Opening of US third-level college in Kerry town 'a massive achievement'
The Dingle campus of Connecticut’s Sacred Heart University offers more than 120 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral courses.
The opening of a third-level college in Dingle, Co Kerry, has been hailed as a gamechanger for the coastal town.
Connecticut’s Sacred Heart University in the US first established outreach links with West Kerry 20 years ago. The initial arts and spirituality programme has now expanded to include a comprehensive scientific programme for US students as well as for locals.
The campus, known locally as Ollscoil An Chroí Naofa and as SHU Dingle ( (Sacred Heart University), will welcome students into its new state-of-the-art facilities in what was the old Christian Brothers School, following what a spokesman described as “years of sustained growth”.
Dr Kevin Flannery, a marine biologist associated with the Dingle Aquarium and research centre Oceanworld, said an important milestone was being marked in the small coastal town.
Fishing and agriculture are waning and tourism can be volatile, but education and research in coastal towns are the way forward, he said.
“For a small town like Dingle to get a third-level institution is a massive achievement and it is a step other coastal towns in the west may wish to follow,” Dr Flannery said.
Sacred Heart University has maintained a study-abroad presence in Dingle since 2004, operating out of the Díseart Centre of Irish Spirituality and Culture.
The second-largest Catholic university in New England is one of the of the fastest-growing private doctoral institutions in the US, with 10,000 students across eight campuses, with online as well as in-person courses.
The Dingle campus offers more than 120 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral courses.
More than 500 US college students now come to Dingle annually from Sacred Heart as well as from a variety of other US institutions. Students engage in immersive semester-long and short-term study abroad programmes taught largely by local instructors.
Course offerings span diverse disciplines, including Celtic religious traditions, Irish folklore, Irish music, filmmaking, anatomy and physiology, microbiology, environmental studies, nursing and more.
“The programme’s annual influx of students significantly contributes to the local economy and cultural landscape,” a spokesman for the college said.
