GMIT takes a lead in Castlebar

County View
John Healy

It is 25 years ago this month that the first cohort of just over 100 students commenced their studies at GMIT, Castlebar. And today, having survived some rocky patches into more settled waters, it is easy to forget the blood, sweat and tears that it took before the battle to secure a third-level college for Castlebar was finally won.
The high walls that surrounded that forbidding institution of the old Mental Hospital have long gone to make way for the bright, modern, impressive facility of GMIT, Castlebar. But it took several years for the new college to find its niche as an integral part of the town’s business and commercial sector. In 1994, the year it opened, the ‘getting to know you’ phase of the relationship between college and town was still a little tentative, with neither partner altogether quite sure of what to expect from the other.
However, there has been a palpable change over the past couple of years, with GMIT adopting a more mainstream and proactive role in the town. Local bodies, realising both the readiness and goodwill of GMIT in playing its part in community activities, began a liaison that has seen events such as the Mayo International Choral Festival, concert performances and public lectures find a home in GMIT, while Mayo GAA has developed strong links with the college.
The strongest evidence to date of the closer ties between town and college has been the GMIT involvement in the Enterprise Town Awards, guided by the Chamber of Commerce. The GMIT was front and centre of what was a most professional presentation by the Chamber to the visiting adjudicators, who could not have been but impressed by the facilities and ambience of the location.
GMIT’s collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce was instigated by Michael Gill and is being energetically embraced by Neville McClenaghan, recently appointed vice president of the campus, and a firm advocate of local innovation and enterprise. A former staff member of the University of Ulster, McClenaghan is a biochemist by profession, but he is keenly aware of the need to develop close links between academia and local business and industry. Indeed, the GMIT Innovation Hub, under the leadership of Maria Staunton, has been one of the most successful new initiatives at GMIT.
All of this is a far cry from the teething problems that beset the first efforts to secure a GMIT or, even more recently, the uncertainty and lack of support which threatened the very survival of the Mayo campus.
Castlebar Chamber of Commerce spearheaded the idea of a third level Mayo college – or an RTC, as it was then termed – nearly 40 years ago. The idea met with immediate resistance from both Sligo RTC and, more crucially, Galway RTC, which in turn would see itself becoming the reluctant parent body of the Castlebar college. Ten years later, continued government ambivalence toward the project meant that plans remained stalled, and although the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, gave his backing to the idea, Fianna FΡil enthusiasm was, at best, lukewarm.
Arguing that it would take up to ten years for a full RTC to be established, the Government urged the RTC Action Group, led by Paddy McGuinness, to accept a compromise. This would see a ‘mini’ RTC in Castlebar, whereby a number of courses from both Sligo and Galway would be relocated to Mayo.
The idea was rejected and, changing its tactics, the RTC Action Group decided to make it an election issue by running its own candidate, Paddy McGuinness, in the 1994 West Mayo by-election, caused by the appointment of PΡdraig Flynn as EU Commissioner.
The rest is history. Political activism had worked, and the battle for an RTC in Castlebar had turned a decisive corner.