We are back on campus with an almighty bang. Trinity’s most coveted official list of 20 do-gooders, campus/Zoom hacks and untamed egos is finally here. Cue the applause. Or queue at the Nassau St entrance to bin it. To quote Demi Lovato, we really don’t care.
Even though you all act nonchalant and blasé about it to our faces, we know (we always know) that you hoped, prayed, even asked the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) to hack our system to get a sneak peek.
People of Trinity Twitter, please don’t cry. We find you all equally insufferable, don’t you fret. If you didn’t quite make our reputably high standards this time, there’s always next year. Or you could start taking this hodgepodge collection of the most-searched names on Trinder more seriously and up your game and notions. Seriously, we still don’t understand why you all flock back to this year on year, but here we are. The University Times doesn’t care whether you read this and weep or if you read this and wipe. So, kick back in the deck chairs. Gawk, guffaw, gloat and don’t take yourselves as seriously as we do.
1 Linda Doyle
Provost
Fellow students, kneel before your new overlord! Yes, we know she shattered your hopes of two Trinity Balls in one year. We know she didn’t fix Academic Registry (AR) overnight. We know your friends in University College Dublin (UCD) are frolicking around maskless while you pore over more online lectures. But Linda Doyle made George Salmon cry in his grave, so what’s not to love? Although her name doesn’t give the same leeway for alliterative expletives as her predecessor Patrick “Paddy P” Prendergast, Doyle’s luscious locks and leopard-print boots are certainly much more impressive. And she smiles sometimes!
No matter what you think of Il Doylce, she’s too busy making history left, right and centre to care what us lowlives think of their supreme leader. Although we have yet another engineer at the helm of the College, Doyle is a gem of both the sciences and the arts. She’s sure to get the campus debate roaring again on the superiority of the arts block over the Hamilton. (It’s the Arts Block. It has always been the Arts Block).
Doyle says she wants to return Trinity to its core values and “to be so much more” – more endless stacks of paperwork, no doubt. Service not power, right? Sure, she can do all the admin all herself from that Grafton St gaff. Man – sorry – woman, it’s going to be a long ten years.
2 Leah Keogh
TCDSU President
The ghosts of misogynistic former provosts and overworked University Times writers cower before her. Fashionistas of the Arts Block and doe-eyed first-year class reps want to be her. With a fly wardrobe, endless ambition and rumoured beatboxing skills, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President Leah Keogh is truly living her best girlboss life.
Having previously served as Welfare Officer, Keogh has decided that one year in a cushy House Six office just wasn’t enough. This time round, though, she had to actually defeat those who had the audacity to run against her. The veteran union hack has proven once again that girlbosses just don’t settle. Outlining her plans for next year, Keogh is determined to keep the revolving door of sabbatical officers’ spinning, tackling the issues that Trinity students care most about without breaking a sweat.
Because girlbosses have it all (apart from the number-one spot on the Trinity Twenty).
3 Gisèle Scanlon
GSU President
After a… tumultuous… year as GSU President, Gisèle Scanlon is back to take on any accusations of bullying, constitutional breaches and ignoring democracy head on, because #GisèleCares. In fact, she cares so much about graduate students that just weeks into her second term as president, she announced her intention to leave them by running for the Seanad.
Trinity graduates and TCDSU hacks alike will watch with bated breath as Scanlon pitches herself to the voters of the University of Dublin panel. What does she stand for? How will she serve them? And most importantly, will she refuse to engage with national media, or does she reserve the cold shoulder for student papers? We just want to find out what you #care about so much, Gisèle.
Ignoring questions from the GSU board might help you avoid impeachment proceedings but they aren’t going to stop The University Times from trying to unravel what #GisèleCares about.
4 Jack Dunne
Leinster Rugby Player
We know, we know. It’s difficult to imagine a theoretical physics student being cool enough to feature on the Trinity Twenty once, let alone twice. In fact, it’s difficult to imagine a theoretical physics student having a life at all – Although does featuring in the Trinity Twenty twice mean that you have a life or is it that no one else has one? The jury is still out on that one.
But either way, the fact still stands: The bi-con of our time, Jack Dunne, is probably the coolest rugby player ever to exist. There was some O’Driscoll a few years ago I think… (Ryan, was it?) He was sort of a big deal but I mean, been there, Dunne that.
He’s athletic. He’s charming. He’s smart. He’s bi. (He has the perfect superstar monosyllabic name – and surname!) To paraphrase a Beauty and the Beast tune: “No one has hair like Jack Dunne, has such flair as Jack Dunne nor as much a hold on the media’s glare as Jack Dunne.”
In addition to his sporting abilities, this fiery-maned fellow can speak as Gaeilge. Jack, b’fhiú go mór duit sleamhnú isteach sna DMeanna ansin. Táimid ag feitheamh…
5 Greg Arrowsmith
TCDSU Ents Officer
Did we mention that at The University Times we are the biggest fans of the Arrowsmiths? We have simply never met a more fun loving and exhilarating pair of brothers. Greg Arrowsmith wants to take Trinity Ents in a new direction: towards the Pav. Lost your job? Pav. Got dumped? Pav? Won an election by the skin of your teeth? P. A. V. Promising to blacklist clubs and bad-mouth bouncers, Arrowsmith seems really committed to making everyone feel welcome. And if you haven’t spotted him yet, don’t worry – he’s the one running around campus like a headless chicken all week. Either way, in a year that has been characterised by a five-kilometre radius, students will undoubtedly celebrate the sense of continuity from a man so determined never to venture beyond Trinity’s own watering hole.
6 Emma Rossiter
Chair of TCDSU Council
Next is the category everyone loves to hate: a union hack. But Emma Rossiter isn’t a regular hack, they’re a cool hack. They’ll mute your mic while serving looks all at once. You’ll be able to see them peering from House Six with razor-sharp eyeliner that Cleopatra would be proud of. The goth teens that swarm the city centre worship their eyeliner. There are very few science students who have as committed and zealous an Arts Block aesthetic as Rossiter. Their hair, their aura, their sharpness on the Electoral Commission – we didn’t realise any of the trends they sport had even reached the Hamilton. The big question on everyone’s mind, though, is how are they going to top last year’s Council darling, Yannick. Will they have their own entry on Wikipedia too? Will they treat everyone to two meetings of TCDSU council in one week? One on a Friday night, no less? Make no mistake: Emma Rossiter moves quicker than a disgruntled part-time officer shouting “quorum”.
7 Emer Moreau
Editor of The University Times
Next is our very own girlboss Emer Moreau, who works around the clock to keep students up to date on everything the GSU did wrong this week, and occasionally some other stuff. Plus she’s totally normal, like: she’s a born-and-bred northsider, she says, omitting the fact that she’s from its poshest neighbourhood. But just look at those Euro 2020 and Love Island tweets – Moreau is really a normal person – right down to her fringe, which comes and goes with the irregularity of a Trinity timetable.
Despite her Marianne do, she takes life inspiration from the humble mullet: Business in the front, this teetotalitarian with a knitstagram is all party in the back. In this, plus her commitment to make sober October a year-long event, you can feel confident, dear reader, that The University Times is in the most sensible hands.
8 Gabrielle Fullam
TCDSU Ethnic Minorities Officer
Loyal readers of The University Times will remember that this is not Gabrielle Fullam’s first time securing a coveted place on this list. But, as the saying goes, sometimes Hist-ory just repeats itself. The one-woman show she created with DU Players acts as proof that she can and will make it all on her own. After all, we’d imagine that winning the individual speaking award at the Irish Times debating final was an honour but one she would rather have received representing herself, not the Hist. Regardless, Fulham has bigger and better things like improv and Icarus on her horizon. Admittedly, when it came to the latter we had hoped that she had decided to fake-run again, but we can only dream.
9 Sammy Copley
Musician
This is an unabashed plea for attention from the singer/songwriter who has stolen our hearts. This rising superstar has managed to launch his music career without dropping out – a feat that even Hozier couldn’t achieve. Alongside amassing nearly 238,000 subscribers on Youtube and over 43,000 monthly Spotify listeners (and yes, we count ourselves among them), the drama and theatre studies student was elected as this year’s DU Players festival and workshop coordinator. Our only hope is that Copley finds enough time to produce more music to make us ache this year – and the occasional DU Players festival plays host to a few new originals!
10 Eleanor Moreland and Maggie Larson
Auditors of the Hist and President of the Phil
Roll up, roll up folks! It is the latest instalment of the female saviours sent by the ghost of Edmund Burke to cleanse the Phil and Hist. Any and all accusations of elitism or harassment begone! With two women at the helm of each debating society all questions of inclusivity shall simply gain no traction… right?
This is the second year in a row that women have been auditors of both the Phil and the Hist. We’re so glad you two got the memo about female representation! After all, it might go some way in helping brush those annoying racism accusations under the rug. Just remember to avoid any and all mentions of Richard Dawkins and I’m sure you’ll be able to brainwash – sorry, recruit – freshers just fine.
11 Moonyoung Hong
PhD Student
If bravery was the determining factor for making it onto this list, Moonyoung Hong would top it. Throughout the year, she has relentlessly yet eloquently addressed an issue that neither Trinity nor the Irish public are too keen to confront: anti-Asian racism. Hong’s fight against hate crime is approached with the same determination as Trinity’s fight against its plummeting rankings, but the key difference is that Hong’s battle actually matters. Through her pieces in TheJournal.ie, the open letter she co-authored and the petition she started, Hong has managed to get the College and country’s attention. Hong has wielded her pen like a sword and does not look to be backing down. The ball is in your court now, dear Trinners.
12 Jack Kennedy
Editor, Trinity News
Next up is the top dog of the other Trinity newspaper. Do we believe having multiple news outlets on campus is necessary to hold Trinity to account and express a variety of perspectives? Yes. Does this mean we have to uplift Trinity News as a beacon of reputable journalism despite their dogged insistence that theirs is the oldest student newspaper in Ireland? Nope. Our list, our rules. Kennedy himself is also the poster boy for holding other national news outlets to account, most recently labelling the Irish Independent a “reactionary cesspit”. Ouch. But don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying he’s intolerant of other people’s opinions. He just wants journalism to represent “the interests of the people”. When he’s not ranting on Twitter, Kennedy is thoughtfully, carefully, rationally striving to do just that. Don’t believe us? Ask the Irish Times.
13 Sam the Fox
Local Fox
Ah yes, the College sweetheart. No, it’s not Trinity Ted that College keeps trying to make happen. It’s the one and only celebrity fox (sorry, Roald Dahl). It’s Fox News, but not as you know it. As far as we know, Trinity has yet to figure out how to make money from poor Sam, making her a socialist icon. Intel suggests, however, Sam the Fox branded masks could be soon. No rest for this new mama. Sam swiped the heart and soul of the nation beyond Front Gate. Her precocious cubs plague the security guards while simultaneously making the lives of Trinity’s social media team considerably easier. Touch-deprived students are outraged at the fact that Sam managed to find true love amidst a pandemic. At the end of the day is it just about the fox, or about the foxes that were made along the way?
14 Bev Genockey
TCDSU Education Officer
TCDSU Education Officer Bev Genockey is on hand to solve all your academic problems, except your lack of a timetable. No ethereal or heavenly figure could fix that, in fairness. Shrewd and straight talking, Gnocchi will no doubt be a cool head at TCDSU council, on hand to diffusilli any heated debates – she’s not one to get raviolied up in scandal. Genockey’s remit goes farfalle and wide, from supplying pennes and pencils for exams to helping Greg carry cannellonis of Pratzky to the Pav at the end of exam seasons. She’s contactable by phone, email or tagliatelle her on Instagram. She will also tell you, as your academic advisor, if you want to pass your exams do not under any circumstances stand under the Campanelli when the bell rings (yes, that is a type of pasta).
15 Rachel Murphy
Member of Trinity Ability Co_Op
If you thought being pretentious was a requirement for being on the Trinity Twenty, you would be mostly right. But Rachel Murphy is the exception to that rule. Through her Trojan work with the Ability Co_op, Murphy is making it her mission to incorporate inclusion and accessibility into the bedrock of Trinity’s club and society culture. To prove that she’s serious about shaking things up, Murphy even managed to bag a meeting with the new provost – when Beyoncé released the 2011 belter “Run The World (Girls)”, this is probably what she was talking about. In all of this, Murphy still finds time to curate the Trinity Arts Block girl aesthetic. With trendy outfits abound and a chonky history book in hand, Rachel will be found wandering the Arts Block pondering campus accessibility and debating her latest artistic venture.
16 Ellen Higgins and Hugh O’Leary
Piranha Editors
With unwieldy power and quasi-anonymity, this year’s Piranha editors are European studies student Ellen Higgins and law student Hugh O’Leary. Higgins waxes poetry in her spare time (no comment) while O’Leary has dedicated his last three years cultivating a persona that might actually be the pinnacle of everything Trinity students are resented for. Indicting pastimes aside, this year’s Piranha editors might represent a marginal improvement. Two points for gender parity, although minus seven for the D4 drawls (Muckross and Blackrock alumni, need we say more?). With the self-anointed authority to diagnose students with SHS (Society Hack Syndrome) and pass the mantle of Trinity’s resident Daddy from outgoing Provost Patrick Prendergast to optimistic immunologist Luke O’Neill, the Piranha has a certain power that we here at The University Times humbly respect.
17 Ben McConkey
Chair of the Central Societies Committee
As the lesser known of the two McConkeys, it is quite a feat to make it onto the dizzying heights of the Trinity Twenty. Although even we at The University Times must admit that such a prestige pales in comparison to your Da being an immunology professor who has become an ardent media commentator during a pandemic.
In his efforts to get his Twitter famous father to notice him, Ben has made it his mission to conquer the Central Societies Committee (CSC). After 20 months languishing away as CSC secretary, he has finally achieved his goal. What does he do now?
Well, when he’s not CSC president you can probably find Ben studying politics and economics. The horror. Next time he won’t give The University Times a comment, we’ll just tell him that governments should just print more money to solve their problems and he’ll surely explode. Despite his poor degree choice, maybe with all his knowledge of political theory he will know how to run an election on time.
18 Eva Craig
JCR President
Politicians are slippery creatures. You may think it generous to denote Eva Craig as such but anyone willing to go after the JCR presidency (that’s the shower who run Trinity Hall, apparently) and take on the challenge of satisfying party-hungry, coronavirus laden, fed-up first years is after only one thing – and it’s not fulfilment. She may not have her predecessor’s goofy smile to win over the electorate but, after that gruelling uncontested race, it’s clear she has won it fair and square.
So how did she do it, you ask? Sources tell us it was through a combination of deception – claiming she actually enjoyed hellish halls last year – and nepotism. After all, didn’t she take “inspiration” from her brother, Jonah, who held the same role a few years ago?
Nevertheless, what Craig lacks in course choice as a BESS student she makes up for in positivity. Despite the pandemic and the truly devastating halls conditions, Craig has managed to meet “so many people”. Her manifesto did promise freshers’ a “COVID comeback” but we doubt this is what they had in mind. With an incoming president determined to preserve halls’ “beautiful community”, freshers can only hope she is as generous with the free drinks at events as she is with her adjectives.
19 Anne Spillane
Auditor of LawSoc
After a whirlwind year of celebrity speakers paying virtual visits to Trinity Law Society (LawSoc), Anne Spillane has big shoes to fill as auditor – and unfortunately, she can’t even use her fluffy socks from Zoom school, as she’s faced with the challenge of bringing the girlboss Elle Woods aesthetic back to Trinity campus.
It has to be said though, before many of us had even contemplated this year’s society scene, Spillane was back on campus, brushing shoulders with the best of them. You know what I’m talking about ladies. He’s from the US, he’s dreamy and he shares his name with the annual piss-up we have on March 17th: Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey himself. If this Praeses Elit debut is anything to go by, the coffee-fuelled ghosts of the first floor Berkeley can breathe a shared sigh of relief – the social gavel is in safe hands this year.
20 Clíodhna Ní Shé
Carlow footballer
Carlow can boast two pioneering women: Saoirse Ronan (dubious accent, but her Wikipedia entry doesn’t lie) and Clíodhna Ní Shé. Inaugural winner of the ZuCar Golden Boot award, Ní Shé has basically won the Oscar of GAA. The Carlow forward raked up an incredible nine goals and 19 points over the course of the championship. With a rigorous schedule, team-player attitude, envious locks and year of final-year maths to look forward to, we find ourselves wondering, however: has flex culture gone too far? We’re all for uplifting women, but this just seems excessive.
Also co-captaining the Trinity Women’s soccer this year, it’s clear that Ní Shé takes no days off. Plus, if her recent TG4 interview is anything to go by, we can all look forward to the launch of her new bubble jewellery business coming to a Depop near you very soon.
