»The Link looks at the history and future of Dublin’s first technical institution

Dublin Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as DIT) has a history dating back to 1887 with the establishment of the first technical institution in the city at Kevin Street.

Although this site, near St Patrick’s Cathedral, remains one of DIT’s key locations, it is impossible to pin the institute down in simple geographic terms. Its courses are delivered from a large number of sites around Dublin, including Mountjoy Square, north of the River Liffey.

This, however, is set to change with a relocation and consolidation of teaching and learning to a new site at Grangegorman, just to the north of Dublin city centre. The new development represents a total investment of over €1 billion, the largest investment in higher education in the history of the Irish state. From 2014 to 2017, over half of all DIT’s education and research provision will transfer to the new campus.

Thus, DIT is entering into a period of significant reinvention that is expected to go much further than a new location.

In October 2011, DIT was one of three higher education institutions in the Dublin metropolitan area to announce their intention to jointly seek designation as the ‘Technological University of Dublin’, the others being Institute of Technology Blanchardstown (ITB) and Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT). The move followed a wide-ranging review of higher education in Ireland and, in January 2014, the Irish government published the ‘Technological Universities Bill’ which paves the way for this merger and a broader re-casting of the Irish higher education sector.

There will, of course, be as many continuities as changes and the institution can be expected to remain especially well-known for its programmes in engineering, pharmaceuticals, construction, architecture, optometry, hospitality, marketing, music, journalism and digital media.