Voices on the programme will include Ellen Rowley – co-author, with Finola O’Kane Crimmins, of the recent book, Making Belfield; historian Paul Rouse; novelist, short story writer and scholar Éilis Ní Dhuibhne; writer and director Gerry Stembridge; lawyer Daisy Onubogu, and the UCD Choral Scholars.
A flavour of the scripts…
“Wejchert was aware of architecture’s role to shape and make places. He once said that ‘an individual is too often lonely and lost in a crowd’…Architectural historian Ellen Rowley on young Polish architect Andrzej Wejchert’s vision for the Belfield campus.
“It is generally understood that going to college may change someone’s life. What is not always appreciated is that the life-changing bit can happen, not in moments of achievement, but of shame…” Gerry Stembridge’s comic essay is on averting disaster in a Dramsoc production of Ibsen’s play, Brand.
“The rest of Belfield was raw material – new people in a new building, finding their way, beginning to dream their story. Everything unformed or half formed. And here was a fully realised chunk of life, a place which felt like a messenger from another world and another time…” Éilís Ní Dhuibhne on discovering the Department of Irish Folklore in UCD.
“UCD is a different place now; the wildness is gone. But, as I walk, the ghosts of that wildness are everywhere. I head down past Theatre L in the Newman Building and remember how nervous I was the first time I sat in a lecture in there. Barely 17, knowing nobody, magnificently clueless, just starting out. And I remember also how nervous I was the first time I taught in there, too…” historian Paul Rouse on old ghosts in his alma mater, UCD.
“I’m beset with memories of the grassy knoll between the O’Reilly building and the lake on a rare sunny day, or trying to get from the Newman building to the Student Centre and ending up halting at least four or five times on the concourse to chat with friends. For me, UCD was a world of its own, filled with at one time at least almost everyone I loved and respected, at once a warm safe haven and a ceaselessly challenging terrain…” Lawyer and former L&H auditor Daisy Onubogu on her college days, five years on.
Sunday Miscellany: Belfield Days will be broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday 31 January at 9.10am.