University of Limerick salutes its founding students as UL50 celebrations continue

THE UNIVERSITY of Limerick commemorated its 50th anniversary by recognising the first students to go through its doors.

UL president, Professor Kerstin Mey unveiled a plaque featuring the names of those who enrolled in September 1972, in the foyer of Plassey House, right beside the slab of Connemara marble marking the official opening by then Taoiseach Jack Lynch.

“It's an acknowledgement of the choice they made,” explains Professor Mey. “It wasn't an easy one back then.”

In fact, the third-level college named the National Institute for Higher Education wasn't even what the people of Limerick were looking for. When the British Government decided in 1845 to expand Irish third-level education beyond Trinity College, it set up universities known as Queen's Colleges in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Galway. Despite being the nation's third biggest city at the time, Limerick was overlooked which led to over a century of resentment.

There were intermittent campaigns right through the 19th and 20th centuries to right the slight and they grew in intensity after the country began to industrialise in the 1950s. When it became an issue the Government could no longer ignore, the city still didn't get its university.

Instead, it was chosen as the site for the State's first institute of technology, based on the highly successful American models like MIT, Caltech and Georgia Tech.

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“At the time, not many people understood what these were,” explains Professor Mey. “In the public's mind, it was more a case of what they were not. So those students who applied were making a leap of faith.”

Even the five courses on offer sounded very different to those in the established universities. Instead of medicine, arts, law, commerce and engineering, there were applied science, electronics, European studies, business studies and secretarial science.

A total of 112 students registered that day, 70 of them from Limerick city and county. For some, it was a chance of third-level education that might have been beyond financial reach if they had to travel to Dublin, Cork or Galway to study. For others, it was the attraction of studies aimed at a changing Ireland which was on the eve of joining the EU and which was beginning to attract hi-tech foreign investment in areas like electronics and computing.

“And we are most fortunate that they made that choice,” continues the UL president.

“It gave us a curious, adventurous student base who could make the most of the innovations NIHE were bringing to third-level education. The first programmes of study included twelve months on-the-job experience that provided the contacts and the training for graduates to go straight into employment. The degree programmes in European languages and computers were not available anywhere else in the country at the time.”

^{Richard Harris addresses a public meeting demanding a university for Limerick in 1969}

NIHE quickly established its own reputation. The placements gave prospective employers in industry, in government and in services first-hand experience of the quality of education being provided. The media picked up that something new in third-level education was happening in Limerick.

But not everyone was satisfied with these brash upstarts changing a landscape that hadn't moved for generations. And when a new Government was elected in 1973, the established universities had strong support at the cabinet table from ministers like Garret FitzGerald, Conor Cruise O'Brien and Richard Bourke.

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By the time the first group of students were ready to graduate in 1976, NIHE's application to be given the same degree-awarding powers as UCD, UCC and UCG was turned down by the Government

Instead, that authority was handed over to UCC. When they decided that the courses in NIHE weren't up to degree standard, there was outrage in Limerick.

Led by the students and supported by staff, parents and most of the population of Limerick and the Mid-West, the sit-ins, strikes, demonstrations and marches on the Dáil dominated the local headlines for the first half of 1976. Eventually the Government caved in and, when a new one replaced it in 1977, the first graduates got their degrees.

Looking back on those days half a century later, Professor Mey recognises the bonding effect the fight for recognition had on NIHE which was to become a university in its own right in 1988 as the University of Limerick.

“Limerick rallied around its college, as did the staff, the students and everyone else who was involved at the time. UL is recognising those who were pioneers in leading the way in those early days when Irish third-level education became more open and accessible to a greater representation from society – which we still see today in our continually expanding access programmes at University of Limerick.”