Q&Alumni

Gerald Fleming is an experienced broadcaster and meteorologist. Gerald was Head of Forecast with Met Eireann for almost ten years and is a familiar face as leader of the RTÉ Weather Team for many years before that. He has been Chair of the Public Weather Service Delivery Programme since 2005 and is currently enjoying retired life.

What was your experience like studying at Richview? Neither of us had family backgrounds in architecture, but we were both drawn to it as a profession – Donn had an affinity for making and studied at Letterfrack, in the Furniture Design and Manufacturing school designed by O’Donnell + Tuomey before entering UCD School of Architecture. Elspeth had been redesigning her house on graph paper from the age of 8. We both loved studying at Richview – the atmosphere of productivity and creative freedom was fantastic. Being that bit removed from the main campus, and working together in one large studio fostered a dynamic energy and sense of community – although it could get noisy, it had a great atmosphere. Our…

I wanted a Degree that gave me the most options… My father passed away when I was very young, and my sister Renee and I were incredibly close. As siblings we encouraged each other and helped drive each other’s careers. During my Leaving Cert year, Renee, who is two years older than me and possessing full knowledge of my favourite subjects at school, kindly undertook some investigative work on my behalf. It soon became apparent to both of us that I was destined towards either science or engineering. I had a leaning towards engineering and had a personal desire, very early on, to get into either a management or a leadership type of role. I wanted a degree that not…

Why UCD Engineering? My very first introduction to UCD was in the 1960’s when my friends and I were just old enough to ride bicycles. We would cycle around Belfield, which at the time was just a patchwork quilt of fields, each field bounded by mature trees and hedges. I marvel at the foresight of President Tierney’s 1949 vision of acquiring the estates to form Europe’s largestand most beautiful city-based university campus. The Science Buildings were under construction back then but far from taking an interest in the civil engineering aspects of their construction (shame on me!) I favoured lazing on the sun-soaked grass banks that would later accommodate the UCD Engineering and Materials Science Building. Little did I know…

Why did you choose to study architecture? You could say that I come from a family of Architects. I am one of eight-children and three of us went on to study Architecture in UCD.It doesn’t stop there! My own father Luan was also a UCD Architectural graduate. He graduated from UCD in 1942 and went on to study in Harvard, undertaking a Masters with Walter Gropius. UCD Architects were pushing boundaries not only in the 1980’s and the 1960’s, but right back to the 1930’s when my late Aunt Maureen Hope (nee Cuffe) would have studied there. Maureen was one of the first female Architects to graduate from UCD. Maureen graduated in 1939 and was ahead of her time, not…