The Trinity 20 is back, and more unnecessarily savage than ever. The Trinity 20 makes sure there is a record of Trinity’s top 20 movers and shakers each year for posterity, and shows how, beneath the taking-ourselves-too-seriously veneer, The University Times‘s writers are actually really funny and cool.
So how does one make it onto this esteemed list? The sports stars, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) hacks and society big-wigs will feature, of course. But people on campus who are making waves in their own quaint way will also make it – whether that’s contributing to societies or being a sissy do-gooder.
But before we launch into the list, a warning to those who make it on: for some reason, people seem to think the Trinity 20 is important and you’ll probably think you’re shit hot now – you aren’t. All you have done is make a list cobbled together by some uninformed, slightly sarcastic students. Act accordingly.
1 Laura Beston
TCDSU President
Laura Beston, the authority-hating authority of TCDSU, got elected last year by promising to make graphs of complaints made on Twitter, single-handedly end racism, and lobby our capitalist, patriarchal blueshirt government for free fees, free accommodation and free Trinity Ball tickets.
The last of these may seem unlikely, but remember that everything Beston says is right because she understands wokeness. In fact, she says she is the sole owner of the keys to Wokeville, a fantasy village inhabited by Twitter activists where Laura can cancel who she likes. Who says utopia doesn’t exist?
This is the second time Beston has made the Trinity 20. Sources close to Beston have confirmed that she plans to sprint into Front Square the morning The University Times is published to get a copy and make sure she’s on the list, before very publicly registering her surprise (again) in a manner about as genuine as Taylor Swift at the 2011 American Music Awards.
2 Trinder Creators
???
If Trinder has shown us anything, it’s that Trinity students are thirsty – real thirsty. We don’t know if the Buttery staff are putting something in the lasagne, or maybe the Ussher library causes people to release some weird pheromone into the air, but Trinder has uncovered a lust among Ireland’s brainiest bunch that many did not think existed. (It also revealed that we like to unironically say “daddy” a lot – perhaps Trinder’s most disturbing revelation.)
The Trinder creators have liberated us sexually. (Well, not really: Trinder is just a platform to anonymously talk about our crush to lots of people in a humorous way without actually confronting our very real feelings for them.) That dreamy TA who runs the tutorial you always do the readings for so you can impress him? You can now anonymously call him a “sex God” and ask him to punish you “with something other than bad grades” (real quote). The Trinder creators have created a monster.
Despite being responsible for so much commotion, however, the Trinder creators remain masked, anonymous – a sexy presence in the darkness, urging on our most depraved impulses. Are you the creator of Trinder? Am I? Or maybe we all are?
3 Shaz Oye and Gisèle Scanlon
GSU President and Vice-President
Shaz and Gisele are like the cool parents you wished you had growing up. They’re the kind of parents who have been buying their kid’s drink since they were 16. The kind of parents who when they caught their kid smoking, winked at them and asked if they could have one. The kind of parents who allowed their kids to have the cool (in retrospect, dodgy) haircuts, while your mother insisted on that BLOODY fringe.
They may be postgraduates, but they are woke (their word, not ours – they’re so woke, they know the term woke). On their agenda? The fight for gender equality, prioritising the needs of the LGBT community and figuring out how to work that damn Instagram thing! Sorry – that was a low blow. We didn’t mean it! In all honesty, we just want a mention in the joint memoir that you will probably write after you end world hunger and establish global peace together. Love us Shaz and Gisele! Please! Really, we’re desperate.
4 Cooks But We’re Chefs
Battle of the Bands Winners
The largest-ever earthquake recorded in Ireland took place two years ago when Cooks But We’re Chefs won Trinity’s Battle of the Bands. The judges were blown away by their absolute banger, “Maga With the Boys”, where singer/rapper/trumpeter Jesse Russell shouts “Oi, Oi, Oi”, and the crowd shouts back “Maga with the boys”. It’s funny though because it’s ironic. Like they don’t actually want to go to Maga because that’s, like, beneath them. You’ll only get it if you’re really funny and ironic like they are.
Winning Battle of the Bands was a watershed moment for the Chefs as it marked the exact moment they sold out and started charging into their gigs. Two singles dropped last year and Crooks But We’re Chefs have been laughing all the way to the bank ever since. They started out with a small kitchen of five, but the number of Chefs spoiling the broth is ever-increasing. By the time I finish writing this piece they’ll probably have added another performer to the band. What’s that? Dustin the Turkey just got out of rehab and is making his showbiz return as the band’s lead pan-pipes player. Nevertheless, we look forward to whatever dish the Chefs serve up next.
5 Linda Djougang
Rugby player, final-year nursing
Jack Dunne who? Don’t get us wrong, playing for Leinster is a big deal, but for Linda Djougang, that is like, so 2017. Djougang’s rise to the top of the Irish rugby ladder has been a breathtaking one, although not without its ups and downs. Despite training regularly with the national team, Linda was not given a Trinity All Male Sports Scholarship in 2017, forcing her to take a year out of College to focus on playing rugby at the highest possible level. College, of course, came crawling back, and Djougang promised to return on two very important conditions: an athletic scholarship, and a guaranteed place in the top 10 of the Trinity 20.
Given that she’s lined out four times for Ireland since then – and been rucking brilliant in every appearance – both the College and (more importantly) The University Times have come through for Djougang. (Listen, we don’t know how we keep pulling it out of the bag either.) This is a very pleasant entry in this list – how nice it is to include someone who actually warrants a place due to their achievements. However, it’s hacks from here-on down.
6 Donal MacNamee
Editor, The University Times
Next on the list is the Editor of The University Times, and our answer to Piers Morgan, Donal MacNamee. MacNamee now stands now as the final bastion of free speech and journalistic integrity, having defeated all those who stood between him and free on-campus accommodation. To all those hateful yes-voters in last year’s referendum to gut funding to The University Times, MacNamee says: “Good Knight Vienna.”
MacNamee employed a charm offensive to rise to the top of the paper’s scrapheap, massively aided by being above-average looking (akin to being Brad Pitt in the newspaper racket). His smooth charm melts his foes like a lump of butter would if it were forcibly shoved into your mouth. But don’t let his genial grin, cherub cheeks or adorable Limerick accent fool you: he is as adept in the language of Knights as he is of knaves. Should you walk by him on campus, speak in hushed tones for he is always listening and his network of spies are everywhere. How can you spot him on campus? MacNamee is one of those special breeds of sociopath who wears shorts all year round. He prowls around campus at Knight, hunting down stories like a panther. Delete your internet history, folks: Donal MacNamee is coming for your secrets.
7 Tate Donnelly
Founder, Trinity Young Greens
The earth is dying, and Tate Donnelly is going to make sure you know it. Entering a conversation with this force of nature should come with a warning sign, because no matter how innocent the topic, he will use it to remind you that you and you alone have caused climate change and the only way to repent is to pledge your life to the Green Party, and sign away your first-born to the cause as well.
Donnelly’s policy obsession may seem harmless, but read the fine print: in a few years, everyone who’s not a registered member of the Green Party will be put to work as a blade on a windmill to ensure sufficient renewable energy for all. All the members of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and those imbeciles who don’t want to pledge themselves to a party because none fully represent their views: all whirring around at 193 kilometres per hour (yes, we checked how fast windmills go so you can plan ahead – you’re welcome) as Donnelly cackles with wicked self-righteousness. And don’t be surprised if it sounds like you’ve heard this all before – true environmentalists recycle everything, even their opinions!
8 Ida Lis
TCDSU Health Science Faculty Convenor
The University Times can confirm that Ida Lis was that kid in primary school: the one who graduated from pencil to pen while you were still using your index finger as a manual space bar. In her two-year career in Trinity, Lis has helped to establish and chair DU Nursing and Midwifery Society, and – rumour has it – she can also tell you if that “situation” downstairs is an STI or not. Lis is the kind of over-achiever you hide from your mam after you just manage to stumble through supplemental exams, with a low 2:2 in sociology and English while she’s off saving lives or whatever it is people in D’Olier St do with their mornings.
Lis has fought long (one year) and hard (with fun trips to Belfast) to bring the nursing and midwifery clans together to resolve their long-fabled rivalry – it’s like getting Dumbledore and Voldermort to enter a coalition government. Now, however, that she has taken over as TCDSU Health Science Faculty Convenor, we have one fear for Lis: the corrupting power of union hackery. A successful year as Health Science Faculty Convenor could well put her on a path to run for one of those wishy-washy sabbat officers like education or welfare, thus obliterating her productivity and personality. Please Ida: don’t change.
9 Niamh Loughlin
Pharmacy master’s student
Fetty Wap and former Irish Pharmaceutical Students Association President Niamh Loughlin have one thing in common: both live for money, drugs and fast cars – and preferably all at the same time. There are, however, one or two differences in the types of drugs and fast cars they want, and how exactly they want to earn their money.
Fetty is more of vitamin K man. Loughlin is all about that pure, A-grade pharmaceutical product. Fetty wants a Rari’ to impress his Trap Queen while riding down the Strip. Loughlin wants a fast car so that she can get to her final year placement quicker – a Honda Civic would do. Fetty intends on making his money through his rap songs and slinging large quantities of cocaine. Loughlin just wants to be paid by whatever big Pharma company she interns at. These differences are admittedly pretty big, but what brings Fetty and Niamh together is that they will stop at NOTHING to get what they want.
10 Zara Finn
JCR President
As President of the JCR, Zara Finn is one-seventeenth campus celebrity – by which we mean she’s royalty in Halls, and an absolute nobody everywhere else. In charge of an organisation tasked with making themselves as unapproachable to first years as possible, Finn will have a busy year deciding which of this year’s cohort of eager Halls residents are cool enough to gain entry to the JCR circle (hint to Halls residents: you have to really like being patronised to get in), and showing the rest of the first years how tragic their lives are. Finn’s job as been made harder as Halls’ new warden continues to clamp down on anything even remotely resembling fun. Gone are the days of strolling around Halls visibly gulping cans of Tesco Lager: it’s bed by 11 and don’t you even look at that naggin – you have a nine o’clock lecture tomorrow. Still, despite all the obstacles JCR are the coolest people on campus and if you disagree, you clearly have never been allowed in the JCR’s “cool night out” photos. And they never will, right Zara?
11 Niamh McCay
TCDSU Education Officer
Dear Niamh, we’re sorry to have to be the ones to break it to you – truly we are – but someone has to say it: as interesting as being Niamh McCay must be, the people who tell you they care your life, your work as TCDSU Education Officer or what you had for lunch yesterday, are either lying or thick.
As TCDSU Education Officer, McCay at least has a real job now, having moved on from a past role as JCR Music Officer – a title that has to have been created by a random job-title generator, like Teddy Bear Surgeon, or Viceroy of Barbie Doll Design. Now, she has to look after the educational needs of 17,000 students, and also to keep attempting to make the Hamilton love her (best of luck with that one, Niamh).
12 Aisling Grace
Editor, Trinity News
After last year, you’re probably as surprised as we are that Aisling Grace has secured herself a spot on this coveted list. Then, Grace’s newspaper attempted to get this entire paper shut down thanks to the work of her mentor, the nefarious comic-book villain Niamh Lynch. (Can we take a moment to remember Lynch getting roasted by Joe Duffy on LiveLine for trying to get our editor to resign?) But we’re not the type to hold a grudge: we’re completely FINE. As in, Ross being “fine” about Rachel kissing Joey “fine”. Did we mention we’re fine?
However, we are a bit concerned that Trinity News won’t make it to print in time for freshers’ week, because Grace seems to be doing absolutely tap. Sources have told us, however, that she only enters the Trinity News office in the dead of night, to avoid having to – you know – APOLOGISE FOR JEOPARDISING OUR EXISTENCE. Like we said: completely fine. Truly, we wish her all the best in the upcoming year – enviously reading and re-reading our articles and plotting attacks on us can be very draining. Again: fine.
13 Jack Dunne
Rugby player, third-year theoretical physics
Usually being on this list means stepping onto campus more than three times per year, but rugby players always get the rules bent for them. The University Times can reveal that instead of attending any theoretical physics lectures, Dunne begins his morning by sending a text to everyone in his contacts list to remind them that he still plays for Leinster. A few hours later sends out the same text again, just in case anyone has forgotten in the meantime that he is a Leinster rugby star. In the afternoon, he leaks scandals about his own life to the Irish Times, and Googles “Is being tall a substitute for having a personality?”. (We were unable to verify what answers he found, but he spent hours searching.)
14 Conall Keane
Conall Keane deserves a place on this list more than any of you spiteful debaters ever will – he actually truly cares about his society (VDP that is, not like, society society). There’s a Camino trip to “find himself” on, a Panto to rehearse and Jailbreak to travel around Europe with! He’s giving back to the people (of Trinity’s VDP society) and doesn’t expect anything in return (except praise, admiration, an internship, and a higher position than he’s gotten on the Trinity 20). All jokes aside, VDP does offer invaluable services to people across Dublin, from schoolchildren to the homeless to adults with additional support needs, so we do feel kind of bad for mocking him now. It’s kind of impossible to satirise someone who is genuinely doing good work, but to be fair to us we gave it our best shot. Keep doing what you’re doing, Conall.
15 Dina Abu-Rahmeh
CEO, Student Managed Fund
It’s tough at the top in any organisation, but we want to extend an awestruck hat-tip to our next entry, Dina Abu-Rahmeh. As CEO of the Student Management Fund (SMF) – Trinity’s most sociopathic society – Abu-Rahmeh has to make decisions every day that could make or break her business. Abu-Rahmeh, who sleeps on a bed drenched in homeless people’s tears, is the perfect CEO. One of SMF’s first socials was last week – members sacrificed a newborn to appease the Gods of the stock exchange – was apparently one of the society’s best ritual killings in ages. Her LinkedIn profiler is the perfect combination of kind and friendly but also leaves no doubt that she’s more than happy to watch a starving family of five get evicted for missing one week’s rent.
16 Luke Fehily and Ryan Grunwell
Auditor, the College Historical Society and President, Dublin University Philosophical Society
You’ve definitely heard of Ruke Grehily, the auditor of the society invented before time itself – the Phist. Lyan Frunwell (a childhood nickname of Ruke’s still used by his closest friends) will be taking the reins at the Hil (what the Phist is called on weekends – keep up) in what promises to be a year like every other in the Group Masturbation Building. He’ll be ruling with an iron phist in an attempt to maintain the reach and influence of the society on campus, which they acquire every year by luring in unassuming freshers with promises of celebrity speakers who never show up. We wish you all the best with the Phist in the year ahead, Ryke Grunily!
17 Milly Farrell Kelly
Auditor, Trinity College Law Society
We tried to resist the inclusion of any law student, but – by god – how could we exclude Milly Farrell Kelly. With her swishy, L’Oreal-ad-worthy hair and that extortionate sum of money she bribed us with palpable love for law, it simply wouldn’t be just not to include her. The LawSoc Auditor will be busy all year organising events and renting limos (but only for committee members, of course). She insists she’s going to make LawSoc the society of the common student – a claim somewhat undermined by the note we found pinned to our door with instructions about how to write her name. She won’t accept Milly or Farrell or Kelly. No – it’s millyfarrellkelly to you, sir. Try saying that five times really fast.
18 Rachel Burns
Hockey player, third-year maths
It’s hard to know if it’s easier to make fun of Rachel Burns for her accent or her second name, or to combine the two and hang the consequences. The captain of the hockey club, who likes to remind people of that time she lined out for Ireland, is the only person in Trinity to study a previously unknown course called “mazzz”, which sounds like something Mr Burns himself (also the name of Rachel’s uncle) would invent as part of a plot to take over the world, or lay siege to the walls of Derry where the Burnspeople apparently live. Unable to control the planet just yet, our Burns, Rachel, is contenting herself for now with creating a fiefdom among the hockey club’s 3,414 members, and dying her hair a different colour every week. She also forces anyone she meets to put her earphones in and listen to “Sugar” by Maroon Five, while she loudly explains why the band have contributed more to music than any other artist ever.
19 Hiram Harrington
Editor, Trinity Film Review
Hiram Harrington, the lovechild of a threesome between David Duchovny, Marilyn Manson and Keanu Reeves set to the music of Nine Inch Nails, has had a finger in every pie since his Doc Martens first stamped their way through Front Square. Harrington made a big name for himself in DU Players as publicist extraordinaire and is the former School of Creative Arts Convenor. He recently added another infinity arts stone to his black leather gauntlet, taking the reigns as editor of Trinity Film Review. He’s now entering his final year, but Harrington’s fingering of pies shows no sign of slowing down.
20 Amy Heatley
Founding Member, Trinity Extinction Rebellion
Don’t worry about climate change: Amy Heatley has set up an Extinction Rebellion branch in Trinity so oil companies are pretty much done for and everyone is going to be vegan in a year. Get ready for a year of drama students hurling themselves on the ground in Front Square, pretending to be dead, and righteous, New Yorker tote-bag carrying philosophy students handing out leaflets explaining why you are a terrible person for eating Big Macs and flying to Amsterdam every reading week. Oh, and have you heard about that rare species of slug that just went extinct because Pepsi cut down all the palm trees? Yeah, that was your fault.
Correction: 22.15, September 3rd, 2019
An earlier version of this article, as well as its print version, incorrectly stated that Hiram Harrington is the current Creative Arts Convenor. In fact, Misha Fitzgibbon is the current Creative Arts Convenor.
