Trinity College, Dublin

Chapter IV

Trinity College, Dublin

The history of Dublin would be incomplete did it not include that of its University. Though Trinity College does not bear to Dublin that intimate relation which the Colleges of Oxford and cities which they respectively occupy, yet the bonds uniting to the centre of Irish learning are strong and permanent; and Trinity College has struck its impress deeply on the lives of many of Ireland’s greatest sons, has moulded and shaped their destinies, and through them has profoundly influenced the history of the Irish nation.

The earliest attempt at an Irish University was based on a Papal Bull of the early 14th century. Little progress, however, was made on this foundation, and at the close of the 15th century another Bull was obtained from Pope Sixtus IV. under which the Dominicans again attempted the foundation of a University in Dublin.

Once more did the scheme flicker out; but the close of the next century saw a wave of that intellectual activity which was surging over Europe strike on the shores of Ireland; and a little group of scholars appealed to the Mayor and Corporation of Dublin, then the all-powerful rulers of the city, for their help in carrying into effect a project which had been already mooted by Stanihurst in the Irish House of Commons, of which he had thrice been Speaker.

The Corporation in their petition to the Lord Deputy gave ample evidence of the sincerity of their request, by offering to grant to the University, should it be established, a substantial endowment in the sequestrated lands and buildings of the monastery of All I Hallows, immediately outside the city walls.

This monastery, founded on Le Hogges by King Dermod MacMurrough in 1166, had been bestowed on the Dublin Corporation in 1538 by King Henry VIII., and had since remained practically derelict, producing only a rent of £20 per annum. The petition was entrusted by Sidney, the Lord Deputy, to Henry Usher, Archdeacon of Dublin, a graduate of both the English Universities, for presentation to the English Privy Council, and by them was favourably received.

A warrant was issued empowering the Mayor and Corporation to proceed with the erection of the College, and a charter was obtained from Queen Elizabeth, nominating to the provostship of the new University Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Armagh, to which primacy he had been appointed at the age of 28.

An appeal to all the Irish baronies for the necessary funds produced the considerable sum of £2,000, equivalent to some £16,000 in the present day; the foundation stone was laid on 16th March 1591, and in January 1593 the College was opened for the ‘admission of students.’ (*Trinity college; Dublin, *Professor William MacNeile Dixon.)With Archbishop Loftus were associated as fellows Lucas Challoner, and the Scotch masters of the Dublin Grammar School, James Fullerton and James Hamilton. The first of these is commemorated by an alabaster tomb at the rear of the present chapel, with the inscription:-

‘Conditur hoc tumulo Chaloneri triste cadaver

Cujus ope et precibus conditur ista domus.’

The total income of a College founded, in the words of Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam, ‘for the benefytt of the whole countrey,’ only reached at first the miserably insufficient sum of £300 per annum; but Queen Elizabeth in 1598 endowed it with £200 yearly under the Privy Seal; and James I., that noted patron of learning, assigned to the foundation a pension of £4,500 per annum, together with considerable grants from the forfeited estates in the province of Ulster, thus increasing the available yearly income to more than £1,000.

The buildings, too, gave little promise of their present stateliness, consisting only of a small quadrangular pile of red brick of three storeys, between the present Campanile and the Theatre. On the north was the original steeple of the Priory of All Hallows, and the tideway of the Liffey practically washed the northern front. This was, for more than a century, the main front of the College; the western entrance not being in use before 1697, and the present handsome west front, with the square behind it, dating only from 1752.

In 1617 a bridewell, shown on Speed’s map of 1610, situated on Hoggen Green, due west of the College, was purchased from the city by the University for £30, and converted by them into Trinity Hall, a place of residence for students. It was, however, found inconvenient, and in 1640 had fallen into a ruinous condition, It was soon after occupied by Dr. John Stearne, one of the Fellows, and became the meeting-place of the city physicians.

In 1630 the University obtained a grant of the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Bridge Street, together with the house and chapel of the Jesuits in Back Lane. The former was known as St. Stephen’s or Kildare Hall, and is mentioned by Sir William Brereton, who visited Dublin in 1635; and the latter were remodelled and named the New College. (It was soon discontinued, and after a time lapsed again into the hands of the Jesuits, and became a Government Hospital under Charles Ir., and finally in 1672 a charter issued for reopening in it the old City Free School. It is referred to in the *Calendar of Ancient Records of the City of Dublin, *under date 23rd August 1671, as ‘The Great house commonly called the Hospitall situate in Back Lane.’)

Again in 1658 it was proposed by Henry Cromwell that a new College should be founded on the lands of Baggotrath, and a Free School in the Liberty of St. Sepulchre’s beside the Cathedral of St Patrick, but this project was ultimately abandoned.

Under the provostship of Sir William Temple (1609-1627) the number of Fellows was increased from four to 16, then first divided into Senior and Junior Fellows; and a Professor of Theological Controversies, now the Regius Professor of Divinity, with two Deans, a Bursar and other minor officials were appointed.

The rule of celibacy for the Scholars and Fellows was introduced by Bedell, Provost 1627-29, afterwards Bishop of Kilmore. He also fostered the study of Irish amongst the undergraduates, and arranged for a lecture in Irish and for Irish prayers.

Under the Viceroyalty of Strafford, and the provost-ship of his nominee, William Chappel, the College statutes were altered under a new charter of Charles

1. By this the number of visitors was ‘reduced to two, the Vice-Chancellor and the Archbishop of Dublin, the tenure of Fellowships was extended from seven years to an optional tenure for life, the appointment of the Provost and the power of making statutes reserved to the Crown, and the authority of the Chancellor and of the Provost considerably extended. … The government of the College was committed entirely to the Provost and seven Senior Fellows,’ and Roman Catholics were excluded from the Fellowships. (Trinity College Dublin, Prof. William MacNeile Dixon.)

The College passed through grievous times during the rebellion of 1641 and the subsequent troubles. Rents could be collected neither in Ulster nor Munster, and the College plate had to be melted down or sold to provide for imme’iate necessities.

The year 1678 saw the appointment as Provost of an Oxford scholar in Narcissus Marsh. His tenure of office will long be remembered in Dublin, of which he became Archbishop, by the foundation of the valuable library, which bears his name, attached to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. While Provost he commenced the building of a new Chapel and Hail, finished by his successor.

But evil times were again in store for the College. The line of action pursued by James II**. **towards the English Universities which tended to cost that monarch his crown, was also followed towards the Irish University. In 1687 a royal *mandamus *was issued to admit a Roman Catholic named Doyle to a Fellowship in Trinity College. The non-compliance of. the authorities was punished by the withdrawal of the Concordatum Fund of £400 a year, and the College, already hampered by the expenses of the new buildings, was once more driven to the expedient of selling the College plate.

An attempt to ship 5,000 ounces to England was met by the refusal of Tyrconnel, the Lord Deputy, to sanction its removal, and the College was reduced to great straits. But worse was to follow. On 12th March 1689 King James landed in Ireland, and on the 16th September the College ‘was seized on for a garrison by the King’s order, the Fellows, turned out, and a Regiment of Foot took possession and. continued in it.’ (Register of Trinity College)

The Chapel was used as a storehouse, and, in the words of Archbishop King ‘many of the chambers were turned into prisons for Protestants. The garrison destroyed the doors, wainscots, closets and floors, and damnified it in the building and furniture of private roomes, to at least the value of two thousand pounds.’ (The State of the Protestants of Ireland. London, 1691)

The Provost nominated by King James was Dr. Michael Moore, a Roman Catholic secular priest, who together with the King’s chaplain, Rev. Teigue Macarthy, who had been made custodian of the Library, did much to preserve the College from further pillage and destruction, and interested themselves on behalf of the Protestant prisoners within its walls.

Such broad-minded liberality, exhibited at a period of violent passion, confers honour on the Church of which they were priests, and Trinity College has not been slow to acknowledge her indebtedness to her only Roman Catholic Provost. The opposition of Dr. Moore to the proposal of Father Petre to hand over the College to the Jesuits, incurred for him the royal disfavour, and he retired to Paris, in the University of which city he afterwards filled the Rector’s chair.

The victory of William III. at the Boyne, and the flight of James II., allowed those Fellows who had fled to England to return, and matters assumed their wonted aspect. On the 9th January 1693 the first centenary of the University was celebrated with great solemnity. ‘Preces tempore meridiano solenniores (una cum concione) in sacello habebuntur.’ In the afternoon ‘flora secunda promeridiano, Post musicum Instrumentorum concentum,’ (College Rgister)** a Latin panegyric in honour of Queen Elizabeth. was pronounced by Peter Browne, FTCD, followed by a ‘Carmen saeculare’ in Latin hexameters, and laudations of King James I., Charles I, Charles II., and William and Mary. King James II. **was, for obvious reasons, ignored, but the City of Dublin secured a grateful recognition of the benefits conferred by her magistrates on the infant University.

After a Latin debate and a ‘Carmen saeculare lyricum,’ recited by Anthony Dopping, son of the Bishop of Meath, Eugene Lloyd, Proctor of the University, closed the Acts ‘Discedentes prosequitur perita Musicorum manus.” (College Register) Nahum Tate, Poet Laureate, contributed an ode on this occasion, as befitted a graduate of Dublin University.

The discipline of the College had become very lax during the early years of the 18th century, but the long tenure of the provostship of Richard Baldwin (1717-58) did much to rectify matters in this respect. He was tyrannical, overbearing, and unjust, and did little for the intellectual development of the University; but he enforced some degree of order, and proved his affection for his College by bequeathing to it not only his savings of £24,000, but in addition real estate to the value of over £50,000.

His monument in the Theatre represents the dying Provost, on a sarcophagus of porphyry, turning affectionately to the University who weeps over him, while an angel points to a crown of immortality which she holds before his closing eyes. The monument was the work of Hewetson, a Dublin artist, who executed the work in his studio in Rome at a cost, including carriage, of £1,500.

Baldwin’s successor Francis Andrews was a man of very different stamp, as may be inferred ‘from his sobriquet of ‘Frank with many friends.’ His position in the fashionable society of the day enabled him to serve the University by procuring through his influence those grants from the Irish House of Commons to which she owes much of her present architectural magnificence.

The library, it is true, dates from 1712-33, and the printing-house from 1734; but the west front was commenced, by a grant of the House of Commons, in 1752; the dining-hall was rebuilt in 1761, the examination theatre in 1777, and the chapel in 1787-98.

The bicentenary of Trinity** **College was allowed to go uncelebrated, but a noble memorial of its date is to be found in the Act passed in 1793 admitting Roman Catholics to the degrees of the University of Dublin.

In this connection it is interesting to note the progressive action of Trinity College in** all such matters. ‘More than half a century before the Test Act, which admitted Nonconformists to the membership of English Universities, the degrees of the University of Dublin were thrown open to the world. She was the first University to grant degrees to Jews. In 1845 she funded scholarships for students of any religious creed who declined to take the declaration at that time required from candidates for scholarships on the foundation. In 1858 she established studentships open to members of any religious community, and five out of 18 of those awarded in the first nine years went to Roman Catholics. In 1873 she gave her cordial support to the Act which abolished religious tests, and threw open to all comers her scholarships, her fellowships, and her professorships, with the single and unavoidable exception of those in the Divinity School. In 1880 and again in 1890 she elected a Roman Catholic Fellow. (In 1902 **another Roman Catholic Fellow was elected in the person of Mr. Stephen B. Kelleher, selected at the suggestion of the Provost to sit on the Royal Commission of Inquiry appointed in 1906.) These are the services rendered by Trinity College to the Liberal cause.’ (Trinity College, Dublin. Professor W. MacNeile Dixon.) **We may add, the last instance of this liberality was the admission of women students to the degree’s of the University by Royal Letters Patent received 16th January 1904, and in June 1904 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on Miss Isabella Mulvany, one of the earliest women graduates of the Royal University, and that of D.Litt. on Miss Jane Barlow and Mrs. Sophie Bryant, the first women to hold the degrees of any of the older Universities.

Amongst 18th-century Fellows probably none is so well known as the famous ‘Jacky’ Barrett, immortalised by Lever in *Charles O’Malley, *and the subject of as many stories perhaps as Dean Swift himself. His learning, his miserliness, his uncleanliness, his strange oaths, his voluntary confinement to his rooms, his consequent surprise at sight of a live sheep or of a turkey-cock, the admiration excited in him by his first view of the sea, which had once washed the walls of the College in which his life was spent, are all well known. He has laid Biblical critics under an obligation by his acute discovery of the palimpsest Codex known as Z, and has contributed to the mirth of nations by such stories as that of his cat and her kitten.

The visit of George IV. was not unnoted in the University. The presentation of the usual loyal address induced that monarch to signify, *more suo, *his gracious intention of dining in the College. Temporary vestibules and covered galleries were erected connecting the library with the theatre, in the latter of which the banquet took place. A more academic occasion for hospitality was afforded by the occasion of the visit of the British Association in 1835, when such distinguished visitors as Agassiz, de Toqueville, and Montalembert were entertained, and the honour of knighthood conferred by the Earl of Mulgrave, then Viceroy, on William Rowan Hamilton.

The year 1858 witnessed one of the most regrettable incidents in the history of the University. The ‘Town’ and ‘Gown’ riots, which had, in the 17th century, taken the form of serious conflicts between the resident undergraduates and the ‘Ormonde’ butchers, had by the middle of the 19th century been modified into the throwing of squibs and bags of flour by the former, during public festivities, amongst such citizens as were supposed to hold, political views obnoxious to a majority of the students.

The State entry or departure of a Viceroy afforded, and even still affords, a peculiarly favourable occasion for such a display. The return of the Earl of Eglinton for a second term of office had excited much popular enthisuam, and the conduct of the undergraduates in the space before the west front of the College was more than usually turbulent.

Colonel Browne, Superintendent of Police, lost his temper, and called on the colonel commanding the detachment of Scots Greys, who ‘lined’ College Green, to charge the students. This the colonel very properly declined to do, whereupon Colonel Browne ordered his own mounted police to charge with drawn sabres, followed by the constables on foot with their batons; and the unarmed students were savagely maltreated, one particularly inoffensive youth actually losing his life from the effects. Colonel Browne was obliged to resign his post, and no such incident has since marred the relations between the University and the civil authorities.

The tercentenary of the University was celebrated with great magnificence in 1893 on Tuesday, 5th July, and the following days, when representatives of 75 universities and of learned bodies from all the quarters of the globe were present at the festivities. A splendid memento of the occasion is to be seen in the Graduates’ Memorial Building facing the library in the great quadrangle, the cost of which was subscribed by past students as a token of affection for their *Alma Mater. *The *Book of Trinity College, *prepared for the occasion, formed a fitting souvenir for each guest who took part in the proceedings.

When we come to examine structurally the College of to-day, we are struck by the fact that of the original buildings of All Hallows, or of the College of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts, not a vestige remains. The earliest building which still survives, the east side of Library Square, facing the main entrance, dates only from the reign of Queen Anne. The removal, in 1894, of the old roof and the picturesque dormer windows of the attic storey has completely altered the character of these buildings; but the happy though of veiling the red brick walls with Ampelopsis Veitchii lends colour in summer and autumn to the otherwise somewhat cold and repellent aspect of the quadrangle.

The main characteristic of the College is the sense of roominess, the absence of cramping confinement in her spacious enclosures. In all some 28 acres, now in the very heart of a busy city, are included within her boundary walls. The west front, facing College Green, is a Palladian façade 300 feet in length and 65 feet in height. The great gateway is flanked on each side by two Corinthian column resting on bases of rustic ashlar, and supporting a bold pediment surmounted by an entablature. In the centre of this is a clock, a similar one occupying the same place in the interior facade, the cast-iron dials of which, 6 feet 6 inches in diameter, within and without the College, are enamelled the College colour, royal blue, the ancient national colour of Ireland.

The wings of the front are formed by projecting pavilions, decorated with coupled Corinthian pilasters, supporting an attic storey crowned with a balustrade. Passing through the gateway we enter Parliament Square (So called in commemoration of the grant of the Irish Parliament)** **through an octagon vestibule 72 feet in length, with a groined and vaulted roof, piercing the main building, and having on the left the porter’s lodge.

Above the gateway, extending the full depth from east to west; is the Regent House, 62 feet by 46 feet, now used as an examination hall. It is approached from the gateway by a handsome staircase, on the right of the vestibule, the supports of which are singularly massive and rich in their design. The interior facade is simpler, and the pavilions are replaced by the residentiary buildings of Parliament Square, running at right angle’s to the main front. At the extremities of these are, on the left or north side, the Chapel, and on the right or south, the Theatre, while in the centre rises the Campanile, beyond which is Library Square.

The Chapel, designed by Sir William Chambers, erected in 1787-89 at a cost of £22,000, has a handsome tetrastyle portico of four Corinthian pillars supporting a pediment, and is approached by an ante-chapel in which is the doorway. The Chapel proper, facing north and south, is 83 feet in length and 40 feet in width. Over the entrance is a gallery and organ-loft, the front of carved oak, and the north end terminates in a semi-circular apse. The walls are panelled in oak, elaborately carved, to a height of 12 feet, above which are the window’s, the piers between which are ornamented with fluted Ionic pilasters, supporting an ornamental frieze and cornice.

The coved ceiling is adorned with stucco work of florid Italian design. In the apse are memorial windows dating from the close of last century. The centre window over the communion table was erected by Dr. Butcher, Bishop of Meath, in memory of Archbishop Ussher. The organ is mainly modern, but the choir manual formed part of the original instrument by Green, organ-builder to George III.

Facing the Chapel is the Theatre, or Examination Hall, of precisely similar architectural exterior. The interior, 70 feet in. length, exclusive of the semicircular apse, is lighted by three windows in the upper end, and by a row of small lights above the cornice. The walls are adorned with 12 composite pilasters, ornamented with stucco scroll-work, each on a rustic basement 10 feet in height.

Resting on the pilasters is a stucco frieze and cornice by Italian artists. The painted ceiling, by Mayers, springing from the cornice, similar in design to that of the Chapel, was executed tinder the direction of Sir William Chambers. From the centre hangs the graceful carved oak candelabrum, constructed to hold 60 wax-lights, belonging to the old House of Commons.

Over the portico is an organ-loft containing a small organ, said to have been taken from one of the wrecked vessels of the Spanish Armada. This is, however, a popular error, as it was captured in 1702 by Admiral Rooke in a vessel in Vigo Bay. The Duke of Ormonde, who commanded the troops on board the fleet, seems to have claimed the prize, and presented it to Trinity College on his appointment as Viceroy the following year. The case is that of the original organ, now surmounted by the Royal Arms, but the pipes are those of an organ built by Telford of Dublin for the College Choral Society in 1837.

The theatre contains, besides the monument of Provost Baldwin, in the five panels of the eastern side modern portraits of Queen. Elizabeth, Archbishop Ussher, Archbishop King, Bishop Berkeley, (This portrait is supposed by Professor Dixon to represent Provost Peter Brown) and Provost Baldwin, and in those on the western Edmund Burke, by Hoppner, William Molyneux, John Fitz-Gibbon, Earl of Clare, and Dean Swift.

The Campanile, a handsome structure, standing opposite the entrance in the great quadrangle between Parliament Square and Library Square, replaced the old belfry designed by Cassels, taken down in 1791, and was the gift of Lord John George Beresford, Primate of all Ireland, in 1852. From a square Doric basement on a podium of rusticated granite, rises a graceful circular belfry of eight Corinthian pillars, standing on pedestals which rest on a stage of circular steps, and surmounted by a dome representing overlapping leaves, crowned by an open lantern and smaller dome terni mating in a gilt cross. On the keystones of the arches of the base are carved heads of Homer, Socrates, Plato, and Demosthenes, and above the four angles of this storey are seated figures representing Divinity, Science, Medicine, and Law, by the late Thomas Kirk, R.H.A. In the portion above the circular steps the material employed is Portland stone, the basement being of granite. The total height is about 100 feet. The bell, weighing 37 cwt., is too large to be swung in the belfry, and is therefore only rung by chiming.

On the right or south of the Campanile is the Library, opposite to which is the new building, designed by Sir Thomas Drew, of the Graduates’ Memorial, and the square is closed on the east by the Queen Anne building already referred to. The Memorial Building now serves as the Students’ Union, and houses the College Societies, the leading ones of which are the College Historical Society, founded in 1747 by Edmund Burke under the name of the Historical Club; the University Philosophical Society, and, the Theological Society.

Beside the Chapel, but standing somewhat back from it, is the Dining-hall, and at the rear of the Graduates’ Memorial is the residential square familiarly known as ‘Botany Bay,’ and east of Library Square, behind the Queen Anne building, is New Square. At the back of the Library is the Fellows’ Garden and south of New Square is the fine expanse of the College Park, separated from Nassau Street by a substantial granite wall surmounted by iron railings 7 feet in height, and replacing in 1842 the ugly brick wall erected in 1688.

The Library, erected 1712-32, is, as befits its contents, a plain and sober stone building 270 feet in length, including the eastern and western pavilions. The basement storey was originally an open ambulatory with double arcaded cloisters divided by a central wall. The constantly increasing demand for space led, in 1892, to the walling up of these to the injury of the architectural effect, but greatly to the convenience of readers.

The two upper storeys are surmounted by an entablature and balustrade. The interior leaves nothing to be desired. Including the east wing, now occupied by the Fagel (The library of M. Greffier Fagel, Pensionary of Holland, consisting of 20,000** **volumes, removed to England for sale in 1794, was purchased in 1802 for £10,000 by the Board of Erasmus Smith, and presented by them to the College.) library, the great room extends nearly 240 feet in length, ‘and the breadth and height are so proportioned as to give the eye the impression of distance without narrowness, while the galleries and curved ceiling suggest space, and about 100 magnificent windows flood the whole with light.’ (Trinity College, Dublin. Professor W. MacNeile Dixon) **It has, indeed, been declared to be the finest room in Europe applied to the purposes of a library.

Between the windows on both sides are lofty oaken partitions forming stalls formerly fitted with seats; these have been replaced by short book-cases. The partitions terminate in fluted Corinthian columns of carved oak connected by a cornice supporting a balustrade, also of carved oak, forming the front of a gallery furnished with similar stalls.

In front of each of the columns is a pedestal on which stands a white marble bust. The first of these were the work of Roubiliac, then a comparatively unknown sculptor, recommended by Sir Edward Walpole to the College in 1743. He executed 15 of these busts, including that of Swift, and possibly that of his friend Dr. Delany.

The contents of the Library are of much greater interest than the building, admirable as is the design of the latter. The origin of the collection is probably unique in the history of libraries. On the suppression in 1601 of the Munster rebellion, the English army in Ireland subscribed a sum of £700 for the purchase of books to be presented to the College. In nine years 4,000 volumes had been acquired, many of them now of great rarity and interest.

Fired by the example of these ‘souldiers,’ the Parliamentary army in Ireland purchased in 1661 the library of the great Archbishop Ussher, whom straitened means had forced to bequeath his books to his daughter, who was compelled by Cromwell to accept the offer of the English soldiery.

Further grants, bequests, and donations added largely from time to time to the contents of the Library; and in 1801 Trinity** **College acquired the right to claim, within one year of publication, a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom. The number of books and MSS. now probably exceeds a quarter of a million.

The contents of the Library are too varied and interesting to admit of any detailed account. *The Book of Kells, *probably written in the eighth century, justly termed ‘the most beautiful book in the world,’ overshadows its Latin companions *The Book of Armagh *(807 A.D.**), **in its handsome embossed satchel, *The Book of Mulling, The Book of Dimma, *and The Book of Durrow.

Of at least equal interest is the 12th-century *Book of Leinster, *in the Irish vernacular, and the later Yellow Book of Lecan. Oriental MSS. and Egyptian papyri are not wanting in **the collection; and the *Codex Z, *already referred to, and the sixth-century *Codex Usserianus *are representative of early Greek and Latin MSS.

The celebrated Irish harp with sounding-board of oak, fitted for thirty strings, and believed to have belonged to Brian Boru, is of undoubted historic interest. Two conflicting versions of its subsequent history are current; but they agree in stating that it was brought to Rome by Donogh, son of Brian, and presented by a later Pope either to Henry VIII.** or to Charles II., **from either of whom it passed to an Earl of Clanricarde, and eventually came into the possession of the Right Honourable William Conyngham, who presented it to Trinity College. Dr. George Petrie assigned the harp to the year 1400, basing his conclusion on the silver badge attached to it on which are the arms of O’Neill, armorial bearings dating only from the 14th century. But as the carving beneath the badge is continuous, this argument loses much of its weight.

The Library also contains some early Irish specimens of gold and silver Celtic work, amongst which is the largest gold *fibula *yet found in Ireland, weighing 33 oz. 4 dwt, Its ornamentation seems to point to pre-Christian origin.

The Dining-hall was built from the plans of Cassels, who died before its completion about 1761, the nucleus of its cost being provided by a bequest of £1,000 from Dr. Elwood, Vice-Provost, in 1740.

Previous to its erection, the fellows and students dined in a large and spacious room flagged and open to the air at both ends, graphically described as ‘the coldest room in Europe.’ The present Hall has a handsome granite front 50 feet in width, between the Chapel and the Graduates’ Memorial Building. Above a spacious flight of 10 steps are six Ionic pilasters supporting an angular pediment, in which is a clock, constructed by Chancellor in 1846, which, previous to 1870, kept the ‘College Time,’ a quarter of an hour behind the rest of Dublin.

Passing through a lofty vestibule the dining-room is entered, a fine apartment 70 feet long by 35 feet broad, wainscotted with oak panels to a height of 12 feet. The room is lit by four round-headed windows on its eastern side, opposite to which are recesses, finished with stucco mouldings, and containing full-length portraits of Henry Grattan, Barry Yelverton, William Downes, Walter Hussey Burgh, Arthur, Viscount Kilwarden, William, Earl of Rosse, and Henry Flood.

At the south end, over the entrance door, are portraits of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Chancellor, 1728, Archbishop John George Beresford, and Hugh MacCalmont Cairns. (First Earl Cairns, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Lord Chancellor of England in Mr. Disraeli’s government of 1874, and Chancellor of Dublin University from 1867 until his death in 1885.) The coved ceiling springs, at a height of 35 feet, from a bold cornice, also in stucco work of Italian design. At the north end is a large Venetian window flanked by portraits of Arthur Price, Archbishop of Cashel, and Provost Richard Baldwin.

Near the Fellows’ Table is the interesting wooden pulpit, removed from the old chapel, from which the scholars of the House pronounce the quaint Latin graces before and after meat. Over the vestibule is the Common Room, 50 feet long by 30 feet broad, adorned with portraits of distinguished Fellows, including that of the late Provost, Dr. Salmon, and of his earliest predecessor, Adam Loftus, the latter presented to the College by Lord Iveagh in 1891.

Beneath the dining-room are the kitchens, cellars, and buttery, a favourite show-place for lady visitors, with ingenious arrangements for roasting on the spits turned by the smoke of chimneys, and cooking facilities on a Gargantuan scale for 300 diners.

At the north entrance from Library Square to New Square stands the beautiful little Doric temple devoted to the University Press. This was built in 1734 from the designs of Cassels at a cost of £1,200, provided by Bishop Stearne, Vice-Chancellor of the University. It has a tetrastyle portico, ‘with a bold cornice and triglyphs, and a plain metope all in tine Portland stone.’ (Ulick R. Burke in the Book of Trinity College, Dublin.)

The University Press recalls the fact that the slighting designation of ‘The Silent Sister’ can no longer be justly applied to Dublin University, while the writings of Dr. Mahaffy, of whom may be said as of Goldsmith ‘qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit,’ of the late Provost, Dr. Salmon, of Professor Tyrrell, Professor Dowden, Dr. Webb and J. B. Bury, now Regius Prolessor of Modern History in Cambridge University, are standard works in many departments of learning.

On the south of New Square is the very beautiful and original building of ‘The Schools’ overlooking the College Park. This building, erected in 1854-55, from the designs of Woodward and Deane, at a cost of £26,000, secured the warm encomium of Mr. Ruskin. The beautiful stone carvings of the exterior, copied from groups of natural flowers, were the work of the O’Sheas, two Cork handicraftsmen of extraordinary talent, who were afterwards employed by the same architects on the Oxford Museum.

The Moorish interior is richly decorated, the marbles employed being, with one exception, of Irish origin, no less than five counties being drawn on for specimens; and the building may thus be regarded as typically Modern Irish in materials, design and execution. The pendulum of the clock in ‘The Schools’ is connected by electric wire with that in Dunsink.

South and west of the New Square is the fine expanse of the College Park, extending from the boundary of the Fellows’ Garden about 270 yards along Nassau Street to Lincoln Place, where there is an entrance and a porter’s lodge, and no less in depth at its wider end, including the ground formerly known as ‘The Wilderness’, now cleared and levelled.

In 1688, the old Danish Thingmote was removed, and its materials used to raise and level St. Patrick’s Well Lane now the fine thoroughfare of Nassau Street. It was not ‘till 1722 that the College Park was first laid out and planted with elm and thorn trees. Previous to that date, the only recreation-ground was a walled-in quadrangle on the site of New Square, approached by arches under Nos. 23 and 25 in the Queen Anne building.

The main portion of the present spacious expanse is a fine quadrilateral, 250 yards by 170 yards, surrounded by raised banks and shady walks, and devoted to cricket and football. It is also annually the scene of the College athletic and bicycle sports.

At the western end is the Pavilion, at the rear of which are the fine pile of buildings occupied by the Anatomical Museum and Dissecting-room (1876), the Histological Laboratory (1880), the Medical School (1886), and the Chemical School and Laboratories. The building of these was provided for from funds obtained in 1869 under the Irish Church Act, as compensation for the loss of 18 advowsons granted to the College by James I.

Close to the buildings of the Medical School are tennis courts, and the ancient and once much-frequented racquet court, a permanent and convenient structure. At the opposite or eastern end of the College Park is the Fellows’ Garden, south of the Library and at the rear of the Provost’s House. In the garden is the little classical building, the exterior of Portland stone, with Doric portico from an Athenian model, erected in 1837, at the suggestion of Dr. Humphrey Lloyd, from the design of Frederick Darley, as a magnetical observatory; then, with the exception of that at Greenwich, the only observatory for such purposes in the kingdom.

It measures 40 feet by 30 feet, and the interior is of the argillaceous limestone of County Dublin, found to be entirely devoid of magnetic influence. The walls are studded internally so as to preserve a uniform temperature, the nails are of copper, and all other metal-work employed of brass or gun metal. The building is lighted by a dome, and by one window at either end. (Ulick R. Burke in the Book of Trinity College, Dublin.)

In a corner of the garden, under the granite wall and opposite the end of Dawson Street, is the once famous Holy Well of St. Patrick, now arched over, which gave its name to Patrick’s Well Lane, *venella quae ducit ad fontem, S. P., *mentioned in 1592 as the southern boundary of All Hallows. (*Trinity College, Dublin. *Professor W. MacNeile Dixon) To it, on the 17th March, crowds of pilgrims once made annual resort.

South of the west front of the College, on the east side of Grafton Street, is the Provost’s House, built in 1759 from plans prepared by a local architect named Smith, from the design of Lord Burlington for General Wade’s house between Cork Street and Old Burlington Street, London, and now forming part of the Burlington Hotel.

The front of the Provost’s House has a granite facade of 200 feet, and is divided from Grafton Street by a courtyard 60 feet in depth enclosed by a granite wall supporting an iron railing. The handsome, though somewhat heavy gateway, has a carriage entrance ornamented with iron-work and flanked by doorways in arched granite settings.

From a rusticated ground storey rises a range of Doric pilasters crowned by architrave, frieze, and cornice supporting a high-pitched roof. The centre of the upper storey is occupied by a large Venetian window flanked on either side by two smaller windows. The interior is handsome, the large dining-room on the ground floor, now used as the Provost’s library and Boardroom, and the drawing-room in the second storey are spacious and magnificent apartments; the latter, a fine specimen of 18th-century decoration. It contains a half-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth by Zucchero, and a fine portrait by Gainsborough of John Russell, fourth Duke of Bedford, Viceroy and Chancellor of the University.

The house contains many other fine paintings of College notabilities, including Archbishop Adam Loftus, Archbishop Ussher, Narcissus Marsh, Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., M.D. of Dublin University, and George III. as Prince of Wales, Chancellor of the University, 1715. On either side of the main building are wings containing the household offices, and to the south, extending along Nassau Street, are the stables, of fine cut granite, erected in 1842.

The handsome Botanic Gardens of the College, consisting of eight acres, surrounded by a lofty iron railing, at the angle of Pembroke and Lansdowne Roads, on the tram-line to Ball’s Bridge, and close to the latter station on the Dublin and Kingstown railway, were first leased by the Board in July 1806.

The first curator was James Townsend Mackay, author of *Flora Hibernica, *Dublin, 1836. The Gardens had a predecessor at the southern side of the College Park in the early 18th century, transferred after 50 years to the neighbourhood of Harold’s Cross.

Orders to visit the Gardens may be obtained from any of the Fellows of the College, or from the Professor of Botany of the University.

The study of astronomy likewise is provided for by the Observatory at Dunsink, founded by Frances Andrews, Provost 1758-74, who bequeathed a sum of £3,000 and an annual income of £250 to build and endow an Astronomical Observatory in the University. The site selected was a rising ground, 300 feet above sea-level, beyond the northern boundary of the Phoenix Park, and five miles north-west of Dublin.

The Chair of Astronomy in the University has been held by a series of distinguished occupants, the first being Dr. Henry Ussher, S.F.T.C.D., who wrote an *Account of the Observatory *for the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy for 1785. On his death in 1790 he was succeeded by the Rev. John Brinkley, of Caius College, Cambridge, whose *Astronomy *is still a text-book. He received in 1792 the title of Royal Astronomer of Ireland, by Letters Patent (32 George III.).

A Great Circle, 10 feet in diameter, graduated all round, was ordered in 1785, but afterwards reduced to 8 feet, and not completed till 23 years subsequent’ to its commencement, and after the death of the optician who undertook its construction. Dr. Brinkley died as Bishop of Cloyne in 1835, and his monument is at the foot of the Library staircase.

He had been succeeded 30 years previously, on his accession to the episcopate, by William Rowan Hamilton, who obtained the appointment at the unheard-of age of 22, while still an undergraduate, the great Airy having been one of the competitors. Already at the age of seventeen, Hamilton had written original mathematical papers. His successor, Dr. Brunnow, first provided, in 1865, for the mounting by Messrs. Grubb of the Great Equatorial presented to the University by Sir James South in 1863.

Seven years later a Meridian Circle was erected at a cost of £800. Dr. Brunnow was succeeded in 1874 by Sir Robert Ball, now Lowndean Professor of Astronomy to the University of Cambridge, whose charming lectures and works on astronomy have done so much to popularise a once repellent subject.

A splendid reflecting telescope, the gift of Isaac Roberts, Esq., F.R.S., now enables the Observatory at Dunsink to engage in work on the stellar photographic survey. The present Astronomer Royal is Edmund Taylor Whittaker, Esq., F.R.S.

Amongst the athletic proclivities of the alumni of Trinity College, not the least cultivated is rowing. The Dublin University Rowing Club was established in 1840, and by a secession from its ranks, the Dublin University Boat Club was formed in 1867. Three years previous to the latter date, a public regatta was first held at Rings-end, the Rowing Club having reclaimed a stretch of land along the Dodder and erected a Club-house. Crews from Dublin University have secured the Ladies’ Plate and Visitors’ Cup at Henley.

On 7th May 1898, the rival clubs coalesced, and the rowing course was removed from the somewhat unsavoury surrounding of Ringsend to a pretty reach of the upper Liffey, near Island Bridge, where the regattas of the Club have been held since 1898.

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