How Sectarianism in the UK Thrusted a World Class University into the Abyss

Bigotry is a dangerous evil. Thankfully in western civilisation it is reserved for the darkest corners of society, such places that nobody takes notice of and when they do it is usually with a degree of humour followed by a sadness upon the realisation of what it actually is.

Sadly, the Westminster government allowed this evil not only to come out of these cracks and holes of society, they gave them a place in government. For decades superior vs. inferior politics ruled an entire region of the UK with the police force not acting as a public service but rather a service for the government, in other words a armed wing of a quasi-fascist political party.

So what has this great evil got to do with a univeristy?

Most of you have heard institutions such as Warwick, York, Bath or any of the other universities that either got university status or were founded in the 1960s. Of course you will know that these universities' reputations will range from the upper end of average/lower end of good to excellent/world leading.

But one of these seems left in the dark.

The Quasimodo of the Plate Glass universities.

In 1968 a decision was made to open a university on a green belt site outside the small town of Coleraine in Northern Ireland. A decision that outraged the Catholic population that was concentrated west of the river Bann who believed that a second university should be in the second city, Derry/Londonderry. However as this was a predominantly nationalist city and in a location much too far west of the river Bann even the not so sectarian politics of Terrence O'Neil could put any worthwhile economic projects west of the river.

What this did was impose a boycott on the University of Ulster by Catholics who saw it as yet another sectarian flex of superiority. This, coupled with a remote location starved the university's catch net of students and only a merger with Ulster Polytechnic, a much superior institution and by far one of the better Polytechnics saved the university from certain death.


Today however the university is stuck in limbo around the lower-middle area of the university rankings as opposed to the universities established around the same time that appear in the top end of the league tables. Had the university been placed in Derry/Londonderry we may well have had another world leading and top 50 under 50 university. Instead, Northern Ireland has one highly regarded university, and one love child than nobody wants.

And your point is?

This is in the educational debate section. This is therefore a debate, not a 'point'. This is about how discrimination in the UK ruined the chances of a university reaching academic excellence. I don't think the post could have been much clearer.

Stop rep hunting and either post something that contributes to the debate or don't post anything at all.

This is in the educational debate section. This is therefore a debate, not a 'point'. This is about how discrimination in the UK ruined the chances of a university reaching academic excellence. I don't think the post could have been much clearer.

Stop rep hunting and either post something that contributes to the debate or don't post anything at all.

In 1968 a decision was made to open a university on a green belt site outside the small town of Coleraine in Northern Ireland.

You have a point but 1968 wasn't a good year to open anything in Northern Ireland.

Not all the plate glass universities are prospering. Salford and Bradford are both struggling.

Yes that is true and I considered that point myself for a while. Then I came to the realisation of the locations of each of the universities.

Now putting aside the atmosphere of Salford and Bradford such as night-life, shopping etc, things that are important factors for students. All you need to do is look around and you'll see an important indication of why they may not have taken off as well as the other plate glass universities.

Within just a 100km radius of Salford lies the main university cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and Nottingham. Birmingham not far outside that radius either. These are just the main universities already established at the time by the way, this isn't including the likes of York which as another new university would have had the appeal of a pretty city. This is just talking about back in the 60's of course, not including the more recent times when there much more universities in that radius than affects the number of students going to Salford.

Switching Birmingham for Durham it is essentially the same deal.

Back to Northern Ireland and in the case of a would be University of Derry/Londonderry only one university appears within 100km and that obviously is Queens which sits right on the circumference. Without a nationalist boycott the university would have received a huge influx of students, particularly from those in the underdeveloped areas west of the Bann who didn't want to make the journey (which would likely have been on public transport for most of them) to Belfast on roads of developing nation standards. Obviously this is all hypothetical, but I really see no reason why a Derry UU wouldn't have got close to as many students as QUB.

Or maybe one good university is enough for such a small population?

In 1971 Northern Ireland's population was about 45% of Scotland's.

In 1971 Scotland had 8 universities (St Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Stirling, Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt)

This is in the educational debate section. This is therefore a debate, not a 'point'. This is about how discrimination in the UK ruined the chances of a university reaching academic excellence. I don't think the post could have been much clearer.

Stop rep hunting and either post something that contributes to the debate or don't post anything at all.

People in Londonderry STILL have a chip on their shoulder in relation to a decision made over 40 years ago. Move on.

People in Londonderry still contest events that happened 324 years ago!

But lets not let this thread spiral into oblivion through petty arguments about who is right and who is wrong. Lets just try keep this on topic.

You mentioned that it is not just students a university needs but academics. And that those would be hard to attract in NI at the time.

That may be, however QUB was in a much worse off location as Belfast certainly saw the worst of the bombings etc and I believe even had lecturers murdered by paramilitaries. I believe there would have been enough 'home-grown' academics to get the university through the troubles at least.

I would think the Derry would have been much more appealing than Belfast in terms of location at least for those from the republic. Derry also offered the possibility of living in Donegal while working there, Belfast did not. I honestly don't think the university would have had as much issues as you think it would during the conflict.