Down the years, Irish Aid Fellowships have brought a steady flow of scholars heading westwards to the Republic of Ireland’s third city - Galway.

National University of Ireland, Galway opened its doors in 1849, when a first intake of just 63 scholars began their studies in the impressive setting of the Quadrangle, a building enclosing a central courtyard on all four sides. It was modelled on one of the colleges at Oxford University and remains in use today as an administrative hub.

The design of a new Engineering building took the ‘Quad’ as inspiration for what was described as a 21st century reinterpretation, including ‘cutting-edge’ green technology. Other recently added buildings include Health Sciences, the School of Business and a modern sports centre.

For all its expansion, the university remains close to the heart of the city, both physically and culturally, with NUI Galway’s 17,000 reqistered students equating to almost one-in-five of the city’s term-time population.

With Galway being located close to one of the country’s several Irish-speaking regions, the university supports a number of initiatives to promote the use of the Irish language and strives toward leading the way as a bilingual campus. International students at NUI Galway, who make up more than 12% of the total, are therefore much more likely to encounter spoken Irish than their Dublin counterparts. All are encouraged to pick up at least a cúpla focal (a couple of words).

In February 2012, NUI Galway was awarded a five star rating under the new QS Stars rating system.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, up to 20 fellows a year were supported to study Engineering Hydrology at what was then known as University College Galway (the name change came in 1997). These awards covered a range of countries and the courses were specially funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Galway was such a significant component of the overall fellowship programme at this time that ICOS had a staff member based there - Ann Monahan.

The focus has changed over the past decade, with Irish Aid fellows at NUI Galway studying programmes in the fields of health promotion, public advocacy, law, gender and human rights. Four new awardees for 2012 will ‘Go West’, following a well trodden fellowship path.