| « Spending Other People's Money | The Skills Shortage Degrees Won't Fix » |
Holylands Hell
There's an interesting discussion over at Slugger centred around the Holylands blogger (who was today exonerated of all, apparently trumped up, charges of "harassment"). He recently republished an article by Suzanne Breen describing the terror inflicted on on the few remaining residents in the Holylands by the "slack-jawed bog-trash from west of the Bann" (not his quote).
According to reports the police have been even more inept and useless than we've come to expect; multiple commenters claim the police in south Belfast are happy to ignore the whole area, refuse to take statements (or occasionally even turn up) when violent assaults are reported, and I'm sure I remember reading one comment that claimed officers in other parts of the country describe their south Belfast colleagues as lazy bastards (or words to that effect) and that's saying something [that comment seems to have been removed]. It's been suggested by multiple commenters that the police are reluctant to alienate significant numbers of middle-class Catholics, but one would question whether it's any worse being seen as an enemy than a joke.
The more I read into it the more depressed I get. Comments suggest the culprits seem to be disproportionately University of Ulster students (though I'm sure Queen's has it's fair share), culchie and (according to a republican former prisoner, up until recently resident in the Holylands) Catholic, but the blame goes much wider than the students themselves. On top of the police refusing to do anything about it, the universities don't seem to be doing enough either. Sure there are a few posters around the Student's Union every now and again but the "punishments" for those identified as behaving anti-socially amount to no more than a strongly worded letter or a small fine. There is also something fundamentally wrong when students are able to repeat first year practically as many times as they like and universities.
There needs to be an end to the idea that university is a place to go solely to drink and doss on free money, so here's what I suggest (just for starters).
- End bursaries for students from "low-income" families immediately. Loans should bypass students altogether and go straight to the universities for tuition fees, with an extra £3k or so on top to go towards living expenses.
- Put serious effort into identifying anti-social students and actually take some action, e.g. expel repeat offenders.
- Put a limit on the number of times students can repeat first year/transfer after failing so if you fuck up there are actually some consequences.
- Universities should make more of an effort to stop students from east of the Bann leaving for universities on the mainland. The extra competition for places would raise the entrance requirements overall and remove the extreme morons from the equation.
Other suggestions welcome.
Trackback address for this post
12 comments
The wardens have not really worked. Police need to police and report to the relevant universities; then if appropriate remove from area or university.
Until society in general starts to treat alcohol in the same way as e.g. smoking these problems are going to continue.
Alcohol is socially acceptable. It shouldn't be. It's a drug that causes untold damage to the individual, the family and whole communities. Being 'blitzed' is seen as something to be proud off. It isn't. It's sad.
Attitudes have to change before specific problems like this one can even begin to move forward.
If You or I were to upset our neighbours by engaging in anti-social or downright criminal behaviour in and around our homes is it the responsibility of whoever our employers happen to be (assuming we have one) ?
Upholding the law and dealing with anti-social behaviour is a matter for the Police and courts. If the some or all of the Police in a particular area happen to be lazy, incompetent or powerless that is a seperate (albeit extremely serious) issue which needs to be addressed but not by Education or Housing providers stepping in to provide some kind of auxillary policing.
Besides the students are bringing the universities into disrepute and its in the universities' interests to act, even if it's not an obligation on them. When we were at school we were continually having it rammed home that even if we were outside the school but wearing the uniform we should be mindful that we're "representing the school" and, for example, smoking in school uniform was not the sort of thing that was looked kindly upon. Not many of us took it that seriously but it was something some of us remained conscious of and was, in an objective view, reasonable grounds for discipline - moreso at university.
].Beano, it is not the Universities job to wonder what their students do in their free time. They are Lecturers, not Babysitters. Compare University to employment, as long as it doesn't affect my work, should my employer get involved if I get plastered in the Holylands.
Ignited, there are many different sports played at night in certain areas, and your singling out of Gaelic and Hurling maybe just shows your own bigotry.
[By the way, when talking about Gaelic and Hurling, don't call the sport GAA. It would be like saying, "I'm going out to play some IFA[Football]" or "I'm going to watch a game of IRFU[Rugby]". Just call it Gaelic or Hurling.
And if you read some of the comments on Slugger and the articles linked to in the Holylands Warzone blog, it's quite clear that it's mostly culchies we're dealing with - one Slugger commenter specifically mentions being able to identify that a large number of offenders were from UUJ by their GAA tops. There's no need to get so defensive, nobody's blaming the GAA for this. And, while this is veering wildly off-topic, if a writer wishes to make a general statement about Gaelic games without seeing a need to specify gaelic football or hurling, GAA would seem an appropriate description. Not only are they in the unique situation of ruling the entire game, not just administering it locally, you also (unless I'm mistaken) have generic "GAA tops" and "GAA clubs" which (or substitute GAA for gaelic if you like, but that has its own problems). I'm all for pedantry but there's a time and a place.
In fairness, from what I hear, most of them are from Tyrone so such behaviour is not surprising (other than that they know how to play hurling at all).
The police seem extraordinarily lax. You get the odd bit of drunken student behaviour in the student areas of Dublin but it seems to be out of control in Belfast
There's something very fishy here - sure we all know Tyrone people are too thick to go to university!
I was talking about my own experience of living in the holylands, not other areas. In the holylands it was hurling and Gaelic Football (what I would sum up as GAA) played at all hours with damage to other peoples property. If that is my bigotry then so be it. I spent another year living on Lisburn Rd where i never encountered midnight IFA, IRFU or ...emm.... cricket!
It may not be in the same league, but I'll admit I did bounce a basketball a handful of times on the Lisburn Road rather late one night
(without damaging anyone or anything though). 
Comment feed for this postLeave a comment
