Former hospice to be turned into educational centre

The former Marymount hospice is to be given a new lease of life as an education campus, including a residential English language centre.

Griffith College yesterday confirmed an expansion of its third-level facility to the landmark Wellington Rd site.

The campus will also house St Angela’s girls’ secondary school for the next three years, until the completion of continuing renovation works at its St Patrick’s Hill location.

Both the college and the secondary school will operate from the former medical campus from September next. Up to 1,600 students will be on site.

Parents of students at St Angela’s will be briefed at a meeting tonight on the planned relocation to the former St Patrick’s Hospital facility.

The school’s principal Pat Curran said: “We are delighted to be engaging with Griffith College to create a new educational campus and to continue the 125- year St Angela’s tradition of educating young women in the city centre.”

Griffith College president Diarmuid Hegarty said the expanded new campus “enables us to enhance our educational offerings even further”.

An innovative aspect of the plan is a third-level residential college for the teaching of the English language.

Mr Hegarty said: “Our new facilities will not only improve education opportunities but, having a full campus, will improve the overall student experience.”

Currently, Griffith College, with over 1,000 students in Cork, operates from three city-centre locations.

The college said it was exercising a right to “enjoy the exempted development legislation to enable our residential third-level college secure the future of the complex which has significant social, historical and architectural significance to the people of Cork”.

Both Griffith’s and St Angela’s will operate as separate entities on the 5.3-acre site.

It is expected that Griffith’s will begin transferring a selection of courses to the site over the next few months.

Commanding a dominant location on the northern ridge of the city, the new facility will be called Griffith College Cork, Wellington Rd Campus.

Ronan Fenelon, a director of Griffith College, said it was also envisaged the number of staff, over a period of time, will increase from the current 20 full-time and 45 part-time to 30 and 70, respectively.

“This move is a big endorsement of our commitment to Cork and it’s particularly unique in that Griffith College will be the only third-level amenity on the northside.”

He said the owners of the privately-run college had been seeking a suitable site and property close to the city centre for about six years.

“We hope to expand steadily over the next 10 years or so and, possibly with three years, have up to 1,600 college students on- site.”

Mr Fenelon said interior renovation is required but no major structural works in the transformation of the buildings.

The college specialises in law, business, journalism and media communications, accountancy and drama.

It is expected by August all evening undergraduate, postgraduate, short-term and professional programmes will move to the facility.

Some of the buildings at Wellington Rd date back to the 1870s but the college said they will be sensitively adapted to meet the needs of a modern third-level college.

St Angela’s College, meanwhile, will sub-let the former hospital and hospice areas of the campus for three years to facilitate a major renovation of its existing school and the construction of state-of-the-art buildings on St Patrick’s Hill.

The conversion of Marymount will provide St Angela’s with extra facilities including more classrooms, ICT and science facilities. Within the campus, itself, Griffith College and St Angela’s will operate as separate entities with different entrances and buildings.