No afternoon drinking, Gardai patrolling the campus and leg waxing for charity. UCC has tried to reinvent rag week, but is it working? BRIAN O'CONNELLreports
YOU REALLY do have to fight for your right to party, it seems. After much discussion with local residents, college authorities and students themselves, University College Cork’s rag week, the annual student party, kicked into gear on Sunday, and runs until Friday. Following last year’s affair, when a high level of public order incidents were reported, including mass house parties and public furniture burning, students had to consult widely before planning this year’s event.
As a result, gardaí are conducting a highly visible operation in the college and surrounding areas, with foot, bike and vehicle patrols every night this week from 8pm until 4am. A 24-hour helpline has been set up for concerned residents, while for the first time, students themselves will patrol the streets in designated teams wearing high-visibility jackets. Even the name of the party week has changed – it’s not called rag week any more. It’s now called “raise and give week”. The emphasis is on the giving, not the gargle.
Just try telling that to the students.
It’s not quite lunchtime, and in the Old College bar on campus there’s a queue five deep to get served. The licensing hours have been restricted this year so that bars on campus are closed between 3pm and 6pm in an effort to avoid the type of afternoon anti-social behaviour that was a feature of last year’s rag week. Lady Gaga is pounding out from the mounted speakers and the majority of students are drinking pints from plastic glasses.
“I’m going to go into college for a while and then come back out and go on the razz,” says one male student, who doesn’t want to be named. “Tonight it will be house parties, and then we’ll head into town after.”
A female companion from Kerry, drinking her first pint of the day, outlines her plan for the evening. “We’ll have a few drinks now, and start again tonight. The rest of the week we’ll be sticking to house parties and skipping the clubs. We spent way too much last night.”
Across campus, several events have been laid on to raise money, and the atmosphere is genial and good-natured. Students sign up for a duck race, or take turns trying to drop fellow students into pools of water for €2 a go. In the student centre, an X Factor-type competition is about to begin, complete with judges and a host of contestants hoping to do a Leona on it.
UPSTAIRS IN a new bar, a group of students down pitchers of beer, while a DJ offers spot prizes for a push-up competition. Student Ben Nolan says that it’s important to get the run-up to rag week right. “This is my second rag week. I actually didn’t get drunk last week so that I can have a good time for the next few days,” he says.
Next to him, Sam Greenford is a bit uneasy with the number of gardaí patrolling the college campus. “I think that there has been a complete over-reaction from the college this year. There are better ways of dealing with it. It’s a bad vibe having loads of cops walking around,” he says. “I know it’s a good idea to have them, for the sake of the residents and so on. But it’s a week to have fun and a week to raise money, and you don’t want to have this feeling of the law breathing down your neck.”
Getting his legs waxed in another corner of the bar is first-year student David Ward. In between grimaces, he explains the reason for his rapidly balding legs. “Oh God, it’s painful. I’ve never done anything like this before,” he says. “It’s for charity. I don’t know how much I raised, a good bit anyway. I’d want to given how painful it is.”
Students’ Union deputy president Ian Power admits that there were question marks over this year’s event. “There was talk of it not going ahead. I think, though, the university recognised that if they cancelled it, clubs and bars would still organise it themselves. People forget the point of all this is to raise money for charity. Last year we raised €30,000, and we’re hoping to beat that target this year.”
Local superintendent Barry McPolin was keen to praise the co-operation between civic and student bodies in the weeks leading up to this year’s event. Greater college involvement in the discipline of students means that any student reported may face action from college authorities. This could point to a way forward for future events, he says, with a greater emphasis on college disciplinary procedures kicking in to deal with students. “The consequences for students who engage in anti-social behaviour can be very damaging. One silly event can have serious consequences for them and the wider community. If they are arrested for an offence they could end up with a record, and this may have implications for foreign travel and their professional life. Having said that, we could not accept the type of behaviour we had last year.”
Later in the evening, at Barrack Street Garda Station, Sgt Aidan O’Connell briefs his team of gardaí on what to expect in the hours ahead and how to deal with disturbances. He outlines how the student patrols will operate, and what areas of the college need to be monitored. In total, 16 gardaí will patrol the college area – most weeks that number would be just four. Along the route towards college, student parties spill out onto the streets, and groups of drinking students gather outside off-licences or pizza outlets. Signs outside the Carry Out off-licence advertise 30 per cent off Bacardi Breezer, offering five bottles for €10.
Some students also speak of local supermarkets conducting price offers through social networking sites, with naggins of vodka being sold for €2.50 each. Three students colonise a street corner, drinking from a large bottle of sparkling wine. One of them gives a false address when confronted by gardaí, and is taken away to reflect on his residential status in the local Bridewell Garda Station.
Generally, gardaí take a common sense approach in dealing with the students. Many of them, such as community liaison officer Garda John O’Halloran, have been working this beat for many years, and understand the mores of student life. As the evening progresses, students begin edging their way towards the city centre, yet house parties continue. Two students standing at the gate of their rented house tell me their party has been going since midday. “We’ve probably had about 200 students come through all day, and only a few of them gave any trouble,” one of them says.
THE ADVENT OF social networking sites has meant that house parties can now be advertised and organised easily online, which is posing further problems for college authorities and the Garda. I join up with a group from the UCC Student Patrol, who are paid to walk the areas close to college, picking up litter and advising students on their behaviour. The reaction to them from fellow students is mixed. Some call them “rats” for taking the side of college authorities, while others congratulate them or ask them to explain their function, or why rag week is now called “raise and give week”.
One local resident stops us and warns of groups jumping on cars in a nearby estate. She doesn’t want to speak on the record and seems weary of the intrusion the social excess brings.
Further up college road, four landlords are doing it for themselves, standing guard outside their premises. They say they’ll be here every night this week ensuring their properties are left intact and that noise levels are under control. Last year was the first year they stood guard, and they will stay until 3am. “Landlords always get blamed for the anti-social behaviour,” one says, “The landlord seems to be wrong no matter what. Yet we’ll be out here every night. I’ve cleared about 80 people from my house already.”
The landlords argue that the student behaviour is just a symptom of wider social acceptance of binge-drinking and teenage rites of passage. The situation is getting worse they say, not better. The new Garda presence is welcome, but more needs to be done.
“Everything ends in college at a certain time, and so where else will students go? I think more can be done to prevent the type of scenes we had last year. Anyone drinking on the street should be taken in straight away. The drink is a lot cheaper, and also students seem to have more money now for drink than before. We’re doing what we can, but the rest of society needs to get real too.”
