THE SALESIAN College of Horticulture in Warrenstown, Co Meath, is to close at the end of the current academic year, in summer 2009, after 85 years in operation, writes Séan MacConnell, Agriculture Correspondent.
The closure was announced in a joint statement from Teagasc and the college trustees yesterday. Staff were informed on Wednesday.
The closure had been expected since Teagasc announced last year it would be concentrating future capital development in fewer colleges. It will take responsibility for the 22 staff and students from Warrenstown.
The statement said the college trustees were in no position to provide the enormous capital investment and ongoing maintenance needed to run Warrenstown as a private enterprise and this led to the decision to close. Horticultural courses currently on offer in Warrenstown will be amalgamated with Teagasc courses at the dual campus at the College of Amenity Horticulture, National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, and at Teagasc Kinsealy, both of which are in Dublin.
"Students will be able to continue to receive the high level of education they currently receive under the new arrangements. Teagasc will be investing € 2.5 million in new classrooms and new facilities to create a larger state of the art college at the National Botanic Gardens to accommodate students from the start of the next academic year," it said.
"This should ensure the minimum disruption to the education of the 118 full-time and 116 part-time students currently located at Warrenstown," the statement said. Both Warrenstown and the National Botanic Gardens offer courses in conjunction with the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown, Dublin, so students relocating will be able to continue their higher-level courses.
The Salesians of Don Bosco came to Warrenstown in 1922 and opened an agricultural college in 1923. In 1958, a new site beside the old college was developed. From the late 1950s, students of horticulture began attending Warrenstown; in 1968, a two-year course in commercial horticulture was established at the request of the Department of Agriculture. In 2001, the college adapted to new conditions and concentrated on amenity horticulture.
With the changing fortunes in agricultural training, the college was closed in 2001 and the land associated with it was sold earlier this year.
Donal Carey, director of education and training at Teagasc, paid tribute to the lasting educational legacy of the Salesians and staff at Warrenstown, not just in horticulture, but in agriculture and in wider rural Ireland in general.