an other garden no.29:climbing plants, the quadrangle, national university of ireland galway

 Stories and Histories

The Quadrangle, the original National University of Ireland Galway building, was built in 1845 alongside universities in Cork and Belfast, all known as The Queen's College and all linked under the umbrella of the Queen's University of Ireland, which received it's charter in 1850.  The Quadrangle was built from local limestone in a Tudor Gothic architectural style and modelled on the Christ Church building in the University of Oxford. The University opened its doors in 1849 to 63 male students (it was at this time still illegal for women to enter third level education). In many senses its creation was a positive addition to the city but as it came at the tail end of the Great Famine, when starvation was still endemic,  such expenditure on third level education was hard to justify. The secular status of the university caused much discomfort within the Catholic hierarchy particularly as majority of the students would be Catholic.  

Interestingly the Tudor style is associated in part with the growing unpopularity of the church in England at the time, as this period saw the time and expense and architectural detail that was previously put exclusively into ecclesiastical building, be placed now elsewhere  often taking the form of ornate detail on windows, doorways and chimneys in domestic dwellings.