Defiant students to flout Rag Week ban

Defiant students have vowed the party will go as they plan for Rag Week 2014. Almost 6,000 students have joined a new Facebook page, Galway Rag Week 2014, which was set-up in recent days.

The page was set-up online to give updates on “everything you need to know” about the planned Rag week for next year. It does not say when the unofficial Rag Week will take place but in the past it was a February/March event. “2013 was epic . . . 2014 is going to be even better . . . and once again . . . nobody is going to stop us,” read one of the first posts by the administrator on the page.

The city’s mayor, however, called on Galway Gardaí to send out a strong signal and lay down the law to anyone taking part in an unofficial Rag Week that being drunk or involved in public disorder on the streets or neighbouring housing estates will not be tolerated.

NUI Galway authorities and the Students Union in the past have agreed to scrap College Week, commonly called Rag Week.

Student leaders and college authorities abandoned NUIG’s association with Rag Week primarily because it was tarnishing the university’s image.

Excessive drinking, drunkenness and public disorder has been a feature of the week that was supposed to raise funds for charity but in recent years descended into drunken chaos on the city’s streets.

However, last year unofficial Rag Week events were organised by student rebels, and were attended by students of the city’s two third level institutes and young, non-students. Many young people travelled from outside of County Galway just for the drinking session.

Galway Gardaí at City Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meetings have publicly backed the official ban on Rag Week and news that students are already planning another unofficial Rag week will disturb residents in the vicinity of NUIG. The mayor, City Councillor Pádraig Conneely, chair of the JPC, said the emergence and promotion of a 2014 Rag Week event was worrying.

“We can’t stop anyone from organising anything on social media; that’s out of our hands. But what we can do is send out a very strong message that anyone who breaks the law, during an unofficial Rag Week or any other week will be dealt with. I will be asking the Garda Chief Superintendent at the next policing committee to send out a signal that drunkenness and anti-social behaviour and disorder will not be tolerated on the city’s streets,” said the Fine Gael councillor.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.