Universities belong inside cities
Posted on April 11, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Personal.
I was a bit sad today to read this from the UCD Alumni office:
UCD will soon be saying goodbye to Earlsfort Terrace and completing the move to Belfield. Generations of students spent their university years at the Terrace and hold fond memories of that time.
This year, the last medical and engineering students will make the journey to Belfield and the Terrace will transfer to the National Concert Hall for major redevelopment as a multipurpose concert venue. To commemorate 124 years of UCD at Earlsfort Terrace….
From 1st Year to 3rd Year Engineering (1986-1989), we alternated between the Terrace, Merrion Street and Belfield. Then in 4th Year, they moved us out to the new Engineering building. I still think it is the worst thing UCD have ever done. I know they needed the space but there is simply no comparison between going to college in a City with all the facilities and social aspects that provides and going out to some horrible 60’s-style campus in the middle of nowhere.
I loved Merrion Street, I loved Earlsfort Terrace, I loved being part of the City. I hated so much of Belfield, apart from the huge increase in the number of women 
I actually have fond memories of individual rooms in the old buildings. And who can forget the Merrion Street canteen with the white loo tiles on the walls or the pink pork chops in Earlsfort Terrace? I can’t say the same about anywhere in Belfield.
I was in UCC a few weeks back and that warm feeling of “this is why I liked college” flowed through me. Compare that to CIT on the edge of the city where everyone has a car and there is no sense of place. It is just somewhere to go to be lectured.
I’m not explaining myself well and I know I’m an old fart, but still.
11 Replies to "Universities belong inside cities"
conor on April 18, 2007
And never regretted it for a minute!
In any case, Jabba the Baby Eater was the first woman’s face we saw on posters when we arrived on campus.
How long you been back in Ireland missus?
Eoghan McCabe on April 18, 2007
I hear ya, Conor. Going to college in Trinity was amazing; you can get more smack-bang in the middle of Dublin city than that. I always felt bad for my DCU / UCD peers that were stuck in the middle of nowhere, 1 hour’s traffic away from the fun.
Knarf Strebor on April 19, 2007
OK Conor can’t resist replying to this one.
You are obviously absolutley correct. What did Belfield ever give to us? OK, so there was the longest bar in Ireland, but apart from that what? Well yes the Physios were indeed a pleasure too, but what else?
Compare that to the joys of The Stretcher Race, lazy afternoons in Hartigans, free sausage & chips in O’Donoghue’s, lazing around in the Green, the Med students, Jimmy Jam Jars on the gate at Merrion, the Olympic Ballroom, the flicks, McDaids, the Oliver Brothers playing in Merrion, the gardens in the Terrace, the culinary delights of both canteens, and the engineering womoen more than happy to oblige… (using carbon paper to take notes for me that is)
OK, so I’ve got off the point, but it’s been fun.
…ps is that my favourite lifeguard from Ennis commenting?
conor on April 19, 2007
I’d forgotten Jimmy Jamjars! Catherine reminded me of the Iveagh Gardens. Sporty people playing sports and Civils using their surveying sticks and claiming that they were called something far more complicated like tallulah sticks.
I do believe the lifeguards have been commenting alright!
Belfield gave us students of Greek and Roman History accidentally sitting in our our maths lectures and staying because they saw Greek symbols on the screen.
conor on April 19, 2007
Time for a quick blog post!
Nostalgia Week at conoroneill.com » Conor’s Bandon Blog on April 19, 2007
[...] that this blog is six years old this week and we’ve started reminiscing about the good old days of Engineering Merrion Street and Earlsfort …, I’ve decided that it’s officially Nostalgia Week here at O’Neill [...]
conor on April 19, 2007
Is the art of carbon paper lost forever in a world of students with laptops and lecturers providing podcasts? Why would you ever turn up for lectures?
What was the record for simultaneous number of carbon copies generated by one hand?
Rambling Man on April 19, 2007
there were a few memorable things on the belfield “albanian prison” campus … like the homeless guy who stodd in the canteen every evening to get his tea – quite an interesting chap who fell on hard times – and a former ucd english graduate.
and the old student bar … sports bar on a sunday night … the trap … the shite in dunkin donuts …
conor on April 19, 2007
Never heard that about the homeless guy, could easily have been one of our dishevelled lecturers chancing his arm!
You young whippersnapper, Dunkin Donuts was after our time. Or was it?
I never got to go to the old-old bar which was the black shed near the eng building.
Brian Johnston on April 23, 2007
No way!! Keep the students out of the city and out of the Subway queue
sheila on April 18, 2007
There may have been more women in Bellfield but you stuck to the original and the best – the women from Earlsfort Terrace!