Trinity College & The Old Library: Cradle of Scholars

Why is it significant?

Step through the arched wooden gates of Trinity College and stand in the center of Parliament Square, surrounded by grand neoclassical cut-stone pavilions and cobblestones.

Key Facts

Listen · 1:29

Step through the arched wooden gates of Trinity College and stand in the center of Parliament Square, surrounded by grand neoclassical cut-stone pavilions and cobblestones. Founded in fifteen ninety-two by Queen Elizabeth the First, Trinity is Ireland's oldest university, educating titan minds from Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett to Bram Stoker and Jonathan Swift. Look toward the Old Library building ahead of you. Inside its legendary two-hundred-foot Long Room, barrel-vaulted oak ceilings shelter over two hundred thousand of the university's oldest rare books. Marble busts of Western philosophers line the nave, presided over by the ninth-century Book of Kells, an illuminated Latin gospel manuscript created by Celtic monks with dazzlingly intricate knotwork. Look closely at the Brian Boru Harp displayed in the library: dating to the fourteenth century, this ancient oak harp with brass strings is the oldest surviving harp in Ireland and provided the official symbol for Ireland's national coat of arms, the euro coin, and Guinness stout. Take in the collegiate tranquility before we step out toward College Green and cross the River Liffey to the historic epicenter of Irish revolution.