[5] Patrick O'Donnell, PC, UDC, the Vice-Chairman of the Donegal Vocational Education Committee, accepted the building's key in May 1971.

[6] The inaugural meeting of an entity known as the "council", acting in an advisory capacity on policy and resources to board of management (at same meeting O'Donnell was elected chairman), announced that the instruction of technicians would begin early the following month, reported the Donegal News early in September 1971, with a three-year course on business studies, a two-year course in secretarial studies and two-year courses on civil and mechanical engineering the first to be advertised.

[7] Dr D O'Hare admitted that the scholarship grant was inadequate and would affect admissions from elsewhere in Donegal but said the Regional Technical College was "here to serve the people".

[8] The Regional Technical College began functioning on a Tuesday in October 1971 with an attendance of 170, some travelling all the way from Glencolmcille, and staff that were not very experienced with the eldest being 35 years of age.

In the 1970s, the Donegal News reported that "About 39 men walked off the site... of the new School of Technology, Port Road, Letterkenny on Monday morning".

[3] Parts of the facility moved to St Conal's, the building housing the Donegal District Lunatic Asylum, in 1979.

[15] In late 1997, a rebranding exercise determined the adoption of the title "Letterkenny Institute of Technology", to move it in line with the other Regional Technical Colleges scattered in various other urban settlements throughout the country.

[17] LYIT was among Higher Education institutions to feature in a 2021 survey by the Higher Education Authority on sexual harassment, with one third of female respondents experiencing it and more than half of students saying they had been harassed by sexual jokes, comments on their bodies or appearance and enforced efforts to speak about sex.

[21][22] The Institute also co-operates closely on many courses and much research with Magee College, part of the University of Ulster, in nearby Derry.

The ladies' soccer team won both the championship for all of the Division 1 Colleges league and the O'Regan Plate competition in 2018.

They then opted to contest the 2020 Sigerson Cup, not once meeting any of the universities and coming undone against an unfancied IT Carlow, in part through lack of discipline, and with the game taking place in their own province at that.

The School is a hub of activity providing business and practical training which prepares graduates for a wide variety of careers in culinary arts, hospitality management, and tourism.