A chara, – Rory Cormac and Richard J Aldrich's account, A Long Road to a Landmark Royal Visit (Weekend, October 23rd) states that Queen Elizabeth opened the New University of Ulster in Coleraine as part of her jubilee visit in 1977.
The university was opened, controversially, in 1968, and was one of the grievances felt by Northern Ireland’s Catholic community, who felt it should have been sited in Derry, rather than Protestant Coleraine.
In 1977, the queen performed the much less controversial task of opening the Riverside Theatre on the campus. I write as the former university archivist, and indeed as a student in Coleraine at the time.
– Is mise,
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JOE McLAUGHLIN,
Bonnyrigg, Scotland.