Even if you're not a UCD graduate, you're likely to find a good read in UCD - A National Idea by Donal McCarthy (Gill & Macmillan, £30). The book charts the history of UCD from its 1854 beginnings as the Catholic University of Ireland, in 86 St Stephen's Green, to the early years of this decade. As you'd expect from Donal McCarthy, professor emeritus of modern Irish history at the college, the book is meticulously researched and well written and contains fascinating anecdotes and insights into both academic and national life over the last century-and-a-half. The college's relationships with the Catholic church, the various governments and its arch rival, TCD, are well documented.

It's hard to credit now, but the Catholic University of Ireland was set up by the bishops as an antidote to the Queen's colleges of Belfast, Cork and Galway, which were nondenominational and regarded by the bishops as a "gigantic scheme of Godless education".

Students endured tough times. In the early part of this century, for example, women living away from home had to obtain permission before attending dances or similar entertainments.

In the 1930s, McCarthy writes, students were more right-wing than the college authorities and academic staff in their attitude to Catholicism.

UCD's most controversial 20th-century president, Michael Tierney, hit the headlines when he was successfully sued for slander by a student. He was involved, too, in ongoing battles with the L&H: When he banned an L&H debate on The Communist Manifesto in 1949 - and told the auditor that on no account was Dr Owen Sheehy Skeffington of TCD to be allowed address the meeting - he provoked a storm of debate in the letter pages of The Irish Times.

The meeting went ahead - in Sheehy Skeffington's presence - but according to McCartney, failure on the part of Tierney to intervene would have been seen as a direct insult to Archbishop McQuaid.