Get Geared Up For Student Life

It’s getting near that time. Keys to the flat. Freshers’ week. Can’t wait to blow the loan on some new gear. Had the eye on a few of those World Games jerseys? New pair of skinnys. The 1916 jersey. Time to get back to college and get in the groove.

You never know who you’d run into the next few weeks. You know what its like - catch his eye across the supermarket shelf. I remember this one time at Cúl Camp. It's the same lad, ten years later!

It’s not just yourself that’s glad to see the start of another new term. Across the country Irish mammies can look forward to life without the mountain of laundry. Washing machine use decreasing by 150%. The electricity bill drops.

A fair question. How many O'Neills jerseys can one lad wear in a week? What about how many can he wear in one day? The answer? As many as you have. One when you get up. One to wear at training. Another to throw on after the training’s over. Maybe one to sleep in. Sure that’s only 3 or 4. Girls not much better.

Jocks, socks, leggings. Skinny pants half inside out. Jerseys, half zip. The oul boy’s Y-Fronts. Sure the washing was going on anyway.

Here at O’Neills HQ we’ve been debating the washing instructions on our gear. For the flower of Irish teenagers, the instructions are easy: ‘Mam will do it’. When you get to uni, unless you go home at the weekend, it’s a different story. We know lads from Tyrone that can pass a degree in engineering but still can’t operate a washing machine. Men known to spend days in a laundrette watching a drum go round and round with a pair of football togs in it that they can’t get out. Somebody press stop.

You need to make sure you have back up clothes and a Plan B. O’Neills can help. We’ve a new range of skinnys just for the student silly season. We thought about a new app to help you choose your size, swipe right for tight, left for loose, but we reckon even you can figure out for yourself.

Home for midweek training means bringing home two kit bags of dirty clothes including the occasional stray item belonging to someone else that raises the oul boy’s eyebrow. Didn’t know you wore them he’d say, going all Jim’s dad from American Pie.

Nothing beats offloading the washing and filling the bag with free food the ma buys. Pretty soon she knows the nights you'll be down by instinct and calls into Tesco just in case so when you get home the shelves are groaning with stuff for you to take back. Jim’s dad might even throw a few quid in your hand and offer a few words of advice based on his own student days. Comedy gold.

He knows the craic tho’! Your oul boy nearly destroyed the skinny pants phenomenon singlehandedly, when he ordered a pair in the Club’s gear order. Needed a serious intervention. ‘Dad you're a great Camogie manager like but those girls don't want to see you standing there in your beer gut and skinny pants.’ The interests of public decency were duly protected. The championship’s over now so he can sit there on the sofa watching programmes as gaeilge on TG4. Doesn’t have to worry anymore about chasing camogs round a mucky field. They’re all off to uni too. Ros na Rún just isn’t the same.

He knows himself sitting there on the sofa, there are many important epochs in student life. Watching Neighbours and Countdown, meeting the lads, hanging with the girls, watch Netflix and chill. Nights out, nights in, burgers, kebabs, a mega pizza delivery.

Students days, best days of your life. And your O’Neills gear with you every step of the way.