A student newspaper and a glass of Guinness

This article was published in Trinity News on 6 October, 2009, the twelfth 'Old Trinity' column.

A student newspaper and a glass of Guinness

TRINITY has a new newspaper: The University Times. It looks and reads well, what its editor hopes will be “the first of many issues, in many years and many generations”.

In 1953 the new Trinity News was in a similar position to the University Times. It was the underdog, up against the long-established TCD: A College Miscellany, which had been around for almost 60 years and boasted an almost unbroken succession of over 1,000 issues. Similar to the University Times, Trinity News was founded by members of the Students’ Representative Council – the forerunner to today’s Students’ Union. Anthony Bolchover was its first chairman.

TCD had seen off a challenger in its past. The College Pen, founded in 1929, was similar to TCD in size, layout and content, but avoided the anonymity for which TCD was often criticised. Sadly The College Pen, lacking something special to offer, folded after only a few terms.

When Trinity News arrived in Michaelmas term of 1953, TCD was forced to go on the defensive. A letter to the Irish Times in early October that year denied that TCD had ceased publication and was being replaced; rather, claimed WG Simpson, “our prospects for the future are brighter than ever”.

In the pages of TCD itself, an editorial piece mentioned the long-defunct College Pen (institutional memory being far stronger in those days) and compared it with Trinity News. The new Trinity News would have a purpose, wrote the anonymous student, if it had something different to provide. Icarus, founded three years previously, “publishes a type of material too long and too specialised for TCD”. But, he asked:

“Is the SRC newspaper in the same category as Icarus? Does it set itself a task quite distinct from that of TCD – or is it another College Pen, duplicating the work of this magazine?”

“We believe,” he concluded, “that if there is any Trinity news then TCD covers it adequately.”

A gossipy tone and anonymous writing were the characteristics of TCD which the members of the new Trinity News criticised and planned to avoid in their own publication. But it wasn’t long before Trinity News had reneged on its founding ideals – a failing which the shareholders (as they called themselves) of TCD were quick to point out. A few verses published in TCD in 1955, reproduced here, criticised the “other paper” in this regard. (The “Four and Six” of the third quatrain was a gossip column.)

Nevertheless, Trinity News and TCD coexisted for a couple of decades, with the latter carrying less news and more features, and Trinity News becoming the preferred paper for club and society news. Each publication took regular pot-shots at the other; TCD once, for example, printed a full-page mock Trinity News cover, dense with now-incomprehensible in-jokes. The title even incorporated TCD’s trademark vowel omissions, often used for pseudo-anonymity – Trinity News became “Tr*n*ty N*ws”.

Both publications entered the doldrums at the end of the 1970s. The standard became appalling. Poor production values, a lack of technical capability, an overemphasis on the popular issues of the day, and very little quality news were characteristics of both. TCD printed its last-ever issue at that time, leaving an embarrassingly poor Trinity News to struggle through the 1980s.

Trinity News is now Dublin University’s established paper, and it inherits the mission of TCD: A College Miscellany. The Students’ Union’s newspaper is the new number two, and it needs to establish its identity and purpose if it is to survive.

The University Times, of course, is not really new. It is the University Record improved and rebranded, just as the Record replaced Aontas, which replaced Union, which replaced Liaison.

TCD, The College Pen, Icarus and Trinity News were founded by students who believed they had something new to offer or believed that what was currently available could be improved upon. Advertisements, sales, and the members’ pockets were the only sources of funding. I wonder if some of today’s college publications exist simply because registration-fee money is there to be spent, not because they have anything new, different or better to offer.

Best wishes to The University Times – I hope it has a successful run.

Trinity News

How are the mighty fallen!
The angels have gone astray,
In two years the “other Paper”
Has followed the only way.

Two years ago this morning
The ideals of truth were heard,
There pealed forth the careful warning –
“No gossip there’ll be – not a word.”

Five terms ago this morning
The aims of the few just died
While Four and Six grew longer
And the theorists merely sighed.

TCD were the villains
Who gossiped and tittered all day,
And proved with complete satisfaction
That gossip will always pay.

The columns of scandal grew longer
More people are crammed in a line,
And their aims for “Better Reporting”
Are gone in the mists of time.

(from TCD: A College Miscellany, November 4, 1955)

LAST January this column recorded a couple of old mentions of the beer served at the college’s evening meal. In 1879 students were served “a light beer, brewed at a special brewery in Rathdowney”. Hinkson, writing in 1892, mentions “an attenuated small beer, peculiar to college.”

A student’s piece in TCD: A College Miscellany in 1951 reveals some further information. Most interestingly, the college beer at that time was still being purchased from the Laois brewery: “The pale ale is brewed in Rathdowney, Leix, by Robert Perry and Sons, and is delivered by rail to Kingsbridge [Heuston] station.”

Two barrels of this ale were consumed each week by students at the time, writes the TCD reporter – about 141 glasses a night. That was approximately 44 per cent of those on Commons; although, he wrote, “the Boat Club table must surely distort this figure and make the average unreliable”. Claret was the most popular drink at the high table.

The Perry and Sons brewery closed in 1966. A meat factory replaced it, owned at one stage, curiously, by Guinness. The brewery referred its customers to Smithwick and Sons in Kilkenny, but it may have been at this time that the college switched to Guinness for its Commons beer.

I asked readers in January for information regarding Guinness at Commons being, or once being, a legacy. I think this rumour can be discounted. The 1951 TCD writer gave a similar story, showing that such myths are nothing new around college:

“Guinness,” he said, “was offered to the college for Commons some years ago, on the understanding that, if accepted, the fact might be stated on the firm’s posters.” He claimed this was “certain”, stating that the Board refused. The story is difficult to believe, but perhaps someone can supply more information.

Enjoy your glass of stout at Commons, remembering that many generations of undergraduates have enjoyed beer with their meals before you. Sláinte!