Police called because requests to keep noise levels down were ignored
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| Balcony crashes on to one underneath. |
It was a horrific cataclysm which resulted in the deaths of six Irish students, and the injuring of seven others, in Berkeley, California on June 16. I extend commiserations to the relatives of the deceased and injured and hope that they and Ireland will learn something from these tragically incurred deaths and injuries.
On the night in question the killed and injured had been partying hard in an apartment 40ft above ground level. The noise levels of their rave had caused distress to neighbours; requests had been made for them to tone it down, and the police had been called.
Information I have received about the incident suggests that instead of reducing noise levels, as requested, the Irish students became even louder; they seemed to have been intent on causing the maximum pollution and nuisance. In the lead up to the balcony’s destruction and collapse the party goers had crammed themselves onto it in numbers that defy all attempts at logic.
It’s been suggested that they packed themselves onto the balcony in attempt to show defiance to others who had requested them to cease causing disturbance. What’s not in doubt is that neighbours had asked this troop of partiers to quit causing nuisance and that their riotous behaviour had been reported to the police. And with this in mind it has to be asked: what then urged thirteen of them (or very possibly many more) to cram themselves onto a balcony which was designed for six?
The history of Irish student’s summer sojourns in the United States gives much credence to the suggestion that purposeful attempts were made that night by the ravers to cause neighbours further annoyance. And my vast experience of Irish students, schools and colleges removes 99.9 percent of my personal doubt that the actions and behaviour of the partying students were designed to cause, whether through unintelligence or purposeful intent, maximum hindrance to others.
The balcony was designed to accommodate a maximum of six adults at a time; but would have been designed to withstand the weight of many more. Even the thirteen who were reported to be on it when it broke away from its moorings were probably not enough to cause the fracture. There’s a suspicion that the ultimate cause of the balcony’s detachment from its anchors was the force projected by a mass of people pushing onto it.
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| Pedestrians had been put in great danger. |
An analogy would be the way a sheet of surface ice on a pond could take the weight of a rock if it was gently laid upon it in a civil manner. But this ice would crack and break if the same rock was dropped from a height of only one foot.
Thus, even if the balcony’s supports had deteriorated over time they would still have held if it was treated with respect.
Irish students have an atrociously bad name in the US. For the last 15-years reports have been coming back to Ireland about their disgusting behaviour. Newspaper articles in the latter years of the last decade told of how Irish students were being refused accommodation by US landlords because of drunkenly vulgar, disrespectful and riotous behaviour. A recent report in the New York Times tells of conduct that involved destroying property and making life a misery for local residents.
Riotous and disgustingly loud behaviour is one thing if the damage being done is confined to the neighbour’s loss of sleep or being distressed. What hasn’t so far been touched on in reports about this incident is that the drunken ravers had put the lives of neighbours, pedestrians and other innocents at severe risk.
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| Irish have previously been known in US for riotous behaviour. |
The residents of the apartment beneath the Irish students were very lucky they hadn’t been on their own balcony or they’d have been killed or badly injured when the one overhead, laden with drunken people, crashed down. Any pedestrians and residents on the ground 40-feet beneath would also have been at great risk. The fact that the ravers were causing extreme disturbance meant that other residents could well have been outside to see what was going on, and to request the revellers to desist.
Irish students generally aren’t of the same calibre as other First World students; the fact they’ve been stigmatised and ostracised by US landlords goes some way towards proving this. Perhaps this tragedy will go some way towards making Irish colleges and parents admit that their current method of training and instilling behavioural traits in their youths doesn’t seem to be working.
The time the Irish spent lashing out at the New York Times for printing the truth might have been better spent training their offspring to have respect for their hosts and their host’s property. If this proves impossible then at least entice them to leave their vulgarity at home when they venture abroad.
It’s about time the Irish did something to combat foreigner’s justified use of the word Irish as an adjective to describe an act of severe stupidity. Of course the United States authorities might bring the vulgarity to a head by reviewing their policy of issuing J-1 visas.
