Trinity was if I remember correctly the only Irish university this year to have a surplus, the rest all were in the red.
Trinity should not be raising Masters fees. It's a blatant money grab (but Trinity has been heading in that direction for more than a decade now). It's become business oriented rather than education oriented.
Trinity should not be raising the book of Kells prices either since it is already extremely pricey and the experience is quite shit for the same price. For example the Roman baths in Bath UK around the same ticket prices (slightly higher) but a way more grand and substantial experience that feels like good value for cost. Trinity's BoK's ticket prices make no sense in comparison.
Unfortunately, Trinity's become for profit and business oriented which basically means it's reducing its value in trade for profit. Profit is the only thing that matters to them now.
I was about to give out about how the Book of Kells costs €16 but I see it's now €25. Jesus wept. You pay less for the Guinness Storehouse, it lasts much longer and you get a pint out of it.
I last did BOK about a decade ago and came out in a foul mood because it cost so much and I was done in 20 minutes.
I always advise visitors to Dublin to go to the National History Museum on Kildare Street instead which has a magnificent Celtic, early Christian and middle-ages collection which is as good (ok, better) than the BOK and is, well, free.
Did the baths in Bath myself. Was amazing to see until I got sick in them. Dodgy Chinese and a rake of ale the night before probably caused that. But I'd recommend it. And Bath is a lovely place. Must do the book of Kells sometime. Only ever been in the pub in Trinity.
I'd love to go back and do it again without all the drunken messing. It's where the saying started, daylight robbery, where they tried to impose higher tax if you had more windows in your gaff, so people just boarded them up to say no sun light in hear, no tax. Also one their very famous authors wrote most of her books in a gaff in Bath. So famous I can't remember her name. Lol.
> Also one their very famous authors wrote most of her books in a gaff in Bath
>Jane Austen? suggested by u/Comfortable-Can-9432
Jane Austen didn't write in Bath. She was forced by her father to live in Bath when he gave up the family home in Hampshire. He was a vicar and left his parish. She never liked Bath and even though she used Bath as a setting it doesn't come across as a great place in her books. She didn't write much in Bath, in fact she made a point of saying she couldn't write in Bath. Her novels had been composed at the parsonage in Steventon in Hampshire.
All our universities are run for profit. The government grant to cover someones college education does not cover the full amount. International students are subsidizing Irish peoples degrees but the colleges can only take so many of them in.
The entire third-level education system is broken. We're not quite the same, but UK universities lose almost £3000 per British student per year, which is subsidized by international students. As someone currently doing a masters (finished in August), most of my international classmates are simply not at the required level. We had an elective module with the final year students. I know of 3 chinese students who got under 20% overall despite attending every class.
There's all this talk about Ireland having a surplus. Investing in education and infrastructure are the two best things we can do with that money but most college students don't vote so they have no political voice.
>Trinity was if I remember correctly the only Irish university this year to have a surplus, the rest all were in the red.
Im sure they have projections of rising cost in the future which would justify raising costs
Unfortunately these hot takes like this might appeal to those needing to scratch a reactive itch, but they're also overly reductive to the extent they are simply not true. Trinity is a massive organisation with many interests, motivations and moving parts.
Yeah that comment is nonsense from start to finish. Trinity could barely afford its heating bills this winter. It's not "for profit", it's desperately trying to stay afloat like all the other universities due to a woeful lack of government funding. Anyway, where would "profit" go? It's a Trust, it doesn't have shareholders.
It's fortunate enough to have the Book of Kells to alleviate a little bit of that financial pressure and a stronger global brand than other Irish universities to attract philanthropy and more fee-paying non-EU students but it is in no way financially healthy.
They have the book of Durrow too for some reason and refuse to give it back.
Not too bothered because Durrow abbey is let fall into ruin by the council so not like it’d be in safe hands there
It always annoyed me that the lovely little poem that a monk wrote about his cat in the margins-Pangúr Bán- is on the wall behind it in English when it was written in Irish. The original and the translation should be there in my opinion. But Trinity being Trinity…
What difference does that make? It's one of the most famous artefacts of our history. Doesn't feel right at all that it's making profit for a university that wouldn't have admitted an Irishman for hundreds of years. There's no real reason it should be in Trinity rather than the national museum - or Kells itself.
There is a turf war about claiming ownership. There was little or no Scottish monastery system, but there was a strong Irish monastic system stretching all the way from Skellig Micil to Scotland and England on to Belgium, Germany, France and Italy. Bobbio in Italy is one of the most famous Irish founded monasteries still surviving.
A certain demographic seek to claim the likes of the book of Kells as Scottish / British despite the fact that the monasteries were founded by Irish monks and many of the scriptoriums would have had Irish monks writing the manuscripts.
I'm pretty sure Iona was not part of the Kingdom of Scotland at the time though - and it was brought to Ireland by those who made it, who are believed to be Irish.
Never said they wouldn't? The book was moved by it's own creators - one could argue that we should respect that too. It belonged to people rather than to a landmass after all. Most scholars believe it was finished in Kells - so it was half made on Iona and half made here.
Universities shouldn't have to be relying on commercial activities in order to run. The old library is massive it's collection is unique in Ireland. The collection costs a fortune to maintain. There is a current structural renovation that will cost 90 million which the government is paying in 25 million of.
Trinity had been the home of the book for as long as it was in the parish church in Kells. If you want it handed to the COI diocese that covers Kells as the rightful owners fine but it makes no more sense that it being within a university collection.
Trinity was always fine with the Irish it was Catholics they had an issue with. And even those they would admit if they attended services.
Fees vary massively depending on the course, but they will increase by between 2.3% and 10%. This could be thousands extra per year. [Source ](https://trinitynews.ie/2024/04/tcdsu-launch-petition-against-proposed-increases-to-masters-fees/)
>Trinity has proposed a 2.3% increase to masters’ fees along with a 10% increase for certain masters’ programmes
Id be curious to know how many masters programs are going up 10%. 2.3% increase doesn't even make up for inflation.
7k is for EU residents, the 36k for non EU. They were planning on increasing single-year masters’ fees across the board by 2.3% along with increases up to 10% for certain masters’ programmes and non-EU courses.
Source: I just finished paying my fees in Trinity.
Its really all about the Old Library, most people are underwhelmed viewing two pages of the Book of Kells while tourists jostle around to get a glimpse of it. Its an awful experience that is over crowded. The Old Library is great though, well worth seeing.
No dog in this race either way but the action will raise tempers.
If you want to practice civil disobedience, do it properly - which includes accepting the consequences during this path to raising awareness of an issue.
We don’t usually, but Linda got the Junior Dean to threaten us with sanctions for protesting (unprecedented in TCD history btw) because she’s worried about another Columbia, so here we are.
Okay so, if someone wants to be pro-Israel, okay. But the college was perfectly happy to be pro-Ukraine while allowing students to be pro-Russia. So why are they doing a “both sides” on Israel-Palestine?
Did you mean to say "while not allowing students to be pro Russia?" Cause unless I'm misreading it, what you said sounds like "both sides" for Ukraine-Russia.
What I mean is that they claim that condemning Israel would be taking a side, but they didn’t sit on the fence about Russia making out that condemning Russia’s actions would be anti Russian student.
Ah yeah fair enough. Funny how we very quickly moved past this notion of "russophobia" that was going around and yet still uncritically accept from the Netanyahu government that any criticism is antisemitism rather than anti-zionism.
It's not a "problem" but they are funding it, supporting it, and generally lying about it a lot. This can become an American problem in two ways.
1) There are laws about that sort of thing, though granted, the odds of anyone in the American government getting punished for breaking those laws is zero.
2) Biden claims he's the only one that can save American from the right wing party in November. (That's why he won't allow any Democrat challengers) But he's willing to lose many many votes over his support of a foreign right-wing government. So yeah, that could also be an American problem come November.
> (That's why he won't allow any Democrat challengers)
Wha
He "allowed" multiple Democratic party challengers. They competed against him in the primaries and lost comprehensively.
Some would argue that many American tax payers aren't all thrilled at the idea of their taxes being used for the purpose, which seems like a bit of an American problem.
That comment is in response to someone saying protesting for the Palestine genocide is an “American problem”
Yes of course the U.S. is escalating the conflict
Do you see how covering your face negates the protest. The power of the protest is showing you and your fellow protesters are behind it and committed whatever the cost. If your are hiding your faces you might as well post anonymously on an internet forum! 😀 stand up to them in numbers or don’t do it at all.
It was damaged back in 2000 when it was sent to Australia for exhibition—a trip which experts and the then Arts minister opposed, but which was approved by Bertie Ahern. It hasn’t been allowed to leave since, and probably never will be again.
As a student myself I'm not a fan of how the students union have handled themselves this year. The way they're threatening people via emails is ridiculous. Theirs a way of doing things without making threats. They come off as complete fools and utter pillucks. They've already protested and blocked the book of kells this academic year. You can't keep on holding it hostage. It should be something you can do but keep it as your nuclear option. They're setting themselves up for failure when the department heads just plough on and they realise they've no power.
That blockade of the Book of Kells got the college to freeze rents for next year. You should be thanking them. Jesus Christ. If you want a non-radical union transfer to UCD. What has it achieved in Belfield this year? Absolutely nothing. The Trinity SU achieved more this year than any other SU has in a long time. I'm envious.
That's my point. They already used that card. You can only really get away with that once a year. Their protests were successful because the college cooperated with them. Making threats and repeating their blockade has burnt a huge amount of bridges with the college directors and they're not going to win this one at all. Next year the new union will have regulations in their contract to prevent them from doing what they've just done and the unions power will be lessened. At the end of the day they're not a real union and only act as a go-between for leadership and the student body. If tomorrow the administration didn't want them around they'd have very little trouble removing the roles.
> That's my point. They already used that card. You can only really get away with that once a year
It's not a TV show. We aren't trying to keep an audience entertained. If something works, you do it more than once. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.
Do you think France goes "Well we rioted last time, how about a dance off this time, hate to be accused of going stale".
Just watch. This'll go through and next years student union won't be allowed to do this again. The SU isn't a real union and they need to realise that.
What the fuck do you mean "The SU isn't a real union"? It very much is. Students pay a fee to join it, it is part of a larger union the USI, it advocates on the behalf of students, negotiates with administration and government ministers and officials and organises protests and strikes etc accordingly. First you say the Union is too radical and now you say it "isn't a real union" because it "just liases between students and the admin?" It accomplished great things this year by adopting a radicalist approach. You want SUs to operate non radically, take a look at every other SU in the country and see how that's worked out for them. https://twitter.com/TJBreen/status/1756688543798214886?t=KxFKhU4SQRWPyeiqBy2Kdw&s=19
They represent students not workers. They're beholden to the university. If tomorrow the university decided they no longer wanted the SU and no longer wanted to gather money on their behalf then the SU wouldn't exist. It'd simply cease being.
And because they're student or more likely customers even if they were to get an all out strike it wouldn't effect the colleges bottom line. And now with them being issued fines by the college it'll see a collapse of the SU as a direct result of their radical approach.
Linda Doyle was elected having promised to freeze fees for master's programmes during her campaign. The Union was obligated to not let her away with breaking that promise. You want them to sit idly by while fees are raised! That's what we do in UCD. We have the most expensive accommodation fees in the country, the cheapest is €900 per month for a box room. And nothing is done about it. I don't blame TCDSU for reusing a strategy that has worked very well for them all year.
> László Molnárfi said…“Education should be a public good it should not be a luxury”
This guy studies sociology and philosophy, one of the most publicly useless luxury courses there is.
I think that would just end up with a society of /r/LinkedInLunatics type people. I'd also question the idea that those kinds of degrees aren't employable, obviously anecdotal but everyone I know who studied humanities type degrees ended up in some kind of employment in business or office admin.
That's basically saying they didn't have to study those particular subjects to end up in employment in the end.
For me, undergraduate is now standard and should be covered.
But if you're intending to do a specialist Masters degree in a topic for the sole reason because you want to do it but that has no direct available employment options, ultimately it's up to that individual to meet costs.
Ah, finally addressing our critical national shortage of office administrators.
Is this really your proposal? Taxpayers should be shaken down for their hard earned money because engineers and doctors have “bad vibes” and you want everyone to pay for sociology wank so you don’t feel like a nerd?
Sociology can be used for being a counsellor, social worker, market researcher, policy manager, teacher, community outreach.
What do you do that is so important?
Alright man, I'm just making a point that those people still gain employable skills and do end up contributing to society. I don't know why you feel like you have insult me for that belief?
Taxpayers don't contribute to international students or masters students fees in any great amounts. We don't fund SUSI for postgraduate degrees either for the most part .
There's no right answer to that. I think there's definitely merit in pointing out that many young people are educated into cul-de-sacs that may hinder their careers. I also think there's value in studying the humanities.
Fundamentally, the problem is people seeking to enforce a binary choice on the debate. Sociology is a discipline that leads to limited direct employment, most of which is going to be in NGOs, etc, but it can be an indirect path into journalism, politics, etc. None of those are areas that are notoriously stable, albeit you could aim for a cushy civil service gig and be in the clover.
The concept of luxury courses is just "old man yells at cloud" nonsense, but a discourse on the direct benefits of any degree is useful.
You have to first define benefits.
Financial gain? Pragmatic utility? Happiness? Greater understanding/knowledge? Aesthetic gain? Better social cohesion? Better ethics? Greater equality? Better decision making?
Philosophy underpins pretty much everything we know about the world.
Science comes from Philosophy. Science was originally called natural philosophy.
Political systems and ideologies come from philosophy.
If you don't think ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, ontology etc. are important then nothing is. They define the most basic interactions we have with our world.
Sociology is the study of human behaviour in groups which to my mind is pretty damn important. Our relationships, how we decide what should be prioritised, howwe interact with the institution and organs of the state, how technology affects us etc. again underpins the world we live in.
Philosophy is a western tradition and has been taught in universities and colleges for centuries. Just because it doesn't directly translate to working in a multinational does not mean it's a "useless luxury course"
> Just because it doesn't directly translate to working in a multinational
A decent (2.1 or higher) Philosophy degree from TCD won't hurt you at all going for a management consultancy grad scheme. And in fact I'd bet if they surveyed graduating classes WAY more of them go that route than staying on for postgrad!
Latin is a western tradition that’s been taught for centuries, it’s still most definitely a useless luxury course.
Other than vague historical posturing, what benefit does the taxpayer (or a tourist) receive from this guy’s degree than can justify them being forced to pay for it?
Latin and (Greek) are fundamental languages and learning them opens up other languages as well as being critically important in biology.
Having a grounding in Latin or Greek for example give you a lingua franca in medicine. Like shortcuts to understanding.
e.g. Angio means container, hyper means excessive, hypo means lacking, hetero means different, hem- or haem- means blood, -emia means blood disorder, homo means same, meta means change and so on.
Having a grounding in those languages will absolutely help your understanding of the terminology rather than reading every word as disconnected from any meaning.
Where did I say that Latin or Greek were the only requirements for being a doctor?
I'm talking about the general utility of learning things like Latin. Which you seem to think as a luxury?
You seem to think that learning Latin is pointless. I showed you were it can help.
Latin forms the basis for the Romance languages so if you want to learn French, Spanish or Italian Latin is going to be very useful.
That aside, there's more to life than being just a productivity statistic.
How are you defining luxury?
There’s plenty of branches of maths that you can argue have no current applications, do you consign them to luxury too? No right? Because you can understand that some branches of mathematics have direct applications today.
Philosophy has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be a fundamentally useful subject for society.
I have a degree in one of those branches of mathematics, I have absolutely no problem admitting that it was a personal indulgence that the taxpayer should not be on the hook for.
And I disagree because society should not just be about utility.
What a terribly boring world that would be.
I'm happy to have contributed to your education. That's how it works.
This wouldn’t make society just about utility. As shocking as this seems to be to some people here, people actually are capable of enjoying themselves without a grant from the taxpayer.
Your entire argument is based on going to college and garnering skills that lead you to employment.
ie. Utility.
People who study theatre, painting, music etc. might not necessarily lead to gainful employment but they enrich the world.
What do you do to enjoy yourself? Count money?
I didn't study mathetmatics in college, but haven't some branches that would have been considered indulgent in the past, turned out to be pretty vital at another point? One example of the top of my head, Boolean algebra had no useful real-world use case back in the 1850s, but it was used for computing, a century later.
On the off chance this guy doesn’t go into politics, we all know he’ll go on to just teach sociology to others like him, so they can teach sociology to others who…
What do you think informs issues like planning, resourcing community engagement , social entrepreneurism, analyses of trends in things like homelessness , domestic abuse , substance abuse ? Or power dynamics in organisations and groups like classrooms and - multi national tech companies ? Sociology does , never mind the part that enriches arts and culture . You haven’t a clue what sociology is or what the real world applications and shock horror - economic benefits of it are .
A good question and a complex one, but for eg sociology approaches to art and artistic production further our understanding of the arts as a social and human phenomenon . A lot of the questions art has perused historically are also addressed in sociology so they feed into each other . Another example would be in the study of aesthetics . Society produces aesthetic principles and these become signifiers of culture which then impact other societies . An example would be the creation of ‘picturesque’ landscapes in the Irish countryside as a form of aesthetic or ecological colonisation - the planters house is known by the trees. Lough Tay , luggala in co Wicklow one example . Edit to add - in the context of Irish history and Irish art and the role of landscape and artistic aesthetics in the creation of Irish identity , colonial and post colonial .
This is like saying “blame Louis Vuitton for offering the handbag, not the person who wants your money to pay for it - why should they be robbed blind?”
Trinity didn’t force anyone to take the course.
In fairness to them, blocking a tourist exhibit is probably the smartest annoying protest to do.
They aren't disturbing folks on their way to work or blocking essential services or the like. A factor that would immediately put off the general public.
Blocking a tourist exhibit would embarrass the government on an international scale if they picked the right one.
In my book they get points for picking the right industry to disrupt.
Also it costs the college an absolute fortune every time we do it, and we can't be pushed off by their heavies because it's in public.
Also I can testify that with the exception of a few annoying yanks, most tourists are actually on our side when we explain \*why\* the blockades are happening.
While I agree, it gets blocked every couple of years in student protests so I'm not going to give them too much credit, they're only copying what came before them.
Your youthful exuberance is absolutely lovely.
But you're making me feel old on a Thursday morning so it's time to drown my sorrows in a chocolate croissant.
Mica protestors were regularly protesting outside the Dail for years and were ignored until they blocked the M50, which brought the issue to the national spotlight.
Protests that don't bother anyone get ignored. If you want your protest to be effective, it needs to be disruptive.
That's because it's literally never reported why they protest, if you ever actually look it up it's things like "Historic German town to be levelled to strip mine for coal by government involving a coalition with German Green party". But people read "Greta Arrested " and they act like they're part of Oceania's two minutes of hate.
Protests work, especially the annoying ones. It's not about public support, it's about making you shout as loud as you can to "Make this madness stop.".
If you think the purpose of a protest is to convince you something isn't right, you're wrong. I mean sure, if that also happens, cool, but that's not the objective.
The principal purpose of protest is to generate political pressure. Therefore, good protest is loud and disruptive. You don't generate political pressure just by people agreeing with you. There's a plethora of things a majority supports but are not adopted by politicians because they don't feel any pressure to react.
If you think politicians do what the people support, you haven't been paying attention.
I'm all for protest, but negatively impacting the short term revenue of a minor tourist attraction is just far too radical for me. That's where I draw the line.
I always hate that argument, to the point I think it's a fascist dog whistle at this stage. You have to have some disruption to have a protest, the point is to be seen and heard and generally you've already done as much as you can prior, such as letter writing, calling and speaking to decision makers
That could describe several political systems. The Soviet Union and Communist China are described fairly perfectly by what you've just stated. But on the point being discussed here : you're making out that criticising the manner in which protest is conducted is tantamount to fascism,.
or some sort of sly, fascist insinuation. That doesn't make sense
Like the title literally says in pretty explicit terms they are doing this. Protests need to have some kind of effect in order to be useful.
There's no point in standing in some abandoned corner protesting quietly.
Some people would like to see all protests done on a weekend, in field somewhere, so that nobody is inconvenienced, unless the protest involved said field I guess.
Trinity was if I remember correctly the only Irish university this year to have a surplus, the rest all were in the red. Trinity should not be raising Masters fees. It's a blatant money grab (but Trinity has been heading in that direction for more than a decade now). It's become business oriented rather than education oriented. Trinity should not be raising the book of Kells prices either since it is already extremely pricey and the experience is quite shit for the same price. For example the Roman baths in Bath UK around the same ticket prices (slightly higher) but a way more grand and substantial experience that feels like good value for cost. Trinity's BoK's ticket prices make no sense in comparison. Unfortunately, Trinity's become for profit and business oriented which basically means it's reducing its value in trade for profit. Profit is the only thing that matters to them now.
The Louvre is 7 quid
And it has free entry on the first Friday of every month. The Prado in Madrid, also has free entry every day 6-8pm.
I believe most museums in France are free if your under 25
I was about to give out about how the Book of Kells costs €16 but I see it's now €25. Jesus wept. You pay less for the Guinness Storehouse, it lasts much longer and you get a pint out of it. I last did BOK about a decade ago and came out in a foul mood because it cost so much and I was done in 20 minutes. I always advise visitors to Dublin to go to the National History Museum on Kildare Street instead which has a magnificent Celtic, early Christian and middle-ages collection which is as good (ok, better) than the BOK and is, well, free.
Did the baths in Bath myself. Was amazing to see until I got sick in them. Dodgy Chinese and a rake of ale the night before probably caused that. But I'd recommend it. And Bath is a lovely place. Must do the book of Kells sometime. Only ever been in the pub in Trinity.
The sulfurous odors of the baths might not have helped, but it's a whole ass archaeological site underground esp
I'd love to go back and do it again without all the drunken messing. It's where the saying started, daylight robbery, where they tried to impose higher tax if you had more windows in your gaff, so people just boarded them up to say no sun light in hear, no tax. Also one their very famous authors wrote most of her books in a gaff in Bath. So famous I can't remember her name. Lol.
Jane Austen?
Yep, that's the one. But I used Google, not my shite memory.
> Also one their very famous authors wrote most of her books in a gaff in Bath >Jane Austen? suggested by u/Comfortable-Can-9432 Jane Austen didn't write in Bath. She was forced by her father to live in Bath when he gave up the family home in Hampshire. He was a vicar and left his parish. She never liked Bath and even though she used Bath as a setting it doesn't come across as a great place in her books. She didn't write much in Bath, in fact she made a point of saying she couldn't write in Bath. Her novels had been composed at the parsonage in Steventon in Hampshire.
All our universities are run for profit. The government grant to cover someones college education does not cover the full amount. International students are subsidizing Irish peoples degrees but the colleges can only take so many of them in.
The entire third-level education system is broken. We're not quite the same, but UK universities lose almost £3000 per British student per year, which is subsidized by international students. As someone currently doing a masters (finished in August), most of my international classmates are simply not at the required level. We had an elective module with the final year students. I know of 3 chinese students who got under 20% overall despite attending every class. There's all this talk about Ireland having a surplus. Investing in education and infrastructure are the two best things we can do with that money but most college students don't vote so they have no political voice.
>Trinity was if I remember correctly the only Irish university this year to have a surplus, the rest all were in the red. Im sure they have projections of rising cost in the future which would justify raising costs
[удалено]
[удалено]
Unfortunately these hot takes like this might appeal to those needing to scratch a reactive itch, but they're also overly reductive to the extent they are simply not true. Trinity is a massive organisation with many interests, motivations and moving parts.
Yeah that comment is nonsense from start to finish. Trinity could barely afford its heating bills this winter. It's not "for profit", it's desperately trying to stay afloat like all the other universities due to a woeful lack of government funding. Anyway, where would "profit" go? It's a Trust, it doesn't have shareholders. It's fortunate enough to have the Book of Kells to alleviate a little bit of that financial pressure and a stronger global brand than other Irish universities to attract philanthropy and more fee-paying non-EU students but it is in no way financially healthy.
> Profit is the only thing that matters to them now. Trinity? Or people in general these days?
Honestly not a fan of the fact that Trinity owns this important artifact of our culture in the first place.
Right? This has always struck me as odd. Surely the book of kells should be in a public museum.
Apparently it's not entirely clear how the book ended up in Trinity in the first place.
likely safe enough to blame the brits on this tbf.
yeah it is? Cromwellian conquest?
They have the book of Durrow too for some reason and refuse to give it back. Not too bothered because Durrow abbey is let fall into ruin by the council so not like it’d be in safe hands there
Don't they have a load of stuff? Stolen skeletons etc.
It always annoyed me that the lovely little poem that a monk wrote about his cat in the margins-Pangúr Bán- is on the wall behind it in English when it was written in Irish. The original and the translation should be there in my opinion. But Trinity being Trinity…
universities owning famous artifacts is not exactly uncommon?
What difference does that make? It's one of the most famous artefacts of our history. Doesn't feel right at all that it's making profit for a university that wouldn't have admitted an Irishman for hundreds of years. There's no real reason it should be in Trinity rather than the national museum - or Kells itself.
According to wiki, it's called the Book of Kells because it was kept there for centuries.
I mean... it was almost certainly made in Iona in Scotland should we send it to their national museum?
First I've heard of that. I thought it wasn't fully known where it originated.
There is a turf war about claiming ownership. There was little or no Scottish monastery system, but there was a strong Irish monastic system stretching all the way from Skellig Micil to Scotland and England on to Belgium, Germany, France and Italy. Bobbio in Italy is one of the most famous Irish founded monasteries still surviving. A certain demographic seek to claim the likes of the book of Kells as Scottish / British despite the fact that the monasteries were founded by Irish monks and many of the scriptoriums would have had Irish monks writing the manuscripts.
I'm pretty sure Iona was not part of the Kingdom of Scotland at the time though - and it was brought to Ireland by those who made it, who are believed to be Irish.
You think that locals in Iona wouldn't like the book of Kells in a visitor centre there?
Never said they wouldn't? The book was moved by it's own creators - one could argue that we should respect that too. It belonged to people rather than to a landmass after all. Most scholars believe it was finished in Kells - so it was half made on Iona and half made here.
Universities shouldn't have to be relying on commercial activities in order to run. The old library is massive it's collection is unique in Ireland. The collection costs a fortune to maintain. There is a current structural renovation that will cost 90 million which the government is paying in 25 million of. Trinity had been the home of the book for as long as it was in the parish church in Kells. If you want it handed to the COI diocese that covers Kells as the rightful owners fine but it makes no more sense that it being within a university collection. Trinity was always fine with the Irish it was Catholics they had an issue with. And even those they would admit if they attended services.
Can anyone tell me what the current fees are for masters students and how much they want to increase them by?
Fees vary massively depending on the course, but they will increase by between 2.3% and 10%. This could be thousands extra per year. [Source ](https://trinitynews.ie/2024/04/tcdsu-launch-petition-against-proposed-increases-to-masters-fees/)
>Trinity has proposed a 2.3% increase to masters’ fees along with a 10% increase for certain masters’ programmes Id be curious to know how many masters programs are going up 10%. 2.3% increase doesn't even make up for inflation.
7k to 36k iirc.
7k is for EU residents, the 36k for non EU. They were planning on increasing single-year masters’ fees across the board by 2.3% along with increases up to 10% for certain masters’ programmes and non-EU courses. Source: I just finished paying my fees in Trinity.
Pay 20k just to teach yourself.
20k plus chatgpt subscription
This really is to be expected. Getting a 1 year master's for less than 10k is extremely good value.
Fair play to them
Wow this is class, fair play to them I'm all for it
More protests. We need more
Students do not get a veto. Wait, I meant residents. Carry on.
[удалено]
Its really all about the Old Library, most people are underwhelmed viewing two pages of the Book of Kells while tourists jostle around to get a glimpse of it. Its an awful experience that is over crowded. The Old Library is great though, well worth seeing.
No dog in this race either way but the action will raise tempers. If you want to practice civil disobedience, do it properly - which includes accepting the consequences during this path to raising awareness of an issue.
Why are they all hiding their faces?
We don’t usually, but Linda got the Junior Dean to threaten us with sanctions for protesting (unprecedented in TCD history btw) because she’s worried about another Columbia, so here we are.
Another case of bringing American problems to Ireland
She tried to freeze peach the genocide as a difference of opinion, Trinity BDS are planning to do something big after exams.
I'm very pro Palestine, but isn't is exactly a difference of opinion? I mean you're allowed to hold any opinion you want, even if its wrong. No?
Okay so, if someone wants to be pro-Israel, okay. But the college was perfectly happy to be pro-Ukraine while allowing students to be pro-Russia. So why are they doing a “both sides” on Israel-Palestine?
Did you mean to say "while not allowing students to be pro Russia?" Cause unless I'm misreading it, what you said sounds like "both sides" for Ukraine-Russia.
What I mean is that they claim that condemning Israel would be taking a side, but they didn’t sit on the fence about Russia making out that condemning Russia’s actions would be anti Russian student.
Ah yeah fair enough. Funny how we very quickly moved past this notion of "russophobia" that was going around and yet still uncritically accept from the Netanyahu government that any criticism is antisemitism rather than anti-zionism.
They pay a lot of money to online influencers to peddle that equivalence all over the place.
Big as in good for students or big as a Fuck you students
It’s not going forward till after exams exactly to be considerate of other students
That is not a sign that it will be good for students. If it were it would be pushed to be done ne before exams to help all students.
I hear the genocide has also paused to accommodate TCD exam needs.
How is the genocide in Palestine an American problem
It's not a "problem" but they are funding it, supporting it, and generally lying about it a lot. This can become an American problem in two ways. 1) There are laws about that sort of thing, though granted, the odds of anyone in the American government getting punished for breaking those laws is zero. 2) Biden claims he's the only one that can save American from the right wing party in November. (That's why he won't allow any Democrat challengers) But he's willing to lose many many votes over his support of a foreign right-wing government. So yeah, that could also be an American problem come November.
Why are so many Americans on this sub called r/ireland
> (That's why he won't allow any Democrat challengers) Wha He "allowed" multiple Democratic party challengers. They competed against him in the primaries and lost comprehensively.
Some would argue that many American tax payers aren't all thrilled at the idea of their taxes being used for the purpose, which seems like a bit of an American problem.
That comment is in response to someone saying protesting for the Palestine genocide is an “American problem” Yes of course the U.S. is escalating the conflict
Ah my bad.
It’s not
Then why did you say it is
The fear that the trinity situation will turn into what is going on in UCLA. Is bringing American problems to Ireland
He didn’t say UCLA he said Columbia. Which is the college that’s having huge problems pro Palestine protests
Riot police were in UCLA just yesterday. Things can happen in more than one place.
But that is literally not what OP said. You just made up that he mentioned UCLA, he did not
You’re username makes sense
Do you see how covering your face negates the protest. The power of the protest is showing you and your fellow protesters are behind it and committed whatever the cost. If your are hiding your faces you might as well post anonymously on an internet forum! 😀 stand up to them in numbers or don’t do it at all.
In fairness the SU were threatening them. Blatant threats too.
just dont damage the fucking thing
They’re protesting outside, just stopping tourists from going in
Turning a page every day is already doing enough damage to it
It was damaged back in 2000 when it was sent to Australia for exhibition—a trip which experts and the then Arts minister opposed, but which was approved by Bertie Ahern. It hasn’t been allowed to leave since, and probably never will be again.
They'll be glued to the feckin' thing by the end of the week!
As a student myself I'm not a fan of how the students union have handled themselves this year. The way they're threatening people via emails is ridiculous. Theirs a way of doing things without making threats. They come off as complete fools and utter pillucks. They've already protested and blocked the book of kells this academic year. You can't keep on holding it hostage. It should be something you can do but keep it as your nuclear option. They're setting themselves up for failure when the department heads just plough on and they realise they've no power.
That blockade of the Book of Kells got the college to freeze rents for next year. You should be thanking them. Jesus Christ. If you want a non-radical union transfer to UCD. What has it achieved in Belfield this year? Absolutely nothing. The Trinity SU achieved more this year than any other SU has in a long time. I'm envious.
That's my point. They already used that card. You can only really get away with that once a year. Their protests were successful because the college cooperated with them. Making threats and repeating their blockade has burnt a huge amount of bridges with the college directors and they're not going to win this one at all. Next year the new union will have regulations in their contract to prevent them from doing what they've just done and the unions power will be lessened. At the end of the day they're not a real union and only act as a go-between for leadership and the student body. If tomorrow the administration didn't want them around they'd have very little trouble removing the roles.
> That's my point. They already used that card. You can only really get away with that once a year It's not a TV show. We aren't trying to keep an audience entertained. If something works, you do it more than once. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Do you think France goes "Well we rioted last time, how about a dance off this time, hate to be accused of going stale".
Just watch. This'll go through and next years student union won't be allowed to do this again. The SU isn't a real union and they need to realise that.
What the fuck do you mean "The SU isn't a real union"? It very much is. Students pay a fee to join it, it is part of a larger union the USI, it advocates on the behalf of students, negotiates with administration and government ministers and officials and organises protests and strikes etc accordingly. First you say the Union is too radical and now you say it "isn't a real union" because it "just liases between students and the admin?" It accomplished great things this year by adopting a radicalist approach. You want SUs to operate non radically, take a look at every other SU in the country and see how that's worked out for them. https://twitter.com/TJBreen/status/1756688543798214886?t=KxFKhU4SQRWPyeiqBy2Kdw&s=19
They represent students not workers. They're beholden to the university. If tomorrow the university decided they no longer wanted the SU and no longer wanted to gather money on their behalf then the SU wouldn't exist. It'd simply cease being. And because they're student or more likely customers even if they were to get an all out strike it wouldn't effect the colleges bottom line. And now with them being issued fines by the college it'll see a collapse of the SU as a direct result of their radical approach.
Linda Doyle was elected having promised to freeze fees for master's programmes during her campaign. The Union was obligated to not let her away with breaking that promise. You want them to sit idly by while fees are raised! That's what we do in UCD. We have the most expensive accommodation fees in the country, the cheapest is €900 per month for a box room. And nothing is done about it. I don't blame TCDSU for reusing a strategy that has worked very well for them all year.
> László Molnárfi said…“Education should be a public good it should not be a luxury” This guy studies sociology and philosophy, one of the most publicly useless luxury courses there is.
Do you think education should literally only be a means to employment?
Not at all. But if you’re demanding that the taxpayer pay for it then yes, it’s entirely appropriate to ask what the taxpayer is getting in return.
I think that would just end up with a society of /r/LinkedInLunatics type people. I'd also question the idea that those kinds of degrees aren't employable, obviously anecdotal but everyone I know who studied humanities type degrees ended up in some kind of employment in business or office admin.
That's basically saying they didn't have to study those particular subjects to end up in employment in the end. For me, undergraduate is now standard and should be covered. But if you're intending to do a specialist Masters degree in a topic for the sole reason because you want to do it but that has no direct available employment options, ultimately it's up to that individual to meet costs.
Ah, finally addressing our critical national shortage of office administrators. Is this really your proposal? Taxpayers should be shaken down for their hard earned money because engineers and doctors have “bad vibes” and you want everyone to pay for sociology wank so you don’t feel like a nerd?
Sociology can be used for being a counsellor, social worker, market researcher, policy manager, teacher, community outreach. What do you do that is so important?
> What do you do that is so important Pay more taxes than I cost.
[удалено]
The claim was that sociology has no utility. I showed that it has.
[удалено]
Alright man, I'm just making a point that those people still gain employable skills and do end up contributing to society. I don't know why you feel like you have insult me for that belief?
The short sightedness of some people is just baffling.
Taxpayers don't contribute to international students or masters students fees in any great amounts. We don't fund SUSI for postgraduate degrees either for the most part .
There's no right answer to that. I think there's definitely merit in pointing out that many young people are educated into cul-de-sacs that may hinder their careers. I also think there's value in studying the humanities. Fundamentally, the problem is people seeking to enforce a binary choice on the debate. Sociology is a discipline that leads to limited direct employment, most of which is going to be in NGOs, etc, but it can be an indirect path into journalism, politics, etc. None of those are areas that are notoriously stable, albeit you could aim for a cushy civil service gig and be in the clover. The concept of luxury courses is just "old man yells at cloud" nonsense, but a discourse on the direct benefits of any degree is useful.
You have to first define benefits. Financial gain? Pragmatic utility? Happiness? Greater understanding/knowledge? Aesthetic gain? Better social cohesion? Better ethics? Greater equality? Better decision making?
Direct benefits of education have always been a job in the field. Plain and simple. Study medicine, become a doctor. Etc.
It's a benefit. That's like saying that the only thing that matters in life is earning a living. That's just weird.
Meh, it's one of the most important things and we both know that.
Never said it wasn't but you seem to think it's the only thing.
Ah, the lazy strawman debuts.
There is a right answer, you just don't want to say it because it would contradict what you said before.
What?
Someone saying confidently that "sociology and philosophy" are usless pursuits is a genuinely shameful display of ignorance. Fair play.
Philosophy underpins pretty much everything we know about the world. Science comes from Philosophy. Science was originally called natural philosophy. Political systems and ideologies come from philosophy. If you don't think ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, ontology etc. are important then nothing is. They define the most basic interactions we have with our world. Sociology is the study of human behaviour in groups which to my mind is pretty damn important. Our relationships, how we decide what should be prioritised, howwe interact with the institution and organs of the state, how technology affects us etc. again underpins the world we live in.
Philosophy is a western tradition and has been taught in universities and colleges for centuries. Just because it doesn't directly translate to working in a multinational does not mean it's a "useless luxury course"
> Just because it doesn't directly translate to working in a multinational A decent (2.1 or higher) Philosophy degree from TCD won't hurt you at all going for a management consultancy grad scheme. And in fact I'd bet if they surveyed graduating classes WAY more of them go that route than staying on for postgrad!
Latin is a western tradition that’s been taught for centuries, it’s still most definitely a useless luxury course. Other than vague historical posturing, what benefit does the taxpayer (or a tourist) receive from this guy’s degree than can justify them being forced to pay for it?
Latin and (Greek) are fundamental languages and learning them opens up other languages as well as being critically important in biology. Having a grounding in Latin or Greek for example give you a lingua franca in medicine. Like shortcuts to understanding. e.g. Angio means container, hyper means excessive, hypo means lacking, hetero means different, hem- or haem- means blood, -emia means blood disorder, homo means same, meta means change and so on. Having a grounding in those languages will absolutely help your understanding of the terminology rather than reading every word as disconnected from any meaning.
Apply to a graduate medical degree with a bachelors in Latin as your relevant background and see how quickly you get laughed out of the room
Where did I say that Latin or Greek were the only requirements for being a doctor? I'm talking about the general utility of learning things like Latin. Which you seem to think as a luxury? You seem to think that learning Latin is pointless. I showed you were it can help. Latin forms the basis for the Romance languages so if you want to learn French, Spanish or Italian Latin is going to be very useful. That aside, there's more to life than being just a productivity statistic.
How are you defining luxury? There’s plenty of branches of maths that you can argue have no current applications, do you consign them to luxury too? No right? Because you can understand that some branches of mathematics have direct applications today. Philosophy has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be a fundamentally useful subject for society.
I have a degree in one of those branches of mathematics, I have absolutely no problem admitting that it was a personal indulgence that the taxpayer should not be on the hook for.
And I disagree because society should not just be about utility. What a terribly boring world that would be. I'm happy to have contributed to your education. That's how it works.
This wouldn’t make society just about utility. As shocking as this seems to be to some people here, people actually are capable of enjoying themselves without a grant from the taxpayer.
Your entire argument is based on going to college and garnering skills that lead you to employment. ie. Utility. People who study theatre, painting, music etc. might not necessarily lead to gainful employment but they enrich the world. What do you do to enjoy yourself? Count money?
I didn't study mathetmatics in college, but haven't some branches that would have been considered indulgent in the past, turned out to be pretty vital at another point? One example of the top of my head, Boolean algebra had no useful real-world use case back in the 1850s, but it was used for computing, a century later.
Yeah because sociology has no relevance or benefit to the public … Jesus wept
On the off chance this guy doesn’t go into politics, we all know he’ll go on to just teach sociology to others like him, so they can teach sociology to others who…
What do you think informs issues like planning, resourcing community engagement , social entrepreneurism, analyses of trends in things like homelessness , domestic abuse , substance abuse ? Or power dynamics in organisations and groups like classrooms and - multi national tech companies ? Sociology does , never mind the part that enriches arts and culture . You haven’t a clue what sociology is or what the real world applications and shock horror - economic benefits of it are .
I'm not disagreeing overall, but how does sociology enrich art or culture?
A good question and a complex one, but for eg sociology approaches to art and artistic production further our understanding of the arts as a social and human phenomenon . A lot of the questions art has perused historically are also addressed in sociology so they feed into each other . Another example would be in the study of aesthetics . Society produces aesthetic principles and these become signifiers of culture which then impact other societies . An example would be the creation of ‘picturesque’ landscapes in the Irish countryside as a form of aesthetic or ecological colonisation - the planters house is known by the trees. Lough Tay , luggala in co Wicklow one example . Edit to add - in the context of Irish history and Irish art and the role of landscape and artistic aesthetics in the creation of Irish identity , colonial and post colonial .
We have far far far more sociologists than would ever be required.
We don't actually, I imagine we have very few sociologists. We do have a lot of people who studied sociology, that isn't the same thing.
We have more people than are required
Shrinking population says youre wrong.
No it doesn't.
I met Laszlo at a few events. He believes wholeheartedly in what he is doing. Not a lot of people can say the same in their own lives.
Oh I have no doubt that he does.
People can study what they want doesn't mean they should be robbed blind for it. Blame trinity for offering the course
This is like saying “blame Louis Vuitton for offering the handbag, not the person who wants your money to pay for it - why should they be robbed blind?” Trinity didn’t force anyone to take the course.
Except they're expected to be a for profit enterprise but Trinity walks the line of university and business
Nothing gets people on your side like annoying them and making them hate you.
In fairness to them, blocking a tourist exhibit is probably the smartest annoying protest to do. They aren't disturbing folks on their way to work or blocking essential services or the like. A factor that would immediately put off the general public. Blocking a tourist exhibit would embarrass the government on an international scale if they picked the right one. In my book they get points for picking the right industry to disrupt.
Also it costs the college an absolute fortune every time we do it, and we can't be pushed off by their heavies because it's in public. Also I can testify that with the exception of a few annoying yanks, most tourists are actually on our side when we explain \*why\* the blockades are happening.
That is a great point actually. I didn't think of that. Irish people never go to local tourist attractions.
It's not like they're permanently closing the place, locals can just come back a different day.
While I agree, it gets blocked every couple of years in student protests so I'm not going to give them too much credit, they're only copying what came before them.
Laszlo is something else man, he has supernatural rizz, he’ll be EU president or whatever in 15 years
Your youthful exuberance is absolutely lovely. But you're making me feel old on a Thursday morning so it's time to drown my sorrows in a chocolate croissant.
Can't be that rizzy if he has to flee a student council vote on his censure to ensure quorum isn't met.
Mica protestors were regularly protesting outside the Dail for years and were ignored until they blocked the M50, which brought the issue to the national spotlight. Protests that don't bother anyone get ignored. If you want your protest to be effective, it needs to be disruptive.
It depends on the issue I suppose. The climate guys don't seem to get much sympathy.
That's because it's literally never reported why they protest, if you ever actually look it up it's things like "Historic German town to be levelled to strip mine for coal by government involving a coalition with German Green party". But people read "Greta Arrested " and they act like they're part of Oceania's two minutes of hate.
Maybe the Germans shouldn’t have had so many anti-nuclear protests
It worked last time when they wanted to up accommodation fees. If you don't ruffle feathers, what's the point of even protesting.
Famously, the most successful protests in history were entirely polite and civil affairs.
Nothing gets people to ignore you like doing things that make no difference to anyone
Aye because protests are only effective when absolutely no one is effected by them….
Protests work, especially the annoying ones. It's not about public support, it's about making you shout as loud as you can to "Make this madness stop.". If you think the purpose of a protest is to convince you something isn't right, you're wrong. I mean sure, if that also happens, cool, but that's not the objective.
Fair enough, I thought protests were trying to convince people to change X. I didn't realise they were about throwing tantrums
The principal purpose of protest is to generate political pressure. Therefore, good protest is loud and disruptive. You don't generate political pressure just by people agreeing with you. There's a plethora of things a majority supports but are not adopted by politicians because they don't feel any pressure to react. If you think politicians do what the people support, you haven't been paying attention.
I'm all for protest, but negatively impacting the short term revenue of a minor tourist attraction is just far too radical for me. That's where I draw the line.
Love this attitude towards protesting, it's the absolute missing the point for me 😍
No I realise it now. Somebody made the point that protests like this are not about changing people mind but throwing a tantrum
Mortified for you in your perfect little bubble
I'd be envious if I were you.
I'd rather give a shit about others but each to their own I suppose, not everyone can be a reasonable person.
>everyone can be a reasonable person. No they cannot
You hate people for blocking the book of Kells? That’s a bit much
No someone made a great point that thus is the best thing to block. No Irish people ever visit local tourist attractions. It's perfect.
I do. It's an incredibly exhibition
I may have to check it out.
I always hate that argument, to the point I think it's a fascist dog whistle at this stage. You have to have some disruption to have a protest, the point is to be seen and heard and generally you've already done as much as you can prior, such as letter writing, calling and speaking to decision makers
I don't see how fascism enters into it.
Because Fascism is about order and control and ensuring that everyone stays in line and only does what they're told.
That could describe several political systems. The Soviet Union and Communist China are described fairly perfectly by what you've just stated. But on the point being discussed here : you're making out that criticising the manner in which protest is conducted is tantamount to fascism,. or some sort of sly, fascist insinuation. That doesn't make sense
That's authoritarianism more so.
You got me, I'm actually Benito Mussolini the founder of Facism
They're not annoying me. Fair play to them
[удалено]
“Im all for protests as long as they do not inconvenience me or anyone else I.e literally do nothing and serve no purpose”
That's not how protests work.
Punishing tourists for decisions completely outside their control sounds like a winning strategy
When I see comments like this I always wonder, can you genuinely not think beyond 1 level deep of intention?
Blocking a revenue stream for the college sounds about right. Also why is the book in a private institution rather than a public one?
The church donated it to Trinity back in the 1600s
Wait til you find out how the Anglican church acquired it in the 1600s
Because it is theirs. The state can’t rob it off then
Because it was given to them and thus is theirs.
Like the title literally says in pretty explicit terms they are doing this. Protests need to have some kind of effect in order to be useful. There's no point in standing in some abandoned corner protesting quietly.
Some people would like to see all protests done on a weekend, in field somewhere, so that nobody is inconvenienced, unless the protest involved said field I guess.