Queen’s University Belfast is an institution of higher education in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1845 as Queen’s College, one of three colleges established in Ireland by Queen Victoria. The other two colleges are at Cork and Galway in the Republic of Ireland. Queen’s was raised to university status, with its own charter and statutes, in 1908. The university admitted its first woman student in 1881 and its first woman medical student in 1889. It granted full rights to women in 1895.
Queen’s University Belfast offers courses at both graduate and postgraduate levels. In addition to the main campus, there is a campus in Armagh City in Northern Ireland and a nursing campus in Altnagelvin Hospital, Londonderry, also in Northern Ireland. There are also outreach centers in Omagh and Newcastle, which are in Northern Ireland and England, respectively.
Each year, the university stages the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, one of the largest arts festivals in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It also houses the award-winning Queen’s Film Theatre, one of the few full-time university film theaters in the United Kingdom.
Queen’s graduates include the poet Seamus Heaney and the political leader David Trimble, both of whom have won a Nobel Prize. Other graduates include Irish President Mary McAleese and Everest mountaineer Dawson Stelfox.
The university’s website at https://www.qub.ac.uk/ offers additional information.
See also Belfast.
