On this very day 64 years ago, two matriarchs went into labour with their respective third children. One of these women was Queen Elizabeth II. The other, much less famed but no less formidable, was my own Grandmother, Mary Lynch. The identity of that particular Royal Baby, I’ll let the reader do their own research on, but it’s certainly arguable that the child of Mary Lynch’s went on to have a more positive impact on the world. There’s no question she did in our lives anyway.

In case her identity wasn’t apparent by now, Mary Lynch’s child is of course my own darling Mother, Máire Lynch who turns the grand old age of 64 today, not that you’d know to look at her… On the publishing of the first blog in this series, which focused on the unique way that Fathers and Sons express their love towards each other, it’s safe to say she’s been more than a bit perturbed by the absence of a similar post in her own honour.

Oftentimes we wait until somebody has passed or it’s too late to express how we feel about them. Therefore, I think it is really important that we share some of these feelings with them while they’re still knocking around. It should be clarified that this ain’t no eulogy, however, see this post as the killing of the two aforementioned birds with the one blog post as it were…

When tasked with writing a similar essay on my Mother 15 years ago in a first year English class, I described her at one point as “cynical, especially when it comes to politics and religion”. While I haven’t been able to find the offending copybook to corroborate this, unsurprisingly, Ma has never forgotten about it. All these years later, this description is probably still accurate, but there is so much more to the woman than that.

For starters, she is an Ag Science graduate born and reared on the Longmile Road in Walkinstown. She is unlikely to be boxed off into any of your traditional categories. As the ‘Tom Boy’ in a family of three, she excelled in the underage camogie ranks. Many of her peers and those who saw her play would identify her most effective attribute to be her low centre of gravity and the use of her backside to disrupt opponents. A “mullacker”, a “spoiler”, “she’d stop a good player”, all the cliched backhanded compliments. On reflection, they’re not too dissimilar to the playing style of her sons.

After a few good years of third level camogie at UCD, there came an early retirement at the age of 23. Academic commitments, social commitments, bouts of jersey pulling… the pitfalls of many a promising hurler, both before her time and since, all played a role in the decision. Her near record attendance at Fitzgibbon Cup victory banquets I’m sure goes some way to softening the blow of the potential prolonged playing career.

That love of sport has been transferred onto both my brother Mike and I, and has been a passport to so many different enriching life experiences for all three of us. Her commitment to this passion (and perhaps madness) was most in evidence in the years following her separation from my father. During this time, she moved to Dundalk, a mere 90-minute spin from the leafy suburbs of Dublin 18…

Weekly, she would collect Mike and myself from school on a Friday evening and bring us up the M1 that night to stay with her for the weekend. Regularly however, I would have a match on the Saturday which she would drive me back down for, return to Dundalk that evening, before repeating the whole process again for Mike’s match the following morning. No questions asked, no fear of her kids playing sport away from their school friends. Always our Number One supporter. Looking back on the insanity of it all, we had some incredible craic on the road in the car and I’m so grateful to her for the effort, but it really was mad.

In more recent years, as I’ve gotten a bit older, we’ve travelled the length and breadth of the country going to games in all codes, predominantly the four Gaelic Games. As a result we have some incredible shared experiences to show for them. No matter the occasion, or how tight the journey time might be, if I suggest that there’s an event we might like to go to, once she’s physically able, she is always outwardly enthusiastic about the prospect, even if I have her driven demented on the inside.

Her enthusiasm and support of her sons doesn’t cease with our sporting endeavours or interests. On my suggestion that I pack in an accounting job that I wasn’t enjoying in favour of returning to college for four more years, to become a teacher (at significant financial expense) she was the first to get on board with the spirit of the idea. It should be added, this came after a healthy dose of realism and “are you for real?” style questions, we are talking about Mary Lynch’s daughter after all.

Once the prospect became real, she drove us to the necessary open days, canvassed the relevant familial support and celebrated most fervently when the offer was accepted. Throughout the degree, and on my various teaching placements, she has been a tremendous sounding board for advice as well as simply listening to Mike and I ramble (and occasionally moan) about the various goings on in school life. Her own 30 plus years of teaching experience blended with a healthy scepticism of chancers, is invaluable to us both and we’re very lucky to have her putting up with us.

All of this support in more recent times has come in the face of some health challenges. A stroke suffered in the school building in 2013, combined with a lack of support from crucial stakeholders, ultimately put paid to her teaching career a few years later. A job she absolutely adored and was incredibly good at, this is something that still rancours with her to this day.

I’ve experienced her ability first hand; she taught me Economics as an extra subject for the Leaving Cert. I also have countless experiences of running into past pupils of hers in her company and individually. To hear the positive impacts that she has had on the lives of so many of her students is incredible. It’s these experiences, coupled with her lost years in the classroom that have definitely inspired me to choose the career I have chosen. I’m sure Mike would say something similar.

Not one to lie down, Ma is continuing to put down busy year after busy year. She has worked as a bus escort, in English language schools and as child minder to name a few recent occupations, just to keep the few bob coming in. She has also single handedly revamped the back garden, become a DIY aficionado, all the while still cleaning up after her grown-adult children. It’s nothing short of remarkable.

As I’ve already alluded to, it’s still the sport and attending matches that keeps her going. Her health difficulties and the passion that she has for the sports teams she holds dear, as you can imagine are not the greatest mixture. After her own children’s sporting exploits, Dublin GAA teams are probably those that get her most exercised. Big days involving the Dubs in Croke Park have had to be foregone on occasion as a result.

Therefore, the most enjoyable weekend we have spent together so far, recency bias acknowledged, is that of the All-Ireland Men’s Football Final this year. The Saturday evening was spent with Ma in the driving seat, en route to Thurles to see the Dublin Ladies team defeat Cork in their own semi-final.

Thurles, the town and stadium synonymous with so many Munster Finals and Centenary All-Irelands of her youth. The Ladies’ victory, the venue, Spotify’s uncanny ability to play the right tune, all evoked stories and memories that allowed us to dream of what it might be like if the Dubs could just win the next day.

As is the nature of All-Ireland tickets, they are hard to come by. We ended up watching the match from two different parts of the stadium. I, up in the Cusack Stand, Ma, on the Hill. Naturally I was somewhat worried for how she’d cope with the stress of it all. Before throw-in, I managed to spot her amongst the crowd on the Hill, in the usual spot beside my uncles and other family. She’s amongst Dubs, she’ll be ok I thought…

Thankfully, the Dubs got the job done on the day. However, it was only after James McCarthy raised Sam Maguire and ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ rang out around Croke Park that the crowning moment of the day occurred for me. I glanced towards Hill 16 to see a rain-soaked wild woman, partially covered by an Elvery’s Poncho, arms flailing all over the shop to the sound of Thin Lizzy. Both the Jacks and Máire Lynch were back.

Celebrations spilled into Cusack’s, Mooney’s and finally onto Mulligans before a scamper to catch the last Dart home on the Sunday evening. While the rest of the county stumbled into work on the Monday, Ma tactically rested up and was rearing to go again come the “Homecoming” in Smithfield that evening. More shouting and more dancing ensued there, before heading for Brogan’s to round off this long, special weekend. What was left of her voice gave us a rendition of Raglan Road and more Vodka-Cokes were consumed than had been for the preceding two years. Who do you think caused us to miss the last bus? I’ve never been happier to get a taxi in my life. Magical.

And so, it seems fitting that this weekend of all weekends, we will once again be on the road. We’ll travel to Abbeydorney for the final of that fabled Fitzgibbon Cup. I’ll be in the driving seat; I owe her enough lifts at this point… as I’ll be doing the social media for the three-in-row chasing UL Wolves. When we started out going to all of these matches together, I think we both dreamed I might get to play in one of these top-level varsity competitions myself. Even though I’m involved in a completely different capacity this weekend, I think the fact that I’m involved at all makes her just as proud if not more.

This is far from the last time we’ll ever do this, I’m looking forward to many more trips like it into the future. More hacking around the back garden. More DIY inspired by brute ignorance. More sage advice. More days on Hill 16. Many more All-Ireland Mondays in Brogan’s. There’s plenty of life in this 64-year-old yet.

In 1967, Paul McCartney and the Beatles proffered the question “Will you still need me… when I’m 64?”.  If Ma could work Spotify by herself, I’m sure she’d have played the song to the death this week, she’s certainly sang it enough… The answer to this question is ‘Yes, of course I do’. More than ever in fact, à la Flavia, with a raging will to live. I love you Ma. Happy Birthday.

You know what they say about buses, waiting ages for one and then two come along at once! The same is evidently true in blogspace as we have a second post in the space of two months after a near 20-month hiatus. This time it’s Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta’s revelations that he has replaced the word ‘substitutes’ around London Colney with ‘Impacters’. Following in the footsteps of former England Rugby Head Coach, Eddie Jones’ who coined the term ‘Finishers’ for his own replacements, Arteta’s terminology alteration was subject to mixed reviews on social media. As somebody who’s spent plenty of time in my own sporting “career” in that very position, I found the idea particularly interesting and worthy of some further exploration.

Interesting stuff from Arteta as he reveals Arsenal now call substitutes “impacters”.

Taken a leaf out of Eddie Jones’ book, who called them “finishers”.

More here:https://t.co/f6JwK3STXW

— Simon Collings (@sr_collings) March 15, 2023

There is a passage in the prologue of John Leonard’s ‘Dub Sub Confidential’ which I find really encapsulates the emotional conundrum faced by those watching on from the sidelines. Leonard, understudy to legendary Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton for a number of seasons in the 00’s, describes a scene in the 2006 Leinster Final where Cluxton has misjudged a cross field pass just before half-time and ends up taking out Offaly forward Cathal Daly with “a horrendous looking professional foul”.

“The referee marches over. Time seems to slow down… every Offaly man and woman in the stadium is screaming – ‘OFF OFF OFF OFF’… I hold my breath and hear my heart lashing through my chest as I wait and I hope… Come on ref, I think: send him off. I’m ready, Ref. I’m ready for it. Send him fucking off”.

Leonard’s brutally honest retelling goes against every public utterance you’re likely to have heard from squad players over the years about team dynamics and morale. Cliches about the ‘importance of competition for places’ and ‘horses for courses’ are often trotted out, while all the time maintaining the most important thing is that ‘the team got the result’.

Of course, all of these things are true, and the primary duty of managers and selectors is to pick what they believe are the right players to go out and achieve the desired result. Still, it does not make the pill any easier to swallow for the player who is not selected to start the game, or worse still, to watch the full game from the bench, especially if they believe they have something to offer and are good enough to be out there.

I have not played at an elite level of sport by any means, so I can only imagine the frustrations experienced by such players and the balancing acts carried out by coaches and managers at that level to keep all players happy. I do, however, have my own experiences of standing on the line for more than enough teams down through the years to empathise with those struggles. Ultimately, I think the relative contentment of a substitute comes down to their belief in what they can offer to the team. In the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet; “There is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so”.

In my experience, there are a number of different frames of mind in which one can observe the on-field action from the subs bench. One more palatable instance of this is when you’re part of a team that you’ve no real business being on, on the basis of your playing abilities anyway. In many ways, this can be an incredibly enjoyable experience as you can savour the success of your team, from a front row seat, without having to endure the pressure that goes with performing on the big day. The position of third choice goalkeeper at major soccer tournaments is often suggested to be one of the most coveted from certain quarters for this very reason. Irish sporting anorak @seidodge on twitter is now famed for his deep dive in profiling these “lucky” players when such competitions come around.

🎶 it’s the most wonderful time of the quadrennial 🎶

Let’s all hail the luckiest men at the World Cup – now with bonus 4th choice keepers!! https://t.co/ey2SIdCmsP

— Dodge (@seidodge) November 18, 2022

In a similar vein, there are days when for a multitude of potential reasons, you actively hope you’re not called upon by the manager. Whether this is down to a lack of confidence, maybe you’re carrying an injury or perhaps it’s just absolutely freezing and you’re too damn cold to enter the fray, it does certainly jolt a little with the conventional competitive psyche as to why you’d want to be there at all. Still as the player playing in your position goes down with an injury and the gaffer turns to assess their options, you’ve the head planted looking squarely at your boots, praying for the miraculous recovery of your stricken colleague, or that they will look elsewhere for reinforcements. Oh, how the mind operates in mysterious ways eh?

Perhaps the crux of the matter, or of this piece anyway, is the perspective of the substitute who feels that they’re good enough to start the game, or at least be on the pitch for the contest’s crucial moments. This is where the mental gymnastics and feelings of guilt start to creep in. On the one hand, you obviously want your team to do well and progress in whatever competition it is you’re competing. You’re preparing and training alongside these lads a couple of nights a week, maybe even for months prior, you clearly have a common goal – however, that doesn’t stop the potentially selfish thoughts about your own role sneaking in.

In his 1973/74 season memoir ‘Only a Game?’, Eamon Dunphy speaks of gleefully listening to his Millwall manager berating the starting 11 at half-time in a game in which they were 2-0 down and he wasn’t playing. He then describes feeling physically “sick” as he watched his teammates battle back to draw the game without him. Despite what they might say publicly, I’m sure that there are many who’ve been in Dunphy’s position that can empathise with his feelings on the matter.

Actively rooting against your own colleagues is not something you ever envisage yourself doing when you get involved in team sports. Though, there are points where you notice yourself taking some satisfaction in an opposing player getting the better of his marker (likely the player picked “instead” of you), maybe revelling a little in the opposition going a few points/goals ahead or as with John Leonard’s case, every fibre of your being longing for an in-game moment to actually go against your team, for your own personal benefit. Analysing that in the cold light of day, or even within the moment is difficult to reconcile in one’s mind.

Why is that the case? You find yourself considering “Am I an arsehole for thinking like this?”. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. Despite appreciating that only a certain number of players (15, 11, 5 etc.) can get on the pitch and a few more from the bench, the frustration of not being one of them still niggles away at you. Maybe it’s the thoughts of your family and friends watching from the stand or following the game from home. You know they’re going to ask how you got on, and you’d rather not have to explain that you actually didn’t get a run. Or perhaps it’s looking ahead to the post-match pints and celebrations. You were so close to the action, maybe there’s even a cup to be filled up. You’re pleased for the group, but you just don’t feel 100% part of it at the same time.

In spite of what you’ve read in the preceding few paragraphs, I do generally subscribe to the idea that everybody in the squad plays their part and deserves as many plaudits as everyone else when their team is successful. However, these words are far easier to say when you feel like you’ve made a sufficient contribution to the success, than they are to hear when you feel like you haven’t. Once more, it’s the thinking that makes it so…

Obviously, there are a number of ways that a good management team can communicate to their players the reasons why they’re not playing and what their role might be when they come off the bench to make them feel valued as part of the group. One of the most common factors highlighted by successful teams after they’ve won something is how positive the group dynamic was and just how close-knit the players felt as a unit. At the time of writing, Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal are 8 points clear at the top of the Premier League. Eddie Jones is about to lead his native Australia into the Rugby World Cup this Autumn. Should they finish those campaigns successfully, it is likely that their respective ‘Impacters’ and ‘Finishers’ will be looked on in a positive light. As somebody with enough experience in these rebranded roles, I think they’re definitely worth a shot.

They say a week is a long time in politics, but what is the equivalent in blogspace? In the 10 or so months since this blog half-heartedly predicted a Fianna Fáil-Green Party government in last February’s General Election, it’s fair to say that quite a lot has happened. That potentially deadly virus in Wuhan turned out to be a little more problematic than many anticipated, Donald Trump is soon to be a mere West Clare hotelier once more, and the Dubs are still Kings and Queens of the football world. Some things never change.

On a personal note, significant change has also been afoot. In September, I decided to trade in my white shirt and lanyard for some skinny trackies and a one-way ticket to the University of Limerick to “live the dream” one more time, training to become a PE teacher in the process. The allure of guilt-free, midweek pints (of Rock Shandy) and the months of June, July and August on holidays proved just too much for the 7.27am 84X and the preparation of financial statements.

So, as the shutter comes down on my first semester as a mature student undergraduate, what has the experience been like? If you’re considering going down a similar route yourself, what can you expect? In the next couple of paragraphs, I am going to channel my inner Ned Bigby, and detail some of my own experiences as well as a few potential pitfalls that await the budding mature student on their return to full-time education.

Hello There, Fellow Kids

One of the first things you notice on your maiden visit to campus is how young everybody walking around the place is. To this 24-year-old Fresher, everybody looks like a secondary school student at an Open Day. The situation doesn’t get a whole lot better as you begin to meet your housemates and the people in your course, where the swapping of Snapchat and Instagram usernames begins. The prevalence of ’01’, ‘02’ and even ‘03’ (!) at the end of those usernames would make you feel very old indeed.

As you can imagine, being “down with the kids” is therefore, pretty crucial to fitting in and befriending your new Post-Millennial mates. Knowing your VSCOs from your Instagrams will stand you in good stead, while the etiquette and politics around your inclusion in someone’s private Snapchat story will all come in good time. Whatever you do, just be sure not to ask anyone for their phone number to set up a class WhatsApp group. WhatsApp is only used by this crowd for texting their parents and grandparents, and for “formal group chats” Any aspiring mature student would do well to remember this.

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As anybody of a Tuborg Rovers persuasion will know only too well, there’s a fine line between “Puss” and “Rags”. For those who haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about, fear not. Everybody has some experience of colloquialisms and slang that they only hear or use around certain people. Your new college environment is going to be no different. Whether it’s “noting, highlighting and underlining” some important information or salacious goss, or congratulating a housemate on their romantic success with a shout of “Yeow”. You dare not use a colloquialism inappropriately, or out of place without risking temporary social pariah status. “Low-key, high-key” buzzing for the night ahead? Absolutely. Never “High-key, low-key”. Never.

Housemates

For me, having commuted to college throughout my years in DCU, moving down to Limerick also meant living away from home for the first time. Moving away from the Pale is a daunting enough experience in itself, especially not having Mammy there to cook and clean up after you. That’s before you even consider the complete lottery that is campus accommodation housemate allocations.

For the most part, your new domestic comrades will be in the same position as yourself, bright-eyed and eager to make friends, but there are a few horror stories out there. Depending on your luck, they can make or break the whole experience. In the vast majority of cases, these will be the first friends you’re likely to make in college, and in this year of all years, with all the COVID-related visitor restrictions, it’s particularly important that you at least have a functioning relationship with them. Even if none of them are old enough to remember when Robbie stuck the ball past Kahn in Ibaraki.

The best advice I got on the food preparation front was for cooking meat in the oven; “200°C for 20 minutes and you won’t go far wrong”. We’ve managed to get through until Christmas without giving anyone food poisoning. So far, so good. Thankfully, everybody in the house is relatively self-sufficient in the cooking stakes, and for the most part, they strike the right balance on food property rights. The hammer and sickle that adorns the main wall of the kitchen/front room is there for a reason.

It is when it comes to keeping the place clean and tidy, that the hastily arranged Marxist foundations of the house-share begin to crack. The sink is often a great place to find dirty dishes and cutlery, if washing up is your thing. A discussion on traditional gender stereotypes elicited one of the quotes of the semester; “I do have a feminine side, sure I just cleaned my toilet this morning”, solidifying the position of article 41.2 of Bunreacht na hÉireann on the place of the woman in the home for another generation at least. While on another occasion, the defence offered for not replacing a bin bag after the original was removed, was the avoidance of a “demarcation dispute”, such is the regularity with which this writer is left that responsibility. A true champion of the working man.

In summary, be prepared to share a bit more of the cleaning burden if you don’t want to live all your college life in squalor.

Fashion

In the words of Oscar Wilde, “You can never be overdressed or overeducated”. If the last 12 weeks are anything to go by, there’s no danger of this year’s Holly House residents proving him wrong. Not a whole lot has changed since my first go at being a fresher all the way back in 2015. You’ll be delighted (or disgusted) to hear skinny trackies and half-zips are still very much a thing. O’Neills shorts are also back, that’s if they ever even went away. The role played by Paul Mescal and Normal People in this renaissance is debatable. It might just be a culchie thing… who knows? Long may it continue is all I’ll say.

One major culture shock to the unsuspecting millennial is the distinct lack of unripped jeans on show. Whether it’s a few pints in the Stables or a “dress up” night in, some of these lads look like they’ve been kicked up and down River Island, the cut of them. Whatever about the torn skinny jeans, the real must have accessory for any self-respecting, modern day college student is a pair of sliders. Not going to lie, I’d say I’d have called them flip-flops in 2015, but they’re incredibly comfortable to wear around the gaff and it’s socially acceptable, if not advisable, to wear them with socks. I purchased a pair at the end of Week 1, and I haven’t looked back since. Low-key, high-key absolutely essential.

Budgeting

Unfortunately, despite living in the era of “free fees” where it still costs €3,000 a year to go to college, before you even think about looking for somewhere to live, all of this craic and high jinx doesn’t come for nothing. “No mon’ no fun”. Whether it’s a part-time job, a very generous relative or the proceeds of crime, the money has to come from somewhere. And once you’ve sourced “the monies”, you’ve got to be clever and stretch those funds as far as possible.

Cans of Galahad and bottles of Tamova are very much the currency down here, and in many ways that is right and proper. The legendary tales of students of yesteryear surviving solely on pot noodles haven’t quite been in evidence just yet, though there have been a couple of Bank of Ireland apps showing single figure balances.  As a result, price and proximity are the primary considerations when choosing the location for the weekly food shop, putting a certain German discount retailer in pole position.

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Now as a mature student, it might be a mix of enjoying the finer things in life, supporting Irish or a hint of snobbery that leads you to be a bit more discerning in your choice of supermarket. Supervalu in Castletroy is possibly the nicest one in the country and their organic spaghetti is second to none. Expect the bit of judgement from your younger peers and embrace it. We all need a bit of comfort and indulgence now and again.

Understandably, the frugality isn’t reserved for just grub. Spotify premium and paying to do your own washing are still considered to be luxuries. So, when one of the young lads gets on the speaker, be prepared for intermittent ‘HAYU’ ads on Spotify unless of course, the DJ went to private school. In such a case, the bill for the ad-free music is probably being footed by an Irish hospitality conglomerate.

Night Life

For the first two and half weeks of the semester, county Limerick was in Level 2 of the country’s ‘National Framework for living with COVID’. This meant ‘wet pubs’ were allowed to open and gave us a sample of what Limerick city has to offer. By ‘sample’, I of course mean returning every chance we got, to the only place that’d take us, Molly Malone’s Bar and Restaurant. It was great to get the chance to pretend the pandemic just wasn’t a thing for a few hours, even if the scenes of singsongs on the bus into town were a tad dystopian with everybody masked up. Unfortunately, the imposition of Level 3, and Level 5 shortly after, put paid to much of the extra-curricular activity.

Level 5 saw the reintroduction into my life of the North American frat house staple, Beer Pong. A game that is much maligned in many quarters, but with restrictions on visitors and nowhere else to be going, it successfully performs the functions of sufficiently oiling its participants, and getting the competitive juices flowing.

Individual house rules will dictate whether the ball must bounce once on the table or not, to be deemed a valid attempt. Some knowledge of cup formations such as a “diamond”, “one-and-one” or a “battleship” is useful, but not essential. Your opponent(s) won’t be long, or shy in putting you straight. You’ll also develop a newfound appreciation for the role of the ‘towel technician’, the game’s unsung hero, who ensures the ball is kept dry and maintains the flow of the game with minimum fuss. However, if you only take one thing from this paragraph, make sure you keep your elbow behind the table at all times when throwing, unless you want to start World War III.

The lifting of Level 5 restrictions, and the reopening of pubs and restaurants at the start of December, allowed for some more meaningful Christmas celebrations. UL Christmas Day 2020 was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, filled with seasonal joy and merriment, that did not lack in drama. Truth be told, it was refreshing to return to the role of “babysitter” for the first night in quite some time.

For the most part, people practiced moderation in their alcohol consumption, however, there is always a few who overindulge. As is generally the case in such a situation, there are a few immediately recognisable stages to this process.

The innocence and invincibility of youth is on full display as lads go that bit too heavy on their eastern European, premium lager of choice, free from the pending interrogation from Mammy when they get home. Sadly, this performance is only a prelude to the indignance of seeing their Turkey and Ham dinner once again. Chunder fest.

Of course, this is followed by the martyrdom and insistence on cleaning up (rearranging in reality) their own mess, before eventually acquiescing and allowing the grownups to finish the job properly. Being the ‘adult in the room’ as it were, such carry on would fill you with disgust and pride in equal measure. As Elton John says; “The Circle of Life”.

‘The Books’ – College Itself

If you were looking for a break from all the Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams meetings this pandemic has got us so well acquainted with, then the academic year of 2020-21 was not the year to return to full-time education. Barring two wonderful Mondays on campus in Weeks 7 and 10 respectively, all lectures and tutorials have been either recorded or live on the aforementioned platforms. Everybody’s favourite three words of 2020, “You’re on mute”, are still alive and kicking, while there is the added dimension of more live, on-camera interactions than this former accounting trainee was exposed to in the home office.

Despite all their predicted leaving cert points and Snapchat “vlogs”, you will find a certain reluctance among your new classmates to turn on their mics and engage with lecturers unless specifically prompted. As with the bins earlier, be prepared the shoulder more of the burden in the spokesperson stakes if you want to avoid awkward, protracted, virtual silences. More pressingly perhaps, the added visual component of the online classroom also brings with it some potential perils. For example, one of your less technologically literate housemates walking into your live Zoom tutorial half-naked. A rather mortifying experience for all involved. Best avoided by locking your bedroom door in advance of these classes.

One major positive of the COVID protocols is the requirement to pre-book your study space in the library before you visit. Especially as you get into the latter weeks of the semester, this spares students the indignity of the mid-morning ‘walk of shame’ around the building in search of a seat. Of course, the odd time there is somebody incorrectly occupying your assigned seat, but this minor inconvenience is so much more preferable to experiencing the judgemental smugness of those who’ve been there since opening time to claim their study spot for the day. You would miss the ‘Shush Lady’ all the same.

Mol an Óige agus Tiocfaidh Sí

As I have already alluded to, the difference in age between you and your classmates is one of the biggest challenges for any mature student returning to complete an undergraduate degree. This year’s Leaving Cert class and their peers were often vilified in much of the current affairs commentary over the past year, for their roles in the spreading/prevention of infection. The context missing from a lot of that criticism was an acknowledgement of how much this cohort in particular, lost out on. From rites of passage such as the Debs and graduation from secondary school to the absolute savaging of the way they socialise. Perhaps coloured by this type of analysis, I was pleasantly surprised at just how conscientious and appreciative my housemates and classmates were, of the seriousness of the situation with regards to the pandemic.

At the risk of getting overly mushy, they were by no means the worst crew to start out my second college journey with, and as evidenced by some of the following quotes, we might be able to learn a thing or two from them along the way as well.

Heard out of context in Week 2; “Whether you’re texting him, shifting him or riding him, just mind yourself”. Incredibly sound advice from one so young, and words we can all aspire to live by. Look after number one first and foremost.

Striking a slightly less conventional note, apparently those from an especially landlocked county in Ireland are in fact their own race; “I’m from Laois, I can be as racist as I want”. Disrespect a county board official though? A different story altogether.

Finally, after a typically manic and stressful Week 12 spent finishing assignments at the eleventh hour and swotting for final exams, various iterations of “Next semester, I’m going to have my shit together” rang around Holly House. The innocence of youth eh? Some things never change.

So, in a year like no other, it’s been a semester like no other. No matter what metric you want to use, it’s impossible for me to argue it’s been anything other than an unqualified success. Here’s to the next seven!

“I’ve always said that the election should happen at the best time for the country, now is that time”. I’m sure many of the 516 declared Dáil hopefuls questioned that wisdom, as Leo Varadkar called the first Saturday General Election in the history of the state, and they faced the prospect of spending the coldest month of the year on the campaign trail. With so much focus on electoral events and political goings on across the Irish Sea in recent years, electoral aficionados and psephologists on these shores finally have a domestic ballot to get their teeth into.

Considering its level of prominence throughout 2019, Brexit hasn’t been as much of a factor for voters so far in this campaign. Instead, the most prominent and consistent talking points thus far have been Housing and Health, interspersed with a bizarre level of Senior Hurling chat for this time of year. The Taoiseach was at pains to stress the benefits of his decision to send the country to the polls at the weekend. With the inconvenience of schools having to close on a weekday avoided, working parents won’t have to take time off work, lose a day’s income, or face additional childcare costs. “The people who get up in the morning” boxed off. Students and those getting up in the morning to work away from home weren’t forgotten either, now afforded the opportunity to come home for the weekend and cast their votes. With the 8^th of February a matter of hours away, what sort of impact the break from tradition will have on voter turnout remains to be seen, though after nearly four weeks of campaigning and no less than seven opinion polls since the election was called, we do have some idea of who the key players are, and how the 33^rd Dáil might look this time next week.

Fine Gael

The largest party in Dáil Éireann after the last two elections, Fine Gael has headed up both coalition and minority governments in that time with Enda Kenny leading the party and country until June 2017, before being succeeded by Leo Varadkar. In the vast majority of opinion polls carried out during Varadkar’s time in office, the party has been the largest in the country. Allegations of fraud and scandal surrounding TDs Dara Murphy, Maria Bailey and Alan Farrell, while creating national headlines, did little to damage Fine Gael’s impressive polling figures. It was only in the first poll after the election was called, that support for the party plummeted from 27% to 20%, where it has remained relatively steady since then. They now lie in third place in the polls less 24 hours out from election day. Possibly influenced by that poll position, their strategy has been an odd mixture of contrition, targeted attacks on Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin and some disastrously memeable social media content.

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Eoghan Murphy, Paschal Donohoe and Varadkar himself have all qualified their praise of the government’s record on Housing and Health at various stages of the campaign, with the phrase “I know it’s not enough”, in an appeal to be given more time to finish what they’ve started. Keep the Recovery Going 2.0 anybody? Every so often the contrition is interrupted, namely by the Taoiseach himself, in order to deliver some fairly targeted personal jibes at Micheál Martin. The first leaders’ debate saw the more thinly-veiled assertion that Martin’s constituency rival, Simon Coveney, was the finest politician Cork ever produced, before Varadkar’s most recent claim, that returning Fianna Fáil to government, with Martin as Taoiseach would be like “asking John Delaney to take over the FAI again”. Sinn Féin haven’t got off the hook in this regard either with the party’s radical tax proposals compared to previous offerings in East Germany and the oft cited, “failed socialist state” of Venezuela. The aforementioned Coveney, along with the rest of his cabinet colleagues, have also been steadfast in their refusal to entertain the idea of forming a coalition government with Sinn Féin, most notably in that now infamous Twitter video, latched onto by rival parties and meme-makers alike, resulting in some rather hilarious content and a lot of embarrassment for Fine Gael.

I will never go into government with Sinn Féin. I asked my team if they would and they answered unequivocally.

Micheál Martin cannot say the same about his front bench. pic.twitter.com/zEoKqpIgQO

— Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) February 1, 2020

One of the perceived strengths of the outgoing government was its handling of Brexit, which annoyingly for them just hasn’t captured the imagination of voters. With approximately 20% of popular support and lying in third position in the opinion polls, the party is on the defensive. Eoghan Murphy’s record as Housing Minister, the outgoing Ceann Cohmairle’s seat in Dún Laoghaire and murmurings of difficulties for Paschal Donohoe and Noel Rock in Dublin Central and Dublin North-West, suggest Fine Gael is in survival mode in the capital. There has also been some commentary about the party’s lack of focus on rural issues over the last month and their time in government. Garda stations around the country on reduced hours or remaining shut altogether, the prospect of a carbon tax and the failure to effectively implement the National Broadband Plan could hurt them badly in rural constituencies. On a bad day, they could be left with a seat total in the low 30s, leaving them very much on the outside looking in when it comes to government formation.

Fianna Fáil

Brand Fianna Fáil has undergone a phenomenal transformation over the course of the last nine years. Just ask the FAI delegate, who at last December’s AGM, argued that the resurgence of the former “toxic brand” in recent years could act as a beacon of hope to the country’s debt-ridden and disgraced football governing body. After the first Sunday Times opinion poll of the campaign had the party at 32%, the @BustToBoom twitter account was in overdrive, with plenty of noughties nostalgia, the return of the SSIA and talk of tents at the Galway races. In reality, this might have been a bit of an overstatement, and as some might argue, unlike previous iterations of the party, nobody in HQ was getting too carried away. In the opinion polls since then, party support has been around the 23/24% mark, vying with Sinn Féin to be classed as the most popular party in the country. The man behind this revival? Micheál Martin.

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Having opened his tenure as party leader with an unequivocal apology to the nation on behalf of Fianna Fáil for the mistakes it made while in Government, as well as personally advocating for a yes vote in both the Marriage Equality and Eigth Amendment referenda, allowing a free vote within his own party for the latter, it’s fair to say Martin has done a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to regaining public trust. The party’s showing in the polls would appear to suggest it’s come away relatively unscathed from providing the outgoing Fine Gael-Independent government with “Confidence and Supply”, though it has left them vulnerable to criticism from the left, on the claim that they might hold a degree of responsibility for some the previous government’s shortcomings.

Like Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil have repeatedly ruled out the notion of doing business with Sinn Féin in forming the next government. Instead, on the subject of potential coalition partners, Micheál Martin has expressed his preference to do business with, in his own words “centre ground TDs from parties like Labour and the Greens”. A move towards the left, with an ambitious social housing building plan of nearly 200,000 homes over the course of five years and (a Jack Chambers meltdown notwithstanding) a reasonably successful accentuation of the party’s ‘Green’ credentials, might well have done enough to tempt both parties to the negotiating table, should the numbers be there. For such a coalition to come to fruition, the 50-seat barrier must be broken. With only five outgoing TDs in Dublin and strong local election performances throughout the capital last summer, there is huge scope for growth here with strong chances of gains in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin North-West and Rathdown. Cathal Crowe looks good for a seat gain in Clare and if attainable third seats in Laois-Offaly and Carlow-Kilkenny are achieved, Micheál Martin might just find a Sinn Féin-free path to the government benches.

Sinn Féin

If Fianna Fáil’s transformation over the last nine years has been phenomenal, the resurrection of Sinn Féin in the nine months since the Local and European elections has been Lazarus-like. Having lost almost half of its seats on local councils throughout the country and two of its three MEPs, it was very much back to the drawing board. Mary Lou McDonald has played a blinder for large parts of this campaign. Having languished well behind the two main parties in the polls for much of 2019, the party has been catapulted to the top of the opinion polls for the first time in its history, perhaps aided somewhat by the government’s ill-advised RIC commemoration announcement in January, but certainly reflective of the desire for a break from the status quo from almost a quarter of the electorate. So how has Mary Lou and the party achieved this?

In producing one of the most ambitious and radical manifestos in this campaign, which promises to build 100,000 social and affordable homes, abolish third level fees and introduce free GP care for all, they set their stall out early. Their strategy since then has also been very clear, to saturate the airwaves and media with their top performers to get the message out and to try to use the attacks from both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to their advantage. With Eoin Ó Broin on Housing, Louise O’Reilly on Health and Pearse Doherty on Finance, this strong, fresh and dynamic trio of spokespeople can talk Housing, Health and Finance ‘til the cows come home and have been more than capable of taking their counterparts from rival parties to task on the national stage. Mary Lou has also distinguished herself as one those ‘top performers’ throughout the campaign, gaining a lot a traction in dubbing Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, “Tweedledee and Tweedledum” as well as successfully arguing her way onto Tuesday’s Prime Time leaders’ debate, having repeatedly claimed to be “shut out” by the other two main parties and sections of the media. Given that her party is only fielding 42 candidates in total, many would argue that she had no place taking part in the debate, initially billed as a “head-to-head” between the two would-be Taoisigh. Others might argue that the figure of 25% says otherwise.

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Despite the many reasons for optimism, there are also some causes for concern. Sinn Féin’s finance minister in Northern Ireland, Conor Murphy’s comments in 2007 after the brutal murder of 21-year-old Paul Quinn have brought the party’s historic links to the IRA back into the spotlight. In her weakest moment of Tuesday’s debate, Mary Lou was forced to do a U-turn only 24 hours after denying the severity of Murphy’s 2007 comments in an interview with Bryan Dobson. Concerns also remain in some quarters over the level of control that unelected members of the party’s Ard Chomhairle have in day-to-day policy decisions. A number of councillors have also left the party amid disputes over bullying allegations in recent years. From a purely arithmetic point of view, the party may find it difficult to break the 30-seat barrier, in spite of its impressive poll standing. The decision to drop second candidates from constituency tickets on the back of poor local election performances now looks unwise, but depending on the performance of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Mary Lou could yet play a significant role as a kingmaker.

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Green Party

With the climate crisis such a pressing issue worldwide and so many Green Party councillors and MEPs elected last May, you would have been forgiven for believing the “Green Wave” would carry a surge of climate activists led by Eamon Ryan into the 33^rd Dáil. However, the party has stagnated at around 10% support nationally. Prior to the calling of this election, much of the talk among political correspondents and strategists surrounded the potential for the Green Party to woo middle class Fine Gael voters and take some seats on the back of support from that demographic. While that would appear to be materialising in Dublin and some other urban constituencies, much of the groundswell for change seems to have benefitted Sinn Féin in this particular campaign.

Much has been made of the party’s migration towards the left since their time in government. While the Greens always supported a carbon tax of some description, their manifesto this time around includes proposals for a system of Universal Basic Income, free public transport for students and an innovative solution to the housing crisis in the form of the “Cost Rental Model”, borrowed from mainland European cities such as Vienna. It is however, the rural-urban divide that’s been largely to blame for their stagnation in the polls as the carbon tax and maybe more importantly, the party position on the reduction in the size of the suckler herd have not played well with those working in the agricultural sector.

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Still, the “Green Wave” from last May’s local elections should be enough for the party to make gains in Dún Laoghaire and Dublin West through Ossian Smyth and Roderic O’Gorman. There are also opportunities in a number of other ‘urban’ constituencies like Kildare North, Cork South-Central, Waterford and Wicklow. Saoirse McHugh is possibly their best hope of a ‘rural’ breakthrough. The Mayo candidate burst onto the national stage in last year’s European Parliament elections, getting over 50,000 first preference votes in the Midlands-North-West constituency. Already touted as Ireland’s answer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and as the Green Party’s own Princess Margaret during this election, she has publicly disagreed with her party’s position on the carbon tax and has emphasised the need for “rural Greens” to make their voices heard. Should she break the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil duopoly in Mayo over the course of the weekend, the party could be on the way to returning as many as 15 TDs to Leinster House. With Eamon Ryan’s willingness to talk to anybody with an interest in a green agenda, it’s very hard not to see the party having a significant say in the makeup of the next government.

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Labour

After being decimated as the outgoing government’s junior coalition partner last time out, the party opted for experience over youth in backing Brendan Howlin to succeed Joan Burton as leader of the party, overlooking the fresher, and arguably more exciting alternatives of Alan Kelly and Seán Sherlock in the process. Kelly, a representative for Tipperary, is probably most famous on a national level for his “power is a drug” quotes from a number of years back. He mooted a further leadership challenge during the summer of 2018, citing Howlin’s “failure to turn the ship around” in his two and a half years of leadership, as his motivation for doing so. Again, a lack of support for the idea within the parliamentary party put paid to his leadership ambitions, and the party has presented a united front since then with Kelly impressing in his roles as party Health spokesperson and Vice-Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

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It’s hard to argue with Kelly’s assertion that Howlin has failed to make any headway in altering public opinion towards the party, with its 5% support in the most recent RedC poll even lower than the disastrous 6.6% share of the national vote four years ago, that delivered the party’s joint-worst Dáil return in history. With a simple campaign message of “Build Homes and Fix Health”, Brendan Howlin has more than held his own in the two televised debates involving the leaders of the other six main parties, advocating a rent freeze, building 80,000 social homes on public land and a “Liveable Communities” project designed to ease pressure on those living in the commuter belt. While those progressive messages might have resonated with many people beyond that 5% core of Labour Party support, the very presence of the older guard of Howlin, Burton and Jan O’Sullivan, incredible servants to the party though they have been, leaves them open to criticism of the party’s shortcomings in the last government, and goes some way to explaining the lack of movement in that 5% figure over the last four years.

In saying all of that, it’s not all doom and gloom for Labour in this campaign, with a couple of strong opportunities to build on its current haul of seven seats. Aodhán Ó Ríordáin in Dublin Bay North and Ged Nash in Louth, both enjoy strong national profiles and are the party’s main hopes of seat gains, with the seat of the retiring Willie Penrose in Longford-Westmeath almost certainly lost, despite the best efforts of Alan Mangan. Rebecca Moynihan and Kevin Humphreys hold outside chances of claiming final seats in the capital, while Mark Wall could also go close Kildare South. A return of 8 seats is entirely possible and would mark a successful campaign for Howlin. Might the vastly experienced legislator be tempted for one last hurrah in the corridors of power if the numbers and Micheál Martin presented such an opportunity?

What’s Next?

Support for independents and other parties not mentioned above has been in and around the 20% mark over the course of the campaign’s seven opinion polls. That’s exactly a fifth of the electorate. While it’s very hard to extrapolate from national poll figures to predict how individual independents will fare in a given constituency, some of these candidates will almost certainly have role to play when it comes to the formation of a government, with the numbers so tight. The Social Democrats under Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall could return as many as five TDs with strong chances in Dublin Central, Dublin Bay North and Galway West. Given their proximity to Labour and the Greens on the political spectrum, a strong performance from them could see a progressive alliance between those three parties to form a coalition government with Fianna Fáil. We already know that’s the coalition option Micheál Martin would prefer.

Independent candidates like Michael Healy-Rae in Kerry and Michael Lowry in Tipperary can be relatively assured of retaining their seats, however it will only be as an option of last resort if either of those men end up at the negotiating table. Independents from the Fianna Fáil “gene pool” such as Kevin “Boxer” Moran are more likely to be drafted in to supplement the aforementioned progressives’ coalition with Fianna Fáil, though the stability of such a multi-dimensional partnership could prove to be problematic in the long run.

With 80 seats being the magic number for a majority, a grand coalition between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be far more stable arithmetically. A partnership between Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin would offer the same stability from a numbers’ perspective. However, if you are to take Micheál Martin at face value, both of those possibilities have been refuted repeatedly. Could we see a reversal of the current confidence and supply arrangement, this time with Fine Gael supporting a Fianna Fáil led government? The reality is, under the STV-PR system of voting, you can never be 100% sure what’s going to happen. One thing is for certain over the course of the weekend, we’re going to have plenty of drama. So whether you get up early in the morning, work nights or don’t work at all, be sure enjoy all the action and theatre on offer over the next 48 hours or so, and get out to exercise your democratic right, and Vote!

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” something I’m sure anybody even semi-regularly viewing their Instagram stories over the last few days will be in little doubt of. The dulcet tones of Bing Crosby, or in some sacrosanct cases, Michael Bublé, accompany panoramic, ambient videos, often filtered in black and white, presenting idyllic festive scenes such as the perfectly set dining table, an expertly accessorised coniferous tree or perhaps even the clinking of prosecco glasses in boomerang form. Now I enjoy Mickey Bubbles as much as the next man, but for me, Crosby’s version of the aforementioned Christmas classic is without parallel, Bublé’s effort on the other hand, not for me.

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Anyway, I digress. If you were to speak to any Labour Party supporter in the UK in the early hours of Friday the 13^th just gone, particularly those who had consumed much of their election coverage via Twitter, whether or not it looked anything like Christmas would have been quite low on their list of priorities. Labour had just produced its worst General Election performance since 1935, handing the Conservatives a 74-seat majority in the process. While many pollsters had anticipated a narrow Conservative majority in the lead up to polling day, those of a social democratic persuasion would have been forgiven for taking solace in their Twitter feeds that there was a chance of an upset. Unfortunately for them, when it comes to an individual’s Twitter feed and the question from one user to another is the same as Bing Crosby’s timeless enquiry “Do you see what I see?”, the answer is absolutely not.

For anybody with even a passing interest in politics, it would have been almost impossible to ignore proceedings from across the Irish Sea just under a fortnight ago. When I logged into my own Twitter account on election night, I was met with a sea of red. Figures from the world of music, sport and entertainment as well as many more besides were posting messages indicating that they’d voted Labour. Some were fervent and passionate in their updates, imploring their followers to vote the same way as they had with videos and lengthy ‘threads’, while others simply tweeted a rose emoji. Both actions equally as transparent in terms of deciphering where their political allegiances lay. Imagine my surprise when details of the exit poll (below) came in. Imagine those Labour supporters actually in the UK, and all the hope and positivity of the preceding few hours, vanished in an instant, with one chime of Big Ben. So much of what you thought and convinced yourself to be true were, in the grand scheme of things, the thoughts of the few rather than the many.

Therein lies the problem of the echo chamber. The Oxford dictionary defines an echo chamber as “an environment in which somebody encounters only opinions and beliefs similar to their own, and does not have to consider alternatives”. We’ve become so accustomed to our apps, websites and devices constantly collecting and gathering our data, that it doesn’t really surprise us when Spotify creates the perfect personal playlist for us, or we open Facebook to an ad for accommodation in Bratislava just seconds after you’ve typed that very destination into Skyscanner. Twitter is no different when it comes to understanding our preferences better than we do ourselves.

Upon clicking into your Twitter app, the primary domains are the algorithm-powered feeds, ‘Top Tweets’ and ‘In case you missed it’, which have replaced the traditional reverse chronological order of tweets as the default setting, that the website initially launched with in 2006. According to Twitter, the tweets that appear in those primary domains are specifically selected for you “based on the accounts you interact with most, the tweets you engage with and much more”. The recency of a tweet’s publishing, the account’s number of followers and level of activity, as well the type of media included, also inform Twitter of the type of content that users like to see of their site. For example, the more 30-second videos you engage with on Twitter, the more tweets of that nature you’re going to see. The same logic applies to liking, retweeting and commenting on the platform. Obviously, the more time you spend scrolling through your Twitter feed and interacting with tweets, the better the website understands your preferences. Therefore, it’s very easy to see how a user can become trapped within a Twitter-shaped echo chamber and thus lulled into the heightened sense of self-assuredness and confidence in one’s opinions that such an environment affords.

Not only can Twitter’s algorithms contribute to the creation of echo chambers by showing users content and opinions that they broadly support and agree with, but its engagement-driven model is also likely to churn out the more extreme points of opposition rather than a more measured, middle of the road view. In the hyper-partisan environment that online debate has now become, one of the few times people tend to engage with those holding a different opinion is when that opinion is so abhorrent and egregious to them, or in some instances even downright ludicrous, that they feel compelled to share it with their followers. See Piers Morgan taking the gender identity debate to an extreme, claiming that he wished to identify as a penguin, or the routine reply to any tweet criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party; “Fuck off and join the Tories”. Then on a slightly lighter note, there’s “Turtleneck Man” inadvertently advocating for a United Ireland on BBC’s Question Time as a solution to then Brexit deadlock, or just when we thought we were all on the same page, we have Shane Ross posting a picture of his cooked Christmas goose. As long as the outrage or ridicule manifests itself in clicks, comments or quoted retweets, then guess what? Twitter’s going to show us more of it.

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The point here being, if the only opposition you encounter to your pre-existing views comes from people you find either morally repugnant, ignorant or even just a bit stupid, then it’s so much easier to disagree and find fault with that opposition. The more we argue about our position with these types of people, the more certain that we are, in fact, correct. Add into the mix how the faceless, and oftentimes anonymous nature of social media interaction can make people more verbally aggressive than they would be in person. This only enhances the perception that those on the other side are either not nice people or clueless, and in some instances, both. Ultimately, Twitter’s engagement-driven, algorithm-powered model also leaves us prone to this type of confirmation bias on top of creating the conditions conducive to the construction of an echo chamber. However, it’s not all doom and gloom.

Three Professors of Information Systems from Boston University and Hong Kong Science & Technology University teamed up earlier this year to write a paper for MIT’s Sloan Management Review titled ‘Twitter Is Not The Echo Chamber We Think It Is’. They found that the average Twitter account “posts links to more politically moderate news sources than the ones they receive on their own feed”. However, the most active and followed 1% of users analysed, who the study refers to as “core users” bucked this trend, tending to post more partisan content than what they were actually exposed to in their own feeds. These “core users” included politicians, commentators as well as other individuals and organisations whose main interests revolve around current affairs and news. While the authors of the piece felt the perception of polarisation on Twitter might be greater than it is in reality, it is the very characteristics of these “core users”, highly active with large followings, that factor heavily in the website’s algorithms for ranking users’ tweets.

So as the decade draws to a close, the way in which we consume our news is almost already unrecognisable from ten years ago. We’re spending more time looking at our phone screens and in turn moving away from the traditional forms of media that have dominated for so many decades gone by. We have never had such a vast array of information available to us before, nor has there been so many different sources and places to obtain that information. Twitter has played a pivotal role in all of this, with users only one viral tweet away from becoming ‘mainstream’, however temporary or short-lived it may be. People far cleverer than you and I, whether they’re bastions of the traditional media landscape, or new kids on the block with a point or two to prove, are already tapping into this and producing the content most likely to drive interaction and engagement, and ultimately, increase their reach. By all means, continue to use Twitter and social media for all the weird and wonderful content it provides, just stay vigilant, healthily sceptical and take heed of Mickey Bubbles’ advice; “Keep on loving what is true, and the world will come to you”. You might just have to look a bit harder for the truth yourself.