University of Ulster - History

History

The New University of Ulster (NUU) incorporated Magee College founded in 1865 in Londonderry. Magee College was a college of the Royal University of Ireland from 1880 and later became associated with the University of Dublin (better known as Trinity College) when the Royal University was dissolved in 1908 and replaced by the National University of Ireland. In 1953 Magee College broke its links with Dublin and became Magee University College. It was hoped that this university college would become Northern Ireland's second university after The Queen's University of Belfast. However, this did not happen and instead it was subsumed into the New University, primarily as a result of the unwillingness of the Unionist government at Stormont to have the second university sited in overwhelmingly nationalist Londonderry, in which "The Troubles" were just beginning to break out. The decision caused an outcry at the time. The university was built at Coleraine as part of the UK government's expansion of higher education in the 1960s. Coleraine today is the university's headquarters and main campus. Following a review of higher education in Northern Ireland under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Chilver in 1982 the direct-rule government decided to merge NUU with the Ulster Polytechnic to form the University of Ulster.The merger took effect on 1 October 1984. This was the first, and as of 2010, only merger in UK higher education whereby what is now called a plate glass university merged with what would now be a post-1992 university.