Story
The story of Trinity College, Dublin
Walk through these gates and you enter Ireland's oldest university. Trinity was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I through a royal charter, on the site of the former Priory of All Hallows, which King Henry VIII had demolished. It was established to consolidate Tudor rule in Ireland, and for over two centuries it was the Protestant university of the ruling elite.
Its library has housed the Book of Kells since 1661, and today the college grounds receive over two million visitors a year. Trinity is also home to the world's oldest student society, The Hist, founded in 1770. Its former students include the writers Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett and Bram Stoker, the statesman Éamon de Valera and the philosopher Edmund Burke. Trinity alumni also invented the steam turbine and the hypodermic needle, and coined the term electron.
As you explore, look for landmarks such as the Campanile and the Graduates Memorial Building.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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