Notes on the foundation of the foundation of the Queen's Colleges of Ireland

This piece is a brief account of some of the work carried out by members of the society's committee over the past few years into the history of the society and the college.

The Statues of the Queens' Colleges of Ireland were set out in 1846. More debate has take place among Irish and British historians as to the establishment of third level colleges in Ireland during the nineteenth century than has generally being recognised. The only third level institution in Ireland prior to the mid nineteenth century was Dublin University or Trinity College, Dublin. However it is doubtful if one could argue that Trinity was a College for or of Ireland. Indeed any attempt by the government to deliberately to alter the structure and ideology of the college would be taken by a vast array of influential persons as a devious interference in the college. Prior to the late eighteenth Catholics or Presbyterians could not, due to religious tests, enter Trinity College. After that point Catholics and Presbyterians could enter Trinity College but could not apply for any of the privileges of Trinity such as fellowships, scholarships or residency. Added to this was a ban on Catholics entering Trinity introduced by the Catholic bishops of Ireland.

From the 1820's Irish Catholic grievances began to be addressed by an organised leadership dominated by Daniel O'Connell. In 1829 O'Connell won the most significant political victory of his career when Westminster granted Catholic Emancipation in the United Kingdom. From that point up to until the mid 1840's O'Connell had the unassailable leadership of both Irish Catholic and Nationalist Opinion. In 1829 one of O'Connell's most determined opponents was Sir Robert Peel, this was an antagonism that stretched back to Peel's Chief Secretaryship of Ireland between 1812 and 1818. Indeed it was of those strange ironies of history that it was Peel who had to inform King George IV that if emancipation was not introduced that Ireland would descend to rebellion and disorder.

By 1841 Peel had become Prime Minister of Great Britain and once more the two men were drawn in contest, this time for the more significant prize of the Repeal of the Irish Union with Great Britain. In this instance Peel was determined not to accede to O'Connell's demands however unlike previous and future incumbents Peel was prepared to take a proactive step towards Ireland and in particular the question of education. These objectives were to kill repeal by kindness and dilute upper and middleclass support of O'Connell's nationalist movement. Though we may also see Peel's reforms in the light of an earnest Mid Victorian concern that the social conditions of Ireland might be improved by spreading higher education among the middle classes.

These policies were to prove extremely divisive in the Conservative Party and could be said to lead to the bitter divisiveness that engulfed the party upon the proposed repeal of the Corn Laws. First was the proposal to increase the annual grant to Maynooth to £26,360, naturally in an essentially Protestant government this proposal arose strenuous opposition. Indeed one William E. Gladstone was to leave the cabinet over the issue. His other controversial measure was the foundation of provincial third level institutions to be called 'The Queen's Colleges of Ireland'.

While the concept of regional third level institutions was not essentially the matter rather it was their character that was to raise the greatest tumult. In order to avoid a religious question Peel proposed to make the institutions nondenominational. From our historical vantage point the following uproar was predictable. The colleges were from the first denounced as 'godless', the term used buy one of the sitting members for Oxford. In fact the reception of the Queen's Colleges displayed a clear division in the Irish Nationalist camp. A group of young intellectuals, both Protestant and Catholic, had joined the Repeal Association and who espoused their ideas in a paper called 'The Nation'. Their national sentiment was a cultural as a political emotion. On a debate on the Colleges Bill Thomas Davis and the Nation welcomed the nondenominational and academic character of the colleges and bitterly opposed O'Connell and ‘Old Ireland's’ decision to row in behind the bishops on the matter.

Fact of the matter was that the colleges did not suit any of the main religious groups in Ireland, with the Catholic bishops providing the most pointed opposition. In 1851 the Synod of Thurles denounced the Colleges and argued that faithful Catholics should not attend. At this point the Catholic Hierarchy set about founding the Catholic University in Dublin with the able assistance of Cardinal John Henry Newman. However that institution was to be condemned to failure as the government offered no backing and Newman who was to differ with Cullen the Archbishop of Dublin left soon after its establishment.

Galway was seen as particularly curious case. Belfast, obviously, would go somewhat to satisfy the needs of Northern Presbyterians in their desire for the nonconformist equivalent of Trinity College, Dublin. Cork was a progressive city and was the island's third largest city. Indeed a board had been founded to argue Cork's case with respect to the establishment of a third level institution lead by a Waterford City MP Sir Thomas Wyse. When established the board also put forward a case as QCC as a college for Munster which adversely affected Limerick's bid for a similar institution. Limerick was a growing prosperous city were as Galway was in deterioration, indeed the 1840 Municipal Act had abolished the Town's Corporation. There was no similar coordinated group in Galway though when it became apparent that colleges were going to be established in Ireland local MP's such as John James Bodkin and Sir Valentine Blake spoke up for Galway's inclusion. The closest Galway had to a lobby group was the Royal Institution of Galway; its most noted intellect was perhaps the historian and antiquarian James Hardiman.

One of the greatest obstacles in the way of Galway's development was not so much the Catholic Hierarchy but a lack of appropriate second level institutions in Connaught. The elementary system, which had been introduced to Ireland by the Melbourne administration in 1831, while welcomed by Crolly and Murray, of Armagh and Dublin respectively, was scorned by Archbishop MacHale ofTuam. This was to be a constant worry of Edmund Berwick, the second president of QCG. Of course the most evident crisis in the province was still the famine that had swept through the province like a biblical pestilence in the previous five years. Further as a province Connaught was perhaps the least developed agriculturally with a constant decline of industry throughout the nineteenth century. Coupled with this was the disappearance of the ablest and best to further shores to seek relief from the misery of the west. Hence we acknowledge it as a superior achievement of belief and hope rather than logicality and realism that Galway managed to carry herself through the mid nineteenth century. Certainly the adjure of the British Government for the Colleges was to cool with the departure of Peel. Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Derby nor Disraeli were to pay much attention to the colleges or indeed the fate of Ireland as a whole, it was only with the return of Peel's most apt pupil, W.E. Gladstone, that Westminster would focus once again on the university question in Ireland.

Keith Maye

Auditor for the 154th Session