Some facts about University College Cork
- Once the National University of Ireland (NUI) was established in 1908, the Governing Body of UCC had 26, and later 29 members, (plus the President). The first female member of the UCC Governing Body was Dr Lucy E. Smith (UCC's second female Medical graduate) (the Dr Lucy E. Smith Room in The Hub was named in 2020)
- For the first time, a Faculty of Science was created with the degree of BSc awarded
- The first female Professor on the island of Ireland was Mary Ryan MA who was appointed in 1910 (the Mary Ryan Seminar Room in the O’Rahilly Building was named in c.2000)
- The first conferrings for degrees awarded by the NUI were held on 25 May 1910. The new mace was used for the first time at the second conferring of NUI degrees on 3 November 1910.
- President Bertram Windle began University extension lectures in 1911. The diploma course for workers introduced by President Alfred O’Rahilly in 1946. There is now a thriving decades-old Adult and Continuing Education Department at UCC
- UCC got its first sports grounds in 1911 when a lease was taken of the Mardyke Athletic Grounds to be renamed the ‘University College Athletic Grounds’. The site already had a covered spectator stand and a players’ pavilion (formerly the Chalet Restaurant from the 1902 Cork Exhibition)
- In 1911 eight new Professorships were created under Statute 2, these included two women (Prof. Elizabeth O’Sullivan (Education) 1911-36, and Prof. Walburga Swertz (German), 1911-c.1915).
- The first building for the sciences – the Chemical and Physical Laboratories – was opened in 1910. It was designed by Arthur Hill, a QCC Engineering graduate. With the building of the Kane Building in 1970-1, this became the Civil Engineering Building. It was renamed the Iris Ashley Cummins Building in 2022. Iris A. Cummins is UCC’s first BE female graduate (1915)
- In 1913 Ireland’s first graduate in Commerce gained his degree – James F. Burke BComm (Irish Independent, 5/11/1913, p.3, photo)
- Also in 1913 the Bachelor in Dental Surgery (BDS) degree was approved with the first two graduates in 1915. The first women BDS graduate Mary O’Connor was in 1918
- Israel Scher (Dean of Cork University Dental School and Hospital) proposed the introduction of an x-ray unit in 1922, which was used in the Cork Dental School
- The Honan Biological Institute was enlarged and completed through funding from Isabella Honan in 1915, creating zoological and botanical laboratories and a large lecture theatre for about 100 students (this building was demolished in 2002 to make way for the Honan Plaza)
- Mary E. T. Hearn (née Cummins) MB BCh BAO 1919 was the first woman to graduate MD at UCC, in 1922. She was also the first female Fellow of Royal Society of Physicians in Ireland (1924)
- The first Professor of Irish Traditional Music, Carl Hardebeck, was appointed in 1922
- The new Faculty of Dairy Science was announced at a meeting of Governing Body on 10 October 1924. Provisions (including funding) for the establishment of the Faculty of Dairy Science was enabled by the University Education (Agriculture and Dairy Science) Act, 1926. The government grant was increased by the University Education (Agriculture and Dairy Science) Act, 1930. The foundation of the new Dairy and Food Science Building on the Gaol Walk was laid in 1978
- The first students on the Creamery Manager Course in 1924 included 9 who transferred from the Royal College of Science of Ireland, Dublin, that October. The course had an intake of 13 students in 1924: 11 graduated in 1926. The foundation of the new Dairy Science Institute building (now Geography) was laid in 1928 and opened in 1931. The adjacent UCC Experimental Creamery (now demolished) had commenced operation in 1930.
- Dr Annie Patterson was appointed lecturer in Irish Traditional Museum in 1924 becoming the first woman teaching in Music and Irish Traditional Music at UCC. She was the first woman (1889) to hold a doctorate in music in Ireland or the UK
- Cork University Press was established in 1925 by Prof. Alfred O’Rahilly. The centenary of CUP was celebrated in 2025 with an exhibition in the Boole Library. It is now Ireland’s oldest university press
- The first PhD was awarded in 1928 to Peter J. Drumm (1898-1952), first Professor of Biochemistry. Margaret J. O’Connor MSc (1936) gained her PhD in Chemistry in 1943
- The first specific intake of a group international students was in 1946 when 18 Polish students were welcomed to study. This number was later increased. UCC later began participating in the Erasmus programme and continues to do so. In 2018 UCC became a University of Sanctuary
- The Food Bacteriology postgraduate course was introduced in 1950
- The first computer in UCC arrived in about 1965. It was an IBM 1620 Model 2 (mainframe) and was located in the Electrical Engineering building. That computer remained in regular use with a payroll and student registration system developed in-house. In 1973 the IBM 1620 was replaced by an IBM 1130
- Student Micheál Murphy played in the Fitzgibbon Cup wearing a Spalding American Football helmet which he imported via his fellow graduate Des Walsh from Mayo. In 1969, he and Walsh, now both based in Canada, got Ice Hockey helmets sent to UCC, which were used by 6 players in the Fitzgibbon Cup. The wearing of helmets is now compulsory at all levels since 2010 when playing hurling. A first for UCC and for safety!
- In 1973 the computing role of the Electronic Engineering department was hived off to a newly-created department called the UCC Computer Bureau based in the Kane building, renamed in 1990 as the UCC Computer Centre, now IT Services
- In the same year a new mainframe computer, IBM 370 Model 135, was installed in a custom-built air-conditioned room in the Kane. UCC was the first university in Ireland to use a newly-released operating system VM/CMS on an IBM (rather than on a DEC computer). The choice of this operating system was important because it meant that about 20 terminals could be added (used by the newly-created Computer Science Department)
- The National Microelectronics Research Centre (NMRC) founded (now the Tyndall Institute) was founded in 1979
- The first female Deputy President was Prof. Máire Mulcahy (Zoology) from 1989 to 1994
- In 1989, UCC became the first NUI constituent college to recognise a student gay society. The Lesbian and Gay Support Group was formed in December 1980, on foot of a Philosophical Society debate on a motion supporting the establishment of a gay society.
- The 1990 Computer Centre newsletter announced that all computers on campus would be connected by the end of 1991: “You will be able to share information with co-workers elsewhere without having to trek across the campus with a disk or tape” and servers and databases around the world as well!
- Ireland’s first website was hosted at UCC as part of the CURIA project was created in 1992 (9th website in the world) set up by expert Peter Flynn of the Computer Centre
- The new Granary Theatre to replace the old one in the Lee Maltings was opened in 1995
- Pharmacy was introduced at UCC in 2003. By 2023 there were 420 students registered
- The foundation stone of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery on the site of the old tennis courts and pond in the Lower Grounds was laid in 2003 by Dr Lewis L. Glucksman
- Architecture was offered as a subject as part of the BE degree from 1891 to 1917, taught by Cork architect Arthur Hill. Since 2006 joint degrees in architecture between MTU (formerly Cork Institute of Technology) and UCC are offered through the Cork Centre for Architectural Education (CCAE) based in Douglas Street, Cork
- The first female Registrar was Prof. Caroline Fennell (Law) who was appointed in 2015
- The first female chair of the Governing Body was Dr Catherine Day in 2015 (completed 2023). She had been the first woman to hold the post of Secretary General of the European Commission.
- The first female University Librarian, Coral Black, was appointed in 2023