The Holylands are full of ‘boozing student hordes’ and that’s the way we like it

Nuala McKeever recently wrote in the Belfast Telegraph painting the student population of the Holylands as spoilt, alcoholic ASBOs which St Paddy’s brings the worst out in.

The article contained a photo of a few young people hugging, generally having a good time, wrapped in tricolours – such despicable behavior.

However the photo is six years old, as Aaron Rush, a Software Engineering grad at UUJ has pointed out.

He said: “There’s a photo with me in it there that was taken in 2010. Think they need new material.”

The article accuses students of totally destroying the Holylands on St Patrick’s Day. Ruining a “beautiful part” of the city with our rabid violence.

Beautiful part of your city? The Holylands area is a renowned student area, and it seems that we’re the only people willing to live here. We pay a couple of hundred quid each month to live in cold, old, damp-ridden and often delapidated houses that no one else wants to inhabit yet we’re most certainly paying more than what they’re worth.

Try to find someone else that would call the area “beautiful” because it most certainly is not, let’s not lie.

The journalist claimed that this horrific madness “spilled into the next day too…hordes of students roaming around in packs, casually wandering on to the road, where cars were crawling at 5mph for fear of knocking down one of the little darlings.”

Catherine Rush, a Law second year at QUB, is one of the many appalled by the depiction of Belfast students in the article. She said: “Cars drive under 20mph because firstly, that’s the speed limit, secondly, there are streams of parked cars on either side of the road and it’s likely you’ll lose a wing mirror if you’re not careful, and finally, any person, adult or child, can emerge unexpectedly from behind a parked car.

“That’s basic driving theory. Re-take your test love.”

Rolling away from da h8rz in my party pram

The broken glass that littered the streets was nothing new, and is not exclusive to the Holylands. Have you ever seen the city centre on any Sunday morning?

It’s unfair to blame the broken glass on students, and where are the parents of all these “young children” placed in such peril by us big nasty students?

Nuala implores her readers – “What is Queen’s doing about this? It’s illegal to drink in the street in that area. How can students feel perfectly easy about wandering around in the middle of the day carrying bottles and six packs, obviously drunk and being anti-social?”

There were numerous university representatives and police officers on stand all day on St. Paddy’s, and they didn’t really need to take action at any point during the day, goes to show how anti-social we all really were.

In fact, hundreds of notices were sent out to warn students, as happens every year.

It’s like a flash mob!!!

Getting down on the street and starting the traditional “Rock The Boat”  was the only real thing the Crimestoppers van halted, and rightly so.

A whole community coming together to dance and have a bit of craic really is just terrifying isn’t it?

She writes: “Three years ago there was a huge hoo-ha after trouble on St Patrick’s day. Lots of promises were made then about monitoring and stewarding the area. Nothing’s changed. The same unacceptable behaviour was taking place last week.”

Yes, years ago a massive riot started and yes, it was scary… but an exception. I didn’t see any violence last week.

The next day a few groups of students were drinking outside again yes, but behind their garden walls of their rented properties. Not shouting or singing or hurling abuse. Just enjoying the sunshine.

Isn’t that what everyone does in the good weather? It wasn’t like we were sinking bottles of Chardalusco and throwing bricks.

If I wanna do a beer bong in my yard, a beer bong in my yard I shall do

What was perhaps most insulting was the constant references to our parents. “Let their mammies and daddies take care of the spoilt, smug, entitled offspring whose lives they worked so hard to improve.”

So we’re all rich, spoilt, little mummy and daddy’s girls and boys now. Yeah, aside from our part-time jobs, huge student loans and crippling overdrafts we’re practically royalty. Catch a grip. Why do you think we’re living in the Holylands in the first place? 

Apparently we lowly students have dragged the reputation of Queen’s through “the gutter”. Anyone who was in the Holylands on Paddy’s Day would have seen numerous nightclubs, food outlets and even the ice cream man out advertising with their mascots.

It was a day for prosperity and fun, not violence and destruction.

The Chip Company mascot was top banter

Mad yes, but anti-social we are not. There was no hatred, no fear, no cause for trouble. We’re a friendly bunch of lads and lassies and we do it all in our own residential STUDENT area.

We were admittedly messy and too loud but the apparent all-year drunken hedonism is blatant over-exaggeration.

This journalist has forgotten we actually have to attend university…and try as we might you can’t do it with a hangover every single day.

St Patrick’s Day is a day of total unity and enjoyment for every single student in the Holylands, and we revel in it wholeheartedly before getting stuck into our dreary books for another term.

We are not aggressive. We are the holy Holylands, and you’ll never condemn our craic.

Terrifying