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Trinity College Dublin

The most prestigious university in Ireland was founded in 1591 by Queen Elizabeth I and has played an important role in the installation of an Anglo-Irish tradition. Two famous Trinity graduates of this tradition Edmund Burke, statesman and Oliver Goldsmith, poet, flank the small portico entrance of the college. Many illustrious writers list among the college's alumni, Swift, Bram Stoker, Synge and Beckett. To promote the Anglo-Irish bias free education was afforded to Catholics willing to change their religion and until as recently as 1966 Catholics had to get a special dispensation to study at the university. That aside the architecture of the university is so classical that it has appeared in films. The cobbled stones lead around the quadrangles to the college buildings. Once on the inside of the colleges sheltered gates, the modern day world is left outside for the quiet and scholastic atmosphere of university life. The first cobbled squareare bordered by the Chapel and Examination Hall, designed by William Chambers, in absensia. Both can be visited and the examination hall, with its fine stuccoed interiors, is the setting for concerts apart from the obvious exams. The Dining Hall just beyond was built in 1743 and stands before the Rubics or halls of residence, red brick buildings that date back to 1712 and are the oldest buildings in the university complex. The other old building in the complex is the Long Library, designed by Thomas Burke in the early eighteenth century. It houses the country's most famous manuscript the book of Kells among many. While the origins of the book are debatable it is known to have been hidden in the monastery at Kells in the ninth century for safe keeping from the Vikings. The book of Kells presents the New Testament written in Latin and illustrated and illuminated with patterns and animals. The book of Durrow, also housed here, is equally interesting and considered the first Irish illuminated manuscript that dates from 650AD.