Spring 2003 - University College Cork

THE COLLEGE COURIER SPRING 2003 

Contents 

STAFF MAGAZINE SPRING 2003 

EDITOR 

Orlaith O’Callaghan 

Director of Public Affairs 

Email: oocallaghan@pres.ucc.ie 

DEPUTY EDITOR 

Roslyn Cox 

Publications Officer 

Ext: 2821 

Email: r.cox@ucc.ie 

AN GHAEILGE 

Claire Ní Mhuirthile 

Ionad na Gaeilge Labhartha 

UCC’s Jewel in 

the Crown 

page 2 

FEATURES 

Relocating To Ireland 

page 6 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

Tomás Tyner, Audio Visual Services 

Barry’s Photography 

jd prynce 

John Sheehan Photography 

Provision 

Tony O’Connell Photography 

EVENTS 

Boole Art Exhibition 

page 13 

DESIGN 

Huguenot Visual Communications 

RESEARCH 

The Cork ‘Carrickminder’ 

COMPETITION RESULT 

Congratulations to Carol Quinn, Boole 

Library, winner of the The College Courier’s 

winter competition. Carol receives a 

Greene’s Restaurant gift token. 

SPRING COMPETITION 

Q. How high is the Dublin Spire in 

O’Connell Street, Dublin? 

(a) 12 metres (b) 120 metres (c) 1,120 metres 

Readers should send completed competition 

postcards to Roslyn Cox, Public Affairs. 

This issue’s competition prize is a voucher 

for Cork Opera House 

Entries to be received by Friday, 2 May 2003 

page 18 

AWARDS 

RIA Award for 

UCC Biochemist 

page 29 

BOOKSHELF 

Genteel Revolutionaries 

page 34 

Opposite: 

Front elevation of the newly 

built extension to Áras na 

Mac Léinn/Student Centre 

ISSUE 153 SPRING 2003 

The College Courier is intended for circulation among UCC staff. The opinions and views 

in the publication are those of the contributors and are not necessarily shared by University 

College Cork. Extracts from The College Courier should not be published without the 

permission of the Editor. © University College Cork. 

2

T HE COLLEGE COURIER SPRING 2003 

THE COLLEG E COURIER SPRING 2003 

U C C ’s Jewel in the Cro w n 

Interior views of the Aula Maxima 

undergoing refurbishment 

For UCC graduates past and present, and for many people who know the University as an integral part of 

the fabric of Cork City, the Aula Maxima, designed by the eminent architects, Deane & Wo o d w a rd in 1846, 

epitomises the quintessential charm and heritage of the built campus. While there have been maintenance 

“ i n t e rventions” in its 150-year history, the Aula Maxima, described on completion as “one of the most 

magnificent rooms in Ireland,” has never been the subject of a major conservation and renovation eff o rt . 

But now, as just such a project draws to a conclusion, at a cost of €1.9 million, the great hall, seat of examinations 

and ceremonial occasions down the years, is about to throw open its doors again, revitalised but 

unchanged and, above all, pre s e rved for posterity. 

A protected building under the Planning Act (2000) as well as UCC’s 

own Conservation Plan, it was a prerequisite that special care and 

attention should be paid to how the building would first be made 

secure against the elements, and then painstakingly conserved and 

restored internally without disturbing or altering its historic status. 

That has meant investigating the condition of its timbers, ceilings, 

floors and walls, using non-toxic and non-intrusive methods, seeking 

expert advice on the wonderful stained glass windows and other 

aspects of the building, and using materials, such as lime-based 

mortar and special paints, that would be in keeping with the original 

construction methods while guaranteeing the integrity of the Aula 

Maxima for a further 150 years. 

The initial requirement was to secure the roof of the Aula Maxima, 

which although remarkably sound for its age, was allowing dampness 

into the building. Following UCC’s decision to carry out roof repairs to 

the north wing of the Quadrangle, including the Aula Maxima, work 

began in April 2001. The roof of the building was stripped of all its 

slates, timbers were checked for rot, and where, necessary, replaced 

with matching timbers, and where the removed slates could not be 

replaced, reclaimed slates, in keeping with the character of the 

building, were sourced elsewhere. In keeping with best practice, 

conservation grade insulation was also installed in the roof, intervention 

was kept to a minimum and the non-toxic, inorganic 

substance, Boron, was used to stabilize wet rot as, Niall Mc Auliffe, 

UCC’s Buildings Officer and Projects Leader, put it: “There was no 

point in the refurbishment going ahead until we had secured the 

building externally. We had to tackle that problem first.” 

With the roof secure, UCC submitted a planning application to 

Cork City Council together with a history of the building and a 

detailed conservation plan outlining the step-by-step approach that 

would be adopted in the refurbishment project. The Aula Maxima is 

rightly regarded by the City Council as one of the most important 

buildings in Cork, and the application was carefully considered prior 

to the granting of planning permission in May 2001. The project team 

included, Consulting Architect, John O’Connell, Building Defects 

Consultant, Dr Thomas Brennan, who had previously worked on the 

restoration of Farmleigh House and Castlehyde House, Quantity 

Surveyors, Bruce Shaw Coveney Partnership, Structural Engineers, 

Barry Kelleher & Associates, Service Engineers, Arup Consulting, 

Acoustic Consultants, Arup Acoustics, London, Fire Consultants, 

Cantwell Keogh & Associates, Building Officer and Projects Leader, 

Niall Mc Auliffe, and Maintenance Coordinator, Paul Prendergast. The 

contractors were Cornerstone Construction. 

Work on the interior of the building began in October of last year. 

“The Aula Maxima is an icon in UCC and in the city, everyone knows 

it, including people who have never studied at the University,” Mc 

Auliffe told The College Courier, “The project brought a great deal of 

expertise together. Everything we did was informed by the need to be 

as sensitive as possible to the character of the building, to use 

materials that were natural to its character and to complete the 

restoration with as little intrusion as possible.” 

Built of Cork limestone (reputedly quarried on the site) the Aula 

Maxima was designed by Deane & Wo o d w a rd as a major statement in 

the tradition of the late medieval banqueting hall. The work of Deane & 

Wo o d w a rd, one of the most prominent architectural firms of its time, 

may also be seen in the Museum building at Trinity College Dublin and 

at the Oxford Museum. The Trinity building, with carvings by the O’Shea 

b rothers, was erected after Benjamin Wo o d w a rd joined Sir Thomas 

D e a n e ’s firm in Cork. The Aula Maxima, with its wonderful stained glass 

windows, high vaulted ceiling, supported by elegant queen post tru s s e s 

was judged to be an outstanding success - the jewel of the UCC 

Quadrangle. Over the intervening years, the building has aged gracefully 

and its significance as part of the architectural heritage of UCC and of 

Cork, is reflected in the fact that of the €1.9 million project cost, €1 . 3 

million was raised through private sector funding. 

The range of works undertaken in the Aula Maxima, following 

expert advice, was extensive. As well as the assessment and 

restoration of the ceiling and roof trusses, the mix of the original lime 

plaster used on the walls was analysed by Dr Brennan, so that where 

the walls were cleaned back to original stone, they were consolidated 

using traditional lime-based mortar. Specialist contractors were 

employed to restore stone work and stone tracery. The gallery and 

bookcases, constructed to the design of E Trevor Owen of the Board 

of Works in 1864, were restored, and the free standing columns 

supporting the gallery were reinforced. All the existing pine floorboards 

were lifted, carefully removed and numbered, before being 

cleaned and replaced over a supporting layer of plywood. Arup 

Acoustics conducted tests to ensure that the natural acoustic of the 

Aula Maxima was enhanced. All electrical services were upgraded, and 

from the UCC archive, a turn-of-the-century photograph provided 

evidence of the original pendant light fittings used in the Aula 

Maxima, long since removed. These were replicated, and now form 

the basis of the new lighting scheme. The original fireplaces were also 

conserved and restored. Paintwork was removed and replaced with 

micro-porous paint that allows the entire structure to breathe, with 

the imperative being to use materials that were compatible with the 

conservation of such an important building. 

And if the Aula Maxima is the jewel in UCC’s crown, then 

u n d o u b t e d l y, within the building itself, the two stained glass 

windows, known as the Boole Wi n d o w, after the father of modern 

computing, George Boole, and the Pro f e s s o r’s Window (in some 

re f e rences this is given as Professors’ Window) are jewels in their 

own right. 

The Glasgow-based firm of stained glass conservators, M P 

B a m b rough, was contracted to assess the condition of the windows 

prior to preparing a detailed plan of action for their conservation. Even 

though not signed, Bambrough concluded that the stained glass in the 

Boole Window was designed and supplied by John Hardman & Co of 

B i rmingham, together with other interior fittings. Hardmans had 

m a n u f a c t u red Pugin-designed windows for the House of Commons in 

England, which were completed in 1852, the year of the arc h i t e c t ’s 

death. For Bambrough, the similarity in design suggested that the 

Boole Window had indeed been inspired by Pugin’s design for the 

House of Commons. Both windows were removed prior to being 

refurbished and reinstated to very high specifications. In his re p o rt on 

the Boole Wi n d o w, Bambrough observed: “Given the accuracy of the 

p o rt r a i t u re in the window, I feel that the Boole Window can be 

c o n s i d e red a very fine example of its type and is well worth caring for. ” 

The restored Aula Maxima will reopen this month. A testament to 

the conservation ethos and the significant financial resources which 

UCC has committed to the project, in its restored glory, it will stand as 

a symbol of continuity in the long and proud history of the University. 

2 

3

T HE COL LEGE COURIER SPRING 2003 

New Staff 

New Staff 

THE COLLEGE COURIER SPRIN G 2 003 

Susan O’Callaghan, from Kerry, joined UCC in February 2003 as Pensions 

Manager having previously worked as a Retirement Consultant for Mercer 

Human Resource Consulting (Dublin). She is a graduate of Trinity College 

Dublin, where she studied Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. 

Susan also has an MBA from UCD. Before joining Mercer over three and a 

half years ago she worked as a mechanical engineer. 

Dr Karen Watret was appointed Development Manager in 

November 2002. Karen is a graduate of the University of 

Glasgow (BSc1985) and of the University of Edinburgh 

where she was awarded a PhD in Mucosal Immunology in 

1990. She joined the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, as an 

MRC-funded Postdoctoral Fellow where she studied the 

immunology of long-term survivors of HIV. She subsequently 

became a Project Manager with Proteus Molecular 

Design Ltd, where she directed an HIV vaccine and therapeutics 

programme. Prior to moving to Cork, Karen ran a 

small private medical practice and was a fundraiser for a 

children’s charity in North Yorkshire. 

Dr Susan Ry a n joined the Faculty of Medicine & Health in 

J a n u a ry 2003 as Professor of Occupational Therapy. She 

was awarded a Bachelor of Applied Science degree fro m 

Sydney University, Australia and a Masters degree in 

Occupational Therapy from Columbia University in America. 

Susan taught children with special needs before studying 

occupational therapy. She has worked in India, England, 

Australia and the US. Susan is developing the new four- y e a r 

honours degree programme in occupational therapy, which 

is to be established in the new School of Clinical Therapies. 

Dr Patricia Cogan-Tangney was appointed Assistant Lecturer, and a year 

later College Lecturer in the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health. This 

position became permanent in November 2002. Pat graduated in Medicine 

in UCC and subsequently worked in Ireland, the US and later Canada. Pat 

took a career break while her children were young and joined UCC ten 

years ago. She is the only fulltime UCC lecturer without clinical responsibility, 

teaching the clinical subjects of the Final Medical year. Pat was 

conferred in December 2002 with a Masters in Education and is the first 

staff member of the Medical School to do so. 

P a t ’s major re s e a rch interest is in medical education, with part i c u l a r 

re f e rence to the international students in the clinical years of medical school. 

Tony Mc Cleane-Fay is the newly appointed manager of 

UCC’s Granary Theatre. Tony studied electrical engineering 

at the then Kevin Street College of Technology (now DIT) 

and became involved in lighting and stage management 

with the Wexford Theatre Workshop in the 1980s. He later 

moved to London and the Institute of Contemporary Arts 

where he was production manager. Prior to taking over the 

running of the Granary Theatre Tony was artistic director of 

the Bare Cheek Theatre Company, Wexford. 

Patrick Quinn, Buildings & Estates, took up his position as 

Carpenter in the Maintenance Division on 2 December 2002. 

Patrick, from Crosshaven, started his career with P J Hegart y, 

the Cork building company. He has been an active member 

of the Crosshaven Soccer Club for a number of years, first as 

its Secre t a ry and now as Manager of its junior team. 

Dr Martin Kinirons was appointed in January 2003 as Professor of 

Preventive and Paediatric Dentistry in the University Dental School and 

Hospital, UCC. He graduated from UCC in 1976 and subsequently worked 

at the University of Manchester and UCC. He undertook his consultant 

training at The Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children and School of 

Dentistry, Belfast, and was appointed Lecturer at Queens University in 

1983. He obtained his PhD from Queens in 1987. Martin was Senior 

Lecturer and Consultant at Belfast and was Head of Department since 

1991. He has been active in the training of specialists and clinical 

academics and in the supervision of postgraduate students for research 

degrees. Martin has been involved in the evaluation of services and in the 

preparation of national oral health strategies and has authored national 

clinical guidelines. His research interests include evidence-based treatments 

for children and disabled people and factors affecting the prognosis for 

traumatic injuries to the dentition. He has published extensively on these 

topics and was awarded the Jens Andreasen Prize in Dental Traumatology 

at the World Dental Congress of the International Association of Paediatric 

Dentistry in 2001. Martin is also interested in undergraduate and 

postgraduate dental education and training. 

Mags Walsh has been appointed Law Faculty and 

Department Manager. Prior to this, Mags spent seven years 

working in the HR department in British Airways where she 

was responsible for Business and Executive Education. 

Mags is a graduate of the University of Limerick (BBS). 

4 

5

THE COLLEGE COURIER SPRING 2 003 

Features 

Features 

THE COLLE GE COURIER S PRING 2003 

Relocating To Ireland 

Even after 28 years in Australia and New Zealand, volcanologist, 

Professor John Gamble, the new head of the Geology Department 

at University College Cork, is no stranger to this part of Ireland. 

Deep field camp in Central Marie Byrd Land, West 

Antarctica. Volcano in background is 10,000' Mount 

Waesche, first climbed by this field party 

After graduating from the Queen’s University of Belfast in 1970, he 

came south to work for the eminent consulting geologist, John 

Jackson, at the time, one of the few Irish consulting geologists, and 

found himself travelling in Cork, Waterford and Kerry for six months, 

“looking for a particular type of quarry stone.” As a young geologist, 

it was an experience he enjoyed immensely. A PhD in Queen’s in 1973 

was followed by a lectureship at Newcastle University in New South 

Wales where he remained until 1980 before moving to the School of 

Earth Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Dr 

Ian Meighan, his former supervisor at Queen’s, (which awarded him a 

DSc in 2000) had been urging him for some time to return to this side 

of the world, and in October 2001, he found himself in Cork 

attending interviews for the UCC post. With three grown-up children, 

two daughters, Fiona (26) Mary (20) and son, Tom (24) Professor 

Gamble and his wife, Frances, felt they had reached a point in their 

lives “where it was a good time to make a move.” Since last 

September, when they relocated to Cork, the Gambles have been 

experiencing the vagaries and vicissitudes of house-hunting in Ireland 

at first hand. For one thing, they have discovered that the price of 

property here is up to four times higher than in New Zealand! 

Professor Gamble says he is looking forward to the challenge of his 

new post and to making “a distinctive contribution” to the 

Department of Geology. “This is a very good Department with very 

good staff and I have been working with them to introduce changes 

to the structure of the courses, to make them more relevant in the 

21st century. These decisions have been reached by discussion and 

consensus. The new course changes will take effect in the next 

academic year and there will be more to come. Apart from the fact 

that UCC’s offer was attractive, I was well aware of the good teaching 

record in the Department, probably one of the best in Science at UCC, 

and of the strong tradition of field work in the UCC curriculum,” he 

said. And that tradition will continue. Already, first year Geology 

students have been on a field trip to County Antrim, Professor 

Gamble’s native place, not he insists, because he was born there, but 

because that is where students must go in Ireland if they want to 

study rocks ranging from less than one million to more than six 

hundred million years of age. “Not until you have been away and 

then come back to it again, do you realise just how incredibly diverse 

the array of geology in Antrim is. Having been lucky enough to have 

worked in interesting places such as central Australia where temperatures 

could reach plus 40 degrees, to Antarctica where they might 

reach 40 degrees below, I have always been interested in field work, 

since my own first-year days in Queen’s when we also visited Antrim, 

as UCC students have often done before,” he added. 

A keen rugby follower - “You would have to be, living in Australia 

and New Zealand”- Professor Gamble is now a confirmed UCC 

supporter. He has published more than 100 scientific papers and has 

conducted extensive research on the volcanoes of the Antarctic Plate 

as well as the Pacific Rim. Recently, he delivered the guest lecture to 

the Irish Geological Association, “Volcanism on the Antarctic Plate” 

and yes, there are active volcanoes in Antarctica!. His wife, Frances, 

was IT specialist at the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research. 

His daughter, Fiona, is now in London “as part of what antipodeans 

call their OE – overseas experience,” Mary is studying at Otago 

University, Dunedin, and Tom is working in Wellington. Last year, the 

family came together at the home of Professor Gamble’s parents in 

Antrim to celebrate Christmas. 

6 

7

THE COL LEGE COURIER SPRING 2003 

Features 

Features 

THE COLLEGE COURI ER S PRING 20 03 

Road To Success 

Denis Staunton (centre front) Assistant Director, 

Centre for Adult Continuing Education with members 

of the Ballyhoura Transport Group, back row, l-r: 

Ben O’Sullivan, Sean O’Laoithe and Tom Kearney , 

Front row, l-r: Brenda Savage and Bernie Car roll 

Marathon Man! 

Adult Education is about personal development, perspective transform a t i o n 

and community empowerment. The Centre for Adult Continuing Education 

p rovides collaborative educational opportunities on an outreach basis to 

facilitate community groups achieve this aim. One such initiative is curre n t l y 

helping to shape national policy. 

Dr Pat Cronin, recently retired from Ancient Classics, took part in the 20th 

Athens Classic Marathon in November 2002 as part of fund-raising efforts for 

the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens. He sent in the following 

account of the event and of his participation. 

Dr Pat Cronin, Ancient Classics, 

taking part in the Athens Classic 

Marathon to raise funds for the Irish 

Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens 

The Ballyhoura Transport Group is leading the way in Ireland in alleviating 

the hardship of people living in rural areas, by providing a 

weekly bus service to and from Charleville for people who do not 

have access to any other form of transport. This innovative idea 

started when a group of five committed voluntary community activists 

participated in a Certificate in Community Development organised by 

the Centre for Adult Continuing Education, UCC in 1996. 

As part of the certificate programme participants were required to 

complete a group project, which involved identifying an unmet need 

in their community and drawing up a practical plan of action. Five 

members of the group identified the lack of transport as a major difficulty 

for people living in rural communities. The group carried out an 

extensive survey of the needs. The survey highlighted the problems 

facing people in rural areas such as depopulation, closure of shops, 

post-offices, creameries, the centralisation of essential services, the 

absence of public transport leading to the growing isolation of people 

living in these areas. 

On completion of the Certificate programme the transport group 

stayed together and successfully lobbied Ballyhoura Development Ltd 

who approved the scheme with leader funding and the Department 

of Social, Community and Family Affairs agreed that those holding 

free travel passes may avail of the weekly service. The group engaged 

in extensive consultation with local residents and designed two routes, 

initially with two communities and later with a third, namely, 

Granagh, Athlacca and Effin. The group also recruited the services of 

two local private bus operators. The scheme was at the time a first for 

Ireland. To date this project has proved to be an outstanding success 

and is now entering its seventh year, and being considered as a 

possible model for a national rural transport scheme in Ireland. 

The Ballyhoura Transport Group has over the past few years 

consulted with other similar isolated communities to extend the 

service. This simple solution to transport problems has acted as the 

stimulus to other community groups throughout Ireland to develop 

corresponding initiatives in rural areas. This scheme has received 

extensive local and national publicity for its simplicity and creativity. 

For instance, Kathryn Holmquist in The Irish Times praised the project 

as a prime example of how local communities can bring about radical 

and important changes in peoples lives. She sees this as an example of 

local people teaching the “bureaucrats in Dublin” how things at a 

local level should be done. She entitled the article “Craic is ninety on 

the Effin bus”. 

Seven years later the original five students are still together. They 

are understandably proud of their achievement, and are the first to 

recognise that it all started by joining the UCC Adult Education 

programme. In the intervening years they have seen the project grow, 

witnessed how it has made such an impact on so many people and 

experienced a huge sense of personal confidence in their community 

work skills, such as negotiating with Government Departments, 

working as part of a group, speaking in public and advocating for 

change in the interests of rural communities. 

The 20th Athens Classic Marathon took 

place on 3 November 2002, beginning in the 

modern village of Marathon and ending in 

the splendid Panathenaikon-Kallimarmaro 

Stadium. Though I had participated in four 

previous Marathon races elsewhere, the last 

in Dublin in 1986, a long cherished dream 

had been to run in “the real Marathon” and 

thus to share in the experience of 

Pheidippides, who brought to Athens the 

news of victory over the Persians in 490 BC, 

and of his fellow countryman, Spyros Louis, 

who in 1896 ran over this same course and 

brought victory to Greece in the first Olympic 

Games of the modern era. 

During October last I had been doing some 

folklore field-work in the regions of Eresos 

on Lesbos and of Galaxidi on the north shore 

of the Gulf of Corinth: in both regions there 

were excellent stretches of road on which I 

was able to do those 20-mile runs that are 

an essential part of preparation for a 

Marathon. At Eresos I had the good fortune 

of getting to know Athanasios Spyromitros, 

the young teacher of Physical Education in 

the local school, appropriately dedicated to 

the memory of the village’s famous son, 

Theophrastus: Athanasios was excited both 

by my academic research and by my physical 

training. Back in Athens, the day before the 

race, I received a long telephone call from 

him advising me on how to distribute my 

energy over what he described as “one of 

the toughest courses in the world”. 

My expectations for the Marathon itself were 

not disappointed. It was quite thrilling to be 

one of the large field of runners from all over 

the world who came under starter’s orders at 

8.30am, as the sun was rising above the east 

coast of Attica. By the time I had reached 

half-way the sun was high in the sky and the 

Attic landscape, dominated by Pentelicon on 

our right, was displayed in all its glory. For 

the first 20 kilometers the course followed 

the flattish road along the coast as far as the 

junction for Rafina (18 km); then swung 

inland and upwards through Pallini and 

Stavros and, as it climbed, began to take 

some toll on my energy; relief came, 

however, before Halandri (35 km), where the 

gentle descent to Athens began. 

From a host of wonderful memories, I 

especially like to recall the moment I passed 

the burial mound of the 192 Athenian 

heroes; the encouraging words, kalo paidi, 

which I received from an old man standing 

on the footpath at Pikermi (having just 

celebrated my 65th birthday, I was of course 

delighted to be called “a good lad”); the 

theme-music of the film Chariots of Fire 

being played on loudspeakers as we passed 

through Nea Makri, and the celebratory olive 

branch handed to me by Barbara McConnell- 

Zotou of the Irish Embassy as I was about to 

enter the stadium. 

It was very gratifying to be able to 

dedicate my run to the fund-raising of the 

Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens 

(IIHSA), and I wish to re c o rd my deep 

gratitude to the many kind supporters who 

s p o n s o red me, both in Ireland and in Gre e c e , 

and to my secretaries Anita and Eleni (she was 

in the stadium to welcome me home), who 

most efficiently organized the sponsorship. 

8 

9

T HE COLLE GE COURIER SPRING 200 3 

Events 

Events 


BioSciences 

Columbian Agreement 

UCC recently signed an agreement with the University of Columbia, 

New York, to become one of only two Irish Medical Schools linked to 

the premedical postbaccalaureate programme at Columbia. Columbia 

has one of the oldest medical schools in the US, one of whose 

founding fathers was the Irishman Samuel Clossy. This programme, 

based in their School of General Studies, offers a two-year full-time 

course in basic medical sciences for graduates of any discipline who 

wish to enter a medical course, which in the US is four years graduate 

entry. The Columbia programme supports its successful students by 

linking them to top medical schools in the US with whom it has 

formal “linkage agreements”. UCC now has such an agreement 

which will enable us to accept a small number of well qualified and 

well prepared graduates of the Columbia course annually into our 

five-year medical programme. Dr Thea Volpe, whose academic 

interests are in Celtic Studies, and who has a long association with 

Ireland, is Director of the Programme and visited UCC at the end of 

January to sign the agreement and meet members of the Admissions 

Office and Medical School Office to discuss practical arrangements. 

Postgraduate Fair 

The Annual Postgraduate Fair hosted by UCC's Careers Service took 

place on 6 Febru a ry 2003, with over 2,000 students attending the 

event held in Áras na Mac Léinn. The purpose of the exhibition was 

to inform students of the variety of postgraduate study options on 

o ffer and give students the opportunity to develop contacts with 

p rogramme providers for possible future collaboration. 

The exhibition consisted of stands from academic and administrative 

departments with over 35 UCC academic depart m e n t s 

p a rticipating and 10 external third-level institutions re p resented. 

L-R: Elaine Browne, Careers Advisor, 

C l a i re Copps, Careers Service and 

p rospective postgraduate student 

At the Official Opening of the BioSciences Institute, 

University College Cork, l-r: Professor Colin Hill, 

Microbiology, Food & Nutritional Sciences and Micheál 

Martin, TD, Minister for Health & Children 

The Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin, TD, officially opened 

the BioSciences Institute on 20 January 2003. 

The Institute is one of the first developments to be realised as part of 

the Government’s decision to invest significantly in science infrastructure in 

Ireland. Its opening coincides with the initiation of several new 

programmes funded under the HEA’s PRTLI scheme, as well as a number 

funded by Science Foundation Ireland. 

The Minister congratulated UCC on the Institute, and said work carried 

out there would “contribute greatly to the development of a thriving 

health-related research infrastructure in this country and would benefit us 

both socially and economically for many years to come.” 

Summer School 

The Department of Government, in conjunction with the European Consortium for Political 

Research (ECPR), are holding the 8th Annual Summer School in Local Government Studies in 

UCC 16-25 July 2003. 

The Summer School is aimed at PhD students who are specializing in local government 

research. The programme for the 2003 Summer School will include 15 hours of lectures from 

European academics coupled with 20 hours of work in small workshop groups. The theme of 

the Summer School is ‘Innovations in Local Government’. 

For more information please contact local organizer, Dr Aodh Quinlivan, Department of 

Government, Room 2.48 O’Rahilly Building, UCC 

Summer School website at http://www.ucc.ie/euroloc/ 

1 0 

1 1

T HE COLLEGE COURI ER S PRING 200 3 

Events 

Events 


Christmas Lunch 

Pensions Administration hosted the 4th 

Ukraine Visit 

Annual Retired Staff Christmas Lunch at the 

1. 

2. 

7. 

Maryborough House Hotel last December 

9. 

Dr Manfred Schewe, Department of German, with Nataliya Dzhyma, a 

lecturer at the Institute of International Relations, Kiev Taras 

Schevchenko National University, during her three-week research visit 

to UCC. Manfred’s research and innovative teaching practice forms 

the basis of new language and cultural studies modules that Nataliya 

intends to develop and introduce at Kiev University as part of a 

training programme for future Ukrainian diplomats. The scholar from 

the Ukraine was very impressed by UCC’s expertise and infrastructure 

in the area of Drama and Theatre Studies. Manfred has received an 

invitation by the Head of the Department of Foreign Languages, 

Professor Valentina Daineko, to deliver lectures on Drama and Theatre 

Pedagogy in the Teaching and Learning of Culture at Kiev University. 

3. 

8. 

10. 

4. 

5. 

1. L-R: Professor John A Murphy (Irish History), President Gerard T. Wrixon, 

President, UCC and Dr Tomás Ó Canainn (Electrical Engineering) 

2. L-R Back: Bill McNamara (Works), Paddy Browne (Works), Daniel Carey 

(Works) and Bernard Burke (Works). Front seated: William Mackey (Works) 

3. L-R: Professor Patrick Fox (Food Chemistry), Professor Shawn Doonan 

(Biochemistry) and Professor William Murphy (Chemistry) 

4. L-R: Tony Dalton (General Services), Con Quirke (Chemistry), Kevin O’Halloran 

(General Services) and Jim Kellaghan, Pensions Manager 

5. L-R: T P Crotty (Anatomy), Dr Patrick Fitzgerald (Anatomy), Professor John 

Murphy (Electrical Engineering) and Dr Micheál Ó Suilleabháin (Economics) 

6. L - R : Jane Sullivan (Library), Maureen Ryan (Library) and Breda Counihan (Librar y ) 

7. L-R: Kay O’Riordan (Records Office), Rose O’Sullivan (Library) and Ann Collins 

(Library) 

8. L-R: Professor David Orr (Civil Engineering), Eugene Ryan (Finance Office) and 

Ray Foley, Project Accountant 

Boole Art Exhibition 

An exhibition of paintings by Irish artist John 

Adams is on display in the Boole Library, titled 

P rospective Abyss. This is an artistic response to 

the consequences of war and destru c t i o n . 

J o h n ’s work usually deals with the landscape or 

paintings of the natural world, but the thre a t 

of war has given rise to a radical depart u re in 

his work. What has come through in his 

paintings has given an external voice to his 

i n t e rnal anxieties and concerns re g a rding the 

i n c reasing devaluation of human life. 

The exhibition opened on the 8 March 

and runs until 30 April 2003. Sponsorship 

for the event has been provided by UCC 

Visual Arts. View more of the artist’s work at 

www.johnnyadams.tv 

Prospective Abyss 1 

6. 

9. L-R: Mary Collins (Secretary’s Office), Sinéad Hackett, Pensions Administration 

and Emeritus Professor Sean Teegan (Chemistry and Student Affairs) 

10. L-R: Dermot Murray (Printing Office) and Dr Sean F Pettit (Education) 

1 2 

1 3


Events 

Conferences 

THE COLLE GE COURIER SPRING 2003 

Fund-Raising 

Kieran O’Keeffe, Chair, UCC Security, Sports & Social Club, hands 

over a cheque for €6,125 to Siobhán Allen, Principal of St Gabriel’s 

School, Bishopstown, in aid of the school’s fund-raising drive. Parents 

and pupils of the school were also present at the event. The Security, 

Sports & Social Club raised the money by holding an In-Door Soccer 

Tournament and selling raffle tickets. St Gabriel’s School provides 

education and support for pupils with severe learning difficulties and 

autism. The money raised will be used to buy physical education 

equipment, music therapy equipment, jigsaws and toys and to fund 

pony-riding lessons. The Security, Sports & Social Club is greatly 

appreciative to the ESB for the free use of their sports facilities. 

Quality Board Conference 

Leader in UCC 

L - R :Dr Elizabeth Henry, Quality 

P romotion Unit, UCC, Aoife Ní Néill, 

Quality Promotion Unit, UCC, and Dr 

N o rma Ryan, Dire c t o r, Quality Pro m o t i o n 

Unit, UCC, attending the Inaugural 

C o n f e rence of the Irish Universities 

Quality Board held in UCC 

Research Seminar 

Enda Kenny (left), Leader of the Fine Gael party paid a 

courtesy visit to Professor Gerard T. Wrixon, President, UCC, 

on 7 February. He was accompanied by Cllr. Jim Corr and 

was on campus to meet members of Young Fine Gael. 

The international Visiting Speaker to the French Department Researc h 

Seminar on 21 Febru a ry 2003 was Diana Knight, Professor of French at 

the University of Nottingham and current Leverhulme Research Fellow. 

The Seminar subject was “D e rr i è re la toile, derr i è re le papier”: S e c re t 

paintings and secret subjects in Balzac’s artist stories. Chairing the session 

was Seminar Convenor Dr Angela Ryan. Other members of the Seminar 

Committee are Dr Patrick Cro w l e y, Milouda Louh and April Wuensch. 

The Seminar (webpage http://www. u c c . i e / f re n c h / s e m i n a rc u re r n t . h t m l ) 

is sponsored by the French Department under its Head, Dr Maeve Conrick. 

L - R : Dr Angela Ryan, Department of Fre n c h , 

Seminar Convenor, with Visiting Speaker Pro f e s s o r 

Diana Knight, University of Nottingham 

On the weekend of 7 February 2003, UCC 

hosted the Inaugural Conference of the Irish 

Universities Quality Board on behalf of the 

seven Irish Universities. This conference was 

the first in what is hoped will be a series of 

annual conferences, hosted in turn by each 

of the seven Irish Universities, focusing on a 

theme relating to the quality agenda in the 

universities. 

The focus of this, the first conference, 

was on the quality in higher education, what 

it means in relation to teaching and learning, 

to research and to the student experience 

and engagement with campus life. The 

speakers came from Ireland, Europe and the 

USA and each brought their own emphasis 

to the proceedings. 

The conference was opened by Pro f e s s o r 

G e r a rd T. Wrixon, President, UCC, and his 

opening remarks set the agenda and focus for 

the conference as one of looking forw a rd and 

seeking always to improve. In his address he 

also re f e rred to the re q u i rements for accountability 

and transparency in our pro c e d u re s . 

P rofessor Jean Brihault of the University of 

Rennes 2 addressed the delegates with a 

p resentation entitled Defining and 

Implementing Quality in Higher Education, 

followed by a presentation from Professor Áine 

Hyland, Vi ce President, UCC, who spoke on 

I m p roving Learning by Enhancing Te a c h i n g. 

The quality agenda is not a new one in 

the Irish universities and has been a cornerstone 

of their activities since their 

foundation. In recent years attention has 

become focused, both at a national level and 

the international level, on quality systems in 

the higher education sector in Ireland. In all 

the universities a system of conducting 

reviews of the quality of education and 

related activities has been introduced. The 

conference marked the development of the 

agenda for quality into a new phase with the 

launch of the document A Framework for 

Quality In Irish Universities: Meeting the 

Challenge of Change and the announcement 

of the formation of the Irish Universities 

Quality Board. 

1 4 

1 5


Conferences 

Research 


Doctoral Colloquium 2003 

The Department of Management and Marketing is currently organizing 

its 4th Annual Doctoral Colloquium, which is scheduled for 28 & 

29 April 2003. This colloquium is the country’s biggest and most 

successful colloquium for doctoral students of management, 

marketing, strategy, organization development, and business. The 

quality of the process and content of this annual colloquium is such 

that it is marked as a ‘major event’ in many of the island’s third-level 

institutions. 

The format of the colloquium is that participants are invited to 

present papers based on their research for critical assessment by 

senior academics and co-doctoral participants. The call for papers is 

issued in early February and in 2002 20 of the 50 participants were 

selected to present papers on their research. Participants’ papers are 

presented in parallel sessions - Management, Marketing, Enterprise, 

Gender-related 

Persecution Conference 

On 8 March 2003, International Women’s 

day, UCC’s Faculty of Law hosted a one-day 

international conference on Refugee Women 

and the Law. Over 200 people attended the 

conference. The participants were drawn 

from Government bodies, statutory agencies, 

refugee groups, community and voluntary 

sectors and academia. Speakers at the 

conference included Deborah Anker, Harvard 

Law School, Pia Prutz Phiri, UNHCR 

Representative in Ireland, Dharmendra 

Kanani, Commission for Racial Equality, 

Britain, John Garry, Office of the Refugee 

Applications Commissioner, Dublin, Minoo 

Jalali, Immigration Law practitioner from Iran, 

Salome Mbugua, African Women’s Network, 

Ireland, Aliya Elagib, Refugee Women’s Legal 

1 6 

Group, UK and Siobhán Mullally, UCC. 

The conference highlighted the need for 

gender guidelines within the asylum determination 

process and for more gender-sensitive 

interviewing and assessment techniques. 

Although gender is recognised as a basis for 

claiming asylum under the 1996 Refugee 

Act, Ireland has not followed the practice of 

Canada, the USA, the UK and other states, 

in adopting gender guidelines. Many of the 

speakers pointed out, that asylum adjudicators 

do not recognise the political nature 

of gender-based persecution. Rape and 

sexual violence, for example, have often 

been defined as personalised sexual violence. 

This de-politicisation of sexual violence 

means that the political nature of the harm is 

not recognised and many women fall outside 

of the scope of refugee law’s protection. 

Women may also be persecuted because of 

“transgression of social mores”, because of 

their failure to comply with dominant 

religious or cultural norms within a society. 

Minoo Jalali, an Iranian lawyer with refugee 

status in the UK, spoke of the impact of 

discriminatory laws on women’s lives in Iran. 

The conference was particularly timely as the 

Refugee Applications Commissioner’s office 

in Ireland is currently drafting position papers 

on domestic violence and non-state agent 

Strategy and Organization Development. The feedback received on 

presenting their papers and the opportunity to discuss their research 

with senior academics has been a significant factor over the last three 

years in assisting students to progress and complete their PhDs. 

Attendance at the colloquium is open to all business doctoral 

students. The friendly, open, collaborative environment is conducive to 

pollination of ideas amongst doctoral students at any stage from 

formulating their research question to final write-up. Doctoral 

students attend the colloquium from most of the third level institutions 

across the island of Ireland while speakers are representative of 

third level institutions in both Ireland and the UK. 

For further details on this year’s Colloquium, contact Mary Doyle, 

Colloquium Administrator (ext 2512, m.doyle@ucc.ie) or Dr Breda 

McCarthy (ext 3272, b.mccarthy@ucc.ie). 

Conference speaker and delegate Merceye Peters, 

participating in a question and answer session 

persecution, in explicit recognition of the 

different kinds of persecution that women 

experience. 

The conference also highlighted the 

gendered forms of racism that refugee 

women experience. Aliya Elagib, Refugee 

Women’s Legal Group, UK, spoke of refugee 

women’s experiences of isolation and 

poverty, under the British system of ‘direct 

provision’ and dispersal, a system that has 

also been adopted here in Ireland. Ireland 

has recently adopted a National Action Plan 

Against Racism, following on from the World 

Conference Against Racism held in Durban, 

2001. The Action Plan recognises the 

multiple forms of racism and exclusion that 

refugee women may face in host societies. 

The conference was sponsored by the 

Know Racism fund (Dept of Justice, Equality 

and Law Reform), the British Council and the 

National Consultative Committee on Racism 

and Interculturalism. The Know Racism fund 

was launched two years ago, and forms part 

of the Government’s ongoing anti-racism 

awareness programme. Following the success 

of this conference, it is hoped to organize 

further events and workshops on asylum law 

and policy in Ireland. 

UCC Research into 

High Pressure Food 

Modern life seems more and more to be about pressure, 

but what happens if we put food under pressure? 

Many food companies throughout the world 

a re now re g a rding the answer to this question 

as a solution to some of their most diff i c u l t 

p roblems, like the following. How do we 

consistently produce safe long-life pro d u c t s ? 

How can we pre s e rve products like fruit juices 

and shellfish, without losing the freshness and 

goodness vital to their appeal? What new 

ways can we use to come up with exciting 

and innovative food products to meet the 

changing demands of the sophisticated 

consumer of today? 

Over 100 years ago, an American scientist 

named Bert Hite discovered that by placing 

foods such as eggs and milk under high 

pressure, preservative effects similar to those 

described not long before by Louis Pasteur 

for heating food (pasteurisation) could be 

achieved. 

U n f o rt u n a t e l y, for almost the next 80 years, 

this remarkable observation was not followed 

up, mainly because equipment to treat the 

food in such a way was not available. 

H o w e v e r, in the second half of the twentieth 

c e n t u ry, high-pre s s u re (HP) technology became 

widely used for materials science applications, 

involved in the manufacture of every t h i n g 

f rom jet engines to synthetic diamonds. Finally, 

a round 15 years ago, HP re t u rned home to 

food, as processors in Japan began to apply 

the newly available HP equipment to food, 

c o n f i rming and building on the findings of 

Hite, who could truly be said to be a man with 

an idea way ahead of its time. 

HP is a non-thermal process, which 

inactivates the bacteria that spoil food 

p roducts or cause food poisoning; however, 

the key advantage of HP is that it usually does 

not affect the flavour, nutritional value or 

t e x t u re of the food, side effects often 

associated with heat treatments such as 

pasteurisation. HP processing kills pathogens 

including E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria and Vi b r i o 

as well as spoilage organisms such as yeasts 

and moulds, without the use of art i f i c i a l 

chemicals. In addition, HP can have some 

positive effects on foods which cannot be 

achieved in any other means, for example by 

changing the three-dimensional stru c t u res of 

l a rge molecules like proteins and complex 

sugars to achieve new textures and stru c t u re s . 

The pre s s u res used for food range from 1000 - 

10,000 atmospheres, and exceed those found 

even at the deepest points of the ocean. 

Two products mentioned earlier, shellfish and 

f ruit juices, illustrate clearly the benefits of HP 

for food treatment. A US Company, 

Motavatit Seafoods, discovered that HP 

t reated oysters killed the pathogenic bacteria 

which cause the food poisoning sometimes 

associated with these products, while 

opening the shell of the oyster in the pro c e s s , 

adding a whole new dimension of convenience 

to the product. The huge success of 

their ‘Gold Band’ oysters with gourmets and 

laymen alike shows that the process does not 

a ffect the high quality of the product, either. 

S i m i l a r l y, HP looks set to revolutionise the 

f ruit juice market, with major processors in 

France and the UK re p o rtedly being about to 

launch HP-treated orange juice, which has all 

the flavour and vitamin content of fre s h l y - 

squeezed juice, but with a long shelf-life. 

Other HP products on the global market 

include ham and other processed meat 

p roducts, convenience chicken dinners, salsas, 

sauces and jams. As well as the USA and the 

UK, Spain and Australia are two furt h e r 

examples of countries where HP food pro d u c t s 

a re appearing on the supermarket shelves. 

So far, there are no Irish food companies 

using HP, although a number of Irish 

universities and re s e a rch institutes are helping 

our industry evaluate the benefits of the 

t e c h n o l o g y. UCC scientists, led by Dr Alan 

K e l l y, in Food Science, Food Technology & 

Nutrition and Teagasc, Moorepark, led by Dr 

Tom Bere s f o rd, are studying the effects of HP 

on dairy products, and have found potential 

applications for HP in such economically interesting 

areas as accelerating the ripening of 

M o z z a rella cheese. After being made, this 

kind of cheese traditionally needs a month of 

cold storage to develop the stringiness, 

s t retchiness and smooth melting pro p e rt i e s 

we associate with a pizza topping cheese. 

Treating the cheese under HP for as little as 10 

minutes has been found to give a fre s h l y - 

made cheese the pro p e rties of its mature 

equivalent, saving the processor great expense 

in terms of cold storage and stock re t e n t i o n . 

Milk itself is profoundly affected by HP 

t reatment, with changes to the stru c t u re and 

p ro p e rties of proteins, inactivation of 

enzymes, and alterations to pro p e rties like 

cheese making, creaming and storage stability. 

All these aspects are being studied at UCC, 

to help understand how dairy product 

Dr Alan Kelly, Food Science, Food 

Technology & Nutrition, UCC, with HP 

treated products, oysters and fruit juice 

m a n u f a c t u rers could best apply HP. 

The UCC team, in association with 

collaborators at Queens University, Belfast (led 

by Dr Marg a ret Patterson), are also studying in 

detail the exact ways in which HP aff e c t s 

shellfish such as oysters. It is now important to 

optimise such processes and develop 

knowledge that will underpin application of 

HP to a range of other food pro d u c t s , 

a c c o rding to Dr Alan Kelly at UCC. These 

re s e a rchers have also shown a gre a t 

commitment to technology transfer to the 

Irish food industry. With support fro m 

Enterprise Ireland, a semi-commercial scale HP 

rig was installed in Cork for a month before 

Christmas, and a number of Munster food 

companies undertook very successful trials of 

HP treatment of their products. In addition, 

AMT Ireland, a UCC Research Centre 

specialising in Food Engineering, and a part of 

the UCC HP team, are looking at ways in 

which a commercial scale press could be 

made available to Irish SMEs, either by UCC or 

by a spin out company from the University. 

When discussing HP, economics is an issue 

that comes up again and again, as it cannot 

be denied that the processing units able to 

t reat food are expensive. Nevertheless, as 

applications in food increase at a great rate 

t o d a y, it appears that more and more food 

companies are able to justify high capital 

investment in terms of the benefit to their 

business of using HP. 

As well as this, a much larger number of 

companies will be able to learn about HP at a 

special industry conference, entitled ‘Pre s s u re 

to Succeed’, to be held in Tu l l a m o re on 9 April 

2003. This conference, supported by 

Enterprise Ireland, AMT Ireland, and Safefood, 

the all-Ireland Food Safety Promotion Board , 

will bring together experts in the industrial use 

of HP, including re p resentatives both of 

companies making HP equipment and of food 

companies using such equipment, to share 

their experience with the Irish food industry, 

n o rth and south. More information can be 

found at the website www. f o o d . u c c . i e / f i t u 

1 7


Research 

Research 


The Cork ‘Carrickminder’ 

Dr David Edwards, Department of Histor y, 

UCC, at the site of the 800-year-old remains 

of Carrickmines Castle 

Dr David Edwards, Department of History, UCC, has played a prominent 

part in the campaign to save Carrickmines Castle in south Co. Dublin from 

destruction. He recounts the origins and growth of the controversy. 

“When, at the beginning of the 1990s, plans were announced for the 

construction of a new motorway around Dublin (the M50), the news 

was widely welcomed. For the thousands of motorists experiencing 

traffic congestion in the capital, the news brought the promise of 

better times ahead. Members of the business community were also 

pleased, as a better road network would benefit commerce. However, 

probably best pleased of all were a handful of property speculators 

and their political lobbyists. According to statements recently made at 

the Flood Tribunal, the then TD, Liam Lawlor, saw the motorway as an 

opportunity for him and his associates to make some serious money. 

Allegedly, provided he and his backers could fix the route of the 

motorway to insure it passed through lands they had purchased (at 

agricultural prices), they would be able to get their lands re-zoned (at 

industrial prices) and so sell on at a huge profit. Thus, between 1992 

and 1997, it is said that bribes were paid to county councillors in 

south Co. Dublin and the route of the road was adjusted as 

requested. 

If these allegations are true - all those accused deny the claim - 

then official corruption is the underlying cause of the controversy 

currently raging over the 800-year-old remains of Carrickmines Castle, 

a national monument which now faces destruction because it lies 

directly in the line of the motorway. When the original route of the 

motorway was proposed as part of the draft Dublin County 

Development Plan in June 1991, County Council planners were 

confident that the castle site was safe. They had, after all, recommended 

that the road should be routed away from the compound, 

the importance of which as one of the great frontier fortresses of 

medieval Ireland was well known. Following a meeting of Dun 

Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in 1997 a new route (its present 

one) was approved, passing right through the middle of the castle. 

Even at this juncture it should have been possible to head off the 

danger to the site. As the European Union meets most of the cost for 

new Irish, the government is obliged to follow EU environmental 

guidelines if it wishes to avail of European funding - hence the 

requirement that the National Roads Authority (NRA) commission an 

Environmental Impact Study (EIS) to assess the implications of the 

proposed road construction at Carrickmines. Surprisingly, the EIS 

recommended that the motorway should pass through the castle site 

once an excavation was completed. (The authors of the study, Valerie 

J. Keeley Ltd, a commercial archaeology company, have since been 

criticised for this recommendation). In 1998 the Minister for the 

Environment gave the go-ahead for the roadworks, and two years 

later the NRA reached an arrangement with Dúchas, the state 

heritage agency, wherein Dúchas undertook not to obstruct the road 

provided Carrickmines was ‘archaeologically resolved’, i.e. properly 

excavated and recorded. Only now did it seem that the fate of the 

castle was sealed. Excavations commenced in August 2000, after the 

contract had been awarded to Valerie J Keeley Ltd. 

Fortunately, the enormous scale of the dig - the largest in Ireland 

since Wood Quay - was soon public knowledge. In an interview with 

The Irish Times in January 2002 the director of the excavation, Dr 

Mark Clinton, revealed that his team had unearthed two medieval 

enclosures: a timber one dating to the early 13th century, and the 

stone foundations of a much larger one of the 14th-century. More 

than 80,000 artefacts had been recovered, representing all aspects of 

life on the Pale frontier c.1200-c.1650: arrowheads, knives, musket 

balls and cannonballs; keys, harnesses, nails, and discarded cutlery; 

leather bags, fragments of clothing, and all sorts of pottery. As a 

specialist in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Ireland what most 

interested me was the startling news that the archaeologists had 

found two burial pits containing the bodies of women and children 

who had been killed in a massacre at Carrickmines in 1642. This 

discovery alone underlined the unique importance of the site, which 

has so much to tell us about life (and death) in medieval and early 

modern times. 

The campaign to save the castle can be traced directly to the publication 

of Clinton’s revelations in The Irish Times. Disturbingly, had he 

not been interviewed about the dig, much of the site could have been 

long since covered in concrete, as steps had been taken to insure that 

the finds were kept secret. Despite legislation and the usual pro t o c o l 

neither the National Museum nor the Heritage Council was notified, 

and all archaeologists working there were re q u i red to sign a contract 

containing a gagging order not to speak of their work (an unpre c e- 

dented development). The Clinton interview undid these eff o rts. By the 

time the Minister of Tr a n s p o rt announced the end of the dig and anticipated 

the commencement of roadworks in August 2002, a broad 

alliance of concerned groups had formed to defend the castle. Apart 

f rom disgruntled state agencies such as Bórd Pleanála, An Taisce, and 

the National Museum, the alliance included university lecture r s , 

e n v i ronmentalists, and elected re p resentatives of almost every political 

p a rt y. Simultaneously a number of activists calling themselves the 

‘ C a rrickminders’ began occupying the site in order to obstruct the 

heavy machinery of the NRA; their occupation would last 155 days, 

continuing all through the wet winter, in primitive conditions. 

My role in the campaign has essentially been that of a publicist. In 

October 2002 I organised a one-day public conference at Trinity 

College, Dublin, to explain why the castle site was worth saving. 

Colleagues from six Irish universities agreed to speak. UCC was 

especially well represented, with Donnchadh O’Corrain, Kenneth 

Nicholls, Colin Rynne and I each giving talks. The conference was 

subsequently the subject of a special bank holiday feature on RTE 

Radio’s Morning Ireland. I have since prepared a petition that was sent 

to the European Parliament highlighting various irregularities in the 

treatment of the castle by the Irish authorities. Unless the government 

manages to persuade Europe that it has fully complied with its 

requirements for the preservation of heritage, it is possible that the 

European subvention for the south-eastern section of the M50, 

totalling €75 million, will be withheld. 

It remains to be seen what measures, if any, the European Union 

will take. In the meantime the Carrickminders have scored a major 

success in the Irish Supreme Court, where in February this year it was 

ordered that all roadworks at Carrickmines must cease until the NRA 

and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council can prove that the 

castle is not a National Monument. Victory seems close, but I will not 

be holding my breath. At the time of writing the authorities are still 

refusing to alter the route of the road, arguing that too much money 

has been spent for their plans to be changed. If the campaign has 

taught me anything it is that in Irish official circles heritage and culture 

are all very well, but money is what matters most.” 

Anyone interested in learning more about the campaign, or helping 

out, should contact The Friends of Carrickmines Castle, c/o Dr 

David Edwards, Department of Histor y, UCC. Alternatively consult 

the campaign website www.carrickminescastle.org. 

L-R: ‘Carrickminder’ Gordon Lucas, Dr David Edwards 

and Proinsias De Rossa, MEP, at the Carrickmines site 

Since this article was written the plight of Carrickmines Castle 

has been discussed in Brussels by the Petitions Committee of the 

E u ropean Parliament. At the request of the Labour MEP for 

Dublin, Proinsias De Rossa, the Committee has agreed to send a 

special delegation to Carrickmines to view the site for itself. 

Responding to an earlier motion by Mr De Rossa, the Committee 

has noted that if the Irish authorities are found to be in bre a c h 

of EU laws all grant aid for the motorw a y, totaling €75 million, 

could be withdrawn. 

1 8 

1 9


Research 

Questionnaire 


Questionnaire from the Office of Public Affairs 

to UCC Staff on The College Courier 

This document is the first in a series of communications the Office of Public Affairs will issue to staff to assist them 

with their review of internal communications. 

Staff are invited to start engaging in this process of consultation by completing this questionnaire and returning 

it to The Editor, The College Courier, Office of Public Affairs, The East Wing. 

R e s e a rch Aw a rds, Contracts, Grants, Bequests 

ANATOMY 

€235,100 – Health Research Board 

(2 contracts) 

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 

€59,500 – Mid Western Health Board 

ARCHAEOLOGY 

€31,743.35 - IRCHSS 

BIOCHEMISTRY 

€226,176 – European Union 


(4 contracts) 

BSI 

€2,372,995 – HEA (14 contracts) 

CHEMISTRY 

€241,820 – IRCSEC (2 contracts) 

€2,192,582.90 – HEA (13 contracts) 

CHILD HEALTH 


CIVIL ENGINEERING 

€104,384 - HEA 

COMPUTER SCIENCE 

€220,366.67 – Enterprise Ireland 

(2 contracts) 

€225,000 – Research Start Up 

€279,989 – HEA 

€3,207,700 – Science Foundation Ireland 

(2 contracts) 

CRC/ERI 

€1,623.91 – Beach Seine Survey, Dingle 

€5,376 – Nava Data 

€231,352.60 - HEA 


ECONOMICS 

€6,348.69 – National Suicide Research 

Foundation 

ENGLISH 

€10,000 – Arts Faculty Achievement Award 

EPIDEMIOLOGY & PUBLIC HEALTH 


ERI 

€14,426.26 – Connolly’s Red Mill 

€88,882 – PSG PIPCO 

€110,042 - Duchas 

€119,355.38 – BIM 

€159,152 – IRCSEC 

€3,670,945.60 – HEA (27 contracts) 

FOOD ENGINEERING 

€89,283 – Enterprise Ireland 

FOOD SCIENCE FACULTY 

€682.794 – DAFRD (3 contracts) 

GOVERNMENT 


HMRC 

€15,100 – Cork Harbour 

€15,175 – AWS – Sea Trials 

€24,252 – Cunnamore Harbour – Wave 

Study 

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION OFFICE 


ITALIAN 

€38,092.14 – Government of Ireland 

LAW 

€21,666.77 – Department of Justice 

MEDICINE 


€375,740.89 – HEA 

MICROBIOLOGY 

€114,628 – IRCSEC 

€391,701 – Enterprise Ireland (3 contracts) 

NFBC 


€76,184.30 – EPA 

€98,200 – IRCSEC 

€698,385 – DAFRD – (3 contracts) 

€885,365.99 – HEA (7 contracts) 

NMRC 

€150,000 - ESTE 

€315,963.24 – HEA 

€505,532 – Enterprise Ireland (3 contracts) 

€1,096,527 - European Union (4 contracts) 

ORAL HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT 

€7,187.50 – South Eastern Health Board 

€103,261.46 – Dept of Health & Children & 

FSAI 


(2 contracts) 

PHARMACOLOGY 


PHYSICS 


€305,674 - HEA 

SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS 

€54,850 - IRCSEC 



SOCIOLOGY 


SURGERY 


ZOOLOGY, ECOLOGY & PLANT SCIENCE 


1. Do you read The College Courier? 

YES. Why? 

NO. Why not? 

2. Do you read hard-copy only of The College Courier? 

YES 

NO 

3. Do you ever read the web version of The College Courier? 

If YES, how often? 

If NO, why not? 

4. How do you receive your copy of The College Courier? 

ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING 

stg£10,000 - UKAEA 


MICROELECTRONICS 


5. Are you happy with this method of circulation? 

2 0 

2 1


Teaching 

THE COLLEGE COURI ER SPRING 20 03 

6. What are your favourite sections of the magazine, and why? 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

7. Are there other areas of interest that are not currently covered in the magazine? 

If there are, please give details of same. 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

8. Do you like the design and layout of the magazine? 

If Y E S, please outline what design elements you like? 

If NO, please outline why not? 

L-R: Professor Fernanda Oliveira, Head of 

Department, Process Engineering, and 

Professor Dan Shunk, Visiting Fulbright 

Scholar from Arizona State University 

9. Have you ever submitted material to The College Courier? 

If YES, how often? 

Fulbright Scholar Expert In Supply 

Chain Engineering Curriculum 

If NO, why not? 

10. The College Courier issues three times a year. Do you think this is 

too frequent ? 

not frequent enough ? 

Additional Comments: 

THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING THIS QUESTIONNAIRE 

Questionnaire completed by Name: 

Department/Office: 

The third specialization stream of the BE Process Engineering offered 

by the Department of Process Engineering, Supply Chain Engineering 

& Management, started in October 2002. This initiative is driven by 

the strategic importance global corporations are placing on internationally 

competitive supply chains. This specialization option will also 

support the Irish-owned enterprises wishing to succeed in linking to 

their customers and suppliers in a world-class manner. Emphasis will 

be placed on the global value-added services that Ireland has to offer. 

It shall include customer orientation that incorporates value through 

service and product success. 

In order to develop a world-class programme at the forefront of 

industrial process engineering the Department of Process Engineering 

has benefited from the support of the Fulbright Scholarship 

programme. Professor Dan Shunk, an industrial engineer with the 

Arizona State University and holder of the Avnet Chair of Supply 

Network Integration, is with UCC for two semesters as a Visiting 

Fulbright Scholar. He is working with the department in developing an 

innovative and unique programme that will build on UCC’s core 

competencies and promote a niche of excellence in teaching and 

research in supply chain engineering. 

In the global manufacturing environment, organizing production 

systems that involve companies who are placed worldwide will be as 

important as organizing excellence of production in each local factory. 

These issues are crucial to an export-oriented economy such as 

Ireland’s, as over 50 per cent of food products and 95 per cent of 

pharmaceutical products are exported. In the same way that process 

engineering has designed highly effective production lines in factories, 

new engineering concepts need to be applied to design production 

systems without boundaries. Ireland cannot afford to be outside the 

cutting edge in supply chain engineering and management. 

Date: 

2 2 

2 3

T HE COLLE GE COURIER SPRING 2003 

Teaching 

Teaching 


WORD PLAY 

Opening of the new Information and Communication Technology 

Facility, Crossleigh House, l-r: Dr Tom Mullins, Head, Department 

of Education, Michael Delargey, Department of Education, 

Michael O’Halloran, Computer Centre, Professor Áine Hyland, 

Vice President, Kenneth Burns, Department of Applied Social 

Studies, Professor Alastair Christie, Department of Applied Social 

Studies and Dr Francis Douglas, Education 

Back Row l-r: Phoebe Hadden, Seoirse Ó 

Conchuir, Iain Flynn, Vlad Muresan, James 

Conron, Neil Ainsworth and Patricia 

Lambert, CELTA trainees on the 10-week 

intensive course 

F ront Row l-r: P rofessor David Mackenzie, 

Hispanic Studies and interim Director of the 

Language Centre, UCC, guest lecture r, 

Ramesh Krishnamurt h y, Sally-Ann Attale, 

TEFL/EFL College Language Teacher and 

Tr a i n e r, Language Centre, UCC, and Cathy 

Gannon, TEFL/EFL College Language 

Teacher and Tr a i n e r, Language Centre, UCC 

Opening of ICT Facility 

The Departments of Applied Social Studies and Education opened 

their new computing facilities in Crossleigh House on the 24 January 

2003. Opening the laboratory, Professor Áine Hyland, Vice President, 

congratulated both departments, and in particular Kenneth Burns, 

Department of Applied Social Studies, and Michael Delargey, 

Department of Education, on their collaborative work in achieving this 

modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facility. Dr 

Tom Mullins, Head of the Department of Education and Professor 

Alastair Christie, Acting Head of Applied Social Studies paid tribute to 

all those involved in the successful completion of the project. 

The laboratory contains 29 PCs, audio-visual facilities, printing 

facilities and a range of state-of-the-art software relevant to the fields 

of Applied Social Studies and Education. It is envisaged that the 

laboratory will be a major asset to the research and teaching facilities 

of both departments. ICT has assumed great importance in both 

subjects and it is imperative that students achieve a high degree of 

ICT capability on completing their studies. 

Students of the Education Department will receive training in software 

relevant to their subject methodologies such as Vektor for modern 

languages or The Geometer Sketchpad for trainee mathematics 

teachers. In addition to upskilling in specialist software, the laboratory 

will be used to present the Intel Teach to the Future Pre-service 

training programme. This programme is pedagogically focused and 

the Department has successfully incorporated it into the Higher 

Diploma in Education over the last two years. 

A special feature of the laboratory is the inclusion of Assistive 

Technology (AT). The PCs all have Zoomtext and Read & Write 

installed. Jaws, Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 are installed on two 

computers. It is hoped that the inclusion of AT in the new laboratory 

will act as a precedent for other computer facilities on campus. 

P rofessor David Mackenzie, Hispanic Studies, has recently taken over as 

interim Director of the Language Centre following the depart u re of 

Steven Dodd, and in this capacity he invited Ramesh Krishnamurt h y 

f rom the University of Birmingham to give a talk, the title of which was 

“Collocation: linking lexis, grammar and semantics”. Mr Krishnamurt h y 

a d d ressed the issue of collocation (words and word groups that go 

together), how native speakers deal with this in their everyday speech, 

and some of the difficulties that learners of the English language may 

have when faced with collocation issues. He pointed out that native 

speakers produce collocations eff o rtlessly and naturally in spontaneous 

discourse, and yet sometimes have difficulty in analyzing and re c a l l i n g 

them through introspection. He then went on to suggest some 

practical ways of incorporating collocation into language teaching and 

l e a rning, and warned of the dangers of teaching words in isolation. 

Ramesh Krishnamurthy is an expert in the field of dictionaries and 

collocation. He has many publications to his name and is a wellknown 

speaker at conferences worldwide and also on BBC radio. At 

present he is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of English 

at the Universities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and he is also 

Corpus Consultant for the Bank of English, Cobuild, Harper Collins 

Publications and the University of Birmingham. He has worked as a 

compiler and editor for the Cobuild Dictionary series, is a conference 

speaker and presenter for Collins Dictionaries, and is a regular 

contributor to journals and magazines. 

The lecture was well attended by members of other departments 

in UCC as well as the Language Centre, and representatives of other 

language schools in Cork and teachers and students on the MA 

programme. 

Also in the audience were eight trainee teachers who are following 

an 11-week course leading to the Certificate of English Language 

Teaching to Adults (CELTA). This is an internationally recognized qualification 

that enables people to find jobs teaching English in most 

countries of the world as well as Ireland, and the course combines 

theory with teaching practice in classes of English language learners. 

This course is run twice a year by the EFL (English as a Foreign 

Language) section of the Language Centre and applications are always 

welcome from anyone holding a first degree. Trainees come from a 

wide variety of backgrounds, from recent graduates to those who 

perhaps wish to have a career change or who want to travel and work 

abroad. In addition to offering the CELTA course at least twice a year, 

the Language Centre also offers a course leading to the Diploma in 

English Language Teaching to Adults, which is for teachers of English 

as a Foreign Language who have already had some experience in the 

field. Another training course offered each year is the Diploma in 

Advanced English Studies. 

In addition to these training courses, the EFL section offers yearround 

and summer English language courses. As well as providing 

services to students who come to Ireland specifically to learn English 

and perhaps to work at the same time, there are also many 

postgraduate students and those who are at UCC on exchange 

programmes from other countries and who take the opportunity to 

improve their English. Staff members from other countries also follow 

courses in the Language Centre to improve and develop their oral and 

writing skills. The EFL section also runs a foundation course for 

students mainly from Kuwait and Malaysia who are at UCC for six 

years to train in the medical and dental professions. 

Hundreds of foreign students also come to the Language Centre every 

year to take the Cambridge Examinations - First Certificate, 

Cambridge Advanced English and Cambridge Proficiency in English, as 

well as the examinations for the International English Language 

Testing System (IELTS), which is used by the Irish and British Medical 

Councils and by universities as a standard of English language. 

For more information on courses offered by the EFL section or by 

other sections of the Language Centre, please contact the Secretary 

on extension 2043 or email info@langcent.ucc.ie 

2 4 

2 5


Appointments 

Appointments 


First Heinz Fellowship 

Archivist on National Body 

I rene McGoey (a b o v e) was awarded the H J Heinz Company Foundation 

Doctoral Research Fellowship in International Business Strategy. She took up 

this Fellowship in the Department of Management & Marketing in October 

2002. The generous endowment of the Heinz Company Foundation, secure d 

t h rough the Cork University Foundation and the activities of the Development 

O ffice, is enabling the Fellowship to be off e red in perpetuity. Each re c i p i e n t 

will be supported for a three-year period while completing a doctorate in the 

a rea of international business strategy. 

Carol Quinn (left), Archivist, Boole Library, has been appointed 

to the National Archives Advisory Council for a five-year period, 

starting November 2002. 

The principal function of the National Archives Advisory 

Council is to advise the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism on all 

matters affecting archives and their use by the public. Under the 

Local Government Act of 1994 and the Harbours Act of 1996, 

the Council may also advise the Minister for the Environment and 

Local Government and the Minister for Communications, Marine 

and Natural Resources, on any matters affecting local arc h i v e s 

and harbour archives re s p e c t i v e l y. 

The National Archives Advisory Council has 12 members, 

including its Chairman, His Honour Judge Bryan McMahon. 

Irene obtained an MBS degree in Strategic 

International Marketing from Dublin City 

University Business School and a BA degree 

in International Business Communications 

from Magee College, University of Ulster. 

She held senior management-level 

positions with the Irish Government, Small & 

Medium Enterprises (SME), and multinational 

organizations, including Adobe Inc, 

Enterprise Ireland, Euristix Ltd, Fore Systems 

and Marconi plc. Her most recent position 

was Director of Product Marketing & 

Management with Marconi plc. Other 

positions held include Head of Marketing, 

Euristix, based in San Jose, California and 

Dublin and Channel Marketing Manager, 

Adobe Inc. based in Versailles, Paris. 

She lectured in ebusiness for MBA and 

MBS courses from 1999-2001 in Dublin City 

University Business School. 

Irene is currently undertaking research in the 

areas of ebusiness, marketing on the internet 

and product marketing and management. 

She has published a book with Oak Tree 

Press, Marketing on the Internet, Winning 

Global Competitive Advantage, ebusiness 

technology-based training titles and 

conference papers based on her work and 

research. Awards include the Irish Software 

Association marketing award (1998) and 

TeleManagement Forum contribution to 

industry award (1999). 

Irene’s PhD Research Topic for the Heinz 

Fellowship is ‘Innovating Product 

Management and Marketing Strategy in the 

High-Technology Economy to win Global 

Competitive Advantage’. She is working 

under the supervision of Dr Joan Buckley, 

Department of Management & Marketing. 

New RIA Member 

Professor Fergal O’Gara (right), Department of Microbiology, has been 

elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy at a ceremony in 

Dublin, held on 15 March 2003. 

Professor O’Gara, Director of the BIOMERIT Research Centre at 

UCC, is one of Ireland’s foremost molecular biologists in the field of 

plant and soil microbes and has a strong international profile. During 

his career he has become a leading expert on nitrogen fixation and 

later iron assimilation and antibiotic production. 

For 216 years the Royal Irish Academy has been honouring 

Ireland’s leading academics by electing them as Members of the 

Academy on the eve of St Patrick’s Day. The Royal Irish Academy is an 

all-Ireland, independent, academic body that promotes study and 

excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. 

2 6 

2 7


Awards 

Awards 


RIA Award for UCC Biochemist 

Language 

Centre 

Award 

L-R: Eugene O’Sullivan, Language 

Centre,UCC, accepting the Schlapps Oliver 

Shield from Lady Gore-Booth, President of 

the Institute of Linguistics, on behalf of 

UCC’s Language Centre 

P rofessor Tom Cotter, Biochemistry, has received the Royal Irish Academy 

Aw a rd Medal in Biochemistry 2002. He received the medal and delivere d 

a re s e a rch lecture on his work at the Royal Irish Academy on 19 Febru a ry 

2 0 0 3 . 

P rofessor Cotter, who leads a multinational re s e a rch group in UCC, 

received the award for his work on cancer re s e a rch and degenerative 

conditions of the eye. His re s e a rch interests focus on exploring the 

genetics and underlying cell biology of a process known as pro g r a m m e d 

cell death (apoptosis) and its relation to disease processes. The re s e a rc h 

is funded by grants from national and international sourc e s . 

Professor Cotter was the first recipient of both The Irish Times/Boyle 

Medal award (1999) and the Irish Research Scientist’s Association for 

Research award (1996). He is a board member of Science Foundation 

Ireland and the Health Research Board of Ireland. He is also a member of 

the government’s commission on assisted human reproduction. 

Professor Tom Cotter, Biochemistry, 

with his Royal Irish Academy medal, 

awarded for his research work 

On 23 October 2002, UCC Language Centre 

was honoured at the Royal Institution of 

Great Britain, London, on the occasion of the 

annual prize-giving ceremony of the Institute 

of Linguists, the leading professional 

language body in the UK. The Centre was 

awarded the Schlapps Oliver Shield, in recognition 

of its achievement in putting forward 

the best group of candidates for the Diploma 

in Translation examination. Accepting the 

shield and a commemorative medal on 

behalf of the Language Centre, Eugene 

O’Sullivan had an opportunity to query the 

family history of the President of the Institute 

of Linguists, Lady Gore-Booth, a professional 

conference interpreter who turns out to be 

married to the great-nephew of Constance 

Markievicz, heroine of the 1916 insurrection. 

UCC Language Centre has been a recognised 

examination centre for the DipTrans. 

since 1995. This prestigious postgraduate 

qualification is gained following three examinations: 

one general and two specialised 

translations from areas such as Science, 

Technology and Business. It has attracted not 

only candidates who translate from or into 

French, German, Italian and Spanish, but also 

other languages such as Polish and 

Portuguese, in line with the Language 

Centre policy of widening the range of 

foreign language possibilities available to 

UCC students and staff. Several members of 

staff of the Language Centre who teach in 

the Departments of French, German and 

Hispanic Studies and in its EFL section, have 

themselves been successful in obtaining this 

qualification, and have contributed to the 

preparatory course in translation techniques 

and practice which the Language Centre has 

offered. This course, originally established by 

Steven Dodd, and including both lectures 

and practical workshops, clearly had the 

effect of boosting UCC candidates’ 

performance. It has been envisaged that this 

kind of tuition could in future be offered by 

correspondence, thus expanding the pool of 

potential candidates. 

The Language Centre also provides a 

professional translation and interpreting 

service for college students and staff and for 

the general public. Any enquiries in this 

regard may be addressed to the Secretariat 

of the Language Centre (ext. 2043). 

2002 Alumni Award Winners 

UCC honoured three graduates of UCC on the occasion of the 2002 

Alumni Awards, held on 7 December 2002. Dr Carl Vaughan, New 

York-based cardiologist, who graduated in 1989, received the 

Alumnus Merit Award. Together with colleagues at Cornell University 

Medical Centre, he is investigating the transfer of heart diseases from 

one generation to the next within individual families. Dr Edward 

Walsh, founding president of University of Limerick, and chairman of 

the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, received the 

Distinguished Alumnus Award. Dr Walsh graduated from UCC in 

1961 with a degree in electrical engineering. The third recipient, 

James O’Callaghan, Technical Director of the London-based John 

Murphy Construction Group, received the Excellent Contribution 

Award. Mr O’Callaghan, who graduated in 1973 with a degree in civil 

engineering, has played an important part in maintaining a close 

association between the university and the Murphy group. 

UCC 2002 Alumni Award winners with Professor Gerard T. 

Wrixon, President, UCC. L-R: James O’Callaghan, Professor 

Gerard T. Wrixon, Dr Edward Walsh and Dr Carl Vaughan 

2 8 

2 9


Awards 

Awards 

THE COLLE GE COURI ER S PRING 2003 

1. 

Conferrings 

DECEMBER 2002 

Honorary 

Conferrings 

2. 

1. Parents Deirdre and Dan Rose (Geology), with son Ian who 

was conferred with a BSc (Environmental Studies) degree 

2. Iseult Cronin with her father Dr Pat Cronin (Ancient 

Classics), and mother Anne Cronin after receiving her LLM 

degree 

3. L-R: Dr Eoin Healy, Computer Science, son Ken Healy, 

BE(Elec) and Ros Healy 

Veteran broadcaster and writer, Liam Ó Murchu, was 

conferred with an Honorary Masters degree from UCC in 

December 2002. He receives the award for his contribution to 

Irish broadcasting. He is most closely associated with the 

long-running programmes Trom agus Eadrom and Up for the 

Final. He joined RTÉ in 1964 in the role of Editor of Irish 

Language programmes and went on to become Assistant 

Controller of Programmes and Assistant Director General. 

He left in 1988 to set up his own production company 

4. Professor Thomas O’Connor, Philosophy, with his daughter 

Niamh after receiving her PhD in Chemistry 

3. 

5. Dr Paul McSweeney, Food Science, Food Technology & 

Nutrition, with his sister Fiona McSweeney who was 

conferred with a medical degree 

L - R : P rofessor Gerard T. Wr i x o n , 

P resident, UCC and Tim Kelleher, 

Head, Scoil Stiofan Naofa, who 

was conferred with an Honorary 

MA for his contribution to 

education in Cork 

4. 5. 

L-R: Gerard O’Dwyer, Cork 

College of Commerce and Gerar d 

Looney, St John’s College, who 

received Honorary Masters degrees 

from UCC for their contribution to 

education in Cork 

3 0 

3 1

THE COL LEGE C OURIER SPRING 2003 

Awards 

Awards 


Long Service Awards 2002 

The 13th Annual Long Service Award Ceremony took place in the Main Restaurant, 

UCC on 6 December 2002. 27 staff members (19 of whom are pictured here) received 

awards from Professor Gerard T. Wrixon, President, in recognition of their dedication 

and contribution to UCC over the past 35 and 25 years. 

1. 

2. 

35 YEARS SERVICE 

1. Dr Patrick Cronin 

Department of Ancient Classics 

2. Olan Dwyer 

Department of Electrical & Electronic 

6. Engineering 

11. 16. 

7. 

3. Michael F Kelleher 

Office of the Secretary & Bursar 

4. John Lucey 

Department of Physics 

5. Sean O’Donovan 

Department of Restorative Dentistry 

6. Jerry Sheehan 

Boole Library 


7. Geraldine Buckley 

Computer Centre 

12. 17. 


11. Rhona McCarthy 

Boole Library 

12. Nora McElhinney 


13. Bernie McEvoy 

Boole Library 

14. Professor Patrick O’Flanagan 

Department of Geography 

15. Esther O’Farrell 

Registrar’s Office 

16. Daniel O’Hanlon 

Buildings & Estates 

17. Professor Niall Ó Murchadha 


18. Bernice Quinn 

Department of Food Science, 

Food Technology & Nutrition 

3. 

8. 

8. Dr Jim Grannell 

School of Mathematics, Applied 

Mathematics & Statistics 

13. 18. 

19. John Ryan 

Department of Chemistry 

9. Miriam Kirwan 

Boole Library 

10. Catherine Malone 


4. 

9. 

14. 

19. 

The following award recipients were unable to attend on the night: 

5. 

10. 

15. 


Deirdre Burke 

Department of Human Resources 

Dr Tony Deeney 


Pat Harrington 

Buildings & Estates 


Mary Collins Office of the Secretary & Bursar 

Professor John Fraher Department of Anatomy 

Margaret Healy Finance Office 

Professor David Morgan Department of Law 

Professor Denis O’Mullane Oral Health Services 

Research Centre 

3 2 

3 3

T HE COL LEGE C OURIER SPRING 2003 

Bookshelf 

Bookshelf 


Medicine, Ethics 

& the Law 

Genteel Revolutionaries 

by Deird re Madden 

Anna and Thomas Haslam, Pioneers 

of Irish Feminism 

by Carmel Quinlan 

Written by Ireland’s leading medical law academic, this work will comprehensively 

cover case-law and regulations regarding the healthcare system, 

law relating to human reproduction, ands issues of consent and treatment. 

Designed for both lawyers and healthcare professionals this work will 

prove an invaluable reference tool for students and those in daily practice. 

Dr Deirdre Madden , Barrister-at-Law; 

Lecturer in Law, University College Cork. 

Anna and Thomas Haslam were born in the 

decade before Victoria ascended to the 

throne, both into Quaker families. The ethos 

of Quakerism was evident in all aspects of 

their lives. The couple married in 1854 and 

lived well into the twentieth century. This 

book is both an exploration of their lives and 

a history of the first forty years of feminist 

activism in Ireland. 

Thomas, an example of a Victorian 

polymath, wrote on birth control as early as 

1868 and, in the 1870s, on prostitution and 

on sexual morality. He published a journal on 

female suffrage in 1874 and continued to 

write on the subject until his death in 1917 

at the age of 92. Genteel Revolutionaries 

traces the Haslams’ work for women’s 

suffrage from their founding of the Dublin 

Women’s Suffrage Association in 1876 to the 

granting of the franchise in 1918. It looks at 

the campaign for the repeal of the 

Contagious Diseases Acts in the 1870s, a 

campaign regarded at the time as disgraceful 

because ‘ladies’ discussed prostitution and 

venereal disease, subjects they should have 

known nothing about. Anna was active in 

the movement for the education of women 

and was also instrumental in winning for 

women the right to stand as candidates in 

local elections. She was a member of the 

International Council of Women from the 

1880s. The Haslams corresponded with 

leading English intellectuals, including John 

Stuart Mill, and with activists such as Marie 

Stopes. 

Genteel Revolutionaries e x p l o res a world in 

which a coterie of like-minded people stro v e 

for re f o rm in a law-abiding manner. It re v e a l s 

an Ireland where people with religious and 

political diff e rences worked together for a 

common cause and whose conserv a t i v e 

demeanor belied their radical ideals. 

Carmel Quinlan is a Post-Doctoral 

Research Fellow in the Department of 

History, University College Cork and was 

formerly co-ordinator of the MA course in 

Women’s Studies. 

Publisher: Cork University Press 

(www.corkuniversitypress.com) 

Price: Cloth €57.25 

Pleiades Setting 

edited by Keith Sidwell 

Pleiades Setting is a collection of essays put together for the occasion of 

the retirement of Statutory Lecturer, Dr Pat Cronin, Ancient Classics. 

Contributors to this special volume are members of the Department of 

Ancient Classics, UCC. 

John Barry - Stanihurst and the ethnographic tradition 

Margaret Buckley - Atticus, Man of Letters, Revisited 

Chris Gaynor - Community and leadership in the writings of Isocrates 

Noreen Humble - The limits of biography: the case of Xenophon 

Carmel McCallum-Barry - Ovid at the end of the world 

Keith Sidwell - Damning with great praise: paradox in Lucian’s Imagines 

and Pro Imaginibus 

David Wood - Ammianus and the blood-sucking Saracen 

Publisher: Butterworths (Ireland) 

Ltd (http://www.butterworths.ie) 

Price: €120 

Publisher: Department of Ancient Classics, UCC 

Price: €5 

3 4 

3 5


Bookshelf 

Bookshelf 

THE COLLEGE COURIER SPRIN G 2 003 

Teeth for Life for Older Adults 

by Finbarr P. Allen 

At the launch of Dr Allen’s book Teeth for 

Life for Older Adults are l-r: Dr Frank 

Burke, Head of the Department of 

Restorative Dentistry, UCC, Professor 

Nairn Wilson, President, General Dental 

Council and Dr Finbarr Allen 

As the population ages, dentists will have to provide care for larger numbers of older adults. 

I m p rovements in dental health have led to increasing numbers of dentate older adults, but there is 

a high burden of maintenance associated with ageing dentitions. Older adult patients well pre s e n t 

a range of challenges and demands. There will be fewer new edentulous patients, but the thre a t 

of total tooth loss will remain a reality for significant numbers of adults for the foreseeable future . 

Dentists will be expected to provide care for these patients in an era of diminishing re s o u rces for 

h e a l t h c a re. This text, using currently available clinical and re s e a rch-based evidence, aims to give the 

general dental practitioner an inside into the management of older adults. The first chapter gives 

an overview of the problems experienced by the edentulous patients. The presentation, aetiology 

and diagnosis of common disease states affecting the dentate older adult are then discussed and 

management strategies are outlined. The final chapter covers the use of complete overd e n t u re s 

and invites the reader to consider whether this should be the end-point of dental treatment for 

older adults. 

Dr Finbarr Allen is a Statutory Lecturer/Consultant 

in the Department of Restorative Dentistry, UCC. 

Publisher: Quintessence Publishing Co (www.quintpub.com/) 

Price: US$46 

Aquaculture: 

The Ecological Issues 

by John Davenport, Kenneth Black, Gavin Burnell, Tom Cross, Sarah 

C u l l o t y, Suki Ekaratne, Bob Furness, Maire Mulcahy, Helmut Thetmeyer 

Between Politics and Sociology: 

Mapping Applied Social Studies 

Editor Peter Herrm a n n 

Between Politics and Sociology: Mapping 

Applied Social Studies is the first volume in a 

series on Applied Social Studies, edited in the 

context of the work of the Department of 

Applied Social Studies at UCC. 

As social professions are more and more 

forced to walk a pathway of cutbacks and 

political restrictions, under suggested 

democratic aims, this book takes an active 

part in the international debate around the 

political responsibility of those working in the 

field. It also aims to bring together the 

different areas of professional work in the 

social field. 

The contributors of the first volume deal with 

subjects around social integration - the more 

practically oriented contributions dealing with 

The Systems of Guaranteeing Suff i c i e n t 

R e s o u rces in the Republic of France and the 

United Kingdom of Great Britain and 

N o rt h e rn Ire l a n d ( H e rrm a n n / Z i e l i n s k i ) ; 

Anti-racism, citizenship and integration in 

contemporary France (Gibb); and Enduring 

Inequalities in Transitions to Labour: Class, 

Education and Community Disadvantage in 

Ireland (Burgess) 

Two further contributions on Faith, State & 

C h a r i t y(Powell) and Aspects of the changing 

political environment of applied social studies: 

“You can get there only from here” (O’Carro l l ) 

a re complementing this publication. 

Dr Peter Herrmann is a lecturer in Applied 

Social Studies in UCC 

Publisher: New York: Nova Science 

Price US$59 

Aquaculture is a fast-growing, essential 

industry that provides food and income to 

millions of people. It offers the only prospect 

of expanding food supply from freshwater or 

sea because capture fisheries have reached 

their limits. However, many features of 

aquaculture as currently practised are ecologically 

unsustainable. 

A q u a c u l t u re: the ecological issues is written 

by an international team of re s e a rchers. Their 

aim has been to give an accessible account of 

the scale and diversity of aquaculture and the 

impact that it has on habitats and ecosystems 

t h roughout the world. It deals with the culture 

of carp and oysters, catfish and crayfish, 

salmon and tiger prawns. 

C o n t roversial topics such as habitat loss, 

the introduction of alien species, genetic 

pollution by escapees from fish farms and 

s p read of disease from farmed to wild populations 

are covered. Attention is drawn to the 

heavy reliance of the industry on fishmeal and 

fish oil derived from industrial fishing that in 

t u rn impacts on the food supply of seabird s 

and fish such as cod and haddock. 

A q u a c u l t u re generates wastes and uses antibiotics 

and other drugs to stave off disease. 

The authors show how effects of these 

problems have been ameliorated and look to 

a future where improved technology, better 

regulation and integrated resource 

management can combine to make the 

industry more sustainable 

Professor John Davenport, Head of 

Department, Zoology, Ecology & Plant 

Science, UCC. Dr Gavin Burnell , Dr Tom 

Cross, Dr Sarah Culloty , Professor Suki 

Ekaratne, and Professor Maire Mulcahy 

members of the Department of Zoology, 

Ecology & Plant Science, UCC. Dr Kenneth 

Black, Dunstaffnage Marine Laborator y, 

Oban, Argyll, UK, Professor Bob Furness, 

University of Glasgow and Dr Helmut 

Thetmeyer, University of Kiel, Germany. 

Publisher: Blackwells/British Ecological Society 

Price: stg£9.99/US$34.95 

3 6 

3 7

THE COLLEGE COURIER WINTER 2002 

Noticeboard 


And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche 

Essays on Medieval English 

An bhfuil tabhairt amach á eagrú d’éinne 

atá ag éirí as? 

Má tá, téir I dteagmháil leis an Eagarthóir le do 

thoil agus cuirfidh sí cúpla grianghraf den ócáid 

sa Courier. Folíne: 2821 Idirlíon: r. c o x @ u c c . i e 

Has someone in your department marr i e d 

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Presented to Professor Matsuji Tajima on his Sixtieth Birthday 

edited by Yoko Iyeiri and Margaret Connolly 

This volume of essays on medieval English language and literature was 

published in November 2002 in honour of Professor Matsuji Tajima of 

Kyushu University. In the west a volume honouring an eminent scholar 

(a festschrift) is not usually presented until after re t i rement, but in 

Japan it is usual to mark the scholar’s sixtieth birthday in this way. 

P rofessor Matsuji Tajima took his postgraduate degrees in Canada, 

and throughout his distinguished re s e a rch career has collaborated with 

w e s t e rn scholars. It is not surprising then to find that this volume has a 

t ruly international flavour with contributions from authors based in 

Japan, Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland, Germ a n y, and Denmark. The 

fifteen contributors include both younger re s e a rchers and eminent 

scholars, amongst the latter are Professor Eric G Stanley, Pembro k e 

College, Oxford and Professor Jeremy J Smith, University of Glasgow. 

Reflecting Professor Tajima’s wide-ranging research interests, the 

volume’s contents are equally divided between medieval language and 

medieval literature. The linguistic articles cover topics as diverse as Old 

English phonology and its Germanic forebears; the influence of French 

on the developing English language; Middle English grammar; 

Chaucer’s English, and linguistic influences on early English translations 

of the Bible. The literary essays cover medieval romance; 

Arthurian literature; the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer; Thomas Malory; 

the printer William Caxton; later Middle English devotional writing 

and manuscript studies. 

Dr Marg a ret Connolly is a lecturer in the Department of English at 

UCC and is Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge, during 

2002/2003. She is presently preparing an index of the Middle English 

p rose writings in the manuscript collection of Cambridge University 

L i b r a ry. Dr Yoko Iyeiri is a lecturer in English in the Faculty of 

Letters at Kyoto University in Japan. The editors met as graduate 

students at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. 

Publisher: Kaibunsha Publishing Co, Tokyo 

Price: US$65.00 

APPOINTMENTS 

Dr Debbie Chapman, Lectureship, 

Environmental Sciences 

Bev Cotton, Lectureship, Applied Social 

Studies 

Tom Cremin, Trainee Management 

Accountant, Finance Office 

Rick Deady, Nurse Tutor, Nursing Studies 

Dr Yong-Song Fan, Lectureship, Civil & 

Environmental Engineering 

Dr Caroline Fennell, Professorship, Law 

Dr Brigid Greiner, Snr Lectureship, 

Epidemiology & Public Health 

Hilary Heaphy, Executive Assistant, Faculty 

of Medicine & Health 

Dr Noreen Humble, Lectureship, Ancient 

Classics 

Dr JJ Keating, Lectureship, Chemistry 

Gaye Kiely, Lectureship, Accounting & 

Finance 

Dr Martin Kinirons, Professorship, 

Preventive & Paediatric Dentistry 

Dr Anita Maguire, Associate Professorship, 

Chemistry 

Dr Justin McCarthy, Lectureship, 

Biochemistry 

Dr Kieran Mulchrone, Lectureship, School 

of Mathematics, 

Dr Marian Murphy, Snr Lectureship, 

Applied Social Studies 

Sara O’Brien, Head of Internal Audit, 

Finance Office 

Susan O’Callaghan, Pensions Manager, 

Pensions Office 

Sinéad O’Geran, IT Analyst, Computer 

Centre 

Dr Philip O’Reilly, Lectureship, Accounting 

& Finance 

Barry O’Sullivan, Analyst Programmer, 


Patrick Quinn, Carpenter, Buildings & 

Estates 

Dr Susan Ryan, Professorship, Occupational 

Therapy, Medicine 

David Sammon, Lectureship, Business 

Information Systems 

Patricia Cogan-Tangey, Lectureship, 

Paediatrics & Child Health 

Mags Walsh, Department Manager, Law 

Mary Wilson, Lectureship, Applied Social 

Studies 

LEAVE OF ABSENCE 

Dr Joan Buckley, Management & 

Marketing, for 11 months to write up 

various research work conducted over the 

last five years and to develop research in the 

area of public sector service marketing. 

Dr Neil Buttimer, Modern Irish, for 12 

months to finalise and publish a number of 

research projects. 

Dr Mark Chu, Italian, for 12 months to 

work on a monograph on the Sicilian writer 

Leonardo Sciascia. 

Dr Linda Connolly, Sociology, for 12 

months to complete a book that will map 

the development of sociological thought on 

Ireland during the twentieth century. 

Dr Nuala Finnegan, Hispanic Studies, for 

seven months to accept invitation from 

Colby College, Maine, under the auspices of 

the Colby College Faculty Exchange 

Programme. 

Dr Denis Linehan, Geography, for eight 

months to become visiting lecturer at the 

University of Nottingham and to undertake 

some primary archival research in the 

National Archives and Records Administration 

in Washington, DC and St Johns, 

Newfoundland. 

Dr Deirdre Madden, Law, for four months 

to pursue further research in the area of 

bioethics and law at the Law School in St 

Louis, USA. 

Dr Tim Murphy, Law, for three months to 

undertake research in India on the subject of 

socio-economic rights and constitutionalism. 

Professor Eleanor O’Leary, Applied 

Psychology, for two separate periods of six 

months to complete one of two books, at 

the Universities of Stanford, ISMAI (Portugal), 

Crete and the University of Granada, Spain. 

Dr Angela Ry a n, French, for three months 

to undertake re s e a rch on the memetics of the 

h e roine in 5th C Greek and 17th C Fre n c h 

t r a g e d y. This re s e a rch will be done in various 

libraries in France and in the US. 

Geraldine Ryan, Economics, for six months 

to progress with PhD research and writing. 

CAREER BREAKS 

Caroline Arnopp, Student Records & Exams, 

12 months 

Anne Bradford, Disability Support Office, 

12 months 

L o rna Dowling, Human Resources, 12 months 

DEPARTURES 

Paul Dansie, Anatomy 

RETIREMENTS 

Liam Corbey, Technician, Zoology & Animal 

Ecology 

John Connolly, Buildings & Estates 

3 8 

3 9


Noticeboard 

Retirements 

Dr Paddy O’Carroll, Department of Sociology, at his 

retirement party with Professor Gerard T. Wrixon. 

Dr O’Carroll has spent over 30 years in the Sociology 

Department, UCC 

Above: Dr Pat Cronin, Ancient Classics, retires from 

UCC after 35 years. Dr Cronin (left) is with Dr Chris 

Gaynor, Ancient Classics and Professor Keith Sidwell, 

Head of Department, Ancient Classics 

Left: L-R: Professor Michael Murphy, Dean, Faculty 

of Medicine & Health and Padraig MacSweeney, who 

retired as Administrator of the Medical Faculty in 

November 2002 

STAFF PRESENTATIONS 

Professor John Gamble, Geology, gave the IGI Lecture Volcanoes of 

the Antarctic Plate at the Irish Geological Research Meeting. 

Dr Gert Hofmann, German, invited Visiting Lecturer by University of 

Hanover, to teach an advanced postgraduate course on “Representing 

the Holocaust: Trauma and Aesthetics” in the Department of German 

Literature and Linguists. 

Dr Ursula Kilkelly, Law, conducted a training session in Tbilisi, 

Georgia, last November, designed to train Georgian lawyers to take 

cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Dr 

Kilkelly spent a week as a visiting scholar at the Law School of the 

University of Padua, Italy, as part of the UCC exchange programme. 

Dr Angela Ryan, French. “Corps d’origine, péché originel: sources 

antiques de la voix tragique”. Invited plenary presentation at 

International conference of the LAPRIL Centre de Recherche, Université 

de Bordeaux III, France, 7 March 2002. “Camille Claudel et la rhétorique 

de l’héroine”. Paper presented to the Women in French Conference: A 

Belle Epoque? Women and Feminism in French Society and Culture 

1890-1910. Hinsley Hall, Headingly, Leeds, 26-28 April 2002. “Two better 

Hemispheres’: Barthesian Orbs and Images in van Eyck’s The 

Arnolfini Wedding, Donne’s The Good-Morrow and Bonnefoy’s Le 

Miroir courbe”. Paper presented to the XI Annual Conference of the 

School of Languages and Literature Hemispheres, UCC, 3-5 May 2002. 

“Théories, héros, teratogonia”. Paper presented in the Journées autour 

d’Antoine Compagnon, UCC, 17-18 May 2002. “ ‘Des Ombres sur un 

fond de nuages’: poétique de l’informe dans Un Hiver à Majorque de G 

Sand.” Paper presented to the Conference Le Travail de l’Informe: formless 

as function, UCC, 21-22 June 2002. “Racine entre Euripide et 

Mnouchkine: cladisme des motifs héroiques et monstrueux/Racine’s 

Heroines: Heroic Choice and Monstrous Determinism from Greek to 

Contemporary Tragedy”. Paper presented to the Annual Conference of 

the Society for French Studies, University of Bristol, 1-3 July 2002. 

“George Sand’s Majorcan Travel Diary: The Poetics of Movement in Un 

Hiver à Majorque”. Paper presented to the Annual Modern Languages 

Symposium, of the Royal Irish Academy, 8-9 November 2002, NUIG. 

Dr Manfred Schewe, German, was invited by the Goethe Institute 

Dublin to deliver a series of four public lectures under the title 

German Language Literature: a Journey through time from the 18th 

century to the present, at the Central Library, Dublin. 

NOTES 

Copy Submission Date 

The next issue of The College Courier 

will be published in July 2003. 

Submissions for the forthcoming issue 

of the magazine should be sent to the 

Editor by 5pm, Friday 30 May 2003 

The College Courier on the web 

See The College Courier on the web @ 

http://www.ucc.ie/info/courier/courierSpring2003.pdf 

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please contact Roslyn Cox 

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