Dublin, University of

Dublin, University of, institution of higher learning, the oldest in Ireland, also known as Trinity College. It is located in the city of Dublin, Republic of Ireland. The university received its charter from Elizabeth I in 1592 as “the mother of a university”, with the title of “the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin”. The Corporation of Dublin donated the grounds and ruins of the confiscated All Hallows monastery to the university, and a building fund was raised by local subscription. James I endowed the institution with £400 a year and the revenue of various estates in the northern part of Ireland. These and other local donations provided the university with financial resources. It was expected that other colleges would be formed around this nucleus and that a university would develop in the same way as the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge in England. This expectation was never realized, and, as a result, the University of Dublin retains the capacity to function both as a college and a university. In 1793 Roman Catholics were allowed to take degrees and, in 1904, women were admitted to the university for the first time.

The campus is set in 16 hectares (40 acres) of land in the centre of Dublin. University buildings include fine examples of the 18th-century architecture for which Dublin is noted, particularly the library (1732), the dining hall (1761), and the public theatre (1791). The library houses a notable collection of ancient Irish illuminated manuscripts, including the Gospels transcribed in the 8th-century Book of Durrow and the unique 9th-century Book of Kells. Since 1801 the university has been entitled by law to receive a copy of every book published in Britain and Ireland. Among former students of the university were the Irish philosopher George Berkeley; the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift; the British statesman Edmund Burke; the playwrights George Farquhar, William Congreve, and Oliver Goldsmith; and the Nobel prizewinners Ernest Walton and Samuel Beckett. Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, graduated from the university and taught there as a professor.

Administration is by a board, headed by the provost of the college and composed of the vice-provost, registrar, bursar, senior lecturer, seven senior fellows, four representatives of the junior fellows, and two representatives of professors who are not fellows. Three representatives of the academic staff, three representatives of the nonacademic staff, and four representatives of the student body attend board meetings on a non-voting basis. The first woman fellow was elected in 1968.

Applicants for admission must pass an entrance examination or possess prescribed entrance qualifications. The institution offers undergraduate degree courses in the arts, business studies, business studies with a language, education (home economics), engineering, financial information systems, human nutrition and dietetics, information systems, law, law and French, law and German, medicine, music education, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physiotherapy, science, social studies, and theology. Higher degrees are available in all faculties.

Reviewed by: University of Dublin