In honour of 40 volumes of The College Tribune, we sat down with past editors and writers to hear about their experiences with the paper!
Jennifer Bray – Political Editor of The Sunday Times (Volume 21)
I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a writer – a journalist and an author. They were the goals. I specifically wanted to go to UCD because I knew there were two excellent student newspapers on campus. I’ll always remember dropping into the underground bunker that was The College Tribune office and asking if I could write a few pieces. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. My three years in UCD were ten % classes and 90% student journalism. The Tribune was (and is!) the best place to cut your teeth as a young journalist. You will learn about everything: the good, the bad and the ugly.
Ugly: the deadline for the entire edition being 12 hours away and still having blank pages. Bad: the sleepless delirium. Good: literally everything else. The thrill of finding a good story, the thrill of breaking that story, getting to interview fascinating people from music heroes to government ministers. Learning about advertising, marketing, printing, design. And the best part: meeting your tribe of fellow writers. The Tribune has always been extremely relevant to the lives of not only the students of UCD, but the staff and alumni. That the paper remains strong and vibrant, and is still a launchpad for so many careers in the national media, is a testament to the unrelenting work of all of the editors past and present.
Eamon Dillon – Journalist at Sunday World (Volume 1 – 2)
When The College Tribune got started, there was no guarantee it was going to last a week, never mind 40 years. There was no money, no committee, no back-up, no computers and no office. But there was a group of committed individuals who kept turning up with copy and ideas. People like Ian Willoughby, who has had a long and illustrious career with Radio Prague and photographer John Bogue, who became a forensic psychologist.
There were moments when we didn’t realise how we were pushing social boundaries, such as a photo-essay of a gay wedding. And there were moments of low-brow entertainment – memorably the ‘match-the-face-to-the-arse’ competition after a group of students decided to moon Daragh Hickey as he took a photo. Those who worked on The College Tribune in its early years should also get credit for goading the Students’ Union news organ back into life as well. In 1986 there was no student newspaper in UCD, but we all changed that. Sarah Binchy, now an RTÉ documentary maker and editor, was part of that change, as was Michelle Thomas, now a communications specialist with national politicians as clients.
A lot has changed since then, when copy was typed on typewriters that then had to be laboriously keyed into a word processor and saved on a floppy disc. FTP was something known only among graduate engineers back then, before it would become HTTP, now better known as the internet. Those words and spaces then were put through the photo-typesetters at the Sunday Tribune and the shiny galleys being cut to shape and stuck to flats with wax. It is where the phrase cut n’paste comes from. The flats then were driven to the printers in Navan, usually by Jason Devitt, who had access to a family car who would then return with the baled copies of the paper ready for sale.
Normally, everything went to plan, except on the day when the printer stopped the presses on sight of the ‘match-the-face-to-the-arse’ competition, fearing he could be liable under the Obscene Publications Act. The production process may make me sound old, but that was how the stories were put in front of eyeballs.
Now it’s about content for the ‘platform ’, whether it’s online, print (it still exists) or podcast – usually all three at the same time in my case these days. It doesn’t matter how the story is presented to the audience so long as it gets to the audience. It is the story that is important, and how it is delivered to people will no doubt be very different in another 40 years.
Daniel McDonnell- Soccer Correspondent for The Irish Independent (Volume 17)
You tend to hear people talking about a sliding doors moment in their life. For me, The College Tribune was about realising that you should never be afraid of walking through an open one.
I spent my first year in UCD in 2000/01, knowing that I wanted to get involved in the college paper, which – in those days – was situated at the end of a corridor that housed a pool hall known as The Trap.
As a fresher from Louth who didn’t know a soul in Belfield, it just seemed too daunting to go in and volunteer my services, even though I’d read the Trib and see regular ads calling out for new contributors, especially in sport. I’d take a peek in the office on my way past and always conclude that it was the wrong time. They looked busy in there.
A week into second year, I spotted my chance on a quiet morning. I walked in to find the new co-editors, Eoghan Rice and Fergus O’Shea, sitting behind the desk, and walked out with a floppy disk (look it up) and a job to do. For the remainder of my time in UCD, that office became my home, the place where I got my real education.
I’d dabbled with websites and various things before the Trib, but my UCD paper is where I learned the thrill of being published, the pressure of deadlines and the responsibility that comes with committing something to print; coming face to face with people you’ve written about demands certainty in standing by your opinion.
I stayed an extra year in UCD to be a full-time editor on a sabbatical, which meant I spent most of my days burrowed up in that pokey office in the Arts building, which was a pretty unhealthy existence from a physical perspective, although I came out of it as a much better pool player.
I also had the portfolio and the experience to go knocking on bigger doors and find a way into a profession that has taken me to some incredible places. I’ve never studied journalism, but I’ve basically spent my whole adult life working in it. The Trib made that possible.
More to the point, it’s where I made lifelong friendships – including with Eoghan and Fergus – and worked with and around loads of talented people, some of whom are flying high in journalism today, while others are flourishing in other industries. The Trib is effectively a small business, so there are all sorts of life skills that can be developed there.
We were the outsiders, and I loved that. I’m on great terms with Samantha Libreri, the RTE news reporter, who was my opposite number in the University Observer in 2003/04, and I still tease her about being the official wing of the university. The Observer heads would reject that, of course – and I can admit now that they produced some fine journalists too – but I’m grateful that I cut my teeth with an independent publication that has lived on the edge more than once across the space of 40 years. The threat of being shut down was always there, especially when we printed stories that the authorities didn’t like. There’d be frequent reminders that our existence was a favour; we were scraping money together for ads to keep the show on the road while using an office that they theoretically could have taken back from us at any minute.
But I reckon the wiser heads in UCD recognised the importance of a publication which held people to account, even if they didn’t always agree with it. And, besides, we had an expanding alumni dotted around the national media that were ready to kick up a fuss if there were any attempts at censorship. I’m proud that the contingent has grown in the two decades or so since I’ve moved on.
There should always be room for a publication like the Trib. I always remember being told that UCD had the population and the personality of a small town, so it needed a media presence to function properly. The Trib won’t always get everything right. College is about making mistakes, after all. But there should always be a curiosity to find out what’s going on behind the door.
40 Volumes of College Tribune Editors :
Eamon Dillion – Volume 1 and 2
Michelle Thomas– Volume 3 and 4
Sarah Binchy – Volume 4 and 5
Roddy O’Sullivan – Volume 5 and 6
Emment Oliver – Volume 6 and 7
Alison Moore and Mary Teresa Jordan – Volume 8
Conor Lally – Volume 9
Gary O’Shea and Keith Woods – Volume 10
Peter Lahiff and Richard Oakley – Volume 11
Sorcha Hamilton and Arnold Dillion – Volume 12
Alan Caufeild and Caroline Gibney – Volume 13
Thomas Geoghegan and Bernard Cantillon – Volume 14
Eoghan Rice and Fergus O’Shea – Volume 15
Peter Maguire and Cormac Delaney – Volume 16
Daniel McDonnell – Volume 17
Andrew McGuiness – Volume 18
Eoin Mac Aodha – Volume 19
Colin Gleeson – Volume 20
Catrina Cody and Jennifer Bray – Volume 21
Jennifer Bray and Simon Ward – Volume 22
Cathy Buckmaster and Philip Connolly – Volume 23
Colman Hanley – Volume 24
Conor McKenna and Ryan Cullen – Volume 25
Cathal O’ Gara and James Grannell – Volume 26
Cathal O’ Gara & James Grannell – Volume 27
Ronan Coveney & Amy Walsh – Volume 28
Seán O’Reilly and Una Power – Volume 29
Jack Power – Volume 30
Rachel O’Neill and Cian Carton – Volume 31
Aaron Bowman and Muireann O’Shea – Volume 32
Conor Caplis – Volume 33
Luke Murphy and Stephen Kisbey-Green – Volume 34
Manny Choudhry and Conor Paterson – Volume 35
Danielle DerGarabedian and Rhoen Eate – Volume 36
Emma Hanrahan and Hugh Dooley – Volume 37
Jack Donlon and Hannah Kate Costello – Volume 38
Hannah Kate Costello and Ellen Clusker – Volume 39
Sophie Gliott and Aisling Murphy – Volume 40