Pages 10 & 11 - Towards Building The College

TOWARDS BUILDING THE COLLEGE

I. Struggle with Fortune, 1912-49

In the matter of buildings, it would not be easy to name the university as
ill provided as University College, Dublin, had been and is. The College is
not an institution which has outgrown buildings that were at one time
adequate, but one which, properly speaking, has never been built at all.

The Catholic University, a private and a poor institution, had only
a few town houses, and an old warehouse for its Medical School. The
Jesuit College had simply the two houses now called Newman houe.
Had there been a Queen's College in Dublin, as in Cork and Galway,
we should have inherited a useful nucleus; but there was not. In
1909 we began our work in Newman House, the Cecilia Street Medical
School, and the Royal University laboratories at Earlsfort Terrace. 1 We
obtained a building grant of L110,000-which was half the amount then
being spent on the Royal College of Science. We recieived also the old
exhibition building (1865) formerly used by the Royal University in
Earlsfort Terrace; these were unsuitable for academic use and were to be
pulled down to give a building site. Plans were ready in 1912 to erect a
new College for 1,000 students, consisting of a quadrangle with a central
block (Library and Aula Maxima). When in 1919 the front (Arts) and the
north side (Science) of the quadrangle had been constructed, inflated war-
time costs had sunk the College so deeply in debt that work had to be
stopped. That was the one and only attempt, up to the present moment, to
build University College. At Earlsfort Terrace today, in less than half the
building intended for 1,000 students,, eked out by some of the old building
that had not been pulled down, and a few temporary structures, 2,800
students are doing their work. At the Science Buidlings in Merrion Street,
designed (as the Royal College of Science) for 200, there are now 1,200. As may be imagined from these figures the congestion is very great.2

1 The laboratories were newer than the exhibition building. They were build by the Royal University for examinations, and only on these occasions wer students allowed to enter them. Such were the efects of the particular attempt to resolve the Irish university question.

2 2,800 and 1,200 are the figures for 1958-9; they do not add up to the total College roll of 4,500 because about 500 students do their work elsewhere-at the faculty of Agriculture, Glasnevin, the Veterinary College, etc.

The spece requirements of the Faculty of Agriculture are not delt with in this brochure as they seem to require a separate solution. Two years ago, an immediate space problem at Glasnevin was solved by discontinuing the residential non-university courses adn turning the old dormitories into laboratories for the university students. But the fundamental problem of this Faculty is that its farm is much to small and had become an island in a built-up area.

10

II

For nearly twenty-five years after the interruption of the 1912 building
plan the College continued in the hope of completing the plan;
midway in that period there was a temporary alleviation, on the taking
over of the Royal College of Science. We later, in view of ever-growing
numbers, considered extending the buildings over the Iveagh Gardens.1
In 1946 there seemed to be a real chance that this might be done. But
even thus extended, the Earlsfort Terrace site was a very small one,
above all when future development was considered. The loss of part of
it when a new building was erected by the Office of Works made
reconsideration neccessary. An attempt was made, without success, to
purchase Mespil House,, about half a mile from Earlsfort Terrace, with
a view to putting part of the new Colege there and the remainder on
the Iveagh Gardens. Lastly, the possibility that the College might be
granted compulsory powers to buy ground adjacent to the Iveagh
Gardens was investigated, and it was found that such powers could not
be obtained. Much effort and planning thus ended in disappointment.

II. A FRESH START, 1949-59

It was now clear that the College must forgo the advantages of its
central position and move out to a site where there would really be room
for its present and future needs.2 Our ownership of the Belfield estate
on the Stillorgan Road, two and a half miles from St. Stephen's Green,
gave a clear suggestion.3 Belfield was surrounded by other residential
estates which had not yet been sold for building, and it happened that
there was a pause just then in the extension of suburban housing. In
the nine years from 1949 to 1958, the College, with generous help from
the State, acquired six contiguous properties on the Stillorgan Road,
making a total of 252 acres. This may now be spoken of as the campus of the future College. For ten years we could only hope that it would

1 In 1940 Lord Iveagh handed over his gardens to the State, intimating that they might be used by the College.

2 It is hoped that the historic houses on St. Stephen's Green will always remain with the College; a town centre will be needed for the very important work of evening classe, university extension lectures, etc.

3 The Belfield estate was bought in 1934, to provide playing-fields. As belfield has a rather long association with the College, and as it was the nucleus to which the other properties were added, its name seems to be the one best fitted to appy to the whole campus. In these pages Belfield is used in this wider sense.