TCD Students raise over €14,000 in ‘Jailbreak’ event

Mar 14, 2013

Students, Matthew Hainbach and Claire Cullen have been named the winners of Trinity College Dublin’s first ever ‘jailbreak’ competition. The pair travelled over 11,000km from Trinity College to Argentina, in the space of 36 hours without spending any money on transport.

The event, which captured the imagination of the nation last weekend, has raised over €14,000 for Society for St Vincent de Paul and Amnesty International.

Organised by the Trinity branch of the Society for St Vincent de Paul and Trinity Law Society, 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.

Medical students, Claire and Matthew were named winners of the competition on Monday when they reached the sunny Atlantic coastal city of Mirimar, south of Buenos Aires. They managed to fly to Buenos Aires and take a taxi down the Argentine coast without spending any of their own money and without speaking Spanish. Musician Chris de Burgh stepped in to pay for their ticket home.

Just 37km behind them were Brian Cusack and Siona Wu Murphy who travelled to Bentan in Telani, Indonisia.

Many of the students persuaded travel agencies to sponsor them and made it to Paris, the Vatican City and Warsaw during the event. One team managed to  board a flight to Sydney, but didn’t arrive in time to make the 36 hour travel deadline.

Lydia Rahill of the Trinity Law Society expressed gratitude to all who supported the event through sponsorship and offers of food, accommodation and help with travel expenses.