UL Founding President and Foundation Director, Dr Edward Walsh, Launches Memoirs
published on Oct 14th, 2011
In his latest book, Upstart: Friends, Foes and Founding a University, published by The Collins Press, Ed Walsh chronicles the birth of the University of Limerick from a decaying mansion on a riverside campus to major university.
Ed Walsh, son of a Cork butcher, was a young man in a hurry when he returned to Ireland in 1970, after a decade working in US universities. Limerick wanted a university but the powers that be decreed that an institute of higher education would suffice and appointed Ed to set it up. Limerick’s National Institute for Higher Education opened two years later; however the Department of Education, politicians and officials discovered they had unleashed a perfect storm that would not abate until Ed Walsh achieved university status for Limerick.
Despite a vicious recession Ed secured funding from the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. Later he won the support of US-based philanthropists Chuck Feeney, Lew and Loretta Glucksman and others who pumped millions into the Limerick campus. He made powerful enemies as he challenged official cant, traditional academics and clerical humbug.
Throughout the book Ed castigates obstructionists, procrastinators and placemen who refused to see that Irish education needed to compete in a rapidly changing world. His harshest criticisms are aimed at fellow academics who put guarding their own patch before progress. He also lavishes generous praise on all those who reacted positively to his objectives, even when they disagreed with his modus operandi.
The book provides a fascinating account of the interaction between the political and administrative system faced by a “go getter” who knew what he wanted. The reader gets an up close and personal view of ministers from the austere Padraig Faulkner to feisty Niamh Bhreathnach, taking in Dick Burke, Gemma Hussey, Mary O’Rourke, John Wilson and others. Ed’s diary also frankly describes his turbulent relationships with senior civil servants making clear that visionary public servants like Sean O’Connor, Finbarr O’Callaghan, Noel Lindsay and Oscar Richardson played a huge role.
With surprising candour Ed describes his academic and political struggles and his efforts to straddle the divide between warring factions. This inspiring, frank and often funny memoir by a passionate educational leader vividly describes the making of the University of Limerick, the first new university established in the Republic of Ireland.
Upstart: Friends, Foes and Founding a University by Ed Walsh is published by The Collins Press, price €27.99. It is available in bookshops and online from www.collinspress.ie