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THE ALCOHOL-FREE BAR OWNER

Sarah Connolly Psychology 2004 The Virgin Mary “My degree opened my mind after all those years of maths and Irish. Afterwards I did a post-grad in communications and worked with Irish Distillers. My sister Nicola and her husband Vaughan Yates both worked in the drinks industry, and together saw trends emerging in the non-alcoholic sector and that there were no venues catering to it. In 2019 we opened The Virgin Mary “Sobar” on Capel Street. We thought, ‘If we can make it work in Dublin we can make it work anywhere!’ We have our first franchise opening in the UAE this year.

Our customers include everyone from Gen Xers to people who don’t drink at all to those who are training or pregnant. It’s a new social movement. Given my background I’m intrigued by the psychology angle; it’s almost like a social experiment. The atmosphere in the bar is fascinating. We have lovely glassware, music and drinks and there’s a natural levity that happens during a night; you see the placebo effect in action and people leave feeling giddy or tipsy. Alongside, we are developing non-alcoholic drinks with functional benefits.”

THE FOOD CONSULTANT

Oonagh Monahan MEngSc 1991 Alpha Omega “After a science degree from NUIG and postgraduate study in food science and technology in Kevin Street, I was awarded a scholarship for a UCD research master’s degree in the UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering. Heinz funded a two-year research project in shelf stability – I developed a predictive curve on food emulsion.

Afterwards I joined a graduate development programme at Manor Bakeries in the UK, part of Ranks Hovis McDougall. I worked on Mr Kipling cakes, which I loved, and then returned to Ireland to work for Kerry Group at Grove Turkeys in Monaghan – tough! – before eight years as a production manager for a business making veterinary vaccines.

Next, I took up a position at the food technology centre in St Angela’s in Sligo. The work was all outreach and I enjoyed working with small artisan producers so much I decided to set up my own consultancy business in 2008. I work with start-ups, established food companies and organisations such as the Irish Bread Bakers Association. My clients include Burren Smokehouse, Cabots of Westport and Mash Direct. I work on new products, products for new markets, packaging, shelf life and innovation systems, as well as strategy. Through my work mentoring start-up companies, I produced a package of information which I turned into a book called Money for Jam.”

THE CELEBRITY CHEF

Catherine Fulvio (Byrne) BA German and Irish 1986 Chef, Cookery Teacher, Television Presenter “After graduating from UCD, I joined Bank of Ireland and did my banking exams, and a few years later I took a postgraduate diploma in public relations and worked in PR and marketing.

I was born and raised at Ballyknocken House, which my parents ran as a farmhouse B&B, with all the food coming fresh from the garden and the farm. It was popular for hillwalking holidays, and I grew up making sandwiches for packed lunches and helping my mother in the kitchen. I always knew that I would come back to it eventually but it was important that I spent time away.

After my mum died in 2000, I went to Ballymaloe Cookery School to improve my cooking skills so I’d be able to take over from her. Then in 2003, I opened my own cookery school in the old milking parlour. We’ve always had a lot of guests from Germany and as I teach classes and provide recipes in German, I get some use out of my UCD degree! My TV shows and books do well in Germany and in other countries too; I was delighted to be nominated for a Daytime Emmy for my series A Taste of Ireland.

During the pandemic our online cookery classes, courses and live cookery lessons were very popular and we intend for them to continue, even though we have reopened for in-person classes. We are also planning to go into farm production, with a range of artisan food products to give tourists – and locals – a taste of Wicklow.”

THE BLACK PUDDING MAKER

Eileen Ashe (Maher) MBS Marketing 1991 Annascaul Black Pudding Co “I did a HDip before my masters and worked in hotel and catering management and industrial catering, while teaching part-time in Cathal Brugha Street. In 1997, I moved to what is now MTU Kerry Campus in Tralee.

My husband Thomas grew up in Annascaul (near Dingle) and his family had been making black pudding in their shop since 1916, so I decided to take a career break to see if we could grow their business. Our recipe today is the same as it was back then, other than the spicing. It’s a Kerry cake-style pudding made using fresh beef blood.

We’ve added a white pudding and sausages to the range, and during the pandemic we started making sausage rolls which have been a huge success, a COVID monster! For the sausages, we only use Irish pork belly and local ingredients such as onions from the Maharees; provenance is important to us. We make everything by hand so on production days it’s all hands on deck. When we are not in production I work on marketing and liaising with customers and Thomas and I share the accounting responsibilities.

We are very busy in summer with all the tourism in Dingle and also at Christmas. Our products are stocked in several shops in Dublin. Surfers who tried the sausages when they were surfing at Inch beach went to Peter Caviston and told him he had to stock them, and that’s how they ended up on the shelves in Cavistons.”

THE ENTREPRENEUR

Cliona De Vallier (Swan) Postgraduate diploma, Special Educational Needs 2010 Pizza da Piero “I did my original degree in Maynooth and worked as a teacher in the UK, where I also took a degree in psychology with Open University. After I returned to Ireland, I took the postgraduate diploma at UCD. My husband Piero set up Pizza da Piero in 2007 with a small loan, and initially he sold the pizza bases in markets and supplied individual shops. I took a career break from my job at St Andrews College in Booterstown to help grow the business as a brand. I went back last year but I’m now on parental leave. I plan to return to St Andrew’s in 2022.

Initially, my role was to look for supports for employment and machinery, to work on the logo and packaging, and generally to get the message across. Now it’s more HR and recruitment. We are based in an industrial unit in Rathcoole and we are not a small artisan business any more. We employ 20 people and make 10,000 pizza bases a day. The process is largely unchanged since the beginning and we still make everything from scratch, resting the dough over two days before par-baking, cooling and packing. With any food business the challenge is to scale up without any deterioration in quality.

During the pandemic, our business sky-rocketed and we took on six more people. We are now stocked in multiple supermarkets and are working with Enterprise Ireland to look at the possibility of export in the future. We are also looking at adding new products to our range.

When I was in school and college I did part-time casual work in kitchens and restaurants, and I’ve always been mad into cooking. I really wasn’t aiming to have a career in the food business but I was needed so it happened. It’s enjoyable but relentless.”

THE CULINARY INTERPRETER

Manuela Spinelli BA English and German 1997 Euro-Toques Ireland “I first came to Ireland as a high school student and spent two summers staying with a family in Goatstown while learning English. After school I went to university in Italy for a year but I dropped out, and the following year I enrolled in UCD. I wanted to have an experience abroad.

I grew up with good food and while a student I worked in an ice cream parlour, an Irish pub and a Michelin-star restaurant. Despite my interest in food, I was planning a career in languages.

In 1995 my friend, chef Luciano Tona, introduced me to Chapter One’s Ross Lewis, and I started to work on events around food, including with Euro-Toques, whose objective is to preserve local culinary culture. Euro-Toques’ member chefs, cooks and producers are part of a nurturing community of like-minded professionals who pride themselves on being the custodians of Irish food culture and work to a high set of principles as set out in the Euro-Toques Code of Honour. My role is very much about helping chefs connect with small artisan producers to support a sustainable food culture. This means promoting working with quality seasonal local produce. I’ve been in Ireland for 28 years now and witnessed the evolution: people are much more aware now of what Irish food is and they are proud of it. The produce here is amazing – there’s the same buzz around food that there is in Italy.’’

THE CHOCOLATIER

Patricia Farrell BA Geography and Greek & Roman Civilisation 1984, MA Geography 1987 Wilde Irish Chocolates “I left UCD with no trade or profession as such but a great understanding of the Irish landscape. I worked in the heritage and tourism industries before my husband and I decided we should do something for ourselves. I would describe myself as a chocoholic of the highest order, so something involving chocolate seemed a good idea. We identified a gap in the market to build a business around making chocolate with heritage designs for the tourist market. That was our initial focus when we started in 1997/8. Since then the business has evolved and we are now in the mainstream chocolate market too.

Our factory is in Tuamgraney on the shores of Lough Derg. Pre-COVID-19 we had international tourists coming for factory visits and taste and make experiences. We also have Wilde Irish chocolate shops in Doolin and in the Limerick Milk Market.

We taught ourselves how to make chocolate from books and courses. Once you learn to temper – to achieve the mouthfeel, shine and snap that everyone likes, and to manage shelf life – it is very forgiving and great fun to work with. We make all our chocolate by hand.

I’m still a chocoholic, it drives innovation. Because we make everything by hand, it’s easy to test things in small batches. Our latest is chocolate with seaweed.”

THE FOOD POLICY EXPERT

Ruth Hegarty MSc Economics 2003 Egg and Chicken “I’ve always been interested in food. When I was leaving school I wanted to be a chef but my parents had other ideas so I did a degree in English and Italian in NUIG. Then I enrolled in a masters at UCD, which incorporated modules on European economics, law, politics and business. It was intense – I was the only one in the class who hadn’t studied any of those subjects before.

Professor Raymond O’Rourke, now Chair of the European Food Safety Authority, was one of our guest lecturers, and he ended up supervising my dissertation on PDOs (Protected Designation of Origin) and PGIs (Protected Geographical Indication), the mechanisms by which Europe protects traditional specialty foods. That helped open the door to a job with Euro-Toques. Ross Lewis of Chapter One interviewed me and he liked that I’d worked in the kitchen at Drimcong, with the late Gerry Galvin, and that my mother had a small bakery.

In October 2014, I set up Egg and Chicken, a food consultancy focused on sustainability and community. I work with farmers and small food producers, helping them with diversification through food tourism or selling direct. We advocate for the survival of artisan food methods and sustainable agriculture, inform the public and give greater recognition to the role of food in health, culture and society. I’ve also been involved with the Food on the Edge symposium since the outset.

I’m passionate about food policy and involved in some interesting projects on a local level. I’m currently studying for a master’s degree in Food Policy at the City University of London.”

THE ARTISAN PRODUCER

Aisling Roche Flanagan BAgrSc 1990 Velvet Cloud “I grew up in Dun Laoghaire, but my mother was from a farming background. I spent childhood summers on my uncle’s pig and dairy farm in Mitchelstown, and I always loved animals and the countryside. I didn’t have enough points for veterinary science so I decided agricultural science was the next best thing. It was the best decision I ever made. Michael Flanagan, now my husband, was in my class but we didn’t go out until final year; it was a slow burn!

After UCD I started a graduate programme with what is now Bord Bia. The degree was great because of the diversity of people I met, the network I developed and the experience I had. It helped me massively on this career path. I worked with them in Milan for seven years and then Paris, before taking on a role with Heinz, also in Paris. Back in Ireland, I worked at Ogilvy for a while and then took on a role in UCD lecturing in marketing in the School of Business, which I have done ever since.

We settled between Claremorris and Knock on a small outfarm to Michael’s family farm. We thought the lifestyle would be better here but we knew the farm wasn’t big enough to provide us with a family income.

We wondered why more sheep were not being milked in Ireland. Starting in 2013, we developed products in the kitchen and sent them out to chefs. In 2015 we were granted licences to produce food. Pre-COVID our business was 60 per cent retail and 40 per cent restaurants, but we pivoted and now it’s 20 per cent online, 20 per cent restaurants and 60 per cent retail. We are lucky that the trend for fermented food is growing, as is awareness of the gut microbiome and gut-brain axis. We are stocked in some high-end stores in Germany and London, and I think the future is bright.”

THE ZERO WASTE SHOPKEEPER

Jess Dollinger MSc Humanitarian Action 2014 The Good Neighbour “When I had the choice of seven different universities around Europe that offer the same masters it was an easy decision to come to UCD as I had visited Ireland before and loved it.

After graduating I moved back to Toronto with my Irish partner. Like most people I was sick of the amount of plastic waste I was generating and one day I went to visit a zero-waste store to see what it was all about. I thought it would be expensive but everything was the same price as it would be in a regular shop and it was as easy to shop. I thought, ‘That’s it, I’m going to open a shop like this when we go back to Ireland’.

We opened in December 2019. It has been both amazing and difficult. We were definitely thrown in at the deep end with the pandemic but things are improving all the time in terms of awareness around waste, so we always have new customers coming in. We source as much Irish produce as possible, including fruit, vegetables and eggs and I’m always happy to substitute an imported product with an Irish one if a producer gets in touch. I love seeing regular customers come in with their jars each week, it’s got to the point that if one of the Wednesday people doesn’t show up on Wednesday, I wonder where they are.”

THE CHEF AND GENDER ACTIVIST

Dr Mary Farrell BA History and Politics 1997, MA Politics 1999 Mortons “I enrolled in UCD as a mature student after a boring civil service job followed by time spent travelling in Europe, working in restaurants. I learned a lot about food and how kitchens work, and I still have a passion for classic French food.

I cooked in restaurants to support myself while I was studying. I met my husband Richard Fitzpatrick in the masters room at UCD and after we graduated we went to Australia; I worked in restaurants in Melbourne.

When we came back to Ireland I opened my own business, Café Fresh, which I ran for twelve years. Australia was a big influence on my cooking style, Asian fusion was huge when we were there.

I took up my current role at Morton’s in 2015, and started a PhD at TU Dublin at the same time. My thesis is titled “A Critical Analysis of Gender Inequality in the Chef Profession in Ireland”, inspired by years of working in the industry here. Although you see more coverage of female chefs in the media, and some thrive in the world of casual dining, it is still very tough for women in fine dining and particularly in hotels, which are run on very traditional lines using the hierarchical brigade system. There are plenty of women working as pastry chefs though.”

THE RESTAURANT OWNER

Nicola Crowley BA Spanish 2003 Mezze Restaurant “When I finished my degree, I started out teaching English as a foreign language, and that took me around the world. I spent a year in Spain as well as time teaching and travelling abroad, which influenced how I think about food. Seeing different cultures, how they drink coffee and eat more salads, changed the way I eat. I met my husband, Dvir in Israel and when we decided to come back to Ireland we wanted to set up a food business. Neither of us had worked in food before but we were always hosting parties and cooking for friends. We had an awareness of the effect food has on your mind and body and, when we started our family, we became even more aware of the importance of food labelling. We started Mezze selling dips and salads at farmers’ markets. In Israel, Dvir’s most-requested dish was his hummus which is funny because hummus is everywhere there. We developed a range of lavosh flatbreads which are now available nationwide, and we’ve just launched tahini chocolate chip cookies.

We opened the Mezze shop, café, deli and courtyard for outdoor dining in 2019. Tramore is gaining a reputation as a foodie hub and we have local support. I wouldn’t be doing what I do without my UCD experience.”

THE YEAR IS 1936 and a young UCD student has just handed in her PhD dissertation on Virginia Woolf. Now, waste not want not, she is using up the draft pages, writing notes and ideas on the blank back pages, and finally a full short story, entitled ‘Miss Holland’, is produced. Three years later that story is published in the Dublin Magazine and a brilliant career is launched. MARY JOSEPHINE LAVIN (1912-1996) went on to become a celebrated author of two novels and 19 collections of short stories, many of which first appeared in The Atlantic or The New Yorker. Elected to the highest echelon of Aosdána, in recognition of “singular and sustained distinction in the arts”, Lavin wrote of the intricacies of family life and relationships and of life in the crumbling big houses of Co. Meath. For a view of an Ireland long gone, read her Tales From Bective Bridge, published in 1942 and still in print today.

Lavin wasn’t the first internationally admired writer to study at UCD. That distinction goes, of course, to JAMES AUGUSTINE ALOYSIUS JOYCE (1882-1941), who graduated in 1902 with a degree in Modern Languages and who left Ireland in 1904, returning only on occasional visits until his death in 1941, two years after the publication of Finnegan’s Wake. Joyce lived a precarious life on the continent with his wife Nora Barnacle and their children Giorgio and Lucia, occasionally living a high life, thanks to publishing fees and sponsors, but often broke, even after the publication of his masterpiece Ulysses in 1922.

One of Joyce’s most fervent admirers was novelist and playwright KATE O’BRIEN (1897-1974), who graduated in English and French in 1919 before working as a teacher in London, a governess in Spain and as a journalist on the foreign desk at the Manchester Guardian. After the success of her first play Distinguished Villa in 1926, she took to full-time writing and won prestigious awards for her debut novel, Without My Cloak. Many of her books dealt with issues of feminism, sexuality and alienation and like Joyce, her work was censored. Her 1936 novel, Mary Lavelle, was banned in Ireland and Spain. She frequently referenced Joyce in her work, drawing attention to his exiled status as a “lonely genius”.

The absurdities and repressive nature of Irish life in the 1930s and 1940s are richly chronicled by BRIAN O’NOLAN (1911-1966) aka FLANN O’BRIEN both in his novels – At Swim-Two-Birds, 1939 and The Third Policeman – written in 1939-1940, published posthumously in 1967, and his long-running ‘Cruskeen Lawn’ column for The Irish Times under the pseudonym Myles Na Gopaleen. Born in Co. Tyrone in 1911, he graduated from UCD in 1932. Like Joyce 30 years earlier, he was a leading light of the UCD Literary and Historical Society (L&H). He had a reputation for obsessing over his writing and also for despairing of the inadequacy of all writing after Joyce.

Poet, critic and novelist ANTHONY CRONIN (1928-2016 ) originally studied Architecture at UCD before switching to Law and finally taking a degree in History and Economics. But it was the literary world that drew him most and, during a stint in Spain he wrote his first novel, The Life of Riley (1964).

He was fascinated by the literary characters of Dublin in the 1950s and his 1976 memoir of Flann O’Brien, Patrick Kavanagh and Brendan Behan, Dead as Doornails, stands out, according to Fintan O’Toole, as “the best evocation of the bohemian literary culture in Dublin that centred on McDaid’s pub and the bedsits and dives of Baggotonia.” As cultural advisor to Charlie Haughey, he was influential in the establishment of IMMA, Aosdána and Bloomsday.

London-born JULIA O’FAOLÁIN (1932-2020), daughter of the great short story writer Seán O’Faoláin, was brought up in Killiney and educated at UCD, followed by stints of study in Rome and Paris. The O’Faoláin home brimmed with writers and artists, and Seán O’Faoláin edited The Bell literary journal from an outhouse in the garden. As a girl, O’Faoláin served tea to Elizabeth Bowen, Patrick Kavanagh and Brendan Behan. As an adult she lived mainly abroad, in England, Italy and America. Her novels included No Country for Young Men, which was shortlisted for the 1980 Booker Prize, Women in the Wall (1975) and The Obedient Wife (1982). Her 2013 memoir, Trespassers, recalled her parents’ literary lives.

JOHN MCGAHERN (1934-2006), who graduated in 1957, painted a darker, more painful view of rural Ireland in his novels of the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in his 1990 classic Amongst Women, which was nominated for the Booker Prize. Considered one of the most important writers of the latter half of the last century, McGahern won numerous awards for his work, which explored the repression and poverty of rural Ireland. His last novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, published in 2002, is by contrast a more conciliatory read, focusing on the beauty of the countryside of his native Co. Leitrim.

If repression and unease pervades much of Irish literature in the first half of the 20th century, MAEVE BINCHY (1939-2012) provided buckets of sunshine, love and hope in the second half. Having studied History and worked at The Irish Times as Women’s Editor and London Editor, she gave up journalism to write a string of bestsellers that made her one of Ireland’s most-loved authors and also, possibly, its richest. Her 1982 book, Light a Penny Candle, sold for a then record sum for a first novel (£52,000) and her novels were translated into over 40 languages.

Journalist, TV producer, memoirist and novelist NUALA O’FAOLÁIN (1940- 2008) was an Irish Times columnist who shot to fame with her 1996 autobiography Are You Somebody? in which she chronicled a hard childhood as one of nine children of a social diarist known as Terry O who swanked around Dublin while his family went without. The candid revelation of her longterm relationship with journalist Nell McCafferty also caused ripples and the book became an instant classic.

From Sligo, to UCD, to RTÉ to Hollywood neatly sums up Oscar-winning NEIL JORDAN (1950- ) who has run parallel careers as a film-maker and a writer. A graduate in History and English, his first book Night in Tunisia,1976, won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. While working for RTÉ he wrote storylines for the children’s programme Wanderly Wagon. His award-winning screenplays and adaptations include Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, Michael Collins, The Butcher Boy and The End of The Affair. His latest book is The Ballad of Lord Edward and Citizen Small.

Monaghan-born EVELYN CONLON (1952- ) attended UCD as a teenager before heading to Australia in 1972, returning to Ireland overland, by bus, three years later. An early winner of the New Irish Writing competition, she has produced four novels and several collections of short stories, including her latest, Moving Around The Place, which imagines characters dealing with life in different parts of the world.

Donegal playwright, poet, novelist and scriptwriter FRANK MCGUINNESS (1953- ) studied English at UCD and not long after his graduation in 1974 had his first great stage hit, the acclaimed Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme. His other plays include The Factory Girls, Innocence, Carthaginians, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Dolly West’s Kitchen and many more. His adaptations of classic plays include Lorca’s Yerma; Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya; Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera and dramatisations of James Joyce’s The Dead and Du Maurier’s Rebecca. His first novel, Arimathea, was published by Brandon/O’Brien Press in 2013. He lectured at several universities before returning to UCD in 1997 as lecturer in English and Creative Writing. He is a holder of the UCD Ulysses Medal, the highest honour the University can bestow.

EILÍS NÍ DHUIBHNE (1954-) studied English and Folklore at UCD and is one of the country’s most gifted teachers of creative writing, as well as being president of the Folklore of Ireland Society. She has written several novels in both Irish and English, as well as children’s stories and superb short story collections, including The Pale Gold of Alaska and The Shelter of Neighbours, as well as several plays and the memoir Twelve Thousand Days (2018).

COLM TÓIBÍN, (1955- ) graduated from UCD in 1975 and during the early 1980s worked as a journalist and edited Magill magazine. He lived for a time in Spain, an experience that produced an early bestselling novel, The South. A string of books set in his native Wexford, including The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship, further established him as a writer but it was the 2009 publication of Brooklyn and the subsequent movie starring Saoirse Ronan that turbo-charged his reputation. His tenth novel, The Magician, on the life of Thomas Mann, will be published in September 2021.

English and Geography were RODDY DOYLE’S (1958-) chosen subjects at UCD. In 1982, after a stint as a teacher, he lived briefly in London in a bedsit, writing a novel he later described as “shite”. Several notebooks later, he had two novels under his belt, but, tired of rejections, he decided to self-publish his next novel in 1987: The Commitments. The book was picked up by a UK publisher and Doyle achieved fame in 1991 when director Alan Parker made it into a film showing a gritty, exuberant side of Dublin that chimed with a euphoria generated by Italia 1990. Two of his other books that make up the Barrytown trilogy, The Van (1991) and The Snapper (1993), were also adapted for cinema. In 1993, Roddy Doyle was awarded the Booker Prize for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. His latest novel, Love, which recounts the story of two old friends reliving their youth and loves, while on a pub crawl around Dublin, was released in 2020.

An early encounter with Seamus Heaney, who came to talk to her class about poetry, inspired MARITA CONLONMCKENNA (1956-) with the notion that even ordinary seeming people could write, and as a young mother she attended writing classes in UCD under the tutelage of Dr Pat Donlon, who later became the director of the National Library. It was Donlon who launched Conlon-McKenna’s debut book for children, Under The Hawthorn Tree, the first in what would become The Children of the Famine series. In all, Conlon-McKenna has written over 20 books for children and has also written bestselling adult fiction inspired by the Famine and the fate of young Irish women in the Magdalen laundries.

EAMON DELANEY (1962-) joined the diplomatic service and served Ireland and later became a full-time writer. His 1995 novel, The Casting of Mr O’Shaughnessy was a curiosity recalling what became known as the O’Shaugnessy Hoax. In 1986, Delaney applied for a government pension to be granted to one Cornelius O’Shaughnessy on the basis of his participation in the Irish War of Independence. Singer Gavin Friday lent Delaney the name and service details of his own grandfather, an actual veteran of 1921, to make the application seem real, and the application was eventually granted after Charles Haughey intervened. Delaney confessed to the hoax before any pension payments were made. His 2001 account of his eight years as a diplomat, An Accidental Diplomat, was a bestseller, praised for its wicked wit. In 2009, after a stint as editor of Magill magazine, he published a book about his late father, the renowned sculptor and painter Edward Delaney.

Novelist, broadcaster, and brother to Sinéad O’Connor, JOSEPH O’CONNOR (1963- ) worked as a part-time journalist while studying at UCD, but his editor at the time, Vincent Browne, told him he would not make a great journalist because he was a writer. So he wrote novels, the first being Cowboys and Indians (1991), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. The winner of multiple awards, including the Irish PEN award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature, O’Connor is a member of Aosdána and a founder of the UL Frank McCourt Creative Writing summer school in New York.

MARIAN KEYES (1963-) is one of Ireland’s most popular writers of all time, with over 35 million books sold worldwide. Having studied Law at UCD she moved to London in the mid-1980s but bouts of depression and alcoholism threatened to derail her. After treatment, she found solace in writing and her first novel, Watermelon, was an instant hit. Sixteen novels followed, including her latest, Grown Ups. She has also written several non-fiction books, including a cookbook, Saved by Cake.

Described as “a giant of letters” by Time magazine, EMMA DONOGHUE (1969-) graduated in 1990 with a first-class degree in English and French, and then received a PhD from Cambridge in 1997. Her first novel, Stir Fry, was set in Dublin before the boom, and was followed by two further novels and a host of short stories published in Granta, The Lady, New Statesman and many other journals. Her 2010 novel Room, a finalist for the Man Booker prize, picked up many international awards and was made into a film, for which she wrote the screenplay. Directed by Lenny Abrahamson, it went on to win the Best Actress Academy Award for Brie Larson and an IFTA award for best film.

With a BA in Greek and Roman Civilisation and a master’s degree in Film Studies, JOHN BUTLER (1972-) is an IFTA-nominated director and a novelist. Films based on his books are Handsome Devil (2016) and The Stag (2013), and he is also the author of the novel The Tenderloin (2011).

HELEN CULLEN (1981-) followed her degree in Theatre Studies at UCD with a seven- year stint working at RTÉ before moving to London to write full time. Her debut novel The Lost Letters of William Woolf was published to critical acclaim in 2018 and her second novel, The Truth Must Dazzle, is out now.

HENRIETTA MCKERVEY (1970-), a graduate of the MFA programme in Creative Writing in UCD, hails from Belfast, and lives in Dublin. A winner of the Hennessy New Irish Writing First Fiction Award in 2015, her fourth book, A Talented Man, was published last year by Hachette. She has directed the programme for the Echoes Festival, which celebrates Maeve Binchy.

KEVIN POWER (1981-) completed BA, MA and PhD studies in UCD and went on to write a hugely successful first novel, Bad Day in Blackrock, just as the Irish economy collapsed in 2008. The book scooped a Hennessy New Irish Writing Award as well as the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. It was translated into several languages and was made into a film directed by Lenny Abrahamson, called What Richard Did (2012). Power spent some years working out what to do next while honing his writing skills with stories and essays. His latest novel, White City, came out earlier this year.

COLIN BARRETT (1982-), a 2014 graduate of the MA in Creative Writing, was showered in prizes for his debut collection of short stories, Young Skins, which was awarded the Rooney Prize, The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and The Guardian First Book Award. His stories have appeared in The Stinging Fly and The New Yorker.

With his hit debut novel, Diving for Pearls, published earlier this year, JAMIE O’CONNELL (1985-) credits teachers Éilis NI Dhuibhne, James Ryan and Paul Perry for helping him hone his writing skills on the creative writing course at UCD – a course that also led to him being signed by the prestigious Marianne Gunn O’Connor agency. Set in Dubai, it’s a tightly written, elegant book about six people living very different lives in the glittering but strange city. O’Connell, who spent time as a Jehovah’s Witness in his 20s, and several years working in the book trade, now lives in Kenmare and is teaching creative writing classes himself – back at UCD.

EMILY HOURICAN (1971-) was born in Belfast and grew up in Brussels before moving to Dublin in 1990, where she completed BA and MA studies in UCD. She is the author of one non-fiction book about motherhood, and five novels, the most recent published in September 2020, called The Glorious Guinness Girls. It was nominated for the Best Popular Fiction Awards at the 2020 Irish Book Awards. In 2015, Hourican was diagnosed with mouth cancer and documented her experience in a series of candid diaries published in The Sunday Independent.

ANNE GRIFFIN (1969-), an alumna with a BA in History and MA in Creative Writing, was honoured with the John McGahern Award for Literature from Roscommon Council in 2017, in recognition of her short story works and her pursuit of a career as a novelist. In 2019, she published her debut novel When All Is Said and was subsequently awarded Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Her second novel, Listening Still, was published in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand in April 2021. It is due for release in the US and Canada in early 2022.

Cork-based writer DISHA BOSE (1990-)will see her book Dirty Laundry released in Ireland, the UK and the US in early 2023. Described as “domestic noir” exploring the dark side of suburbia, the work tells the story of three women whose secrets and lies lead to one of their murders. Born in India, and living in Ireland for the past six years, Bose worked in the tech industry before undertaking a master’s degree in Creative Writing where she was mentored by award-winning writer Anne Enright.

■ Find out more about Irish writers at MoLI, the Museum of Literature Ireland established by UCD and the National Library of Ireland, which offers year-round exhibitions and the NLI’s Joyce collections. See www.moli.ie

THIS YEAR HAS been extraordinary, for the most part for all the wrong reasons. However, as we reflect on Tokyo 2020 in 2021, the number of UCD alumni, including Ad Astra Scholars and Sport Scholars, who competed in this year’s Olympics and (as we go to press) are about to compete in the Paralympics, is indeed, extraordinary. Four UCD students and 22 alumni represented Ireland at the Olympics, and three alumni will compete at the Paralympics. Accompanying the athletes in hockey, athletics and the Paralympics were a further three UCD alumni support staff. Watching the games there were former UCD sports stars and indeed former alumni Olympians – Derval O’Rourke, David Matthews and Earl McCarthy – providing punditry in front of the cameras. Behind the scenes, alumna Dr Marie Elaine Grant has been the lead physiotherapist for the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission for the past three Olympic Games, leading over 700 physiotherapists at each Games.

The women’s hockey team captured the hearts and minds of the nation when against all odds they claimed a silver medal in the Hockey World Cup in London in 2018.

Tokyo did not go as the team had hoped, with losses to the Netherlands, Germany and India before finally bowing out after a 2-0 defeat to Great Britain in their final Pool A clash. UCD students Sarah McAuley, Hannah McLoughlin and Michelle Carey were part of the team along with UCD alumni Katie Mullan (Captain), Deirdre Duke, Anna O’Flanagan, Lena Tice and Chloe Watkins. The Irish team manager was UCD graduate and UCD first team coach, Lisa Jacob. Another Olympic debutant team to make headlines were the Irish Rugby 7’s. Anthony Eddy’s side created history on a magical evening for Irish rugby at the Stade Louis II with victory over France in the final of the World Rugby Sevens Repechage. This win secured the twelfth and final place in the Men’s 7’s competition in Tokyo. The team’s Olympic campaign proved disappointing, with losses to South Africa and USA, and eventually a defeat to Kenya in the ninth/tenth place playoff. The Irish Men’s 7’s panel featured eight UCD alumni including UCD Clubmen Billy Dardis (Captain), Harry McNulty and Gavin Mullin with their fellow alumni teammates including Foster Horan, Terry Kennedy, Bryan Mollen and the veteran 7’s player, Ian Fitzpatrick.

In this centenary year of UCD Athletics Club (see page 54) it’s interesting to note that the Club has produced more Olympians and World Championship competitors than any other UCD sports club. Past Club members include two-time Olympian James Nolan, Derval O’Rourke, David Matthews, Deirdre Ryan, Joanne Cuddihy and Ciara Everard. This year, former UCD Athletic Club athletes Ciara Mageean and Mark English were two of the few returning competitors for Team Ireland at Tokyo.

Mark English qualified as a doctor in 2019 and, prior to the postponement of Tokyo, was completing his internship in Dublin’s Mater Misericordiae Hospital. His coach, Feidhlim Kelly, a UCD BSc Sport and Exercise Management alumnus, now considered one of the best athletics coaches in Ireland, producing three Olympians for Tokyo, was appointed middle distance coach to Team Ireland.

June 29 2021 was the cut-off date to achieve qualification for Tokyo. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, English travelled to Spain and, on that exact date, clocked a time of 1:44.70. Not only was this PB good enough to qualify for Tokyo, but English shaved 0.11 off the longstanding Irish record held by two-time Olympian and fellow UCD graduate David Matthews, who ran 1:44.82 in Rieti in September 1995.

At Tokyo, admittedly in the form of his life, things just didn’t go according to plan for English. He simply left himself with too much to do in the final 100m, his hopes of advancing ending after he finished fourth in a time of 1:46.75. “Coming into the year my two goals were to qualify for the Olympics and get a new Irish record and I did that. To ask for anything else was always going to be a bonus,” said English.

Physiotherapist Ciara Mageean, a European medallist and national record holder, finished tenth in her heat in a time of 4:07.29, failing to qualify for the Olympic final. After the race, Mageean revealed she had torn her calf muscle the week before.

Fellow Physiotherapy alumna Sarah Lavin had many hurdles to overcome in the lead-up to the Games. Having ruptured two ligaments in her ankle, Lavin saw the pandemic postponement of the Olympics as an opportunity. She became only the second Irish woman ever to break the 13-second barrier in the 100m Hurdles at the World Athletics Continental Tour silver meeting in Madrid, quite a confidence boost pre-Tokyo. Lavin finished seventh in her heat in 13.16 seconds, and unfortunately did not progress through to the semi-finals.

At 20, UCD Law student Sarah Healy was one of the youngest members of Team Ireland. She finished eleventh in her 1500m heat in 4:09.78. In sailing, former UCD student Annalise Murphy finished 18th overall after ten races. The Rio silver medallist said she was “looking forward to a normal life” after more than twelve years spent chasing her dreams.

The growth in rowing was a standout feature of this Olympics. Looking back to London in 2012, Sanita Puspure was Ireland’s only representative at Dorney Lake. In 2021, she was one of 13 rowers competing for Ireland. Fast forward to 2015 and the O’Donovans, Paul (a UCD Physiotherapy student) and Gary, earned their Olympic spot in Rio with an eleventh place finish at the 2015 World Championships. As the 2016 Olympics approached, they won gold at the European and then went on to win Irish rowing’s first-ever Olympic medal. Paul O’Donovan continued to dominate lightweight rowing after Rio. Then, in Tokyo, with Fintan McCarthy replacing brother Gary in the powerhouse Irish lightweight double, they entered the games as red-hot favourites and didn’t disappoint. They stormed to victory to win Ireland’s first-ever gold medal in Olympic rowing.

Women’s rowing wasn’t part of the Olympics until 1976 and Rio 2016 saw the first-ever women’s lightweight double of UCD graduate Claire Lambe and Sinead Lynch make the final, finishing sixth. Claire is, of course, the elder sister of Eimear Lambe who, with teammates Aifric Keogh, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty, are now Olympic bronze medallists.

All four only came together in the same boat for the first time six months ago, earning their roles during national trials in March. Despite winning a silver medal at the European Championships in April, they didn’t qualify for Tokyo until the last chance saloon that was the Lucerne Regatta in May. Aileen Crowley took strongly to rowing while studying architecture in UCD and, along with Monika Dukarska, qualified the Irish women’s pair for Tokyo at the 2019 World Rowing Championships in Linz, Austria. After a great start to Tokyo, they had to settle for a fifth place finish in their B final.

Longford’s Darragh Greene became the first Irish swimmer to qualify for Tokyo in 2019 when he qualified for the 100m breaststroke at the 2019 FINA World Championships, clocking 59.82 in Gwanju. Unfortunately, he missed out in his bid to qualify for the semi-finals of the men’s 100m and 200m breaststroke. Greene closed out his first Olympics with 2:11.09 and seventh place in the heat in 200m breaststroke. He finishes 23rd overall, adding to the 29th in the 100m breaststroke.

Last but by no means least, British Open Champion Shane Lowry teamed up with Rory McIlroy in what was certainly an excellent chance at a medal in golf. Lowry, a former UCD Sports Scholar, had a number of good starting rounds but a disappointing finish saw him slip down the board into 22nd place.

The calibre of the UCD students and alumni who competed at Tokyo 2020 in 2021 is testament to the support of their families, coaches and friends, and to how UCD’s world-class structures, people and processes help these world-class athletes on their journey.

UCD ALUMNI AT TOKYO 2020

PARALYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020

Among the 29 para-athletes competing in Tokyo, UCD alumni Colin Judge, Patrick Flanagan and Kerrie Leonard will fly the flag in their respective sports.

Colin Judge (Actuary & Financial Studies 2017) was table tennis European champion in 2017 after narrowly missing out on the Rio Paralympics by just one place the year before. He is also five-time Irish National champion and was ranked number one in the world at U23 level in his class. Having missed out on automatic qualification at the World Qualification Tournament event in Slovenia, he was announced as one of the wild card athletes. A former Ad Astra Elite Sports Scholar, he took a two-year sabbatical from his work as an actuarial analyst with KPMG to concentrate on Japan.

Judge’s fellow Ad Astra alumnus Patrick Flanagan hails from Longford Swim club, the same club as Darragh Greene. Graduating from Economics and Finance this year, Flanagan won several medals at the European Para Youth Games in 2015 before making his senior international debut three years later at the 2018 Para Swimming European Championships in Dublin. The following year he went on to represent Ireland at the 2019 Para Swimming World Championships in London. Flanagan achieved the qualification time for Tokyo in January 2021 but, with a limited number of places available and with others also achieving the time, it was a nervous wait until the official team announcement.

Irish teammate, archer Kerrie Leonard, like Judge, missed out on Rio by the smallest of margins. She graduated from UCD with a master’s degree in Marketing in 2019. Finishing fifth in the final qualifier for Tokyo in the Czech Republic, she was selected in the Para-Archery Individual Compound Open category.

Irish Para Athletics team manager James Nolan, the former UCD sports scholarship student, is now the UCD athletics high-performance coach. A two-time Olympian, Nolan was one of Ireland’s best mid-distance runners in the 1990s and 2000s. He has presided at eleven major Championships, including WPA European and World Championships and Paralympics.

■ www.ucd.ie/sport/scholarships

IN 2007, WHEN the University took its final leave of Earlsfort Terrace, as the last staff and students moved to Belfield, we organised a Farewell to the Terrace festival that included a garden party in the Iveagh Gardens for 5,000 alumni and friends of UCD. So, we thought, if the Earlsfort Terrace graduates could enjoy such a reunion celebration, then so too should the generations who stepped off the Number 10 bus, stomped at gigs in the restaurant, played Superleague on the far fields, sweated in the library, saw the cherry blossom come into bloom each April, cheered at debates and queued for the annual screening of The Life of Brian.

Belfield 50 was planned as a celebration for the generations of students and staff who breathed life into the campus over the five decades since the main body of faculties and administration moved to Belfield in 1970.

The COVID-19 lockdown forced us to pivot from campus events and gatherings to outdoor exhibitions, publications and online events. With the support of Professor Orla Feely, Vice-President for Research, the Belfield 50 team – Dr Ellen Rowley, Mary Staunton and myself – set about delivering some of the legacy projects that would mark the 50th milestone and to progress other projects that will take place in person later in the year.

CONVEYING SPACE EXHIBITION

Belfield became a very quiet place from March 13 2020 as its daily population shrank. In early summer, we called on photographer Daniel Holfeld to spend time on campus and create an exhibition Conveying Space to capture the atmosphere of the architecture in Belfield. An exhibition of 19 photographs were displayed by the lake between the Newman and Tierney buildings, from September 2020 to March 2021.

Working under cloudless skies with the sunlight casting strong angular shadows, Holfeld’s images focus on tightly cropped details of building structures to create stunning works of art in black and white that illuminate the subtleties of UCD’s iconic architecture.

SHAPING BELFIELD

With RTÉ producer Sarah Binchy (BA 1994), we chose voices from different decades for a special “Belfield Days” edition of RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany, including those of Éilís Ní Dhuibhne (BA 1974, MPhil 1976, PhD 1982), Gerry Stembridge (BA 1979, MA 1980, HDipEd 1981), Professor of History at UCD Paul Rouse (BA 1990, MA 1992, PhD 2001) and Daisy Onubogu (BCL European 2015). Watch Shaping Belfield on our UCD YouTube channel.

MAKING BELFIELD: SPACE AND PLACE

Architectural historian Dr Ellen Rowley, UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy co-authored, with Professor Finola O’Kane Crimmins, Making Belfield: Space and Place at UCD. It examines the architecture of the campus, chronicles and contextualises the steps involved in the move to Belfield, touches on some of the treasures in the Belfield collections, and looks to the future of Belfield’s changing landscape.

TIMELINE EXHIBITION

Originally developed as part of a practical module for architecture and engineering students. Ellen and Tiago Faria encouraged the students to create and build a beautiful structure for the lower ground floor in the restaurant that included video booths and a rising portrait wall that was punctuated with natural light.

With lockdown the physical exhibition was put into storage and architecture student Aisling Mulligan designed a doublesided graphic set into the windows so that visitors to campus could enjoy it from outside the building. The Timeline Exhibition reflects the evolution of Belfield, from the turning of the sod on September 29 1970, to the vision for Future Campus and the Centre for Creativity, currently under construction. To go with the Timeline Exhibition, Dr Rowley produced a short film, Shaping Belfield, which tells the story of the architectural development of Belfield from its early use by the University to Future Campus. Learn more: https://www.ucdbelfield50.com/exhibition/

In 1970, the President of UCD, Dr Jeremiah J Hogan, said: “The opening of this new building … is a capital occasion in the history of University College. We shall now have between seven and eight thousand students here at Belfield, while about 3,000 remain at our various older centres. The greater part of the College will be here and it is a matter of time until all is here …” Fifty years on, Belfield is its own world – come on in and spend a while …

■ For details of all Belfield 50 events and exhibitions, visit www.ucdbelfield50.com

Boyle: An’, as it blowed an’ blowed, I often looked up at the sky an’ assed meself the question: What is the stars? What is the stars?
Joxer: Ah, that’s the question, that’s the question: what is the stars?

THE LONG-SUFFERING Juno didn’t have much time for the philosophising of her ne’er-do-well ‘Paycock’, but in fact, the Paycock was giving voice to a question that has motivated Irish women and men for at least 5,000 years. Brú na Bóinne – Ireland’s Valley of the Kings – is dramatic testament to a civilisation that looked skyward and mobilised its society towards creating what may very well be the oldest astronomical observatories in the world.

By the time “Juno and the Paycock” was first staged in 1924, Irish astronomers had been at the forefront of a revolution in astronomy that spanned the Victorian era and into the 20th century, so much so that it was an Irish astronomer who answered Boyle’s question just four years later in 1928: The legendary Sir William ‘Bill’ McCrea, from Ranelagh in Dublin, was one of the first to demonstrate that the sun and stars were made of gas – not iron as most people supposed.

“We have an amazing tradition of brilliant astronomy in Ireland,” observes Professor Lorraine Hanlon, Director of the UCD Centre for Space Research (C-Space), “and to this day we have a very active space and astronomy community.” It is that remarkable heritage – and the huge future potential – that inspired the creation of C-Space in 2020 as a University-wide Academic Centre for space-related research, innovation and education.

C-SPACE

The UCD Centre for Space Research (C-Space) was established in March 2020 and publicly launched on December 15 2020. More than 15 academic staff from five Schools in UCD are involved in this interdisciplinary research centre dedicated to space. The School of Physics plays a leading role in several of the C-Space research themes, including gamma-ray detectors, astrophysics and nanosatellites and payloads.

Today’s space scientists and engineers at UCD are embarked on a vastly different enterprise from the pure research of their illustrious predecessors: “Our purpose is to build partnerships with researchers and innovators across Ireland who may not even realise that space data is relevant to their work, and we want to advance the use of space to address global scientific and societal challenges,” says Professor Hanlon. “We want to bring together the academic researchers with the innovation hubs, to foster an awareness that space isn’t something that just big countries do. We see higher education institutions as knowledge brokers for open innovation. Knowledge co-creation and innovation is fundamental going forward.”

C-Space’s goal is to help build collaborations across UCD, but also nationally and internationally, in furtherance of Ireland’s space ambitions. One obvious example is space-based monitoring of our planet, which has a significant part to play in building a healthy world through data secured
from satellite-based Earth Observation missions.

“Ireland has access to data from the European Union’s armada of Earth Observation satellites,” explains Dr Ronan Wall, the C-Space manager. “Our researchers are already working with these data and with data from other satellites in areas such as Agri-Science, Environmental Science, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Climate Modelling, Ecology, Smart Cities & Transport, Renewable Energy, Archaeology and Geography.”

Professor Hanlon adds: “C-Space aims to create a partnership between innovation and research, because a lot of the applications and benefits of space-based systems rely on actors who would not necessarily have seen themselves as space data users and they haven’t always been aware of the benefits of space data for their work.”

HISTORY

UCD researchers have been pioneers in space science and technology for decades, and the Engineering faculty was a very early innovator in the use of technology satellites. Led by Professor John J Kelly (later Dean of the Faculty of Engineering), a UCD team worked with NASA to use the world’s first direct-broadcasting satellite (think of your Sky dish) for a revolutionary programme of lectures beamed directly to students in the Middle East. SHARE (Satellite Help for Rural Education) was officially launched in the late 1970’s by Uachtarán na hÉireann Patrick Hillery and Crown Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan.

“We are immensely proud of this pioneering initiative,” said Emeritus Professor Kelly, “and visitors to the Engineering Building can still see a letter of thanks from the Crown Prince displayed on the wall.” Decades later, UCD’s links with the Middle East remain strong, thanks in part to the satellite-based learning programme, which continues to this day. In the summer of 2021, former President Mary McAleese followed in the footsteps of Dr Hillery and participated in a satellite link-up from Belfield to Bethlehem University. “It was a wonderful event,” said Professor Kelly, “and we are very keen for more people to know about this enormously valuable innovation using space technology.” UCD has also been a world leader for many decades in the development of space technology for high-energy physics research – delving into some of the most violent events in the universe. Starting in the 1960s, the legendary Neil Porter (Professor of Electron Physics) inspired generations of UCD students with his work on gamma rays. Gamma ray bursts appear to be generated in vast cataclysmic explosions, releasing in 20 seconds as much energy as our sun will produce in its entire lifetime. His work was referenced by Professor Stephen Hawking in his famous book A Short History of Time, and the much-loved UCD professor was described in the French version of Hawking’s book as the ‘savant irlandais’!

Neil Porter will forever be remembered as the man who established gamma ray astronomy in Ireland and his students have gone on to bring enormous credit to UCD and to Ireland. The late Trevor Weekes became famous in world astronomy as the architect of the VERITAS telescope array in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, south of Tucson. VERITAS stands for Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System. “The types of things we look for are pathological — stars that have exploded, the centres of galaxies where massive black holes are accreting matter,” Trevor once told me. “We are looking at energies and conditions that cannot be duplicated on Earth.” Throughout his career, Trevor Weekes devoted considerable time and effort to helping young UCD researchers and he is remembered with great affection by all who knew this gentle, humble and brilliant man. His colleagues in the United States preserve his memory through regular academic meetings which they call ‘TrevorFests’.

Another Neil Porter protegé at UCD, Professor George Miley, went on to pioneer a vast European radio-telescope network called LOFAR (Low Frequency Array), and had a leadership role with the joint US/Europe Hubble Space Telescope project. Professor Miley suggested LOFAR in 1997, and construction across Europe had begun by 2006. Ireland’s newest radio-telescope, iLOFAR, is part of the network and is located at Birr Castle in Co. Offaly. “It is fantastic that it has become a reality now and that it is actually being built,” says Professor Miley. “The project has become much more ambitious than my original plan. I’m a bit proud, I have to confess.”

Professor Miley concludes: “Astronomy is linked to cutting-edge technologies, fundamental science and the most profound culture, so it can be a unique tool for development throughout the world. Fanaticism and nationalism are put into perspective when you show young children how small our world is compared to the universe.”

George Miley served as director of Leiden Observatory from 1996 to 2003 and in 2012 he was made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, one of the country’s most prestigious awards, in recognition of his many years of service at the University of Leiden. As C-Space embarks on its ambitious programme, it is clear that they are standing on the shoulders of giants: Every aspect of the work of C-Space is touched in some way by UCD’s rich legacy of space research and innovation dating back all the way to the 1960’s.

“We aim to carry out excellent space-related fundamental and applied interdisciplinary research,” explains C-Space Manager Dr Ronan Wall. “We want to be a key national resource for space expertise and we would hope to inform and support national space policy development and implementation.” C-Space plans to achieve this by fostering industry/academic partnerships and collaborations, and by providing education and training which is relevant to both the creators of space hardware and satellites and those who will use the products of those satellites to provide services and new scientific insights. “A lot of really excellent work is already being done in faculties across UCD,” says Dr Wall, “but we hope to be a catalyst for even greater co-operation across disciplines.”

C-Space has identified six broad areas where it hopes to co-ordinate existing work and undertake internationally significant research of its own: ground- and space-based astrophysics, earth observation, gamma-ray detectors, space structure dynamics and control, space materials, and nanosatellites and payloads.

A CAREER IN SPACE

In addition, of course, C-Space has an important role in UCD’s mission to educate upcoming generations (and life-long learners). It is an interdisciplinary centre, with several constituent Schools, and each of them offer undergraduate and graduate study opportunities in space and space-relevant subjects. Most notable is the MSc in Space Science and Technology, which was established a decade ago after it became clear that Ireland’s fledgling space industry had a need for graduates who already had a broad range of skills relevant to the space sector and who would not require extensive training to slot into existing industry teams.

“This course is the perfect fit for anyone looking to get the best start towards a space-focused career,” explains Katelin Smith, who graduated from the programme in 2018. “Coming from a primarily physics background, this course exposed me to the engineering and design aspects of the space industry. A major highlight of the masters was the mission design field trip to Tenerife. Getting to design an entire space mission in an international team was an amazing experience.”

Another masters student, Meadhbh Griffin, actually got to work on a European Space Agency satellite project while she was on the course, and the mission she worked on was launched into space in the summer of 2021. “I’ve been hugely lucky to get a chance to work on something that will actually be going into orbit,” says Griffin. “Working on flight software means you’re thinking about what you’re doing the entire time, because there is no room for error.” Adding to the challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic meant she had to do much of her software writing and testing remotely, using a laptop with replica boards attached.

EIRSAT-1 PROJECT

But the space mission that Griffin and her colleagues have been most focused upon, and the one that will grab all the headlines in the coming years, is UCD’s own earth-orbiting spacecraft and Ireland’s first satellite: EIRSAT-1, the Educational Irish Research Satellite 1.
In addition to making history, UCD science and engineering students now have the opportunity to develop key skills that are much in demand in space research and the space industry. When it is completed, EIRSAT-1 will carry three experiments into Low Earth Orbit (about 400km above the Earth) aboard a small ‘cubesat’, a miniature spacecraft about the size of a one-litre carton of milk. Despite its small size, EIRSAT-1 promises to make real advances in gamma-ray astrophysics, advanced thermal materials and spacecraft control, and it will test out a unique Antenna Deployment Module which, like all the other experiments, has been developed in-house at UCD.

“All other full members of the European Space Agency already have their own satellites,” observes Dr Wall. “We need to keep pace in this fast-growing area to support Irish industry and research, and this project will build up full spacecraft systems and science payload capability in Ireland for the first time.”

David Murphy, a postdoctoral researcher at UCD and the Systems Engineer on EIRSAT-1, explains: “The most satisfying part of working on EIRSAT-1 is that it has brought together a large team of really dedicated students from across the University that are all focused on working together to turn our individual research topics into something that’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

Rachel Dunwoody is a PhD student who is funded by the Irish Research Council (one of eight IRC-funded students on the project). She is a member of the gamma-ray detector team and is also part of the overall flight operations team: “It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be on a student-led team that is developing the first Irish satellite. I never imagined I would get this amazing experience so early on in my career,” says Dunwoody.

SPACE AND THE PUBLIC

The EIRSAT-1 project is carried out with the support of the Education Office of the ESA, under the agency’s “Fly your Satellite!” Programme. As a result the staff and students are fully committed to using this historic project as a means of educating people in Ireland about the benefits of space research.

“One particular aspect of the project that I enjoy is the opportunity to share the groundbreaking story of Ireland’s first satellite with the public,” says Lána Salmon, an IRC-funded final year PhD student who leads the EIRSAT-1 outreach activities. She is also a member of the communications team, who works to ensure two-way communications between the ground and the satellite. “Space is engaging for kids and adults alike, and the talks, events and school visits have allowed me to contribute to the project through an activity that I really enjoy.”

Salmon and her colleagues on the communications team have been in close contact with Ireland’s large amateur radio community as they develop the communications system for EIRSAT-1. A dedicated antenna system has been installed on the roof of the Physics Building in Belfield and the team hope to be in contact with their spacecraft two or three times a day once it is in orbit.

“We had to put together a lot of new skill-sets and one of those was communicating with an orbiting satellite,” explains David Murphy. “It has not been the easiest! We always knew we would have to link up with the amateur radio community and I have to say that we have already been getting some fantastic help from them.”

Thanks to this new collaboration between UCD and the radio amateurs, plans are already afoot to allow people across the country to tune in to Ireland’s very own satellite after it is launched sometime in the next several years. UCD alumni who want to take an even more active part in this historic initiative and the public excitement that it is already generating should contact Dr Ronan Wall by email at space@ucd.ie or Jordan Campbell, UCD Foundation at info@ucdfoundation.ie.

EIRSAT-1 is likely too small to be seen in the night sky, but if all goes well it may be in orbit in time for the 100th anniversary of Captain Jack Boyle first asking his famous question on the Abbey stage in 1924. He and Joxer Daly might look up at the sky again an’ ass themselves the question: “What is that new star? What is that new star?”

VACCINE SUPPLY

Vaccelerate is an EU-funded pan-European clinical research network for the coordination and conduct of COVID-19 vaccine trials. Leading the Irish involvement is Professor Paddy Mallon, an expert in infectious diseases and the director of UCD Centre for Experimental Pathogen Host Research (CEPHR). Its aim is to help Europe be better prepared for any future pandemics by offering expertise, services, resources and solutions to speed up vaccine development, strategies and market authorisation.

“The funding award to UCD under Vaccelerate recognises the considerable research undertaken by the University and CEPHR in developing and validating new assays to be used in vaccine trials as well as providing laboratory capacity to this important European network,” says Professor Mallon.

NOT SO BATS

Bats are the focus of LongHealth, a study by Professor Emma Teeling of UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science, who is looking into why bats don’t age. Bats may be the starting point, but the research has relevance for human ageing: Professor Teeling was awarded €988,000 to fund her five-year project into the molecular basis and regulation of longer health span in mammals.

“Ageing is the biggest threat to human health globally, as people everywhere are living longer,” she says. “As the cost of caring for the elderly threatens to overwhelm healthcare infrastructures and disrupt society, we must find solutions to our ageing problem. Bats have naturally evolved the longest healthspan in mammals, showing little signs of ageing. LongHealth will uncover the molecular mechanisms that bats use to regulate their longer health span and will identify which bat ‘anti-ageing’ process is most likely to extend human health spans.”

VITAL STIMULATION

Parkinson’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting over six million people worldwide. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), which works through an electrode implanted in the brain, is sometimes used to calm the symptoms. However, some aspects of this treatment need improvement to maximise efficacy and reduce side-effects.

Professor Madeleine Lowery of UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering has been awarded funding by the European Research Council to study DBS in more detail. Her team is developing a computer model of the neuromuscular system that shows how the DBS electrode is affecting surrounding brain tissue and the muscles it controls.

Understanding these characteristics will help clinicians decide on the most effective ‘dosages’ of DBS and the ultimate aim is to develop ‘smart’ DBS that can work out the correct levels of timely stimulation for itself. This will help prolong the electrode’s battery life and minimise the need for invasive surgery to replace it.

INCLUSIVE HEALTH MARKETS

How markets are organised and how they might be improved are key areas of research for UCD Professor of Marketing and Market Studies, Susi Geiger. For her five-year European Research Council-funded project, Misfires, Professor Geiger is turning her attention to healthcare and specifically to systemic market failures such as overpricing, access, and issues around how health data is handled.

“The objective is to guide new academic and policy thinking by establishing what research can do to make markets more inclusive and open them up to the concerns of those who are let down by them,” says Professor Geiger, who believes that widening the collaborative base is germane to solving these complex problems.

Ultimately, Misfires aims to look beyond industry influence and government regulation to other market actors, such as activists, patient groups and non-governmental organisations, to address these market failures.

AI FOR FINDING CANCER

Early diagnosis is critical to good outcomes when treating disease and one of the most promising methodologies now emerging to speed up the process is combining the dual powerhouses of medical research and artificial intelligence. iPATH-CAN, a joint project by UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, the digital pathology company Deciphex and NovaUCD diagnostics company OncoMark, is harnessing AI to develop a tool that will identify early-stage breast and prostate cancers.

Professor William Gallagher of UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science says the three-year, €3m project, funded under the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund, builds on the substantial foundation of translational cancer research that has taken place at UCD over many years.

3-D IMAGING OF DISEASE

CoCID (Compact Cell Imaging Device) is a four-year, €5.7m pan-European research project investigating the cellular origins of disease. Coordinated by Assistant Professor Nicola Fletcher at UCD School of Veterinary Medicine, the project’s aim is to develop a laboratory-scale, soft X-ray microscope that will enable fast and inexpensive three-dimensional imaging of complete internal structures of intact biological cells. This will be used by scientists to better understand the disease pathways of viruses and to assist in the development of novel therapeutics.

TREATING LUNG CANCER

Lung cancer is a leading cause of death, yet there is still a lack of effective treatments to tackle the disease. Dr Rory Johnson of UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science is addressing this unmet clinical need with a project aimed at developing new therapies for lung cancer, using the latest genomic technologies.

Johnson’s aim is to discover new types of genes that promote lung cancer, and to develop drugs that inhibit their activity and ultimately kill the tumours. “This project depends on the latest CRISPRCas9 genome-engineering technology that allows one to delete genes from a cell’s DNA and test thousands of potential drug targets in a single experiment,” he says. Johnson’s research is being funded by SFI as part of its Future Research Leaders Award.

DIGITAL SURGERY

Colon and rectal cancers are the second most common major cancer in adults, and while early detection and advances in treatment mean more patients are being cured, clinicians are always looking for even better outcomes. Professor Ronan Cahill of UCD School of Medicine is a project leader on an innovative digital visualisation technology that will give surgeons more information about the extent and type of malignant tissue within seconds. This will help them make treatment decisions in real-time.

“Our method allows surgeons to ‘see’ the cancerous tissue and to distinguish it clearly from nearby normal tissue. This discovery has the potential to radically improve health outcomes,” Professor Cahill says. One of the key benefits of the technology, which is being funded under the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund, is that it is easy to deploy and uses software that allows surgeons to interpret the findings without having to develop further specialist knowledge.

LEARNING TO COPE FROM KIDS

The COVISION project, led by Assistant Professor Dr Suja Somanadhan of UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, aims to learn lessons from how children across the globe responded creatively to the pandemic and to use this as a basis for helping other children cope with the pandemic and its aftermath. The research is funded by the Health Research Board and the Irish Research Council and brings together a team of academics from Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Brazil, Canada, Scotland and the US.

OBESITY COMPLICATIONS

Obesity affects around 640 million people worldwide and health complications are common. Clinicians find it difficult to predict which patients are most at risk of developing complications. Professor Carel le Roux of UCD School of Medicine is the coordinator of a €16m international research consortium looking into the problem. SOPHIA (Stratification of Obese Phenotypes to Optimize Future Obesity Therapy) will focus on enabling healthcare professionals to identify which patients will develop complications and will respond best to treatment. The project is also examining the stigmatisation of obesity and how to change the way it is characterised in the media and society.

CULTURES OF CARE

Keeping older people well and at home for as long as possible is a key aim of the Government’s National Positive Ageing Strategy. Inter-agency and interprofessional teams are fundamental to the implementation of the Sláintecare programme. This will require a shift in cultures of care. The Eclectic project, led by Dr Deirdre O’Donnell, Assistant Professor of Health Systems at UCD, with the National Integrated Care Programme for Older People, will provide guidance on how inter-professional working can be achieved.

DIET AND IMMUNE TRAINING

Professor Helen Roche, director of the Conway Institute, is leading a five-year project on diet, immune training and metabolism, which has received funding of €1.3m from SFI, in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin.

Professor Roche’s area of research is nutrigenomics, which studies interactions between food and health from the genetic and mechanistic perspective. Diet and innate immune training are highly topical. During the pandemic, a clear link emerged between obesity and poor outcomes.

“As COVID-19 continued to spread, severe disease and mortality were observed in obese patients, but the relationship with diet goes beyond the adverse effects of obesity,” Professor Roche says. “Our work looks at how obesity and obesity-associated factors, such as dietary fats, suppress the innate immune response. On the other hand, we can also use nutrition to boost the immune response. The whole area of immuno-nutrition or ‘immune fitness’ is crucial in determining how someone responds to infection.”

PREGNANCY LIVING

Improving maternal and child health during pregnancy is the objective of the PEARS project led by Professor Fionnuala McAuliffe of UCD School of Medicine and the Perinatal Research Centre. PEARS – pregnancy, exercise and nutrition – supported by a specifically designed smartphone app called Hollestic (from Holles Street, the National Maternity Hospital, where the app was developed) helps women make good diet and lifestyle choices while pregnant.

PREGNANCY APP

Impact Diabetes B2B is a €4m EU-funded project on weight management during and after pregnancy. Dr Sharleen O’Reilly, who is based at UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, will lead the combined input from UCD School of Medicine, UCD Institute of Food and Health and UCD Perinatal Research Centre. Central to the project is Bump2Baby&Me, an app that helps mums manage their own health and encourages them to eat well and be active.

■ www.ucd.ie/research

A WORLD OF TROUBLE

We are pushing nature to its limit. We are pushing population to its limits. We are pushing communities to their limits. We are stressing the environment. We are creating the conditions in which epidemics flourish. We are forcing people to migrate away from their homes because of climate stress. We are in a world of trouble.

We have allowed viruses that originated in the animal world to sustain transmission in humans by the manner in which we live. Our fates are intertwined with the animals that serve us and sustain us. But if we look at infectious diseases over the last number of decades, 75 per cent originate from the animal kingdom. We are part of a very complex biome, an ecosystem that is delicately balanced. If we continue to keep affecting it negatively as we do, we drive disease emergence. We are serial offenders, continually creating opportunity after opportunity for viruses and bacteria to exploit new means of survival. We must work on building a healthier world by investing in the quality of our health systems, including those in the developed world that are weakest. We must address inequity in the distribution of medicines including vaccines. We need to maintain the issue of mismanagement of our environment on top of the political agenda. We need radical change and for radical change to be driven by the G7, the G20, the UN General Assembly and all governments.

For those of us in the academic, health and scientific communities, we have a responsibility. We must be scientists AND activists. Citizens must speak up. What threatens our future is an emerging disease that takes our children and our parents. While we are in the eye of the storm of this pandemic, we feel the urgency, we acknowledge the threat. But, once the immediate danger is removed, we have a great capacity to move on, to forget trauma and to go back to the old ways. My colleagues tell me I am an eternal optimist and I am eternally hopeful that we will keep the healthy world agenda on the table. If we don’t change now, when in god’s name will we?

– Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme, WHO

ONE HEALTH

The current pandemic highlights the intersection of human, animal and environmental health, as happened with HIV/AIDS and recent influenza pandemics. The tools for preparedness are the same: enhanced community, national and global surveillance; empowering and involving communities from the outset; and rapidity and agility in our collective response. Our response should always be underpinned by research and innovation, collaboration nationally and internationally and clear communication to the public. Pandemics have an impact beyond human health and therefore our response needs to be cross-sectoral given the short- and long-term impact on our society and our economy.

UCD plays a key role in leading on human and veterinary medical and scientific research that informs policy that promotes One Health in Ireland and beyond. Pandemics disproportionally impact on the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society. As a global university, our strong voices need to advocate for equity – without this, pandemics smoulder. Over the past 18 months, I have witnessed Ireland’s contribution to the scientific understanding of a pandemic, and the country’s ability to call on its diaspora and alumni to share knowledge, exchange ideas and collaborate in research and innovation, to rally together for the greater good of our society.

– Professor Mary Horgan, President, RCPI; Chair, NIAC

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Climate change has resulted in wildfires around the world.

Concern about the need to protect our environment has become central to every facet of our lives – social, economic and political – with a recent survey demonstrating that 87 per cent of adults in Ireland recognise the importance of the environment as an asset for our country. And while we are faced with very significant environmental challenges, this level of awareness and concern is potentially powerful, and this positivity should be harnessed in the protection of our environment – and the need for action is urgent.

Ireland has enduring challenges in relation to water and air quality, biodiversity loss, resource efficiency, underdeveloped transport infrastructure, urbanisation pressures, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, unsustainable production and consumption practices and in our response to climate change – the defining challenge of our age.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides new and important insights and the steps needed to halt human-induced climate change. For Ireland it emphasises the imperative for the next decade to be one of major advances in our response, including a significant acceleration in the scale and pace of GHG emission reductions. This will require far reaching transformative change across the economy and society. Research will play an increasingly important role to inform the required policy interventions showing how – together – we can manage the impacts of climate change as we make the necessary transitions in a just and equitable way.

– Dr Tom Ryan, Director, Office of Environmental Enforcement, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ireland

COMMENDABLE SOLIDARITY

The COVID-19 pandemic brought major challenges for Ireland and our health services. The resilience and adaptability that the Irish people and our health services have shown during this difficult time are qualities that we should be immensely proud of. As Irish people we can expect to live, disability-free, for longer and more of us can expect to live longer after a cancer diagnosis than ever before. Despite this we know our health and social care services need significant improvement. In this decade the Sláintecare plan will bring a health and social care system where everyone has access to services they need. A focus on lifelong wellbeing, prevention of illness and reducing health inequalities are at the core of this.

A multisectoral response is required to overcome the challenges of climate change and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). As we include climate change considerations into existing health programmes it is important to incorporate health as a key consideration in other sectors. Many of the health threats posed by climate change are inherently linked to threats posed in other sectors. The serious and increasing threat of AMR requires a whole of government approach, and the National Interdepartmental AMR Consultative Committee has set out an ambitious, multisectoral and comprehensive plan to tackle AMR in Ireland. Ireland has shown its many strengths in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and this gives me confidence in our ability to overcome the many challenges we will face this decade.

– Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Ireland

SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS

Ireland has a rich history in, and a global reputation for, producing safe and traceable food. But to protect people and the planet, and to live up to that reputation, we need to ensure that our food is produced in a truly sustainable way.

The Government has recently approved the publication of a new strategy for the agri-food sector: Food Vision 2030 – A World Leader in Sustainable Food Systems. The strategy aims to deliver a climate-neutral food system by 2050, with verifiable progress achieved by 2030. It encompasses emissions reductions; carbon sequestration; improvements in air quality; restoration and enhancement of biodiversity; improvements in water quality; development of diverse forests; enhanced seafood sustainability; and an exploration of the potential of the bioeconomy.

This is the first time that environmental measures have been central to an agri-food sector plan. It is also explicit that the strategy must adjust in order to meet the ambitions set out in the Climate Action Plan, which will be launched later this year. This new approach must encourage a new generation of farmers and foresters to work the land in a sustainable way, with nature being restored, water quality improving, and premium prices being delivered for high-quality sustainable produce. In September, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a Food Systems Summit, which will focus global attention on the need to transform how we produce, process, consume and think about food. Ireland can and should be a leader in this area. To do this, we must ensure that our own actions are as good as our words.

– Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications

KEEP THE ECONOMY WORKING

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought immense challenges around the world. The economic crisis accompanying it cannot end until the public health crisis does. From an economic perspective, the impact of COVID-19 has been somewhat unique. The way people have had to limit their daily lives has had serious consequences for businesses that rely on face-to-face contact and for workers who are unable to work remotely. However, those who have been able to work and conduct business online have had a different experience.

The actions by governments and central banks around the world, including in Ireland, have provided crucial economic support over the past year or so. This action depended greatly on economic resilience built up after the global financial crisis. Resilience is built in good times to be drawn upon when needed. And there is no doubt that resilience will be needed to meet future challenges, both the ones we can already identify like climate change and an ageing population, and others that are not yet apparent. In the years ahead, some difficult choices must be made to ensure our economy can meet these challenges and ensure that we live in a healthy world in the future.

– Sharon Donnery Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Ireland

RESEARCH IMPACT

Here at UCD Institute of Food and Health, we recently launched our strategy 2020- 2024. Mirroring the University’s Rising to the Future strategy, our core food and health activities are relevant to UCD’s four strategic themes.

In terms of Building a Healthy World, our research is poised to make a significant impact by developing sustainable food systems from an economic, environmental and societal perspective. We will continue to generate knowledge on how new approaches to food production systems and food consumption can benefit both the environment and human health. We will empower humanity by helping society make better dietary choices to enhance health and wellbeing.

We launched our strategy against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis, which has amplified the importance of a resilient food system and public awareness of the link between diet and health. As we learn to live with the virus, these, and other factors such as Brexit, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Ireland’s agri-food strategy Food Vision 2030 – A World Leader in Sustainable Food Systems, will drive our research agenda over the next decade.

Cognisant of the challenges and opportunities that may arise, we will be agile in our response, aiming to lead the way in future-proofing Irish and global food systems to enhance health.

– Professor Dolores O’Riordan, Vice-President for Global Engagement, Director, UCD Institute of Food and Health

PLANET UNDER THREAT

During the COVID-19 restrictions, we have had to refocus and find enjoyment in some of the simpler things on our doorstep. Many of us have realised how valuable to our mental and physical health it can be just to walk in an enduring natural or semi-natural environment, with trees, wildflowers, birds, pollinators and views over land or sea. We have appreciated the calming and uplifting effect this can have.

Healthy ecosystems and landscapes are not a given. They are threatened by a potent combination of climate change and more localised pressures. We need to work actively to maintain, conserve and restore them and this requires political will and resources. Though researchers have measured their benefits for our health and wellbeing, these can be difficult to fully capture, and so they have not always been properly considered in arguments for a greater prioritisation of environmental stewardship.

The UCD Earth Institute is well placed to foster research to more fully characterise these kinds of benefits, and the threats to them, to inform policy and practical solutions. It brings together scientists, social scientists, engineers, landscape architects and humanities researchers with specialists in business, policy and governance within and outside UCD and allows them collaborate with each other and form connections with other public and private organisations. The Institute also promotes and supports public engagement and educational initiatives such as UCD’s new BSc in Sustainability, to help ensure the next generation can work more effectively towards a healthier future for our environment and ourselves.

– Professor Tasman Crowe, Director, UCD Earth Institute

HUMAN AND ANIMAL WELLBEING

The College of Health and Agricultural Sciences was established to exploit synergies that exist across the One Health spectrum. The One Health initiative links the health of all living things together with the existing synergies between human and animal health, public health and food and environmental science.

The College’s commitment to Building a Healthy World is reflected in its vision to lead the advancement of human, animal and environmental wellbeing for the benefit of society. Every day across the College faculty, researchers and professional staff work together to deliver impactful education, research and services in health, wellbeing and agriculture. This was never more apparent than in the last 18 months, when researchers from across the College were at the forefront of Ireland’s pandemic response.

The College aims to deliver major benefits to society and contribute to resolving global challenges in health, agriculture and the environment through the range of core disciplines within its constituent Schools. Collectively the Schools within the College provide a holistic education experience that challenges students to enquire, create, reason and innovate so they can go forward to achieve not only personal success, but shape local and global society.

New knowledge is at the heart of what a university is and the College is strongly committed to excellence in research and innovation. In creating an outstanding base of scholarship within all our disciplines, we deliver knowledge and ideas that inform policy, support enterprise, deliver innovation and enrich society to support the building of a healthy world.

– Professor Cecily Kelleher, Principal, UCD College of Health and Agricultural Sciences

IF IT ISN’T SAFE, IT ISN’T FOOD

Ireland is justly proud of its food safety record; however, many countries are not so fortunate. The World Health Organization found that, globally, the health burden of foodborne disease is comparable to malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-AIDs – the so-called ‘big three’. Despite this food safety has been relatively neglected in the development agenda.

People are notoriously poor at estimating risks. There is a saying in food safety that “what makes you sick and kills you and what you worry about are not the same”. For example, people often worry more about flying in planes than driving cars, yet statistically the latter is much more dangerous. So, what food safety challenges should we worry about? Many think chemicals in highly processed food coming from industrial farming systems and sold in massive, impersonal supermarkets. In fact, nearly all the world’s burden of foodborne disease comes from fresh foods sold in traditional markets produced by smallholders in developing countries.

Until now, there have been few food safety interventions in this highest-risk population. And those that have been done, have often made things worse. But research carried out by myself and colleagues in Africa has more promise. It relies on market-based, incentive-driven interventions using appropriate technology. One day, all the world may enjoy food as safe as Ireland.

– Professor Delia Randolph, Veterinary Epidemiologist

CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE

“Your health is your wealth” and “a healthy nation is a wealthy nation” are two well-known sayings but two known facts are the first 1,000 days of a child’s life greatly influence their adult life and children make up 25 per cent of Ireland’s citizens. These facts influenced Government’s policy “Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures”, which includes developing a single national academic digital children’s hospital. This Government-approved health policy was made in 2006 when I was Deputy Chief Executive at St James’s Hospital and was involved in its submission to locate this new hospital on that campus. It made me acutely aware of the real benefits this investment will make in the health of future generations. Investment in a new hospital building, digital healthcare systems, modern equipment and specialist healthcare professionals means that in the future:

• Fewer children will leave Ireland for specialist care currently only available abroad.
• All paediatric specialist services will be under one roof and children will not have to go to different hospitals for treatment.
• Having 100 per cent single in-patient rooms means care is managed even during a pandemic.
• Valuable healthcare staff will have facilities and resources to deliver better healthcare to the sickest patients from one quarter of Ireland’s population.

– Ms Eilish Hardiman, Group Chief Executive, Children’s Health Ireland

NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASE WE CAN ADDRESS

Active detection and treatment programmes are key.

Lessons must be learnt from the linear relationship between increasing body weight and poor outcome in those who developed COVID-19 infection. After age, increasing body weight was the most significant determinant of poor outcome.

The single biggest barrier to addressing the problem is the deeply ingrained bias against people living with obesity. The false beliefs that body weight is an individual’s choice and that ‘eat less, move more’ is the treatment for obesity remain widely held. We do not tell people with malignant melanoma to put on sunscreen and wear a hat as their treatment. Prevention of disease is different from treatment of disease. Both are vital for obesity.

The recently approved HSE Model of Care for overweight and obesity highlights the three key steps that need to be addressed:

• Acknowledge the fact of obesity as the commonest chronic disease today.
• Develop and evaluate strategies to increase physical activity and reduce intake of highly processed, energy dense nutrients.
• Implement active detection and treatment programmes that will destigmatise the disease and minimise the complications of obesity.

Implementation of the Model could see Ireland establish a roadmap for other countries in a battle that currently no country is winning.

– Professor Donal O’Shea, Consultant, St Vincent’s Hospital

READING THIS EDITION of UCD Connections, I am struck by a line written by alumnus Dr Mike Ryan, Executive Director of WHO Health Emergencies Programme, “For those of us in the academic, health and scientific communities, we have a responsibility”.

Part of that responsibility is to help build a healthy world. This agenda stretches beyond research into diseases and advances in healthcare, into food supply and safe water, and crosses into environmental spheres that cause climate change and impact on society. Before the COVID-19 pandemic we had identified Building a Healthy World as one of our strategic themes in our UCD Strategy 2020-2024: Rising to the Future. The health of all living things on Earth is intimately connected and must be considered at multiple levels. UCD is the only Irish university that brings together human and animal health sciences, agriculture and food sciences, and environmental and social sciences and we are uniquely positioned to address the education and research synergies across these disciplines. UCD, through our faculty and our alumni, seeks to advance human, animal and environmental health and wellbeing for the benefit of all society. In this issue of UCD Connections, Building a Healthy World gives you a sense of the wide-ranging work being carried out by the UCD community towards this global objective.

Over the past year, we have continued to teach and to research. But, of course, COVID-19 restrictions have meant that many students and staff could not come to campus and therefore lost out on that wonderful campus experience. There is a palpable sense of energy and excitement as we plan for a return to campus life with the prospect of spontaneous interactions and social gatherings. I was delighted to be able to get my second vaccination at UCD O’Reilly Hall, one of the Health Service Executive’s vaccination centres in Dublin. The steady stream of people coming here is a testament to the very high vaccination uptake in Ireland.

We know that the nature of this pandemic means that national governments have to react and respond to surge waves and we will continue to comply with all public health directives. In this issue, you will read how 26 current and former UCD students represented Ireland at the Tokyo Olympics this summer. The enjoyment they gave to everyone back home – despite the time difference – almost compensated for fans not being there. UCD has always provided support for elite athletes so that they can be dedicated to their sport while also maintaining their studies. The much-anticipated opening of the new running track, funded by a generous donation from an alumnus, will add to the excellent sports facilities for on-campus training and competition. While these facilities are used by high-performance sports students, they are also available to all students and help us to live up to our healthy lifestyle ethos.

While campus seemed quiet over the past year in terms of the number of people here – we dropped from a daily population of over 17,000 to around 3,000 – progress was being made with our Future Campus development plans. Construction of the Centre for Creativity and the Centre for Future Learning commenced. Phase 1 of the new student residences at Roebuck was completed. UCD is fulfilling its promise in Rising to the Future to provide worldclass academic facilities and student amenities that enable everyone in the UCD community achieve their potential and contribute to a better society.

Many alumni joined us throughout the year for online events or strolled around Belfield to visit the outdoor exhibitions. As we look forward to this academic year, I hope that we will meet in person and come together for reunions or, more informally, at the UCD University Club.

strategy.ucd.ie

AN UNASSUMING BUILDING tucked away in the heart of the UCD campus has been at the centre of Ireland’s efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19.

This year’s unprecedented pandemic has thrust the National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL) into public prominence and turned its director, Dr Cillian de Gascun, into a regular fixture in the media.

Aside from processing its own tests for the virus, at the time of writing, the NVRL has overseen a massive expansion of testing capacity across over 40 laboratories nationwide, designed to quickly identify flare-ups of the disease. As head of the Government’s expert advisory group on the pandemic, and a key member of the National Public Health Emergency Team  (NPHET), Dr de Gascun has played a central role in formulating policy throughout the crisis.

The NVRL’s vital part in the pandemic is far from the only UCD link over recent months. Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan is a graduate of the University. Further afield, the head of emergencies at the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Michael Ryan, was a postgraduate on the campus before starting his career as an international infectious diseases “firefighter”. Stephen Donnelly, Minister for Health since July, is a graduate of the University, as is Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer.

Talking to Dr de Gascun on a warm, early summer day, with the disease seemingly in check and a national testing system in place, there is finally time to reflect on what has been an astonishing year so far. “For most of the time, it was the busiest I’ve ever been in work. I’d get home and just fall asleep, it was so exhausting,” he says.

At the height of the crisis, when the number of Covid-19 cases was doubling every few days, NPHET meetings would be called “at the drop of a hat,” he says. “There might be three or four in a week, and one late in the evening. You’d do a full day’s work, then go into NPHET for two or three hours. The days were very long.”

There were multiple challenges in building up a comprehensive testing system at short notice – an initial lack of capacity, shortages of vital materials for the process, difficulties in marrying different pieces of equipment and global competition for scarce supplies.

“It was stressful at times. We’re normally busy with our work but in a controlled way. We know winter can be busy with the flu season but we can get through that.”

But as the pandemic took off, “the corridors were full of boxes of samples and our guys were working 14-hour days, yet the piles at the end of the day were as big as at the start.” Initially, tests were being carried out at a rate of 30 a day, and over 470 tests were done before the first positive was recorded in late February. The laboratory increased capacity to 1,500 in response to the surge in cases, but even then up to 8,000 people daily were seeking tests. “Right from the get go we were playing catch-up because there was no spare capacity,” de Gascun recalls. “It  was a learning experience.”

Aside from processing its own tests for the virus, the NVRL has overseen a massive expansion of testing capacity across over 40 laboratories nationwide, designed to quickly identify flare-ups of the disease …

“Looking back, I wonder how we did it,” NVRL laboratory manager Deirdre Burke tells me. “It was a case of all hands on deck and there was great camaraderie. It was also a very proud time for us, even though we were exhausted.”

The laboratory also had to field a  large number of calls, many from people anxiously awaiting test results – there were 91,000 calls in April alone. UCD’s Contact Tracing Centre, led by UCD alumni, Professor Patrick Wall and Associate Professor Mary Codd, lent a helping hand here. “We couldn’t have done it without them,” says Burke. “And they were all volunteers; we were so grateful for the time they gave us.”

The laboratory was re-organised to work seven-day weeks, twelve hours a day, but it was decided to split the staff into two non- overlapping teams under de Gascun and deputy director Dr Lilian Rajan in order to minimise the risk of operations being interrupted due to infection. Thankfully, de Gascun says, this never happened.

… a national system was created that is capable of delivering 15,000 results a day.

The NVRL was set up in 1963 … to cement the success of new vaccination programmes and to coordinate Ireland’s contribution to the surveillance of infectious diseases internationally.

To meet the massive demand for testing, a network of hospital labs was pressed into service to process samples, but the game- changer was when Enfer, a private-sector lab in Co Kildare, signed up.

Veterinary testing is Enfer’s normal speciality but UCD academics such as Professor Wall, who sits on its scientific advisory board, realised the lab’s massive capacity could make a winning difference during the pandemic.“We met them on St Patrick’s Day and within 24 hours of an agreement they had local builders on site to set up the lab,” recalls UCD alumna, Dr Suzi Coughlan, NVRL principal clinical scientist, who was centrally involved in building up the partnership.“We couldn’t have done it without them. In the public sector, you are often restricted in what you can do, for example in relation to HR or procurement, so you can’t always move with the speed you need,” she says.

Coughlan says she was impressed by the ease with which the necessary clinical oversight was put in place. “They were well used to having inspectors in from the Department of Agriculture, so there was no problem. A partnership that would have taken years to develop, on paper, was set up very quickly.”

The UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and its network were also central to the response to the Covid-19 crisis. Conway Fellow, Dr Nicola Fletcher, who recently joined UCD as an Ad Astra Fellow in UCD School of Veterinary Medicine, became involved in training technicians for the new testing facility at Enfer. Dr Fletcher trains the undergraduate student technicians in how to work safely with the potentially live virus, which must be inactivated in the first step of the diagnostic test.

With Enfer’s 6,500-a-day test capacity – capable of being boosted to 9,000 a day – there was now enough capacity in the system to ensure suspected virus cases would be tested quickly.

With some bridging help from a German lab, a national system was created that is capable of delivering 15,000 results a day. And while the NVRL is now processing  only a proportion of Ireland’s Covid-19 tests, it maintains a vital oversight function spanning laboratories nationwide.

Ironically, demand for testing fell away as Ireland effectively suppressed the virus in the early summer. The number of cases has been on the rise again since late July, but public health doctors are confident there is sufficient capacity in the system to cater for any fresh surge in demand.

From Templeogue in south Dublin, de Gascun studied medicine in Trinity College, receiving a Doctor of Medicine from UCD and specialising in clinical microbiology and virology after further training in the UK.

“It was HIV that got me interested in this field,” he recalls. “I left school in the early 1990s and remember being fascinated by HIV. It wasn’t just an infection, there was fear, stigmatisation. There was the celebrity thing as well – Freddie Mercury, Anthony Perkins, Magic Johnson. I was intrigued by HIV, and the way it would infect and integrate into its host genome.”

The NVRL was set up in 1963 to conduct poliovirus and influenza surveillance in Ireland, cement the success of new vaccination programmes, and to coordinate Ireland’s contribution to the surveillance of infectious diseases internationally. Professor Patrick Meenan, an eminent microbiologist based at UCD, was involved in establishing the NVRL and had brought Ireland into the global influenza surveillance network in the early 1950s. Prior to Covid-19, most of the laboratory’s caseload was diagnostic testing, but it also carries out reference work such as checking whether the content of flu vaccines is a good match for the flu strains actually circulating at a particular time. Ante-natal and sexual health tests are also important areas of work; before the pandemic, the laboratory was processing almost one million tests a year.

Along with 140 other centres around the world, the NVRL submits national data on influenza, measles, rubella, polio and other infectious diseases to the WHO.

The laboratory is funded by invoicing the HSE for tests carried out, though its 116 staff are University employees.

Through being on the UCD campus, the NVRL benefits from academic linkages – for example, with UCD School of Public Health (Physiotherapy and Sport Science) and School of Veterinary Medicine – while functions such as HR or finance are taken care of by the University.

De Gascun describes his frequent media appearances as “the strangest thing” during the crisis. “I usually have one [media appearance] per year, at flu time. The level of scrutiny on your work, and on your words, was new to me. But it’s part of the role; after all, there aren’t that many virologists around. I got a lot of the media attention when in fact the people doing the testing on a daily basis were the staff downstairs. That’s where the real work was done and where people stepped up to the challenge, as I knew they would.”

Meanwhile, UCD alumnus and Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan became the public face of the crisis through his  daily pronouncements at NPHET briefings.

Dr Holohan, who studied medicine in UCD between 1985 and 1991 and has subsequent qualifications in child health and public health from UCD, points out that “things like this come around every few years – though nothing on this scale”.

He recalls how, in his first week as Chief Medical Officer in 2008, a controversy blew up over dioxin contamination of pork.

However, the response from society during Covid-19 has been “completely unprecedented”, he says.

“We’ve had a tiny experience in terms of mortality and impact on the health service compared to what we might have had. This is an unattenuated epidemic sweeping through a naive population.

“We would have had tens of thousands of cases every day [without restrictions] but as it is we still haven’t had 30,000 cases. I know that’s a big number, but the population is another big number.”

In his briefings early in the pandemic, Dr Holohan acknowledged where mistakes were made, while insisting Ireland has performed well in international terms. “Everyone who tells you they know what they’re doing in every respect in relation to this is not being truthful. There’s a big part of ‘let’s try this, and see how it goes’.”

While Dr Holohan became a familiar media figure, you are likely to have seen another UCD alumnus, Dr Michael Ryan, on televisions across the world. As Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Ryan has effectively become the global spokesman for the UN organisation’s efforts to contain and treat Covid-19.

In regular media briefings from the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Dr Ryan has delivered the latest news about fighting the virus to an expectant world. In doing so, he has shown a knack for pithily, and sometimes bluntly, summarising the challenges involved – reminding countries, for example, of the need to “test, test, test” for the disease while never letting “the perfect be the enemy of the good” in their efforts.

From the Sligo/Mayo border, Dr Ryan studied for a masters in public health in UCD after completing medical training in NUI Galway. A boots-on-the-ground type of operator, he has worked in many disease hotspots over the years, including in frontline roles fighting SARS, polio and Ebola, before taking up his current role.

Since this article was prepared, the fears of scientists have been realised with a resurgence in virus cases. This has forced a delay in the planned easing of some restrictions.

“It’s hard to envisage a situation where it doesn’t come back in the winter …

De Gascun, though, is optimistic for the future, while stressing the need to build more testing capacity into our systems as well as an efficient surveillance mechanism to spot new outbreaks. “It’s hard to envisage a situation where it doesn’t come back in the winter to some degree. I think we’ll be better prepared though, and we’ll benefit from physical distancing.”

“We have learned a lot,” Burke adds. “The testing equipment and the IT links are all there now. So we would be ready to do it all again and probably better.”

TEXT Paul Cullen
PHOTOGRAPHS Simon Watson

UPON MOVING OUT to Belfield in 1969 and into UCD’s new Arts Building, the Dean of Commerce Professor James Meenan wrote in his diary of the peacefulness of this growing University place, just three miles outside Dublin city centre: “Belfield looked enchanting and it is so heartening to think of what it will look like when the buildings are finished and the grass and shrubs and trees begin to grow. [The students] are deeply fortunate … to be young in such a place. We should produce good people indeed in future years …”

Meanwhile, in less bucolic terms, UCD’s Gentle Revolution was running its course in the urban setting of the overcrowded Earlsfort Terrace buildings. And Donogh O’Malley’s Trinity/UCD merger proposal of 1966 had only just been put to bed.

The merger plan had been spurred on, of course, by the growing accommodation needs of these Dublin universities. By the 1960s, the Irish higher education sector had been so neglected that radical reform was required and UCD, as Ireland’s largest university, was at the centre of this process. UCD’s accommodation crisis had already been put under the lens through a government enquiry (1959) so that the making of a new university campus at Belfield, following the controversial decision to leave Dublin city centre, might be read as a microcosm of 1960s Ireland. It represented suburbanisation and physical change, national ambition and internationalist aspiration.

This year, in 2020 and ongoing through 2021, UCD is celebrating this history with a series of events and reflections. Taking the architectural story as the central thread, Belfield 50 sets out to better understand the University’s development and its culture across the 50+ years of campus design.

Belfield is a landscaped campus of varying architectures comprising concrete Brutalism, timber and brick contextualism as well as shiny glass and metal.

Beginning with the amassing of landscaped estates in the Stillorgan area of South County Dublin, from 1933 but particularly through the 1950s, UCD’s growth and history at this site has been brave and clear-sighted. First came the new Science Buildings from 1962 to 1964, which, designed by former Professor of Architecture, J V Downes, were the first modernist university buildings in the state. This structure brought pioneering scientific research facilities and was followed quickly by the 1963 international architectural competition for the University’s masterplan, won by a young Polish architect, Andrzej Wejchert. The international nature of the competition pointed to UCD’s outward direction. It attracted 105 designs from over 20 countries, including designs from leading experimental architects such as Shadrach Woods (Candilis-Josic-Woods) and Giancarlo de Carlo. Only one of the ten Irish submissions was premiated or commended – Stephenson Gibney Associates came fourth.

Andrzej Wejchert’s winning design proposed a low-lying unified group of modernist buildings, held to a spine or covered walkway. Ultimately, the masterplan’s attraction lay in its openness to adaptation and in its elasticity and apparent flexibility. To his masterplan complex of walkway and structures for administration and the arts, law and commerce, were added a modernist restaurant and a monumental library. Both Belfield’s new restaurant and library were by other architects; a key feature of Belfield was to be its many architectural signatures. Then came Wejchert’s water tower and his handsome sports centre; and at the same time, about 1980, the Agriculture building, designed by Patrick Rooney, was opened, to complete phase one of Belfield’s construction.

The campus has not stopped evolving. As the architecture strayed from Wejchert’s axis by the 1990s, other brave and interesting buildings were made and today, Belfield is a landscaped campus of varying architectures comprising concrete Brutalism, timber and brick contextualism as well as shiny glass and metal corporate entities. Set amidst a maturing landscape, new disciplinary centres for research and teaching emerge. And as the future campus begins to unfold with the planned Centre for Creativity (Stephen Holl Architects) and the Centre for Learning (RKD), it is timely to reflect on Belfield’s creation. It seems right now to consider the value of what UCD has built and how this campus architecture has contributed to and enabled the life of UCD over the past 50+ years.

The central elements of Belfield 50 are an exhibition and a collection of essays, Making Belfield: Space and Place at UCD. New research coming from UCD’s extensive library and cultural collections, combines with archive photography, footage and recent interviews. What emerges is the striking resonances between Wejchert’s vision for Belfield and Cardinal (Saint) John Henry Newman’s idea of a university: both sought an infrastructure for chance encounter to enable the exchange of ideas and to harbour the individual. Undoubtedly, Belfield campus achieves this for UCD.

www.ucd.ie/belfield50
TEXT Dr Ellen Rowley

MAKING BELFIELD: AN ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY

Making Belfield: Space + Place at UCD, by Finola O’Kane and Ellen Rowley, will be published in late September. If you would like to order a copy of the book, and to avail of the special alumni rate of €25 including p&p, email ucdpress@ucd.ie

Click to enlarge

10. Urban Institute, Richview Campus, 2002: Designed by Grafton Architects as a research centre for urban issues, this inter-institutional building was expressed in terracotta tiled walls, plinth and idiosyncratic roof lights.

Arts Building Courtyard, 1970: The Newman Building is an architecture of systems, from anodised bronze glazing to striped horizonal concrete panels which hold ducts containing heating pipes, electrical trunking, slots for fresh air intake and the safety track for window cleaning. Wejchert sought the whitest concrete using Wicklow granite and quartzite aggregate, always emphasising the horizontal elements.

Perspective drawing of Engineering Building and University Industry Centre, 1989 (Scott Tallon Walker (STW) Architects.