For me, if I ask it a question and the answer’s ‘yes’, it will go round and round. If the answer’s ‘no’, it will go up and down. That’s it for me, but pendulums behave in different fashions for different people. Anyway, I checked out his claims with my pendulum.”

After ascertaining that there was a UFO presence, Meyler continued her line of questioning until she discovered that the light indicated a portal in place roughly twenty five feet in front of the island. With this hypothesis in place, she took a boat out to the spot to investigate first hand.

“As we went over this particular spot, the pendulum went round, and as we left it went up, to say we were going out of it. So that confirmed what I had been thinking.”

Church Island is not unique within Boyle as a link to the extraterrestrial. Meyler believes that the Knocknabrusna mound, just off the N61 Boyle to Roscommon road, is also very important.

“It’s obviously a very sacred, ancient mound. It used to be the coronation ground of the McDermott clan who are very big in this area,” she explained. “This mound is reputed to be the burial place of Cezar, the granddaughter of Noah. Noah put her out of the Ark for some reason and she found her way somehow to Boyle. This is recorded, apparently, in the annals of Ireland.”

“So I went up with one medium who found a direct ‘layline’ from this mound to Mount Ararat. And can you remember what’s reputed to be on the top of Mount Ararat?” she continues excitedly. “The Ark of the Covenant! That’s interesting, isn’t it?”

But that’s not all. A couple of years later, some friends of hers were driving past the mound when peculiar lights in the distance began to follow them. “Every time they stopped the car, the lights stopped. As they went on, the lights went on. When they turned round to see if these lights would follow them, a big light came down and the little lights seemed to go up, then the big light whizzed away. I think that would have been a mothership and makes me believe that mound is like a UFO hangar.”

Meyler was quick to point out that the pendulum wasn’t her communicating with aliens directly but rather a way for her to gain knowledge.

“I can use it for anything,” she explains, “from discovering if I had a milk allergy to predicting where the next UFO sighting would be. My source of information is wherever I wish it to come from. For example, if I’m doing UFO stuff, I’ll call on Commander Ashta. Commander Ashta is the commander-in-chief of the intergalactic forces.”

Perhaps sensing the seeds of doubt blossoming in my mind, she quickly qualified the statement. “You see, what I say is a lot of my own spiritual beliefs. It’s not scientific at all – either you believe it or you don’t believe it, in the same way you believe Jesus is the son of God, or you don’t believe it. There’s nothing to prove that he was.”

I had always thought that religion and alien life were diametrically opposed, but Meyler had no problem in reconciling the two. Instead, she described how her local priest took a keen interest in her work, and how the Church was increasingly open to the idea of there being extra-terrestrial life near the west.

“Perhaps six or seven months ago, the Church came out with an encyclical saying that extraterrestrials are real, they are beings created by God, and to say they didn’t exist was to put limitations on God. They’ve know it all along but now they’re coming out to admit it.”

According to Meyler, the Church is not unique in covering up the existence of extraterrestrial life. Governments have been equally guilty.

“They have to stop sending up their jets to shoot them down,” she declares before explaining that, until then, it is highly unlikely that aliens will be able to openly land on Earth. However, she did reveal that government efforts haven’t been completely successful.

“I do believe there are extraterrestrials walking amongst us. You’ve probably seen some people and thought that person looks a bit strange – slightly sort-of-pointy ears, pointy nose. You see them and notice that they look different,” she begins. “And I’m beginning to find that sometimes autistic children have, shall we say, ‘come from another planet’, which is why they find it very difficult to adjust to life on this planet. They don’t want to go to school because they know it all.”

At this point, scepticism makes a flaring return and I start to wonder if there’s any truth in what Meyler has to say. I try to broach the subject tactfully but I needn’t have bothered. She is remarkably open about the fact that many people would consider her mad and doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest.

“Everybody has their own beliefs. I respect their views but you don’t need to tell me what to believe and I don’t tell you what to believe,” she chuckles gently. “But I’ll tell you one thing: when Galileo told everyone the Earth was round, everybody called him mad. Anything new, people will not accept. I mean they didn’t even accept Christ, they crucified him. So if they can’t accept that, how do you expect everyone to believe me?”

As I hang up the phone, I can’t help admiring such an honest and passionate woman. Her friendliness and warmth are willing me to believe yet the hard facts just won’t let me. I set out to debunk the myths of ufology and find the truth but it’s just not that simple. Personally, I need more proof than pendulum permutations to accept the existence of alien life but who knows – in a hundred years time, I may be eating my words.

–

You can listen to the recording of Matt’s interview with Betty by clicking here. (Warning: filesize 47MB, fast broadband recommended.) You can also subscribe to The University Observer’s Features Podcast by clicking here (link loads iTunes).

The academic pressure followed controversy over the cancellation of the course in previous years, with only a small number of modules in the subject offered.Enrolment in the course will be open to all incoming first year undergraduate students applying for the BA (Omnibus) course for entry next September.

Under the course descriptions in UCD’s prospectus for next year, the course is described as “a programme providing a comprehensive survey of the Celtic peoples that will enable [students] to understand and appreciate Celtic literary, intellectual and artistic achievements.” The course will be made available as both a major or minor subject stream.

Subjects offered in the programme will include Early Irish and Breton as well as medieval and modern Welsh. History, literature, language and myth will all be components of the course.

The course had previously been cancelled in the 2005-06 academic year as a cost-cutting measure. Single modules of the language were reintroduced in 2007, but academics in the discipline continued to argue the importance of a full programme in the subject. At the time the degree course was cancelled, one senior lecturer in Early Irish, Dr Patricia Kelly, said that “there is an obligation on an Irish university funded by the Irish people … to maintain adequate training for research on the earliest written records of the Irish people.” There had been concerns that insufficient training in Early Irish would render edifices of ancient Irish literature incomprehensible.

Early Irish incorporates learning the language of Early Irish, as well as studying literature from the period. Celtic languages are linguistically recognised as being the most complex languages in the world to learn.

“Now just where did I put that down? I could have sworn I had it just a minute ago. Yes, it was definitely in my pocket when I got on the bus. But where is it now? Hey, can you ring my phone so I can find it?”

I can’t remember the number of times that words to this effect have meant the start of a long and often fruitless search. However, in Ireland at least, all of that could be a thing of the past for the discerning web user.

It was a lost and found story which inspired Kevin Fagan to set up his website, lost.ie, in January of 2007. He and his girlfriend, Maura Byrne, had been enjoying a New Year break in County Clare when Maura discovered she’d lost her wallet.

“We went back to where we thought we could have lost it but we couldn’t find it,” Fagan explains. “We had to return to Dublin so we just cut our losses and cancelled the credit cards.” Anyone who has befallen a similar fate can attest to the hassle experienced when a wallet is lost.

More often than not, that would have been the end of the story – but not this time. Two weeks later, a German couple were standing on Maura’s doorstep returning her wallet.

“They had been down to County Clare themselves on a little tour around Ireland and had found her wallet by the cliffs of Moher,” Fagan continues. “They were returning to Germany via Dublin Airport, so they decided to take it upon themselves to find out where she lived and hand it back to her in person.”

It turned out that they had been able to track Maura through her membership of a local Xtravision branch, and carried her wallet with them across the country. Touched as he was by the romance of the story, Fagan thought there had to be an easier way for people to perform such acts of generosity. And so, lost.ie was born.

The website is based on the concept of a nationwide Lost Property office. If you have the misfortune of losing something, you can simply fill in a form on the website describing the item, listing your contact details and even attaching a photograph if you have one. Anyone who might find that item can then contact you and return it. By the same token, a separate form allows you to search for the owner of any lost property you might happen to stumble upon.

“The web is the perfect medium for this sort of thing,” Fagan explains, “because instead of people having to travel the length and breadth of the country to retrieve something, they could simply log on online and do all the stuff that way.” With a success rate of roughly one in ten, it appears that Fagan might well have been on to something.

Admirably, the whole site is run on a non-profit basis; Fagan argues that he can’t justify making money off items that people have lost. However, Fagan does not interfere if site users wish to offer their own rewards. However, he is quick to point out that it’s not a requirement, because to expect a reward would “defeat the Good Samaritan purpose of the website.”

The single most reported item of lost property is the digital camera. Fagan puts this down to the fact that that cameras are not something people tend to carry about on day-to-day business. The camera only becomes a de rigeur accessory on a night out; providing documentary evidence for Facebook of the good time that’s been had or helping to fill in the blanks the next day.

But cameras are not all that’s been mislaid in the last two years.

“We had one sensitive chap who’d lost a book of self-penned poems, and I’ll never forget the man whose Battleship was ‘stolen and cast afloat in a river than leads to the lake’. The poor guy had stressed that his ship was ‘NOT A TOY’!”

“The most bizarre one was a lady who had lost her car,” he chuckles. “She went out for a few drinks and she decided against driving home. When she went back to find her car, she’d forgotten which street she’d parked it on!”

Fagan says every form that’s filled out makes its way on to the site, but obviously he still casts his eye over them before publishing. “I’d cast an eye over each one just to make sure its not someone saying, you know, they’ve lost their virginity or they’ve lost their dignity.”

Watches, keys, rings, phones, dogs, cats – all have been lost and successfully found on Fagan’s website. The perhaps consciously tongue-in-cheek owner of a pair of “rose tinted spectacles”, sadly, is still looking.

Fliers: they’re everywhere you turn, particularly in the last month with the addition of Lisbon entreaties to the wide variety already doled out across UCD. The campus is inundated by them.

Sometimes you just want to get across campus without being assaulted on all sides by shiny bits of paper. Sometimes you just don’t want to hear about Crunch Fitness’s latest special offer, or be peddled the latest society gimmick. It’s been a tough day, you’re badly hanging, and that lecturer just doesn’t understand that they’re only allowed take up an hour of your time. Sometimes you just want to go home.

But have you ever stopped to consider what it’s like for the other side? Leaflets don’t exactly hand themselves out, do they? That’s how I found myself sitting outside the Crunch Fitness office at 9am on my single day off of the week, longing for the warm embrace of my duvet. After being handed enough fliers to wallpaper a lecture theatre, and given a brief rundown of what they expected me to do, I was led to my point of distribution for the day.

A wave of relief washed over me when we stopped just outside the James Joyce Library, sheltered from the worst of the elements by a jungle of concrete pillars. Even so, the cold wind sweeping through left me thankful that I had wrapped up warm. Scarf season is certainly upon us.

But with over a hundred leaflets to get rid of before my shift was up, I could ill afford to wallow in self pity for too much longer. So with my iPod for company and advice ringing in my ears, I tentatively began to approach total strangers in the hope that they would have some interest in what I had to offer.

Not many takers. The few who did take the flier would rarely keep it beyond the bin mere metres away from me. Worst of all, with about half an hour gone, one of my new colleagues, Jarik, reminded me we weren’t allowed listen to music.

By ten o’clock my mouth was dry from repeating to a multitude of uninterested passers-by, “Can I interest you in joining Crunch Fitness? Our special offer ends next Thursday!” When Jarik wandered down from his position outside the Ag Block and suggested we go inside for some tea, I jumped at the chance.

With a degree in Business & Advertising from a university in Krakow, Jarik admits he never thought he’d find himself out on the Belfield campus distributing fliers. In fact, until the recession hit, he was working for an advertising company in Poland. I had thought he seemed a bit over-qualified for the job.

As we chatted, a cyclist grabbed a leaflet out of Jarik’s hand as he rode by. I was amazed; Jarik, however, was unfazed. He explained that this happened more often than one might suspect and that, as long as he didn’t hold on too tight, it was an easy enough operation. With this our break was up and he headed back to his position.

“No, thanks.” It was obvious that very few people had any interest in this latest offer, but that didn’t really bother me. In boredom, watching the lengths people would go to avoid me became a perverse form of entertainment. If I appeared from behind a pillar, they hid behind the next. The human shield approach was very amusing: to complete this manoeuvre, the person on the periphery nearest me would merge to the middle of the group. Without doubt, though, my favourite was ‘the sidestep’ – off the concourse and out into the teeming rain, simply to avoid my outstretched arm.

What bothered me most, though, was when people would turn and deliberately look through me blankly, as if I wasn’t there at all, before moving on without so much as a nod. This job is no fun: some friendly rejection really can go a long way. Next time you see someone desperately hoping you might take a flyer from them, I beg you: consider their mental wellbeing. Take the flyer from them; there are always enough bins in UCD for you to dispose of it out of eyeshot.