Pages 8 & 9

8
and the general public habitually calls this College "the National
University" or, for short, "the National."

Our Constitution of 1908 was in many ways imperfect, but it was
nevertheless a great advance. The College was now chartered and
endowed, and though it was not given the university status and title
that had been lost twenty-five years before, it at least shared in the rights
and the control of a university. In its new wider scope, the College
combined the Jesuit Arts College with the C.U.I. Medical School, and
embraced the new faculties of Science, Commerce, Law, Engineering
and Architechture, to which others might be added; Agriculture and
Veterinary Medicine have in the course of time been added. The endow-
ment was modest, but it was experimental, and there was every reason
to expect that it would soon be increased. When we opened in
November 1909 it may well have been thought that we had before us
a long period of steady development.

But 1909 was very close to 1914, to the first world war and the Irish
revolution, beyond which lay a succession of further troubles. In
some ways we have thriven in these rough times more than the founders
of fifty years ago could forsee; but we have also passed through
dangers and difficulties beyond their ken. We have multiplied in
student numbers, more than eightfold in fifty years - from 530 to 4,500.
Everywhere, of course, university numbers have been enlarged by the
twentieth-century transformation of society and the new requirements
of administration and applied science. But in our case special causes
operated. Catholic and nationalist Ireland had been waiting a long
time for a proper university, so that students rushed to it when it came.
A new state and a new economy were in the process of creation;
University College, from its very foundation, produced in large pro-
portion the men who were to direct the new independent Ireland.

A growing university needs more buildings, equipment, and staff;
a rapidly growing one must present alarming bills to the State, which
is its biggest source of revenue. Science and technology, in particular,
have become more and more expensive every year.

It might be thought that one of the first actions of a native Irish
government would have been to build and endow this College as well
as possible, and to encourage its expansion. The new State did in fact

9

transfer to us the former Royal College of Science, with its Schools of
Agriculture and Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. But we had had
a revolution and a civil war, there was much to be rebuilt; and there were
many things for the new State to undertake which seemed more urgent
than the building and endowment of a university. Then came years of
economic depression, and the war of 1939. During these years our
numbers and our needs grew rapidly and the State did little to help us.
Our revenue, small at the start, tended always to diminish in real value
and in relation to our needs. Our history, therefore, has been largely
one of a struggle to make ends meet, to do things much more cheaply
than they are done elsewhere, while trying to do them well. It must
be added however that the State now proceeds on the principle that as
far as possible the College should be endowed according to its needs,
judged by reasonable standard elsewhere.