“For myself I hope a University will be granted, and I hope it will be granted soon.  I hope so, as a Unionist, because otherwise I do not know how to claim for a British Parliament that it can do for Ireland all, and more than all, that Ireland could do for herself.  I hope so as a lover of education, because otherwise the educational interests both of Irish Protestants and of Irish Roman Catholics must grievously suffer, and suffer in that department of education, the national importance of which is from day to day more fully recognised.  I hope so as a Protestant, because otherwise too easy an occasion is given for the taunt that in the judgment of Protestants themselves Protestantism has something to fear from the spread of knowledge.”

Two years after this declaration a Royal Commission on the whole question was mooted, and immediately the cry of “Hands off Trinity” was raised, in spite of the fact that no Royal Commission had sat on that College since 1853, an interval of time in which there had been four Commissions on Oxford and Cambridge, and three on the Scottish Universities.  The terms of reference of the Commission of 1901 on its appointment under the chairmanship of Lord Robertson were vague.  A Judge of the High Court in Ireland threatened to resign if Trinity College—­the main centre of University education in the island—­were included in the scope of the inquiry of a Commission on the means for obtaining such education in the country.  The Commission sat in private, and it was not till the first volume of evidence was published that it was discovered that the terms of reference had been so interpreted as to exclude Trinity from the inquiry, and to retain the services of the learned Judge.

After discussing the alternatives of a new Catholic University, or a reconstitution of the Royal University with the addition of a new Catholic College, the Commissioners decided in favour of the latter.  Their plan comprised a federal teaching University with four constituent Colleges, the three Queen’s Colleges and a new Catholic College to be situated in Dublin.  Changes in the constitution of the Queen’s Colleges, to remove the religious objections at present entertained towards them were proposed, and in reference to the endowment of the new Catholic College it was claimed that it was not truly open to the objection that it introduced denominational endowment into the University system of Ireland since the Jesuit University College receives, and has received for nearly a quarter of a century, a large annual sum out of moneys provided by Acts of Parliament for University purposes.  The reason which the Commissioners gave fer not making this institution the basis of a new College was declared to be its meagre scale which makes it unsuitable for expansion.

In January, 1904, Lord Dunraven propounded a scheme in a letter to the Press by which the question was to be solved by enlarging the University of Dublin so as to include the present Queen’s College, Belfast, and a new College which should satisfy Catholic needs in Dublin, each of the Colleges being autonomous and residential, and on August 3rd, 1904, Mr. Clancy, in the House of Commons, read a telegram from the Archbishop of Dublin saying that the bishops would accept either the Dunraven scheme or that of the Robertson Commission.