Raise a Grand

I am a little behind in my updates, but that is because lots of fun things have been happening since I've returned from Paris and I haven't had the time to really sit down and write about them. Currently, and most exciting, is that one of my best friends, Lindsay, has come to Galway for her Spring break. She arrived here on Friday and will be staying until Saturday - a whole week to show someone from home what my life in Ireland is all about! It's been great to have a familiar face around; even though I have made some great friends since I've been here, I do miss my friends from home something fierce. I'll update in another post about what Linds and I did during her visit because she still has a few days here and we have lots more to do!


This post is about RAG Week, which went on from Monday to Friday of last week. RAG is an acronym for "raise a grand" - the week is a tradition on Irish campuses in which the student bodies attempt to raise money for charity through various fundraisers, contests, and other social events. It is also tradition to go absolutely mad for five days straight. Visiting students like myself had been forewarned by students that RAG week is unlike anything we will have experienced, or will ever experience again. They weren't kidding. Never in my life had I seen anything like it - students walking to class with cases of beer instead of backpacks, professors cancelling class because students weren't going to come anyway, and huge outdoor gatherings of students all out to make the most of the week. I think if I were a resident of Galway, I'd be sure to go on holiday during RAG Week. Now, I'm not going to pretend like I didn't participate in the madness, but I often found myself observing rather than engaging because the week was quite a sight to behold. At any given time of day, you could find students enjoying themselves in courtyards, on campus, by the bay, or, of course, in the pubs. Some of my teammates even came to rugby practice drunk, an offense that would outrage any coach in the United States but was expected by our coaches - I literally could not believe it. At the end of the week, only littered bottles and cleaned out alcohol aisles left evidence that the whirlwind of RAG Week had just occurred. Today, the college newspaper was happy to report that NUIG did raise well over a grand from its students and that only 37 students were arrested this year, down from 54 in 2010. And I thought the "Zoo" was crazy...


Love and anything for a good cause,
Haley