Breaking out of the box…

The rock star: Alan Averill

Alan Averill is a mature student, currently in his third year of a BA in Journalism. He also happens to be the lead singer of a heavy metal band whose last album sold 30,000 copies.

“Primordial was formed in 1991. I got involved when I answered an ad for vocalists pinned to the wall in a music shop. The group was started up by two guys who had grown up together but, apart from that, the five of us were strangers to begin with. We recorded our demo in 1993. It cost around £50 to make and it was that demo that got us our first record deal in 1994.

“Obviously, after 18 years together, we know each other pretty well. It’s difficult to live in such close quarters with four other people for weeks on end when on tour, so I’m thankful that we do get on quite well. It’s complicated, but it usually works.

“The dynamic of the group has changed since it kicked off in 1991. We don’t practice four or five times a week like we used to. We’re not 19 anymore - some of the band members are married or have kids now so there’s less time to get together. The five of us are scattered all over Ireland too which makes getting together difficult. We’ve been playing and recording for so long that it doesn’t really feel like a commitment anymore. It’s an integral part of all of us by now.

“I’d consider myself a musician and a student, but definitely a musician first. I have a degree in engineering, but a lot has changed since I got my degree in 1996. There have been such huge improvements in technology since then that I consider my degree almost obsolete. That’s why I came to DCU as a mature student. I enjoy a good rant, so I think the journalism degree suits me. It’s useful to have something concrete to fall back on.

“I’ve toured all over Europe and America with Primordial. Luckily, tours in the last three years have fallen on dates that didn’t affect my degree. The last series of gigs we did outside Ireland were during last year’s reading week. We’re touring Canada and the US in late April and hopefully my thesis will be finished by then.

“Rock and metal music are treated differently in Ireland than in other countries. We only play in Ireland a few times a year. We’ve sold out the Button Factory in Dublin but we’ve played to audiences of 25,000 in Germany. Irish awards like the Meteors don’t even have a metal category, which says a lot. I think heavy metal is the leper of Irish music.

“It was never our intention to break it in the music industry. We’ve taken everything that happened in our stride. It’s not that we didn’t work as hard as other groups do, but we were lucky that things went so well for us.”

Primordial’s sixth album, To The Nameless Dead is currently on sale online and is in all major music retailers.

The charity helper: Cara Murphy

DCU’s biggest charity, St Vincent de Paul, is run by a committed group of students. At their helm is second year Contemporary Culture and Society student Cara Murphy.

Since her first year here in DCU, Cara has been involved in SVP. “I didn’t actually join SVP until about half way through first year. What happened was, I heard about the soup run and went along on my own one Monday night. The people I met that night were so friendly and I really enjoyed it. From then on, I was hooked.”

Chairing the DCU SVP is a full time commitment for Cara. “Last year, I was secretary of the DCU Judo Club and I was always training for that or competing. This year, with SVP, it is kind of a break from judo and it’s something I really enjoy doing. It’s all I know now. SVP is the most active of the DCU charities and there are events and activities organised four days a week, including the soup run on Mondays.

“The Ballymun Youth Project is another activity that DCU SVP is actively involved in. The project assists children under 12 in the Ballymun area with homework and provides extra tuition if required. There are also grinds available for second level students under the Ballymun Initiative for Third Level Education (BITES) programme, which is aimed at encouraging second level students to attend third level institutes.

“A new, currently unnamed, project is being developed between SVP and Student Support in Ballymun to provide grinds for those who enter third level colleges. This project is a follow-on from BITES. I was contacted by the Support Service in Ballymun because there was no extra help for those in third level education, so now we try to have grinds available for particular modules if someone just needs an extra little bit of help.

“There are always things to do in the SVP, and there is a lot of liaising done between the support services in Ballymun and the committee in DCU. I do something related to SVP every day.

“My favourite thing is still the soup run, but we do activities on four days of the week. The others days I spend communicating with the SVP on a national level, improving our services in Ballymun and trying to think of new activities for us to do. This year, we had ‘turn their life around’ in the Hub, where you paid €1 to turn a sad face into a smiley face. It was really popular and I felt we needed to do something this year because SVP didn’t partake in Rag Week at all last year. This year, we decided we definitely would. All the money goes to charity and the point of the SVP is to help people.”

The gaelic star: Kevin Reilly

Kevin Reilly (22) is a Gaelic footballer from county Meath. He is currently in his third year studying PE and Biology here in DCU.

Since before he came to university, Kevin has been representing Meath at intercounty level, as well as playing for his home club, Navan O’ Mahonys and now the DCU Sigerson team.

“It’s normal to train everyday, usually three times a week on the pitch and then every other day either in the gym or doing your own training. I like to have a day off a week to relax though, so I don’t overdo it.”

Kevin was picked to represent Ireland in the Compromise Rules both last year and in 2006. “It’s great to represent Ireland abroad and compete at the highest level possible. It’s a great honour and you get a fantastic sense of accomplishment from it. I was glad to be picked for the team. It’s good to know you have all of the GAA and the country behind you when you play. Plus, I was lucky enough to get a trip to Australia with it.

“Of course I can’t go out as often as some people. That’s what happens when you are competing at a high level but I’m used to it because that is the way it’s always been for me. But I think it’s worth it. It’s not all doom and gloom though, you get your opportunities to relax and go out and socialise.

“At the moment, I’m not training with DCU as the Sigerson Cup is finished. County training for Meath takes place in Navan twice a week, with a game or more training at the weekend. It involves a good bit of travel for me. I seem to spend as much time at home as I do in DCU, and there are an awful lot of early morning drives to make it to lectures. I don’t mind really, it has to be done. Because I train with the county, I’m exempt from club training most of the time because there’s no need to train that much so it’s not too bad.”

The Meath Club League is currently underway as is the National Football League so Kevin has a busy few months ahead of him.

The tech guy: Steven Troughton-Smith

Steven Troughton-Smith is a first year Digital Media Engineering student in DCU. His homemade iPhone applications have earned him hundreds of thousands of Euro in less than a year.

“I began programming Apple Macs as a hobby. I’ve always been a bit of a techie.

“Originally, the only applications available for iPhones were those that Apple commissioned and designed themselves. The only way to design your own applications was to hack into an iPhone and add new pieces of software, which wasn’t easy for technophobes. When the 3G iPhone was launched in June though, Apple realised the huge potential for profits in allowing people to design and sell their own applications.

“In October, I signed up for Apple’s yearly design licence for €89. I’d made my first application, Speed, a few days before. It uses location data already stored in the iPhone to tell the application user how fast they’re travelling from one point to another. It’s an accurate speedometer that can be used in any kind of vehicle - bike, train or boat. An iPhone already has a built-in GPS and that’s why Speed was so easy for me to design. Since October, 260,000 people have purchased the application. It sells in the iStore for €0.79. Apple take 30% of that, but the rest goes straight into my bank account.

“The nature of the iPhone means that it can be used anywhere, and that includes in lectures or in the library. It hasn’t really impacted my social life - except for that fact that I have a lot more money to spend when I go for a drink these days.

“I’ve designed three other applications, and I sell them all through the iStore. Selling through a large company like Apple means that all promotion and distribution is taken care of for me. I don’t receive much correspondence from Apple- I’m a sole trader really. They send me sales figures every day and I’m able to access customer feedback through my iStore account but generally I’m left to my own devices.

“In the next few months, I plan to design a few more similar applications to what I’ve made already, and hopefully they’ll be as well received as my first four.”