Well here it is, again. You know, that thing we do every year that you all seem to love so much. Here are 20 – or rather 21 – people at Trinity College Dublin whom you should probably know, because they’re pretty great. They are not the only great people at this university, nor are they necessarily the greatest. Our editorial infallibility does tend to fail us now and then.
That being said, this is the sixth iteration of the Trinity Twenty, so apparently it means something to someone. In that spirit, we’ve done our best to compile some of the most influential “big names” on campus, as well as why their efforts and/or general brilliance may be relevant to you. These people shape the agenda within College, organise events for thousands of students, and just consistently seem to impress everyone with whom they come in contact. They’ve all made their name by doing what they love, doing it well, and having fun doing it. Hardly a bad example to follow during your time here.
1 Lynn Ruane
TCDSU President
Lynn Ruane, a rather quiet addition to the SU team this year, just finished third year in PPES. The first female SU President in twelve years, she is most known for keeping her distance from major political events and being entirely inactive on social media. She was certainly the dark horse of the recent sabbatical elections, with her win surprising everyone involved, including herself. Lynn’s work as a former TCDSU Student Parent Officer and a community development worker in Tallaght clearly had little impact on her moderate manifesto, in which she promised to mobilise the entire student body and highlight the hardships of student parents. Come to think of it, we really don’t know much about Lynn at all.
(In reality – while it pains us to put another SU president at number one – Lynn’s background in social issues and wide range of experience and talent will benefit the student body immensely. In terms of influence, she has plenty inside and outside of Trinity. She will become, if she is not already, the most notable personality on campus, and her promises and plans have already begun to shape the ongoing “Repeal the Eighth” campaign. She will remind you about all of this on Facebook, so don’t forget to like it).
2 Clodagh Cogley
Fourth Year, Psychology
Clodagh Cogley is one of seven survivors of the Berkeley balcony collapse that occurred in June 2015. Despite surviving the fall, Cogley suffered a number of life changing injuries, including a broken spinal cord, five broken ribs, collapsed lungs, a broken shoulder, and a broken knee. In a Facebook post in late June, Cogley said that the chances of using her legs again were very bleak, but kept her spirits up by saying that she may find her talent for wheelchair basketball. The collapse of the balcony at the Kittredge Street apartment caused six young people to lose their lives, a tragedy that inspired Cogley to encourage others to “enjoy a good dance and the feeling of grass beneath your feet like it’s the last time because in this crazy world you never know when it might be”. Cogley has become one of the many beacons of hope to Irish students living in both Berkeley and in Ireland – and she seems to be one of those people who makes newspaper editors forget that they’re meant to put bad and sad news on the front page, rather than her uplifting and inspiring messages. Trust us: we’ve already lined up a full-page spread.
3 Ludivine Rebet
President, University Philosophical Society
As president of one of the largest societies in College, Ludivine could probably claim a spot on this list just by waking up in the morning. Not very original, we know. Aside from that, Ludivine made her name in the Phil by doing absolutely everything, all the time, and often doing it very well. Her array of skills includes debating better than you, organising better events than you, and wearing high heels every day until the point that her feet are literally falling off. Plus, in the Phil elections, she was seen as the least anti-UT candidate, which we assume was the main factor propelling her to success.
Of course, an alternate theory holds that she seized control of power by never once stepping foot outside the GMB in her entire college career. This view is corroborated by professors who can’t recall ever having seen her face in class, and by her parents, who’ve been searching for her unsuccessfully for the past three-and-a-half years. We’ll leave it to our intelligent readers to decide which story feels more true.
4 Edmund Heaphy
Editor, The University Times
I, Edmund Heaphy, the youngest-ever and first independent Editor of The University Times – yes, that’s how we stylise it, every time – am not ashamed to admit that I wrote this profile myself. I can’t trust any of the other clowns around here to get it right. I am also the longest-serving masthead member of our staff, and if you don’t know what a masthead is then please stop reading this right now.
Here is why I matter to you: I made The University Times the best-designed student newspaper in the world, according to Americans who clearly know a thing or two about design, at an age when I cannot legally drink in their ridiculous country. I hold so many people to account that I often dream of holding people to account, only to awake devastated that I was spending my time sleeping, rather than holding people to account. I successfully abolished the semi-colon from the pages of this paper, and have big plans for taking this crusade international. Most importantly, my carefully cultivated “Anna Wintour with a melodic Cork accent” persona perfectly conceals the fact that I am, genuinely, very similar to Anna Wintour.
5 Róisín Bradley
Third Year, Law
Hailing from Buncrana, Donegal and studying law, Roisin is now the youngest-serving member of the committee of fifteen of the Fianna Fáil Ard Chomhairle. This position allows Bradley to significantly affect Fianna Fáil’s national policy, and she also happens to be the only person who actually wants to. Whether that is for better or worse is a matter of politics, with her stances more conservative than the average Trinity student. Running on a platform of giving a voice to young people in Fianna Fáil, Bradley hopes to promote “the active engagement of young people at the heart of the party”. Bradley currently serves as Secretary of the Fianna Fáil branch in Trinity, and served as second-year class representative last year. She spent the summer interning with Ireland’s biggest and baddest TD, Éamon Ó Cuív, as she describes it on her Facebook profile, which she continually updates with any sort of experience or minor life moment she has at all, at all.
6 Naoise Dolan
Fourth Year, English
It takes a special kind of influence to be named to something called the “Feministing Five”, which in all honesty sounds like a graphic novel that we would 100 per cent want to read. But Naoise’s influence truly does stretch further beyond Trinity’s walls than almost anyone on this list. Her painfully sharp wit and equally brilliant illustrations speak volumes, especially when you consider how many of your friends stare at her Tumblr and think: “This is literally my life”. Sometimes we laugh, but more often we feel deeply uncomfortable about things we or society take for granted. And that’s usually the point.
She also maintains significant influence within College, writing and illustrating prolifically for Trinity News and taking the role of Comment Editor this year. Naoise is also a former censor for the Hist (yes, we were also greatly misled by the title of that position), in which role she handled all aspects of publicity for the society, including the organisation of the popular “Tea and Toast” sessions. Everyone knows that GMB people talk a lot, but this woman is one you’d be well-advised to listen to.
7 Katie Cogan
TCDSU Ents Officer
Cogan exerts influence on campus simply because she has managed to completely rebrand Trinity Ents. Have you noticed that the Trinity Ents brand is basically just her face? Incoming students in the freshers Facebook group have been greeted with dozens and dozens of Cogan’s selfies. The annual share-an-image-of-the-Ents-timetable competition, with the hopes of winning a freshers’ band, this year, became a share-an-image-of-Katie-Cogan-holding-the-Ents-timetable competition. We wouldn’t mind, except that a recent University Times poll of 1,136 incoming freshers revealed that 95 per cent of them had no idea what the week’s lineup was. 100 per cent, however, said they’d be able to spot Katie Cogan’s pink beanie from the Hamilton. Aside from that, she does happen to be the first female Ents Officer in a long time, and her soothing mid-Atlantic accent makes us wish she would talk us both to sleep.
8 Hilary Hogan
Third Year, Law
Secretary of DU Law Society (and definitely not running for Auditor next year), Hilary is the latest in a long line of ambitious grafters to tackle the Law Soc Secretary role. Hilary may seem to be just a driven and talented lady who deserves all the plaudits she gets, but in reality she’s also a hun from the beloved south of Dublin who wants nothing more than to settle down with some pinot noir and season two of Gossip Girl (the best one, obvs). Her interests include not running for auditor of Law Soc, sending hundreds of long emails, testing movies to see if they pass the Bechdel test and genuinely, super-not running for Auditor of Law Soc. While she denies that helping to run Aifric Ní Chríodáin’s campaign gave her valuable experience to run her own campaign, she does admit that it’s about time that a woman took over Law Soc again as it has been two years since this has happened.
9 Grant Tierney & Jonah Craig
Second Year, Business & Spanish, and Business & Computer Science
These two make an interesting couple, with big plans to make Trinity Ents great again. As “treasurer” of Ents, Grant Tierney is Katie Cogan’s right-hand man, despite his position’s fundamental redundancy given the continued existence of Simon Evans and Lynn Ruane, the two people with constitutional control of the SU’s purse strings. Tierney will be eyeing up a run for Ents Officer in this year’s SU elections before his Erasmus year in Spain. Despite not actually living at Trinity Hall, people found him stalking corners and running Jonah Craig’s successful Trinity Hall Ents Officer campaign. Craig, like very many of this year’s JCR, seems oh so eager to impress the SU and essentially promised to do Katie Cogan’s work for her in his manifesto.
10 Kean Kavanagh
Fourth Year, Law
Conceived during a one-night tryst between Greek deity Zeus and the 1992 Rose of Tralee, fourth-year law student and secret teen boyband member, Kean Kavanagh heads up the Law Society. In addition to being Auditor of one of Trinity’s largest societies, Kean is also the undisputed fastest man in law, having staked claim to this title more quickly than anyone else. His hobbies include shifting, running faster than other people and being an incredibly decent, kind-hearted person. Over the years, Kean has proven to be very popular with the ladies, but don’t get your hopes up girls – he’s vowed to save himself for marriage! Living a vice-free lifestyle has been key to Kean’s success and he hasn’t so much as gone near a can in nearly three years.
11 D Joyce-Ahearne
Fourth Year, English and French
D Joyce-Ahearne is that guy who wrote an article saying he hated spoken word events, and then decided to help found a long-running spoken word event that, for quite some time, invaded the wine cave of KC Peaches and now various pubs across Dublin with people who look like walking advertisements for the Dublin Vintage Factory. As Chair of Trinity Publications, D is the head of one of Trinity’s five capitated bodies, commanding a large budget, exerting influence (though coyly pretending not to) on such illustrious publications as Trinity News, known for their brilliant uncovering of a major breach of the College network, and the Piranha, known for their love of The University Times and Jack Leahy. While he is genuinely one of the nicest people in Trinity, and definitely one of the biggest Ds on campus, no you absolutely cannot ask why we have to call him D.
12 Anna Sheehan
Fourth Year, Law
All the previous Editors of the Piranha have been white, straight, upper-class males from Dublin 4. Anna has managed to boldly shatter that glass ceiling by being only three of those things. Strangely, for a Piranha Editor, she happens to be massively popular with people both inside and outside the Phil, particularly in law. Aside from that, she’s also pretty interesting: she’s just back from Erasmus in Finland and she learned Mandarin when she was in school. She also happens to have dived right back into the rat race of influence after a year away: aside from being Editor of the Piranha, which – let’s face it – does have the power to do things as lofty as shape the SU elections with a simple Facebook scourge and a front-page photo, she is also secretary of Trinity Arts Festival, which won the best event of the year at the CSC awards.
13 Conor Parle
Master’s in Economics
While currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Economics, Parle remains firmly entrenched in many aspects of college life. He sits as the Chair of SOFIA (Society for International Affairs), a recent upstart which rapidly grew in size and prominence last year to rival the established players, like the Phil and Law Soc. He’s also Travel Officer for DUPA (Dublin University Photography Association), and formerly held a committee position with the Student Economic Review. Parle even made a notable splash in last year’s Ents race – gallivanting around campus to address all 4,568 lectures held during the two weeks of campaigning. As hard as we try, we literally couldn’t find a bad word to say about Conor, who despite losing an election, managed to become universally loved. Most importantly, he’s the man The University Times runs to whenever it needs help with numbers.
14 Shane Rice
Second Year, German and Irish
His plans to merge the JCR and the students’ union are actively underway, with things as lofty as “memorandums of association” being written. Somehow, he managed to convince Katie Cogan to put his Ents officer on the Ents committee, and plans to further infiltrate the union’s executive decision-making body, despite clear constitutional prohibitions. As with every JCR President, his eventual entry into the SU President race is more of a formality at this point, and we suspect he’s had his campaign speeches written more than a few years in advance. We’d expect less from someone in charge of running a “No Fees” campaign as a fresher.
15 Bearach Reynolds
Fourth Year, Medicine
The University Times, knowing only one medicine student in total, assumes that they are all equally boring. But this year’s head of TCD Biosoc intends to prove us wrong. He’s known as the “go to” person in his medicine class for anything and everything related to extracurriculars. Though perhaps lagging behind his brother, former SU Ents Officer Sean Reynolds, in terms of college involvement, Bearach will have ultimate responsibility for running Med Day, and combines his medicine studies with a spot on the Fashion Soc committee, after holding the position of class rep and MOVE rep.
16 Lara Connaughton
Fourth Year, BESS
Lara Connaughton is famous for being extremely on top of everything in her life, whilst still managing to seem like she has absolutely nothing under control. Few people know that Connaughton was made an honorary member of the Frat, who were won over by her fundamentally regressive views on feminism and women in power. Coming out of absolutely nowhere to become the first female auditor of DUBES in recent years, she never bothered to work her way up the ranks of one of Trinity’s most exclusive society committees. As Treasurer of Trinity Publications last year, it was she who was responsible for controlling the budget of the Piranha, and was the one who gave out to them when they pretended to forget to send their issue to print. This year, she hopes to bring the BESS Ball to whichever venue has turned over enough staff to forget the damage done both to their property and to the world’s collective consciousness.
17 Martha Shackleton
President, Trinity St. Vincent de Paul Society
The new head of VDP, Shackleton has officially reached the big leagues of charity work following her involvement with the VDP Pantomime. Equally famous for her almost ridiculous use of Irish colloquialisms, framed by the thickest of D4 accents, Shackleton has been heavily involved with SUAS and pursues the longest-titled arts degree ever conceived: World Religions and Theology and Classical Civilisations. Arts Block stereotypes do, in fact, exist for a reason.
18 Johnny Deane
Fourth Year, BESS
Johnny Deane lives in a paradoxical universe, where he attempts to be the most Hamilton-focused BESS head who ever walked past the cricket pitch. Co-founder of the Trinity Student Scientific Review, the first of its kind in Ireland, Deane is also known for his serious contributions across many societies in college, from SMF to the JCR. Deane is also heavily involved with exciting Kerry-based start-up WAZP, which received roughly €100,000 in
funding for developing software related to 3D printing.
19 Aoibhinn Ní Lochlainn
Third Year, Medicine
Aoibhinn is the sweetest and tiniest person we’ve ever met. As secretary of Trad Soc when it won most-improved society at the CSC awards, she somehow managed to turn the most boring kind of music into something sort of successful. An unconventional addition to the list, Aoibhinn features heavily in the Trinity Talks welfare video, and somehow managing to be interesting, influential and involved, despite both being from Donegal and studying medicine. The two are normally a deadly combination, but Aoibhinn manages to be both approachable and unintimidating.
20 Tiarnan Daly
Fourth Year, Human Genetics
A human genetics student, and often remarked as the biggest Harry Styles wannabe of the Hamilton, Daly holds a prime position for sporting in college with a scholarship for his GAA involvement. A former committee member of the GAA, Daly is also a member of the Knights of the Campanile – a secret, frat-esque organisation that doesn’t receive nearly as much scrutiny as they should given their “lads lads lads” behaviour. Good thing The University Times is on a “holding to account” rampage, these days.
