There is a moment, midway through my interview with Prof Cyril J Smyth, when a glint enters his eye and an edge creeps into the soft burr of his voice. “I’m one of these people,” he says, his tone measured yet deliberate, “that’s been there for a long time, and has a long memory.” Even placed in context – Smyth is discussing his experience of dealing with the college on financial issues – it is a telling statement.
Over the course of a 37-year career in Trinity, Smyth has amassed a huge volume of knowledge of the college in the arena of sport and beyond. One feels he has not forgotten any of it. The chairman of the Pavilion Bar – formerly chair of Dublin University Central Athletic Club (DUCAC) and involved at a high level in too many organisations to list – is a great interviewee (he is engaging and effusive in conversation), but exceptionally difficult to write about. There is so much to know about Cyril Smyth.
Let us start at the beginning. Smyth arrived in Trinity on a sunny Wednesday in 1980, hoping to secure a job as a lecturer in microbiology. A smile plays at the corner of his mouth as he describes it. “I thought, ‘this is a beautiful place, I’d love to work here’. And as it turned out, I got offered the job, and I came at the end of 1980 to Trinity College.” Smyth would spend almost 28 years in the Department of Microbiology before his retirement from academic life in 2008, including two terms as head of department. It is a time he looks back on with much fondness.
However, Smyth is perhaps better known for the role he has played in Trinity’s sporting development for almost four decades, as organiser, administrator and pretty much everything in between. After 37 years, he can almost lay claim to being a part of the furniture, with enough awards to fill several mantelpieces. So how has it impacted on his life? “Well”, he begins, “I’ve been very keen that people should participate in sport, irrespective of what that sport is. I think it’s part of a healthy life. But being involved with students gives one a different perspective. I think you have to have a young outlook when you’re dealing with student and I think helping people who are involved in sport contributes to that.”
I’m one of these people, he says, his tone measured yet deliberate, that’s been there for a long time, and has a long memory
Suddenly, without warning and as though he has read my mind, Smyth moves onto the subject I really want to discuss: DUCAC. Smyth’s name is almost synonymous with DUCAC, an organisation with one of the hardest jobs in the world: catering to the needs of every one of Trinity’s 49 sporting entities. “I think it was in 1989 I was approached to see if I would get involved with DUCAC”, he muses. “And I first joined DUCAC as what’s called a ‘Pavilion member’. And then there was a vacancy for the honorary treasurership in 1991 and I took on that role for 10 years, until I became Senior Dean of Trinity College.”
Twenty-six years and two terms as DUCAC chairman later, Smyth is now chairman of the Pavilion Bar. He still sits on the executive committee of DUCAC, but his primary role has changed. No longer “intimately involved in the allocation of [DUCAC] funds”, he sees his primary job now as maximising the Pav’s profits. After such a long involvement with DUCAC, what prompted him to take over the running of the college’s bar? Smyth is unequivocal. “I felt it was so important. I had the experience of being Treasurer and Chairman so I know everything about DUCAC and running this organisation, and how critically important income from the Pavilion Bar is to … running club sport.”
Smyth is referring to the fact that DUCAC receives a large portion of its income from the profits of the Pav. The importance of the Pav to DUCAC’s financial viability is a theme he returns to again and again in the course of our conversation, to the point where I wonder if he sees the interview as one big advertising opportunity for the bar. He runs me through the maths. “Something like six to seven thousand students join a sports club every year. They’re here for about 25 weeks. If each of them spent €10 euro a week – not a day, a week – in the Pavilion Bar, that alone could generate income of one and a half million euro in 25 weeks. Well…” Smyth shrugs, as if that settles the matter. “I’m continuously at students saying, ‘”We serve breakfast, we serve coffee, we serve lunch, why not spend some of your money in the Pavilion Bar?”’.
I’m continuously at students saying, ‘We serve breakfast, we serve coffee, we serve lunch, why not spend some of your money in the Pavilion Bar?’
Given the decrease in funding from the college in the last few years, the Pav is particularly important to DUCAC now. Smyth led DUCAC through a difficult financial period, when belts were tightened everywhere. “All of the capitated bodies suffered”, he explains, “essentially a 10 per cent cut in the amount of money that we got from central funds. And although the funding model has now changed back to per unit student model, it’s not really providing, still, the funds that are needed to run all the capitated bodies. And DUCAC does have a goose that can potentially lay a golden egg – and that is the Pavilion Bar.” This last sentence is said with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. Smyth clearly has this conversation a lot. I wonder, though, how much success one man can have in attempting to single-handedly drum up business for the Pav. Haven’t they got any strategies for getting students in the door?
“Oh yes!”, he exclaims, animated. “Over the summer, we’ve been working very hard on this, and we’re about to launch this next week with Freshers’ Week.”
Can he be more specific? It turns out he can: “Well, apart from sort of advertising the fact that we’re there, we’re trying to update the website, we’re updating our Facebook, we’re using all the social media, Twitter, Snapchat …” Smyth throws up a hand in mock bemusement. “We’re trying to make contact with students.”
Over the past number of years, DUCAC has spent a lot of money on renovations to the Pav – Smyth says “around €120,000” went on fixing up the kitchen and bar with roughly another €70,000 allocated to the next big project, refurbishing the toilets. Is it justifiable to spend so much money on the bar even as DUCAC’s reserves dwindle? Smyth interrupts me. “I don’t think people quite understand the ins and outs of accounts in terms of diminished reserves. It’s all very well to say that reserves have gone down, but reserves haven’t gone down because things have been misspent. Reserves have gone down because we’ve had to commit money to the Pavilion Bar.” Which, in Smyth’s view, is a necessary outlay.
“You have to make a venue that people want to go to. You have to make sure that you’re conforming with all the health and safety requirements that are legislated today, and that costs money. So reserves will go down if you have to spend money on that.” Smyth’s model of investment has, he claims, had a positive impact on the Pav’s earnings, describing the last year with quiet satisfaction as “very good.” I push him for specifics. “I can’t give you figures, they will be reported at the Annual General Meeting of DUCAC. But I’m very optimistic.”
I wonder, though, how much success one man can have in attempting to single-handedly drum up business for the Pav. Haven’t they got any strategies for getting students in the door?
Still, DUCAC’s largest outlay over the past few years has not been the Pav but the €250,000 it committed to the redevelopment of Trinity’s Santry Sports Grounds. Accounts accessed by The University Times earlier this year showed that DUCAC still owed €80,000 towards the improvement of these facilities at the end of 2016.
Almost a year later, Smyth tells me they have whittled the figure down to €30,000. “We’re down to that. I’m hoping that that will be paid off this year. And then we’ve done our contribution.” I ask him where they plan to source the money. I needn’t have bothered. “Well”, he says, with the air of someone explaining that two plus two equals four, “I’m hoping people are going to spend a lot more money in the Pavilion Bar.” He is far too dignified to say it, but a certain “duh” hangs in the air.
February 2019 will mark the 100th anniversary of DUCAC and now seems as good a time as any to take stock. Smyth is rightly proud of the organisation, but what is its importance today? DUCAC now operates under the umbrella of Trinity Sport, sharing responsibility for the running of college sport with the Department of Sport. Is there a need for two separate bodies? The silence is deafening. Smyth marshals his arguments. “I mean, for example … if you start saying, ‘Well DUCAC’s redundant, we should do away with it and everything be run under the Department of Sport through Trinity Sport’ …. I wouldn’t think that the other capitated bodies would want to see capitation funding going to what is in essence a part of college … we [DUCAC] are a student body.”
If I felt that someone else could contribute something new or better, then quite clearly it’s to the advantage of everybody if I step down and somebody else takes up the reins
This is Smyth in a nutshell. He continually stresses the importance of DUCAC as a means of providing “hands-on” help to sports clubs in Trinity. “It’s extremely important that the officer of a club has somewhere to go to sit down and talk about their ambitions”, he emphasises. For Smyth, DUCAC is an organisation of the sports clubs, for the sports clubs. He accepts that “there will always be” clubs who feel they have been placed on the long finger, but is convinced that, for as long as he has been involved with the body, DUCAC has done a good job in difficult circumstances. “There is never enough money for everybody”, he argues. “We try to do the best we can with the funds that are available.”
Smyth has two more years left in his term as Pav chairman. And then? “Oh, I don’t know,” he says, with a majestic sigh. At the moment, I’m healthy, I still feel energetic. I don’t know how I’ll feel in two years’ time. I may decide that I could continue for another three years, whether I will or not, I don’t know. I would have to review how successful my three years have been. If I felt that someone else could contribute something new or better, then quite clearly it’s to the advantage of everybody if I step down and somebody else takes up the reins.” Smyth sits back in his chair, folds his arms and smiles, ever-venerable. “You can’t go on forever.”
