Lifestyle

01st Sep 2018

18 Things You’ll Only Know If You Went To College In NUIG

Darragh Berry

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I still amn’t over the whole college thing… Anytime I see I have a day off during the week, my first train of thought is too see can I fit a sneaky visit down to Galway to head out.

A good chunk of my friends are still holding up the fort in NUIG and, as you can imagine, when I see Snapchats of them coming home pished at 7am while I’m getting up for work, it makes me sad and cross.

Each time I set foot on that old campus again, I get flashbacks of some wonderful memories. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pure graduation goggles. When I was deep in a Masters and spent every waking moment in the library, I longed for the days where I’d never have to swipe my NUIG card at a door again.

But, now as that has passed and I watch my friends go through the same struggle I did this time last year (haha btw), I have fallen in love with the college again. And somethings are just so unique to NUIG. Like, if I say: Big Yellow Thing, you’ll know exactly what I’m on about.

So, here’s some things that you fellow NUIGers will only understand because you spent a few years hanging around the college where you walked the walk of shame, panicked about exams and ran to lectures that you were already late to.

And sure, it’d be rude not to start with the…

1. Big Yellow Thing

I passed this every day and I still haven’t a scooby what it was. Great spot for meeting up though, “see you at the BYT in two mins? Sorted.”

2. Smokey’s Pigeon

It got to the stage where if you didn’t see the pigeon in Smokey’s, you’d be actually worried about its safety.

Smokey’s pigeon first in the queue at the SU this morning #theearlybird #StudyWeek #nuigsu ???? ???? pic.twitter.com/8KWsWQpNx7

— NUIG Students’ Union (@NUIGSU) November 27, 2017

It’s 2038. You go visit your kid in NUIG. There is still nowhere to nap. The big yellow thing has been replaced with spire 2.0. The smokies pigeon is still alive. Pa Fla is societies chair again somehow. There are still no good vegetarians options in sult https://t.co/iCBfJKbV3S

— muir (they/them) (@leispiachh) April 21, 2018

3. Corrib Village

Aka The Jungle. Some of the best house parties were hosted in here, that’s if you could actually get in past the spiked fences. I lived their in first year and house parties got shut down quicker than a laptop in desperate need of updating.

Sometimes, we just congregated on the streets. Imagine Project X but with cans of Bavaria.

Fuck me, I miss Corrib Village #GloryDays

— Paul Hyland (@paulhylandd) March 20, 2018

We all do, Paul. We all do.

4. The College Bar/Sult

Who was the genius masterplanner behind putting the college bar on campus right next to the library?

Cause I really want to shake their hand.

We are expecting more sunny weather tomorrow so Paul Belton will be belting out the decks from outside…… Sunsoutgunsout ????
Happy Sunny Dayzzzzzz ???? ????????☀️☀️☄️#Sultnuigalway #Sunnydayzzz #itsgettingoutinhere #Endofterm pic.twitter.com/N1NEWCLMOm

— SULT NUIG (@SultNUIGalway) April 19, 2018

€3 on all Irish pints happening now ☘️???????? #Paddyssesh pic.twitter.com/Uc3jMLQ232

— SULT NUIG (@SultNUIGalway) March 14, 2018

5. The Night Life

Didn’t matter whether you went to Electric, Halo (44), Karma (Now: DNA), The Bentley (R.I.P), Club K (R.I.P, why God, why?), the main event was the carnage in Smacs afterwards.

Get your food, get a seat and just watch the madness unravel.

And while we’re on the subject…

6. Rag Week

Oh lamb of god with mint sauce, what a wrecker this was. Such a wrecker that the college made it unofficial and would lecturers would intentionally put exams on and have assignments due for that week.

Mayo Monday, Donegal Tuesday, drinking for five days straight. It was only a yearly treat buy Jaysus, wasn’t once a year enough too.

7. Christmas Day

Basically a mini-rag week in November, normally the Thursday before first semester ends. College Bar fills you up with a Christmas dinner at 9am in the morning, plays Christmas songs, everyone’s wearing their xmas jumpers and hats and just forgetting that they should really be studying for their next 5 exams.

Simpler, and messier times.

8. Blackboard

I mean you can thank your parents, your lecturers, your tutors, your friends, the Pigeon, whoever. But the real MVP of NUIG is Blackboard. A little online facility where most of the lecture slides are posted. 9am lecture tomorrow morning is up on BB? G’lukkk.

57 notifications on my NUIG Blackboard this morning… Sign of a very good rag week #CollegeNeglected

— Niall Lynch (@Niallator4) February 23, 2015

9. The Quincentenary Bridge

A bridge that connects the college with student accomodation. Also the windiest motherfucking bridge in Ireland. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, you could either be in college in record time or blown back to your house, we always wanted that latter to happen, always.

This was posted after Storm Ophelia, you get the drift…

Imagine going over the Quincentenary Bridge yesterday. Absolutely no way you’d be able to walk it without turning into a 90 degree angle.

— Alex FG ???????? (@AlexFG98x) October 17, 2017

10. The Rivalry With GMIT

Some of my best mates went to GMIT, we don’t know why but we HATED THEM. Even though we were a university and they weren’t, we felt like they were our noisy neighbours, the main college competition.

West side, east side beef. The Tupac and Biggie of Galway.

Only ever one winner though, obvs.

11. The Library

Aka where people went to sweat and die. Finding a seat with a plug was like finding a golden ticket and if you went to the toilet without leaving a note, prepare to have your shit thrown downstairs.

By the end of my time in college, going into NUIG library was actually like trying to go through security at an airport.

Maybe I’m just missing James Hardiman Library a weee bit too much tonight, (both virtual and physical library) -images from Google pic.twitter.com/y7v7C74ByQ

— Hahers (@HanisHaha) October 16, 2017

12. Spotting Random Celebrities

I’ll never forget procrastinating and looking out the window only to see Michael D. Higgins pottering about. Thought I was hallucinating from lack of sleep.

13. Deciding where to go

So many good pubs, so little time. Taaffes, The Skeff, An Pucan, Tigh Neachtains, Fibber Magees, The Front Door, Barr An Chaladh.

It’s no use, we’re just going to have to sample them all.

14. Getting tickets for the different balls

Unless you know someone organising the Commerce one, don’t even bother kid.

via GIPHY

15. The Bialinn

You’d make the effort of getting up early for your 9am so you could go to the Bialinn and get a quick tea, only to spot someone you know, sit down beside them and end up spending 2 hours talking about Monday night’s antics.

16. Trip to G&L Centra for the roll

God bless them. They knew well the craic. Especially on Fridays, they would man the deli with about six people to get through the hungover and cranky souls who were just looing for some soakage after a night on the tear.

€4 for a chicken roll and a can? Get into my there now.

via GIPHY

17. Silent Disco down the Roisin Dubh

The inside ones were good but the street ones were just madness. A bunch of people roaring two different sets of songs at each other. God help who ever lived on that street.