WELL, after a two year break it's back and better than ever. All 5,000 tickets for the 1997 Trinity Ball were sold out by last Tuesday and the black market prices had started to rise by Wednesday. Those for who last night's ball was a sedate occasion (such as vice provost and TSB director, Prof David Spearman and Prof Jarlath Ronayne over from Victoria University in Australia) gathered at the chairman's reception hosted by senior dean, Prof Frank Boland.
But, the real partying took place in the five dance areas set up around campus where music varied from DJs Johnny Moy, Glenn Brady (a Trinity graduate) and Mushroom from British band Massive Attack in Library Square, to the Easter Pussycat Cabaret and the Strauss Orchestra in the Dining Hall. Front Square was dominated by a huge Louvresque pyramid which hosted David Holmes and Billy Nasty, while those who favoured tunes with words in, turned up to Kila, David Gray and The Franies in the Exam Hall. And yes, a suitable number of people did conform to tradition, and pass out in the bushes, missing it all.
Trinity Week's garden party was started by thou ladies of the Elizabethan Society in the last century but is now in the infinitely capable hands of Joseph O'Gorman. Joseph is busy ensuring everyone wears a hat and that there is enough strawberries and cream for everyone, when the Garden Party kicks off next Thursday.
The other big event of Trinity Week also takes place on Thursday; the Irish final of the Smirnoff International fashion awards which have moved to the Goldsmith Hall for the first time this year. Always a big fashion palaver, this year's hot guest judges are Marie O'Riordan, the Irish editor of British Elle, and designers Graham Nott and Richard Fraser from Workers for Freedom.
The fashion buyers who always turn up to check out the new designers will no doubt be just as interested in the capsule collection that Nott and Fraser are showing, because the much sought after Workers for Freedom label is as yet unavailable in Ireland.
And if the Eurovision groupies are disappointed with next year's competition location, spare a thought for the Smirnoff finalists. After such exotic locations as Toronto in 1996 and Cape Town in 1995, this year the grand final will be held in yes, you guessed it, London.