Eamonn McCann: Joe Biden visit to UU Belfast underlines unrealised goal of full Derry university

He said the US President’s visit to UU’s new £350m Belfast campus would be viewed in Derry against the failure to realise the long-standing goal of a full-scale university in Ireland’s fourth city.

"Ulster University is today hosting President Biden at its Belfast campus. Meanwhile, Derry and Magee have again been ignored.

"The Biden itinerary was discussed and debated for weeks in Belfast, Dublin and London. Leaving Derry out was not an accident.

“The point is not that Derry has been deprived of a Biden visit. We can all live with that. The point is that, even for the purposes of symbolism and ceremony, the ruling elite could not bring themselves to acknowledge Derry’s right to equal treatment,” said the veteran writer and left-wing activist.

Mr. McCann noted how the campaign for a full-scale university for Derry is now over 60 years old and is one of the unfulfilled ambitions of the civil rights movement of the late 1960s. He was speaking on day two of the US President’s four day visit to Ireland which began in Belfast on Tuesday evening.

“The call for a full-fledged university in the North West goes back to the early days of the civil rights movement. The fact that we haven’t achieved this basic objective is, quite rightly, a source of continuing anger in Derry.

“Derry representatives attending today’s Belfast gathering should make their feelings plain,” he stated.

‘He viewed the Derry railway lines with the dead eye of an undertaker’