Over €2,000 was raised for charity following Esoc’s ‘Race to the Rebel County’ last Friday.
Nine teams of two left DCU at 10am with the task of reaching a secret location in Cork before 7pm; without spending a cent. Each team had to pass three checkpoints along the way in Dublin city centre, Carlow and Waterford, and used buses, trains and hitchhiking to get there.
The race culminated in a neck-and-neck finish, with winners Rachel McGrath and Emma Greene reaching the destination before the 7pm deadline in a time of seven hours and 50 minutes. Emma Duffy and Ciara Murphy placed second, coming in just 15 minutes later.
Speaking to The College View, Esoc’s Chairperson Dylan Keogh said: “It was a fantastic success. A huge amount of money was raised for charity and great memories were made for everyone involved.”
The money raised was twice that of the initial €1,000 target, and all proceeds went to the Irish Cancer Society. “We chose the Cancer Society because one of the guys on the team felt strongly about it,” said Keogh.
He explained that Cork was chosen as the ultimate destination because “we were looking for a challenging area, but we wanted somewhere mainstream aswell”.
The idea was loosely based on the Trinity jailbreak, where the aim is to get as far away from the starting point as possible.
Keogh said: “We were going to do a jailbreak but then we thought, why do something that’s going to be second fiddle to Trinity?” He explained that the group weren’t approached by Trinity for this year’s jailbreak, but if it happened in the future “we have the background in running events like this, so we know we’re well capable”.
The event was broadcast to a wide audience through social media, and the hashtags DCU Beg, Borrow, Steal and the Irish Cancer Society were even trending on Twitter during the race.
“The event will definitely happen again next year,” said Keogh. “It was the one event I wanted to pull off, so I’m definitely starting a tradition.”
Ruth Marnell
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