Mary Immaculate College (MIC) Thurles will welcome prospective students and their families to campus for its annual Open Day on Saturday, 7 November, from 10am to 1pm, with this year’s event taking place as the campus marks ten years as part of MIC and prepares for a significant expansion of its undergraduate programme offering.
The MIC Thurles Open Day will give students considering a career in post-primary teaching the opportunity to experience the campus first-hand, meet lecturers and current students, and explore MIC’s concurrent teacher education degrees across Gaeilge, Mathematics, Accounting, Business Studies, Religious Studies and Home Economics.
This year’s Open Day comes at a landmark moment for the Thurles campus. MIC Thurles is currently celebrating ten years since St Patrick’s College Thurles became part of MIC in 2016, a decade characterised by substantial growth in student numbers and continued development of its academic offering. Since joining MIC, the Thurles campus has grown from just over 200 students to almost 700 today, while more than 220 students joined its seven undergraduate programmes this year, the largest-ever first-year intake at the campus.
That growth is set to continue, with six new degree programmes commencing in 2027, expanding MIC Thurles’ undergraduate offering from seven to 13 programmes and providing prospective post-primary teachers with an even greater choice of subject combinations.
Together with MIC Thurles’ existing degrees, the expanded portfolio offers subject combinations across Gaeilge, Mathematics, Business Studies, Accounting, Religious Studies and Home Economics. The development reflects the campus’s continued focus on creating new pathways into post-primary teaching while responding to evolving needs within Irish schools and education.
According to Professor Jennifer Johnston, Vice-Dean of MIC Thurles, ‘This year’s Open Day comes at a particularly exciting time for MIC Thurles. As we celebrate ten years as part of Mary Immaculate College, we can look back with real pride on the growth of the campus, while also looking confidently to what comes next. The expansion of our undergraduate offering to 13 programmes represents another important step in that journey. It gives prospective students a much broader choice of subject combinations and pathways into post-primary teaching, while strengthening the contribution MIC Thurles makes to teacher education nationally. Our Open Day is an ideal opportunity for students and their families to come and see that progress for themselves, meet the people who make up our campus community and explore the programmes that could shape their future careers.’
The anniversary year also provides an opportunity to reflect on the distinctive educational heritage of the Thurles campus. Its history stretches back to the establishment of St Patrick’s College as a second-level school in 1837. Lay students returned to the College in 1988, while its first BA in Education degree was introduced in 2003, laying the foundations for the post-primary teacher education provision that continues to develop today.
As part of the celebrations, Thurles 10: A Decade of Growth, A Future of Possibility will feature a programme of events throughout the academic year, celebrating the students, staff, graduates and wider community who have helped shape MIC Thurles over the past decade.
Register for MIC Thurles Open Day here.
For more information on the 10-year anniversary, visit MIC Thurles 10.
