Trinity College Chapel

About

A medieval University of Dublin was founded in 1320 under a papal brief issued by Pope Clement V in 1311, and the university maintained an intermittent existence at St. Patrick's Cathedral over the following centuries, but it did not flourish and finally came to an end during the Reformation period. After that, and some debate about a new university at St. Patrick's Cathedral, in 1592 a small group of Dublin citizens obtained a charter by way of letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I, incorporating Trinity College at the former site of the disbanded Augustinian Priory of All Hallows, immediately southeast of the city walls, provided by the Corporation of Dublin.

The college's first provost was the Archbishop of Dublin, Adam Loftus (after whose former college at Cambridge the institution was named), and he was provided with two initial Fellows, James Hamilton and James Fullerton. Two years after the foundation, a few Fellows and students began to work in the new college, which then lay around one small square.

During the initial 50 years following the foundation, the community increased the endowments, considerable landed estates were secured, and new fellowships and academic chairs were established. The books which formed the foundation of the great library were acquired, either by private purchase or donations, a curriculum was devised, and statutes were framed. Trinity College Dublin is one of the two sister colleges of both Oriel College, Oxford, and St John's College, Cambridge, and through mutual incorporation, the three universities have retained an academic partnership since 1636.

During the 18th century, Trinity College was seen as the university of the Protestant Ascendancy. The Parliament of Ireland, meeting on the other side of College Green, made generous grants for building the College's 18th-century neoclassical Parliament square. The first building of this period was the Old Library, begun in 1712, followed by The Printing House and the Dining Hall. During the second half of the century, the Parliament Square slowly emerged. The great building drive was mostly completed by the early 19th century with the inauguration of the Botany Bay, the square which derives its name in part from the herb garden it once contained. Today, the square contains Trinity College's own Botanic Gardens.

The 19th century was also marked by important developments in the professional schools. The law school was reorganized after the middle of the century. Medical studies had been taught in the college since 1711, but it was only after the establishment of the school on a firm basis by legislation in 1800, and under the inspiration of one Macartney, that it was in a position to play its full part, with such teachers as Graves and Stokes, in the great age of Dublin medicine. The Engineering School was established in 1842, and was among the first of its kind in Ireland and Britain.

Trinity was originally the university of the Protestant Ascendancy ruling elite for much of its history, given the conditions for its establishment. While Catholics were admitted from the college's foundation, for a period, graduation required the taking of an oath that was objectionable to them. This requirement was removed under the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, before the equivalent change at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, but certain restrictions on membership of the college remained; professorships, fellowships and scholarships remained reserved only for Protestants. In December 1845, Denis Caulfield Heron was the subject of a hearing at Trinity College. He had previously been examined and, on merit, been declared a Scholar of the college, but had not been allowed to take up his place due to his Catholic religion. Heron appealed to the Irish courts, which issued a writ of mandamus requiring the case to be adjudicated by the Archbishop of Dublin and the Primate of Ireland. The decision of Richard Whately and John George de la Poer Beresford was that Heron would remain excluded from Scholarship. This decision confirmed that students who were not Anglicans ( Presbyterians were also affected) could not be elected as Scholars, Fellows, or be made a professor. Within three decades of this, however, all disabilities and restrictions imposed on Catholics were repealed. In 1873, all religious tests, except for those relating to entry to the Divinity school, were abolished by an Act of Parliament.

In 1871, just prior to the full repeal of all limitations on Catholic students, Irish Catholic bishops, responding to the increased ease with which Catholics could attend an institution which the bishops saw as thoroughly Protestant in ethos, and in light of the establishment of the Catholic University of Ireland, implemented a general ban on Catholics entering Trinity College, with few exceptions. "The ban", despite its longevity, is associated in the popular mind with the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid, as he was made responsible for enforcing it from 1956 until the Catholic Bishops of Ireland rescinded it in 1970, shortly before McQuaid's retirement. Until 1956, it was the responsibility of each local bishop.

In April 1900, Queen Victoria visited College Green in Dublin. Women were admitted to Trinity College as full members for the first time in 1904. From 1904 to 1907, women from Oxford and Cambridge, who were admitted but not granted degrees, came to Trinity College to receive their ad eundem degree ; they were known as Steamboat ladies and the fees they paid helped to fund Trinity Hall.

In 1907, the Chief Secretary for Ireland proposed the reconstitution of the University of Dublin. Under which the Queen's Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway and a new college for Roman Catholics were also to be included. A "Dublin University Defence Committee" was created and successfully campaigned against any change to the status quo. The Irish Catholic bishops also declined to give support to the proposal as Catholic students would be attracted into an atmosphere inimical to their religious faith. Ultimately this episode led to the creation of the National University of Ireland. [ citation needed ]

From 1910 to 1922, Trinity operated the Dublin University Officers' Training Corps to train cadets for the British Army. During the 1916 Easter Rising, rebels targeted Trinity, which was successfully defended by over 100 cadets led by Captain Ernest Alton and fourteen Dominion troops who were on leave until British reinforcements arrived on Wednesday. Following the Rising, the Dublin University MP, Sir Edward Carson, offered a silver cup to the Dublin UOTC in thanks, which the university holds in trust. Local businessmen formed a commemorative committee and raised £700 for two large silver cups and smaller replicas for all members of the UOTC who participated in the defence of the university.

From July 1917 to March 1918, the Irish Convention met in the college in an attempt to address the political aftermath of the Easter Rising. Subsequently, following the failure of the convention to reach "substantial agreement", the Irish Free State was set up in 1922. In the post-independence period, Trinity College suffered from a cool relationship with the new state. [ citation needed ] On 3 May 1955, the provost, A.J. McConnell, wrote in the Irish Times that certain state-funded County Council scholarships excluded Trinity College from the list of approved institutions. This, he suggested, amounted to religious discrimination, which was forbidden by the Constitution.

During the early 20th century, the students and faculty of the university also participated in the First World War, in particular during the Gallipoli campaign.

It has also been said of the period before Ireland left the Commonwealth that, "The overwhelming majority of the undergraduates were ex-unionists or, if from Northern Ireland, unionists. Loyalty to the Crown was instinctive and they were proud to be British subjects and Commonwealth citizens", and that "The College still clung, so far as circumstances permitted, to its pre-Treaty loyalties, symbolized by the flying of the Union Jack on suitable occasions and a universal wearing of poppies on Armistice Day, the chapel being packed for the two minutes' silence followed by a lusty rendering of 'God Save the King...". "But by the close of the 1960s... Trinity, with the overwhelming majority of its undergraduate population coming from the Republic, to a great extent conformed to local patterns".

The School of Commerce was established in 1925, and the School of Social Studies in 1934. Also in 1934, the first female professor was appointed.

Young men may loot, perjure and shoot And even have carnal knowledge. But however depraved, their souls will be saved If they don't go to Trinity College.

— verse popular in the 1950s, at the height of Archbishop McQuaid's efforts

In 1944, the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid required Catholics in the Dublin archdiocese to obtain a special dispensation before entering the university, under threat of automatic excommunication. [ citation needed ] The ban was extended nationally at the Plenary Synod of Maynooth in August 1956. Despite this sectarianism, 1958 saw the first Catholic reach the Board of Trinity as a Senior fellow. [ failed verification ]

In 1962 the School of Commerce and the School of Social Studies amalgamated to form the School of Business and Social Studies. [ citation needed ] In 1969 several schools and departments were grouped into Faculties as follows: Arts (Humanities and Letters); Business, Economic and Social Studies; Engineering and Systems Sciences; Health Sciences (since October 1977 all undergraduate teaching in dental science in the Dublin area has been in Trinity College); and Science.

In the late 1960s, there was a proposal for University College Dublin, of the National University of Ireland, to become a constituent college of a newly reconstituted University of Dublin. This plan, suggested by Brian Lenihan and Donogh O'Malley, was dropped after officials of both universities opposed it.

In 1970 the Catholic Church lifted its ban on Catholics attending the college without special dispensation. At the same time, Trinity College authorities invited the appointment of a Catholic chaplain to be based in the college. There are now two such Catholic chaplains.