THE UNLIKELY figure of Ned Kelly cast a cloud across this year's final of Challenging Times, as DCU beat UL to take the winners' title and the £2,000 prize fund for the first- time.
However, DCU's victory was soured by controversy. With the score at 175-170 in favour of DCU, the competition's final buzzer sounded as DCU incorrectly answered a question.
The question began. "He was born in Australia in 1902 of Irish parents..." The question was interrupted by the DCU team. The answer should have been Francis Stuart instead, the words "Ned Kelly" began to emerge from the lips of DCU captain Michael O'Sullivan and, as he said "Kelly", the buzzer went.
Quizmaster Kevin Myers ruled the question "dead", in accordance with the rules of the competition, which state that if the gong comes in the middle of a question, the question dies and no further score is added.
"The programme ends with the bell," he said, and so it does, but the UL team members and their supporters were clearly unhappy with the decision, believing a five-point penalty should have been applied to DCU. This would have left the teams level and the final would have gone to a sudden-death tie-breaker.
In the end, Myers - wh9 has hosted the competition since its inception and has chaired it more than 100 times - made the decision he was obliged to make under the rules, but UL had cause to be disappointed, having fought hard and we'll make this the programme most closely contested final.
Complaints of the "we wuz? robbed" variety duly deluged The Irish Times but, in the end there was little more that could be done.
DCU becomes the first Dublin college on a list of winners that includes UCC, UCO and Maynooth. Sadly, it was UL's second time as defeated finalists. In 1995, UL was beaten 205-150 by UCO.
Meanwhile, DCU supremo Dr Danny O'Hare is probably already making thousands of video copies of the programme with which to pro- mote his university and, quite possibly, annoy old rival Dr Ed Walsh of UL, who must be hoping that UL can make its mark on Challenging Times before he retires at the end of the century.
The winning DCU team was represented by O'Sullivan, Philip Mansfield, Richard Walsh and sub Deirdre Ruane. UL was represented by Michael Quilligan, Stephen Childs, Raymond Lannon and sub Seamus Ryan.
Both teams went away with crystal mementos of their participation, as well as complete sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica for their doubtless grateful libraries.
In addition, the DCU team announced that the £2,000 in prize -money from The Irish Times was toe be used to buy benches for the college. Who said DCU students don't know how to have fun?
