Welcome to the website of the UCC Greens. We have been established in UCC since 2001, and have grown since to become one of the more active political groups on campus. We are a forum for debate, and a campaigning and social group. The Green Lantern, our joint publication with the Environmental Society, will be available on this site. Be sure to register and check regularly our new forum, the Grapevine.

What is it to be Green? It is a relatively new ideology, distinct in its origins from Conservatism or Socialism. While environmentalism might be seen as a product of its time, the Green movement has existed for well over a century, and its philosophy makes sense that is timeless. I think that we believe - and I do not want to speak for all of us - in the dependence of Man on the biosphere, and on the rights of unborn generations. Speaking personally, I believe that a political philosophy in which one disregards the welfare of life after one's own death stems from a spiritual defect. The philosopher Bertrand Russell believed that the path to human happiness was to achieve such a unity with the stream of life as to be reconciled with death, as we would feel at one with that which outlives us and is everlasting.

In concrete terms, the Irish Green Party, to whom we are affiliated, adopted at its founding seven core tenets.
-The impact of society on the environment should not be ecologically disruptive.
- Conservation of resources is vital to a sustainable society.
- All political, social and economic decisions should be taken at the lowest effective level.
- Society should be guided by self-reliance and co-operation at all levels.
- As caretakers of the Earth, we have the responsibility to pass it on in a fit and healthy state.
- The need for world peace overrides national and commercial interests.
- The poverty of two-thirds of the world's family demands a redistribution of the world's resources.

I would encourage anybody with an interest in alternative political thought to come to our meetings. We must challenge the corruption and destruction of life and society by individual interests, the inequity and undemocratic nature of global trade, and the fallacy of perpetual, unconditional economic growth.

Eoin Daly
December 2004