Papers of James Meenan – Move of UCD to Belfield

8 U.C.D. and the Future

Indeed, quite close to the College, the whole area south of Harcourt Road stretching to the Canal and extending from Peter's Place to Charlemont Street is essentially an area in poor condition which will have to be cleared and the inhabitants rehoused either elsewhere or in flats on the same site.

Further, the shopping streets within this general area, Merrion Row, Lr. Leeson Street, Charlemont Street, are of relatively low value as compared with principal shopping streets in a capital city -- a consideration, if any such streets had to be acquired for university expansion.

It is not of course suggested that the public squares named above should be built on, but that buildings in their vicinity should gradually be acquired for university and other cultural and educational requirements.

Misleading Comparisons

In its Report (p.34) the Commission says -- 'in the English and Danish universities we visited we found that the authorities were dealing with problems similar to that of Dublin.' The universities visited were Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Reading, and in Denmark, Copenhagen and Aarhus. The commission also made use of information supplied by the universities in Wales, Edinburgh, Exeter, Liverpool, Sheffield and Southampton. We believe that it is misleading to assert that the problem in Dublin is similar to that in these cities. Only one capital city was visited -- Copenhagen -- where the old university was situated in the densely built-up old part of the city. In this case we are told also (Report p. 34) that 'details of the area of the sites of the University of Copenhagen are not yet available to the Commission.' Aarhus is a provincial University of 1800 students.

The conditions in the British industrial cities bear no comparison with those in Dublin. A description written about those very universities mentioned by the Commission -- 'buildings frequently dingy and cramped and sometimes sordid, set in an environment of smoke and slums' -- could never be applied to Dublin. Overcrowding of incompleted buildings we have -- and that can be relieved on the present sites -- but sordidness and smoke and slums we most decidedly have not in our general university area.

In none of the cities mentioned by the Commission is there a cultural and educational complex such as we have in the university area of Dublin. Those few British universities which are moving out to a campus site in the suburbs are in no case leaving an area which houses a second university with a worldfamous copyright library, a National Library, Gallery and Museum and the headquarters of so many professional institutes.

Dublin's great good fortune in the matter of its centrally situated university area has frequently been the subject of envious comment. We have quoted two such recent comments in our Appendix J.

Further, as the authorities of U.C.D. have frequently pointed out, the College may be regarded as the direct successor of Newman's Catholic University. The present site is associated both with Newman's effort and other Irish aspirations after university education.

Taking the above facts together, a university in any other capital Dublin|city would

Dublin's University Area 9

consider itself very fortunate in having such opportunities for development, nor would powers of compulsory purchase be denied to it, if required.

The Cultural and Educational Complex

The existence of the many institutions in this area must be taken into account:

1. The principal museums, galleries, and the National Library. 2. Trinity College, Dublin. 3. Various other cultural, professional and educational bodies (e.g. Institute for Advanced Studies, Catholic Central Library, Royal Irish Academy, Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Surgeons, Royal Institute of Architects, Royal Society of Antiquries). 4. Several university hostels, under Catholic ecclesiastical control (see Appendix D for a list). 5. A great deal of other property under esslesiastical and/or educational control. Much of this consists of schools inadequately housed in converted dwelling houses and falling below modern standards and requirements for such schools (See Appendix D.) 6. The Houses of the Oireachtas, which are inadequately provided for, and Government offices which are expanding.

This whole complex of Government, university, cultural and educational establishments should be considered as a whole and no one aspect of it (such as the needs of U.C.D.) can be properly studied without taking into consideration all the factors involved in the planning of this area. One can, however, say straight away that to dismember this complex, by removing U.C.D. from it, is the least happy of solutions.

If the removal of U.C.D. from the area presented a final solution to the other conflicting problems that exist within it, then there would be that much extra to recommend the move. But it does not present such a solution. Now is the time to ask what is the final solution to be aimed at in providing adequately for the needs of:

The Houses of the Oireachtas The Government departments The National Museums and Gallery The National Library The National College of Art The Institute for Advanced Studies The many schools in the area Trinity College

Government Offices

One possible solution to many of these problems would be a Government decision to remove the Houses of the Oireachtas and at least some of the Government offices to another site. Kilmainham has often been mentioned, and the site there is large enough to provide for a single solution. The difficulty

70 U.C.D. and the Future

Appendix I

AN ARTICLE FROM THE 'IRISH BUILDER AND ENGINEER,' 25th JULY, 1959

Accommodation Needs of the National University By P. Callinan, F.R.I.C.S.

The Minister for Education, in September, 1957, appointed a Commission of nine members to enquire into the accommodation needs of the three constituent colleges of the National University of Ireland and to advise as to how these needs could be best met.

The university colleges in Cork and Galway have been in existence since 1849. University College, Dublin was established after the Irish University Act, 1908, came into force. This is now the largest of the three colleges. Its principal building is at Earlsfort Terrace and was completed in 1919. Estimates made before this building was planned were for 1,000 students. This number was exceeded in 1917; in 1927 the number was still under 1,200; in 1934 the number exceeded 2,000; in 1945, 3,000 and now has reached nearly 4,000 full-time students.

According to the report, only 45 per cent of the 1912 building programme was carried out. In 1926, the College of Science was transferred to U.C.D., and a building adjoining it was made available to the university in 1951. The report goes on to say that, in 1945, a comprehensive survey was made of all possible sites in the Earlsfort Terrace area, and owing to various difficulties the college authorities decided not to proceed further on the lines of a layout plan then prepared by Mr. J. V. Downes, F.R.I.A.I. Efforts were next made to purchase the site of Mespil House (5 1/2 acres), with the intention of transferring to that site the engineering and architectural departments. These efforts failed, and the next move was to look for a site outside the central area of Dublin. Land was purchased in the Stillorgan Road area and, including the Belfield sports grounds, the college came into possession there of 252 acres (at a cost of £255,438).

'The architectural advisory board to the Commission have prepared a layout plan siting the college buildings at Belgrove. The net floor area in use at Earlsfort Terrace, Merrion Street and Newman House is given as 207,000 sq. ft. but 43,334 sq. ft. represents accommodation mainly taken over from the defunct Royal University of Ireland, which is not of satisfactory construction-- leaving only about 164,000 sq. ft of sound construction. This excludes the Albert College, where the third and fourth year agricultural students are accommodated. The net working area estimated to be required by the several departments of the College is 610,630 sq. ft. The new building will be provided on a site 2 1/2 miles from St. Stephen's Green and Merrion Street. Trinity College, Dublin College, Dublin, which has 1,800 students, has a site of 35 1/2 acres. Queen's University, Belfast, with 2,000 students, has 87 acres.

The desirability of finding a solution of the college accommodation problem in the vicinity of existing college buildings was the subject of a submission to the Commission by Dr. R. McHugh, U.C.D. lecturer in English, on the ground that the college was associated with the city, that the present site ensured that night students (who number 400) and the general public had easy access; the college was in close proximity to hostels and lodgings and to libraries and museums, etc., and that, in view of the capital cost of replacing existing buildings, their retention was desirable.

Appendices 71

Extension Nearby Rejected

The Committee (on p. 35 of their report) give the reasons that influenced them to reject a proposal for the extension of the college adjacent to its present location. On reading this the present writer can only regret that there was no architect member of the Commission, or a valuation surveyor experienced in the acquisition of property. To anyone experienced in such matters the Commission's attitude could only appear as that of persons inexperienced in economics of land use. If the College had an experienced valuer to consult, they would not have allowed the Mespil House site to slip through their fingers, so to speak. The college should long ago have had granted to it powers for the compulsory purchase of property, as whatever objections can be raised to the granting of such powers, they are trivial when compared with the handicap on a statutory body of being without them. Although the Commission expresses the view that, with the Mespil House site, the College would not have sufficient accommodation without other property, it could with proper advice have acquired such additional property nearby. The Commission are obsessed with the importance of what they term the physical unity of the college, an arrangement that very few of the universities in these islands have attained in practice (with the present trends in medical education, accommodation for lectures for medical students will have to be provided in the hospitals).

One member of the Commission (Mr. A. O'Rahilly) would solve the space requirements of U.C.D. and T.C.D. by amalgamating them and rationalizing the courses. He points out that extensions to the Earlsfort Terrace building could be made gradually by acquiring the property towards the canal and that the central grounds of Trinity College could be expanded by acquisition of property along Pearse Street and Westland Row. The suggested amalgamation raises points other than accommodation, but judged from that standpoint the proposed solution could not be bettered.

The Cork College requires an additional 67,000 sq. ft. of building at a cost of over £500,000; Galway College 99,000 sq. ft. at over £600,000. In some respects the needs of the Galway College were placed more clearly before the Commission than those of the other colleges--thanks to the preparation of drawings by their consulting architects.

Not to be Considered in Isolation

The Commission, by their terms of reference, could consider only the question of accommodation. The urgent need for additional space is obvious, but in the light of present trends in university and higher technological education the matter cannot be considered in isolation. The Commission make no reference to the fact that other universities (notably Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester) have instituted a degree in technology and utilize existing technological colleges. Here, in Dublin, a full timecourse in building has been established at the Bolton Street Technological Institute. The building industry on the management side, is in need of higher education no less than is agriculture. No existing course at a university meets fully the industry's special needs; probably the best course so far established is that at the Manchester Technological Institute where, incidentally, great attention is given to the study of at least one continental language, in addition to studies in engineering, architecture, surveying and economics.