Pages 2 & 3 - The College: Its History and Significance

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE COLLEGE; ITS HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE:

I. The Catholic University of Ireland, 1854-83 . . . . 3
II. Royal University and Jesuit University College, 1883-1909 6
III. University College, Dublin, 1909-59 . . . . 7

TOWARDS BUILDING THE COLLEGE:

I. Struggle with Fortune, 1912-49 . . . . . 10
II. A Fresh Start, 1949-59. . . . . . 11
III. The College Plans . . . . . . 12
IV. The Commission's Report . . . . . . 15
V. Transition and Improvisation, 1949-59 . . . . 18

RETROSPECT, 1959-1909 . . . . . . 22

THE COLLEGE; ITS HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

I. THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, 1854-83

In the revival of the Irish nation which went on slowly through the
nineteenth century, a very significant episode was the foundation of the
Catholic University of Ireland, from which University College, Dublin,
derives its origin. ¹ Just before the Bishops began to plan the Catholic
University, Sir R. Peel had come forward with something quite different.
His foundation, the Queen's University, with Colleges in Belfast, Cork,
and Galway, was undenominational, of a utilitarian character, and
closely controlled by the State. Of the sixty professors nominated,
seven only were Catholics. A further weakness of the Queen's
University, regarded as an arrangement to meet the majority demand
for higher education, was the fact that it had no College in Dublin.
In 1850 the Bishops condemned the Queen's Colleges and decided to
proceed with their own University, for which they could expect from
the state neither endowment nor a charter.

In Matthew Arnold's essay Irish Catholicism and British Liberalism ² there
is a remarkable synopsis of the Irish university situation in the period
following 1850. It recalls vividly the background against which the
Catholic University began its work, the difficulties it had to contend
with, and the neccessity of that almost heroic undertaking:

They [the Irish] are told they have the Queen's Colleges, invented
expressly for Ireland. But they do not want colleges invented expressly
for Ireland; they want colleges such as those which the English and Scotch
have in Scotland and England... They are told that Mr. Gladstone's

1 Continuity from the Catholic University to the Jesuit University College and thence to the
present College was made largely by the coming over of the students and most of the staff from
the older to the newer institution in each case.

2 Written soon after 1870. Arnold wrote a good deal on Irish Affairs. He was also, though
not a Celtic scholar, a notable propagandist for Celtic studies; much of his enthusiasm was caught
from O'Curry's Lectures on the MSS Materials. Arnold's brother was Thomas Arnold, professor
of English in the C.U.I. and in the Jesuit College, the teacher of several of the first professors of
the present College.

Arnold's account of what he means by a Catholic and by a Protestant university is interesting
in the light of later debates on the university question: "I call Strasburg a Protestant and Bonn a
Catholic university in this sense: that religion and the matters mixed up with religion are taught
in the one by Protestants and in the other by Catholics. This is the guarantee which ordinary parents
desire, and this at Bonn and at Strasburg they get."

3