DCU Students Dare to be Drink Aware

Left-Right: Franky Harte, DCU Student; John Hurley, Director of H2 Learning, Denise McCarthy, Welfare Officer (USI), Fionnuala Sheehan, CEO of drinkaware.ie; and DCU Students Gregory Creevey, Gillian Maguire and Philippa Daly.

Four DCU Multimedia students are in the finals of a Dare to be Drink Aware video competition. The students who put together a video for the competition were Gregory Creevey, Gillian Maguire, Philippa Daly and Franky Harte.

The competition is organised by Dare2Bdrinkaware.ie to promote a more moderate drinking pace among Irish people and try to stop the Irish cultural norm of buying rounds. This year’s theme was ‘Pacing our Drinking’.

Commenting on the short-listed films, Chief Executive of drinkaware.ie, Fionnuala Sheehan, said “We have a longstanding culture of drinking in rounds in Ireland. The problem with rounds is that you feel under pressure to stand your round, you tend to drink to the pace of the fastest drinker in the round”. She went on to say that this becomes a problem as you tend to drink more than you originally anticipated. This is one of those facts about drinking problems that few people will disagree with.

Fionnuala Sheehan said that the aim of DARE2BDRINKAWARE.ie is to encourage young film-makers to create short films that effectively show the dangers of drinking to their peers. She went on to say “each of the shortlisted entries highlights our ‘pacing’ theme and promotes more responsible attitudes to alcohol”.

Fionnuala Sheehan went on to say that the films which were shortlisted did this in a creative way and in a format which their peers could relate to their piece.

The short-listed entries will now be judged by a panel of prestigious film and media industry insiders, including Duan Stokes, Publishing Editor of Hot Press and Stephen Byrne, a reporter on RTÉ’s ‘The Voice of Ireland’.

The winning entries will be awarded a prize fund of €5,000. One of these prizes will be awarded based on a public vote. Voting closes at 5pm on Tuesday the 23rd of April.

Also featured on the shortlist are:

Three entries from Limerick Institute of Technology – ‘What’s the Rush’; ‘Game Over’ and ‘The Regulator’.

Two entries from Waterford Institute of Technology – ‘An info graphic-heavy animated guide to responsible drinking’ and ‘Pacing Your Drinking’.

And one from the following colleges:

Athlone Institute of Technology – ‘Reality Realised’

Cavan Institute of Technology – ‘Are we a binge generation?’

Institute of Technology Tralee – ‘The Pace Setter’

Dublin Institute of Technology – ‘Pace and Control’.

The DCU teams’ entry ‘One Two Many’ can be seen on the daretobedrinkaware.ie website.

Nicole O’Connor

Image Credit: Marc O’Sullivan Photography

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.