Overview
of the River Bann in Coleraine with views to the Causeway Coast and the hills of County Donegal to the West.
Originally, the concept of a new university was well received by many nationalists in Northern Ireland. This was due to a feeling of bias that unionist communities, or towns, received better facilities and investment. As a result, the initial desire of nationalists was to form a new university institution at the already well established Magee College in Derry, County Londonderry, a predominantly nationalist community. Some thought at the time that the reasoning for establishing the university in Coleraine over Derry was a desire to pull population towards the East of Northern Ireland as the university would strengthen the 'Belfast-Coleraine-Portadown' economic triangle, which happened to form the edge of the nationalist/unionist communities.
It was suggested that this was part of a unionist agenda by Terence O'Neill, the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, to draw nationalist communities from the West into the East and to help break them up. There was no substantial evidence to back up this claim, however it was the idea that led to a number of protests and rallying in opposition. As violent protests continued, the result was that the Lockwood Report was accepted by vote, and O'Neill left the office of Prime Minister, allegedly after being forced to resign
