László Molnárfi is not a fan of the first person singular pronoun – in fact, he often corrected himself on its usage during his end-of-year interview with Trinity News. When speaking of his time as Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) President, he only said the word “I” on a small number of occasions, preferring the inviting (although not necessarily all encompassing) “we”.
This isn’t a linguistic observation. It actually has very little to do with language. It is evidence of a collection of choices taken by Molnárfi not just in his conversations, but more broadly in his convictions.
His year as TCDSU President is one that will undoubtedly be remembered. Although, if it were up to him, his term in office would only go down in history books as context for a modern May ‘68 moment in Ireland. Simply put, too much has happened since Molnárfi’s induction into the presidency to provide a definitive list, however the last month-or-so of Hilary Term served as a bottleneck of activity.
Left-wing members of the Students’ Union council collapsed quorum in protest of a vote to censure Molnárfi for unconstitutionally political acts and statements against the current government. The Provost Linda Doyle sent an unprecedented and widely-criticised email to all staff and students, entitled a “matter of significant concern”. TCDSU was involved in arguably the most successful pro-Palestinian college campus encampment in the world, which forced College to fully divest from Israeli firms.
All of these events would without a doubt play a toll on anybody’s stamina for the job. Molnárfi detailed that for a time it felt as if his whole life was consumed by the union – he lived on campus, a five minute walk away from his office in House 6, and obviously dealt exclusively with issues that affected the Trinity student body.
“It’s very exhausting, the job is a lot”, he said. However, during the most taxing of times, he would think of the wider picture, and the wider team around him. “Well, what about the casework officers?”, he would tell himself, “they are under so much pressure and so much stress – they’re a student who was doing their studies a few months ago and now is dealing with cases that are terrible and traumatic”. The system of casework officers was a point he doubled down on, saying that they are most at risk of workplace burnout and operate under a system that is so clearly not fit for purpose that it isn’t replicated in students’ unions abroad, namely in the UK.
He further stated that his work as TCDSU President “is all collective”, a common theme throughout his rhetoric which is evident in his frequent collaborations with other sabbatical officers and student activist groups. Although this has somewhat helped to share the workload, it may have done little to diminish Molnárfi’s sense of responsibility for the job.
When approaching the topic of appreciation for the union’s activity, Molnárfi struck a measured tone. “It’s sort of a thankless job”, he said, and paused briefly before continuing: “And that’s fine, that’s not why we’re doing it. We do it, as a union, not to get recognition – we do it to stand up for all of us, for all students”.
He was quick, however, to show me a page of TCDSU’s website dedicated to their reports, publications, and policy proposals – which could show that Molnárfi thinks subconsciously that these details deserve more attention, and that people are unaware of the union’s work advocating on behalf of students with College senior management. While this policy-heavy aspect of TCDSU does often get lost in translation, it was perhaps also drowned out this year by the waves of headline-grabbing protests on campus.
When asked about former TCDSU Education Officer Catherine Arnold’s shock resignation from the union in March, in which they cited “a toxic workplace environment and workplace bullying” for their decision, Molnárfi rejected this notion. “We appreciate Catherine Arnold’s work throughout the year and we wish them all the best in future endeavours. There is no toxic workplace environment in the union. We have been hard at work making sure that we have accountability and HR mechanisms”.
When pushed to explain why he thinks Arnold resigned, given that he insists that there is no toxic workplace environment, he stated that he is ”not aware of any additional information on the matter, I cannot comment”.
An equally controversial and chronically TCDSU event from around that time was an episode in which supporters of Molnárfi left a student council meeting en masse, and therefore collapsed quorum, in order to block a vote to censure Molnárfi for what the Oversight Commission found to be unconstitutionally political acts and statements against the current government.
Molnárfi’s view of this debacle hasn’t moved much since that day: “If we hadn’t protest the bureaucratic methods by which the constitution wanted to suppress our campaign against the current government, then we would have legitimised it”. Opponents to this view would vouch that the vote to censure was democratic before it was bureaucratic. “It didn’t actually put a stop to any democratic process”, he said, “because the truth is that obviously the motion wouldn’t have passed”.
The latter half of that statement is true – class representatives who rose to speak in support of Molnárfi greatly outnumbered those against him, however the vote to censure (an inherently democratic process, whether one agrees with the contents of it or not) was indeed blocked as the council didn’t have quorum for that one motion.
The core of this debate relates to Molnárfi and his supporters’ repeated attempts throughout the year to amend the union’s constitution to allow for explicit stances of no confidence in the government. After failing to pass at two student council meeting, and eventually gaining the required 500 signatures of current students, the proposed rewording was scrapped as it would have easily opened the union up to legal challenged on the basis of religious discrimination.
Molnárfi has reached a compromise with student activists who are against this rewording. “We never want to associate the union with a political party or ideology”, he declared, which was a fear for many. He clarified that all he wanted to allow for was explicit stances of no confidence in the government – and incoming TCDSU sabbatical officers are mandated to follow through with this. A revised wording of the constitution’s article will be brought before the student body in a referendum this academic year.
Something that he doesn’t see changing much this academic year is the union’s relationship with senior management, namely the Provost. He detailed how both outgoing and incoming TCDSU sabbatical officers were invited to a meeting with the Provost and her team in which they tried to convince the students to not organise a pro-Palestinian encampment.
This took place in the aftermath of the Provost’s now infamous email – which Molnárfi sees as evidence that “they feared student power” and are “guardians of the status quo”. He sees the relationship with senior management as strictly professional and deeply rooted in power play – needless to say, there’s no love lost.
Looking forward, despite his dedication to the radical student movement, Molnárfi will take a step back this year. He plans to spend more time on his hobbies, “maybe even attend lectures”, and write for Trinity News’ investigations team. He recognises that new leadership is welcome, and cites new presidents and chairs in TCDSU, activist group Students4Change, and Trinity Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. He confirmed that he will not hold a role in the union at all this year, but may attend student council meetings “for the goss”.
“I’ve done my bit, it’s time for the new generation, it’s time for me to move on”, he said firmly yet contently. He appeared to be proud but not boastful of his time as TCDSU President, which for better or for worse was the union’s most active in recent memory. He stands behind his record, saying that “we aren’t perfect but we tried out best, and I can’t recall something that I wouldn’t have done in the way that it was done”.
Throughout the year, Molnárfi was guilty for repeating some go-to words in statements to Trinity News: bureaucratic, neoliberal, and paternalistic were some of the heavy hitters. Throughout this interview, however, these took a back seat to a new crop of vocabulary: strategic, nuanced, and pragmatic.
This is how he wants to be remembered. When asked what he sees as his biggest achievement, defining moment, he opted not for the union’s role in College’s historic divestment from Israel, nor for the on-campus accommodation rent freeze they achieved, but instead he named the change in policy which allows students to eat their own food in the Buttery restaurant.
“It’s standing up against everything that’s wrong with this university and society at large”, he boldly declared. “It’s against classics, elitism, the prioritisation of profits”. Who knew a packed lunch could be so politically coded?
Love him or hate him, or don’t even care about him, we cannot deny that László Molnárfi is one of TCDSU’s most consequential presidents, rivalling the terms of Ivana Bacik, Joe Duffy and even Lynn Ruane. Elected on the most radical manifesto seen in recent memory, he epitomises the saying “what you see is what you get”. He has made no qualms about his affinity to communism, his disdain for corporate influence in Trinity, and his adoration for packed lunches.
The TCDSU offices in House Six on Front Square are a fitting stage to set the final scene for László Molnárfi’s role as President. The words “DON’T LET THE FAT CATS WIN” appear on a small sketch on paper pinned to the cork board hanging on the wall next to Molnárfi’s desk. Quite an apt stage direction for a man whose principal aim, since he entered his Junior Fresh year at Trinity, was to challenge authority and work towards his idea of a utopian university.
