Having watched the news like a hawk, read every article and encouraged every friend I could think of to get out to the polls and have their voice heard on a vote that would change the face of the EU, I settled in for a long night of results on June 23rd, 2016. Confident the outcome of the Brexit referendum would be a firm “remain” vote, my dad and I spoke about everything the EU stood for: the opportunities it had created, the ideas it had championed and some of the policies it had implemented that had perhaps led us to the point we were at that night.
Yet when the first result came storming in, this reminiscent atmosphere was soon shattered. Sunderland, a city in the north east of England, had voted overwhelmingly in favour of leaving the EU, a result that would repeat itself across England and Wales throughout the night. Somewhat unexpectedly, the UK was exiting the EU, and I, like many other students from Northern Ireland studying in Irish universities, was suddenly left in a state of bewilderment, wondering what the future would hold.
Rebecca Hanratty, a third-year law and French student from County Monaghan, spoke to The University Times about the vote: “I honestly never in a million years expected Brexit to happen. I was in France at the time and I remember waking up and seeing the news on my phone and just being completely shocked. To me, it felt, and still feels like, pure chaos.”
If that’s how it felt back then, little has changed in the year and a half since. The only difference may be that shock and dismay have given way to feelings of fear and anxiety among students north and south of the border. It seems Theresa May’s monotonous repetition of the phrase “Brexit means Brexit” encapsulates exactly the predicament facing students who frequently cross the border to attend college. It’s uncertain, it’s unsure and it’s unstable.
“No one seriously thought at the time it was going to happen, and then it did and suddenly we were scrambling to deal with the impacts”, comments Aislinn McCann, a third-year law and French student from Fermanagh. “When the pound plummeted the morning after I remember suddenly thinking ‘thank God I have an Irish passport and a bit of money in my euro account’. It was that immediate reaction of going into damage control. Two years later and I still feel like we are in damage control mode.” As Fiona May, a third-year history student comments, “I literally just felt sick the morning after Brexit, and to be honest it’s just got worse and worse since as I’ve realised how big an impact this is going to have”.
With Trinity in recent years witnessing a surge in the number of students from Northern Ireland setting foot on its campus, attributable to initiatives like the Trinity feasibility study and CAO readjustment of points conversion, it is hard to see how uncertainty about the border will not stem this tide. Laura Grant, a third-year law student from Down says: “I think maybe once during the whole referendum campaign one news reporter came to where I live and said this is where the border will be if Brexit happens. But that was it. The one part that was going to have a land border with the EU and we basically weren’t given a second thought in the whole thing and it’s only now that they realise how impossible maintaining the situation we have at the minute will be once the UK leaves. I cross the border to get my petrol. I walk down to the bottom of my road and it’s borderless. The thought of having to bring my passport to access what is part of my country is ludicrous, but with every day that passes it seems more and more likely.”
Eimear Cosgrave, a third-year engineering student pointed out that this uncertainty would have “definitely” made her rethink her plans to study at Trinity. “With the prospect of a hard border, the significantly reduced exchange rate and a pretty vague promise of what will happen to Northern Irish students when Brexit goes through I most likely would have chosen to stay at home for university.”
Yet McCann and third-year law student Conall Towe disagree. Both commented that Brexit actually would have encouraged them to “head down south”, with May pointing out that she felt “quite lucky having access to an Irish passport,” because it still gave her access to the EU and “insulated” her from a lot of the negative effects of Brexit. As McCann says, “I’ve always only had an Irish passport and so I knew no matter what I’d always be an EU citizen. I mean despite cost increase I actually would be encouraging more people to get themselves down to Dublin. If you want to remain in the EU, Dublin is going to become an incredibly important city economically”.
The hassle of going through border controls is a concern expressed by every student I speak to, especially Hanratty, whose boyfriend and sister live in Antrim and Cosgrave and who will still be in attendance at Trinity as her engineering course is five-years long. What is stressed even more heavily, however, is the integral part an open border plays in the fragile peace process in Northern Ireland. An open border was enshrined in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and every student I speak to expresses the same concern. Any disruption or change could cause violence to start rearing its ugly head again. “Right now there’s a political vacuum in Northern Ireland and it just feels like no one is fighting for us…Brexit has the ability to break down the peace process entirely, but with all the bickering going on I can see us heading out with no deal and a catastrophic hard border being imposed”, says Grant.
As if all of that wasn’t enough, students, like many individuals who rely on cross-border activity, have been hit hard by the economic cost of Brexit. Many students from Northern Ireland chose to head to Trinity because of the lower fees they offered, yet as Towe says, over the last two years he has nearly been priced out of college. “In the first few months after Brexit, I lost so much on the conversion of my student loan that it was almost wiped out entirely. My roommate was saying to me recently he calculated the hit we took after Brexit happened, and the difference in value between our first year and second year loans was nearly a grand. You can definitely feel it, it’s been such a stretch that I’ve had to get a job this year which I didn’t have to do before, but now my loan just does not cover living here.”
Yet it’s not only their own economic situations students are concerned for, it’s family business, and the changing faces of their local communities that weigh heavily on their minds. As Hanratty pointed out: “My hometown Castleblayney, and others like it south of the border, that have built their livelihoods on cross-border trade will suffer massively because of Brexit.” “My mum’s business in the north could be hugely affected and my dad also does a huge amount of work helping southern businesses set up in the north. I mean I presume we will be ok, but my little sister has to still have her university education paid for, if Brexit hits us hard it could really change things”, says McCann.
Feeling that the challenges lying ahead of Northern students are all too easily forgotten by the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) and College, Towe explains that “at points our issues feel really important and at others times they don’t, but Brexit is hurtling towards us fast and we need to know where we will stand when it happens”. But as May points out, it’s difficult to criticise the union when currently national governments don’t even have a coherent plan. “I think it’s important for Irish universities to have a united stance on ensuring that NI students don’t have to pay non-EU fees, and it would be great if they could lobby for higher student loans in light of the volatile exchange rate.”
Whatever is decided in the course of the next year, one sure thing is that what may be the UK’s loss after Brexit will certainly be Ireland’s gain. With thousands of companies and jobs flooding to the south and with, as McCann’s younger sister Riona points out, limited advice coming from careers advisory services in schools across Northern Ireland, many students in their final years of school see staying in the UK “as just not a safe option anymore”. Despite the uncertainty of the border, many are orienting themselves south.
As McCann concludes: “Before Brexit I always thought I could work wherever I wanted. But now I think if I stay in Belfast will there be less ability to move around after Brexit, would my career opportunities somewhat stagnate? I think Dublin is going to start booming, if I didn’t have an Irish passport I would have to start making hard choices about working inside or outside the EU.”
While every generation faces its challenges, Brexit is certainly one of a kind. Despite the worries, anxieties and pressures students are currently experiencing there is little doubt they will make the best of whatever situation befalls them, Until then, just like it was on June 23rd, 2016, it remains a game of wait and see.
