The Union of Students in Ireland’s Rally for Education, held last Wednesday in Dublin, should be commended. While the feeling is that estimates of 6,000 people turning out may be overblown, certainly several thousand people made their way from the Garden of Remembrance – in poor weather conditions – to stand outside Dáil Eireann on Molesworth St. Not very long ago, students were seen as rebellious – as fighters who weren’t simply going to take cuts, as advocates who wanted to have a say in decisions, and as demonstrators who weren’t going to let their voices not be heard.
When we say it wasn’t very long ago, it really wasn’t: in 2011, one thousand Trinity students participated in a similar rally. In 2011, and in the years before that, students were literally seen as the only ones who were protesting. Because not many other people were. We heard how the Greeks were protesting, while the vast majority of Irish people sat at home. Students were the anomaly. We were the ones who weren’t apathetic. We were disillusioned, yes, but we turned that disillusionment into something that we felt was worth fighting for.
Be it through poor organisation on the part of The Union of Students in Ireland and its constituent students’ unions, or through some other quirk, this kind of engagement from students very quickly and very dramatically dissipated. Before last Wednesday, the common refrain from Trinity students, nearly all of whom were not there in 2011 to see a thousand turn out, would have been that students just didn’t care – and even if they did, there was little point in turning out to protest, because it wouldn’t change anything. Last year, only 25 Trinity students made their way to the gates of Leinster House, which is merely a short hop from the Arts Block and an even shorter hop from the Hamilton building.
In comparison, between 250 and 300 students leaving from Trinity’s Front Gate last week to participate in the wider horde of thousands seems extremely impressive. But it’s important to see it in the not-so-distant context that no-one of the current vintage can recall: a quarter of the turnout that we had less than five years ago is anything but remarkable.
And while it isn’t remarkable, a year-on-year increase that brings the Trinity contingent from 25 to 250 should be commended. But it should be seen as a reboot and a new beginning to Trinity’s student movement, rather than anything mightier – something to be built upon.
Also in Editorial Today: A Welcome Start to Ireland Discussing the Funding Issues in Third-level Education
Written by the Editorial Board of The University Times
