The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

NEWS: Holylands remains reasonably calm as St. Patrick’s Day progresses

The University’s hope for a calm and peaceful St. Patrick’s Day looks set to succeed, as by early afternoon the Holylands remains relatively calm. From a walk around the area, stopping to speak to various revellers, The Gown learned that quite a few of those celebrating were not students at all. As is the case every year, groups of students are gathered in front gardens drinking. Police officers are patrolling the Holylands in groups, and student officers are encouraging revellers to spend their day in the Union.

BY CATHERINE WYLIE AND BRENDAN HUGHES

The majority of students felt that there would be no repeat of last year’s events, commenting on the fact that there was such tight security in the area. One student said, “It should be alright. There are plenty of police and last year was a good warning. Using students is a better control method. Police have the opposite effect. The police know that they were too assertive last year.”

However, another student wasn’t so sure about the calm atmosphere continuing, commenting, “If the police are heavy handed with one person then it will all kick off.”

One elderly resident said, “As long as it stays like this then it will be ok.”

An immigrant family commented that the daytime poses no problems at all. “At night I’d worry that we won’t be able to get any sleep because of the noise,” the man said.

After a slow start, more students appeared in the Students’ Union Speakeasy Bar as the afternoon progressed. The Union, which has helped organise the St. Patrick’s Day festival with University of Ulster, will be hoping to make big bucks tonight at its own party in the Union bars.

One student who chose to spend the day in Speakeasy, rather than the Holylands, defended the Union’s arguably hypocritical marketing campaign. Whilst the Union urges students to drink sensibly, it also offers drinks promotions and encourages students to ‘get twisted’. This student remarked, “The Union is making drinks cheaper for me today and that’s good. I’m not necessarily going to go out and riot though. It’s all about the type of person. Most of the people who live in the Holylands are from the countryside. If they’re caught doing anything worng then they should be thrown out of university.”

For more photos from the day, go to The Gown’s Facebook page.

Tags: brendan hughes, Catherine Wylie, Gown, holylands, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, st. patrick's day, student, The Gown

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 3:25 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.