CIT in Kerry College Merger Horror

4th Mar 2015

Corkonians have barely got used to calling the old R.T.C. the “C.I.T.” and now the college is thinking of changing its name yet again. You might think we are joking but they are proposing to merge with I.T. Tralee and call it Munster Technological University (MTU).  

Have you been to Tralee, no? Lucky you. Killarney might be as fake as Paul Galvin’s glue-on beard and jammed full of elderly American tourists with BMIs greater than their age but at least you feel someway safe. Tralee on the other hand is a different prospect and surely not the type of place that anyone in Cork would want to be associated with.
 

CIT is proposing to merge with these lads

Tralee’s annual lovely girls contest gives the world a false impression that the town is full of young bright “Roses” skipping around the town singing sean-nós songs and looking for a nice husband. It couldn’t be further from the reality of a night out in the Kerry capital from which the only entertainment for Corkonians is comparing what you see after midnight to scenes from zombie or apocalypse movies.

Any hint of cooperation, not to mention a merger, between anything in Cork and Kerry should be dismissed out of hand. Even the language in the media surrounding the dark threat of a Cork-Kerry merger appals us.

This should not be about “CIT’s merger with ITT”. It should be about Tralee’s collection of pre-fab classrooms being “absorbed” by Cork’s new technology university. Instead CIT seem to be taking the position that the two colleges are someway equal and should “come together” under the new banner of “Munster Technological University” – thus removing the word ‘Cork’ from its name. Outrageous!
 

CIT have been dazzled at the prospect of hooking up with Kerry's T.I.T.s

ITT has barely 4,000 students while CIT boasts nearly 20,000 so at the top of the Cork college’s list of demands should be that the new technological university should have “Cork” in its name.

This latest so-called merger is part of a wider threat - the ‘Munsterfication’ of Cork. By all means show your support at a rugby match in Musgrave Park (we refuse to call it by its new Dublin newspaper name as it would be to disrespect the great Corkman the stadium was originally named after) but calling yourself “a proud Munster man” is like calling yourself a humble servant when you are, in fact, a gallant prince. 

This is the thin end of the wedge, dear Rebels. If we don’t stand up to it now then within years Cork will be renamed ‘Munster South’ , we’ll all end up speaking with Ronan O’Gara’s mid-Munster drawl and the city will have all its cycle lanes replaced with piebald and jarvey lanes (imagine how angry Cork’s taxi drivers will be with that one!). It’s no surprise either that the government Minister pushing this merger is Jan O’Sullivan from Limerick.

We must take our lead from nations and leaders who feel their culture is threatened and offer some counter-threats of our own. The Beara Penninsula is Cork’s Crimea.
 

Enormocollege - CIT currently caters for 2.5 million students every year. Roughly.

Part of Beara is under the control of Kerry County Council and the People’s Republic of Cork Territorial Expansion Committee is licking its lips at “recapturing” hundreds of square miles of “New PROC” which will start by us declaring all land south of the line between Kenmare and Ballingeary to be in our control.

Cork could do with a few big mountain ranges and there are a number of fine hills in east Kerry just off the Macroom-Killarney road that would be of great benefit to the Rebel County. There have been rumours for decades about the existence of historical references to Mangerton mountain being the border between Cork and Kerry and not the current Derrynasaggart range outside Ballyvourney. At least that’s what we heard. An additional mountain range gives Cork people another opportunity to look down on Kerry.

And then there’s Rathmore village straddling the county bounds further north. PROC has received disturbing reports of the denial of human rights of Corkonians in the village and we are working on a ‘dirty dossier’ for the United Nations before sending PROC troops into the area.

Horrible crimes are alleged to have taken place in this hotbed of Cork and Kerry rivalry. Allegedly a Cork flag was taken down from a gate in the town last year before the Munster final and in another horrific case of intimidation a young Corkonian was ballhopped by a Kerry supporter in a bar over the result.
 

Doomsday: Next thing you know they'll be talking Cork and Kerry GAA coming together or trying to merge Guinness with our beloved Murphy's.

We will not stand-by while other counties fail to acknowledge our superiority. We don’t want equality. We just want the obvious inequalities between superior Corkonians and inferior Kerrymen acknowledged properly.

If Kerrymen really want the best education available in Ireland then they should come to Cork like the rest of the province and quit fannying around with their own mickey-mouse colleges.

Over the gates of the other great Cork college is a sign the authorities in C.I.T. pushing for the Munsterfication of Cork should take note of - “Where Finbarre taught, let Munster learn”.

There is no evidence that Finbarre (peace be upon him) ever went to Kerry, not to mind taught there. That means you come to Cork to get your education. We don’t come to you.