DAVID FITZPATRICK,
Sir, - As former fellows of the Institute of Irish Studies in Belfast, we deeply regret the recent decision of the Queen's University senate to "reorganise" the institute.
We have all experienced the benefit of working alongside a wide range of scholars in a congenial setting, set apart from the familiar tumult of a large university, yet attracting people from all walks of life to its seminars. Despite claims to the contrary, it appears that the effect of reorganisation will be to create a "virtual" institute with only two regular staff and a smaller central site, the other personnel being scattered through the university.
It is difficult to imagine how the intellectual "synergy" which the vice-chancellor rightly seeks can be better achieved through dispersal, or through the intended concentration on very large collaborative projects dictated, all too often, by the agenda of sponsors rather than scholars.
The university, and indeed Northern Ireland, can ill afford to diminish one of its most notable intellectual assets, painstakingly fostered over almost four decades. We very much hope that even now it may prove possible to maintain the academic integrity of one of the world's most prolific centres of Irish studies. - Yours, etc.,
DAVID FITZPATRICK, Trinity College, Dublin 2; DON AKENSON, (Kingston, Ontario); FEARGHAL COCHRANE, (Lancaster); MAURNA CROZIER, (Rathfriland); ANGÉLIQUE DAY, (Belfast); PAT DONLON, (Dublin); ROY GARLAND, (Belfast); KAARINA HOLLO, (Aberdeen); JUSTYNA KOLACZOWSKA, (Warsaw); JANE LEONARD, (Belfast);
DIANE URQUHART, (Liverpool).