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The Leader Interview..with Ed Walsh
Dr Edward Walsh, 68, founding president of the University of Limerick, recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Limerick. He spoke to ANNE SHERIDAN about why he's glad he took up the position that he was so close to refusing, and how the key to success is having an outrageously, ambitious plan
THE name Ed Walsh has a sterling quality to it. It is a name preceded by Doctor and followed by a glittering array of achievements, whom few could pencil in to their CV. In fact, his whole list of accomplishments could well the take the 1,600 words of this interview, and dominate many more pages beyond.
And while you would read them in amazement, and possibly disbelief, you would also frankly be a little bit bored, because they reveal little of the man himself.
Born in Cork in 1939, Dr Walsh, a chartered engineer by profession, is known as an educationalist, visionary and policy influencer. He is also a fan of skiing, historical biographies and playing the piano badly. Only that morning he finished polishing a silver bowl he crafted for the Irish Chamber Orchestra (of which he is deputy chairman) for their upcoming fundraising ball.
And in his 'spare' time, he likes to drive a tractor, is "good with a chainsaw" and annoys his family by believing that he can do anything, at their home in Newport. The truth is he has so many strings to his bow it is difficult to pin him down. So, who exactly is Dr Edward M Walsh?
Not for the first time during the course of our interview in the Marriott Hotel, he leans back in the chair and lets out a glorious, self-deprecating laugh. "He's a guy who got great opportunities to do things," he says with modesty, and perhaps abashed at such an imposing question.
Undeterred, he leans in, as if to whisper one of the great secrets to leading a fruitful life: "Never turn down an opportunity if someone asks you do to something; say yes and that takes you into all sorts of areas. Everyone is surrounded by opportunities; the difference is if they reach out and stretch to those opportunities."
Some stretch, but Dr Walsh soared. He was trusted into the limelight when he became founding president of the University of Limerick – the first 'new' university created in the Republic after the creation of the Free State. And it was through the manner in which he led that university – for a period of 28 years – that he rose to prominence and became an important public figure. He was a rebel with a cause and fought hard for the university to become 'Ireland's MIT.'
His immediate successor as president, Roger Downer, has spoken of "drive, energy and vision." Moves to establish the University of Limerick date back to 1845, and finally materialised when Limerick's National Institute of Higher Education received university status in 1989.
Current president, Prof Don Barry, believes he is "a true giant in the Irish Higher Education sector. "I salute Ed Walsh for his vision, his foresight, and, above all else, for his courage," Prof Barry told this newspaper.
However, there was a time when he was very close to not accepting the position. He had even withdrawn his application to be the first Director and chairman of the Planning Board, and instead accepted another position at University College Dublin. In the end, he followed his wife's encouragement and his own guiding principle, "If in doubt, do it", an re-applied for the position in Limerick.
"I suppose the weakness of the Limerick opportunity was that very little was thought out about what should be done, but the advantage was there were no pre-conceived ideas. Obviously in hindsight, I am glad I took the job, but at the time it was very precarious.
"I was appointed in November and was to take up duty on January 1 1970. I flew out of New York on December 31 and took up the job the next day. I left my wife off at Shannon and I flew on to Dublin to the Department of Education. The Minister said: 'Money is a bit of a problem; we only have about 5,000 provided this year,' and my salary was 4,000. It looked so dismal – there was no campus site, no office..."
However, he believed his mission was clear: he was to find the best people, irrespective of nationality or creed - which he did while putting a few noses out of joint in the process.
"The first serious media controversy was about why I was employing these foreigners. Did they not expect me to appoint the best," he asks, eyes widening in mock offence.
The early years, he said, were peppered with many controversies, arising from alien academic projects, and selective funding by the World Bank and European Investment Bank. Other institutions looked on with envy again as UL succeeded in millions of dollars from the American philanthropist, Chuck Feeney. At Walsh's behest, Feeney and fellow philantrophist Lewis Glucksman raised 25million for the library alone.
To get the best, the contracts to design the university, as well as recruiting personnel, were advertised internationally, and as a matter of principle, he said, they advertised in the Belfast Telegraph. This was, after all, around the time when the restrictions facing Catholic students who wished to Trinity College Dublin were lifted, and his personal views on religion's place in influencing Irish education were later to become apparent.
"There was that kind of feeling that you looked after your own. One assumed that it would have been a Limerick architect and that Irish people would have been employed, but I refused to do that. I said to the Minister: 'Look we are intent on providing Ireland with something of a world standing. We're trying to get the world's best people, we have them and we're going to appoint them."
And so he got what he wanted: "risk takers" and "people interested in creating something new." He searched around Europe looking at 'model' institutions, sometimes taking in two countries a day, and on returning began on a marketing campaign to recruit the best students. "I had a projector in the back of the car and was going around telling people what we were trying to do. I told them we were looking for students with courage, but I'm sure their parents were telling them to go to Cork or Galway.
The first hundred or so were remarkable too, because they had a lot of confidence, a lot of determination and vibrancy.
"The conditions were quite primitive in a way: we were setting up laboratories out in the stables, trying to get the co-operative education up and running. It was a remarkable exercise in a very short period of time."
The site in Castletroy was purchased in six weeks – the clear forerunner over other locations in King's Island, the Raheen Industrial Estate and Mungret College. Plassey House and the surrounding 70 acres was bought for 72,000, and in spite of the insistence of the Department of Education that the historic building be knocked down, Dr Walsh fought to keep it "as it was something of quality from the past."
And so in September 1972 the first group of 113 students were admitted, when the university had just five degree programmes, five diploma programmes, and twelve faculty members.
"In the first academic council meeting we all had to sit on the floor because there were no chairs," he says with a laugh.
He even remembers the time when the first book was put in the library, and photographed, and proudly testifies that soon after the library had some 4,000 books on its shelves.
As a further matter of principle, he insisted that the official opening of the university be an ecumenical, rather than a Catholic affair, and sought to have the Chief Rabbi at the ceremony, as well as the Catholic and Protestant bishops.
"The Catholic bishop said he was happy to go along with it. The Protestant bishop was fine about it, but said he didn't want too much holy water going around and the Chief Rabbi said he wasn't coming if there was any holy water!"
In the middle of all the preparations, they received a letter from the Department stating that 'no state funds were to be used' and were forced to begin their own fundraising for the event.
He recalls all of these memories with warmth and affection. It was a unique experience – "nothing like this had happened in the history of the State" – and surely one that was hard to resign from, given the massive investment in energy, passion and implementing his vision.
"On several occasions I had spoken to myself – after ten years, and then after 20 years, and then it was 28 years - about doing so (resigning].
"I attempted to do it in the early 90s, even though I could have continued on until 2005, which was crazy. You needed new blood. It was hard because things were moving very rapidly. It was like being on a conveyor belt and you need to make a special effort to get off. But in hindsight it was absolutely the right thing to do. Very few people get the chance to get a university going; it gives you an interesting insight into what makes human nature tick."
He may have let go of the reins, but he is still involved in no less than 18 organisations in the fields of art, business, music and science. Among his many bugbears with Limerick, his home of 36 years, are the governance of the city, the lack of planning, redeveloping Limerick's docklands and the boundary extension. And he can speak on these subjects as passionately and as vocally as he can on the university: "The University of Limerick wouldn't be there today if we didn't have an outrageously ambitious plan for it. We need a similar plan for Limerick."
Will he, or more precisely, could he ever fully retire? The question brings another laugh. No doubt it is one he has heard before.
"I'm doing lots of things that are of interest to me and I'm not the chief executive any more. I manage to do a lot from the helm of a boat. When I'm sailing or walking or whatever I can check my emails or even chair a meeting if I need to..and I'm very fortunate to have a wife that has put up with me since we married in the 1960s. Life is great."
Family: Wife Stephanie. Four children: Michael, Stephen, Eoghan, Elizabeth-Jane
Motto: If in doubt, do it.
Favourite film: The Blues Brothers
Favourite book: Currently reading That Neutral Ireland by Clair Wills. He is also a fan of biographies on Winston Churchill, but dislikes fiction.
Favourite destination: Greece for sailing
On Limerick: It's great to see the city blossoming. There was a time when I was embarrassed to pick people up at Shannon, as I'd have to distract them going through the city. Now it's a pleasure to see that skyline, but Limerick still has major challenges.
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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