The backstory
The seed that was to grow into IADT began as a simple portfolio course for local school leavers, designed to prepare them for entry to art and design colleges. Successful from the outset, by the late 1960s this had evolved into the first art foundation course in Ireland. And that spirit of innovation, that determination to be at the vanguard of fresh thinking in creative education, continued…A further three-year course leading to a Diploma in Art and Design began, and by 1980, the Minister for Education gave NCEA recognition to the newly-established Dún Laoghaire College of Art and Design (DLCAD). The legislative establishment of the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in 1997 realised the long-held ambition of Dún Laoghaire VEC, the staff of DLCAD and the wider community to create a fully-fledged third-level Institute of Art, Design and Technology in the area. The vision that went on to become IADT was for an institution that would stand strong on the established foundation and reputation of its art, design and media courses, while embracing the new disciplines of humanities, technology and business.
As well as being a valued educational and enterprise partner at local level, IADT is respected and renowned nationally and internationally in the creative, cultural, entrepreneurial and digital media sectors. Student numbers have grown from 450 to 2500. Our plan is to grow to over 3000 students and continue to develop the campus and infrastructure. IADT is built on a history of understanding what is needed – both now and in the future – and taking action. That same spirit of enterprise, that sense of creative adventure and energy, is alive and well on the IADT campus today. Well, with a history like ours, what else would you expect?
The campus
A diary kept by a nineteenth century landowner called Thomas Goff paints a fascinating picture of a rural Irish idyll. He writes of his first railway journey on the Dublin to Kingstown railway, and holidays in a rented house in Dalkey. His ten children were all born at home. We know that home as Róisín Hogan House.
Carraiglea House was renamed in 2001 to honour Róisín Hogan, the first Director of IADT and former principal of the DLCAD. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was a family home on one hundred acres until in 1893 the entire estate was sold to the Christian Brothers. During the Easter Rising of 1916, 2000 British soldiers camped in the grounds while waiting for orders to march into the city. The Department of Education acquired the property and its land in 1982. Given the urgently growing needs of DLCAD at the time, the College moved from Dún Laoghaire town to this new Carriglea campus.
Róisín Hogan House was our first building, and it is still at the heart of IADT. The campus has grown significantly since the late 1990s in order to meet our changing and growing needs, with the addition of: the Atrium building (1998), Carriglea building (2002), the Digital Media Incubation Centre Mediacube (2007), the Backlot (2012) and National Film School building (2013). Our commitment to innovation extends to our ongoing plans for the IADT campus and all our teaching and learning spaces.
IADT Today
IADT as we recognise it today, came into being in 2012, when three existing Schools were amalgamated to become two Faculties: the Faculty of Enterprise + Humanities, and the Faculty of Film, Art + Creative Technologies, incorporating the National Film School.