The story
Queen's College, Cork, was founded by the provisions of an act which enabled Queen Victoria to endow new colleges for the "Advancement of Learning in Ireland". Under the powers of this act, the three colleges of Belfast, Cork and Galway were incorporated on 30 December 1845. Victoria undertook her first official visit to Ireland in August 1849, and briefly visited the new College, where she witnessed a statue in her likeness being hoisted onto a prominent position on the gable end of the Aula Maxima.
The college opened on 30 October 1849, when matriculation and scholarship exams were held determining who would be registered as students. The first lectures were held some days later on 7 November 1849, with 23 professors and 181 students in attendance. Medicine, Arts, and Law were the three founding faculties. A year later the college became part of the Queen's University of Ireland.
The original site chosen for the college was considered appropriate as it was believed to have had a connection with the patron saint of Cork, Saint Finbarr. His monastery and school of learning were close by at Gill Abbey Rock and the mill attached to the monastery is thought to have stood on the bank of the south channel of the River Lee, which runs through the college lower grounds. This association is also reflected in the college motto "Where Finbarr Taught, Let Munster Learn" which is also the university motto.
Adjacent to Gillabbey and overlooking the valley of the river Lee, the site was selected in 1846. The Tudor Gothic quadrangle and early campus buildings were designed and built by Sir Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward. Queen's College Cork officially opened its doors in November 1849, with further buildings added later, including the Medical/Windle Building in the 1860s.
National University of Ireland
In the following century, the Irish Universities Act 1908 formed the National University of Ireland, consisting of the three constituent colleges of Dublin, Cork and Galway, and the college was given the status of a university college as University College, Cork. The Universities Act, 1997, made the university college a constituent university of the National University and made the constituent university a full university for all purposes except the awarding of degrees and diplomas which remains the sole remit of the National University.
Following Irish independence, the statue of Queen Victoria which remained on the top of a prominent building was ultimately removed around 1934. According to University Historian, Professor John A Murphy, an oral history from the time dictated that the authorities decided to take down the statue before the students may have decided to blow it up as an unwanted symbol of British rule. A statue of St Finbar was erected in its place. The Victoria statue was later included in a 1995 event celebrating the history of the university.
From Wikipedia’s article on University College Cork, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4