The Royal College of Science for Ireland (Irish: Coláiste Ríoga Eolaíocht Éireann) was created as a result of a decision of HM Treasury in 1865 to merge a number of science-oriented education bodies including the Museum of Irish Industry and Government School of Science applied to Mining and the Arts. It was originally based at 51 St. Stephen's Green but moved in the early twentieth century to a new building, the Royal College of Science in Merrion Street, designed by Sir Aston Webb, who also designed the new facade for Buckingham Palace.
The creation of the RCSI resulted from a report in 1864 of a Parliamentary Select Committee, which had recommended that a College of Science should be founded for Ireland. The Rosse Commission of 1866 outlined the scope and functions of the proposed college.
On 11 September 1867 its mission statement was outlined as
- “The object of the Royal College of Science is to supply as far as practicable a Complete Course of instruction in Science applicable to the Industrial Arts, especially those which may be classed broadly under the heads of Mining, Agriculture, Engineering, and Manufactures, and to aid in the instruction of Teachers for the local Schools of Science”
Its role was later extended to include “Mining, Engineering, and Manufactures, and in Physics and Natural Science” (RCSI Directory…for the Session 1898–99, RCSI/254). The RCSI had chairs of Mining and Mineralogy, Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, Botany, Geology, Applied Mathematics and Mechanism, Descriptive Geometry and Engineering.
In 1926 the RCSI was absorbed into University College Dublin (UCD), where it became the UCD Science and Engineering faculties. In 1964 the Physics Department of the Science Faculty became the first in UCD to move from its Earlsfort Terrace location to the new campus in Belfield. The Engineering School comprising the Departments of Agricultural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering remained in Merrion Street until its move to the Belfield campus in 1989.
Its former headquarters in Merrion Street is now part of the Irish Government Buildings.
Famous quotes containing the words royal, college, science and/or ireland:
“Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)
“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept, a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.”
—Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)
“They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That’s not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It’s just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.”
—Dodie Smith, and Lewis Allen. Roderick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland)