Wintry weather doesn't deter students enjoying 'college Christmas Day' in Cork 

More than 100 people stood huddled in queues outside Cissie Young’s pub on Bandon Rd before it opened at 11.30am, with equally long queues piled up outside Annie Mac’s across the road.

First-year UCC students Morgan Caraher, Isabelle Barry, Katie O’ Regan, and Megan Gilsenan joined the queues at 10.30am after their bus was delayed due to the heavy snowfall.

The students, who travelled from West Cork, admitted the snow at their homes had been “shocking”.

Their hopes were low, however.

“The plan was to try and get in here, but we don’t know how likely that is because of the size of the queue,” they said.

Elsewhere, gardaí were seen taking drinks from students in the queues and placing them into rubbish bags.

“They’re not going to a house party if they’re standing here in the queue,” one garda said.

“The queues here are crazy, there’s been people queuing here since 7am, so we’ve just been moving them on really.”

She said the bottles and cans will be recycled by gardaí via the Re-turn scheme, with the money donated on behalf of UCC.

“Theres no trouble thanks be to God, but its only early yet,” she said.

The doors closed at Annie Mac’s pub when it reached max capacity just after 11.25am, with gardaí dispersing the remaining queuers.

UCC students Saoirse Fleming, Labhaoise McCarthy, and Holly Boyle were grateful to be celebrating their third college Christmas Day, fearing that pubs would have closed due to weather conditions.

Meanwhile, Denis Whelton, owner of Centra at Denroche’s Cross manned the door of his shop as throngs of students came in.

Mr Whelton said that, despite lengthy queues at the door, the students have never caused any trouble.

“I’ve been here 21 years. The students are well behaved, they queue for hours and take it like a badge of honour,” he added.

Nearby on College Rd, groups of students ran between houses, with umbrellas flailing inside out due to windy conditions as they took refuge from the cold.

Grace Quirke, Robyn Denieffe, Rachel Desmond, Siun O Reilly, and Kate Scanlon attempted to buy tickets for many of the Christmas events last week, but were unsuccessful after the website crashed.

Annie Mac’s and Cissie Young’s are two of the very few pubs operating on a first-come, first-served basis in the vicinity for this day.

“Because Cissies was un-ticketed, everyone is flocking there now, so it has created quite a bottleneck of a queue,” Grace said.

“They created tickets to reduce the number of queues for college Christmas and everything, but it has actually ended up creating more queues.”

Another student joked: “I feel like the only way you’ll get in anywhere is if you skip the queue.”

The girls said the weather warnings played on their minds last night, asking friends travelling up to stay with them the night before to avoid any mishaps.

“Everyone had a sleepover here — we were worried they wouldn’t get into town,” Siun said.

“It’s bad enough having to get up at seven in the morning, never mind having to bring an umbrella in the queue with you — that’s the pits,” Grace added.