Heads Sr. Regina (Teresita Durkan) was the last President of the college, serving from 1974 until 1988. Other presidents or principals included Sister Mary Liguori (Alice Keenan) who purchased Carysfort Park for the college, and Mother Teresita McCormack, President during the 1916 Rising. Staff Noted past academics at the college include Seamus Heaney, Eoin MacNeill, Pat Wall and Éamon de Valera (Professor of Mathematics, 1906–1916). The organist and composer Vincent O'Brien served as professor of music from 1908 until his death in 1948. Others include the writer Sophia Hillan, former senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell taught speech and drama and the mathematician John B. Cosgrave lectured in Carysfort. Closure In 1986 the Minister for Education Gemma Hussey announced the decision to close the 111-year-old College. She attributed the decision to "falling pupil numbers, a young teaching force, which was giving rise to few retirements, and the need to contain public expenditure and achieve 'a better allocation of resources.'". The final students graduated with their teaching degrees from Carysfort College in 1988. For the last graduation ceremony, in October 1988, Seamus Heaney composed some Valedictory Verses. Many of the academic staff of the college transferred, on closure, to: St. Patrick's Teacher Training College (Drumcondra), NIHE (Dublin) (now Dublin City University), St Patrick's College, Maynooth (now NUI Maynooth), Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin. The state had invested several million pounds in renovations that were completed as recently in 1983. The Sisters of Mercy, the owners, had the greater part of the overall property valued at IR£20 million from the sale of the lands and buildings, and agreed to pay the State IR£1.7 million from sale proceeds. The most developed of the estate, including the main buildings, were eventually sold to University College Dublin (UCD) in 1991 for IR£8 million, after much speculation – it was not an unusual thing for the state to get property at a much reduced price at the time. This also led to further controversy as it was claimed that the university college was forced to purchase a property that it neither needed nor wanted – especially as its Belfield campus nearby was more than adequate for future expansion. A large share of the remaining lands was sold for housing, while the national school lands were retained, as were the privately occupied gate lodges. In November 2018 a commemoration event was held to mark the 30th anniversary of