Pages 22 & 23 - Retrospect, 1959-1909

RETROSPECT, 1959-1909

It happens that the turning-point in our history which is the occation of this
brochure coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the College,
2nd November 1909. For this reason it may be appropriate to conclude with
a glance backward and some brief comparison of the College as it began with
the college of today.

The staff lists of 1909-10 and the student rolls of that year show that many
of the first staff are happily still with us, and bear out the claim already made,
that our graduates have played an important roll in the development of modern Ireland. Thirteen of the 1909 staff of sixty-four remian to celebrate thi golden
jubilee: Right Reb. Mgr. P. Boulan, Right Rev. Mgr. J. Shine, Mr. Justice
James Murnaghan, Professor Mary Macken, P.F. Purcell, M.F. Egan, S.J.,
J. J. Dowling, J. Bayley Butler, H. Barniville, W. D. O'Kelly, T. T.
O'Farrel, M. Power (Galway), T. Dillon (Galway). The postgraduate
students of that year included Mr. De Valera, President of Ireland, His
Eminence Cardinal D'Alton, Right Rev. Mrg P. Browne (President
of U.C.G., 1945-59), Mr. Henry Kennedy, Professor Liam O'Briain.
The undergraduates included Dr. E.P. Carey, Mr. J.A. Costello,
Mr. Authur Cox, Right Rev. Mgr. M. Curran, Professor W. Doolin,
Professor J. Doyle, Dr. E. T. Freeman, Miss Louise Gavan-Duffy, Rev.
Professor A. Gwynn, S.J., Mr. P.J. Little, Professor P. McGilligan,
Chief Justice C. Maguire, Professor G. O'Brien,, Miss K. Phelan.

Before and during the session 1909-10, 36 professors, 12 lecturers, and 16
"Demonstrators and Assistants" were appointed. In Comparison with this,
we have now 64 professors, 26 lecturers, and not less than 160 teaching
officers of various ranks in place of the original "Demonstrators and
Assistants"; we have also a large number of occasional specialist lecturers and of student demonstrators (in 1909 there were 6 student demonstrators).

An analysis of the student total of 530 in 1909-10- will show that many
changes have taken place since then. It included 488 men and 42 women. The
relative number of women students rose pretty rapidly, and by 1921-2 was a quarter of the whole. Today it is a third of the whole; and of the total
number in Faculties other than Engineering, Argiculture, and Veterinary
Medicine, women studnets form almost exactly a half.

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There were then204 students in Arts and Science. Between these Faculties
there was an amount of overlapping which seems strange today; proobably not more than 30 were properly speaking Science students. Medicine stood
at 314, making up more than half the College. there was indeed nothing
else, except 5 Law students (not including those who were taking Arts degrees),
and 7 in Engineering. As yet there was no Architecture, no Agriculture;
Denistry was small and not counted separately from Medicine, Veterinary
Medicine lay very far in the future. The Faculty of Commerce existed by
had as yet attracted no students.

With the above small and simple beginning may be compared the 1958-9
totals for the various Faculties and subdivision of Faculties:

Arts ... ... ... 1,465
Science ... ... ... 544
Medicine ... ... ... 558
Denistry ... ... ... 189
Law ... ... ... 99
Engineering ... ... 406
Architecture ... ... 95
Commerce ... ... 517
Agriculture .. ... ... 315
Veterinary Medicine 282

The increasingly wide contribution of the College to the national life appears
in the great development of Faculties originally very small, like Engineering
and Science, and of others which simply did not exist at the time. Arts has
grown steadily, so that in spite of the development of new Faculties it is by
far the largest and nearly one third of the whole. Teh old preponderance of
Medicine had disappeared, so that it no longer makes up half but only one
eighth of the College (one sixth if the Dental students are counted with the
medical). But the pattern is every-changing; already the registration of
October 1959 shows a new upward tendency in Medicine, and a leveling out
or slight decrease in Agriculture and Engineering, with a considerable over-all
increase. The one conclusion that can be drawn is that of Dr. Coffey's
presidental Report at the end of his term of office, that "the permeation of
the counrty by the College is as yet far from complete."