IRELAND: TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

 July 12, 2024

Bob and I like to visit famous universities. We've been to most of the biggies in the United States (Think Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, etc.), and we've been to a few overseas (Think University of Heidelberg in Germany, University of Coimbra in Portugal, Oxford and Cambridge in England, Trinity College in Toronto, etc.).  We were excited to add Trinity College Dublin (aka University of Dublin) to our list.  

We started with a guided walking tour of the campus. Modelled after Oxford and Cambridge, Trinity was founded in 1592 by England's Queen Elizabeth I and is now home to 19,000 students. One of Trinity's specialties is English literature, and its program is ranked #1 in the European Union and 21st in the world. Literary luminaries who are alumni include Oliver Goldsmith, Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and Samuel Beckett. Four Presidents of Ireland and four Nobel Laureates are alumni.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) is engrossed in his book and hardly notices the many visitors who walk by him near the entrance.  George Salmon (1819-1904), a mathematician and a theologian who was also the college provost for a time, famously said, "Over my dead body will women enter this college." Maybe he felt that way because he had six daughters and Trinity College was the only place he could go to get away from them.
The iconic Campanile was being renovated when we were there.
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