Ireland is facing a potentially pivotal moment in its relatively short history, as it seeks to balance national interests with attempts to find its place in a European Union struck by crisis. Years of incredible Irish growth and development, no doubt boosted by European integration, have come to a grinding halt, to be replaced by austerity measures and re-emerging questions concerning the legitimacy of outside interference.

Paul Gillespie, former Irish Times European correspondent and UCD lecturer in Politics, says that Ireland’s approach to the European Union, under its various guises, has always been governed by both Anglo-Irish relations, as well as “a European dimension to Irish nationalism.” Gillespie believes that Sean Lemass’s opening of negotiations for European membership in 1962 was motivated both by a desire to avoid becoming isolated from Britain, who had opened negotiations in 1961, and also from a natural tendency to look to Europe as a “counter-balance to Britain.”

Political motivations behind Ireland’s involvement in European affairs cannot be ignored yet, then as now, economic concerns were also a key driver towards integration. Daniel Thomas, Director of UCD’s Dublin European Institute, outlines Ireland’s reliance on trade with Britain as the overriding concern for the Irish government. “[Ireland] had political independence decades earlier but there was still economic dependence on Great Britain, and joining the economic community was a way to diversify Ireland’s markets,” he says, while also pointing out that, if Ireland had not followed Britain’s lead in joining this European market, Anglo-Irish trade could have suffered significantly. “In terms of the economic welfare of Irish citizens, there is no question that being a member of the EU was a huge consideration for all these multinational corporations that have been investing in Ireland for the last twenty-five years.”

The primacy of economic reasons and Anglo-Irish relations is echoed by Anthony Coughlan, former lecturer at Trinity and director of the National Platform for EU Research and Information Centre, a non-governmental, openly ‘Eurosceptical’ organization. However he, in contrast, believes that the levels of integration today go far beyond what Lemass could have envisaged, and are at the root of Ireland’s current financial woes. “Lemass was in a difficult position as we were heavily dependent on Britain at the time,” he says. “But I am fairly certain that he didn’t envisage that the EU would develop the way that it has, into running most of our policies and now proposing the exchange of intimate details concerning national budgets in the context of a monetary union.”

Predicted by Coughlan and many others who have taken a consistently Eurosceptic stance, the current Eurozone crisis has been used to suggest that membership of the European Union is not in Ireland’s best interest. Coughlan argues that the loss of control over monetary matters is the most evident manner in which European policy has hurt Ireland.

“Our extremely competitive independent Irish currency prior to joining the Eurozone gave us the Celtic Tiger. The loss of control over our interest rate made our Celtic Tiger boom and turned it into a bubble which burst and caused the consequent slump,” he says. “The European Central Bank forbade us to let any Irish bank go bust and therefore required us to pass on the bad debts to the Irish taxpayers. This was the result of European Central Bank policy and an independent Irish government would not have gone down that road.”

For Thomas, national governments are just as culpable for the current crisis as any supranational interference. “For years, national governments took credit when things went right and blamed Brussels when things went wrong. That pattern is now coming back to haunt us because people don’t see the way in which Europe is useful,” he says, pointing to the manner in which Irish government officials often misrepresented and, arguably, mismanaged Ireland’s economy during the boom years.

Gillespie also highlights national government policy as a contributing factor to Ireland’s precarious position, particularly the effect neglecting alliances with similarly sized EU states had on negotiations within the EU. “The network of alliances that are necessary for a small state to be heard in a European setting fell away during 2001/2002, coinciding with the property boom really,” he says. “This is a big problem because [these alliances] ensure that, if you’re getting deeper integration, there is a balance between the institutions that suited the smaller states and the emerging system.” Regardless of who is to blame, the Eurozone project is teetering close to collapse. Negotiations concerning a fiscal pact continue but it remains unclear if the Euro can survive into the next year.

The prospect of a Eurozone collapse is welcomed by Coughlan, who views the loss of monetary controls Eurozone membership enforced, no matter its affects on the economy, as symptomatic of the manner in which membership of the EU conflicts with Irish democracy. He argues that with Irish law increasingly initiated at the EU level, an arena where “Irish people make up only a tiny handful,” the EU suffers from a democratic deficit that de-legitimises the structure.

“This is not democracy,” he says. “Democracy requires a demos, a people who can identify with the community and communicate with each other. The most obvious point is that there is no common language to communicate through [at a European level]. This creates the fundamental flaw of the European project in that there is no European demos and there therefore can be no European democracy.”

The issue of democracy is problematic and is certainly worth exploring, particularly at a time when Irish citizens are being asked to make substantial sacrifices. Thomas does admit that “there are certain ways in which European decision-making is far removed from democratic input and democratic expression.” Nevertheless, he does not believe that this pooling of sovereignty necessarily equates to a loss of sovereignty. Highlighting that the EU is democratic in many other regards, he argues that the EU also has the potential to be far more democratic, if member states and their citizens become better acquainted with the system.

“I think the most important thing is to make European citizens, including our citizens, better informed about the EU, because they often do not realise how voters have influence,” he says. “Irish citizens are represented directly through the European parliament, they are indirectly represented through the government of Ireland in the two most important institutions for EU decision-making, but the average Irish citizen, just like the average French or German or Spanish or Polish citizen, see the EU as a collection of Eurocrats [who are] overpaid, faceless and tell us the shape our cucumbers should be.”

Concurring, Gillespie argues that Ireland requires greater involvement at a European level than ever before and, in contrast to Coughlan, believes that common politics at a European level can help create a genuine European identity. “The relationship between Europeanisation and national identity is terribly important. If you look closely at Ireland, there is a tension between the sovereignists and those open to multiple identities. Part of the conflict we have over integration is between these two political cultures.”

As Ireland looks to establish its future EU position, Gillespie is keen to emphasise that this crisis cannot be combated without more “common politics at a European level. I think we’re in a major shift … we need more capacity at a European level because, arguably, bureaucratic structures have been created without political ones.” Although not suggesting that Europe become a federal construct, Gillespie feels the EU must “be made more politically accessible if you want to be a democrat. You really encourage democratic participation by enabling people to have a more common politics.”

Common politics are not a possibility according to Coughlan, who maintains that the EU can never truly be democratic and is a product of a bygone era. “Essentially, it should be seen as a Cold War creature and a result of the situation after World War Two, where the larger continental powers tried to recover prestige they lost by joining together to become a big noise in world politics that they could not be individually,” he says. “That’s all out of date and irrelevant now, and so is the European Union.” He continues, “There is a totally fallacious argument that, for people to matter in the world, they need to belong to a large state” which drives European integration and, in turn, leaves European states open to exploitation by their larger neighbours.

Thomas disagrees and instead argues that state size does matter. He believes that European states “recognise they are better off operating through a European structure than going it alone. Who listens to Luxembourg or Croatia or Ireland in global politics? They are listened to because they are key players within the EU.” This becomes even more important due to Ireland’s geographic location. “Participation in European integration has been very good for Ireland and it doesn’t have good viable alternatives,” Thomas says. “A small island in the Atlantic somewhere between Europe and the United States is not a place you want to be. It may be a place you want to go to on holiday but in terms of economic welfare and political influence, that’s not a place you want to be.” The consequence of this is that, even were the EU to collapse under its current guise, he argues that “it will be re-invented.”

Although sharing Thomas’s confidence of the EU’s ability to ride out the current crisis, Gillespie offers some words of warning. “If the euro fails, you’re in for a period of very toxic politics in Europe,” he muses. “I’m not saying that there will automatically be a return to 1930s type of politics but there will be large scale instability, which is dangerous for small states, including us. We’re better to stay with this and argue our case through it, but argue it more vocally and openly, and help to create a better political framework, within which this kind of common politics can emerge.”

It goes without saying that the legacy of British rule guarantees an Irish aversion to outsider interference. Nevertheless, the truth of the matter is that Ireland, by virtue of its small size, cannot cocoon itself from the outside world and its policies will always be shaped externally to some degree. Whether it must look to Britain or Europe, Irish policy choices will be constrained to a large extent by matters beyond national borders. As the EU approaches its next major crossroads in the form of a fiscal treaty, Britain is taking an increasingly sovereignist position and resisting deeper integration. Ireland must now decide whether it follows suit.

For a long time, heavy bass was an underground movement, but it is no longer confined to warehouse raves, and has become a regular chart presence. Leading this charge has been the electronic production duo, Chase & Status. Originally from London, Saul Milton and Will Kennard first started producing music as Chase & Status in 2003 after meeting at Manchester University. “We formed through a mutual love of DJing first and foremost. That’s why we got into it,” explains Kennard. “We used to go to clubs and big raves and stuff and just dream of DJing. We were both keen bedroom DJs and that’s how we became friends as well.”

Freely admitting that they learnt little in university before leaving, Milton nevertheless believes their time in Manchester was important. “It’s a cool city. We were there for six years. We didn’t go to Uni for six years, we barely went to Uni. But it was a really affordable place for us to start learning our trade.”

This British influence is something that has stayed with the band throughout, and it is arguably the defining constant in their crossover genre. Well, that and big bass of course. Despite having previously produced for US stars Rihanna and Snoop Dogg, it was instead the very British voices of London born Plan-B and Nottingham’s Liam Bailey who featured prominently on their latest album. The duo explains that the collaboration choices on their breakthrough album, No More Idols, were motivated by this desire for a British sounding style.

“I think we made a conscious decision going into this album that we wanted to work with a lot of different featured vocalists to keep it a very British featured sounding album because that’s what we grew up on. It gave it a nice sort of theme running throughout and it worked really well,” says Kennard. “I mean we used a vocal from Cee Lo Green, who’s an American artist, but he was talking about British culture and in particular Brixton in London. He’s also an Anglophile so that felt quite good, but it was a conscious decision and it worked quite well.”

With the album shooting straight to number two in the UK charts upon release, it is a decision that has been vindicated. The duo seem rather nonplussed by this success, however, and simultaneously maintain they’re “not famous.” After a brief pause, Kennard continues, “It’s weird. We know our name is well known but as people, we don’t think of ourselves as famous at all. Even when we get recognised, it’s still very bizarre. Like ‘Wow, people know who we are’ – it’s weird. Which is a good thing I think.”

Of course, when a band from the underground scene achieves mainstream success there can be negative repercussions, but the pair believe they have been lucky in this regard. “I think when we were younger we cared a bit more. We came from an underground following and we came through a time when forums and the internet were really influential,” says Kennard. “We’d read comments and take it really badly. Now we’re completely oblivious … we’ve been quite lucky in a weird sense to have a lot of underground sounding music with hard drum and bass, stuff like that, but managed to retain quite a few fans that we had originally.”

At this point, Milton interjects: “We don’t look at the good or the bad. If someone says you’re amazing, don’t read that because then you start thinking you are. Someone says you’re dogshit, don’t read that because then you start thinking you are. You just have to have the same mentality that we had ten years ago which is just, make some music.”

It’s not surprising then that Milton seems less than enthused when talk shifts to the topic of social media. “Twitter – I do Twitter but I am notoriously grumpy… We’re on Twitter because we have to because if we weren’t on Twitter, you guys would be like ‘Uh you aren’t on Twitter? But everybody in the world is on Twitter!’ I mean it does serve a purpose but I’m not really into begging people to please listen to my music,” he explains. “If you like the music, go and buy it – great. If you don’t like it, don’t. If you want to occasionally hear me grumble about something go check out the Twitter page.”

Milton doesn’t seem to feel that online popularity holds any bearing on musical popularity. “If your music is good, it will sell. If your music’s not, it won’t. Having ten million followers on Twitter because you’re incredibly funny won’t necessarily sell you albums or venues – people will just think you’re humorous. It’s good, a lot of people are getting a lot more out of it than I do, I expect. I would not be on Twitter if we weren’t doing Chase & Status. Saul Milton would not have a Twitter page grumbling about everything and everyone.”

After a quick perusal of their Twitter, Otwo is indeed inclined to agree that their music, not their online grumblings, must be the true source of their fans.

No More Idols is out now.

For many students university is a time of joy, exploration, companionship and self-fulfillment. The cliché ‘best of years of your life’ gets tossed around quite frequently, and for many, this is true. However, there is a significant portion of students for whom university is not a time of joy but a time of despair; not exploration but entrapment; not companionship but isolation; and not self-fulfillment but self-repression. Sounds depressing, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, such problems often lead to exactly that – depression. The widely perceived solution, as seen in the highly visible UCD and national campaign ‘Please Talk’, is discussion. Certainly while talking may not solve a student’s underlying problems, it can often help the student turn themselves around and recognise that there are alternate solutions.

While all students can be afflicted by mental health problems, young men can be hit particularly hard and suicide is the leading cause of death among young men. Men are also the group that support networks find hardest to reach, according to Dr. Lorna Sweeney, whose recently published graduate thesis was entitled Young Irish Male Perspectives on Depression and Suicide. Sweeney believes “that men are typically reluctant to speak out about emotional along with physical problems” and also states in her thesis that suicide rates have increased substantially among young men over the previous fifty years.

When seeking to explain this phenomenon, she examined the contrasting ways in which men and women approached the subject. “Instead of showing any signs of weakness or showing anxiety or emotion when they are faced with a problem, [men] are expected to respond to any stresses with independence, assertiveness, self-control. Women are more likely to seek help for mental health problems [than men], but that doesn’t mean they’re more likely to experience them. It’s just that they’re more likely to recognise that it’s a mental health issue and to seek help for it, whereas men are less likely to identify it as a mental health problem”.

Mark Hyland from the UCD counseling service echoes these sentiments. “Often [young men] have a perspective that to be in distress is to be weak, and so the choice becomes a very black and white choice of either they are in distress and uncontained and that’s a weak position, and it’s almost a less preferable position to be in than the idea of being in distress but contained, by not talking about it. They almost retain a sense of masculinity by silently suffering.”

One area where this can be particularly evident is sexuality. “A lot of young males do tend to view their own sexuality as a kind of competitive thing, almost detached from feeling and emotion, and what it is to form committed bonds with people in relationships,” says Hyland. “That’s generally because at the heart you have this black and white piece where it’s a defense against their own insecurity… we mask our insecurity with an unfeeling exterior.”

As a culture we often have role models that reinforce an uncompromising position towards weakness. Hyland found the perception of sports figures, such as Roy Keane, particularly interesting in this regard. “Roy Keane doesn’t like weakness in males and he believes that you should just drive on through everything, he doesn’t allow for much vulnerability. I think what happens in a male like that is that it becomes a kind of catch-22.”

“You either survive based on those principles, and therefore you can dismiss weakness in anybody around you because you survived, because your rationale has worked for you. Or you become someone who has that way of being, but is broken because of it, and usually when people are broken because of it, that concept, they do a lot of harm to themselves, they take their own life, or they have a complete and utter breakdown and they’re shattered. And then they’re shattered by the relationship of that concept ‘I am not allowed to be weak’ and so the minute they are weak they have to destroy themselves further, they have to beat themselves up for being weak, because it’s not something that’s allowable for them.”

This dealing with weakness, this conflict between feelings of personal failures and a need to maintain a strong face, can exacerbate existing mental health difficulties. Hyland strongly feels that to acknowledge your insecurities and talk about them is a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness and that “a healthy way of being is to be involved with other people.”

Sweeney’s research found that many of the young men in her focus groups revealed that most of their peer conversations were light-hearted and they did not usually discuss emotional or personal issues. She concluded that this “may not be the context where people feel comfortable in raising those [mental health] issues”. In contrast, many of the men were more comfortable talking about their problems individually. In her interviews with the friends of suicide victims, she discovered that “there was a difference between what he would have told them [individually], and what he would have told the group.”

Of course this tendency to open up on a more individual basis is not gender-specific, with Sweeney stating, “It’s human nature that people would tend to open up more to one person rather than to declare emotions to a whole group of people.” The discrepancy occurs rather because women were more likely, on balance, to have a larger number of close relationships with people they could feel comfortable confiding in.

Men, on the other hand, had fewer of these types of relationships and were often only comfortable talking to their girlfriends rather than any of their friends. “When a man is talking to his girlfriend he can reveal weaknesses, whereas when he’s talking to his friends, maybe he can’t, it’s very fluid,” she explains before warning that “for young men who don’t have a significant other maybe it’s more challenging, because they don’t have that close intimacy where they can share emotions or concerns.”

Many strides have been made in terms of support available to young men. Sandra Hagan, spokesperson for the Mental Health Charity Aware, has been working since 1985 to provide support for people who are experiencing depression.  Depression is an increasingly visible problem in Ireland and Hagan suggests, “that more than ten per cent of the population (450,000) experience depression at any one time.” Though there was no clear imbalance between the proportion of males and females seeking Aware’s help, she does believe young males are a high-risk group. “It is possible that depression in men is under-reported. It can be very difficult for someone to come forward with depression, and this can be especially true for men. Social expectations can mean that men feel unable to share private concerns that are bothering them. This is unfortunate as it can mean that they are prevented from accessing important forms of support for themselves.”

Hagan explains that much progress has been made since the organisation’s inception, including their service Beat the Blues and their newest addition of online support groups. These online support groups had “received a fantastic response from people wanting to sign up for the service. The online service was launched in order to make Aware support groups more accessible for people and to help overcome some of the barriers to seeking help”.

Sweeney agreed that much progress had been made in helping to combat male mental health issues but did point out that more could be done. “We also need to have campaigns so that the people around the young man might be able to support him better and might be able to know how to intervene when they know there’s something going on and know how to respond effectively to what he tells them.”

“In all my research, [with] all the young men I talked to it really came across that they really value their friendships, that a lot of their friends they knew their whole lives,” Sweeney says. “I don’t think it’s a matter of not wanting to support friends, I think it’s just … not knowing what to do. Also youth mental health policy in Ireland doesn’t recognise friendships, it always talks about services and we need to improve these services, and that’s good because we do, but at the same time we need to improve the lay support system around young people.”

Young people, including students, remain particularly vulnerable to mental health problems as youth is often a time of great upheaval and it is often only later on in life that people become more relaxed with themselves. Consequently, a huge amount of effort is invested in encouraging young people to confront any anxieties or issues they might hold through dialogue. Campaigns such as ‘Please Talk’, play an essential role in helping individuals recognise that having difficulties is human rather than a weakness.

Despite these efforts, confronting mental health problems remains problematic and this is particularly true for young males. It is a tragic reflection of this group’s vulnerability that the ratio of young men committing suicide, compared with their female counterparts, today stands at seven to one. Young males have a tendency to normalise and ignore genuine symptoms of depression for fear of looking weak. In reality, the more crippling weakness is often giving in to this fear and failing to seek help in tackling problems head on. Of course, there is no guarantee that discussing the issue will solve everything, but that does not mean men should continue to go it alone. In the words of a wise man, a problem shared is a problem halved.

Meeting room five in the Student Centre is probably the last place you’d expect to find LMFAO. The smallest, most claustrophobic room in the building seems somewhat inadequate when you consider that this summer practically belonged to the band.  From the release of ‘Party Rock Anthem’ onwards, there was no escaping the Los Angeles-based duo, as imitations of their iconic ‘shuffle’ dance moves dominated dance floors and the song reached number one in countries across the globe.

Formed in 2007, the uncle-nephew combo of DJs Redfoo (Stefan Gordy) and Sky Blu (Skyler Gordy) famously changed their name from ‘Sexy Dudes’ to LMFAO after an iChat conversation with the latter’s grandmother. Since then, they steadily progressed from small-time performers in various Los Angeles clubs to the world-famous act they are today.

Their first hit, ‘I’m in Miami Bitch’, achieved more success as part of a bootlegged remix by DJ Inphinity, entitled ‘Bass Kick in Miami’. Nevertheless, this did not deter the pair, and their collaborations with other media sources have been key to their success. LMFAO tracks have been sampled in various American TV shows, notably the ‘Get Crazy’ theme tune for MTV’s Jersey Shore, and they also featured in David Guetta’s 2010 summer hit, ‘Getting Over You’, before the release of their second album, Sorry for Party Rocking, in 2011, which saw the band break through in their own right.

Their performance at this year’s Belfast MTV EMA Awards (coupled with Justin Bieber’s shuffling appearance at their after party) has confirmed LMFAO’s position as one of most notorious acts of today. And yet, just hours after their flying visit to Belfast, LMFAO’s attempt to “turn the world into a party rock planet” led them to UCD.

Initially, it is difficult to see what they are doing here. Temporarily deprived of Sky Blu due to a back injury suffered during their energetic EMA performance, Redfoo looks somewhat out of place. Even with the perks of being surrounded by stacks of Mountain Dew and an assortment of remote-controlled cars, this is not quite the LMFAO lifestyle Otwo had expected.

This demeanour is dispelled almost instantaneously as Redfoo reacts excitedly to the news that their UCD gig sold out in just forty minutes.  “Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, I’m excited,” he says, gesticulating wildly. “[‘Party rock’] is growing and it’s growing and especially the college type of fans are [growing] because I feel like you guys work so much and this is just your release, and you get to ‘party rock’, dress up, whether it’s the animal print or glasses, and you just come and just let it all hang out and it makes for great shows.

“An MP3 can only go so far, you know? Video can only go so far… but when you see it live and you experience the energy transformation from us to the crowd, from the crowd and back … I mean, some shows get better just because the crowd is overly-excited,”

Redfoo elaborates. “They give us energy and we take it and recycle it and give it back to them and it becomes almost like a tennis match – a rally, if you will – and that’s something that is very hard to do just through MP3s or a video so live shows are extremely important.”

This emphasis on fun and excitement is integral to everything LMFAO do, including creating their somewhat abstract ‘party rock’ genre of music. They cite a great assortment of musical influences, from Michael Jackson to Tupac Shakur and even Led Zepplin, while founder of the renowned Motown record label Berry Gordy is the pair’s father and grandfather respectively. Redfoo feels this variation comes across well in their songs and describes ‘party rock’ as “an amusement park for music”.

“I think energy is one of the main ingredients to the LMFAO sound, to the ‘party rock’ sound,” he explains. “We always wanted to do something specific for the party and there’s a range of topics you can have for the party but the main thing is it had to rock the party, it had to get people up and dancing. It had to. We could make bluesy songs and all that stuff but, if we’re gonna make something slow, it’s gonna be some dubstep stuff that [would be] a break and we’d come back fast.”

Association with aspects of a party lifestyle, especially drinking and promiscuity, features explicitly in many of their tracks. Indeed, as far as back as 2009, the pair sought to create the ultimate drinking song and the outcome was ‘Shots!’ their collaborative track featuring Lil Jon. Similarly, Redfoo explains that LMFAO seek to “inspire the world by like sexin’ it up”, a claim anyone who has seen their latest video for ‘Sexy and I Know It’ could attest – a scantily clad Ron Jeremy and more thrusting than you could shake a stick at are particular highlights.

He doesn’t, however, see any problem with the apparent adult insinuations in LMFAO’s music. “Our intention is to make people happy. We’re spreading fun and when you look at a video like ‘Sexy and I Know It’, you don’t think [that]. Kids wiggle, you know, from a very childish standpoint so it’s not meant to be all perverted and nasty – it’s just what happens when you wiggle … I just feel the parents love it, the kids are wiggling at two years old and it’s all in the name of fun.”

A need for fun in any form is a recurrent theme and is, perhaps even more so than the dance moves or the music, integral in defining the LMFAO brand – particularly as they branch out and launch their own fashion range. “We gotta dress in giving the most energy so then when we walk around, we stand out. We’re the type of people that like attention so if I’m wearing something and someone says, ‘Hey! Cool pants!’ or, ‘I like your shoes’ or, ‘Are those glowing? Is that glowing in the dark?’ you know it just stimulates conversation.”

Redfoo’s attire unquestionably demands attention. The usual leopard print pants and bejewelled pumps are today augmented by what appears to be belt with a mini-zebra buckle. Pointing to it, he explains “Some people will walk a dog just to get attention … Some guys will just have a pit bull and people will go ‘Woah, that’s a scary dog’. We don’t have animals because it’s hard to take them on the plane. I have my fanny-pack … You know and I attached Henry, my zebra, and it guards my package from the ladies, especially all these college chicks.”

In a rather surreal moment, the fanny-pack starts emitting faint music and, as Redfoo stands, the zebra begins to dance. “He dances. This is the shuffle, it’s like a gallop. He likes to gallop and he’s part of the team.” Probably the most bizarre chastity belt Otwo has ever seen.

Nevertheless, it certainly grabs attention and is befitting of a man who explains that the pursuit of fame was always the underlying motivator. “I’ve always been doing music since ’93. I went to school with Will.I.Am, who was the first rapper on the Black Eyed Peas’ album. I did a lot of stuff. And I woke up one morning and I said, you know, ‘What is next, you know for the Foo, for the Fooster?’ and I was doing a lotta stuff with Sky Blu, rappin’ and making songs. But it’s easy to make songs and put ‘em out and get some local attention.  And I saw Paris Hilton doin’ her thing and I saw some people … Britney Spears and … Eminem … and I said, ‘I’ve never been famous for what I love to do’.

“What is being famous like? Is it true that you get more girls? Yes, yes you do,” he declares, ticking the air flamboyantly. “But it’s important to be famous and liked – that’s the toughest thing. Do you wanna know a fun fact? ‘Party Rock Anthem’: most liked video in the history of YouTube ever. Almost a million likes, or I think it’s around a million so that’s what is the most amazing thing – that you could be famous and well-liked. I think it’s the highest thing you can do in your craft.”

It would seem that LMFAO have reached something of a pinnacle of fame, and it shows no sign of letting up. With a second album already in the works and rumours abounding that a new record will mark a shift in focus, it’s very possible that their fame will only continue to grow. However, Redfoo is rather non-committal when the subject of their new direction is broached,

“We’re in the incubation stage, you know. We’re still on the concept board. What direction are we going to take to keep the party goin’ and yet brings new insight into lives? Who knows, maybe some of the bloops and blunders. For instance, [Sky Blu] couldn’t be here today because he wiggled his back out. We might have to release a whole song talking about how you gotta stretch because he wasn’t doing his proper stretches and he’s paying for it now. We’re still not ready for the people because they have to understand that you can always have fun and then you have an excuse.”

Though they may not be ready for the people, the ever-increasing fame is something they’re welcoming with infinitely open arms. “It depends on what you want. A lot of people say, ‘Awh man, you know you can’t walk down the street no more without people recognising you’ and I said ‘Yeah, but I’ve lived a life where I’ve walked down the street and I’m walking down the street without them recognising you. I did that.’ It’s cool, you know. It was fun … but the point is now we have the power to really do something with the fame and that’s what we wanna do.”

University is a time full of opportunity. There are opportunities to learn, to make lifelong friends or experience different points of view. All things going to plan, students leave with hugely diverse experiences and a breadth of knowledge that stands them in good stead when they leave the student world. Though there are no set ‘must-have college experiences’, spending a year elsewhere in Europe through the Erasmus exchange programme has become an increasingly popular decision.

Improving or acquiring a foreign language is probably the most evident reason for students to go abroad. Indeed, the majority of students who major in languages at UCD find that their time abroad is the tipping point between studying a language and knowing a language.

One such student is Jack Good. Now going into final year French and Politics, he spent last year studying at the prestigious L’Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Science Po). Upon his return home, Jack found his French had improved dramatically and commented that “just living over there, doing the day-to-day things like getting your baguette from the local boulangerie or ordering things online through French was really beneficial.”

Although there are clear linguistic benefits to be gained from going on exchange, it is not the only reason to take part, and exchange courses taught through English are also available. “I learned some Czech but it’s quite difficult,” explains Aoibheann Duffy, who studies straight Law and spent last year in Prague. “But from the course, it gave me a different perspective. It was more European and it was interesting to compare two countries and, because their country is quite new, see how they established their state and constitution.”

Aoibheann’s experience illustrates a core goal of the Erasmus exchange programme and explains the origins of its name. Formalised in 1987, the programme was named after the Dutch Renaissance philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, who was a keen proponent of pan-European study as a means to ensure that education did not become dogmatic. By offering European students the opportunity to experience a different education system, the Erasmus programme hopes to encourage a pluralistic approach to learning and, consequently, improve the education available to all EU citizens.

Jack agreed that the Erasmus experience certainly improved his education and helped him approach final year with confidence. “[Science Po] is one of the best politics colleges in Europe, so the standard of teaching and the standard of the students was really great. In terms of coming back here it put me in a really good position.”

Nevertheless, it was outside the lecture environment that Jack felt the biggest gains were made. “It’s kind of hard to quantify,” he muses when asked to clarify what he means. “But even doing this interview, I feel much more comfortable now than I maybe would have perhaps a year ago because you really do have no choice but to come out of your shell a bit more.”

This personal development side of Erasmus is certainly something that Ruth Redehan, one of UCD’s International Study Co-ordinators, emphasises when explaining the benefits of the programme.  “I notice that students increase in their maturity and independence. I think that students who spend time outside of their comfort zone [benefit],” says Ruth.  “Basically they’re learning how to do things independently for the first time themselves; they don’t have their normal support structures such as family to rely on. I definitely think that that’s a big result of going on Erasmus.”

“A lot of the students also will tend to have great travel opportunities. If you’re going on exchange to Europe you’re only a short train ride away from another country, or a cheap flight, and so a lot of the students come back with travel stories,” Ruth adds.

This is an advantage that Jack gleefully confirms, commenting, “There’s so many different places you can go and see. I think now is probably the best time to go because you are in the structured environment of a university where you’re going to meet people the exact same age and in the exact same situation as you and so if you are thinking of going away it is kind of having the comfort blanket of that structure around you.”

However, as is sadly most often the case, these great experiences come with a considerable price tag attached. “I would say it does cost quite a lot of money, and to be aware of that, and I mean I had to work two summers straight to save up to do it,” explains Jack. “I’d certainly say there are some [financial] realities you’ll have to face … so it may be difficult for some people to go away, but the rewards are so great that I wouldn’t dismiss it immediately.”

These high costs were certainly a factor that heavily influenced final year German and Geography student Graham O’Brien’s decision to stay in Ireland. “Originally when I came [into UCD] back in 2008 I was on a BA International programme so there would have been a certainty of me going away for a year. Last year actually, would have been the time I would go away,” says Graham. “But in June 2010, I decided that a year away wasn’t for me because of various reasons, other than just the financial … I mean it is quite expensive to go on Erasmus. It can be around €8,000 and I wasn’t going to have that burden on myself or my parents, because my parents have recently been made unemployed so I didn’t want to put that pressure on them.”

Indeed, the financial burden is the most often cited reason for students choosing not to take the year out. “One reason for not going would be financial,” concedes Ruth. “With the Erasmus programme there is a small grant that comes from the European Union, and it varies from country to country and from year to year, but on average it’s €1,500 for the year, so that’s a help, but it doesn’t cover all the costs. I mean it also involves spending an extra year in college, it involves paying your student contribution and your student centre levy for the year when you’re abroad, so financial reasons can be a reason why students chose not to go.”

Beyond the high personal cost of Erasmus, the other major concern for Graham was that he felt his German was not good enough to survive a year in Berlin. “German was and, still is, really difficult. I found that I wasn’t really getting the most of it,” he states before continuing that, although people often hear of people’s great Erasmus experiences, people are not often as aware that people have negative experiences too.

“I wasn’t the only one who wanted to go on Erasmus but never did, and I think either two or three people who actually did go on Erasmus came back prematurely, whether it was health reasons or whether it was homesickness or whatever,” explains Graham. “But I was told that the Erasmus had the reputation where you’ll learn the language in no time and nobody ever comes home with a bad experience. Well, I have all my friends now home from Erasmus and some of them have very, very mixed stories.”

A year on from his decision, Graham is still caught in two minds as to whether his decision was the right one. All the same, he is keen to encourage students considering doing an exchange to use all the resources at their disposal before deciding whether or not to go abroad. “I’d say, get out a piece of paper and do a pros and cons list. Now I know how old-fashioned that sounds but you’d be amazed at how it helps. And talk to your parents about it, they’re the best people in the world for advice,” he says. “In fact, actually a funny thing about it was, the night that I decided not go was their twenty-fifth anniversary and I told them during the dinner that I didn’t want to go, and they had the biggest smiles on their faces, because they were proud of me for making such a mature decision. So my advice to [students] would be just to talk to the parents and consult the department as well, because they will advise you based on the vast, vast experience that they have.”

Ruth echoes Graham’s advice and urges students to get in contact with the International Office as soon as possible. “The final, final deadline is the 17^th of February. That’s the deadline to fill in the details on the application form but contact with the academic coordinator should be done from now. If a student is in any way interested in going on Erasmus they should attend one of our upcoming talks. If a student thinks ‘Oh, I couldn’t go because of one reason or another’, we are here to help them with their decision.”

Jack simply recommends that students watch the film L’Auberge Espagnole to understand. “It’s a bit of a classic [and] it just showed that you have a great time over there and you get to meet all these different nationalities, which I’m sure every Erasmus student tells you and you’ve heard a million times, but it really does make a huge difference.”

The International Office works hard to help students work through potential obstacles and UCD can proudly state that it sends more students on exchange than any other English-speaking university. Although the problems of homesickness and financial burdens must be considered and acknowledged, the opportunities that the Erasmus exchange programme offers clearly outweigh them. Taking a year out to study in Europe is often derided as a vacation halfway through your degree, but it is much more than that. The college workload may sometimes not be as intense but that is not to say that no learning is done. Exposure to different cultures or having to tackle unusual situations is as much a part of learning as exams or essays ever will be.

There can be normality in madness. At first glance, perhaps, this may seem a contradictory turn of phrase, yet it encompasses an idea that is fast becoming the new way of approaching mental health. For so long, the concept of mental health and mental health disorders were confined to a select few amongst the general population. These people, not only cut off from society by the walls of mental institutions, were further imprisoned by social stigma. Though not complete, much progress has been made in tearing down the physical walls of these outdated institutions. It is now time to finish tackling the figurative barriers.

“A huge amount of people delay seeking help due to the fact that they take the view that other people will view them negatively. People still see having a mental health issue as a mark of shame,” explains JP Swaine, managing director of the mental awareness group First Fortnight. “I suppose it’s just a very common Irish social phenomenon of not accepting vulnerability and a failure to counteract mental health disorders when they occur, which leads them to worsen due to the time lapse to respond to them.”

Founded in 2010, First Fortnight uses arts events preceded by discussions concerning mental health in an attempt to bring greater awareness to the general public and break down the prevailing stigma. JP believes that music events or plays can be used to engage people who would not normally give much thought to the conditions of mental health. “What we want to do is to draw them into the issue, the debate and to draw them into the centre of the debate that really this is about life and living,” JP reasons. “For too long we’ve talked about mental health in terms of life and death – it’s really in terms of life and living.”

This is a point echoed by Dr. Patricia Casey, a Professor of Psychiatry at UCD and the Mater Misericordiae Hospital. “It’s improving, but I certainly agree that there is a stigma attached to receiving psychiatric treatment. Of course I believe it should be broken down because it deters people from coming forward for help and treatment. I think simply talking about it, giving people insight into what modern psychiatry is like [...] not still talking about institutions.”

Dr. Casey emphasises that there has been a shift in Ireland’s psychiatric approach, which now focuses increasingly on the outpatient procedure and talking therapies. However, she maintains that there is still a long way to go, as current waiting lists are still extremely long; for example, Dr. Casey’s currently stands at three months.

“Politicians should be encouraged to listen. I would like during the elections, on the doorsteps, if politicians were asked about their commitments to mental health. The proportion of the health budget being spent on psychiatry has reduced from twenty-three per cent in 1968 down to six or seven per cent in 2010. That shouldn’t have happened because sale of the lands and old institutions should have allowed this to remain the same if there were no increases. So it means that the money from all this has been siphoned off by successive health boards, the HSE and governments for other things.”

The legacy of these institutions continues to shape other aspects of the mental health debate. Mad Pride Ireland, founded by John McCarthy, is a group that campaigns vigorously against the psychiatric establishment in Ireland. He contends that the ‘medical model’ of psychiatry does not really understand the concept of ‘madness’, and is over-reliant on the use of drugs.

“What I am saying is that there is no record of people being diagnosed. You cannot diagnose a mental illness. You cannot,” argues John, a former patient of St. Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin. “We have all bought into this diagnostic box. We have all bought into the fact that psychiatrists can somehow [diagnose]. I got four different diagnoses but I’ve never had a psychiatrist take my pulse. And yet he can state, within twenty minutes of talking to me, that I have a chemical imbalance in my brain.”

John instead argues that “madness” needs to be embraced as a part of the human condition and a sign of individuality rather than labelled as a disease. “I have lots of friends who hear voices. They have no problem with hearing voices; they lead very productive lives. But they can’t talk about it so they have to carry the burden and the secrecy of hearing voices in their head and in their hearts,” bemoans John. “And that’s where it hurts the most. Stigma hits not in the head but in the heart. We need to show a bit of love and compassion around that community, around the great normality of madness. There’s nothing wrong with madness. We’ve made it something to be afraid of – my priority is trying to show that madness is a gift.” John compares the social struggle of the abjected mentally ill with that of other civil rights movements; “If black is beautiful, madness is a gift.”

Dr. Casey confirms that there is no ‘test’ in the conventional sense, and that diagnosis is instead reached by assessing the symptoms of patients. However, she disagrees that this undermines the usefulness of psychiatry and feels that Mad Pride Ireland’s claims increase the risk of stigmatisation.

“Mad Pride are a problem because they don’t believe in psychiatric illness, they don’t believe in the role of psychiatrists and I think they actually contribute to stigmatising psychiatry,” she argues. “I mean one of the ways you get over stigma is not to pretend that something doesn’t exist, but to acknowledge that it is a reality. I think Mad Pride want to ignore the reality of psychiatric illness and that some people do need medication and that some people do sometimes kill themselves because they haven’t been adequately treated.”

This polarisation of views is hardly surprising. Recent documentaries, such as RTÉ’s ‘Behind the Walls’, have painted an accurate and frightening picture of how poor the conditions in Irish psychiatric institutions were for a long time. Heavy dependency on dangerous cocktails of drugs to keep patients sedated and instances of abuse were far too regular to be dismissed as the actions of a select few. It was really only with increased debate concerning mental health and the continual thrusting of institutions’ reports into the public domain that Ireland’s mental health establishment began to shift towards the less custodian version in place today.

This idea of dialogue as the best way to improve Ireland’s approach to mental health is one area in which both Dr. Casey and Mad Pride Ireland are in firm agreement. “There are all kinds of misinformation and ignorance out there. I think if we can get out the message through various media outlets that psychiatry has changed, I think that will help break down the stigma. The public will see that these conditions are treatable, people get over them and people can live fully productive lives, which would be wonderful. I mean that the number of people that I treat that are doctors, lawyers, teachers [...] all walks of life you know; from the highest echelons to the humblest of the humblest is quite heartening,” explains Dr. Casey. “People are able to come through these spells and live very productive lives to the extent that you would not know that they had just walked out of my office.”

Similarly, John describes Mad Pride Ireland’s main objective as creating “a space to have a debate. The function of Mad Pride Ireland is to open a debate [...] Our other function is to dispel the senseless fear created on purpose for an agenda of what I like to call the ‘medical model’. All we are trying to do is to open up a conversation around whether I am correct or incorrect about whether there is an agenda or not. I think that fear is coming from voluntary agencies and certain members of the medical community, certain members of the HSE, certain members of the judiciary [...] we need to open up. And if I’m wrong? Well, at least we will have had the conversation.”

However, dialogue will require compromises on both sides as currently both maintain that the other is too set in their ways to engage in a meaningful manner. “Mad Pride Ireland are un-engageable,” declares Dr. Casey. “I have tried on several occasions and attempts to engage with them don’t really get very far because they have a very set view. I think the best thing is to ignore them.” Likewise, John states that “Mad Pride Ireland has never received any invitation or encouragement in private or in public from Dr Patricia Casey to engage in any way. We would welcome such an invitation. Mad Pride Ireland has always stated we can only progress through debate. This is not anti-psychiatry – this is about human rights and power”.

Assessments of mental health and appropriate care remain heavily disputed. For example, people with personality disorders present a problem because they demonstrate both symptoms of psychological distress and social rule-breaking behaviour. This behaviour invites punishment as well as therapeutic responses. This is a reason why care can be challenging and sometimes evokes strong resistance, which can lead to confusion and negativity. However, this cannot become a reason to hide, deny or shame.

To quote JP of First Fortnight, “it’s actually taking the ‘them’ away and accepting that there’s only a ‘we’ in all of this. The distance between a bad day and a mental health crisis is something we can only explain for ourselves; no-one can say particularly there was anything special or unique about them. That their bad days turn into a series of bad days and, ultimately, into a crisis that they felt they lost control of. Sometimes our bad days are just bad days and get better the next and we have to count ourselves lucky for that, and understand that we actually have walked a little of this road, even though we pretend we can’t imagine it.”

UCD owes its roots to the Catholic University. Though no longer a denominated institution, UCD has certainly maintained a “catholic ethos” throughout its 157 year history. In its origins, the Catholic University sought to offer Ireland’s Catholic majority an avenue to third level education that the non-denominational Queen’s colleges or the Anglican controlled Trinity College did not. Each of the three colleges had their own chapel and the majority of the professors were also members of the clergy, while all public university functions were conducted in the University Church. When the university’s first rector, Cardinal Newman, reflected on his university he foresaw “a land both old and young; old in its Christianity, young in the promise of its future”.

Fast forward to 2011 and Christianity in Ireland certainly feels old. Secularism and apathy are on the rise as the Catholic Church, still Ireland’s main Christian representative, is rocked by scandal after scandal. Yet, even without this catalyst, religion in Ireland has long been in decline. Church attendance in the Archdiocese of Dublin this year averaged 18% of the Catholic population, while in certain dioceses this figure fell to as little as 2%.  Furthermore, youth participation is at an all time low, a plummet that has not escaped the notice of UCD’s current Chaplains.

“25 years ago, [students] would have been more conscious, I would think, of the spiritual side of life than they might be now. Nowadays, I suppose you’d have to say, a lot of students wouldn’t have a big involvement with their parish and wouldn’t know their clergy very well,” bemoans Father John Callanan S.J., Chaplain for Medicine and Engineering students. “If we conducted an experiment by walking down the thoroughfare and asking ten students ‘Do you go to church? Do you know your local priest?’ I suspect much, much less than twenty years ago where nine out of ten would have said yes to both questions. The way they see the chaplains is not as visible, and they wouldn’t be as used to being in contact with us.”

Father Callanan S.J. is one of four Chaplains currently employed by UCD. He works fulltime and has an office on campus, just beside the Arts Programme Office, which is provided using university funds. However, the appropriation of university funding for a religious purpose is not something that everyone at UCD believes is appropriate.

“The Chaplaincy does have financial support from the college, as well as office space, which non-religious students don’t really have access to,” explains Rita Harrold, UCD student and spokesperson for the Humanist Society. “There are certain areas that are really just for religious students and, while I think there should be support for students in lots of different ways, and it’s great that the college is providing a service, it is unfair for religion to get preferential treatment over any other viewpoint.”

Harrold did make it clear that she understood why students, particularly those far from home who had been involved with their local parishes, would find it helpful to have people tied in with religion on campus. But on the other hand, she didn’t feel this was a strong enough reason to justify funding a chaplaincy on campus.

“There are churches outside the campus and potentially the religious societies could assist religious students who wanted to get involved with those kinds of things and becoming members of Dublin congregations,” Rita argues. “I do see [the function of] a chaplaincy but it is another benefit that religion is getting, in this case particularly the Catholic Church, from a state funded institution which runs contrary to the ideas of an equal and secular institution.”

This is not a unique train of thought. In fact, it was a central tenet of civil rights group Campaign to Separate Church and State when they brought a case against the Minister for Education. They complained that the use of state funds for a religious purpose, including the employment of chaplains, was unconstitutional.

However, the Supreme Court disagreed. Its 1998 judgement decided that the funding of chaplains by the state did not constitute the endowment of religion and was therefore not a violation of the constitution. The case was concerned with secondary schools but it can also be seen as applicable to universities, as they too are a secular source of education that receives state funding. Of course, accusations that the constitution looks favourably on religion are frequent and would lead some to dismiss the notion that this decision legitimises the chaplaincy on campus. But that is a debate that goes beyond the Belfield boundaries.

For UCD’s Head Chaplain, Father John McNerney, the ruling provides a base for justifying the chaplaincy as part of a secular state institution, but is not the clinching argument. Instead, when asked to counter the Humanist Society’s point, he gestures to the label on his door. “Our title is chaplain student advisor. We are employed as student advisors who happen to be chaplains as well. One of the team is a psychotherapist; another is qualified in terms of community sociology. [UCD] is inundated with student welfare cases and we definitely contribute in that role and are employed on that basis.”

Father Callanan was also quick to point out that theirs is a dual role. “Because of the first part of our job, you might get some that are Catholic with a problem about a marriage or something like that. But in the majority of cases, it’s not that. It’s a much wider range of areas that people would be coming to us with. ” He continued that the question of faith was only broached at the student’s discretion and that, much like non-faith student advisors, he would pass on cases outside his competencies to UCD’s professional counselling services.

Father McNerney draws parallels between the debate over the services they offer and those of a fire station. “You could say I don’t see what the need is for a fire station down the road because I’ve never called it, therefore I’d say get rid of it. The University is also a place that cares for others. The President speaks of the UCD community and that is a multi-dimensional reality which includes the spiritual, but is not exclusive to it.”

Of course, this idea of a multi-dimensional reality applies to other religious denominations as well as secularism. The primacy of Catholicism is no longer as evident, particularly with the influx of international students who now account for roughly a fifth of the student population. In light of this, it is appropriate to explore how the Chaplaincy adapts to this.

“[The UCD Chaplains] are Catholic with a small ‘c’. Our outreach is Catholic or universal in the sense that it reaches into every part of the community,” says Father Leon Ó Giolláin S.J. when asked how the Chaplaincy caters to those outside the Christian faith. “We are interested in the human person as a whole, with their questions, whatever they are, and indeed their answers to these questions also, which can come from a faith perspective – any faith perspective – or from a ‘non-faith’ position.”

His colleague, Father Callanan, expanded on the idea and explained that “there is an interfaith, or non-faith, grouping that meets once a term. You get Baha’is, Christians, Atheists, etc. It’s an attempt really to get people to share their own values and beliefs and to understand the values and the beliefs of others.”

Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that the Chaplaincy remains composed entirely of Catholics and Methodists. A perusal of their website does indeed give prominence to an account of the interfaith meeting but it is somewhat lonely in and amongst the far more numerous mentions of Christian events.

When the subject is broached, Father McNerney admits “there are growth areas for development” and he is not alone in this opinion. Father Ó Giolláin draws comparisons with DCU’s inter-faith organisation and concedes that “Perhaps we should have an Imam. However, the Muslims [on campus] are well served by the local Mosque in Clonskeagh, which is one of the largest in Dublin. Also numerically, they are strong and in fact support themselves well, in their faith.”

For Aneeq Ahmed, auditor of the Islamic Society, the proximity of the Islamic Cultural Centre for Ireland (ICCI) does provide help for UCD’s Islamic community but operates on a different agenda. He went on to express his gratitude at how welcoming the UCD Chaplaincy was and the support they offered but also felt that providing representatives of other faiths would be a good idea.

“It would be nice to have chaplains of other faiths to help students deal with any specific issues or questions they may have,” he explained. “We wouldn’t have a big issue if [they are] in the chaplaincy or employed separately. I think the important point would be that, for example, there is a Muslim educated in Islam who is available to guide the students on campus, whether it’s as part of the Chaplaincy or not.”

In their 1998 judgement, the Supreme Court decided that funding did not have to be provided to all faiths, only those of the institution’s ethos. They said that having a Catholic Chaplain did not require the provision of religious advisors for other faiths merely to provide balance. This is perhaps a fair statement in a small school community where a clear majority ethos remains. Yet UCD’s student population is vast. Its historical Catholicism has, and is continually, being diluted by both those of other religions and of no religious allegiance at all.

Today, the Chaplaincy presents clear reasons as to why spiritual advisors still have a role on campus, both for religious and non-religious welfare, but that does not mean the role is complete. There are clear reasons to suggest that it could be expanded to support the growing range of faiths and non-faiths on campus. Bringing the spirit of Newman to 2011, UCD should have a Chaplaincy to cater for both old and young; old in its Christianity, young in the promise of a diverse future.

It’s not been the best time to be Irish in France. The size of our bailout still smarts while not a lecture goes by without Ireland being used as an example of financial or political instability, but worst of all – Sean Cronin knocked it on.

Ireland could have had it all. Game day started with electric anticipation. The Italian debacle had been consigned to history and it was now time to face France, both in Lansdowne and Flanagan’s Bar of Vieux Lyon. Certainly the odds were stacked against us. For one, it appeared that despite being in Flanagan’s Bar, I was one of only two Irishmen present.

Very quickly, there was three minutes left. We’d turned the ball over 10 metres from the French line. Ireland were going to beat France and the gloating could begin. However, you know what happens next. And we were left with nothing but the bittersweet taste of a stoic defeat.

During the match, as we exchanged playful insults and pantomime jeers with the French around us, it struck home how great a connector sport is. Throughout my time in Lyon, sport has provided the best avenues to meet real life, actual French people.

The teaching environment in France really doesn’t lend itself to making new acquaintances. 300 odd people in lecture halls are as daunting as those back home and the tutorial layout is even worse. In France, tutorials are not so much a forum for discussion amongst peers, but a platform for tutors to bask in the sound of their own voice.

Thankfully, the gym in the Andre Alix residence is far less inhibiting. Because it’s subsidised by CROUS, it’s cheap with membership costing only €24 for the entire year. Perhaps less clean than UCD’s Crunch Fitness and owner certainly of fewer glossy motivational posters, it’s nevertheless got all the essentials: bench press, a squatting rack and a proprietor who devours an entire roast chicken after every session.

Ok, maybe that last one is an Andre Alix special. The man himself, Amadou, is perhaps the largest individual you’ll ever see and is comfortably three times as wide as yours truly. He clearly leads by example because there is not a scrawny lad in sight. Your average student serves in a bar or stacks shelves in a supermarket, but these big blokes work as bouncers. This can come in handy sometimes.

Just last Thursday we were heading to Boston, an American-style dance bar located near Hotel de Ville. However, when we arrived, our prospects did not look good. It was past midnight and there was a straggle of people trying in vain to gain entry. We were just about to head somewhere else when Karim, another gym member, waved me over through the crowd of onlooking Frenchmen and into the club. I felt about ten feet tall.

Suitably impressed, my French football friends insisted I head out to a venue called ‘The Cavern’ with them the next night. As a rather exclusive club, they were adamant I dress up for the occasion so by the time we reached the place I was quite nervous. It was like being 17 all over again, just hoping to get in. Dauntingly, here is no queue for the Cavern. Instead, just a closed door facing directly onto the street. If you didn’t know it was there it would be easy to walk straight on by.

A brief moment after we rang the doorbell a man opened the door, steps out and quickly shut it behind him. You could feel him casting his eyes over our party of four, trying to ascertain if we’re the right type of clientele. He starts interrogating us and I was almost sure his French sounded more like a Tipperary accent. “You’re not from Ireland, are you?” I ventured. Pleasantly surprised, he smiles and exclaims that he is indeed. After a quick discussion, we were in.

Brian, the doorman, proves to be a good-natured host and even lets us keep our coats in his office rather than pay the extortionate cloakroom charge. He only insisted on one thing – that I come down and train with Lugdunum CLG, Lyon’s premiere GAA club. The fact that I’ve never played in my life didn’t seem to deter his recruitment drive and, eventually, I agree to give it a lash.

Monday came and I headed down to my first-ever Gaelic football training. In France. Till then, I thought solos were played on guitars and the hop was an old school dance move. Amazing the things you learn on Erasmus.

Matt Gregg is a UCD student currently studying abroad for a year in Lyon.

I just have to get something off my chest straight away. I hate snow. Now, I know this might sound like jumping on the bandwagon but I’ve always hated snow. The weeks leading up to Christmas, during which Europe was transformed into a cross between The Day After Tomorrow and The Terminal, merely reinforced my aversion to Colin Matthews’ powdery nemesis.

Okay, maybe hate is a little strong. However, when you’re just days away from flying home for the Christmas break and every airline announces their planes are grounded, you can be excused for overreacting. Picture the scene: I was the last to leave so everyone huddled around my laptop, their bags packed, waiting to see if they could make it out. Tensions mounted as their fates flickered through; flight after flight delayed, disrupted or grounded.

Jonny, my Yorkshire neighbour, had four flights cancelled before deciding to give up and train it home. Others were not so decisive and ended up stranded for over a week. Thankfully, I was lucky and faced only minor delays before I was on my way.

Excuse me if this hasn’t quite the forced optimism or disingenuous pleasantness of traditional New Year columns, but I can’t help it. Unfortunately, both of these things are hard to fake when it’s the day after New Year’s and, already, exams have begun in France.

Stereotypically, the French are all about indulgent holidays and putting off work. That stereotype could not be more wrong. It’s less than two weeks off then straight back into your exams. As I sit writing, I really should be revising. Various Christmas parties, three roasts in as many days and the new Call of Duty have made Christmas as ineffective a revision period as feared.

Moreover, it appears Christmas cheer is not the only obstacle. Here, the library is closed, as staff turn our hardest weeks of the year into a holiday. Though much maligned, it appears UCD’s own group of sabbatical incumbents aren’t that bad. Somewhat self-serving, they still manage to achieve the basics. UCD library may not be open 24/7, but at least it’s accessible during exams.

Thanks to Ireland’s very own snowstorms, the horrors of exams in January are something many of you will understand. At least I’m on an Erasmus year, so to some extent, I can get away with gaps in my knowledge by just scrawling ‘FOREIGN’ in big letters across the top of my paper. Somehow, I doubt that ploy will work back in Dublin.

Looking back, I may have given the snow a bit of a hard time. It’s not all cancelled flights and rescheduled exams. In fact, it does bring some upsides. Snow makes mid-December the perfect time to sample the many delights of Rhône-Alpes’ premier city.

From the top of Fourvière, one of two mounds overlooking the city, Lyon looked serene. Gone was the harsh contrast between central Lyon’s sandy hue and its greyer banlieux. The ghastly rooftops of Villeurbanne, where most of the city’s industry can be found, were smothered in a blanket of snow.  A picturesque town at the worst of times, Lyon is transformed into a winter wonderland.

Located in Place Carnot is a Christmas bazaar that puts anything Ireland could offer to shame. Just outside the Perrache metro stop, it is a series of colourful chalets selling everything from wire dolls to mulled wine and giant gingerbread houses. Lyon’s Christmas Market is also home to the best hot chocolate in the world (even better than Insomnia’s!)

Lyon literally lights up in the lead up to Christmas. The Fetes des Lumières, unique to Lyon, expresses gratitude towards the Virgin Mary by covering the whole city in lights and putting on numerous performances. With public drinking encouraged and most supermarkets offering bottles of wine for less than a euro, it’s a great night out.

Come to think of it, 85c wine is a student’s best friend in Lyon.  Called Fin Bouquet and cheaper than a baguette, it comes in very handy when most bars are ridiculously overpriced. The fact that each bottle has a label and an authentic cork, which themselves must cost around 50 cent, makes Fin Bouquet an economic miracle. It’s no Chardonnay, but certainly does the job.

And if Fin Bouquet doesn’t cut it, then maybe Gluwein in the Alps will hit the spot. The ski slopes of Grenoble are only an hour away from Lyon and while I may hate snow in the city, it’s rather essential for skiing, which I hope to enjoy après exams.

Welcome to Lyon, France’s second largest metropolis.

We’ve just hit our eighth straight day of grève réconductible – basically the French unions way of saying they’ll be striking indefinitely. The main source of their ire is the controversial pension reform bill, which would raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the full state pension age from 65 to 67.

The French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, insists the reforms are essential to French prosperity but the population at large clearly disagrees. Large parts of the country have been brought to a standstill, as protesters demand the reforms be dropped. Nowhere have these protests been more vehement than in Lyon.

Not surprisingly my university sent me an email saying all lectures had been suspended indefinitely. A second email swiftly followed, warning all foreign students to avoid heading into town because French demonstrations have a habit of getting out of hand. Naturally, I felt duty-bound to conduct my own field studies and report from the frontline at Place Bellecour.

Most public transport is not running and all the main stations have been shut down so the 15-minute journey from the top of Fourvière has to be made on foot. In hindsight, it’s just as well we walked. Other students ended up getting stuck on the underground for over an hour while protesters clashed with riot police and one friend even got punched in the melee.

Place Bellecour, located between the Saone and the Rhone, forms the focus point of Lyon and much of the demonstrations – the largest pedestrian square in Europe, the area is distinguished by a 25-foot statue of Louis XIV. Today, hundreds of demonstrators swarm around the statue’s base and across the normally vast open space.

The yellow flags of Confédération Générale du Travail, France’s largest trade union, float high in the cold autumn air and the customary blare of megaphones can be heard over the din of the steel drumming group keeping the protesters entertained. Littered amongst the crowd of varying ages and ethnicities are kebab stands, feeding the hungry masses.

Were it not for the almost random stoning of the luxurious shop fronts that enclose the square or the riot clad gendarmes keeping watch, it would be hard to distinguish this gathering from the music festival of la Lumière that Bellecour played host to just two weeks ago. It hardly seemed like the warzone the email had made out.

Circling overhead is a helicopter. From a distance, it’s hard to make out if it’s to keep the rioters in check or merely a TV station coming in for a closer look. It hovers above us, surveying the crowd, the Parachute Insignia of France’s National Guard now crystal clear along the fuselage.

Loud chanting and the steady beat of a drum attracted my attention to the large column of protesters filing into the square from the north-east corner. Easing our way towards the growing crowd, which we can now see stretches out of Bellecour and back across the Rhone, it’s hard not to be impressed by the French determination not to work those extra two years.

Of course, the influx of people into the already packed square was always going to significantly increase the tension, but I was not prepared for what happened next. There was a scuffle as protesters pressed themselves against the on looking gendarmerie and it all kicked off. The helicopter swooped down on the roof of the McDonalds and gas canisters spiralled from the sky, engulfing the square in a thick cloud of smoke.

Chaos ensued. The gas leaves you choking for breath, your eyes streaming and your nostrils burning. Everywhere you looked, people were desperately trying to cover their faces with anything they had or fleeing the scene. Wisely, we swiftly followed suit.

Down every street we ran, we were met by riot police, who were linked together to form a sort of 21st century Roman Tortoise. The oncoming walls of shields forced everyone back towards the square, back towards the gas. In the end, we had to double back.

That was the 19th of October. For two weeks, protests and strikes have dominated French life. The French senate have now voted through the bill and it seems only a matter of weeks before things calm down. But it will take a lot longer to clear up the mess and repair the damage.