President's News

UCC’s new riverside walkway named The Cavanagh Way

25 Mar 2024
Members of the Cavanagh family at the naming of The Cavanagh Way (l-r); Maeve O’Shaughnessy; Ronan Cavanagh; Professor John O’Halloran, President, UCC; Fiona Collier; Cal Healy, Deputy Director of Business Development and Advancement, UCC; and Conor Cavanagh. Photo: Ger McCarthy.

At a recent event on campus, members of the Cavanagh family officially opened University College Cork’s new riverside walkway, the Cavanagh Way. The walkway is named in memory of the late Tom and Marie Cavanagh in recognition of their extraordinary, sustained and enabling philanthropy, which over many years has had a transformative effect on UCC.

The Cavanagh Way takes pedestrians along the banks of the River Lee from the Alumni Bridge at the main UCC entrance, through the lower grounds, over The Cavanagh Bridge and across Gaol Walk. The route continues behind the Castlewhite apartments and on to the Western Gateway Building, with a spur from there to College Road through the Brookfield Health Sciences campus.

A new interactive biodiversity trail which spans the length of walkway was also launched on the day. This trail has been designed to be accessible for those who are new to wildlife watching, as well as being enjoyable for seasoned naturalists. Through interaction with UCC’s biodiversity trail, it is hoped that all users of and visitors to UCC enjoy and connect with nature on campus in a way that is meaningful and restorative.

The Cavanagh Way has created a critical connecting piece of campus walkway infrastructure and was developed by UCC’s Building and Estates, in collaboration with the Bons Secours Hospital. The biodiversity trail installations were facilitated by UCC’s Office of Sustainability & Climate Action with the support of the UCC Graduate Attributes team and Alumni and Development.

For decades, Tom and Marie Cavanagh were supporters and friends of UCC. Not only are we grateful to them for transforming the lives of hundreds of students but their support has also impacted the physical landscape of our university with initiatives such as the Cavanagh Bridge which, along with The Cavanagh Way, forms a new biodiversity trail through our campus. UCC is privileged to host a variety of habitats on its grounds, which this new route showcases wonderfully. We thank members of the Cavanagh Family for continuing to support the university and for keeping the ideals and beliefs of Tom and Marie alive here.

  • UCC President, Professor John O’Halloran

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