#LoveDCU returns for Valentine's 2021!

“The year was 2014, I was in my fourth year of Mechatronic Engineering and was part of the Archery Club at DCU. She was an exchange student from Brazil studying nursing and had joined the Archery Club. It all started with small talks and group gatherings together with the club and we finally went on our first date at the zoo, followed by archery practice in the evening. It went so well that we nearly forgot to exchange numbers that day, we had only talked on Facebook beforehand!

“It was in our second year of college, at the Science and Health Ball. I was weaving through the dancefloor trying to find my friends when I bumped into Cormac. We did that awkward side step to let the other pass, but kept stepping in the same direction as each other! We both just started laughing and Cormac took me by the hand, spun me around and started dancing with me. It was coming into exam season, so most of our first dates were in the library canteen on study breaks (with our nosy friends watching us from a distance of course!). That was almost 6 years ago now, and he still can't get rid of me!”

“Conor started ATT in DCU in 2012. I started teaching in St Pats in 2012 - we didn’t meet that year. I changed to ATT in 2013. That year, Conor took a year out to cycle abroad. When he returned in 2014, we were both in second year ATT. I remember seeing him sitting down in a141 and thought, a new guy, I'll introduce myself. Being very forthcoming, I sat right beside him and struck up conversation. He was delighted someone chatted to him, as he new nobody in the class and was the new ATT- er on the block. The friendship blossomed from there. We did all our group projects together, studied together and frequented many inner city Dublin coffee spots - just to get away from the books! Being from opposite ends of the country, we travelled hours to see each other during the summer. Sometimes 10 hr round trips on a bus, just for a few hrs together. We had it bad!! It took him until 4th year to ask me out!! He proposed to me in 2018 and we got married 4 months later. We now have a little girl who is almost 2. That's our DCU love story! 😍”

“Annie and I met on the St Patrick's campus in the Summer of 2000. Annie was tutoring classmates in the quad and I fell madly, deeply and forever in love. We became inseparable - walking the corridors of the college hand in hand, canoodling (as a lecturer years later told me!) at the back of lecture theatres, and chatting endlessly over lunch in the college canteen. I can still feel the butterflies when we'd be rushing to meet each other after a class.

We married ten years later. This is our 20th Valentine's Day together. Our first was when we were in second year, in 2001. We were childhood sweethearts, now life-long soul mates. We have two children, Mac and Poppy, and are we are back walking the corridors of the St Patrick's campus hand in hand - we both lecture now in DCU. I still feel the butterflies when we rush to meet each other after a class.”

“I was News Editor of The College View and a mutual friend introduced me to Nathan when I was looking for someone to talk to for a story - we met in the Omni for a coffee and now that mutual friend is our best man when we get married later this year!”

“Although we weren’t in the same course, we both studied chemistry so a lot of our modules overlapped! When I was in third year and he was in second year (2018/19) I spotted him in a few of my modules. I have to say he was the only reason I attended majority of my lectures lol! One year later, many more organic, inorganic... (the list goes on) modules and in my final year, we both happened to be in Nubar. I’m not sure if it was the ‘I’m in final year attitude’ that gave me the confidence to go have a chat, very unlike me!! We went on a date the following week and the rest is history 🥰 Turns out he was crushing on me in all those lectures also- so, girls this is your sign, make that first move!! I guess you could say there was instant ‘chemistry’!”