TorontoOntario · 36 tours
Niagara FallsOntario · 25 tours
New York CityNew York · 30 tours
Las VegasNevada · 8 tours
San FranciscoCalifornia · 16 tours
VancouverBritish Columbia · 17 tours
DubaiUAE · 54 tours
Abu DhabiUAE · 5 tours
Buenos AiresArgentina · 23 tours
AthensGreece · 31 tours
AucklandNew Zealand · 38 tours
CancunMexico · 54 tours
No destinations match “”. Try searching all tours instead — that search understands full questions, not just place names.
Ireland's oldest university, founded in 1592, home to the Old Library's barrel-vaulted Long Room and the Book of Kells, a lavishly illustrated 9th-century manuscript of the four Gospels. The Long Room also displays a rare surviving copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
Visitor guide
Trinity College Dublin, founded in 1592 and standing beside College Green in the centre of Dublin, is home to the Book of Kells, an illuminated Gospel manuscript of about the year 800. The college's Old Library, with its Long Room, houses the book and is among Dublin's most visited sights.
According to Wikipedia, Queen Elizabeth I founded Trinity College by royal charter in 1592, on the site of the dissolved Priory of All Hallows just southeast of the city walls. Its first provost, Archbishop Adam Loftus, named it after Trinity College, Cambridge. It is the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin and is described as Ireland's oldest university. The main entrance is on College Green, and the grounds cover roughly 47 acres. Notable alumni include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Bram Stoker, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke and Sally Rooney.
The Old Library, begun in 1712, is described as the masterpiece of the architect Thomas Burgh, and it houses the Long Room. The library is Ireland's largest research library and a legal deposit library entitled to a copy of every book published in Great Britain and Ireland. Besides the Book of Kells it holds the Book of Durrow and the Brian Boru harp, one of three surviving medieval Gaelic harps and a national symbol of Ireland, which has been kept in the library since 1782. A copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic has been held there since 1916.
The Book of Kells is a Latin Gospel manuscript generally dated to about 800, produced by Columban monks in Ireland or Scotland. The most widely accepted theory is that it was begun at Iona and completed at Kells. It has 340 leaves of fine calf vellum, written in Insular majuscule by at least three scribes. It contains ten full-page illustrations, and the Chi Rho page, which marks the beginning of Matthew 1:18, is the most lavish, with its monogram filling the whole page. The decoration includes peacocks and knotwork often containing hidden animals.
The earliest record of the book is an entry in the Annals of Ulster for 1007, describing the great Gospel of Columkille being stolen from the church at Kells; it was recovered a few months later without its gold and jewelled cover, reportedly hidden under a sod. It stayed at Kells until 1654, when Cromwell's cavalry were quartered in the church and the governor of the town sent it to Dublin for safekeeping. Henry Jones presented it to Trinity in 1661. Today it is displayed in the Old Library with two pages on view at a time, rotated periodically. UNESCO added it to the Memory of the World register in 2011.
The campus includes Parliament Square with its Campanile, Chapel and Examination Hall. A private guided visit can combine the book and library with a walk through the college grounds and Georgian Dublin.
See every tour and attraction we cover in Dublin.
