“Does anyone remember Father Thomas Dunning, lecturer in Middle English, teaching Chaucer's "The Pardoner's Tale"? In a small Belfield lecture room, upstairs, he pressed the moral of the tale, "radix malorum est cupiditas" and carefully stressed to us young adults that "cupiditas" really meant "the excessive love of material things".”

“Colours match - UCD v Trinity. Met a wonderful girl there and fell madly in love. Forget who won the match.”

“John [Teeling]'s lectures were always entertaining and appeared relevant to the real world as we understood it then. Some students tried to transcribe his lectures and he frequently caught them out by including comments aimed at them.”

“John Teeling told the BComm class of 1978 that the only way to make money in Ireland was to go down to the end of the town and buy the next field.”

“The lifelong friends I made and with whom I am still in contact over 40 years later.”

“In 1967 women were not allowed to wear trousers. In the Terrace one day all the female students turned up in trousers or Jeans - that was the end of that silly rule!”

“Great fun, great friends to this day, great learning.”

“Falling in love with a classmate, and the friendships made there that endured till today, in many cases.”

Seven years in UCD October morning, and the doors of academia have opened again to the scholars. You remember how, on a day over forty years now gone, this same morning broke wet and blustery for you. Blotches of damp showed up on the walls of the old university and dark clouds hung in the sky. The Indian summer that everyone had been praising was routed overnight. The day before, as on every previous day, the sun had shone on roads where nothing seemed to change, where the light on the slightly yellowed trees would remain sleepily the same forever. That day, leaves lay wet underfoot and people walked suddenly full of resolve. For you, the student, the changed weather seemed somehow appropriate to the new life upon which you were embarking – the gravity of it, the putting away of frivolity. Read More

“Class comradeship willingness to help each other understand the various subjects”

“Developing many cultural interests and friendships alongside my academic work”