Trinity College, officially the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, is the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin, a research university located in Dublin, Ireland.
The college was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I as “the mother of a university” that was modeled after the college universities of Oxford and Cambridge, however unlike these affiliated institutions, only one college was ever established; as such, the classifications “Trinity College” and “University of Dublin” are generally synonymous for practical purposes. The college is legally included by “the Provost, Fellows, Structure Scholars and other members of the Board,” as laid out by its founding charter.
It is one of the seven ancient universities of Britain and Ireland, in addition to Ireland’s oldest enduring university. Trinity College is extensively considered the most prestigious university in Ireland, and among the most elite academic institutions in Europe.
The college is especially well-known in the fields of Law, Literature and Humanities. In accordance with the formula of ad eundem gradum, a type of acknowledgment that exists among the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the University of Dublin, a graduate of Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin can be conferred with the comparable degree at either of the other two universities without further assessment. Trinity College, Dublin is a sibling college to St John’s College, Cambridge and Oriel College, Oxford.
Originally, Trinity was established outside the city walls of Dublin in the structures of the banned Catholic Augustinian Priory of All Hallows. Trinity College was set up in part to combine the rule of the Tudor monarchy in Ireland, and as a result was the university of the Protestant Ascendancy for much of its history. While Catholics were confessed from 1793, certain constraints on membership of the college remained, as professorships, fellowships and scholarships were reserved for Protestants.
These constraints were raised by an Act of Parliament in 1873. However, from 1871 to 1970, the Catholic Church in Ireland, in turn, prohibited its adherents from attending Trinity College without permission. Women were first confessed to the college as full members in January 1904. The university is a member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), a list of 23 institutions that excel in academic research, and is the only Irish university in the group.
Trinity College was ranked 43rd worldwide by QS World University Rankings in 2009 and is currently ranked 101st. The university has educated some of Ireland’s most famous poets, playwrights and authors, including Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, William Trevor, Oliver Goldsmith and William Congreve, Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett, Ernest Walton and William Cecil Campbell, former Presidents of Ireland Mary McAleese, Douglas Hyde and Mary Robinson, theorists including George Berkeley and Edmund Burke, political leader David Norris and mathematician William Rowan Hamilton. Given its long history, the university likewise finds mention in lots of novels, fables and urban myths.
Trinity College (https://bathroomrenovationdublin.ie) is now surrounded by central Dublin and is located on College Green, opposite the historical Irish Homes of Parliament. The college appropriate occupies 190,000 m2 (47 acres), with much of its buildings ranged around large quadrangles (called ‘squares’) and two playing fields.
Academically, it is divided into 3 professors consisting of 25 schools, providing degree and diploma courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The university is internationally acknowledged as a leading global centre for research and likewise as a world leader in Nanotechnology, Infotech, Immunology, Mathematics, Engineering, Psychology, Politics, English and Humanities.
The admission procedure is extremely competitive, and based specifically on academic merit. The Library of Trinity College is a legal deposit library for Ireland and Great Britain, containing around 7 million printed volumes and significant amounts of manuscripts, consisting of the renowned Book of Kells, which arrived at the college in 1661 for safekeeping after the Cromwellian raids on spiritual institutions.
The enormous collection housed in the Long Room includes an uncommon copy of the 1916 Pronouncement of the Irish Republic and a renowned 15th-century wooden harp which is the design for the current symbol of Ireland. The library itself receives over half a million visitors each year, making it the most crucial one in Ireland.
Learn more about The Book of Kells