Trinity College (Irish: Coláiste na Tríonóide), 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 modelled after the collegiate universities of Oxford and Cambridge, but unlike these affiliated institutions, only one college was ever established; as such, the designations “Trinity College” and “University of Dublin” are usually synonymous for practical purposes. The college is legally incorporated by “the Provost, Fellows, Foundation Scholars and other members of the Board,” as outlined by its founding charter. It is one of the seven ancient universities of Britain and Ireland, as well as Ireland’s oldest surviving university. Trinity College is widely considered the most prestigious university in Ireland, and one of the most elite academic institutions in Europe. The college is particularly acclaimed in the fields of Law, Literature and Humanities. In accordance with the formula of ad eundem gradum, a form of recognition 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 equivalent degree at either of the other two universities without further examination. Trinity College, Dublin is a sister college to St John’s College, Cambridge and Oriel College, Oxford.
Originally, Trinity was established outside the city walls of Dublin in the buildings of the outlawed Catholic Augustinian Priory of All Hallows. Trinity College was set up in part to consolidate 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 admitted from 1793, certain restrictions on membership of the college remained, as professorships, fellowships and scholarships were reserved for Protestants. These restrictions were lifted by an Act of Parliament in 1873. However, from 1871 to 1970, the Catholic Church in Ireland, in turn, forbade its adherents from attending Trinity College without permission. Women were first admitted 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 in the world by QS World University Rankings in 2009 and is currently ranked 101st. In 2021, Trinity was also ranked #1 in Europe as the most international university within the European Union, and as the 8th most international university worldwide by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. 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, Mairead Maguire and William Cecil Campbell, former Presidents of Ireland Mary McAleese, Douglas Hyde and Mary Robinson, philosophers including George Berkeley and Edmund Burke, politician David Norris and mathematician William Rowan Hamilton. Given its long history, the university also finds mention in many novels, fables and urban legends.
Trinity College is now surrounded by central Dublin and is located on College Green, opposite the historic Irish Houses of Parliament. The college campus is often ranked among the most beautiful university campuses in the world, primarily due to its Georgian architecture buildings.[26] The college proper occupies 190,000 m2 (47 acres), with many of its buildings ranged around large quadrangles (known as ‘squares’) and two playing fields. Academically, it is divided into three faculties comprising 25 schools, offering degree and diploma courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The university is globally recognised as a leading international centre for research and also as a world leader in Nanotechnology, Information Technology, Immunology, Mathematics, Engineering, Psychology, Politics, English and Humanities. The admission procedure is highly competitive, and based exclusively 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 quantities of manuscripts, including the renowned Book of Kells, which arrived at the college in 1661 for safekeeping after the Cromwellian raids on religious institutions. The enormous collection housed in the Long Room includes a rare copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic and a 15th-century wooden harp which is the model for the current emblem of Ireland. The library itself receives over half a million visitors each year, making it the most important one in Ireland.
Academic profile
Since considerable academic restructuring in 2008, the college has three academic faculties:
- Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
- Engineering, Mathematics and Sciences
- Health Sciences
Each faculty is headed by a dean (there is also a Dean of Postgraduate Studies), and faculties are divided into schools, of which there were 24 as of 2012.
Second-level programmes
Since 2014, Trinity College’s Science Department has established and operated a scheme for second-level students to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The system, similar to DCU’s CTYI programme, encourages academically gifted secondary students with a high aptitude for the STEM subjects, was named the Walton Club[50] in honour of Ernest Walton, Ireland’s first and only Nobel laureate for Physics. The programme was centred upon a pedagogic principle of “developing capacity for learning autonomy”. The educators in the programme are PhD students in the college, and they impart an advanced, undergraduate-level curriculum onto the students. The club was set up with a specific ethos around the mentoring of STEM subjects, and not as a grinds school. The scheme, now in its third year, has been immensely successful and has undergone growth in scope and scale year on year. It has also diversified beyond its traditional weekly club structure, running camps during school holidays to offer an opportunity to study STEM to those unable to join the club. It has also represented the college in many activities, meeting Chris Hadfield and attending the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition and the Web Summit. Students, or alphas as they are dubbed in honour of the eponymous physicist, develop projects in the Club, with innovations pioneered there including a health-focused electroencephalogram. The club was founded by Professors Igor Shvets and Arlene O’Neill of the School of Physics in Trinity College.
Undergraduate
Most undergraduate courses require four years of study. First-year students at the undergraduate level are called Junior Freshmen; second years, Senior Freshmen; third years, Junior Sophisters; and fourth years, Senior Sophisters. After a proposal in 2017 by the SU Equality Committee, a three-year process changing the titles of first and second years to Junior and Senior Fresh was approved by the Trinity College Board.[55] The Freshman Years usually have a set or minimally flexible basic curriculum with the Sophister years allowing for a much greater degree of course variation, as well as taking a year abroad. The passing of two sets of examinations is a prerequisite for a degree. Junior and Senior Freshmen sit preliminary annual exams in Trinity Term of each year which must be passed so that they “rise” to the year above. At the end of the Junior Sophister year, undergraduates sit Part I of the Moderatorship exams, subject to attaining an upper-second, allows them to take an Honours degree and sit the Part II (Final) of the Moderatorship exams. Successful candidates receive first-, upper or lower second-, or third-class honours, or simply a “pass” without honours if they perform insufficiently in Part I of the Moderatorship.
Most non-professional courses take a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. As a matter of tradition, bachelor’s degree graduates are eligible, after seven years from matriculation and without additional study, to purchase for a fee an upgrade of their bachelor’s degree to a Master of Arts.
Degree titles vary according to the subject of study. The Law School awards the LL.B., the LL.B. (ling. franc.) and the LL.B. (ling. germ.). Other degrees include the BAI (engineering) and BBS (business studies). The BSc degree is not in wide use although it is awarded by the School of Nursing and Midwifery; most science and computer science students are awarded a BA.
From 2018, Trinity will be offering dual BA programme with Columbia University in New York City. Students of History, English, European Studies or Middle Eastern and European Languages and Culture spend their first two years at Trinity and their last two years at Columbia.
Graduate
At postgraduate level, Trinity offers a range of taught and research degrees in all faculties. About 29% of students are post-graduate level, with 1,440 students reading for a research degree and an additional 3,260 on taught courses (see Research and Innovation).
Trinity College’s Strategic Plan sets “the objective of doubling the number of PhDs across all disciplines by 2013 in order to move towards a knowledge society. In order to achieve this, the college has received some of the largest allocations of Irish Government funding which have become competitively available to date.”
In addition to academic degrees, the college offers Postgraduate Diploma (non-degree) qualifications, either directly, or through associated institutions.