The Royal University of Ireland was a university in Ireland that existed from 1879 to 1909. It was founded in accordance with the University Education (Ireland) Act 1879[1] as an examining and degree-awarding university based on the model of the University of London. A royal charter was issued on 27 April 1880 and examinations were open to candidates irrespective of attendance at college lectures. The first chancellor was the Irish chemist Robert Kane.
The Royal University had premises in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Derry.
The Royal University became the first university in Ireland that could grant degrees to women on a par with those granted to men. The first nine women students graduated in 1884. It granted its first degree to a woman on 22 October 1884 to Charlotte M. Taylor (Bachelor of Music). In 1888 Letitia Alice Walkington became the first woman in Great Britain or Ireland to receive a degree of Bachelor of Laws. Among the honorary degree recipients of the university was Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League and later President of Ireland, who was awarded a DLitt in 1906.
External students at colleges that were not approved could sit examinations of the Royal University (and many did so) although they were considered at a disadvantage to those from designated colleges whose professors were part of the university.
Like the Queen's University, the Royal University was entitled to grant any degree, similar to that of any other university in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, except in theology. The colleges themselves would award degrees in theology and divinity.
The professorships and Senate of the Royal University were shared equally between Catholics and Protestants. However, colleges of the university maintained full independence except in the awarding of degrees, and the compilation and enforcement of academic regulations and standards.
A high number of graduates of the university for the time were women (the first nine in 1884) because Trinity College Dublin did not accept female students until 1904.
The arms of the Royal University of Ireland on the southern side of the quadrangle at Queen's University Belfast
On 31 October 1909 the Royal University was dissolved; the National University of Ireland and Queen's University Belfast took over its functions under the Irish Universities Act 1908 (8 Edw. 7. c. 38),[9] which provided for the transfer of graduates, staff and students to one or the other of these new universities. The final degree congregation of the Royal University of Ireland in 1909 involving 350 students was accompanied by demonstrations in favour of the Irish language being compulsory for the new National University.
Per saltire Ermine and Ermines an open book Proper clasped and surmounted by the royal crown Or between four escutcheons two in pale and two in fess the escutcheons in pale representing respectively the arms of the Provinces of Leinster (Vert an Irish harp Or stringed Argent) and Munster (Azure three antique crowns Or) the escutcheons in fess representing respectively the arms of the Provinces of Ulster (Or a cross Gules on an escutcheon Argent a dexter hand couped also Gules) and Connaught (per pale Argent and Azure on the dexter a dimidiated eagle displayed Sable and on the sinister conjoined therewith at the shoulder a sinister arm embowed Proper sleeved of the first holding a sword erect also Proper).[10]
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