UCC’s first female engineer honoured with building title

What a woman.

The first female engineer who graduated from University College Cork has been honoured with her own building at the college. The civil engineering building at UCC has been renamed the Iris Ashley Cummins building after the graduate. The hockey player has represented both the university and Ireland at a senior level and Iris graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in 1915. She later became the first female land surveyor for the Irish Land Commission and the first female Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland. The new name for the building came as the university is highlighting "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day" this Thursday. UCC President John O'Halloran said that Iris was an independent and creative thinker whose pioneering actions challenged the gender norms of her day. Her grandnephew Don Hearn attended the naming ceremony at the university and said that it made her family very proud to see her memory being kept alive today. "I think she would be especially pleased to know that this is the first of UCC's buildings to be named after a female pioneer," he said.