My Education Week Eoin Heffernan Entertainments officer, UCD

MONDAY

Black Monday. This is what we call the first day back after Christmas and the summer holidays. Dark as it sounds, it is usually marked by widespread celebrations across campus.

Returning Erasmus students and those who left Dublin for the holidays hook up with the friends they haven’t seen for ages and events are organised to bring the campus back to life. This year, however, it really does feel as gloomy as the name suggests. The campus is deathly quiet after 5pm, as it has been ever since the UCD bar closed down last summer.

My tenure as Ents officer has been a strange one, with no bar venue in which to host events. As a result, last year was characterised by plenty of alcohol-free events. We had speed-dating in the lecture theatres, a mature-student family day and comedians in the student centre.

They were great events, despite the lack of a bar. The trick is not to put a great big ALCOHOL-FREE banner across the poster, or many students will be put off. When they come, they realise that they can enjoy themselves without a drink. Nonetheless, a large part of my job now consists of fielding the same query – when’s the bar opening again? It’s a conversation I have every day and everywhere I go.

TUESDAY

I bet there were a few empty seats in the lecture theatres this morning. Despite the lockdown on campus, there were Black Monday events in D/two, Copper Face Jacks and Copán. That’s how we’ve managed so far this year, by holding UCD events all over town.

Had a meeting with campus management about the reopening of the bar. It closed after years of poor management and deep debt. It was supposed to be jointly run by the students and the college. It didn’t really work out that way. Today I received a commitment that the bar will open again, but this time it will be run by the college.

The good news is that it will be licensed as a venue, so I can start fantasising about gigs before the summer. I have a few dream acts in mind: This Club, Heathers, The Lumineers.

There have been some great acts in the UCD bar in the past – Calvin Harris was a highlight for me.

It would be great to bring it back to its former glory but I think it might be the job of the next Ents officer, at the rate things are going. Health and safety issues have to be resolved before the venue comes to life again.

I’m supposed to work from 10am to 6pm but in reality I spend all day at meetings with students and societies so I only really get to hit the desk in the evenings.

Right now I’m working on steering the social media side of Ents away from Facebook and on to Twitter. Students use Twitter so much and if you can get an event to trend it really gets about.

WEDNESDAY

Getting in gear now for our Irish-language fashion show. All the styling will be Irish too; tweeds, Aran knits and so on. The idea is to get models from all over campus with all different looks, not just the “model” type. The event is in aid of Bodywhys, a charity that provides information and support for people with eating disorders. We’re getting a great response from potential models. Now we just have to find some clothes to put on them.

I do like the challenge of pulling large-scale events together, though. It’s what got me into this in the first place. I’ve taken a sabbatical from my degree course in agriculture, but I’ll be starting back in third year in September.

It’s an unlikely choice for a city boy from Dublin. I took agricultural science as an extra Leaving Cert subject in sixth year and just really enjoyed it. Mind you, during first year in college I had to get a lot of things explained to me by my country classmates who actually grew up on farms. Headage? Silage? Then a classmate invited me down to his family farm for lambing season and I got my hands dirty. It was great craic.

My mum is bewildered, reminding me that the family has no land. How am I going to be a farmer? And what is this whole Ents business going to bring to the mix? I think I’m destined to be running the Ploughing Championships one day. I can’t think of any other suitable role for a guy with my particular skillset.

THURSDAY

Thursdays are weird. There is a phenomenon known as postering which the ordinary student would never see, since it kicks off at 7.30am. It’s a dark and chilly fixture at this time of year. Because there are so many events happening across campus every week, and only so much poster space on the notice boards, the campus management allow only this one window to get the ads up.

It’s first-come-first-served and it can be quite traumatic for the uninitiated. We all line up at the notice boards and somewhere between 7.30 and 8am a member of the campus staff will appear and shout “go”!

First time I did it I was all but knocked to the ground by a girl half my height trying to get a prime spot on the notice board. I’m used to it now and I give as good as I get.

Time to plan some gigs for the new term. Still without a venue, we will keep using the Button Factory in Temple Bar, where we had some great events last term. I try to book plenty of Irish acts.

Right now the students are really into hip-hop and house music, so I keep an eye on blogs such as Craic Music and Nialler9. It’s one of the aspects of this job I really get a kick out of; trying to stay one step ahead and get bands before they become too big to book.

FRIDAY

This is really a seven day a week job, so Friday is not the end. I never really get a chance to get through all my emails during the day, so I spend some time catching up. It’s worse for the welfare officer. Right now he’s getting hundreds of mails a day from students struggling with money. I’ll be back in again tomorrow to work on the fashion show, which we’ll be holding here on campus at the Astra Hall.

Walking through the main thoroughfare, a few more students come up to ask me when the bar will be open again. It really is a big issue, having nowhere to hang out in college. At least I have a bit of good news: commitments have been made. Still don’t have a date, though, so for the time being it’s back on the old Number 10 and into Coppers, or wherever.

This week I was . . .

Reading

The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Watching

Suits

Listening to

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs

Browsing

New music blogs, especially Irish hip-hop blog Craic Music