'Jailbreak' winners reach Argentina . . . without spending a penny

Although much of Ireland woke up to wintry weather conditions today, two Trinity students will experience much better weather in sunny Argentina - but don't worry - it's all in the name of charity.

The Trinity Jailbreak event challenged 68 students to travel as far away from the college as possible within 36 hours without spending their own money or that of people they knew meaning the 34 teams had to rely on blagging to achieve their goal.

Claire Cullen and Matthew Hainbach were yesterday announced the winners of the inaugural Trinity Jailbreak event when they reached Mirimar, south of Buenos Aires, some 11,295kms from Dublin.

While the Argentinian adventurers made it the furthest it was a close call: Brian Cusack and Siona Wu Murphy made it to Bander Bentan in Telani, Indonisia, 11,258kms removed from Dublin and, frustratingly, just 37kms behind the winning distance.

Another team, Eden Hoey and Dave O'Carroll reached Brunei, but were still in the air at the time of the deadline.

All but four teams managed to get out of Ireland, five made it to locations across the UK. Many reached mainland Europe with teams re the Vatican, Bratislava, Dusseldorf, Warsaw and Geneva.

The Jailbreak fundraiser had surpassed the €10,000 mark this morning and they are hoping to have raised €15,000 by the end of the week. All proceeds will go to St Vincent dePaul and Amnesty International.

Lydia Rahill of the Trinity Law Society which organised the event along with the Trinity St Vincent dePaul said they have been amazed at the support they have received for the event which is part of the Lawlapolooza fundraising festival.

“There has been an overwhelming number of people who have gotten on board to offer the contestants funding, accommodation, food and travel. It has really been uplifting to see such enthusiasm all over the world,” she said.

“In 36 hours we fundraised a record breaking amount for the Law Society, we reached over 6000 facebook likes, we trended top in Dublin and Ireland with over 2000 twitter followers and reached the record high of 5,600 listeners on Trinity FM. We are really proud of the project and are extremely grateful to all that took part; be they contestants, donators, travel companies or any one that followed and supported the project.”