Madam, - Ulick O'Connor (December 17th) points out that John Henry Newman (1801-1890) did not found UCD, which was established in 1908. However UCD is also right to celebrate its unbroken continuity with Newman, the first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, which opened at 86 St Stephen's Green (now UCD's Newman House) 150 years ago this year. In the following year, 1855, Newman established the medical faculty in Cecilia Street which was to become the UCD Medical Faculty. UCD's Literary and Historical Society also traces its foundation to Newman.
UCD - with government funding- took over from Newman and his Jesuit successors the great project of ensuring more equal access to university education in Dublin. To this end the new UCD effectively acquired the assets and many of the people of University College. In 1882 the constitution of the Catholic University was modified to include a wider number of teaching institutions. Newman's institution on St Stephen's Green became a constituent college of the re-organised Catholic University with a new name, University College, and (as from 1883) new managers, the Jesuits.
As Donal McCartney clearly sets out in his definitive history of UCD, "UCD was not being established de novo. . .whether from the point of view of staff, or students, or buildings, or ethos generally, the strong lines of continuity between the new UCD and the Jesuit College, Cecilia Street and the Catholic University were unmistakeable and undeniable."
The first President of UCD, Dr Denis Coffey, and many of the original staff of UCD transferred across. McCartney notes that of the 26 full time professors who were appointed, all but seven had been connected with the Jesuit College and that a large proportion of the original students of UCD simply transferred from the Catholic University Medical School and the Jesuit College .
As regards Earlsfort Terrace, it was not in fact until 1912 that R. M. Butler won the competition to redevelop the old Royal University site at that location. The building work was begun in 1914 and completed in 1919. At the outset St Stephen's Green and Cecilia Street - the core of Newman's Catholic University - accommodated the medicine, arts, law and commerce faculties of the new UCD. - Yours, etc.,
NIALL TIERNEY, Chairman, Newman Foundation of Ireland, Morehampton Terrace, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.