7 Signs That College Students Are Back In The City

13th Sep 2021

The soundscape of the city after dark has changed this week to one that could easily be mistaken for feeding time at a zoo. The late-night shrieking, howling and squawking around town is a sure sign that students are back. Adolescent culchies of all description have been let loose like caged animals among the wonders of our city.

Liberated, unshackled and free to roam and explore Cork’s pleasures, they vocalise their joy like hungry baboons, elephants and hyenas that suddenly pick up the scent of a snack box.

Your Kid Says ‘Mam, there’s a lady in the front garden taking a poo on our flowers?’

 It might be only mid-afternoon but Saoirse and Dymphna who have been released from their closeted upbringing in rural North Kerry have been drinking brandy since mid-morning. Where they come from, anywhere with or without a roof is an acceptable place to squat and pee so be grateful you didn’t leave the car unlocked.

There’s A Big Eegit Of A Young Fella Asleep In The Middle of Washington Street

All cosy and tucked up in a woolly jacket, a student has decided that this lovely, steel manhole cover in the middle of a busy city street on a wet night, is the perfect spot for a 1am power nap before he completes the last 35 metres of his journey home.

Still competently holding the last of his 6-for-the-price-of-5 cider cans upright, he smirks contently in a deep, deep slumber with all the smug satisfaction of well-fed infant snuggling into the warm blankets of a carrycot.

Despite lines of taxis blowing their horns and drivers roaring out the window, his dreams are filled with sun-soaked beaches and beautiful girls in bikinis that “have land”. The inside of a Paddywagon will be a big comedown in about 10 minutes time.   

Vomit Comes Out Of Your Kitchen Tap

If you’re living anywhere near one of the city’s colleges, the rivers of student vomit, so absent for so long, are proudly flowing again so don’t be surprised if you go to fill the kettle and the water smells like a mix of decaying cider and semi-digested snackbox. There’s so much gawk around the streets since last Sunday night, seeping down through cracks and pouring into drains that, it must surely be hitting the water table by now.

The Swans In The Lough Look Tipsy

Adolescent birds at the city’s beauty spot got a taste for manky cheap lager during the lockdowns when hundreds of students regularly set up camp at The Lough to drink themselves into oblivion.

The city’s swans stiff s-shaped necks are noticeably floppier this week – some students will give in to the swans’ requests to go to the off-license for them because the waterfowl can’t het valid ID. It’s not that their dates of birth are a problem, it’s just when they’re filling out the form they just can’t do the cygnet-ure.

Country Lads Out In The Rain In Their GAA Shirts

Being from Limerick, there’s little or nothing to be proud of so the success of their senior hurlers means most of them are still welded to their GAA jerseys since JP McManus’s team bagged the Liam McCarthy Cup last month.

Without their mammies to cross-check what they’re wearing with the weather outside, you can spot them this week stumbling, baloobas around the city in torrential rain genuinely wondering why Cork is “making them” feel so cold.

How many coughs and flus (and covid-esque symptoms) could be prevented if the colleges invested in some signage that said “put on yer coats ye culchie dopes”?

Hypocrites Saying The Drinking Was Never This Bad

Despite decades of attempts to curb underage drinking in Ireland, thousands of 17 and 18 year olds arriving into Cork for the college term are already seasoned drinkers with livers like buckets of rotting drisheen.

Bushing since they were knee high to a bottle of vodka, thousands of students who move to the city suddenly find themselves free from the watchful eye of borderline-alcoholic parents hypocritically telling them that society is ruined by The Demon Drink.

Now that they’ve arrived in Cork city with 18 months of lockdown trauma to unravel, the shackles are really off as they get to drink themselves into a stupor in swish bars and nightclubs rather than in damp fields and bogs.

The only limit to their drinking is how much booze they can pour into themselves without passing out. And even that might generate some nice content for TikTok that will prove what an absolute legend they are, rather than being a red flag for genuine mental health issues.

Welcome back students!