Harcourt Street, Cullenswood and Belfast
The central political achievement of the year was the Irish Universities Act 1908, dated 1 August. Its immediate legal effect was to provide for two new universities, one seated in Dublin and one in Belfast, and to dismantle the existing arrangement of the Royal University of Ireland and Queen’s College, Belfast. The Royal University had principally examined students and awarded degrees; it was widely criticised as an inadequate substitute for a properly endowed teaching university. The new legislation therefore answered an educational question that had frustrated governments, churchmen, academics and Irish politicians for decades.