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A Trip down memory lane
Staff and pupils, present and past, reminice about DCU over the last 25 years. David O’Callaghan,
DCU photographer, adds his photographic memories of past times.
Unique Claims and Holy Hour Drinks
- Michael Patton,
Diageo Group Corporate Relations Director
I have a unique claim of being
the first student to formally register in
NIHE Dublin in October 1980. Taking
the 17A from Coolock (that great
social leveller – bringing students
from across the Northside’s social
spectrum – Howth, Raheny, Coolock,
Kilbarrack), it arrived late on the first
day. Dr Danny O’Hare was fully
launched into his welcome speech
when I arrived – the entrance to the
only lecture theatre was beside the
podium – so I decided to go straight
to registration. Hence Michael Patten
became the first name to register –
last but first. Biblical justice. Blame
CIE.
My memories of the nascent
NIHE Dublin in its formative years are
vivid and positive. We were a very
small community then, crammed into
the Albert College building as the
foundations of what is now the great
DCU were laid down. It meant that we
had a real opportunity to in some
ways shape the future of the college –
the foundation of the Students Union,
the formation of the Debating Society.
(Our early days in the hustings with
Mark Mortell, David Cousins, George
Hegarty et al were a howl) I even had
the temerity to form a Fianna Fail
cumann in the college which actually
drew a membership. Mortell looked
on in disgust! It was a time when even
course accreditation was still being
finalised – I started a four year BSc in
Communications which ended up as
a three year BA! No matter, it meant
we got to emigrate earlier.
We also engaged in customary
student protest – Minister Martin
O’Donoghue’s visit to officially open
the Grattan building in 1981 was
greeted by a welcome wall of wailing
students (can’t remember why we
protested but it was great fun). I
subsequently invited Gerry Collins to
address a public meeting on nuclear
disarmament. After a very posh
dinner with Dr Danny O’Hare he was
greeted by a hall full of heckling and
Professor Chris Curran, Director of Oscail pictured with
Bertie Ahern, TD and Dr Danny O’Hare.
caterwauling students who manfully
counter argued every point he made
just for the hell of it. He beat a
hasty retreat after giving me a bit of
a roasting.
We enjoyed great and colourful
lecturers. Political Economy of the
Media attracted Nuala O’Faolain, Nell
McCafferty and Michael D Higgins
into the classroom where they argued
the case for the left, women’s
liberation, the oppressed and the
righteousness of the media with great
passion. Those of us who detected
more than a degree of
commercial nous in the stance of
many media on big issues argued
back equally passionately but to no
avail. The Popular Front for the
Liberation and Equality of Absolutely
Everything were not for turning!
Good times, hard work, great
fun. Our problem solving skills were
well honed. To get a drink when the
Slipper closed for holy hour you
(ahem) drove to the Boot Inn outside
the city boundary. Problem solved. No
wonder we became such brilliant
managers and strategists.
Happy Birthday DCU – you’re
making me feel old!
8 DCUTIMES
Years a’growing
– Pat Barker
On 9 September 1980, I arrived in my best
chartered accountant’s suit reporting for duty as a lecturer
at NIHE Dublin. I found a building site, with teams of
craftsmen gutting the Albert College and An Grianan.
The Business School consisted of Anthony Walsh,
Donal Keating and myself – Tony Foley joined us one
week later. We were housed in
portakabins on the lawn and we used piles of books
intended for the library as chairs and desks. We had one
field telephone, borrowed from the army, and we all
shared one portaloo that had barely enough space to sit
down and close the door.
Our first weeks were a frenetic whirl of putting
together syllabi for the degrees in Accounting and Finance
and Business Studies. I personally wrote syllabi and drew
up booklists for subjects as varied as Financial
Accounting, Law, Management, Human Resources,
Taxation and International Business.
The four of us defended a panel visit from the
NCEA and spoke confidently and authoritatively about
material that we had only just read about, assuring the
panel brazenly that we were fully competent to teach it
and, anyway, would have specialist lecturers on board
within a matter of months.
After two weeks crouching on the pile of books, I
was moved into An Grianan and Donal and Anthony
moved into the Bea Orpen in a little corner of the library. I
was promised a palatial office in An Grianan. This turned
out to be true; at least insofar as the floor space was
Charlie Haughey under siege at the launch of the
Pilot Plant, 8 June 1987
DCUTIMES
concerned. What David Barry failed to mention was that
moving me in was a legal ploy to break the squatters’
rights of the band of junkies who slept on their mattresses
downstairs and hung up their washing and scattered their
needles and works all over the lavatory.
Getting from An Grianan to the portaloo or over to
the Albert College where we had our lectures and our
lunch, involved clambering over a muddy path and
through the middle of a holly bush with a tiny hole hacked
out of the lower branches.
As the numbers of students climbed towards the
critical number of 15 that we needed to run the
programmes, we prayed when the phone rang and yelled
in celebration with each acceptance and rent our
garments with each withdrawal.
Finally, on November 11, we welcomed our first
students and began the great adventure that has
been DCU.
Deirdre McCartin, giving a video workshop to a
Communications Studies class
Professor Eugene Kennedy with Professor ETS Walton,
winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951 and
Professor Klaus von Klitzing, winner of the Nobel Prize
for Physics in 1985.
9

Front row: Celine Jameson, Emer Pyne, Jo Bow, Carmel Ryan, Marion Jordan, Nuala O’Faolain, (-), Jane Horgan,
Jo Doyle, Maeve McCarthy, Eimear Irwan, Paula Fox, Pat Barker, (-), (-).
Middle row:David Barry, Paddy Ennis, Frank Soughley, Jim Culliton, Maeve Houlan, Charles McCorkell, Tony
Foley, Daniel O’Hare, Donal Clarke, Thecla Cogan, (-), Anne Higgins, Claire Balfe, Noelette Cross, (-), Marion
Shortt, Sean Marlow, (-)
Back row:Gerry Galvin, Michael Ryan, Anthony Glynn, Owen Ward, Tim Wheeler, Micheal MacConmara, Albert
Pratt, John Graham, Tom Devitt, Eugene Kennedy, Ray Flood, Reggie Hannon, Sandy Spowart, Brian Nettlefold,
Richard O’Kennedy, Mike Aughey, Donal Keating, Martin Henry, Mike Hickey, Tom Fingleton, Tony Coulson,
Anthony Walsh, John Pratschke, Barry Kehoe, Michael Shields, Martin Croghan, Susan Folan, Mike Hooper
First Governing Body of the then NIHE, Dublin.
10 DCUTIMES
DCU: The Movie,
by Martin Clynes
Boys oh boys, there were
tough times back then. We lost many
students and staff to cold, hunger and
disease in the harsh and snowy
winter of 1981/82 (well actually one
student skidded on her bicycle and
grazed her knee slightly, and the
Registrar got a bad cold, but that
doesn’t read as well). To stay warm,
we huddled together in the
Scriptorium (there was no library
then) around the single oil lamp.
The Holy Door, leading to the
sacred parts of the institute was
almost always locked except on the
occasion of one of the Master’s
Affairs. Then, the palace would be
brightly lit and we watched from the
shadows as Lord and Lady Ballymun
arrived in their carriage, and were
joined at the Ball by the great and the
good from town and county.
In 1982 came the Hamstead
building, Ireland’s and possibly the
world’s largest two-storey
pre-fabricated building, built to last
five years, used for 19. True story:
Walking past a builder calls from the
roof: “Any idea who has the plans for
this building?” “Ní fios, ask the
foreman,” came the reply. “I am the
foreman.” It wouldn’t happen today
Martin O’Donoghue, at the official opening of DCU 1981
DCUTIMES
now that DCU
has its very own
Estates Office.
In the
1980s there
were meetings
of Heads every
week. Terrible,
interminable
meetings, made
sufferable only
by the benign
presence and
exquisite minute-taking of Susan the
Serene.
Then one day, Young Lord
Ballymun went abroad, on the Grand
Tour with Lord Charlemont. The
peasants revolted. Ynot Nnylg, a
visiting North Vietnamese scholar,
took the Chair. It was Paris 1789. It
was Prague 1967. It was Rome 1848.
No pasarán! Unanimous decision –
Heads’ meetings were to be monthly.
Lord Ballymun returned. It was
Prague 1968. Pius IX returns to
Rome 1849. Guernica. Next meeting:
unanimous decision – Heads’
meetings were to be weekly; Ynot
Nnylg banished to a distant part
of campus.
During the all-too-brief
Regency of Good Prince Albert, there
was a short flirtation with Heads’ and
Professors’ meetings. This was a
brave experiment to see if this larger
group could take even fewer
The Library Issue Desk in the Henry Grattan Building.
decisions than the almost none taken
by the Heads’ meetings – a
Leibnitzian challenge relating to limits
and infinitely small numbers.
Unfortunately, the experiment
had to be abandoned prematurely
due to unruly behaviour by certain
professors, and now again only
Heads meet.
Seriously, though, DCU/NIHED
has been a great place to be. With
very few exceptions, the people in all
sections, schools and units are
unfailingly pleasant, hard-working
and helpful. It has been a privilege
and a pleasure to work with them.
Some have retired, but thank
God most are still alive. Some have
passed on to a different dimension -
Joe Fryar, Anne D’Art and Deirdre
O’Connor. (The Architect who
designed the building where NCTCC
is located) come to mind. They are
still missed.
OK children. Time for bed.
What’s that? I didn’t tell any of the
really good stories tonight?
Biotechnology, Lord Ballymun and the
Black Spot? The Sheriff of
Rottingham rides in? The Modular
Wars? The Eerie Incident of the
Non-Appearing Tea-Elves?
Snow-White and the Seven Deans?
Henry Ford, colour choice and public
debate on biotechnology in 21st
century Ireland? Mister, there’s a
Sea-Jay in your Pilot Plant?
Yes, my dears, they are indeed
better stories, but the mortgage must
be paid. Publication will have to await
the post-retirement memoirs.
11

In memory of Frank Clark
22 February 1956 – 3 April 2005
Francis J Clarke, no matter who you said his name to
and no matter how you said it, you always got the same
reaction. His name always raised a smile on peoples’ faces.
Frank always had that effect on people, he was the life and
soul of any situation. He brought a light to all our lives.
Everyone seems to have known Frank, even if you only met
him once you would have remembered him. He always made
an impression.
In the packed church at his funeral, when I looked
around at so many people, it was hard to believe that one
person could affect so many. There was a good chance too,
that if you had time to go around and talk to everyone, that
they would all have their own particular Frank Clarke
moment. In fact, they would have well more than one.
With me, my Frank Clarke moments were regular. He
was always pulling a gag of some sort or another. My first
moment was twenty-one years ago. I was renting in Clontarf
at the time and Frank invited me up to dinner in a house that
he had just moved into with Gerry Cleary and an accountant
fellow who had very quickly been nicknamed ‘Sad Sack’ by
Frank.
I went up for dinner, I was wined and dined and the
lads told me that this was an every day occurrence and that,
by the way, there was a spare bedroom if I was interested.
DCU 1983-1986
Padraig McKeon
Managing Director Drury Communications
The most regular comment
about DCU made to graduates from
the 1980’s is: “You must see a huge
difference compared to your day.” In
truth you can’t compare. NIHE Dublin,
as it was then, had fewer students
and less buildings when I arrived
there in 1983 than the school I’d just
left.
This place always wanted to be
differerent from ofther colleges. In the
mid-1980s it had no difficulty doing
so. Aside from having strange(!)
courses like Biotechnology, Analytical
Science and Communications
Studies, It was also a college with
limited social or sporting facilities and
no heritage, not that that stopped us.
For most people it was serious
class and lab work. For the
Communications Studies heads like
me, that meant onerous tasks like
endless hours in the library with
headphones watching back episodes
Obviously, I jumped at it, I like my food. Not only was
the dining experience not repeated, but I soon became the:
“gullible wee lad from Wexford who thought he’d landed on
his feet.”
We had many parties in that house in Ballygall Road,
and Frank was always the one who would pull out the guitar
and sing a string of songs and tell risqué jokes. Of course
Frank didn’t need a party to tell a few jokes and who was
present was irrelevant, as Father John will
testify, nothing was sacrosanct.
I used to spend a lot of time with Frank, coffee breaks,
lunchtime, working and socialising. He was the kind of guy
that you could feel comfortable with, without having to work
at it.
He’d have you doing things and you always wanted to
oblige because you knew he would do the same for you. He
had me doing banners, posters and signs for the Caravan
Club outings. He had me giving photography classes at the
rallies if they were close to Wexford where I’m from.
Frank would reciprocate. Whenever I needed help,
Frank would be there. It was the same with his students. If
they were in trouble, he would always oblige. I
remember, on occasions, when he even met
students at weekends to help them out if they were stuck or
in a rut.
If Frank saw that you were making a genuine effort he
would be there to give his full support. However, if you
messed him around he took no prisoners. I’m sure if I were to
ask for a show of hands, there would be few reading this who
wouldn’t fit into one of those two categories.
In the Henry Grattan, there’s now an office on the first
floor with a vacant chair, there’s a space in the
restaurant, there’s a void in the studios. Frank’s departure
has been a terrible loss to us all; he was a dear friend and
treasured colleague to all of us.
However, if there is anything positive that can be said,
it’s that our lives are an awful lot richer for having known
Frank. He has left us with memories to cherish, memories of
how he enriched our lives. We’ll all have fond memories of
our Frank Clarke moments, moments which many of us were
lucky to have over and over again, moments which have
affected our lives forever. Frank will always be with us.
of The Riordans or Bracken in the
interests of ‘research’, and that’s
before you mention the photo and
video shoots and event running a
radio station!
People of course made the
day, as they always do, and by virtue
of its size, you were only one mad
haircut or one mad outfit away from
college-wide notoriety. Few of my
lasting memories though relate to the
academic side. Instead for me it was
sport (the 8am training sessions were
the only time in the week that I was on
time), hours in the canteen talking
complete rubbish about
nothing and almost as many hours in
12 DCUTIMES
The Slipper avoiding the locals.
Of course there’s a huge difference
today but that means somebody is doing
something right, and besides if it were still
the same... the likes of me couldn’t say...
“ah but in my day...!”
Congrats to those who have made
that remote comer of Glasnevin into what
DCU is today and congrats in
particular to those who have been there
right through.
Thanks for the memories
– Clare Balfe
As DCU celebrates its first 25 years, I would like to
remember one staff member who sadly died prematurely
in 1993 – Maeve McCarthy.
During the early years it was quite feasible to
become acquainted with everyone on the 60-strong staff
at DCU. There were social activities organised by an
extremely energetic Staff Sports & Social Committee,
characterised inevitably by Maeve McCarthy.
She worked as School Secretary in the School of
Communication Studies and then moved to the Faculty of
Computing and Mathematical Sciences as Faculty
Administrative Assistant.
Maeve, ably assisted by Paula Fox and Pamela
Galvin, inspired and organised the Carols by Candlelight
Paddy Ennis, Joe Cunningham, Jarleth Lavelle and
Larry Doyle
DCUTIMES
Dr Daniel O’Hare
pictured here with
Pat Kenny at the
official launch of
NIHE, Dublin.
event for staff and students each Christmas, with funds
going to the St Vincent de Paul Society. At the first such
event, she had to get the mulled wine and mince pies
served up in advance to help improve the singing.
In the early 1980s, when gender equality was in its
infancy, the notion of a crèche in NIHED was not initially
embraced by the authorities. Maeve, who did not require
a crèche herself, and others raised the considerable
amount required to commence the project. The university
authorities then agreed to provide it and Maeve became
an active member of the Crèche Committee.
Maeve also broke the glass ceiling – well, sort of
anyway – by becoming the first school secretary to be
promoted to the position of Faculty
Administrative Assistant.
What I remember most is Maeve’s enthusiasm
(especially for the talent competition), joie de vivre,
generosity, determination and her optimism. Her superb
qualities put her in a class of her own and were only
matched by her ability to get on with everyone who met
her. Indeed she was well liked and loved by all those who
got to know her during the years 1980-1993.
Following her death, her son Daragh donated a
bench to DCU in her memory. Maeve’s Bench stands next
to the School of Computing.
In January 2003, Daragh invited Maeve’s relatives,
friends, neighbours and her DCU colleagues to a
champagne reception at the Herbert Park Hotel to
remember her on her 10th anniversary. It was a great
gathering of friends and one that Maeve would have
reveled in herself – a fitting tribute to a remarkable and
unique woman.
Graduation ceremony in the main Sports Hall, 1994
13

Chaplaincy reflections
– John Gilligan
I still remember the day I arrived in DCU: 17 June 1991. I
had come from Arklow Community College where I had been
teaching since 1985 and had just completed a postgraduate in
Chaplaincy Studies at Mater Dei.
I received a great welcome from Fr Pat McManus whom I
was replacing. He was the first Chaplain to NIHE/DCU. Coming
from a school of 400 students, with a very definite structure of 32
classes a week, to a university of 2,000 students with no
structure was a real shock.
However I battled on and to this day love the work I try to
do. I was very fortunate to walk into the Inter Faith Centre which
had opened the previous year. There were a team of five of us –
two full-time and three part-time.
My first big involvement with students was the BITE
project – getting students from DCU to give tuition in the
Ballymun Comprehensive Schools on Wednesday
afternoons. I remember getting over 100 students
volunteering to give tuition. At last I felt I was getting to know
some students. This has been a great link between the school
and community and it is still going strong today.
I also remember getting involved in sport – training with
25 years at DCU
- Professor Malcolm Smyth,
Dean of the Faculty of Science and Health
I shall never forget arriving at the Albert College for
my interview for the post of Lecturer in Analytical
Chemistry back in 1981. The taxi had taken me to
somewhere near UCD the night before, and I had had to
take a taxi back across the river to find this new institution
called NIHE Dublin. I was suffering from the flu and a
stinking cold, and was still caught up in thoughts about my
wedding in London a few days hence. I remember
meeting another candidate for the job, who was certain he
had been successful; I left Dublin that day not expecting
Albert Pratt (as Head of the fledgling School of Chemical
Sciences) to get a message to my bride-to-be the day
before we were to be married, that they wanted to offer me
the position.
As fate would have it, I came, and haven’t looked
back. Not that I ever felt I would ever settle in the other part
of the island in which I had been born and raised. I had
spent the last five years travelling the world as a
postdoctoral fellow, with posts in the USA and Europe;
now I was at the start of new adventures in my personal
and professional lives. I am writing this short piece from
what were green fields back then, where I played football
with the likes of Robert Lawson (School of Biotechnology),
Kieran Molloy (now at University of Bath) and Frank
Mulligan (now at NUI Maynooth). People make
the Gaelic Football Team, playing lots of squash, indoor soccer
and going on student golf outings. We had many a good
weekend playing golf all over the country. Going away with various
student societies was lots of fun.
In the early 1990s, the social scene among the staff was
great. Every Friday at 5.30pm staff from all parts of the
university would meet for a pint or two in the DCU bar – more
times than not we were still there at closing time.
We had staff quizzes and Christmas functions in the bar
as well as weekends away. I always remember the St Patrick’s
weekend of 1992. Over 45 staff hired seven cottages in
Muckross in Killarney – what a weekend! And the number of
romances that cameout of it…
As a Chaplain, I have had the great privilege of
getting to know many staff and students over the years. I
celebrated some very happy occasions (over 150
weddings) and have also experienced some
terrible tragedies.
As I begin my fifteenth and unfortunately my final year in
DCU, I wish to thank all the former and current staff and students
for all the great memories.
A special word of thanks to all my colleagues in Student
Affairs, the chaplains I work and have worked with and to the
student unions over the years. It has been a great journey and all
the best for the next 25.
organisations. I can clearly attest that the early success of
DCU was built on the fact that we (staff and students alike)
knew each other, eat and drank together, forged
friendships, put-it-up to each other in terms of
goals/achievements. I have always been challenged at
DCU, and I believe that this is what makes all of us strive
to even greater achievements. This is clearly manifest in
the recent success of NCSR in the SFI-funded CSET
scheme to set up the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute
(BDI) at DCU. Sensor research started here at DCU back
in the mid-1980s. It started small (we had the NBST to give
us a few thousand pounds for research projects in those
days), but people have stayed together, challenging
themselves and each other, and challenging the world to
gain its respect.
We have done that, but the world does not stand
still, and we are all as good, at least in the scientific sense,
as our last publication. Tony Bradley’s Twigs for an Eagles
nest captures so much of what DCU was in the early days
– Tony is someone I could always share things with, and
hope he is well as I write; Margaret Walsh (former Director
of HR) is another (the picture of the frog trying
desperately not to be swallowed by the heron under the
caption Never Give Up comes to mind. I care not to
recount the many battles, other than to say that I won
some, I lost some, I was right about some things and
wrong about some others. I will never regret, however, my
coming to this great university. I cannot thank or mention
everyone. It is still a pleasure for me to greet Paddy Ennis
or other members of support staff, as it is to talk to my
academic colleagues. As I said above – people
make organisations.
14 DCUTIMES
Campus parties
– Professor Michael Ryan,
School of Computing
Picture the scene back in the
days when we had no bar on campus.
We organised occasional parties in the
computing laboratories, bringing in
refreshments (thanks to a colleague
who had worked in Guinness, we had
an inside track on some of these).
The last lecture in final year of
the BSc was traditionally marked in this
way, listening to music, and watching
incriminating photographs of staff being
taken under the NO EATING, NO
SMOKING, NO DRINKING notices.
One year some students
continued singing while leaving the
Professor Eugene Kennedy and Bertie Ahern, TD on the
occasion of the opening the Physics building 1984
Early days at the School of Biological Sciences, Richard O’Kennedy
When I started in October, 1980, the start of term
had already been put back due to lack of labs,
lecture rooms, equipment and staff. There were no
catering facilities and lunch meant a trip down to what is
now Enterprise Ireland (then the Old Institute for Research
and Standards).
There was no NIHE telephone line and telephone
calls were made on a pirated line or by standing in a
queue outside the phone booth just beside the Slipper
pub. There were no computers, one copier, and no forms
to be filled in…they came later.
When we needed equipment I went down to the
local suppliers andliterally filled the car and gave them a
list of what I had taken. There was a wonderful
comradeship and sense of adventure and in the
bleakness of the times it was so refreshing to go to a
new place.
DCUTIMES
building, despite the fact that (a) they
encountered the President and (b) he
figured in their song. A name was taken
by Security, and passed on to me.
The student was very worried at
having: “insulted the Big Man,” and so
willing to see the President next
morning and apologise. He informed
me that the President had been very
nice and understanding and basically
had laughed at him. He was relieved.
So was I.
Over the next year, DCU
developed further and new regulations
were put in place. On-campus festivities
were not being encouraged. So that
year’s party was moved to a room on
the ground floor at the furthest
extremity of the buildings.
That evening the President and
the Chairman of the Governing Body
were in the President’s office, deep in
serious discussion, when they were
disturbed by an unusual noise…the
characteristic rumble of beer barrels
being rolled and a few bars of the song,
Roll out the Barrel.
Instead of dropping the kegs off
quietly outside the party room, the BSc
students had rolled them down the
avenue from the Ballymun Road, then
directly below the windows of the
President’s office, and across the
campus, singing all the while. It was an
approach to beer delivery that I, for one,
certainly had not thought of.
The beer of course was spoiled
but the party went off well. The resulting
exchange of memos between the
School and the President was however
very interesting.
Potential CTYI students attending a workshop during an
open day,1993
In many ways the secret of the success that was to
be ours came from a sense that anything could be
achieved. No matter what effort was required, it was all
shoulders to the wheel.
The students eventually arrived and were fabulous.
They and their parents were willing to trust us with their
futures and the hard earned cash then necessary for fees.
When I see the facilities and level demanded from today’s
students I cringe.
There were no facilities. Frequently there was no
water or electricity and despite these problems we ran
practicals. To get equipment I borrowed from friends in
other institutions who were marvelous but I could only use
the equipment for one afternoon and then drive it back
across Dublin. It is interesting that at that time I could go
home to lunch on the Southside and be back all within an
hour…how things have changed.
15

NIHE Postgraduate
Diploma in Journalism
1982 – 1983,
Eithne Hand
September 1982 and the first
year of the first Irish postgraduate
course in Journalism began in NIHE
Dublin – a place most people had
never heard of somewhere in
Ballymun but called Glasnevin.
Around 20 of us gathered – the
picture shows 18 but there was never
a day that some us weren’t in so I’m
hazarding 20 – a motley bunch with a
sophisticated fashion sense and not a
little amount of attitude.
Everything was physically
completely different in terms of the
college - unrecognisable now in terms
of buildings and facilities. We were to
be part of Communications but not
really – our postgraduate status set
us apart and became the strongest
element of any cohesion between the
group. There certainly was some
resentment if we were ever treated
like first years – we all felt that we had
been there and done that.
I imagine we were quite tricky
for the lecturers to get a handle on.
Our law lecturer left by Christmas and
we revolted against our radio
Eithne Hand pictured here with the
Journalism class of 1984
assignment which asked us to record
a programme with Travellers because
we believed it was wrong to use
people as guinea pigs for a mere
student exercise. My memory is that
we won that one.
We had some fantastic courses
the most memorable being Luke
Gibbons History of the Press, with his
colourfully clashing regalia and great
command of language. Overall there
was a sense of the course that it was
good but it was going to be better.
One incident still stays: a guest
lecture given by one of the foremost
female reporters/ broadcasters of the
time. To spare her blushes I won’t
name her. She came, she talked and
she impressed. We sat and listened
and interacted and a good impression
was made.
Later that day she returned to
her newsroom and, not realising that
one of our class double jobbed as a
stringer for her paper, she launched
into a parody of: “...the little darlings
with daddies’ money paying for their
expensive course, sitting there up in
DCU with their neat little newspapers
on their desks etc etc…”
In fact her newspaper had sent
free copies to class members that
day. When this came back to us it was
a timely and early lesson in never
opening your mouth without knowing
your audience. And yes the course
was very expensive and no we didn’t
all have rich fathers.
Looking back I think the main
asset for all of us was that the course
was new and one of a kind. That
certainly opened doors as there was
an expectant bunch of people in
newspapers and broadcast
organisations looking for more than
the raw recruit.
Certainly, from an RTE
perspective, within the next few years
Bernie Brennan, Helen Shaw, Eileen
Magnier, Derek Cunningham,
Kathleen O’ Meara and myself all
ended up working there. Kevin
O’Sullivan and Mark Brennock were
also heard on the air.
We don’t all keep in touch. We
boycotted the graduation I think and
certainly didn’t ever have any major
reunions but there’s still a certain
connection there when you look at
this picture and see us all back there
trying to find our way.
I don’t think there was any
special talent being handed out at the
door that year but there was just a
sense of right place, right time. Now
in 2005 when I see the quality of the
standard of students coming into RTE
Radio from that course I am often
gob-smacked and it makes me feel
proud somewhere deep down.
Fantastic years from
Joseph Boyle,
BS graduate 1994.
There are so many great
memories of DCU - inevitable, after
four years of study: outstanding
lectures, great ENTS events, the new
Business School, the new student
building, sharp discussion at union
and academic councils, equally keen
chat over a beer after hiking Ben
Nevis, project completion and of
course, graduation. I hope the
students of tomorrow enjoy their time
as much as I did.
16 DCUTIMES