Qualla: University of Galway

University of Galway: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit paddy (Patrick-Emil Zörner), CC BY-SA 3.0. It opened with sixty-eight students on 30 October 1849. The Tudor-Gothic Quadrangle they walked into - a Christ Church Oxford lookalike designed by John Benjamin Keane and built of local limestone - is still there at the centre of the campus, still cold in winter, still photographed by every prospective student's parents on open day. The name has changed four times in 180 years. Queen's College, Galway. University College, Galway. National University of Ireland Galway. And, since 1 September 2022, simply the University of Galway, or Ollscoil na Gaillimhe in the Irish that the 1929 Act made a working language of the place.

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Image: paddy (Patrick-Emil Zörner) | CC BY-SA 3.0

University of Galway: The Queen's Colleges

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 瑞丽江的河水, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 1845 founding was part of a tripartite settlement. Queen's College Belfast, Queen's College Cork, and Queen's College Galway - secular institutions designed by Robert Peel's Conservative government to provide higher education to the Catholic majority of Ireland without requir...

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Image: 瑞丽江的河水 | CC BY-SA 4.0

University of Galway: Along the Corrib

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sharonlflynn, CC BY-SA 4.0. The campus runs along the western bank of the River Corrib, stretching from the city centre out toward Newcastle. The Quadrangle anchors the south end. The James Hardiman Library - named for the first librarian, who was a Gaelic-language scholar and the first published historian ...

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Image: Sharonlflynn | CC BY-SA 4.0

University of Galway: Bilingual by Statute

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit August Dominus, CC0. The University College Galway Act of 1929 gave the institution a statutory responsibility for the Irish language as a working language. Acadamh na hOllscolaiochta Gaeilge - the Irish-medium 'Academy of the University' - runs courses in Irish out of campuses in Gaeltacht areas aro...

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Image: August Dominus | CC0

University of Galway: Mandela on the Quad

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rónán Kennedy, CC0. In 2003, Nelson Mandela visited the campus on what turned out to be his last trip to Ireland. The NUI Chancellor at the time was Garret FitzGerald, the former Taoiseach. Mandela received an honorary doctorate. He used the platform to condemn US foreign policy and the invasion of ...

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Image: Rónán Kennedy | CC0

University of Galway: The Equality Tribunal

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LikeThatWillHappen, CC BY-SA 3.0. The university's modern history includes a reckoning with its own institutional discrimination. In 2014 the Equality Tribunal ruled in favour of Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington - granddaughter of the campaigners Hannah and Francis Sheehy Skeffington, the latter murdered by a Brit...

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Image: LikeThatWillHappen | CC BY-SA 3.0