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be so; we acquired the land with government approval, but in advance
of any government decision that the College should be built there.
In June 1959 the situation became clear, when, upon the recommendation
of the Commission on the accommodation needs of the Colleges of the
National University of Ireland, the government announced its agreement
in principle, subject to the approval of Dail Eireann, that the College
should be tranferred to this site. During this long period of waiting,
the plans or supposed plans of the College gave rise to more than a little
criticism. On the other hand we were aware that Mr. De Valera, then
both Taoiseach and Chancellor of the University, was stronly attracted
by our plans. Mr. J. A. Costello, when Taoiseach, declared at the
banquet for the centenary of the Catholic University (1954) that he
hoped one or two building would be erected in the lifetime of his
government.

The campus is less remote than the new sites of many British universities
which have had to make a similar move, and it is readily accessible by
two main traffic routes. It consists of gently undulating park-land, with
much fine timber and tree-lined boundaries; it has extensive views of the
Dublin mountains and the sea. On it are a number of fine old houses,
all of which will serve the College usefully for a good many years;
some are likely to be permanently preserved.

It seems probable that future generations will regard as a blessing in
disquise the difficulties and anxieties caused by the fifty years' delay
the building of the College; for we shall now be bulding on a site
and a scale better fitted for permanence.

III. THE COLLEGE PLANS

Schedules of accommodation for the faculties and departments have
been in existence since 1952, and those likely to be required soonest
have been brought fully up to date.

A tentative lay-out for the buildings was prepared in 1952, when
Merville was the largest and the finest part of the College estate. In 1955,
when further properties had been accquired, a new lay-out was prepared
for a more central part of the campus, closer to the city. This, the
"Belgrove Plan", is reproduced at the end of this brochure. It too is

(picture of a bust)
I. Dr. John Henry Newman. Appointed Rector of the Catholic University
of Ireland, 1851; administered actively for three and a half years from the
opening in 1854; resigned 1858.

The following College publications deal with newman and his work here:
Newman's Doctrin of University Education, 1954 (five lectures delivered in 1952,
in commemoration of the centenary of Newman's Discourses on the Scope and Nature of Univerity Educaton); Newman House and University Church, by C.P.
Curran, D.Litt; Struggle with Fortune, a Missellany for Centenary of the
Catholic University of Ireland, 1954. Newman's University Sketches, in the text
of 1856, were edited by Dr. M. Tierney, President of the College, in 1953.
The Discourses were edited by Dr. R. J. McHugh in 1944.