TRINITY College has launched an investigation into an incident in which students went naked on the Luas and on the streets of the city centre for a ‘fundraising drive’.

The Junior Dean’s office is now looking at an event called ‘Gumball Challenge’ and will be talking to the parties involved. Trinity students caused uproar across Dublin city centre as naked pranksters were seen swarming the streets and the Luas when a society fundraiser got seriously out of hand.

Members of DU Players, the drama society in Trinity, organised a ‘Gumball Challenge' in order to raise funds for one of their upcoming musicals. Participants were handed a list of 50 challenges that included dares such as “give Molly Malone a lapdance”, “drink your own p***”, “eat a euro coin” and “get a tattoo”. The event, on January 23, got out of hand within a couple of hours when security officials at TCD were alerted to herd the multiple naked students off the cricket and rugby pitches in the university grounds.

The challenge moved into the public realm as students were dared to “get naked in a phonebooth”, “get kicked out of a hotel”, “strip on any form of public transport” and “drop an open condom onto a bar”. The phonebooth outside Topshop at the top of Grafton Street saw at least five people baring all. In a statement the following morning the DU Players Committee noted the “distasteful and denigrating actions” of the participants. They admitted that many of the actions “violated college regulations” and apologised to members of the public who had been “harassed in both physical and visual ways”.

One Players member who had helped to organise the event pointed out that each participant had been asked to sign a disclaimer before beginning the challenge.

RESPONSIBILITY

The wording stated “Trinity College and DU Players do not in any way promote nor do they accept responsibility for any illegal or inappropriate behaviour undertaken by teams participating in the Gumball Challenge”.

She admitted that this caused confusion as some people believed that Players had given them licence to do whatever they wanted.

One of the participants said she had got onto the Luas to watch people complete the challenge but by that stage Luas security men were flooding the trams.

In Trinity, the damage to the Pavilion Bar, where the event was based, reached such an extent that at an emergency meeting on January 24, Players pledged to give all money raised to the bar and security staff.

Players apologised to college staff, security, DUCAC, the staff of the Pavilion, the provost, the junior dean and all members of the public who had been offended by the event. They stated that they had been unaware of the list of challenges until midway into the event.

In a statement, the society said: “DU Players is aware that many of the participants in the gumball challenge were not Players members but we take full responsibility for the disturbances caused.

A spokesperson for Trinity College said: “An investigation by the Junior Dean’s Office is now underway so we are not in a position to comment on this until it is completed.”