So this is an interesting short story:

Way back in the day (1990’s) I was teaching CAD (now you’d call it BIM) in the UK and Ireland for both private companies and educational establishments. At this time we probably had the most successful VectorWorks consultancy in Europe.

Myself & OH were married in Ireland in 1993 and it was on our honeymoon that I suggested we moved (from London) to Ireland, buy a site and build a house. You can see the result of this in the PROJECTS section in the website.

I then started thinking about what type of work I’d do and a natural stepping point was to go into 3rd level lecturing for architecture. So, I applied to GMIT to teach (I think) Architectural Technology.

At the interview I was asked whether I’d be able to handle the change from London life to that in the West of Ireland – obviously I said yes but I didn’t get the job.

Fast forward to 2013 where we’d moved to County Mayo, designed and built our house and now working as an architect in my own practice and I wrote THIS about the RIBA Part I Architecture course at IT Sligo and from there I first taught hourly and now I am a member of staff in the RIAI provisionally accredited Architecture Programme.

So now we are at today. With tomorrow being the transition date that ITSligo becomes part of the Connacht-Ulster Alliance:

And this merger of IT Sligo, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and Letterkenny Institute of Technology into Atlantic Technical University (the fourth TU in Ireland) will mean that effectively after nearly 30 years I passed the job interview for GMIT

(countdown correct at time of publishing!)

What’s also interesting is that I’ve been through this name change before where the place I studied Architecture for Part I, II and III (Oxford Polytechnic) changed name to Oxford Brookes University (without a merger tho’)

Onwards and upwards for Atlantic TU!