Is there such thing as a Northern Irish student experience at UCD?What impact does being a Northerner in UCD have on your identity?We spoke with two Northern students to find out
In 2020/21, according to a report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), 1,255 students from Northern Ireland attended College in the Republic, representing just 0.6% of the Republic’s student population.
This was the year I joined UCD, after the longest summer of our lives thanks to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Relying on predicted grades from our teachers, it was a nail-bitting end to the summer to see if we would get the grades to get into UCD. Of course, it was then about two weeks after getting my results that I was able to accept my place in UCD due to delays with the CAO system. Whilst I was confident my grades would get me into my course, Single Subject History, many of my friends entered a period of limbo, forced to turn down UCAS offers in the hope of getting accepted to UCD.
CAO Points Conversion
This issue was not an isolated incident to the 2020/21 Academic Year. Rachel McDonald, a third year Actuarial Studies student from East Belfast recalls a similar experience during the summer of 2022, whereby she had to "forfeit all of my places at UCAS to wait two weeks to see if I would get in to UCD, bearing in mind my course points were 613 minimum.”
For context, until the 2024/25 Academic Year, the only way Northern students could achieve maximum points, 625, was to earn four A-Star grades, one of which being Maths. “It is not a fair conversion in any way,” Rachel argues, “most schools don’t even let you do four A-Levels, they only let you do three, so you’re already at a disadvantage. Your fourth one is worth less as well in the conversion.”
According to the CAO website, an A* in your ‘best 3 A-Levels’ is worth 192 points, with a fourth A* worth just 24 points, the same as an A grade. Students receive an extra 25 points for sitting A-Level Maths. Therefore, in order to earn 625 points, as a Northern student, you would have to get four A* grades, one of which being Maths. For context, the highest grade requirements at Oxford University is for Chemistry, Engineering and Maths, all requiring three A* grades at A-Level. What is considered by Oxford University the highest grades necessary, three A*s, would have left Rachel 12 points short of the grade requirements for her course.
As it happened, Rachel scored 618 points, 5 points more than her course entry requirements based on the previous year. However, due to the delay in the CAO offers, Rachel was forced to defer her UCAS offers in the hope of scoring enough points to get into UCD. “The points for my course had gone up every year, so we didn’t actually know what the minimum would be. If it was 625, I wouldn’t have gotten in anywhere, I would have had to wait a whole year to get into Herriot-Watt,” where she had deferred a place.
Accents
Emilia O’Hagan is a final year English and Philosophy student from Co. Down. She spoke of her experience settling into college life down in Dublin. She described how being a Northern student made her feel “anxious” in her first year, “I felt scared to talk sometimes in fear that my accent would be mocked or I’d be asked the same questions regarding politics in the North.” She said that as a result she has a Dublin twang to her accent.
Rachel felt that being in Dublin for the past few years has had an opposite, rousing effect, “I don’t have a very strong Belfast accent, but it’s definitely become stronger since living here, to kind of reclaim something [...] Saying things like ‘shower’, I would do the full pronunciation, and since coming here I’m like, nah, ‘shar’, get me back to my roots!”
Education
Both Rachel and Emilia provided emphatic answers when I asked if they thought students from the Republic were well educated about the North. “Absolutely not,” Emilia remarked, “I’ve been constantly mocked, teased and humiliated [...] [Southerners] seem to believe they are above Northerners just because they aren’t currently being colonised or something. It’s very weird considering they probably preach about James Connolly or something.”
Rachel scoffed, “No. Not at all,” commenting on the D4 demographic of her course. She recalled numerous pre-drinks with her classmates where there would be sing-alongs, “It would always get to a point where people start singing ‘Ooh Ah Up The Ra’, with 52 eyes on me. That has happened like three times.” She also recalled a class trip to Barcelona, where the group were kicked out of a karaoke place for singing it, sparking general confusion amongst the group about what they had done wrong. Rachel recalls one person commenting, “Who actually are the IRA?”
In my own personal experience, I have had people ask me why I am entitled to an Irish passport, whether or not I am an International student and why I don’t know the words to Amhrán na bhFiann. I have had people tell me I’m not ‘fully’ Irish and have had to bite my tongue in the pub when I hear people labelling ‘Ireland’s Call’ a PR stunt from the 90’s.
General Discrimination
Emilia recalls that she has been “told to go home”, been targeted in debates about a United Ireland, and has “had people tell me to calm down, or I might put a petrol bomb under their car.”
She continues, “I have had people stop being friends with me once they realised where I am from. I have had friends whom I have known for three years, still asking me whether I am Catholic or Protestant [...] I’ve had people not believe I am not a loyalist just because I’m simply Northern Irish, they don’t understand that you can be something else.”
Rachel recalls her Dad’s co-workers’ son dropping out of UCD, “he got bullied to the point of leaving. He had no friends, people wouldn’t touch him. Slurs left, right and centre.” She would also say that “that having ‘Ooh Ah Up The Ra’ in my face is a little bit of discrimination,” and like Emilia references people “grilling” her to find out if she is Catholic or Protestant.
Reflections
Reflecting on her time in UCD so far, Emilia says that the “targeting” that she has been subject to has “definitely shaped my sense of identity, and manifested into the confidence I have in being Northern Irish today.”
She asks that people “stop mocking our accents [...] I genuinely have no interest in continuing that conversation once you have done that.”
Furthermore, “Stop making fun of The Troubles and the current state of the North is disgusting considering what these conflicts resulted in is our awful mental health systems, drug issues, and high numbers of suicides and feminicide.”
She closes, “AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T LISTEN TO KNEECAP AND THEN DO THESE THINGS.”
Rachel asks, “Just be nice, please, be a bit more educated,” and references her classmates singing ‘Ooh Ah Up The Ra’ and comments, “just because other people are doing it, we don’t need to be doing that. Educate yourself, grow up and move on.”
Having been in UCD for five years, it’s safe to say that Northern students encounter a unique experience as students in the South. We have to challenge the potent stereotypes and simplifications of the North and of Northerners, of all denominations, and create an environment where more than 0.6% of students studying in the South come from North of the border.