SU21 - The Scoop Meets Presidential Candidate, Katie Ní Chléire
The Scoop profiles Students’ Union presidential hopeful, Katie Ní Chléire.
With only a few days left of her campaign, Katie Ní Chléire has spent most of the week working during the day and running her campaign into the evening. The 21-year-old feminist, activist, and fluent Irish speaker will spend the weekend planning for voting days ahead, before the polls open on Monday.
With the pressure of working full time in her role as QUBSU Welfare Officer, and the added toll of running an online campaign, Katie’s routine is far from that of her upbringing in Monaghan Town, County Monaghan, a small town she remembers for its community, charm and music festivals.
As the middle child of four, Katie’s fondest childhood memories are those spent with her siblings in the small townland of Aghabog, where her grandparents still live.
“My grandparents have a tiny house, but massive gardens with lots of trees and bushes, so I have a lot of happy childhood memories running around those gardens during the summer with my brother and sisters.”
Growing up immersed in the Irish language, Katie’s passion for it has deep roots. She credits her education from being at an Irish medium pre-school. Aside from her accomplishments in Irish and a broad range of subjects taken for the Leaving Cert under her belt, Katie’s education had a more personal element. Her mum ran the pre-school she attended, and now teaches in the local primary school, Gaelscoíl Ultain.
It’s not just in her early years that Katie credits her mum as a guiding influence in her education. Having graduated from Galway, her mum went back to college to study primary teaching while Katie was growing up.
“Her consistent dedication to studying rubbed off on me and seeing her work and learn throughout my childhood really did teach me the skills of hard work and dedication, and the value of working towards a university education.”
Katie remembers her move to Belfast to study Social Work at Queen’s in September 2017 as exciting, yet daunting. The course, however, was an inevitable choice. After reflecting on how her family would describe her, as “compassionate and empathetic,” Katie is sure that this is what led her to Social Work.
“I always knew I wanted to use my life to make other peoples’ lives better.”
This is a value which still informs Katie’s decisions. After working 15 hour shifts as a Residential Support Worker at a children’s home until she took up the position as Welfare Officer, Katie’s focus on caring for young people meant that she prioritised student wellbeing in this new role. It’s a passion she hopes to see through as President.
But for Katie, her inspiration to run is based on a much more personal experience. After struggling with her own mental health in her first year at Queen’s on top of the demands of her course and a long waiting list for counselling through Inspire, she is determined that students should no longer slip through the cracks.
“My personal experience living with depression and anxiety has held me back a lot, but at the same time it’s driven me forward. I don’t want any student to go through what I did, and I want to change the systems that once pushed me to break.”
With the demands of running a virtual campaign finally coming to an end, the past few weeks have no doubt taken a toll on Katie’s own wellbeing – as it doubtlessly has done for every candidate.
But she credits her support system for keeping her going. Her friends Jason and Jess, calls with friends from home and letters from her family in Monaghan, who she hasn’t seen since Christmas, have been getting her through past number of weeks.
Despite more focus on online engagement this year, a change of scenery for The Speakeasy regular, Katie still admits that she is having a lot of fun and is no stranger to the campaign trail.
Her defining moments at Queen’s, both as a student and as Welfare Officer, centre around campaigning and protesting. She credits the protest organised by Cumann Gaelach over the lack of bilingual signage as the moment which inspired her to run for Welfare.
“I saw how powerful it was to bring people together with a shared goal.”
Katie hopes that she can continue working in mental health in the future. “It’s something I care a lot about, and I want to do a masters in it after my time in the student movement is over.”
But for now, she plans to mark the end of her campaign by taking the weekend to catch up on sleep before returning to work. With several months left as Welfare Officer, Katie hopes that she, along with her team, will have done enough so she can continue to represent students.
Abby Wallace is the Deputy Editor of The Scoop news site.