Established in 1904, Mountbellew Agricultural College was Ireland’s first agricultural college. One-hundred-and-eleven years on, the County Galway based facility is still going strong, enjoying key ties with GMIT and Teagasc. We met up with principal Tom Burke to get an insight into the courses on offer, the continued excellence of this famed institute, and the need for future expansion due to unprecedented demand.
Mountbellew was the first agricultural college in Ireland, set up by the Franciscan Brothers in 1904 and located 50km from Galway city, midway between Tuam and Ballinasloe. The original college was demolished in 1971 and replaced by the existing building in 1975. The college established a link with GMIT to deliver a Higher Certificate in Business Studies (Agribusiness) in 1986. Today, GMIT students in Mountbellew can choose between two degree courses (Rural Enterprise & Agribusiness or Agriculture & Environmental Management), spending time between the Mountbellew and Galway campuses.
The full list of courses currently offered in conjunction with GMIT includes: Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Environmental Management; Bachelor of Business in Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness; Adult Certificate in Agriculture Level 5 / Level 6; and FETAC – Advanced Certificate in Agriculture Level 5 / Level 6. A number of short courses in skills training, farm management, farm safety and other farming-related topics are offered at various times during the year depending on demand. Part-time and online courses are also very popular.
The programmes offered at the college have the maintenance and enhancement of the environment, countryside and rural communities as their major priorities. Mountbellew is a private college but joins with Teagasc, GMIT, VEC and FAS in delivering its courses.
The Franciscan Brothers arrived in Mountbellew in 1818 and originally ran a primary school and then a secondary school before deciding to open Ireland’s premier agricultural college. Today, the college has excellent teaching and recreational facilities. Besides well-equipped and modern classrooms, there is also a library and computer rooms. The lounge and TV rooms have pool tables and other games. Students are encouraged to participate in sport: the gymnasium is used for indoor games and there is a pitch for football and hurling.
A language resource facility on campus plays an important role in facilitating students to learn a second language, with German and French having proven most popular to date.
The college and its students have received many awards down through the years. Numerous acknowledgements have been received for the quality of its agricultural output and farm husbandry techniques from professional organisations, at both local and national level.
Mountbellew boasts sleeping accommodation for 60 students and additional accommodation for the same number of students again is available within a short walking distance.
The college has its own working farm, which comprises 600 acres of land and is an integral part of the teaching process, featuring a number of enterprises run as farmlets on a commercial basis. The enterprises include a 90 cow dairy herd, a 50 cow suckler herd, a 50 unit calf to beef enterprise and a 60 unit store to beef enterprise. There is a sheep flock of 500 ewes with early and mid-season lambing and a 1,200 store lamb enterprise. The cereal enterprise consists of 30 hectares of oats and barley. Alternative enterprises of deer, organic farming, forestry and Irish Draft horses have also been established.
“The college is nearly as old as the Department of Agriculture itself,” notes principal Tom Burke, who has been a member of staff at Mountbellew for quarter of a century. “After we upgraded in the ‘70s, the college was reopened in ’75 by Liam Cosgrave, Taoiseach. I’d estimate that in excess of 6,000 students have gone through our doors over the years.
“At present, we have 93 first-year students doing the Degree courses and it’s split 60/40 between the Science course and the business course. There is huge interest in the Science and this is the first year that more students have opted for it. We also have 70 second-year degree students, who are out on placement at the moment, 65 third years and almost 50 fourth years in GMIT.
“There are between 90 and 100 doing the FETAC Level 5 and we have 30 students doing the FETAC Level 6 Advanced Dry Stock course, with another 60 sitting the new revamped Green Cert.
“In addition to all of this, we have another 130 doing online courses plus 40 on part-time courses. We are very busy – at any one time, you could have 250 students here plus the part-time and online students. Between February and May, we also do skills courses for the various counties.”
Mountbellew Agricultural College is privatised and run by a board, which has been leasing the facilities from the Franciscan Brothers for a decade, with employment currently provided to around 25 staff. “Most of the teachers would be funded by Teagasc and we would also have some subcontracted staff who are paid by Teagasc,” Tom adds.
With huge demand for the courses, Mountbellew is currently operating at full capacity and expansion will be necessary if they are to meet that demand going forward. Such is the price one must pay for popularity! “Our facilities weren’t built to accommodate these numbers and we will have to expand,” the principal confirms. “Demand is massive across all the agriculture colleges at present and there have been almost 2,300 expressions of interest in our part-time and online courses alone. Various schemes including the Young Farmers Scheme, the abolition of the dairy quota and the fall-off in construction have all contributed to a sharp rise in demand. We also have a lot more adults doing the courses now than in the past – about 10% of all classes would consist of adults.
“We face a number of challenges going forward. Firstly, we have to be able to take on more students. There has also been an embargo on teachers during the recession and this has seen the teacher/student ratio got from 1:12 to 1:20. We don’t have enough teachers as it is so we will clearly need more. In order to expand and cater for the demand, we need finance and personnel.
“In the long term, the demand will probably level off and decline and we have to be aware of that, but demand will certainly remain strong for a number of years. With that in mind, we need to expand and put in place courses that will last a lifetime. One course we are currently looking at is the design of machinery. To exist into the future, we have to offer a greater variety of courses, including some which are only linked to agriculture.
“Twenty years ago, we took students from all over Ireland to our Degree courses but now, with the development of regional colleges, we cover mostly Connacht and the west. We are the only agricultural college in the province. We have students here whose parents and grandparents graduated through the college and we’d like to still be around to offer our services to their children and grandchildren.”
Mountbellew Agricultural College,
Mountbellew,
County Galway
Phone: 090 9679205
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 6, July 2015
