End of era as Warrenstown College set to close in June

Less than six months after selling the lands of the former agricultural college at Warrenstown College in Drumree, the Salesian Order and Teagasc have announced that the horticultural college at Warrenstown is to close. In May, the Salesian Order, which has been running the educational facility at Drumree since 1922, sold the 460 acres of farmland for €13.5 million. They originally received the lands in the will of local woman, Mrs Elizabeth Lynch, a descendant of the Warren family. On Thursday last, a statement was issued by the college trustees saying that the decision to close the college was taken following lengthy discussion and consultation between the trustees of the college and Teagasc. 'Recognising that Teagasc policy is to concentrate future capital investments in fewer colleges, and that the college trustees themselves are in no position to provide the enormous capital investment and on-going maintenance needed to run Warrenstown as a private enterprise, the college trustees were led to the decision to close the College,' the statement added. It is understood that staff and students were initially made aware of the impending closure in the same week as an open day for next year"s academic year was going ahead. While the closure has been anticipated for some time, it still came as a blow as it was thought that the college would be wound down on a more phased basis. There are currently over 230 students, a combination of part-time and full-time, attending the horticulture college. The closure will mean the loss of up to 35 jobs in the area, with 22 members of staff of Teagasc being absorbed into the organisation elsewhere and 12 being made redundant. Teagasc spokesperson Eric Donald said that the closure of some of the Teagasc colleges was flagged about a year ago when consultants recommended that the agricultural organisation concentrate on the four colleges that were in their ownership, out of the eight running in the country. Four of the colleges being funded by Teagasc were privately owned. He added that contingency plans were in place for students of Warrenstown College which would see them continue their education in the Botanic Gardens and Kinsealy, Dublin, continuing the association with Blanchardstown Institute of Technology. 'Students will be able to continue to receive the high level of education they currently receive under the new arrangements,' the organisation said. '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. This should ensure the minimum disruption to the education of the 118 full-time and 116 part-time students currently located at Warrenstown. Both colleges, Warrenstown and the National Botanic Gardens, currently offer courses in conjunction with the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown, so students relocating will be able to continue with their higher level courses. Director of Education and Training in Teagasc, Donal Carey, paid tribute to the lasting educational legacy that the Salesian order and the staff at Warrenstown College have left, not just in the horticulture sector, but also in the agriculture sector and in wider rural Ireland. 'Since 1923, the Salesian Order has been providing land-based education at Warrenstown, from which generations of students have benefited enormously,' he said. Salesian Order spokesperson, Fr Tony McEvoy, said that the members of the order living at Warrenstown would continue to reside there. The decision by Teagasc to concentrate on the State-owned colleges left the order in an untenable position, almost 'high and dry", he added. Following the consultations with Teagasc and the board of Warrenstown, it was decided by both parties that a short-term closure rather than a phased-out situation would be best, Fr McEvoy added. The prospect of 'shoring up" Warrenstown for Teagasc wasn"t a feasible one. While it had been suggested that monies from the land sale go towards this, Fr McEvoy said that these funds were being dealt with by the order"s charitable commission which looks after the poor and the vulnerable.