Pat Hartigan, b. 1931 (Recording I)

Track 1: His background in Bruff, Co. Limerick, and early education. Entered Veterinary College in Ballsbridge in 1949 while also studying for an Arts degree at Trinity College Dublin. Track 2: Explains that, at that time, the site and facilities of the Veterinary College were the property of the Department of Agriculture and all its activities were regulated by a Registrar, a relatively senior civil servant. The entire staff, including academics, was employed by the Department. The curriculum and examinations were set by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons at London, which rewarded successful candidates with a diploma (MRCVS) that entitled them to practice. In the mid-1940s, TCD (1946) and UCD (1947) began to award degrees in parallel with the MRCVS diploma, but the examinations set by the RCVS continued to provide the single portal of entry to the profession. He followed this pathway through TCD. Track 3: After graduation, worked as a rural practitioner in Co. Kerry: as an assistant in practices at Causeway and Castleisland and as a single practitioner at Ballylongford and, later, at Caherciveen. Track 4: In 1964, returned to TCD as a graduate student. Explains the changes in veterinary education that had taken place since his student days. In 1960 the two universities were allocated space to establish separate Schools on the Ballsbridge site. The Department of Agriculture continued to manage the facilities and to finance the Schools, each of which had its own staff, curriculum and examinations. The RCVS ‘visited’ and validated the curriculum and examinations; it then awarded the MRCVS diploma to the graduates of the two Schools. He taught under this regime. Track 5: After three years as a graduate student, he became a member of the Academic staff of the TCD School. Regrets that ‘university politics’ became a significant distraction that blighted his academic career. The O’Malley plan to merge UCD and TCD initiated prolonged discussions and negotiations that, in 1977, led to the unification of veterinary education, by incorporation of the TCD School into a single Faculty in UCD. At the abolition of the TCD Veterinary School, he transferred to the teaching staff in the Department of Physiology in the Faculty of Health Sciences.