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Dead end street

A dead end, also known as a cul-de-sac (, lit. 'bag bottom' ), or a no through road or no exit road, is a street with only one combined inlet and outlet.

The term "dead end" is understood in all varieties of English but may not be the locally most common expression. Official terminology and traffic signs include many different alternatives. Some of these are used only regionally. In the United States and other countries, cul-de-sac is often not an exact synonym for dead end and refers to a dead-end street with a circular end allowing for easy turning at the end of the road. In Australia and Canada, a street is usually referred to as a court when it has a bulbous end.

Dead ends are added to road layouts in urban planning to limit through-traffic in residential areas. While some dead ends provide no possible passage except in and out of their road entry, others allow cyclists, pedestrians or other non-automotive traffic to pass through connecting easements or paths, an example of filtered permeability. The International Federation of Pedestrians proposed to call such streets "living end streets" and to provide signage at the entry of the streets that make this permeability for pedestrians and cyclists clear. Its application retains the dead end's primary function as a non-through road, but establishes complete pedestrian and bicycle network connectivity.

History
The earliest examples of dead ends were unearthed in the El Lahun workers' village in Egypt, which was built c. 1885 BC. The village is laid out with straight streets that intersect at right angles, akin to a grid but irregular. The western part of the excavated village, where the workers lived, shows fifteen narrow and short dead-ends laid out perpendicularly on either side of a wider, straight street; all terminate at the enclosing walls.

Dead-end streets also appeared during the classical period of Athens and Rome. The 15th century architect and planner Leon Battista Alberti implies in his writings that dead-end streets may have been used intentionally in antiquity for defense purposes. He writes:

"The Ancients in All Towns were for having some intricate Ways and turn again Streets [i.e., dead ends or loops], without any Passage through them, that if an Enemy comes into them, he may be at a Loss, and be in Confusion and Suspense; or if he pushes on daringly, may be easily destroyed."

The same opinion is expressed by an earlier thinker, Aristotle, when he criticized the Hippodamian grid:

"... but for security in war [the arrangement is more useful if it is planned in] the opposite [manner], as it used to be in ancient times. For that [arrangement] is difficult for foreign troops to enter and find their way about when attacking."

In the UK, their prior existence is implied by the Public Health Act 1875 which banned their use in new developments.

Inferential evidence of their earlier use can also be drawn from the text of a German architect, Rudolf Eberstadt, that explains their purpose and utility:

"We have, in our medieval towns, showing very commendable methods of cutting up the land. I ought to mention here that to keep traffic out of residential streets is necessary not only in the general interest of the population, but, above all, for the sake of the children, whose health (amongst the working classes) is mainly dependent on the opportunity of moving about in close connection with their dwelling places, without the danger of being run over. In the earlier periods, traffic was excluded from residential streets simply by gates or by employing the cul-de-sac."

It was in the United Kingdom that the cul-de-sac street type was first legislated into use, with the Hampstead Garden Suburb Act 1906. The proponents of the Act, Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, thus gained permission to introduce culs-de-sac in their subsequent site plans, and they promoted it as a suitable street type for Garden Suburbs. Unwin's applications of the cul-de-sac and the related crescent always included pedestrian paths independent of the road network. This design feature reflects the predominance of pedestrian movement for local trips at the turn of the 20th century, and presages the current planning priority for increased pedestrian accessibility. The 1906 Act defined the nature of the cul-de-sac as a non-through road and restricted its length to 500 ft. Garden cities in the UK that followed Hampstead, such as Welwyn Garden City, all included culs-de-sac.

In the 1920s, the garden city movement became more popular in the United States and, with it, came its design elements, such as the cul-de-sac. Clarence Stein, a main proponent of the movement, incorporated it in the Radburn, New Jersey (1929) subdivision, which was to become a model for subsequent neighborhood developments. The first modern cul-de-sac (1922) in America might be found in Buffalo, New York.

The country's Federal Housing Authority (FHA) recommended and promoted their use through their 1936 guidelines and the power of lending development funds.

In Canada, a variation of Stein's Radburn 1929 plan that used crescents (loops) instead of culs-de-sac was built in 1947: Wildwood Park, Winnipeg, designed by Hubert Bird. In 1954, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation published its own guidelines in which the cul-de-sac was strongly recommended for local streets and, as the FHA in the US, used its lending power to see its inclusion in development plans. Varsity Village and Braeside, subdivisions in Calgary, Alberta, also used the Radburn model in the late 1960s.

In the 1960s the cul-de-sac attained systematic international application in planned new cities such as Doxiadis' Islamabad (1960). In the UK, new towns such as Harlow (1947) by Sir Frederick Gibberd and Milton Keynes (1967) incorporated culs-de-sac and crescents in their layouts.

Planning theorists have suggested the use of alternatives to culs-de-sac. Most notably, Christopher Alexander et al., in his 1977 book "A Pattern Language" (pattern #49) suggests the use of looped local roads which do not abruptly stop. Although dead end streets (culs-de-sac), would fit his definition of looped local roads Alexander suggestions that "cul-de-sacs [sic] are very bad from a social standpoint—they force interaction and they feel claustrophobic, because there is only one entrance". Doxiadis has additionally argued their important role in separating man from machine.

Originally-unplanned dead ends
Originally-unplanned dead ends have been added in city centers that are laid out on a grid by blocking through-traffic. Whole neighbourhood street reconfigurations emerged in several cities, mainly concentrated in North America and the UK, which include Berkeley, California; Seattle, Washington; and Vancouver, British Columbia. The transformation of grid plans since the 1970s limits access to an existing road that is newly designated as a major artery, enabling traffic to move smoothly on it, alleviating residents' concerns.

This selective, sporadic transformation is continuing. As traffic volumes increase and as cities decide to remove or reduce traffic on specific streets of central areas, streets are closed off using bollards or landscaping thus making new, originally unplanned dead ends and producing a new, functional blend of the inherited grid with newer street types. A recent variation of limiting traffic is managed closure by using retractable bollards that are activated only by designated card-holders.

Suburban use and benefits
Since the end of World War II, new subdivisions in the United States and Canada, as well as New Towns in England and other countries have made extensive use of the cul-de-sac and crescent (loops) street types. Typically, there is one or several central roads in the subdivision with many cul-de-sac streets of varying length, branching out from the main roads, to fill the land in the subdivision, a dendrite or hierarchical pattern. Since the 1960s, the pattern has been the dominant road network structure of suburbs and exurbs in the United States, Canada, and Australia. It is also increasingly popular in Latin America, Western Europe, and China. In this pattern, there are only a few roads (relative to the number of cul-de-sac streets) leading out of the subdivision and into other subdivisions or onto major roads.

In the US, these changes can be attributed to real-estate developers' desire to meet FHA guidelines and make federal home loans available to their customers. In Canada, a similar incentive was provided to developers by CMHC. The incentives, which were discontinued in the 1970s, gave the initial impetus for the application of the hierarchical pattern. In other countries, such incentives do not exist, and adoption is motivated by customer preferences.

American urban planning, in the 19th and the early 20th centuries, emphasized a grid plan, partly out of extensive reliance on foot, horse and trams for transportation. In such earlier urban development, alleys were included to allow for deliveries of soiled supplies, such as coal, to the rear of houses that are now heated by electricity, piped natural gas or oil.

The use of culs-de-sac reduces the amount of car traffic on residential streets within the subdivision, thus reducing noise, air pollution and the probability of accidents. Ben-Joseph (1995), and Lovegrove and Sayed (2006), indicate a substantially lower collision rate for street networks based on the cul-de-sac street type. Dumbaugh and Rae (2009) suggest that land-use patterns play a significant role in traffic safety and should be considered in conjunction with the network pattern. While all intersection types in general increase the incidence of fatal crashes, four-way intersections, which rarely occur in a network with cul-de-sac or loop streets, increase total and injurious crashes significantly. The study recommends hybrid street networks with dense concentrations of T-intersections and concludes that a return to the 19th century gridiron is undesirable.

The decrease in traffic, in turn, is thought to lower the incidence of crime and increase desirability, because in most cases the people who traverse the cul-de-sac either live there or are guests of those who do. CPTED planning principles suggest increased natural surveillance and sense of ownership as a means of fostering security in a neighbourhood. Both of these phenomena occur naturally on a cul-de-sac street as does social networking. Design guidelines based on the CPTED perspective recommend its use for those reasons.

Cul-de-sac streets increase spontaneous outdoor activity by children. A study in California examined the amount of child play that occurred on the streets of neighbourhoods with different characteristics; grid pattern and culs-de-sac. The findings indicate that culs-de-sac showed substantial increase in play activity than the open grid street pattern. Culs-de-sac reduce perceived danger from traffic, thereby encouraging more outdoor play.

Similar studies in Europe and Australia found that children's outdoor play is significantly reduced on through roads where traffic is, or perceived by parents to be, a risk. In addition, they confirmed the results of the seminal Donald Appleyard 1982 study, which showed the negative correlation between amount of traffic and social networks. The inverse correlation between amounts of traffic and sociability of streets was reconfirmed by a newer study that repeated Appleyard's San Francisco analysis in Bristol, UK. It showed that the cul-de-sac street with the lowest traffic of the three streets had the highest level of social interaction.

The studies recommend the use of the cul-de-sac or strong traffic calming measures. When culs-de-sac are interconnected with foot and bike paths, as for example in Vauban, Freiburg and Village Homes in Davis, California, they can increase active modes of mobility among their residents.

Real estate developers prefer culs-de-sac because they allow builders to fit more houses into oddly-shaped tracts of land and facilitate building to the edges of rivers and property lines. They also choose these discontinuous network patterns of cul-de-sac and loop streets because of the often significant economies in infrastructure costs compared to the grid plan.

From an environmental perspective, culs-de-sac allow greater flexibility than the common grid in adapting to the natural grades of a site and to its ecologically sensitive features, such as streams, creeks, and mature forest growth.

The desirability of the cul-de-sac street type among home buyers is implied by the evidence that they often pay up to a 20% premium for a home on such a street, according to one study. That could be because there is considerably less passing traffic, resulting in less noise and reduced actual or perceived risk, increasing the sense of tranquility. A survey of residents on three types of streets: cul-de-sac, loop, and through (grid) recorded their preferences among these types. It found that 82% of cul-de-sac residents preferred their own street type, 18% preferred a loop, and 0% the grid. Only 13% of grid street residents preferred their own type and 54% would choose a cul-de-sac. Two other studies, reported in 1990 and 2009 respectively, confirmed the upward trend and determined the premium that cul-de-sac streets command. The first found a 29% premium over the streets in a grid. The second, focused on trails and greenbelts, found that other amenities including cul-de-sac streets add significantly to the home value.

The positive feelings that a cul-de-sac street could evoke, that residents value, are expressed vividly by Allan Jacobs in describing Roslyn Place, a short (250 ft), narrow (60 ft), densely built (14 /acre), and wood-paved cul-de-sac in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: "Step into Roslyn Place and you are likely to sense, immediately, that you are in a place, a special place, a handsome place, a safe place, a welcoming place, a place where you might wish to live." "narrowness and enclosure and intimacy bring a feeling of safety to Roslyn Place... 'Stay on our street' is all the kids have to know".

Gated communities, whose numbers steadily increase worldwide, use cul-de-sac and loop street networks because the dendrite structure reduces the number of through roads and thus the corresponding number of entries and exits that need to be controlled.

Traffic safety issues
Dead ends are traditionally considered safer traffic environments for children than normal streets, but research shows that areas with many dead ends in fact have higher rates of traffic accidents involving young children.

This increased risk of death is due to multiple factors, including:
 * families living on dead-end streets drive longer distances to reach their destinations,
 * parents living on dead-end streets spend less time teaching their children to be as wary of traffic, and
 * an increased risk of the parents accidentally driving over the children in front of their own homes.

Environmental, health, and crime issues
Culs-de-sac are criticised by urban designers like those of the Foundation for the Built Environment in the UK for encouraging car transport for even short distances, as more direct connections are precluded by the geometry, which necessitates long travel distances even to physically-nearby locations. This increases fuel consumption and vehicle emissions and has negative effects on health by reducing walking and cycling rates. Related research in the United States by Richard Jackson has shown that people in car-based (cul-de-sac heavy) communities weigh on average 6 lb more than those in traditional towns (with open grid networks).

An extensive analysis of the research evidence by TRB, however, shows only an association between the built environment and physical activity levels, not causal connections. The evidence also does not identify with certainty which characteristics of the built environment are most closely associated with physical activity behaviour. The study also warns against confusing inadequate physical activity with obesity which is the outcome of an energy imbalance. Many contemporary lifestyle trends, some inevitable (sedentary work) and some avoidable (frequent energy-rich food consumption or the watching of television [four hours per day]), contribute to the imbalance and must be considered in understanding and combating obesity.

The impermeability deficiency of the typical cul-de-sac street can be addressed by applying a modified, improved version of it, mentioned above, that enables pedestrian and bicycle through-movement. While this more permeable version can be applied in new developments easily, modifying existing impermeable cul-de-sac streets is problematic as it encounters property ownership issues. Efforts in that direction are, however, being made. Because of the complicated legal process and the sheer number of existing cul-de-sac streets, however, such efforts would be slow to produce results and may have little impact in changing the landscape of existing districts. Conversely, transforming existing streets that are part of a grid plan into permeable, linked culs-de-sac, as was done in Berkeley, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, is physically and administratively easy due to the public ownership of the street right-of-way. However, residents on adjacent through roads may resent the potential traffic increase and delay the process. In Berkeley, the barriers used were permeable to both pedestrian and bicycle traffic and became the backbone of the bicycle boulevard system in that region.

Increases in pedestrian and bicycle permeability may result in a displacement of local car trips for short-distance destinations and consequently a reduction in neighbourhood vehicle emissions. The impermeable cul-de-sac not only discourages walking and biking but also increases the length of car trips by the circuitous geometry of the dendrite network structure of which it is a part. Research studies examined the influence of several variables on the amount of car travel that residents of several types of districts recorded. Results vary considerably among them, but there is general agreement on a number of key correlations: a) the wealthier and the larger the family is, the more cars they own, and the more they drive, b) the farther away a family lives from the city centre, and the fewer the jobs in the vicinity, plus a slow bus service, the more they drive, and c) street patterns may add a 10% length to local trips, but the total VKTs are affected more by the "macro" urban than the "micro" neighbourhood structure.

Culs-de-sac, especially those that also limit pedestrian routes instead of only road-traffic routes, have also been criticised for negative effects on safety because they decrease the amount of through-traffic (vehicular or pedestrian) that might notice an accident or crime victim in need of help. Proponents of culs-de-sac and gated communities have in turn countered that the reduction in through-traffic makes any "stranger" much more recognisable in the closed local environment and thus reduces crime danger. That view has in turn been characterized as unrealistic. It is argued that, since only very few of all non-locals passing through the area are potential criminals, increased traffic should increase rather than decrease safety.

Research has expanded the discussion on the disputed issue. A 2008 study did extensive spatial analysis and correlated several building, site plan and social factors with crime frequencies and identified subtle nuances to the contrasting positions. The study looked at, among others, a) dwelling types, b) unit density (site density) c) movement on the street, d) culs-de-sac or grids, and e) the permeability of a residential area. Among its conclusions are, respectively, that a) flats are always safer than houses and the wealth of inhabitants matters, b) density is generally beneficial but more so at ground level, c) local movement is beneficial but larger-scale movement not so, d) relative affluence and the number of neighbours has a greater effect than either being on a cul-de-sac or being on a through-street. It also established again that simple, linear culs-de-sac with good numbers of dwellings that are joined to through streets tend to be safe. As for permeability, it suggests that residential areas should be permeable enough to allow movement in all directions but no more. The overprovision of poorly-used permeability is a crime hazard.

More generally, the New Urbanism movement has offered criticism of the cul-de-sac and crescent (loop) street types not intended to network with each other. It has been suggested that such street layouts can cause increased traffic on the collector streets. It is recognized that culs-de-sac and looped streets inherently remove car traffic through them and restrict access to residents only. Resident traffic is naturally channelled to minor residential collectors and to arterials that provide inter-neighbourhood and inter-district connectivity. A study, reported in 1990, compared the traffic performance in a 700 acre development that was laid out using two approaches, one with and the other without hierarchy or cul-de-sac streets. It concluded that the non-hierarchical, traditional layout generally shows lower peak speed and shorter, more frequent intersection delays than the hierarchical pattern. The traditional pattern is not as conducive to long trips as the hierarchical but more conducive to short trips. Local trips in it are shorter in distance but about equivalent in time with the hierarchical layout. A later similar comparative traffic study of about 830 acre concluded that all types of layouts perform adequately in most land-use scenarios and that a refined hierarchical, dendrite network can improve traffic performance.

Anecdotal and research evidence suggests that navigation (especially on foot) in a disconnected network of cul-de-sac and looped streets is inconvenient and non-intuitive, particularly when combined with curvilinear geometry. Loss of orientation and sense of direction is also a common experience in older cities with cul-de-sac streets (Medina of Arab cities or Mediterranean hill towns) as well as in cities with highly-irregular block geometries and sizes and corresponding street alignments that produce a labyrinthine effect. The long history of such cities implies that an irregular, complicated street network that appears entirely illegible to a visitor is well understood and used by the inhabitants. More convincing about its workability for their permanent residents are the case histories of cities such as Regensburg that show a gradual transformation of an imported or imposed orthogonal, "legible" grid to the traditional "confusing" street networks.

Cul-de-sac and loop streets can reduce the size of any given neighbourhood to a single street. Neighbourhoods can be defined by geographic boundaries but more often it is shared ethnic, socioeconomic and cultural characteristics that produce social cohesion irrespective of apparent physical "boundaries". Mehaffy et al. (2010), who propose a model for structuring an urban network, suggest that neighbourhoods cannot be designed into being. "Community" is viewed as a dynamic social and cultural construct, especially in contemporary, open, multicultural cities. Residential area street configuration can assist its emergence only by reducing through-traffic and increasing local pedestrian movement – a design goal for which connected cul-de-sac and looped streets are suited.

Issues of pedestrian trip length and isolation are very evident in the back-to-front housing arrangement where the front of the house fronts onto the cul-de-sac street while the rear fronts onto the main roads. Some of the problems can be mitigated by the newer practice of connecting the neighbouring roads and culs-de-sac with public pedestrian or cycle paths. In effect, this removes the discontinuity aspect for these modes of transport. Built examples of such connected culs-de-sac can be found in the United States (such as Radburn, New Jersey, and Village Homes, California), England (such as Milton Keynes), and Greece (such as Papagou, a suburb of Athens). Acknowledging their use, Germany, under the 2009 amendment to the Road Traffic Act, introduced an additional sign for culs-de-sac that are permeable to pedestrians and cyclists (see under signage below). A new system for organizing connected, permeable culs-de-sac into complete neighbourhoods, the fused grid, has been developed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

In the development context and planning literature of North America, culs-de-sac have been associated with low-density residential development. Sustainable development theorists and proponents claim that to be, in some undefined way, inefficient. The increased prevalence of cul-de-sac streets occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, a period of rapid economic and city expansion, when a detached house on a large lot meant an ideal form of habitation. The temporal coincidence of the wide adoption of a street type and an increasing demand for large lots and houses suggests a necessary relationship between street type and unit density. Historically, however, the earliest systematic application of the cul-de-sac street type by Raymond Unwin (1909) had a unit density between 8 and 12 /acre, considerably higher than mid-to-late 20th century. Even in the 21st century, developments rarely achieve densities above 5 to 7 /acre in the suburbs. Conversely, early 1950s suburban developments that were laid out on a grid exhibit similar low densities. Evidently, street, network type and density are not linked causally; other factors, such as land scarcity and income, influence the outcome as, for example, in cities that are landlocked or that have low average incomes.

Another concern is often voiced by emergency services, which can have difficulty locating streets when a community consists of a large number of similarly named culs-de-sac; also, large fire response vehicles, in particular, can have great difficulty with turning around in a cul-de-sac. However, confusing street naming is not a necessary outcome of street network design and can be improved. The practice of naming orthogonal networks by numbers and letters in the corresponding cardinal directions has been criticized by Camilo Sitte as lacking imagination. Nonetheless, police and fire departments now use advanced GPS systems that quickly locate the destination and the shortest path to follow.

School buses can also have a hard time turning around, which means that children who live in a cul-de-sac must often walk to a bus stop on a main through-road. However, recent research on obesity and urban planning suggests that to be a possible advantage because it enables children to get daily physical activity. Longer walking distances, however, reduce interest to use buses especially when a car is available. This disincentive to walking to a school bus-stop can be overcome in planned cul-de-sac streets by regulating their maximum length to about 500 ft, as was recommended and practiced by R. Unwin and others.

Weighing available evidence has led a few US cities including Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Portland, Oregon, to restrict and regulate the inclusion of cul-de-sac streets in new suburbs. However, a 2010 study on sprawl in North America by a legal expert concludes that "neighborhoods dominated by culs-de-sac are less walkable than those that include street grids.... On the other hand, culs-de-sac do have a countervailing public benefit: because of their very inaccessibility, they tend to have less automobile traffic. Given the existence of important public policy goals on both sides, a city seeking to maximize walkability should not favor culs-de-sac over grids, but should also allow some culs-de-sac as a legitimate residential option.... In addition, there are "middle ground" alternatives between prohibiting culs-de-sac and mandating them. For example, a city could encourage culs-de-sac combined with pedestrian walkways." This design combination is shown in the Village Homes layout and is an integral part of the Fused Grid.

Terminology
George Orwell wrote in his 1946 article "Politics and the English Language" that the term "cul de sac" is another foreign word used in English as pretentious diction and is unnecessary.

The word "cul-de-sac" and its synonyms or near synonyms "dead end" and "no exit" have inspired metaphorical uses in literature and in culture, often with the result that a word or phrase seeming to have a negative connotation is replaced in street signs with a new coinage ("no outlet" is another alternative name used on street signs).

The expression cul-de-sac comes from French, where it originally meant "bottom of a sack". It was first used in English in anatomy (since 1738). It was used for dead-end streets since 1800 in English (since the 14th century in French). The often-heard erroneous folk etymology "arse/ass [buttocks] of the sack" is based on the modern meaning of cul in French, Catalan, and Occitan, but cul does not have that meaning in cul-de-sac, which is still used to refer to dead ends in modern French – although the terms impasse and voie sans issue are more common.

J. R. R. Tolkien used the name Bag End as a translation of "cul-de-sac" to poke fun at the British use of French terms.

Australia
In Australia, dead-end streets are signposted as and often referred to as a "No Through Road". Suffixes for these types of streets include "court", "close" or "place". The term "cul-de-sac" generally only refers to a reasonably short street with a bulbous end, or even only to the end portion. A long road that is a no-through road and terminates abruptly is usually called a dead end.

Canada
In Canada, "cul-de-sac" is commonly used in speech but "no exit" or "no through road" is more common in road signs, especially in western Canada. In Quebec and Newfoundland, "Cul-de-Sac" is in far more common use, although Quebec is using "Impasse" too.

France
Cul de sac is French for 'bag-bottom'.

Italy

In Italy, terms commonly used in speech include strada senza uscita ("dead-end road") and "cul-de-sac". Metaphorically, in Italy, the expression "cul-de-sac" is used to indicate an inextricable stalemate.

New Zealand
In New Zealand, dead-end streets are sometimes signposted as "No Exit", but are often not signposted at all. The terms 'cul-de-sac' and 'dead end' have the same senses as in Australia. Similarly to Australia, residential cul-de-sacs with bulbous ends are often suffixed with "Place", abbreviated to "Pl" on street signs.

United Kingdom
In British English, the phrase "close" is generally used as a suffix for residential cul-de-sac roads, although several variants exist similar to those used in Commonwealth countries.

United States

U.S. Federal Highway Administration rules state: "The Dead End sign may be used at the entrance of a single road or street that terminates in a dead end or cul-de-sac. The No Outlet sign may be used at the entrance to a road or road network from which there is no other exit." There is no federal regulation on "no exit".

The phrase "No Exit" is also preferred for Chicago signs, although "dead end" is still used there. New York City has favored "dead end" since at least the 1930s, when Sidney Kingsley used the phrase to title his Broadway play about poor, tough East Side youths with lives of little promise, in contrast to the dead-end streets of the nearby Sutton Place neighborhood. (Similarly, French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre titled a play about three damned sinners, Huis Clos, translated into English as "No Exit".) Kingsley's play was later made into a movie, Dead End, which proved so popular that it spawned similar movies, many starring a group of recurring characters known as the Dead End Kids. The play and movies produced such a strong image of bleak futures and an unfair society that some municipalities changed the sign terminology for culs-de-sac, often to "no outlet" or "no exit". (The "dead end" signs currently at Sutton Place are bright yellow with black lettering.)

In New York City, as of 2008, there were 4,659 "dead end" traffic signs, along with 160 "no outlet" signs. The city records, which go back to the 1960s, show only a couple of "no exit" signs once existing near the approaches to the Midtown Tunnel, and which are no longer there. New York City Commissioner of Transportation Janette Sadik-Khan said in 2008: "We hear that some towns use 'no outlet' instead of 'dead end' because they think it sounds less morbid." "We tell New Yorkers the truth: it's a 'dead end', and we think that motorists get the point quickly."

California uses the phrase Not a Through Street or Not a Through Road to mark roads or road systems that end in culs-de-sac. More recently, No Outlet has been shown on some signs as well (an example being Meyers Avenue south of Eureka Street in the Pine Hills area).

Other uses
In military parlance, a "cul-de-sac" refers to a situation where an army is "hemmed in on all sides but behind". "Cul-de-sac" is also used metaphorically to mean a line of thought or action that leads nowhere.

In medicine, the expression is used to refer to the recto-uterine pouch, also known as the Pouch of Douglas, the deepest point of the female peritoneal cavity.

title: Dead end street


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Gilding

Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was traditionally silver in the West, to make silver-gilt (or vermeil) objects, but gilt-bronze is commonly used in China, and also called ormolu if it is Western. Methods of gilding include hand application and gluing, typically of gold leaf, chemical gilding, and electroplating, the last also called gold plating. Parcel-gilt (partial gilt) objects are only gilded over part of their surfaces. This may mean that all of the inside, and none of the outside, of a chalice or similar vessel is gilded, or that patterns or images are made up by using a combination of gilt and ungilted areas.

Gilding gives an object a gold appearance at a fraction of the cost of creating a solid gold object. In addition, a solid gold piece would often be too soft or too heavy for practical use. A gilt surface also does not tarnish as silver does.

Modern gilding is applied to numerous and diverse surfaces and by various processes. More traditional techniques still form an important part of framemaking and are sometimes still employed in general woodworking, cabinet-work, decorative painting and interior decoration, bookbinding, and ornamental leather work, and in the decoration of pottery, porcelain, and glass.

History

Herodotus mentions that the Egyptians gilded wood and metals, and many such objects have been excavated. Certain Ancient Greek statues of great prestige were chryselephantine, i.e., made of gold (for the clothing) and ivory (for the flesh); these however, were constructed with sheets of gold over a timber framework, not gilded. Extensive ornamental gilding was also used in the ceiling coffers of the Propylaea.

Pliny the Elder recorded that the first gilding seen at Rome was after the destruction of Carthage, under the censorship of Lucius Mummius, when the Romans began to gild the ceilings of their temples and palaces, the Capitol being the first place where this process was used. Gilding became a popular luxury within Rome soon after the introduction of the technique, with gilding soon being seen used on the walls, vaults and inside the houses of anyone who could afford it, including the poor. Owing to the comparative thickness of the gold leaf used in ancient gilding, the traces of it that remain are remarkably brilliant and solid. Fire-gilding of metal goes back at least to the 4th century BC. Mercury-gilding was invented by Chinese Daoists in the 4th century CE and was used for the gilding of bronze plaques. It was known to Pliny (33,20,64–5), Vitruvius (8,8,4) and in the Early Medieval period to Theophilus (De Diversis Artibus Book III).

In Europe, silver-gilt has always been more common than gilt-bronze, but in China the opposite has been the case. The ancient Chinese also developed the gilding of porcelain, which was later taken up by the French and other European potters.

Mechanical gilding

Mechanical gilding includes all the operations in which gold leaf is prepared, and the processes to mechanically attach the gold onto surfaces. The techniques include burnishing, water gilding and oil-gilding used by wood carvers and gilders; and the gilding operations of the house decorator, sign painter, bookbinder, the paper stainer and several others.

Polished iron, steel and other metals are gilded mechanically by applying gold leaf to the metallic surface at a temperature just under red-hot, pressing the leaf on with a burnisher, then reheating when additional leaf may be laid on. The process is completed by cold burnishing.

"Overlaying" or folding or hammering on gold foil or gold leaf is the simplest and most ancient method, and is mentioned in Homer's Odyssey and the Old Testament. The Ram in a Thicket (2600–2400 BC) from Ur describes this technique used on wood, with a thin layer of bitumen underneath to help adhesion.

The next advances involved two simple processes. The first involves gold leaf, which is gold that is hammered or cut into very thin sheets. Gold leaf is often thinner than standard paper today, and when held to the light is semi-transparent. In ancient times it was typically about ten times thicker than today, and perhaps half that in the Middle Ages.

If gilding on canvas or on wood, the surface was often first coated with gesso. "Gesso" is a substance made of finely ground gypsum or chalk mixed with glue. Once the coating of gesso had been applied, allowed to dry, and smoothed, it was re-wet with a sizing made of rabbit-skin glue and water ("water gilding", which allows the surface to be subsequently burnished to a mirror-like finish) or boiled linseed oil mixed with litharge ("oil gilding", which does not) and the gold leaf was layered on using a gilder's tip and left to dry before being burnished with a piece of polished agate. Those gilding on canvas and parchment also sometimes employed stiffly-beaten egg whites ("glair"), gum, and/or Armenian bole as sizing, though egg whites and gum both become brittle over time, causing the gold leaf to crack and detach, and so honey was sometimes added to make them more flexible.

Other gilding processes involved using the gold as pigment in paint: the artist ground the gold into a fine powder and mixed it with a binder such as gum arabic. The resulting gold paint, called shell gold, was applied in the same way as with any paint. Sometimes, after either gold-leafing or gold-painting, the artist would heat the piece enough to melt the gold slightly, ensuring an even coat. These techniques remained the only alternatives for materials like wood, leather, the vellum pages of illuminated manuscripts, and gilt-edged stock.

Chemical gilding
Chemical gilding embraces those processes in which the gold is at some stage of chemical combination. These include cold gilding, wet gilding, fire gilding and depletion gilding.

Cold gilding
In cold gilding, the gold is obtained in a state of extremely fine division, and applied by mechanical means. Cold gilding on silver is performed by a solution of gold in aqua regia, applied by dipping a linen rag into the solution, burning it, and rubbing the black and heavy ashes on the silver with the finger or a piece of leather or cork.

Wet gilding
Wet gilding is effected by means of a dilute solution of gold(III) chloride in aqua regia with twice its quantity of ether. The liquids are agitated and allowed to rest, to allow the ether to separate and float on the surface of the acid. The whole mixture is then poured into a separating funnel with a small aperture, and allowed to rest for some time, when the acid is run off from below and the gold dissolved in ether separated. The ether will be found to have taken up all the gold from the acid, and may be used for gilding iron or steel, for which purpose the metal is polished with fine emery and spirits of wine. The ether is then applied with a small brush, and as it evaporates it deposits the gold, which can now be heated and polished. For small delicate figures, a pen or a fine brush may be used for laying on the ether solution. The gold(III) chloride can also be dissolved in water in electroless plating wherein the gold is slowly reduced out of solution onto the surface to be gilded. When this technique is used on the second surface of glass and backed with silver, it is known as "Angel gilding".

Fire gilding

Fire-gilding or wash-gilding is a process by which an amalgam of gold is applied to metallic surfaces, the mercury being subsequently volatilized, leaving a film of gold or an amalgam containing 13 to 16% mercury. In the preparation of the amalgam, the gold must first be reduced to thin plates or grains, which are heated red-hot, and thrown into previously heated mercury, until it begins to smoke. When the mixture is stirred with an iron rod, the gold is totally absorbed. The proportion of mercury to gold is generally six or eight to one. When the amalgam is cold, it is squeezed through chamois leather to separate the superfluous mercury; the gold, with about twice its weight of mercury, remains behind, forming a yellowish silvery mass with the consistency of butter.

When the metal to be gilded is wrought or chased, the application of mercury before the amalgam is applied allows for it to be more easily spread. When the surface of the metal is plain, the amalgam can be applied to it directly. When no such preparation is applied, the surface to be gilded is simply bitten and cleaned with nitric acid. A deposit of mercury is obtained on a metallic surface by means of quicksilver water, a solution of mercury(II) nitrate, the nitric acid attacking the metal to which it is applied, and thus leaving a film of free metallic mercury.

After the amalgam is equally spread over the prepared surface of the metal, the mercury is then carefully volatilized with heat just sufficient to do so, as a temperature too high may cause part of the gold to be driven off, or otherwise run together, leaving some of the metal surface bare.

When the mercury has evaporated, indicated by the surface taking on a dull yellow color, the metal must undergo further steps to exhibit its fine gold color. First, the gilded surface is rubbed with a scratch brush of brass wire, until its surface is smooth. It is then covered with gilding wax, and again exposed to fire until the wax is burnt off. Gilding wax is composed of beeswax mixed with some of the following substances: red ochre, verdigris, copper scales, alum, vitriol, and borax. By this operation the color of the gilding is heightened, as a result of the perfect dissipation of some of the remaining mercury. The gilt surface is then covered over with potassium nitrate, alum or other salts, ground together, and mixed into a paste with water or weak ammonia. The piece of metal is then exposed to heat, before being quenched in water.

By this method, the color of the gilding is further improved and brought nearer to that of gold, probably by removing any particles of copper that may have been on the gilt surface. This process, when skillfully carried out, produces gilding of great solidity and beauty. This method of gilding metallic objects was formerly widespread, but fell into disuse as the dangers of mercury toxicity became known. Since fire-gilding requires that the mercury be volatilized to drive off the mercury and leave the gold behind on the surface, it is extremely dangerous. Breathing the fumes generated by this process can quickly result in serious health problems, such as neurological damage and endocrine disorders, since inhalation is a very efficient route for mercuric compounds to enter the body; the mercury used in the process also evaporates into the atmosphere, thus polluting it. This process has generally been supplanted by the electroplating of gold over a nickel substrate, which is more economical and less dangerous.

Depletion
In depletion gilding, a subtractive process discovered in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, articles are fabricated by various techniques from an alloy of copper and gold, named tumbaga by the Spaniards. The surface is etched with acids, resulting in a surface of porous gold. The porous surface is then burnished down, resulting in a shiny gold surface. The results fooled the conquistadors into thinking they had massive quantities of pure gold. The results startled modern archaeologists, because at first the pieces resemble electroplated articles. is a special Korean technique of silver-gilding, using depletion gilding.

Ceramics

The gilding of decorative ceramics has been undertaken for centuries, with the permanence and brightness of gold appealing to designers. Both porcelain and earthenware are commonly decorated with gold, and in the late 1970s it was reported that 5 tonnes of gold were used annually for the decoration of these products. Some wall tiles also have gold decoration. Application techniques include spraying, brushing, banding machines, and direct or indirect screen-printing. After application the decorated ware is fired in a kiln to fuse the gold to the glaze and hence ensure its permanence. The most important factors affecting coating quality are the composition of applied gold, the state of the surface before application, the thickness of the layer and the firing conditions.

A number of different forms and compositions are available to apply gold to ceramic, and these include:
 * Acid-etched gilding: developed in 1860s at Mintons, Stoke-on-Trent, and patented in 1863. The glazed surface, usually a narrow border, is transfer printed with a wax-like resist, after which the glaze is etched with dilute hydrofluoric acid prior to application of the gold, after which the design's raised elements are selectively burnished to give a bright and matte surface; the process demands great skill and is used for the decoration only of ware of the highest class.
 * Bright gold or liquid gold is a solution of gold sulphoresinate together with other metal resinates and a bismuth-based flux. It is particularly bright when drawn from the decorating kiln and so needs little further processing. This form of gilding was invented or at least improved by Heinrich Roessler. Rhodium compounds are used to improve the binding to the substrate.
 * Burnish gold or best gold is applied to the ware as a suspension of gold powder in essential oils mixed with lead borosilicate or a bismuth-based flux. This type of gold decoration is dull as taken from the kiln and requires burnishing, usually with agate, to bring out the colour. As the name suggests it is considered the highest quality of gold decoration. One solvent-free burnish gold composition was reported to consist of 10 to 40% gold powder, 2 to 20% polyvinylpyrrolidone, 3 to 30% an aqueous acrylate resin and 5 to 50% water.

Tools

A gilder's tip is a type of gilding brush used for transferring sheets of metal leaf to either a surface that has been prepared to accept the leaf or to a gilder's block where the leaf is then cut with a gilder's knife into smaller portions before being transferred to the prepared surface.

The hairs on a gilder's tip are usually made of either blue squirrel hair or the hair of a badger (sometimes other hairs are also used, such as that of a camel) arranged in a single or double row along a flat ferrule made of wood or cardboard. In order to transfer the gold leaf, the hairs are first given a very light coating of adhesive by brushing them against a surface such as the back of the user's hand which has been coated with a thin layer of petroleum jelly (a common misconception is that static electricity causes the gold foil to attach to the brush, but this is not so) and then laying the edge of the brush along the edge of the piece of metal foil. The jelly will cause the metal to adhere very gently to the hairs and allow the piece to be floated from the paper surface on which had previously been stored. Because the leaf is so thin, this must be done in a room with extremely still air, and the user of the tip usually does not breathe until the leaf is in place.

Once the leaf has settled, it is often burnished with polished piece of agate to achieve a high degree of brilliance.

Gilder's tips are necessary because touching the metal leaf with the finger tips would immediately cause the leaf to lose its coherent flattened shape and crumble irretrievably into metallic dust which then cannot be used for any purpose.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gilding


text:
Talk:Orange Alternative

Anarchism
Can I ask why this movement is called "anarchic"?

My knowledge of the Pomarańczowa Alternatywa is only cursory but I suppose it was a protest movement without any real aims. Just for the protest's sake. They wanted to give people some hope, a few laughs and escape from grim everyday life under Communism. Unlike Solidarnosc they were not a political movement rather something like a dada cabaret that went to audiences in the street.

Kpjas

 * Well, it's because i wrote it basing on article which described it as anarchic. In history you wont see it, because irst author is "coinversion script" :))) Szopen 11:09, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

http://pomaranczowa-alternatywa.republika.pl/

The reason it is described as anarchic - and I take it from its leader - Major Fydrych - was that it was breaking up the existing order and freeing the people from the fear that permeated them ever since the Martial Law was imposed by General Jaruzelski (December 1980). When you listen to the OA happeners and people that joined in the happenings (and in some of them over 10 thousand persons took place) searching the freedom from fear was the principal goal that is commonly mentioned. It was a big thing that opened the road to reactivation of the other opposition currents, which were suppressed and depressed as result of the Martial Law. It was anarchic because ridiculized and ruined the existing communist law order epitomized by the Jaruzelski goverment, that maintained the society at its frozen state. La Papesse, 08-12-2006

 * Came here to ask the same question. In a search of Google Books and the Polish WP article, not seeing what source material is claiming anarchist-related ideology here. If their practices were "anarchic", that's fine as an adjectival descriptor but doesn't mean that it's an "anarchist organization" as a defining trait. (not watching, please  me if you have relevant sources)  czar  01:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Polish language
Why is "See Polish language" possibly appropriate in this article, even discussing a mistranslation or pun? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

no further distortion of my published work
Waldemar “Major” Fydrych has persistently engaged in falsification of my intellectual property rights by erroneously claiming editors Marjolein ‘tHart and Dennis Bos wrote my scholarly article titled, “Antagonism, Absurdity, and the Avant- Garde”. They editted the volume - they DID NOT - author my work. Please block any editor from distorting the record of my own intellectual property. I am the sole author of my published research. These editors never made any comment on the topic, only quoted my work in their Foreword. Lisiunia (talk) 19:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Orange Alternative


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West India Docks

The West India Docks are a series of three docks, quaysides, and warehouses built to import goods from, and export goods and occasionally passengers to the British West Indies. Located on the Isle of Dogs in London, the first dock opened in 1802. Following their commercial closure in 1980, the Canary Wharf development was built around the wet docks by narrowing some of their broadest tracts.

Early history
Robert Milligan (c. 1746–1809) of a Scottish family, was largely responsible for the construction of the West India Docks. He was a wealthy West Indies merchant, slave trader and ship owner, who returned to London having managed his family's Jamaica sugar plantations. Outraged at losses due to theft and delay at the extensive (continuously along the Thames for 11 miles) riverside wharves comprising the Port of London, Milligan headed a group of powerful businessmen – including George Hibbert, the chairman of the London Society of West India Planters and Merchants who was a merchant, politician, and ship-owner – who promoted the creation of a wet dock circled by a high wall. The group planned and built West India Docks, lobbying Parliament to allow the creation of a West India Dock Company. Milligan served as both deputy chairman and chairman of the West India Dock Company. The docks were authorised by the Port of London Improvement and City Canal Act 1799 (39 Geo. 3. c. lxix).

The docks were constructed in two phases. The two northern docks were constructed between 1800 and 1802 for the West India Dock Company to a design by leading civil engineer William Jessop (with consultant John Rennie, appointed resident engineer Ralph Walker, and with input from Thomas Morris, Liverpool's third dock engineer), and were the first commercial wet docks in London. British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and Lord Chancellor Lord Loughborough were assisted in the foundation stone ceremony on 12 July 1800 by Milligan and Hibbert. The docks were formally opened on 27 August 1802 when the unladen Henry Addington was hauled in by ropes. Echo, a ship laden with cargo from the West Indies, followed. For the following 21 years all vessels in the West India trade using the Port of London were compelled to use the West India docks by a clause in the Act of Parliament that had enabled their construction.

The southern dock, the South West India Dock, later known as South Dock, was constructed in the 1860s, replacing the unprofitable City Canal, built in 1805. In 1909 the Port of London Authority (PLA) took over the West India Docks, along with the other enclosed docks from St Katharines to Tilbury.

From 1960 to 1980, trade in the docks declined to almost nothing. There were two main reasons. First, the development of the shipping container made this type of relatively small dock inefficient, and the dock-owners were slow to embrace change. Second, the manufacturing exports which had maintained the trade through the docks dwindled and moved away from the local area. The docks were closed in 1981.

Re-development
After the closure of the upstream enclosed docks, the area was regenerated as part of the Docklands scheme, and is now home to the developments of Canary Wharf. The early phase one buildings of Canary Wharf were built out over the water, reducing the width of the north dock and middle dock. Canary Wharf tube station was constructed within the middle dock in the 1990s. Part of the original dock building was converted for use as the Museum of London Docklands in 2003.

The Crossrail Place development was completed in May 2015 and the Canary Wharf Crossrail station below it was completed in September 2015.

Layout
The original docks consisted of an Import Dock of 30 acre of water, later named North Dock, and an Export Dock of 24 acre, later named Middle Dock. Between them, the docks had a combined capability to berth over 600 vessels. Locks and basins at either end of the Docks connected them to the river Thames. These were known as Blackwall Basin and Limehouse Basin, not to be confused with the Regent's Canal Dock also known as Limehouse Basin. To avoid congestion, ships entered from the (eastern) Blackwall end; lighters entered from the Limehouse end to the west. A dry dock for ship repairs was constructed connecting to Blackwall Basin. Subsequently, the North London Railway's Poplar Dock was also connected to Blackwall Basin.

The Docks' design allowed a ship arriving from the West Indies to unload in the northern dock, sail round to the southern dock and load up with export cargo in a fraction of the time it had previously taken in the heavily congested and dangerous upper reaches of the Thames. Around the Import Dock a continuous line of five-storey warehouses was constructed, designed by architect George Gwilt and his son, also named George. The Export Dock needed fewer buildings as cargo was loaded upon arrival. To protect against theft, the whole complex was surrounded by a brick wall 20 ft high.

The three docks were initially separate, with the two northern docks interconnected only via the basin at each end, and South Dock connected via a series of three basins at the eastern end. Railway access was very difficult. Under PLA control, cuts were made to connect the three docks into a single system, and the connections to the Thames at the western end were filled, along with the Limehouse basin and with it the western connection between the two northern docks. This allowed improved road and rail access from the north and west. South Dock was also connected to the north end of Millwall Dock, its enlarged eastern lock becoming the only entrance from the Thames to the whole West India and Millwall system.

title: West India Docks


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Dublin City University

Dublin City University (abbreviated as DCU) (Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath ) is a university based on the Northside of Dublin, Ireland. Created as the National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin in 1975, it enrolled its first students in 1980, and was elevated to university status (along with the NIHE Limerick, now the University of Limerick) in September 1989 by statute.

In September 2016, DCU completed the process of incorporating four other Dublin-based educational institutions: the Church of Ireland College of Education, All Hallows College, Mater Dei Institute of Education and St Patrick's College.

As of 2020, the university has 17,400 students and over 80,000 alumni. In addition, the university has around 1,200 online distance education students studying through DCU Connected. There were 1,690 staff in 2019. Notable members of the academic staff include former Taoiseach, John Bruton and "thinking" Guru Edward De Bono. Bruton accepted a position as Adjunct Faculty Member in the School of Law and Government in early 2004 and De Bono accepted an adjunct Professorship in the university in mid-2005.

The founding president of the institution was Dr Danny O'Hare, who retired in 1999 after 22 years' service. After a period of administration by an acting president, Professor Albert Pratt, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski was appointed and continued as president for a full ten-year term, which ended in July 2010. Professor Brian MacCraith was appointed next and was succeeded in 2020 by the current president, Professor Daire Keogh.

History

The institution was created in 1975, on an ad hoc basis, and on 18 June that year Liam Mulcahy was made acting director of the institution, and a day later the first governing body met. Danny O'Hare became director in 1977, and presided over the institution, then based at Mount Street in central Dublin, for the next 22 years. It was intended at the early stage that the institution become the unified structure under which the colleges of what later became Dublin Institute of Technology would unite, but by 1978 it became apparent that this would not be the case and instead an independent institution developed with a distinct identity and mission. In 1979, the institution was located on an 344000 m2 site 5 km from the city centre, just north of Dublin City Council's Albert College Park; the Albert College Building and the neighbouring President's Residence, are the only significant buildings remaining from before this period. The Henry Grattan building was the first new building, completed in 1981, along with the adjoining restaurant, and many buildings have been added since, to form the university campus.

In 1986 the International Study Group on Technological Education was set up to examine the future of the National Institute for Higher Education at Dublin and Limerick, and in its report stated that it should be elevated to university status, with naming:
 * ...the NIHE Dublin having the title Dublin City University or the University of Leinster.

Ultimately the title "Dublin City University" was chosen and this was confirmed by the Dublin City University Act of 1989.

The early focus of the institution was, in particular, on science and technology, although it has also had from the start a business school. It later developed a presence also in the performing arts and in the humanities. DCU is also famous for its programme of work placement or INTRA (INtegrated TRAining), which was the first such programme in Ireland.

DCU has been providing Irish and foreign adults with flexible access to higher education for over 35 years. In 1982 the National Distance Education Centre was located at DCU and for many years offered programmes in the traditional "distance education" mode of delivery. It changed to Oscail – DCU Online Education in 2004 to reflect the reality that its programmes were increasingly designed with large elements of online support. In 2013, DCU launched the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) with the Open Education Unit as part of the new institute. This Unit manages online courses and degree programmes offered to Irish residents and students around the world through DCU Connected.

There was a plan in 2002 to base the headquarters of the Irish Academy for the Performing Arts in DCU, but this was later scrapped.

Campuses
The university has five campuses:
 * The main campus, usually described as being in Glasnevin but adjacent to Whitehall and Ballymun too
 * Sports campus (St Clare's)
 * DCU Alpha Innovation campus, Glasnevin
 * St Patrick's campus in Drumcondra
 * All Hallows campus, Drumcondra

Main campus
The total area of the main campus is approximately 202000 m2 and is bordered by Collins Avenue, Albert College Park, Ballymun Road, Hillside Farm and St. Aidan's School. A further 40000 m2 (including Elmhurst House) situated along Griffith Avenue have been acquired. Entrances to the main campus are from Ballymun Road, to the west, and Collins Avenue, to the north.

St Clare's (Sports) campus
There are 142000 m2 at the St Clare's campus on the west side of Ballymun Road; this part of the campus also includes the Sports Pavilion.

DCU Alpha Innovation campus
A 10-acre site with 18,000 sq. m. of buildings, north of central Glasnevin, DCU ALPHA is home to 35 companies employing 350 staff who are developing products in connected health, clean energy and Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

St Patrick's campus
The grounds, including a sports field at the rear, of the former St Patrick's Teaching Training College in central Drumcondra, north of the River Tolka, form a distinct campus. The majority of DCU Institute of Education activities are located on this campus.

All Hallow's campus
The lands and buildings of the former All Hallows College (including Drumcondra House) on Grace Park Road in residential Drumcondra form another DCU campus. This includes a burial ground. The Church of Ireland Centre, overseeing the religious elements of the fully merged former Church of Ireland College of Education (whose old site was not bought by DCU), is also based at this campus.

Faculties and Schools
DCU Business School

Faculty of Engineering & Computing
 * School of Computing
 * School of Electronic Engineering
 * School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
 * School of Applied Language & Intercultural Studies (SALIS)
 * School of Communications
 * School of Law & Government
 * School of English
 * School of History and Geography
 * School of Theology, Philosophy, and Music
 * Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge

DCU Institute of Education
 * School of Arts Education & Movement
 * School of Human Development
 * School of Inclusive & Special Education
 * School of Language, Literacy & Early Childhood Education
 * School of Policy & Practice
 * School of STEM Education, Innovation & Global Studies

Faculty of Science & Health
 * School of Biotechnology
 * School of Chemical Sciences
 * School of Health & Human Performance
 * School of Mathematical Sciences
 * School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health
 * School of Physical Sciences
 * School of Psychology

DCU Connected - Online Education

Facilities
DCU has teaching and research facilities, including television and sound studios, computer laboratories and networking facilities, language and interpreting laboratories, a video-conferencing suite, and print and graphical laboratories. These are in addition to research and teaching laboratories in the areas of physics, chemistry, biology and engineering.

The primary arts facility is The Helix performing arts centre.

There is an InterFaith Centre located on the campus, a crèche, a medical centre, a Counselling Service, and a Disability Service. There was also a commercial VHI Swiftcare Clinic, that closed in 2011.

Other social facilities include The Venue (Student Arts Theatre, also known as omega [Ω], capacity: 1,000), a Ticketmaster outlet, a "Digital Café", club and society meeting and seminar rooms, two Starbucks cafés, one at the main restaurant (the first in Ireland) and one in the Sports Building, three pool rooms, and a "Glass Room" for band practice.

Retail facilities include six restaurants and two bars, a Spar shop, pharmacy, barber shop, Students' Union Shop, Bank of Ireland, Xerox reprographic centre, Hodges Figgis bookshop, and a beauty salon in the sports centre.

Culture and arts
The Centre for Talented Youth and The Helix a purpose-built performance space, which includes Ireland's largest concert hall, the Mahony Hall, are both part of the university.

DCU also has a campus radio station called DCUfm.

An Arts Committee was established in 1983 and has since acquired more than 300 works of art, including paintings, tapestries and sculptures, for the university. The collection includes works by artists such as Louis le Brocquy, Cecil King, Patrick Scott, Michael Warren, Stephen Lawlor, Brian Bourke, Victor Sloan, Barrie Cooke and William Crozier.

Entrepreneurship
Dublin City University has a large number of graduate entrepreneurs and these form part of the DCU Alumni Entrepreneur Network which is run by the Alumni Office. Invent, the commercialisation gateway of DCU, is home to the Entrepreneurs' Organisation. It also hosts the Irish arm of the US-based National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), which helps young people from poorer backgrounds to build skills and unlock creativity. The DCU Ryan Academy, established during the presidency of Ferdinand von Prondzynski and funded by the family of the late entrepreneur Dr Tony Ryan, promotes entrepreneurship and innovation, delivering short courses on a wide range of topics from Social Enterprise Development to Foresight and Future Trends. As well as for-profit entrepreneurship the academy also works in the area of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise.

Registration and application
Most undergraduates enter DCU through the Irish Central Applications Office process. The university is also party to an agreement with the Postgraduate Applications Centre in Galway.

Corporate identity
The university's current corporate identity dates from 2001 when the new president, Ferdinand von Prondzynski, decided to rebrand the identity as he considered the previous "three castles" logo to be out of date and not representative of the university's vision as a modern and networked research university.

Rankings
The university was named Irish University of the Year 2004-2005 by the Sunday Times, UK. It was also ranked second in the league table of Irish universities in the same newspaper that year, and fourth in the two subsequent league tables. The university was one of three establishments of higher education in Ireland which are ranked amongst the top 300 universities worldwide by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2007–2008. The university was named "Irish University of the Year" by the Sunday Times newspaper once again for the 2010–2011 academic year.

The university has been named numerous times as one of the world's top 50 universities that are under 50 years old, by the QS World University Rankings list. DCU's QS World University ranking is 391st (jointly) for 2018 and it is ranked in the 51-60 bracket among universities less than 50 years old.

Governance
In accordance with legislation, the university is directed by a policy-making statutory Governing Body, whose functions are outlined in the National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin, Act, 1980, amended in the Dublin City University Act, 1989 which raised the institution's status to that of a university and provided for related matters. There are several other important acts concerning the college including the Universities Act, 1997, which allows for the creation of University Statutes.

The Governing Body's 31 members are chosen by a wide range of groups and authorities, and include members elected by staff (in various classes) and students (ex-officio based on elections of Students Union officers). Graduates can directly elect one member and one further graduate member is put forward by the Educational Trust.

Chancellors
The university is headed, titularly, by the Chancellor. , the Chancellor of Dublin City University is Martin McAleese (2011-2016, 2016–2021), who was preceded by Ireland's former EU Commissioner and Attorney General, David Byrne (2006-2011). Byrne was in turn preceded by the Hon Ms Justice Mella Carroll (2001-2006) who in turn was preceded by Dr. Tom Hardiman (-2001).

Academic governance
A statutory Academic Council, with three standing committees, oversees the teaching and research work of the university. The three permanent sub-committees, which replaced a single Standing Committee, are the Education Committee, the University Standards Committee and the Graduate Research Studies Board.

Academic structure
The academic organisation of the university is arranged into faculties and schools. DCU has recently undergone some reorganisation on the faculty level, with an incorporation process establishing one of Europe's largest Institutes of Education. There are currently five faculties, each headed by an Executive Dean. Below this level are Schools, each with its own Head, and for each degree programme, a Programme Board, with an elected chairperson.

Since 2017, academic staff are assigned titles as Assistant Professor (formerly Lecturer), Associate Professor (formerly Senior Lecturer), Professor (formerly associate professor) and Full Professor.

DCU houses the country's first purpose-built university nursing school.

DCU has a long history of distance education and offers a number of undergraduate, postgraduate online courses and degree programmes delivered through DCU Connected. It also hosts the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL), which aims to be a world leader at the forefront of designing, implementing and evaluating contemporary models of digital, blended and online learning. The NIDL also manages the design and delivery of a growing suite of free online courses (i.e., MOOCs) through Ireland's Open Learning Academy.

DCU is also the location for all professional Actuarial exams in Ireland. It also has a Prometric Test Centre and is the test centre for Ireland's Graduate Management Admission Test.

DCU awards degrees in Business Studies and International Finance and Marketing, Innovation and Technology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in partnership with Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University.

Libraries
DCU library is a deposit library, making it legally entitled to a copy of every book published in Ireland. It is a member of the IReL (Irish Research E-Library) consortium, allowing staff and students full access to over 100 online academic databases.

The John and Aileen O`Reilly Library building on the Glasnevin Campus opened in 2002, replacing a facility in the original NIHE building, with funding from The O'Reilly Foundation and Atlantic Philanthropies. The building was designed by Scott Tallon Walker and received the SCONUL Library Design Award. The building also hosts the university's maths learning centre and writing centre.

The Cregan Library on the Saint Patrick's campus opened in 2015, costing €50 million, replacing previous facilities nearby.

In November 2008, DCU Library launched DORAS, an open access institutional repository, to promote the university's research by providing free online access to DCU's research publications and theses.

In 2009, the library received the private papers of Charles Haughey, a former Taoiseach.

Employment law controversies
As with most universities, there has been some controversy and litigation over time. Controversy began over the wording and adoption of new university statutes on suspension and dismissal of staff by the Governing Authority, on the recommendation of the president, as required by the Universities Act 1997. In 2002, the Labour Court recommended that this statute be rewritten and this has been followed by long-running negotiations between the university and the trade union representing staff, SIPTU; In 2008 a vote organised by SIPTU led to a majority (of the admittedly very small number of staff who voted) declaring no confidence in the management of the university in its conduct of these negotiations.

In 2002, a Rights Commissioner recommended the reinstatement of a tenured lecturer following the university's decision to treat his contract as having been repudiated. An appeal from the Rights Commissioner's recommendation by the university commenced at the Employment Appeals Tribunal in July 2009 and continued in December 2009 and January 2010. During the hearing in 2009 there was significant emphasis on statements made by the lecturer in his blog throughout 2009, which were deemed by the President, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, and others to be highly defamatory. In a final decision, the lecturer was refused reinstatement but given modest financial compensation.

A second case related to accusations of gender discrimination against a senior female member of academic staff, and was won by the academic on appeal at the Labour Court.

Litigation also arose following the purported termination by the university of the appointment of an associate professor in 2006, after he had indicated he was moving to another university, while refusing to confirm the timing of his move. The High Court ruled against DCU on three grounds, and the case was appealed by the university; this led to a 2009 Supreme Court hearing in December 2009, with DCU losing on procedural grounds. The president, Professor von Prondzynski, at the time deferred elections to the university Executive when it involved the candidacy of the purported dismissed academic, commenting that he could not see how the professor could become a member of the Executive advising him, but at the same time he stressed his openness to a range of views.

DCU Educational Trust
The university is supported by a charitable Trust, named the "DCU Educational Trust", the main work of which is in fund-raising.

Student body
The composition of the student body represents every county on the island of Ireland and over seventy countries worldwide, spread across all six continents. The university has educated students from Australia to Brazil and Japan to Iceland. International students currently make up just over 15% of the full-time student body. The university is strongly committed to international education and internationalising its campus. Apart from a large number of exchanges the university also welcomes international students as part of its Study Abroad Programme and offers programmes jointly with institutions based outside Ireland and is rapidly expanding a wide range of international activities.

Clubs and societies
There are more than 140 clubs and societies representing a wide range of interests such as culture, computer games, sport, and academic interests.

Governing Committees
Societies and Clubs receive financial support from a proportion of capitation fees and are governed solely by student committees. The Society Life Committee (SLC) and The Club Life Committee (CLC) govern and drive policy and funding for societies and clubs at DCU. Student facilities for societies are mostly based in the Student Centre, The U, which was opened in September 2018.

Drama
DCU's Drama Society hosts many productions for the public every year, including its annual flagship event, the DCU Musical. In 2009, the musical Rent, was nominated for the Best Overall Show award, and the Best Director award with the Association of Irish Musical Societies. DCU Drama reprised RENT at Dublin's Olympia Theatre. from 15 to 20 June 2009. DCU Drama also sends plays to be adjudicated for the Irish Student Drama Association awards. DCU Drama won the Best National College Society award at the Board of Irish College Societies awards in 2002, 2003 and 2008, and was nominated for Best Society Event nationwide for The Full Monty in 2007 and Rent in 2009. DCU Drama won Best Society at DCU in 2017 and most recently performed the musical Sweeney Todd in Spring of 2018.

Music
As one of DCU's biggest and most active societies, Music Society organises lessons, workshops, concerts, open mic nights, trips to concerts, weekends away, an intervarsity Battle of the Bands and a myriad of other events every year. The Battle of the Bands is its main event, with participants coming from colleges nationwide. The 2010 Battle of the Bands took place on 29 March in DCU. Music Society won the award for Best Society in DCU in 2007.

Politics
Ireland's major political parties are represented on campus. In the 2012–2013 academic year, the Fianna Fáil party was the largest political party on campus and was chaired by Ruadhrí Moran. The Labour Party, who were traditionally the largest on-campus, have fallen into second place, with the Fine Gael party, chaired by Ryan Hunt in third with a drop in 30% of membership.

Radio
DCUfm is a student-run radio station. The station airs regular programmes from 10:00am until midnight each weekday, every week during both semesters. It streams its output from its website, DCUfm.com. Its programmes cover arts, music, news, sport, and the Irish language. Automated music completes its overnight and weekend schedule.

DCUfm is a project of the Media Production Society (MPS) at DCU, which was judged Ireland's best college society at the BICS Awards in 2011. The society also won the national 'most improved society' prize and the 'best online presence' award at the BICS in 2010 and 2012 respectively. MPS won the title of DCU's best society at the 2011 and 2013 DCU Society Awards and won DCU's best society event in 2014 with the 24 Hour Broadcast.

The station is staffed by over 240 volunteers. Every year, DCUfm takes in up to 120 new members and provides them with training, guidance and support in teaching them how to work in radio. The station uses the industry-standard RCS suite of on-air radio automation software, which is also used by the major national commercial radio stations.

DCUfm has achieved national recognition for its news and sport output. Its flagship shows are Newswire and Action Replay, while additional programming is introduced for special events such as national budgets, or DCU SU and Dáil elections. Its interviews with former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, in which he insisted his economic management was largely correct, and British National Party leader Nick Griffin were among those to receive national coverage. Newswire won the National Student Media Award for best news and current affairs radio programme for the fourth year in a row in April 2013. Action Replay was crowned best arts and features show at the 2011 awards.

The station won two awards in 2010, four in 2011 (including two for DCUfm.com), four in 2012, and two in 2013. The station has been successful at the annual DCU Hybrid Awards, and the DCUfm website also won the national college society website of the year prize at the national Board of Irish College Societies Awards (BICS) in 2010.

Television
DCUtv is also operated by DCU's Media Production Society (MPS).

It produces videos and programmes which are available online through the MPS YouTube channel. Its content often goes viral in Ireland and as a result has been promoted by some of the country's major websites and news outlets.

DCUtv's major annual event is its live 24-hour telethon, which has raised as much as €5,000 for charity in one year.

DCU is the first university in Ireland to produce a feature-length film. The film, named Six Semesters, was funded by the university and made entirely by MPS members.

Publications
There are several publications distributed throughout the university, and below are current and past examples:

 * Campus (defunct)- Official DCUSU Magazine.
 * The College View – Student Newspaper
 * Flashback - An end-of-semester review magazine for DCU, St. Patrick's and Mater Dei
 * The Look - A fashion supplement included with The College View
 * An Tarbh (defunct) – DCU student union weekly news and views magazine.
 * The Bullsheet (defunct) - DCU journalism students news and satirical newspaper
 * DCU Book Society anthology - A yearly collection of short stories and poems by DCU students
 * Flux

There is also a magazine for staff and alumni:
 * DCU TIMES - University magazine

Accommodation
The university has built several modern apartments and residences. Larkfield Apartments have 128 units, each with two study bedrooms and a shared living, kitchen and dining area within each unit. The Postgraduate Residences have 37 apartments, each with two, three or four en-suite bedrooms. The Hampstead Apartments consist of 61 units, each with three or five en-suite bedrooms and a shared living, kitchen and dining area. The College Park Apartments consist of 93 units, each with four or five en-suite bedrooms and a shared living, kitchen and dining area.

All Hallows is situated in Drumcondra village within reach of the Glasnevin and St. Patrick's campuses. There are 63 bedrooms available in Purcell House to students. Accommodation is in single or double bedrooms (single occupancy only) with either ensuite or shared bathroom facilities. Each bedroom has a study area and fixed-line internet access (internet cable is not provided). There is a communal kitchen and shared lounge areas.

Sport

Sports facilities on the campus include a sports complex and fitness centre which incorporates: an aerobics studio, spinning studio, quiet studio, four sports halls, two squash courts, a glass-backed Gaelic handball/racquetball court, a gallery that accommodates table tennis and a body conditioning arena, a floodlit astroturf hockey pitch and seven grass pitches for a variety of sports, eight enclosed five-a-side AstroTurf soccer pitches, an indoor climbing wall, a four-lane 75-metre indoor sprint track and a gym. per week. The sports complex opened in January 2005.

The main sports hall can be divided into three full-size volleyball, badminton or basketball courts. The facilities at St. Clare's Sports Ground include the Sports Pavilion, two GAA pitches, two soccer pitches, one rugby pitch and one floodlit astroturf pitch for hockey or soccer.

There are ten tennis courts at the National Tennis Training Centre in Albert College Park (four indoor acrylic courts, three outdoor hardcourts and three outdoor clay courts) and a further five tennis courts are situated at Glasnevin Lawn Tennis Club adjacent to St. Clare's Sports Grounds. There is also a GAA pitch, a grass athletics track and four or six soccer pitches (depending on configuration) in Albert College Park.

The DCU Sports Academy was launched in November 2006. Membership of the Sports Academy entitles those selected to special scholarships and supports worth up to €10,000 each including on-campus accommodation, financial support towards college books and tuition fees, personal tuition, access to key national and international competitions, physiotherapy and massage, sports nutrition advice and high-performance education talks and workshops.

The complex won the "Sports centre of the Year Award" in 2009.

Other
There are three licensed premises on the campus, which sell alcohol and food; the "old bar", the "nu bar" (aka beta [β]), The Helix and Spar (off-licence). However, in early 2007 Spar stopped selling any alcoholic products indefinitely, and it remains to be seen whether or not they will renew their licence in the future. Prior to this, there were four licensed premises, but this itself followed a long period with only one licensed location, and up until 1992, there were no such premises on campus at all.

There are several restaurants and cafes; the Main Restaurant and the first Starbucks café (in Ireland) are located in the Pavilion building. Zero-1 is located in the basement of the O'Reilly Library. The Invent Centre, The Helix, Nursing School and Business School each have their own cafés. The 1838 Club is a restaurant for academic staff and postgraduate research students, it is located in the Albert College Building. There is a second Starbucks in the Sports Complex, the third in Ireland after Microsoft Ireland. There is also a digital cafe and Xbox gaming arena above the main restaurant, The Mezzanine. In 2009 the Mezzanine was in the process of relocation to the seminar room in DCU's student centre 'The Hub'

DCU Language Services offers English Language Training to a large number of international students each year. DCU LS also offers professional translation services in over 70 languages in addition to language assessments for recruitment, proofreading and transcription services. DCU LS is an IELTS exam centre.

DCU has recently acquired additional lands adjacent to its main campus, which will be developed to add to the university's sports facilities.

In 2008, DCU planned to build a 10,000-seat indoor stadium and running track at its Sports Grounds.

Strategy
Shortly after the appointment in 2000 of the then-new president, Ferdinand von Prondzynski, DCU adopted what was described as a highly innovative strategic plan, 'Leading Change'. For a university strategy, it was a very short document, but it set out a number of major developments and innovations. Chief amongst these was the adoption of academic strategic 'Themes', which were to govern the development of the university. Each Theme was to have a 'Theme Leader'. The academic Themes are interdisciplinary and focus on areas in which DCU has growing leadership. This strategic framework was extended in the 2005 strategic plan, 'Leadership through Foresight', in which DCU also committed itself to eight key clusters of actions to develop its leading role in its chosen priority areas. Following an announcement by the HEA in August 2007, DCU received over €23m in research funding under Phase 2 of PRTLI Cycle 4.

Following an announcement by the Science Foundation Ireland in November 2007, DCU received over €16.8m in research funding for localisation research for a €30.4m "Next Generation Localisation" project headed by Prof. Josef Van Genabith (with international and domestic industry partners contributing the remaining €13.6m).

Research
Coordinated by the Office of the Vice President for Research, there are three constituent units which support the research of academics, research students and collaborative partners: Research Support Services, Graduate School, and DCU.

Collaboration and academic associations
Under its strategic plan, 'Leadership through Foresight' (2005), DCU committed itself to collaboration with national and international organisations and universities on technology and research projects.

The AIC Adaptive Information Cluster with University College Dublin is one such initiative has been based on computer and sensor technology to develop advanced applications in several areas. DCU and UCD also collaborate on a health research board-funded programme of nursing decision-making in Ireland, the first research programme in nursing in Ireland. The two universities also collaborate on the Odysseus undergraduate Computer Science Internship Programme and on the Clarity Centre for Sensor Web Technologies.

The Centre for Innovation and Structural Change with National University of Ireland, Galway and University College Dublin is an initiative to better utilise and develop international-level research.

The School for Policy and Practice through its civic engagement programme participates in the local development coalition for North Dublin, NorDubCo, established in 1996 by DCU together with Fingal County Council and Dublin Corporation.

Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre with the University of Limerick, University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin is a partnership to bring together and focus software engineering in Ireland.

The university also collaborates with the National University of Ireland, Galway and the pharmaceutical multinational Bristol-Myers Squibb on biopharmaceutical research. The National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology at DCU and Wyeth Pharmaceutical have recently announced a research collaboration in the production of biopharmaceuticals.

DCU also collaborates with the National Institute for Bioprocessing, Research and Training (NIBRT) its main partners are UCD, TCD and Sligo IT. The university has a strategic alliance with Cornell University's Nanobiotechnology Centre (NBTC ).

The National Centre for Sensor Research collaborates with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on Biomedical Diagnostics research. The NCSR also collaborates with University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Galway, University of Wollongong, Australia, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta and the Irish Marine Institute. DCU is also collaborating with Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin to run the National Digital Research Centre.

Plasma and Vacuum Technology with Queen's University Belfast is a cross-border programme to deliver online courses in plasma and vacuum technology without attending university-based lectures. Another cross-border initiative DCU is working with is the Centre for Cross Border Studies which researches and develops cooperation across the Irish border in education, training, health, business, public administration, communications, agriculture and the environment.

The Programme for Research on Grid-enabled Computational Physics of Natural Phenomena is a wide partnership with Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway, University College Dublin, HEAnet, Met Éireann, Armagh Observatory and Grid Ireland. Development of research under the PRTLI Cycle 1 funded Institute for Advanced Materials Science, additional funding is now being sought to further research in the area of nanomaterials and nanotechnology with Trinity College Dublin.

The university also collaborates with the Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain-Driven Research (CTVR ) and with Bell Labs Research Ireland (BLRI ). The National Centre for Sensor Research also collaborates with the National Botanic Gardens on the Eco-Sensor Network project. DCU is also a participant in the Irish Centre for High-End Computing.

DCU leads Ireland in fusion power research, with a team of 33 DCU scientists taking part in a €10 billion global collaboration to make a breakthrough creating safe nuclear energy by fusion.

The experimental ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) power station will be built at Cadarache in the South of France and is the result of an international collaboration involving the European Union (represented by EURATOM), Japan, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States. Dublin City University is the lead partner in this Irish research through Irish Fusion Association under the National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology with 10 more University College Cork scientists taking part in the project as well under the auspices of Association Euratom DCU, which was established in 1996. The Association's annual budget is about €2.5 million with 30 per cent of this funded directly by the European Commission. Further funding is provided by DCU and Science Foundation Ireland.

The university also has agreements with organisations and universities outside Ireland. For instance, the University at Buffalo is a partnership to develop research in the eastern United States. is a continuing project with the University of Wales, Lampeter to develop an Irish language terminology database online. The Catholic University of Lublin has a partnership with the university to deliver and accredit a Master of Business Administration in Poland. The university collaborates with universities in eleven European countries for the AIM media project. DCU has recently announced an alliance with Arizona State University. The two universities will develop links in a number of areas, including joint research projects, joint entrepreneurial initiatives, institutional learning projects and benchmarking of internal operations, as well as inter-institutional faculty, student and staff transfers between the universities.

The School of Computing collaborates on research with large multinational corporations and institutions like Google, Microsoft, the US Military, IBM, Samsung and Xerox. There is also an annual prize sponsored by Ericsson for the leading final year Electronic Engineering project.

Research centres in DCU also collaborate with each other on multidisciplinary projects. For example, the Materials Processing Research Centre collaborates with the Vascular Health Research Centre on research aimed at producing synthetic bone and soft tissue such as arteries.

The university also hosts many public events such as monthly lectures in the areas of physics and astronomy in collaboration with Astronomy Ireland, held in "The Venue" complex in The Hub (DCU Student Centre), Irish Inventor Association seminars held at the Invent Centre, the Gay Rugby World Cup and even an exhibition of rare 2500-year-old Shakyamuni Buddha relics at the University Interfaith Centre.

Hospitals linked with DCU for teaching and research purposes include:
 * Beaumont Hospital
 * Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin
 * St. Vincent's Hospital, Fairview
 * St. James's Hospital, Dublin
 * Temple Street Children's University Hospital
 * Bon Secours Hospital, Glasnevin
 * St. Ita's Hospital, Portrane
 * St. Joseph's Hospital, Clonsilla

title: Dublin City University


text:
Talk:Silesia/History of introduction

The history of the introduction
Szopen’s proposal: ''Ties with Poland where weakening over time, while ties with Germany were increasing. Most of Silesia was part of Germany before 1945, with majority of Silesia' population being German. After World War II most of Silesian (German) population was expelled and replaced by Poles expelled from former Kresy.''

The Britannica: ''Silesia: Polish Slask German Schlesien. Historic region, east-central Europe. It now lies mainly in southwestern Poland, with parts in Germany and the Czech Republic''

Encyclopedia.com: ''Silesia, Czech Slezsko, Ger. Schlesien, Pol. S´la?sk, region of E central Europe, extending along both banks of the Oder River and bounded in the south by the mountain ranges of the Sudetes—particularly the Krkonos e (Ger. Riesengebirge )—and the W Carpathians. Politically, almost all of Silesia is divided between Poland and the Czech Republic. The Polish portion comprises most of the former Prussian provinces of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia, both of which were transferred to Polish administration at the Potsdam Conference of 1945; the Polish portion also includes those parts of Upper Silesia that were ceded by Germany to Poland after World War I and part of the former Austrian principality of Teschen. A second, much smaller part of Silesia belonged to Czechoslovakia since 1918, and became part of the Czech Republic with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993.''

Nico wrote this together as: ''Silesia (Polish: Slàsk, German: Schlesien, Czech Slezsko) is an historical region in east-central Europe, located along the upper and middle Oder/Odra River, in what is now southwestern Poland and with parts in Germany and the Czech Republic. The historical region belonged to Poland in the middle ages. Ties with Poland were weakening over time, while ties with Germany were increasing. Most of Silesia was part of Germany before 1945, and the majority of the population were German. After World War II most of the Silesian (German) population were expelled and replaced by Poles expelled from former Kresy. ''

And then he changed it to:

''Silesia (Polish Slàsk, German Schlesien, Czech Slezsko) is an historical region in east-central Europe, located along the upper and middle Oder/Odra River, in what is now southwestern Poland and with parts in Germany and the Czech Republic. The historical region belonged to Poland in the middle ages. Ties with Poland were weakening over time, while ties with Germany were increasing. Most of Silesia was part of the German provinces Upper- and Lower Silesia before 1945, and the majority of the population were German. After World War II most of Silesia became Polish. In the Polish language spoken in Silesia, the region is also known as Slonsk or Slunsk.''

Improved proposal by John Kenney

''Silesia (Polish S´la?sk, German Schlesien, Czech Slezsko) is an historical region in east-central Europe, located along the upper and middle Oder/Odra River, in what is now southwestern Poland and with parts in Germany and the northeastern Czech Republic. Silesia belonged to Poland in the middle ages. Ties with Poland gradually decreased over time, and the province was a Habsburg domain from the 16th to the 18th century. In 1742 most of Silesia was seized by Frederick the Great of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession. This part of Silesia composed the Prussian provinces Upper- and Lower Silesia until 1945. After World War II nearly all of Prussian Silesia was annexed by Poland, and most of the German population (which had formed a majority prior to the war) was expelled. The remainder of Silesia remained under Austrian control, and today forms part of the Czech Republic. In the Polish dialect spoken in Silesia, the region is also known as S´lonsk or S´lunsk. ''

title: Talk:Silesia/History of introduction