Are colleges becoming more conservative?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
What historical trends have shaped Irish universities' political landscape?
Now, Irish universities, indeed, I think a lot of universities across the world, have long been bastions of progressive ideas, leaning generally left politically and liberal across the board. But data now shows that traditional values and more right-wing views are on the rise among young people. So what's behind this revival and what is it like to be a conservative on campus? Well, Newstalk's Sarah Madden joins us in studio now. Sarah, good morning to you.
Good morning Ciara.
It's pretty fascinating isn't it?
I know I think so too because yeah as you said in the past we've kind of accepted this notion that well if we look at Ireland that we're generally becoming more progressive, more secular, more liberal with each generation but there does appear to be somewhat of a reversal of course happening or at least a questioning of those progressive ideas that we had once accepted you know as the common undergraduate diet along with cheap beer and wherever you can get a slice of toast. So I took a wander down to Trinity to speak to students myself and find out even anecdotally if they're feeling a shift rightwards from left.
As a queer person myself, I certainly see myself holding back and trying to, I suppose, be a bit more covert in general, just in an effort to protect myself, basically. And I think people of all different sorts of minorities and identities generally would agree in terms of the vibe. I do think that Ireland is becoming quite nationalistic. That, of course, falls into anti-immigration. There's definitely a lot of misogyny now in young men with the rise of a red pill sort of society, Andrew Tate in particular. There's a lot of podcasters like Joe Rogan, influencers like Clavicular. It's becoming so normalised. yeah yeah yeah but i think that's good as well though you know men being the providers and stuff like that i actually think that's a good thing there's a fire in your house you're going to send a fireman in rather than a fire woman into the house to save and that's nothing against like women i'm just saying men physically are just stronger a lot of boys
especially around our age would kind of hold women to a lot of conservative standards and then not themselves of like women should act a certain way according to like conservative values like not be worth a certain amount of men or like not date around but it's like when men themselves do it it's not actually a problem stuff like women should be in the kitchen women shouldn't work stuff like that and that's like what a lot of the manosphere would promote but I don't necessarily think that like conservative values as a whole is bad people are allowed to make their opinion now they can see all of the information and stuff and make their own opinion about it and if they want to be outspoken about it they can we can share our opinion more so the conversation gets bigger
All right.
What evidence supports the rise of conservative views among young people?
So a certain vibe coming from some Trinity College students there. I find it actually kind of shocking to hear some of those conservative views back in the conversations that students have. Is there any, though, actual hard data to back this up, Sarah?
So there isn't much data when it comes to Irish university students specifically, but we can look to Europe and there is a growing body of evidence there supporting the idea. And even just our neighbours in the UK, there was a recent study, this will be shocking to you now, it showed that almost half of Britain's university students support bringing back capital punishment for the most serious of crimes. While at Cambridge, a women's society was set up last year to much media fanfare in a pushback against the university's trans-inclusive policies. Now, that said, young men are more likely to subscribe to conservatism than young women are. Rory Costolo is an associate professor at the Department of Politics at the University of Limerick.
There does seem to be a pattern going on whereby some young people are becoming more conservative and it does seem to be intersecting with gender.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:09
2
What historical trends have shaped Irish universities' political landscape?
0:09–2:51
3
What evidence supports the rise of conservative views among young people?
2:51–7:01
4
How do students at Trinity College perceive the shift towards conservatism?
7:01–10:39