A College Miscellany

2009-05-10T18:54:00.027+01:00

Taking your college time
THE CLOCK above the entrance to the Dining Hall was once the only public clock in college. It’s not particularly remarkable to look at, but it once eschewed standard timekeeping for the nobler, and slightly tardier, college time.

The Campanile's arms identified
THE CAMPANILE has been a recognisable symbol of this college since it was erected in 1852.

A parody of Locksley Hall
IN THE last Trinity News this column quoted a few lines of a 19th-century poem which, I feel, ought to be reproduced in full.

A degree of error
THE FATE of most Trinity students is to graduate with the Baccalaureus in Artibus degree.

The ghost of Edward Ford
MANY GHOSTS must walk the squares of Trinity College invisible or unnoticed.

Charming, idyllic novel by a devoted son of Trinity College
MOST Trinity undergraduates are more familiar with The Ginger Man at the back of college than they are with the novel after which it is named.

A student newspaper and a glass of Guinness
TRINITY has a new newspaper: The University Times.

Unhappy the city where the students disobey
TROUBLESOME students exist in every generation, young louts who spend their days drinking, fighting, stealing and generally enjoying themselves.

The habitation of the wilder spirits
WHATEVER Protestantism may have given us, wrote Henry Albert Hinkson, “she has given us little that is artistically beautiful.”

Cigarette cards offer glimpse of past
UNTIL THE 1940s, the man who enjoyed a cigarette could look forward to finding an attractive printed card in his ten pack.

Our forgotten student gown
THE DISAPPEARANCE of academic dress has been one of the many casualties of modern arrogance.

Trinity’s holy well
LOOKING THROUGH the railings at the entrance to college on Nassau Street one can see, below street level, what looks like a gated doorway leading under the road.

Roofs and flags
I SPOTTED this remarkable photograph in the recently-published Our War: Ireland and the Great War, edited by John Horne and published by the Royal Irish Academy.

Latin graces at Commons
THAT THE LATIN graces continue to be recited before and after Commons every evening in the old Dining Hall is a victory of the perennial over the transitory.

Postcards a unique window on past
THE SIMPLE postcard has served its purpose well since its invention in the 1860s.

The night climbers of Trinity College
THIS TIME last year The Night Climbers of Cambridge was reprinted, bringing to a large audience the original guide to scaling the walls of Cambridge’s colleges, which was first published in 1937.

Stepping out of history's shadow
A BIG WIN demands a big celebration, and on Friday week Dublin University Boat Club will mark the senior eight’s momentous victory in the Irish championships with a celebration to remember.

The Phil’s reinvigoration of a colourful tradition
THE PAST has a lot to offer the present, and Trinity’s past is a storeroom filled with valuable traditions.

Paul Joseph Anthony Tansey, MA, MBA
PAUL TANSEY, a former editor of Trinity News, passed away on September 21 at the age of 59.

Rusticated jibs and disapproving skips
DOES YOUR skip disapprove of sprees?

Robert Desmond Harman, MA
MEMBERS OF Trinity News received before Christmas the sad news that another of the newspaper’s early editors had passed away.

Dermod Dmitri Owen-Flood, LLB, MA
ALL THOSE involved with Trinity News were saddened last term to hear the news that Dermod Owen-Flood had passed away.

22 T. C. D.
Written by William Wilkins in c1878.

A bright future for college’s ancient dining tradition?
STUDENTS AT Trinity College inherit an immemorial custom which, despite its value, is rarely taken full advantage of.

Oarsman, pugilist, doctor and war hero
OARSMAN, pugilist, doctor and war hero: Michael Patrick Leahy was a Trinity man who distinguished himself in his sporting endeavours and remains a model of sportsmanship today, 100 years after he wore the Trinity badge in competition.

Over the Wall to the Trinity Ball
Written by Richard Marsh in 1981.

Jack Langrishe
JOHN du Plessis Langrishe, captain of the DU Boat Club in 1906, is pictured here standing by the Liffey.

Taking your college time

2009-04-21T14:00:00.040+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 9 February, 2010, the eighteenth 'Old Trinity' column.

Taking your college time

THE CLOCK above the entrance to the Dining Hall was once the only public clock in college. It’s not particularly remarkable to look at, but it once eschewed standard timekeeping for the nobler, and slightly tardier, college time. College time was 15 minutes later than regular time. After hearing the bells of the city ring the hour, the unhurried undergraduate had a quarter of an hour to attend to his varsity duties before college time caught up with him.

The first record of Trinity’s rugger club, in the Daily Express in December of 1855, mentions the university’s way of keeping time: “A match will be played in the College Park today between original and new members of the club. Play to commence at two o’clock college time.”

College time was kept until October 15, 1870, when the Dining Hall’s clock reverted to regular hours. But does a submerged memory survive among those students who are always late for everything? The unpunctual undergraduate, ten minutes late for his tutorial, can mischievously insist that he’s five minutes early – college time.

(Clockwise, from bottom left: Sugden, Sugden, Sugden and Cussen.)

I MENTIONED in February last that two DU Football Club men are to be found on cigarette cards of the 1920s. Here they are – Mark Sugden and Denis John Cussen. The former was famous enough to feature three times. Trinity supplied men to the Irish rugby team for much of that decade, with both of these players receiving many caps. Sugden was Ireland captain for a number of years, and became famous as an expert of the “dummy”. Cussen was a formidable sprinter who, as well as playing rugby, won many prizes with the Harriers, and represented Ireland in the Olympics in 1928.

(The arms of Trinity College.)

THE HERALDIC theme of the last Old Trinity column reminded me of the badges used by some of the sports clubs. It is sometimes forgotten, even by their members, that some clubs do not use the college arms on the traditional St Patrick’s blue field, but on different colours.

Four clubs, to my knowledge, use these badges. The Boat Club uses the college arms on a royal blue shield; its colours are black and white. The Football Club uses a red shield, its colours being red and black. The Hockey Club’s badge is green, the club’s colours being green and black, inherited from its predecessor, the DU Hurley Club. The Ladies’ Boat Club’s constitution specifies a black shield, and its colours are black, white and pink.

(Clockwise, from bottom left: the badges of the DU Football Club, DU Boat Club, DU Hockey Club and DU Ladies’ Boat Club.)

The DU Cricket Club uses a black shield on its blazer and flag – but, having not read the club’s rules, I cannot say for certain that the cricketers’ badge must always be black. The teams play in black and gold.

Lamentably, some other institutions have attempted to poach these clubs’ emblems. The swimmers, for example, brazenly display the Hockey Club’s badge on their website. The Swimming Club’s colours are bottle green, emerald green, and silver, but the badge ought to be St Patrick’s blue.

The Campanile's arms identified

2009-04-21T14:00:00.035+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 26 January, 2010, the seventeenth 'Old Trinity' column.

The Campanile’s arms identified

THE CAMPANILE has been a recognisable symbol of this college since it was erected in 1852. Descriptions of its architectural merits can be read in many books about the college, most of them pointing out the four philosophers and the figures representing the branches of learning which are visible on the tower.

All, however, seem to omit any description of the four coats of arms which can be seen on the structure. Perhaps these were easily identifiable by earlier generations and recording something so obvious was not thought necessary. This column hopes to remedy the omission.

The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom can be seen on the Parliament Square side of the Campanile. This version of the royal arms has been in use since Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne in 1837. The blazon, or heraldic language, describing the royal coat of arms is: Quarterly, first and fourth gules three lions passant guardant in pale or armed and langued azure, second quarter or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory gules, third quarter azure a harp or stringed argent.

Facing Library Square can be seen the coat of arms of Trinity College. In 1901 the Ulster King of Arms issued a confirmation of arms to the college which gave the blazon as: Azure, a Bible closed, clasps to the dexter, between in chief, on the dexter a lion passant, on the sinister a harp, all or, and in base a castle with two towers domed, each surmounted by a banner flotant from the sides, argent, the dexter flag charged with a cross, the sinister with a saltire, gules.

However, the Campanile displays a version of the college arms which was popular in college in the 19th century. In this version the lion is passant guardant, or facing the viewer, and the castle’s towers are flamant, or issuing flames, rather than domed and topped with flags as in the definitive arms. This version can also be seen above the entrance to the Museum Building.

On the side of the structure facing Botany Bay are the arms of the marquess of Waterford. Lord John George Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh and Chancellor of the University of Dublin, was the second surviving son of the first marquess of Waterford. Beresford was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University 1829 and Chancellor in 1851. The Campanile was his gift.

The arms of the marquess of Waterford are blazoned: Quarterly, first and fourth, argent, crusilly fitchée three fleurs de lis, within a border engrailed sable; second and third, argent, a chief indented sable.

Facing Fellows’ Square can be seen the arms of Beresford as archbishop of Armagh. The arms of Lord Waterford, as above, are impaled with those of the archbishopric of Armagh – that is, the two shields are joined in one. The arms of the Armagh diocese are described: Azure, an episcopal staff argent, ensigned with a cross patée or, surmounted by a pallium of the second, edged and fringed or, charged with four crosses formée fitchée sable.

THE Central Societies Committee introduced a new scarf last term. The committee members should be commended for creating a garment which is consonant with tradition, and for not contributing to the vast number of forgotten hoodies and T-shirts which satisfy individual designers’ desire for novelty, but little else.

Despite the garment itself being likely to stand the test of time, one wonders why the CSC needs a scarf at all. The group’s purpose is to distribute students’ money to the societies, and it requires no identity of its own. I did seek information on the rationale behind the scarf’s introduction, but received no reply. The committee members’ sartorial efforts would surely be better directed towards encouraging societies to resurrect their own forgotten identities.

The scarf is black with two off-centre touching stripes of just under an inch in width each, one white and one maroon.

WHAT happened to the doctor of divinity degree? The DD has only been awarded only 43 times since 1949, with decreasing regularity as the years have gone by.

The last recipient was the heresiarch Hans Küng, who was awarded the degree honoris causa in 1995. The statutes of Sir William Temple, who was provost from 1609 to 1627, prescribed that candidates for the DD must “deliver three praelections on the errors of the Roman Catholic religion”. Küng has surely done that, having spent a lifetime penning screeds against the Church.

But perhaps it would be best to forget about Fr Küng’s unfortunate degree and return to awarding the doctor in sancta theologia to deserving churchmen – unless there is some impediment of which I am not aware. It would be unfortunate if one of the university’s 10 original degrees were completely abandoned.

THIS column recently pointed out the sad fact that a hood of the incorrect shape is provided to bachelors of arts when they attend Commencements. Since then it has come to my attention that bachelors of medicine are taking their degrees in a hood of Irish simple shape, not the hood shape peculiar to Dublin University. The School of Physic will mark its tercentenary in 2011, and those preparing for the celebrations might take some action to correct this travesty and ensure that the university’s doctors are wearing the correct MB hood by then.

THANKS to Barry Devlin Sch, who wrote to confirm that “plucked” in the poem The Examination Hall means failed. He points out that it is used in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Its synonym “cautioned” can now be confidently added to the college lexicon.

A parody of Locksley Hall

2009-04-21T14:00:00.022+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 1 December, 2009, the sixteenth 'Old Trinity' column.

A parody of Locksley Hall

IN THE last Trinity News this column quoted a few lines of a 19th-century poem which, I feel, ought to be reproduced in full. The Examination Hall is a parody of Locksley Hall, one of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s less well-known works. It was written by Charles Pelham Mulvany, a Scholar who took his BA in 1856, and was published in the college periodical Kottabos.

The meanings of some of the more obscure references were explained by Kenneth Bailey in a letter to TCD: A College Miscellany in 1934. Bailey, Junior Dean at the time, had not seen Mulvany’s original poem; he only had a version written down from memory by Provost Jellett’s daughter. It’s interesting to see what had changed in Mrs Poole’s from-memory version, which is printed in the November 29, 1934, number of TCD.

Bailey says that the repeated “yes” of the 17th stanza is in imitation of Richard Townsend, who was elected to Fellowship in 1845. Dr Luby was a Fellow who died in 1870. “Jude” of the ninth couplet may have been the tavern of that name which could be found on Grafton Street until 1873. The meanings of “Gough” and “Kinsley” (which Mrs Poole had remembered as “Goff” and “Kelly”) eluded Bailey, and will remain a mystery for us.

We can make some of our own observations. The fourth stanza gives a nice description of the hood worn by bachelors of arts. A jib, as we know, is a first-year student. The “so call’d University” is, of course, the Queen’s University of Ireland, established in 1850.

Night roll was the evening roll call which all students living in college were required to attend, at which the Junior Dean presided.

Mickey Roberts is the student’s Tutor; if he is not fictional then he may be Michael Roberts, Ex-Sch, MA, who became a Fellow in 1843.

He is “caution’d”, and this gives some difficulty. A note in Echoes from Kottabos tells us that this is a Trinity College word for “plucked”, which doesn’t help much. We can assume that it indicates failure of some kind, which can be remedied by extra work or by repeating an examination.

Enjoy the poem. I think some of today’s undergraduates will identify with the student of Mulvany’s verses. It certainly reminds me of some of my close calls.

WHILE searching for Bailey’s commentary on The Examination Hall I noticed a few sentences in that term’s TCD bemoaning the encroachment of the word “fresher” at the expense of “jib”. I hope the reader is not tired of reading about the latter word, but I think this short piece marks the beginning of the decline of “jib”, which had surrendered to “fresher” by the 1950s. Here is that paragraph in full:

“On a couple of notices at the Front Gate, lately, the odious word ‘Fresher’ has been prominently displayed. Men in their first year here are officially called ‘Freshmen’ and colloquially ‘Jibs’. What precisely a ‘Freshers’ Squash’ may be we cannot say, but those who are responsible for such functions might very well abstain from describing them by a vocable as unpleasant as it is unfamiliar.”

It’s now far too late to even attempt to eradicate “fresher”, but I will be avoiding it, for the sake of anachronism if nothing else.

The Examination Hall

’TIS the place, and all around it, as of old the porters loll,
Velvet-capp’d and gaiter’d, guarding the Examination Hall.

College Hall, that in the distance overlooks the College Park,
Whence the daring Senior Freshman scales the railings in the dark.

Many a morn from yonder casement, as I can remember well,
Have I look’d on boozy Sutton sloping slowly towards the Bell.

Many a time I saw the graduates, tangled in their sheepskin hoods,
Looking like a drove of donkeys with a pack of woollen goods.

Here beneath the classic cloister did I spend my early days
O’er the Elements of Euclid and the metres of Greek plays.

Here I studied Vulgar Fractions, vainly striving to get off
What would pass my Term in Science and the long results of Gough.

Then I dipt into the future with anticipating eyes,
Seeing visions of Gold Medal and of mathematic prize.

In the Term the seedy grinder wishes he had newer clothes,
In the Term a deeper purple tinges Dr Luby’s nose.

In the Term to Jude and Kinsley heavy debts the students owe,
In the Term the Freshman’s fancy turns towards his Little-go.

Then his form was plump and squatter than was meet for one so small,
And as I perused his face, I did not like his looks at all.

And I said: “My Mickey Roberts, let me pass, and pass me quick.
Trust me, Mickey, if you do so, I’ll consider you a brick.”

On his chubby cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I’ve seen the ruddy liquor mantle in “the Shades” at night.

And he turn’d, his utterance broken with a sudden storm of damns,
Or at least with language borrow’d from the more emphatic Psalms,

Saying, “I your note will alter to a very different song.”
Saying, “Do you think I’ll pass you?” – swearing – “then I think you’re wrong.”

O, my Roberts, stony-hearted! O, my Mickey, mine no more!
O that odious, odious Livy! O that horrid, horrid bore!

What is this my tutor tells me? I am caution’d, and what for?
Just because I couldn’t date that wretched Second Punic War.

"Yes, yes, yes, my poor, dear fellow, it has given me much distwess.
You’ve been pluckt by Mr Woberts – yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

What is this? Mick’s face is smiling: he may let me off at last.
Go to him: it is thy duty. Tutor, get me, get me pass’d.

He will answer to the purpose easy things to understand –
Better I had never enter’d than have come beneath his hand.

Better had I turn’d to commerce, and avoided this disgrace,
Vaulting counters at McBirney’s, or at Manning’s selling lace.

Cursèd be the Murray’s Logic which confounded my poor brain;
Cursèd be the “Locke’s Abridgment” which I stew’d so long in vain;

Cursèd be those books of Homer which, forsooth, they call divine;
Cursed be tangent and co-tangent, radius, secant, and co-sine!

What profession shall I turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr’d by custom, and but opens to Degrees.

So my heart leaps up within me, beating strong against my ribs,
To be in some sort of college, in among the throng of jibs –

Jibs my brothers, jibs the workers, ever mugging something new,
All the books they stew’d but earnest of the books that they shall stew.

I will drop my term in Dublin, go to one among those three
Colleges that constitute a so-call’d University.

Smaller competition in them, thinner classes, many a prize
Which will glad the student’s spirit, and delight his parents’ eyes.

Never thither comes a Proctor, there no tutor e’er is seen,
There the jibs live out in lodgings, dreading ne’er a Junior Dean;

There, methinks, would be enjoyment more than in these classic halls,
’Mid the Night-rolls and the Chapels, fines and “catecheticals.”

There my genius, cramp’d no longer, shall at last unfetter’d be;
I will take some steady grinder, and will read for my degree.

Fool! again the dream, the fancy, what I’ve said is all a fib,
For I count the Queen’s Professor lower than the Dublin jib.

I to herd with dull provincials, stupid dolts with addled brains,
Dull as ere the yearly cleaning are the College window-panes.

Not in vain my tutor nags me! harder, harder, let me stew.
I’ll go in for the post-mortem, and I’m certain to pull through.

Through the shadow of my “Caution” I shall sweep into my work:
Better portership in Dublin than professorship in Cork.

Charming, idyllic novel by a devoted son of Trinity College

2009-04-21T14:00:00.018+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 20 October, 2009, the thirteenth 'Old Trinity' column.

(Henry Albert Hinkson, author of O’Grady of Trinity: A Story of Irish University Life.)

Charming, idyllic novel by a devoted son of Trinity College

MOST Trinity undergraduates are more familiar with The Ginger Man at the back of college than they are with the novel after which it is named. I’m the same: I haven’t read JP Donleavy’s The Ginger Man in a couple of years, but it’s only a few days since I last had a pint of “Writer’s Block” in the Fenian Street pub.

Despite pub overtaking book in the mind of the Dublin student, Donleavy’s work is still popularly considered the archetypal “Trinity novel”, a kind of Dublin Brideshead Revisited. But while The Ginger Man may be the most well known book with a Trinity connection, it is hardly the Trinity novel par excellence. Dangerfield is a student here, but the plot does not revolve around his life within these walls.

Donleavy is far from alone: many novels are partly set in Trinity College. Charles O’Malley and Life of a Collegian, from 1841 and 1853, are early examples. Mason Jones’s Old Trinity: A Story of Real Life from 1867 was probably the first to use the college’s name in its title. Many books of the last century also touched upon life here, and new Trinity-related novels continue to appear: All Names Have Been Changed by Claire Kilroy being the latest.

There is one forgotten novel in which undergraduate life is the defining characteristic – and it deserves the affections of more Trinity students and graduates. This book’s author is Henry Albert Hinkson.

A Trinity Scholar and graduate, Hinkson, born in 1865, was a writer in love with this university, and we have him to thank for several entertaining Trinity-related books. His Student Life at Trinity College, Dublin, a valuable and unique record of college life in the late 19th century, was written from the unusual perspective of the young graduate rather than the don. He also compiled a volume of poetry, Dublin Verses by Members of Trinity College, to which Oscar Wilde contributed.

Hinkson penned a book which has a true claim to the title of the Trinity novel. O’Grady of Trinity: A Story of Irish University Life (1896) follows the adventures of young Hubert O’Grady as he enters Trinity and becomes involved in everything student life has to offer: good friends, sport, girls, academia and more. Imperfect and sometimes predictable, the book nevertheless captures the languid, naive and hopeful spirit of a young man enjoying the extended adolescence which university permits. And O’Grady of Trinity doesn’t lack the love story which all good narratives need.

Hubert is our protagonist, but Ned Daly is the novel’s hero. Hinkson has given Daly the attributes of the perfect Trinity student: he is erudite, intelligent and accomplished, but, above all, fun. Surrounding Daly are Trinity’s best, and it is into this set that Hubert is welcomed.

A contemporaneous review in The Sketch magazine praised both author and novel. Hinkson, says the reviewer, “shows himself a devoted son of Trinity College, and such patriotism is essential to success in such a book.” He continued:

“Mr Hinkson’s strength lies in his dramatic or humorous scenes: a boat race, a steeplechase, a cricket match, a fight, the night after a ball, interviews with an eccentric tutor and a wily bursar; these are excellently described in direct and telling language.”

The novel, says the Sketch review, could do with “a more definite picture of the college itself, its grounds and buildings, and a more studied impression of its ... intellectual life.” I wouldn’t consider these huge drawbacks: a Trinity man can easily paint a picture in his head of the scenes where the novel’s events are set, and the intellectual life is surely less interesting fodder for a novel than an Enniskerry party, the College Races, rowing, rugger, and the other diversions of Hubert and his friends.

Professor Stanford, writing in TCD: A College Miscellany in 1965, described O’Grady of Trinity as “that most idyllic of books”, with a “happy-go-lucky, carefree mood”. It is, he says, “a charming, unmawkish, happy, well-written book, redolent of the ease and opulence and gaiety and leisure of the college’s Indian summer, which lasted for a decade or so before and after the [1892] tercentenary.”

Hubert O’Grady, like Hinkson, is from an Anglo-Irish family, but an unlikely affection for Catholics can be detected in the novel. Hubert is pals with an ill-fated seminarist from his part of Ireland. Cardinal Newman’s Idea of a University is quoted on the novel’s title page – the eminent ecclesiastic, who had been the first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, had only gone to his reward six years previously, and he is unlikely to have been the toast of Trinity.

These mentions make sense when one learns that Hinkson had been received into the Catholic Church. His wife, Katharine Tynan (they married in May of 1893), was a far more famous author than her now-forgotten husband – she had even once been amorously pursued by WB Yeats. It seems that it was she who encouraged Henry to cross the Tiber.

This observation is an aside. Further biographical information on Hinkson is scarce. If more information can be unearthed then I will return to the subject of his life in the future: until then, we can surely get a glimpse of the man’s personality in his memorable book and its protagonist, Hubert O’Grady.

HOW MANY of today’s students have read O’Grady of Trinity? It can’t be a large number. One Dublin bookseller wants nearly €200 for a copy, and most people aren’t keen on spending a day in Early Printed Books. Hinkson died in 1919 (requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine) so the book is long out of copyright, allowing me to put it on the internet. Visit trinitynews.ie/oldtrinity to download a copy.

A degree of error

2009-04-21T14:00:00.017+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 17 November, 2009, the fifteenth 'Old Trinity' column.

A degree of error

(Right: The incorrect BA hood which is currently in use.)

THE FATE of most Trinity students is to graduate with the Baccalaureus in Artibus degree. Whether you take a first-class Moderatorship or get a third at the end of the Junior Sophister year, the BA hood – black, lined with white fur – is prescribed for you on Commencements day.

Draping a furry garment down one’s back is an old university tradition, not limited to Dublin. Those graduating with a BA at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham also wear a black hood with white fur, and BAs of the defunct Royal University of Ireland wore the same combination. We share the white fur with these other universities, but the hood of each institution has a unique shape.

All Dublin University degrees have a hood of the same shape, the Dublin full shape; their

differences are in the colours of the hood itself and its lining and edging. The BA, as mentioned, is black, lined with white fur. Some of the other hoods you might spot in Parliament Square include the include the bachelor in dental science (BDentSc: myrtle green, lined with black, edged in crimson), the master of arts (MA: black, lined with blue) and the doctor in letters (LittD: crimson, lined and edged blue). A full list is given in the Calendar on page E9.

(Two girls wearing the BDentSc hood after taking their degrees in 2007.)

Many will be indifferent, but others will be displeased: BA graduands are not currently supplied with the correct hood at Commencements. When the BA hood which is currently available for rental is compared with the hoods supplied for every other degree one can see a noticeable difference. This BA hood consists only of a fur-lined cowl, and lacks the distinctive square cape of the Dublin hood, which you can see in the illustrations on this page.

(The Dublin University BA, MA and LittD hoods. These drawings, from Haycraft’s 1948 Degrees and Hoods of the World’s Universities and Colleges, clearly show the square cape which the current BA hood is lacking.)

One could assume that this hood is correct, and that our BA hood is special not only in its use of white fur but also in its shape. A consultation of authoritative reference books does not bear out such an assumption. Shaw includes a drawing of the Dublin hood, and mentions no difference in the shape of the BA hood, and a depiction of the BA hood itself can be seen in Haycraft, with the fur-lined cape clearly visible.

Armstrong & Oxford, the company which supplies academic dress to the university, sent me a polite letter in response to an enquiry on this subject. “We would imagine,” I was informed, “that at some point in the past, somebody within the university decided to alter the design slightly for reasons that they must have felt were justified at the time.” This occurred, said the letter writer, before Armstrong & Oxford became Trinity’s official robemaker.

There is possible but unlikely explanation for what is almost certainly a blunder. Trinity had another hood shape until at least 1909. This simple shape hood can be seen in a set of Wills’s cigarette cards (these were reproduced in Trinity News in February this year) and in Haycraft’s Degrees and Hoods book. The same shape is also still used for Queen’s Belfast hoods. If someone did try to return the Trinity BA hood to this shape (it’s not very likely) then he got it wrong: the fur lining is different on the old simple shape hood.

I find the following the mostly likely explanation: a batch of BA hoods was ordered at some time in the past. The producer, to save on materials (perhaps there was a lack of fake fur) or due to ignorance or carelessness, came up with this new BA hood. The batch was delivered, no one noticed or cared, and subsequent Trinity BA hoods were made to this new pattern.

One could claim that this new hood is the de facto BA hood, pointing out that many Trinity men have taken their first degree wearing it. This, however, is not enough to justify maintaining a break in a long tradition.

Thousands of Dublin University graduates have indeed taken their BAs wearing the incorrect academic dress – and they continue to do so. There is no reason for the hood to be in this strange shape. It would be laudable if the supplier would begin to reintroduce BA hoods of the correct shape. Until that happens the only solution for the fastidious candidate bachelor is to have a BA hood of the correct shape specially made.

EDWARD Gaffney, a 2008 graduate, took his degree wearing this strange hood. He wrote to me on an unrelated matter, to point out that the word jib, an old Trinity word referring, slightly pejoratively, to Junior Freshman students, survives elsewhere. The members of the NUI Galway Literary and Debating Society call their neophytes gibs. This variant spelling occurs in the 1791 Advice to the University of Dublin and in verses in the 19th-century Trinity periodical Kottabos: A College Miscellany.

Perhaps the Galwegians’ use of gib dates back all the way to the founding of the “Lit & Deb” in 1846. It became a society of Queen’s College, Galway, a few years later.

Another Kottabos poem mentions both jibs and the Queen’s University of Ireland, of which the Galway institution was a constituent college. A failing Trinity student is considering going up to one of the so-called “godless colleges”: “So my heart leaps up within me, beating strong against my ribs/To be in some sort of college, in among the throng of jibs.”

But he gives up the idea, not esteeming the Queen’s colleges highly enough: “Fool! again the dream, the fancy, what I’ve said is all a fib/For I count the Queen’s Professor lower than the Dublin jib.”

Apologies, Galway, for this ancient insult! And congratulations to the Lit & Deb for holding fast to tradition.

The ghost of Edward Ford

2009-04-21T14:00:00.013+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 3 November, 2009, the fourteenth 'Old Trinity' column.

The ghost of Edward Ford

MANY GHOSTS must walk the squares of Trinity College invisible or unnoticed. Students who spent a happy youth here surely make a post-mortem visit, content to leave the living unmolested. But one unfortunate soul has been seen walking the quadrangles in death, a Fellow whose unpleasant personality led to a bloody death.

Edward Ford was an academic success. He won a Foundation Scholarship in 1724, took the BA and MA degrees, and was elected a Fellow in 1730. He lived in number 25, over one of the two passages through the Rubrics.

But his erudition was not matched by popularity, and he had a tendency to interfere with student matters. To show their dislike of Ford, a group of gownsmen came to break his windows after midnight on

March 6, 1734. But Ford was ready with a pistol, and shot at the group, injuring one.

The students left, acquired arms of their own, and returned to what was called the Playground – now New Square. A Scholar had urged Ford to remain in bed, but the obstinate Fellow refused to listen, and he went to the window in his night dress. The students fired, and Ford received shots to the head and body. After two hours of agony, he died.

Many are familiar with this story, which is recorded in several college histories, and I already mentioned it this term. But a smaller number are aware of Ford’s ghost, which haunts the area around the Rubrics.

Professor Maxwell recorded in 1946 that “his ghost, dressed in wig, gown and knee breeches, is said to walk by the side of the Rubrics at dusk.” Those who have seen him, she wrote, “declare that he emerges slowly from the door of his old chambers at number 25, walks more briskly in the direction of Botany Bay, and then fades into darkness.”

A student mentioned Ford’s ghost in TCD in 1931. “A spectral figure of a man in terror,” he wrote, “appears at number 25 and proceeds to near the Campanile, the site of the old chapel, where it vanishes.”

Ford’s tormentors, “a confused and shadowy mob”, also sometimes materialise, and among that crowd is seen “a few little golden dots – the tufts that were formerly worn on their caps by the sons of noblemen.”

The 1931 writer said that the ghost had not been seen for seven years: “A man who now rules thousands under the African sky told me when I entered college three years ago – he was then a Bachelor – that he had seen it when he was a Jib.”

I don’t envy the man who sleeps in Ford’s rooms on these dark winter nights.

THE LANGUAGE we use here seems to have suffered from a break in continuity at some time since the 1960s. One example is the use of the Americanism “campus”, which has supplanted the perfectly good “college”.

Another is the manner of referring to buildings in college. Since time immemorial each building was called (for example) “number 40” or simply “40”. The recent practice of using the unattractive “house 40” highlights our lack of historical awareness and institutional memory.

THIS YEAR’s Calendar has been published using an unsightly typeface yet again. Perhaps serifs offend the administrator responsible for setting the Calendar’s text. But his aesthetic sensibility is hardly superior to that of those who compiled the first 174 editions.

I also note that the student secretary of the DU Far Eastern Mission has “Sch” appropriately appended to his name – but the names of the members of the Scholars’ Committee, again, do not! I spot at least one other Scholar’s name similarly lacking its due honorific.

IN FEBRUARY I asked if any reader could recall the design of the Pinks blazer. Many thanks to the Fellow emeritus who sent me a photograph of this university colours blazer. It is pink, its buttons black, with the arms of the University of Dublin worked into the breast pocket. No other Trinity blazer, to my knowledge, sports the DU coat of arms instead of the more familiar college shield.

IN TRINITY News this time last year I wondered about the hood of the new master in theology degree. The 2010 Calendar reveals its colours. The 1988 BTh hood was black, lined with black, edged with purple. The MTh hood is purple, lined with purple, edged with black – a nice reversal of the BTh colours.

Unhappy the city where the students disobey

2009-04-21T14:00:00.005+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 22 September, 2009, the eleventh 'Old Trinity' column.

(A Junior Fellow and a nobleman’s son in their academic dress, the gold tassels visible on the cap and gown of the filius nobilis. From a plate in Taylor’s 1845 History of the University of Dublin.)

Unhappy the city where the students disobey

TROUBLESOME students exist in every generation, young louts who spend their days drinking, fighting, stealing and generally enjoying themselves. These boisterous characters quickly learn to laugh at the empty threats of those in authority, and so their crimes multiply until time runs out and they leave Trinity with mediocre degrees.

One might assume that modern contempt for rules creates such types, and that the college’s past was populated by upstanding, statute-abiding undergraduates. But we live in peaceful times compared with the rowdy 18th century, when ostensibly respectable students – nobles, sons of nobles, and gentlemen – were infamous in Dublin for the havoc they caused.

These good-time youngsters were known as “Bucks”, many of whom could be identified by the gold- or silver-tasselled gowns in which they strutted about. Fighting, duelling, drinking and general troublemaking were the hobbies of the Buck, who could be found in Dublin’s ale houses and more expensive eateries.

Rabble rousing at the theatre was a regular pastime. In 1746 a young Galway gentleman named Kelly climbed onto the stage at Smock Alley and insulted the actress, before flinging oranges at the actors, injuring one. The theatre manager got his hands on Kelly and delivered a flogging, only for the student to take his angry friends along a few days later. They caused a riot and wrecked the theatre. The unruly gang, armed with swords, hunted for Sheridan, the theatre manager, who had a lucky escape.

The Trinity-educated Jonah Barrington – not the squash player, who came much later – recounts in his 1827 Personal Sketches how students, himself included, would fling coins from their coaches, smashing windows as they were taken around the town. While on their vandalism sprees the noblemen among them would turn their gowns inside out to hide the bright tassels and avoid identification.

Those who incurred the students’ displeasure would often be taken to the college pump for a sousing. In 1775 a printer who had published some less-than-flattering articles about Trinity students received a visit to his home. He was grabbed, dragged to a waiting coach with pistols to his head, and taken to the pump. There he was nearly trampled to death by the students, but escaped when some of the Fellows interfered.

Sousing was no novelty by then. Over 30 years earlier a Scholar was arrested for unpaid debts and taken to prison. His faithful friends hunted down the arresting bailiff and punished the unfortunate man at the college pump. They then rioted in the town and tried to storm the prison. The mob was fired on, and two men killed. Five unlucky students were sent down, and five more given a good talking to – one of these being Oliver Goldsmith.

The students were able to escape discipline relatively easily in Dublin due to the college authorities’ lack of jurisdiction outside the walls. In Oxford or Cambridge a rowdy youth would need to be always on the lookout for dons; not so in Dublin.

“The character of a Buck can be very easily acquired,” records Advice to the University of Dublin: “You must at one time dress in the pink of fashion, and at another time appear quite slovenly and dirty ... Let your gait be erect or swaggering, and put on a look of manly ferocity, as if you were to knock down everyone you meet.” Offensive language is a plus: “Make yourself acquainted with all the stylish oaths, and the manner of expressing them”.

The 1791 work advised the would-be Buck to gain “some knowledge of bruising”, suggesting he practises his fighting skills with “a coalporter or the bully of a brothel” or receive instruction from “a skilful shoeboy”.

One of the Bucks’ set, though not a Trinity man, gained fame for completing the difficult dare of travelling to Jerusalem and returning within a set time. Often known thereafter as Jerusalem Whaley, he is better known to Dublin’s modern late-night socialites by another name: Buck Whaley.

The college’s attempts to control the students sometimes backfired. In 1734 one student was censured after insulting the Junior Dean. His friends stoned the Dean and wrecked his rooms. The fun continued with a riot, during which one person (not a student, in this case) tried to set fire to the college gates.

That same year one of the fellows, the unpopular Edward Ford, was shot dead at his window in the Rubrics – number 25 – by students firing from New Square. Five undergraduates were sent down for their part in the shooting, but later acquitted by a court. Popular feeling was against their prosecution, especially, says one letter of the time, among womenfolk, “who were astonished at the barbarity of undertaking so cruel a persecution against the sons of gentlemen, suspected only of a frolic!”

Distaste for rules and authority is a constant feature of youth. You will grow out of it. Meanwhile, the next time the JD is complaining about your contemptible behaviour you can truthfully retort that, as Trinity students go, you’re really not that bad at all.

THE SOURCE for much of the above is Constantia Maxwell’s entertaining history of the college. Reviewing Professor Maxwell’s book in TCD: A College Miscellany in 1946, Professor McDowell wrote: “A quiet reading man in 18th-century Trinity must frequently have found the atmosphere trying.” An understatement, surely!

THE FIRST of these columns last Michaelmas term covered some of the peculiar vocabulary used within these walls, both now and in the past. The omission of “Buck” has now been remedied, and I have discovered another interesting word, ripe for resurrection.

Slang and its Analogues Past and Present (1891) gives the word “colfabias” or “colfabis” as “A Latinised Irish phrase signifying the closet of decency, applied as a slang term to a place of resort in Trinity College, Dublin.” The more recent Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang corroborates, giving colfabias as “a water closet at Trinity College, Dublin”, dating the word to around 1820.

Here in Trinity, therefore, a bog is not a bog, but a colfabias.

A student newspaper and a glass of Guinness

2009-04-21T14:00:00.004+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 6 October, 2009, the twelfth 'Old Trinity' column.

A student newspaper and a glass of Guinness

TRINITY has a new newspaper: The University Times. It looks and reads well, what its editor hopes will be “the first of many issues, in many years and many generations”.

In 1953 the new Trinity News was in a similar position to the University Times. It was the underdog, up against the long-established TCD: A College Miscellany, which had been around for almost 60 years and boasted an almost unbroken succession of over 1,000 issues. Similar to the University Times, Trinity News was founded by members of the Students’ Representative Council – the forerunner to today’s Students’ Union. Anthony Bolchover was its first chairman.

TCD had seen off a challenger in its past. The College Pen, founded in 1929, was similar to TCD in size, layout and content, but avoided the anonymity for which TCD was often criticised. Sadly The College Pen, lacking something special to offer, folded after only a few terms.

When Trinity News arrived in Michaelmas term of 1953, TCD was forced to go on the defensive. A letter to the Irish Times in early October that year denied that TCD had ceased publication and was being replaced; rather, claimed WG Simpson, “our prospects for the future are brighter than ever”.

In the pages of TCD itself, an editorial piece mentioned the long-defunct College Pen (institutional memory being far stronger in those days) and compared it with Trinity News. The new Trinity News would have a purpose, wrote the anonymous student, if it had something different to provide. Icarus, founded three years previously, “publishes a type of material too long and too specialised for TCD”. But, he asked:

“Is the SRC newspaper in the same category as Icarus? Does it set itself a task quite distinct from that of TCD – or is it another College Pen, duplicating the work of this magazine?”

“We believe,” he concluded, “that if there is any Trinity news then TCD covers it adequately.”

A gossipy tone and anonymous writing were the characteristics of TCD which the members of the new Trinity News criticised and planned to avoid in their own publication. But it wasn’t long before Trinity News had reneged on its founding ideals – a failing which the shareholders (as they called themselves) of TCD were quick to point out. A few verses published in TCD in 1955, reproduced here, criticised the “other paper” in this regard. (The “Four and Six” of the third quatrain was a gossip column.)

Nevertheless, Trinity News and TCD coexisted for a couple of decades, with the latter carrying less news and more features, and Trinity News becoming the preferred paper for club and society news. Each publication took regular pot-shots at the other; TCD once, for example, printed a full-page mock Trinity News cover, dense with now-incomprehensible in-jokes. The title even incorporated TCD’s trademark vowel omissions, often used for pseudo-anonymity – Trinity News became “Tr*n*ty N*ws”.

Both publications entered the doldrums at the end of the 1970s. The standard became appalling. Poor production values, a lack of technical capability, an overemphasis on the popular issues of the day, and very little quality news were characteristics of both. TCD printed its last-ever issue at that time, leaving an embarrassingly poor Trinity News to struggle through the 1980s.

Trinity News is now Dublin University’s established paper, and it inherits the mission of TCD: A College Miscellany. The Students’ Union’s newspaper is the new number two, and it needs to establish its identity and purpose if it is to survive.

The University Times, of course, is not really new. It is the University Record improved and rebranded, just as the Record replaced Aontas, which replaced Union, which replaced Liaison.

TCD, The College Pen, Icarus and Trinity News were founded by students who believed they had something new to offer or believed that what was currently available could be improved upon. Advertisements, sales, and the members’ pockets were the only sources of funding. I wonder if some of today’s college publications exist simply because registration-fee money is there to be spent, not because they have anything new, different or better to offer.

Best wishes to The University Times – I hope it has a successful run.

Trinity News

How are the mighty fallen!
The angels have gone astray,
In two years the “other Paper”
Has followed the only way.

Two years ago this morning
The ideals of truth were heard,
There pealed forth the careful warning –
“No gossip there’ll be – not a word.”

Five terms ago this morning
The aims of the few just died
While Four and Six grew longer
And the theorists merely sighed.

TCD were the villains
Who gossiped and tittered all day,
And proved with complete satisfaction
That gossip will always pay.

The columns of scandal grew longer
More people are crammed in a line,
And their aims for “Better Reporting”
Are gone in the mists of time.

(from TCD: A College Miscellany, November 4, 1955)

LAST January this column recorded a couple of old mentions of the beer served at the college’s evening meal. In 1879 students were served “a light beer, brewed at a special brewery in Rathdowney”. Hinkson, writing in 1892, mentions “an attenuated small beer, peculiar to college.”

A student’s piece in TCD: A College Miscellany in 1951 reveals some further information. Most interestingly, the college beer at that time was still being purchased from the Laois brewery: “The pale ale is brewed in Rathdowney, Leix, by Robert Perry and Sons, and is delivered by rail to Kingsbridge [Heuston] station.”

Two barrels of this ale were consumed each week by students at the time, writes the TCD reporter – about 141 glasses a night. That was approximately 44 per cent of those on Commons; although, he wrote, “the Boat Club table must surely distort this figure and make the average unreliable”. Claret was the most popular drink at the high table.

The Perry and Sons brewery closed in 1966. A meat factory replaced it, owned at one stage, curiously, by Guinness. The brewery referred its customers to Smithwick and Sons in Kilkenny, but it may have been at this time that the college switched to Guinness for its Commons beer.

I asked readers in January for information regarding Guinness at Commons being, or once being, a legacy. I think this rumour can be discounted. The 1951 TCD writer gave a similar story, showing that such myths are nothing new around college:

“Guinness,” he said, “was offered to the college for Commons some years ago, on the understanding that, if accepted, the fact might be stated on the firm’s posters.” He claimed this was “certain”, stating that the Board refused. The story is difficult to believe, but perhaps someone can supply more information.

Enjoy your glass of stout at Commons, remembering that many generations of undergraduates have enjoyed beer with their meals before you. Sláinte!

The habitation of the wilder spirits

2009-04-21T14:00:00.000+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 21 April, 2009, the tenth 'Old Trinity' column.

The habitation of the wilder spirits

WHATEVER Protestantism may have given us, wrote Henry Albert Hinkson, “she has given us little that is artistically beautiful.” In his Student Life in Trinity College, Dublin, published in 1892, he bemoans the “Protestant austerity” of his alma mater’s buildings, with a special mention for the plain facades of Botany Bay, which are, he writes, “more than usually hideous”.

But Botany Bay has redeemed itself. Nearly two centuries of youthful exuberance have given the cold walls a life of their own. This boisterous vita has been gleefully recorded in literature and history, and new generations of irrepressible undergraduates continue to contribute to the life of the quadrangle of fun.

The Bay’s residential buildings were started around 1790 but not finished until 1816, a decrease in student numbers having delayed completion. The square was originally bound by these two buildings, the Dining Hall, and the residential Rotten Row – the last since replaced by the Graduates’ Memorial Building. The College Baths were built to the side of the Dining Hall in 1924, and these were demolished to make way for the East Dining Hall in 1971.

The precise origin of the Bay’s name is lost. Irish political prisoners in the Australian convict settlement had mutinied in 1801, bringing infamy to the Botany Bay of the southern hemisphere. The reputation of noisy undergraduates living in these new college buildings may have led to the comparison with the Australian colony. The college’s kitchen garden was also located here in the middle of the 18th century, where specimens may have been grown by botany lecturers, perhaps contributing to the name.

Let us return to Hinkson, who seems to have written an interesting sentence about every aspect of the university he loved. He wrote that Botany Bay was “popularly held to be the habitation of the wilder spirits”, where students regularly celebrated by lighting fires, particularly at the end of term. “Oft-times,” he wrote, “the stillness of midnight is broken by the cheers which greet the successful lighting of a bonfire”.

One issue of TCD: A College Miscellany in 1900 recorded that “an immense bonfire lighted up with the smoky brilliance of wood and tar and wicker armchair the lurid recesses of the Bay.” This blaze was especially memorable as wood from the Graduates’ Memorial Building construction site was commandeered to fuel the flames of fun. The bill for the stolen timber came to a hefty £11.

Bonfires were still being lit when Kenneth Bailey published, in 1947, his History of Trinity College, Dublin. Bailey, himself JD from 1931 to 1942, wrote that “even the Junior Dean can enjoy the scene”. No longer, sadly.

Botany Bay: A Play in One Act was published and performed in 1892 to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the college. The play tells the story of two cousins living in the Bay, and the preparations for a party in their rooms. With the spree in full swing, Keys, one of the protagonists, even sings a song in honour of the beloved JD.

But a knock on the oak turns out to be the Dean himself, and the assembled revellers blow out the lights. “Light those candles immediately,” shouts the Dean upon entry, “or I shall rusticate every one of you!”

Keys pleads for mercy, explaining that the assembled are simply celebrating the college’s anniversary – not an excuse likely to succeed. But the Junior Dean, like a good sport, gives in: “I will forgive your hilarity this once on account of your desire to commemorate the tercentenary, and keep alive the traditions of Botany Bay.” Bravo, JD!

William Edward Nevill – BA 1947, PhD 1951 – recounted his own college years in his I Lived in Botany Bay: 1943–1947. He recalls the banter between the skips (the students’ servants) and the jollities of the undergraduates. One amusing anecdote recounts the Junior Dean and his porters, “like bloodhounds”, hunting a female who stayed in college too late, breaking the six o’clock rule. They found the immoral adventuress hiding in a tree.

Those who have read JP Donleavy’s The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B will remember the hilarious chapter in which Balthazar and Beefy smuggle two strumpets into Beefy’s rooms in the Bay. Beefy plans to take holy orders – but, like St Augustine, “not before I’ve had my fill of the diabolical.” Authority soon arrives, declaring that “this university is not some kind of brothel”, but not immediately discovering the concealed wenches.

The student weekly TCD lamented, in 1950, the decline of “the college character” following the war. This archetype, “who presumes no greatness of his own yet gives ‘colour’ to this university”, was identified as a student of the Bay in a sentence which retains its ring of truth, even today:

“In after life we shall remember him,” wrote the undergraduate scribe, “the Botany Bay denizen, the Boat Club type – bane of lecturer and Junior Dean, but boon companion of our college days.”

Indeed! If only the secluded quad were filled with such types these days. College rooms are, as often as not, occupied by the most irrelevant of students: the heads of one-event-per-year societies, the most unsociable of the Scholars, and clueless American one-year students.

But there are always those keen, as the fictional JD of the tercentenary farce said, “to keep alive the traditions of Botany Bay”. And to those students I lift a glass.

IN MY DESCRIPTION of students’ academic dress in the eighth number of this year’s Trinity News I neglected to give a description of the caps in use at this university.

Our graduates’ cap is the same as in many other universities, ancient and modern: a square academic cap (known as a “mortarboard”) with a tassel. Undergraduates wear the same, but without the tassel. Scholars and ex-Scholars are entitled to a velvet-covered cap. The Chancellor wears a velvet-covered cap with a gold tassel.

Students, the statutes direct, “shall salute the Provost and Fellows by doffing their caps.”

There is no truth, sadly, to the story that caps are not worn by men in protest against the admission of women to the university. Men should only wear hats outdoors, and this has led to academic caps not being issued to the stronger sex on Commencements day. However, you are perfectly entitled to one – even if you are opposed to women’s attendance at university! But remember to remove it when in the Public Theatre.

DUBLIN University’s student newspaper took another fine haul of awards at the recent student media awards. Congratulations to Martin and all the members of Trinity News whose hard work was recognised.

The first record of an award to this newspaper which I have discovered is from 1962. On December 8 that year Trinity News won a prize for best student newspaper at an event in the Ormond Hotel. The Irish Times of the following day reported that Trinity News beat off competition from Queen’s University’s The Gown to take the title. Godfrey Fitzsimons – BA 1964 – was chairman of the newspaper that term.

Cigarette cards offer glimpse of past

2009-02-24T14:00:00.002Z

This article was published in Trinity News on 24 February, 2009, the ninth 'Old Trinity' column.

Cigarette cards offer glimpse of past

UNTIL THE 1940s, the man who enjoyed a cigarette could look forward to finding an attractive printed card in his ten pack. That era’s love of cataloguing and classification saw sets of cards on every imaginable topic being printed and included in these packs, and the sets have made an inadvertent but valuable contribution to history.

Cards on the subject of Trinity College are not particularly numerous. Those shown here constitute a virtually complete collection – missing are those rugby caricature cards which depict DU Football Club men Sugden and Cussen. But these few cards are particularly interesting because their subjects are so specific.

The “Vanity Fair” card is probably the oldest Trinity-related cigarette card. Printed in 1902, it shows Edward Carson, MP for Dublin University, in full oratorical flow. The “Vanity Fair” sets reproduced many of the caricatures printed weekly in Vanity Fair magazine. Carson is one of several Trinity men to have appeared in Vanity Fair.

The Gallaher Ltd card showing the college’s facade also dates to the first decade of the 20th century. It would have taken a lifetime of smoking to complete the set of Gallaher “Irish View Scenery” cards: this Trinity example is number 98 in a set of 600!

The smaller heraldic card, from Wills’s “Borough Arms” first series, was to be found in cigarette packs from around 1903 to 1906. It contains two mistakes: these are the arms of Trinity College, not the University of Dublin; and the “bible closed, clasps to the dexter” of the college’s arms should be in gold, not the dark colour shown here.

Depictions of the university’s arms are very rare, making the card showing the University of Dublin arms particularly interesting. The text on the rear of the card tells us that the DU arms “were granted by Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, on March 28, 1882.” I have not encountered this piece of information anywhere else.

The DU arms card is from Wills’s 1923 “Arms of Universities” set. The complete set of 25 also includes the coats of arms of the Queen’s University of Ireland, the Royal University of Ireland, the Queen’s University of Belfast and the National University of Ireland, the former two of these being defunct, and the latter two now no longer using their legitimate coats of arms as their chief symbols.

The 1926 “University Hoods and Gowns” set contains two Dublin University cards, depicting the BA and MA degree hoods. Oddly, these do not seem to correspond to the hood shapes in use at the time. Drawings of our university’s hoods in Haycraft’s Degrees and Hoods of the World’s Universities and Colleges show that these cards probably depict the hood shapes in use here before 1909.

The TCD Association tie, better known as our graduates’ tie, is depicted in the Churchman’s Cigarettes “Well-Known Ties” second series set. These cards were issued in 1935, which shows how popular the Trinity tie had become just eight years or so after its introduction.

JOHN LAVELLE, BA 2008, Gold Medallist, a Scholar reading for the Magister in Utroque Jure degree, tells me that the DU Association Football Club celebrates its 125th anniversary this year. The club’s first team will be visiting Oxford and Cambridge next month to play the Blues teams. Good luck, Trinity, and best wishes to DUAFC in its quasquicentennial year.

It is a shame that the soccer club’s five-letter acronym, in use since 1883, has recently been poached by another outfit. The college’s American footballers have been referring to their as-yet-unrecognised club as “DUAFC”, to the confusion of the student masses. Let us hope that this Gridiron group will acknowledge tradition and adopt a more appropriate moniker.

IT WAS REASSURING to read in the last Trinity News that the new “semesters” will retain the old term names. Trinity had four terms of widely varying lengths until 1834, when Easter term was abolished. It would have been truly disappointing had a hasty decision killed off Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity terms in 2009.

Our forgotten student gown

2009-02-10T14:00:00.000Z

This article was published in Trinity News on February 10, 2009, the eighth of the 'Old Trinity' columns.

Our forgotten student gown

THE DISAPPEARANCE of academic dress has been one of the many casualties of modern arrogance. A cap and gown was the uniform of all students and academic staff members from the foundation of this university until the lamentable 1960s. While the bachelors’ and masters’ gowns have not been completely abandoned thanks to their use at Commencements, the undergraduates’ gown, unique to this college, is now an extremely rare sight.

When a tradition has been erased, we are forced to turn to books. Shaw’s Academical Dress of British and Irish Universities preserves a description of the Trinity College undergraduates’ gown, which students here once donned daily. It is a sleeveless garment with a flap collar, each armhole having a broad flap decorated with three rows of tassels. The side of the gown, beneath the arm holes, is also decorated with tassels.

This gown is prescribed for almost all undergraduates in Trinity. Scholars, upon their election, become entitled to the more ample bachelors’ gown.

In the 18th century it was the privilege of Trinity College students to be admitted to the Irish House of Commons on College Green. “The student’s passport was his gown” says Ireland Ninety Years Ago, in which the author gives a personal account:

“When I first entered College, I was very fond of using this privilege. It was a proud thing for a gib to present himself to a crowd round the door, [and] hear many a cry, ‘Make way for the gentleman of the College!’”

That century, the same gentlemen were advised to have contempt for their gowns by the disrespectful but entertaining pamphlet Advice to the University of Dublin:

“When first arrayed in your academic dress, I suppose you were very proud of yourself, and frequently sported your new gown, even beyond those limits prescribed by the statutes; but one month’s experience, I hope, has convinced you that this is an unfashionable and ridiculous practice.”

And, to help the new student appear to be an old hand, Advice recommends abusing the garment: “You can let it sweep the ground after you like a lady’s train; cut most of the tassels off; and twisting it frequently like a rope, pelt it against every corner you meet. By this means you will probably pass for a sophister and avoid that reproachful term gib, so constantly applied to young freshmen.”

Undergraduates, clearly, were never particularly fond of their gowns. The narrator of the pleasant novel O’Grady of Trinity: A Story of Irish University Life, published in 1896, recorded the sentiment: “The Dublin undergraduate gown could not by any stretch of the imagination, however elastic, be considered a graceful or even dignified garment ... I yearned, therefore, for the comely gown and velvet cap of the Scholar.”

Whether by accident or design, the student’s gown was often a pitiful item. A College Historical Society subcommittee attempted to prevent “academic nudity” in the early 1930s. Bachelors and Scholars, said the committee’s report, “should wear a full, seemly gown,” while Pensioners and Sizars “should wear the customary, lesser gown, commonly called the jib’s gown.”

(Most students are ‘Pensioners’: that is, undergraduates other than Scholars and Sizars. ‘Sizars’ are poorer students – these days Sizars receive free Commons.)

The Hist report continued: “Furthermore, the gown must be a gown. A collection of black rags held together by pins, or a concentration of dark-coloured ribbons assembled by cords, is not a gown.”

A piece in TCD: A College Miscellany in 1949 noted the gown’s often unattractive appearance: “Ostensibly a sable drapery, it is more often green, fusty and ripped, having no kin even in pattern with its neighbour in lecture.” The student scribe was pessimistic: “If the gown is rendered extinct by the fulfilment of its present apathetic decline, it will be a good thing.”

The decline in standards of academic dress did continue, with official approbation. In 1958, ignoring St Paul’s instruction on head coverings in his first letter to Corinth, lady students were given permission to attend College Chapel without wearing mortar boards. Trinity News reported that gowns remained obligatory.

Eventually the undergraduates’ gown fell out of use, despite rules to the contrary. Even today the statutes prescribe a gown for each student and academic staff member, who “shall wear it while performing his academic duties”. The rules of both the Phil and the Hist also require academic dress for meetings; a requirement now never observed.

Other ancient universities retain and enforce academic dress requirements for students dining at hall, attending matriculation or taking finals. It is our loss that we have abandoned such a venerable tradition – even if it was not always loved by every student.

However, those students keen to restore the collegiate spirit can order Trinity undergraduates’ gowns for a reasonable price from Shepherd and Woodward in Oxford. Commons, examinations and GMB debates are particularly appropriate occasions for the eager restorationist to wear his Trinity gown, and do so proudly.

CONGRATULATIONS to the Boat Club men who were awarded Pinks recently for their victory at last year’s Irish senior eights championship: a well-deserved recognition of a once-in-a-generation win.

The college weekly TCD in 1936 reported that students with University Colours would attend college functions “swathed in this antiseptic-seeming material”. I have not encountered a record of the design of this Pinks blazer, despite its former popularity. Does any reader have a description or photograph of it?

Trinity’s holy well

2009-01-27T14:00:00.002Z

This article was published in Trinity News on January 27, 2009, with the headline 'A dry well, if not a dry Commons', the seventh of the 'Old Trinity' columns.

Trinity’s holy well

LOOKING THROUGH the railings at the entrance to college on Nassau Street one can see, below street level, what looks like a gated doorway leading under the road. This is St Patrick’s Well, Trinity College’s own “holy well”. Holy wells – outdoor centres of popular piety – were hugely popular in Ireland in previous centuries, and St Patrick’s Well was once frequented by large crowds on March 17th.

Nassau Street itself was called St Patrick’s Well Lane until it was renamed (after the royal house of Nassau) in the 1700s. The name in Irish continues to be Sráid Thobar Phádraig, as street signs attest.

The oldest mention of a well in the area is in a 12th century Life of St Patrick. The author refers to a “fountain of St Patrick” existing in Dublin. The Life says that St Patrick, in the manner of Moses in Exodus, struck a rock with his staff. The rock then “flowed forth abundant waters”.

In 1592, when Trinity College was founded, the description of property granted to the new college defined the southern border as “the lane that leads to St Patrick’s Well to the south of the monastery”.

It was around this time that the St Patrick’s Well’s popularity among Dubliners was at its height, and a dismissive English writer in around 1610 left us an account of devotions at the well. On St Patrick’s Day, he wrote, “the water is more holy than it is all the year after, or else the inhabitants of Dublin are more foolish upon this day than they be all the year after.” On that day, he wrote, “thither they will run by heaps, men, women and children, and there, first performing certain superstitious ceremonies, they drink of the water”.

At the end of that century, a story goes, frogs were introduced to Ireland at St Patrick’s Well. A doctor, “a very good protestant ... to show his zeal against popery”, allegedly brought frog spawn from Liverpool and deposited it in the well.

In 1729 the well ran dry, inspiring Jonathan Swift to write his satirical poem On the sudden drying up of St Patrick’s Well, near Trinity College, Dublin. “Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts/The students, drinking, raised their wit and parts” he wrote. Public pressure led Dublin Corporation to restore the flow of water to the well two years later.

While the opening underneath the Nassau Street entrance currently claims the title of St Patrick’s Well, and has done so for quite some time, it is unlikely to be very same well which has such an interesting history. Several sites along Nassau Street have claimed to be the well of pilgrimage of 400 years ago, with that at the Arts Building entrance being the latest. Early Dublin maps place St Patrick’s Well nearer to what is now Lincoln Place.

The renovation of the Provost’s House Stables has led to increased and easier access to the well, and a new publication, The Provost’s House Stables: Building and Environs, contains an excellent investigation into the history of the well by Dr Rachel Moss.

NJD WHITE’S Some Recollections of Trinity College, Dublin, published in 1935, contains an interesting description of the beer served at Commons when he was a sizar in 1879. “The beverage supplied,” he tells us, “other than water, was a light beer, brewed at a special brewery in Rathdowney. It was the fashion to rail at this beer; but I believe it was then, as now, quite good light beer.” Hinkson, in 1892, says it was “an attenuated small beer, peculiar to college.”

Today it is draught Guinness which is grudgingly provided to those dining in hall. Can anyone provide evidence for the story that this Guinness is paid for by a fund of some kind? The first and second earls of Iveagh, Edward and Rupert Guinness, who served successively as chancellors of the University of Dublin, were generous with benefactions, so there may be truth to the story.

PARENTS are generous on the day of Commencements, but warn them against any temptation to buy the graduates’ scarf currently available in college for a preposterous price. This item resembles a tea towel more than a scarf. A graduates’ scarf in these colours (black, red, green and light blue – the colours of the TCD Association) is available in traditional two-ply wool for half the price from Ryder and Amies of Cambridge.

Roofs and flags

2009-01-27T14:00:00.000Z

This article was published in Trinity News on January 27, 2009, with the headline 'Rooms with a view', the seventh of the 'Old Trinity' columns.

Roofs and flags

I SPOTTED this remarkable photograph in the recently-published Our War: Ireland and the Great War, edited by John Horne and published by the Royal Irish Academy. The image shows men and women watching, from the roofs of Trinity College, a victory parade on Westmoreland Street. The parade, which took place on July 19, 1919, celebrated success in the Great War.

Perhaps there was no rule against accessing roofs in 1919, or an exception may have been made for the parade. But the modern DU Calendar is unequivocal: these days, “College roofs and attic spaces are out of bounds.”

The spectacle we see in this photograph may never be repeated, but regulations are occasionally ignored. Before the renovation of rooms in Parliament Square in 2006, several attic doors were unlocked, giving easy access to the roofs. In 2005, following a day’s drinking in College Park, I was lucky enough to be able to watch the St Patrick’s weekend fireworks sitting at the chimneys of number ten. The following year, a companion and I had a close escape from the porters when we were spotted boozing on the roof of number eight during Trinity Ball.

I would certainly not support allowing crowds of people unrestricted access to roofs. (Look at the chap sitting on the ledge of number seven – not safe!) But this picture highlights the contrast between those more relaxed days and our era of health and safety gone mad. Risk is an element of day-to-day life, but some apparatchiks’ refusal to acknowledge this leads to closed-off balconies, an excess of security, and less fun for all.

THE UNION FLAG flies above number seven in this photograph. I wonder what flag flew above Regent House that day, if any?

Trinity did not abandon the flying of the union jack in 1922. The college briefly considered flying a flag of the crowned harp, which appears on the university arms and on many sports clubs’ ties. But this idea was given up in favour of flying the tricolour on one side, the union flag on the other, with the college flag in the middle.

By the mid-1930s the flying of the union flag was considered provocative rather than anachronistic and it flew, officially, for the last time, half-staff, on the passing of King George V in 1936. Dubliners did not complain, but the Deputy Ulster King of Arms wrote to the college to point out the heraldic irregularity of the gesture.

When Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, the union flag was seen again – this time as a result of student initiative. Some excited undergraduates gained access to the roof of Regent House and hoisted every flag they could get their hands on: among them the union jack, the Soviet flag, the tricolour and the stars and stripes. The union flag, for whatever reason, was above the flag of Ireland on the staff, and some members of an extremist political group, taking offence at this, burned a union flag on College Green. The students, probably for a laugh, burned an Irish flag above Regent House in response. Not unexpectedly, this led to anger on the streets, and it was a week before tensions in Dublin lifted.

Did Charles Haughey – a UCD student at the time – burn the union flag that day? An Irish Times obituary says so, as does Ian Wood’s Ireland During the Second World War. But McDowell and Webb do not make any mention of him.

DURING THE Students’ Union’s silly 2007 campaign to have the Irish tricolour flown over the college there was mention of flag protocol, but I have never encountered any in print.

I have noticed that when a foreign dignitary visits Trinity, the flag of Ireland flies above Regent House, the flag of the visitor’s country above number seven, and the impressively-large flag of Trinity College above number four. On Commencements days, the flag of the University Senate flies above Regent House. On St Patrick’s Day, the flag of Ireland flies above Regent House. And when a fellow passes away, the flag of Trinity College flies half-staff above Regent House.

But these are only observations: I do not know the specifics.

THANKS TO Kevin Cunningham, BA 2008, currently at Oriel College, Oxford, who sent me the following quote from Jonathan Bardon’s A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes. Students of Trinity College in the late eighteenth century, Bardon writes, “acquired a reputation for wild and debauched behaviour.” He continued:

“Sons of nobles and gentlemen for the most part, they strode about wearing gowns trimmed with gold or silver according to rank. Some could afford to dine at the Eagle Tavern, home of the notorious Hell-Fire Club, or risk a duel at Lucas’s Coffee-House on Cork Hill. Others would eat beefsteaks in The Old Sot’s Hole on Essex Bridge or mingle with the humbler classes in the ale-houses of Winetavern Street. Generally known as ‘bucks’, they were often eager to join fights in the narrow streets, wielding the heavy keys to their rooms as weapons.”

Today’s “bucks” are still fighting and drinking on Dublin’s streets. But these days it’s fists and feet only: plastic key cards are no use at all.

Latin graces at Commons

2008-11-25T14:00:00.002Z

This article was published in Trinity News on 25 November, 2008, without a headline, the fifth 'Old Trinity' column.

Latin graces at Commons

THAT THE LATIN graces continue to be recited before and after Commons every evening in the old Dining Hall is a victory of the perennial over the transitory. These fine prayers, composed by William Bedell, who was provost from 1627 to 1629, are taken for granted, but such a venerable part of our college’s history deserves attention.

Each night an appointed “waiter” ascends the pulpit to read the time-honoured prayers. Ten students are appointed to waiterships every year and, while the job is not restricted to them, these positions are usually filled by scholars.

HA Hinkson, with characteristic sarcasm, says the waiters of his time were “ten scholars of blameless lives and exemplary character”. In his Student Life, published in 1892, he also makes a jab at the eminent fellows: “If a student be seen talking during grace he is liable to be sharply rebuked by one of the junior fellows, whose learning is only equalled by their piety and godliness.”

The curious pulpit from which grace is read is known as the “egg cup”. It is said that it was originally in the old chapel of 1683, which would make it older than all of the buildings in college, and almost as old as the college graces themselves.

Commons begins with a kick on the door, and the waiter says, in Latin, from memory: “The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord. Thou givest them meat in due season. Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature. ...”

These sentences are from Psalm 144. While there are some variations among the other colleges which use these lines to begin their graces, our version is exactly as in the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate, the Latin edition of the Bible published by Pope Clement VIII.

The Psalm 144 (Psalm 145 in the Hebrew bible) verses are also used, with variations, at Brasenose, Keble, Merton and New College at Oxford, and at Christ’s, Clare, Emmanuel, Jesus, King’s, Sidney Sussex, St Catherine’s, St John’s and Trinity College at Cambridge. Provost Bedell, who had been a fellow of Emmanuel, would have heard these lines many times when at Cambridge.

The waiter continues the “before meat” prayer: “... Have mercy on us, we beseech thee, O Lord, and bless thy gifts, which from thy kindness we are about to receive, through Christ our Lord.” This sentence, almost word for word, is the ante cibum prayer at Trinity College, Oxford. It is probably of the same origin as the familiar “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which of thy bounty we are about to receive, through Christ our Lord.”

That the Dublin grace consists of a combination of the graces of Trinity Oxford and Trinity Cambridge may simply be coincidence, but it may be a nod by Bedell to the two English colleges with which we share our name.

All in hall then proceed to fill their bellies as the three courses are served in quick succession.

Once the meal is finished and libations have been poured out to the earls of Iveagh, the same student mounts the egg cup to read the “after meat” grace, much of which is unique to our college.

Again in Latin, he begins: “To thee be praise, to thee be honour, to thee be glory, O blessed and glorious Trinity. Blessed be the name of the Lord now and forever. ...”

This beginning is very similar to the start of the prayer used after meals at Clare College, Cambridge, an establishment which was founded over 250 years before our own. The triple praise corresponds to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. “Blessed be the name of the Lord” is a quote from the first chapter of Job.

Continuing: “... We praise thee, most gracious Father, for the most serene ones, Queen Elizabeth the founder of this college, James its most munificent builder, Charles its preserver, and our other benefactors...”

Queen Elizabeth I, as is well known, founded this college in 1592. Her immediate successors to the throne of England and Ireland, James I was responsible for granting generous amounts of land to the college in the 1610s, while Charles I was king during the time of the composition of the graces. All three monarchs issued charters to the new Trinity College.

One must wonder what Catholic students, over the years, thought of having to praise God the Father for Elizabeth – excommunicated and deposed by Pope St Pius V – and her heretical successors. It wasn’t until 1873, when religious tests were abolished, that Catholics could attend Trinity. That year, a Catholic scholar asked to be excused from saying grace, and was supported by the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Dublin, who declared that “no Catholic could with safe conscience take any part, active or passive, in such a prayer”.

McDowell and Webb, in their Academic History, put this declaration down to the Church of the time “riding high on the ultramontane tide”. There seems to have been no problem with the prayer since that time, even when “the ban” was lifted in 1970.

The waiter then finishes: “...asking thee, as we make use of these thy gifts rightly and for thy glory at this time, that we might exalt in thee together with the faithful happily in the future, through Christ our Lord.”

The divine source of all wisdom thus acknowledged, all remain standing for the fellows’ exit, after which the undergraduate rabble stays standing for the scholars’ departure.

The ancient prayers are not always said with the dignity they demand. The unedifying sound of a giddy scholaress racing illiterately through the graces assaults the ears of the assembled diners more often than one would hope. But nothing under the sun is new: an 1898 issue of the student rag TCD called for the university’s professor of oratory to “offer instruction to the misguided young men to whom is relegated the task of saying grace”. “Sensitive ears”, it recorded, were forced to endure “barbarisms produced by faulty phrasing”.

It must be something close to a miracle that these graces have escaped the revolutionary wrath of today’s progressives. One would expect Christian prayers to have been excised from college life by indignant modernists, whose abundant zeal is usually matched by their intolerance.

But, laus Deo, the graces remain prescribed by the statutes. Long may they be preserved from the wretched onslaught of change. Amen.

Before meat

Oculi omnium in te sperant Domine. Tu das iis escam eorum in tempore opportuno. Aperis tu manum tuam, et imples omne animal benedictione tua. Miserere nostri te quaesumus Domine, tuisque donis, quae de tua benignitate sumus percepturi, benedicito per Christum Dominum nostrum.

The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord. Thou givest them meat in due season. Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature. Have mercy on us, we beseech thee, O Lord, and bless thy gifts, which from thy kindness we are about to receive, through Christ our Lord.

After meat

Tibi laus, tibi honor, tibi gloria, O beata et gloriosa Trinitas. Sit nomen Domini benedictum et nunc et in perpetuum. Laudamus te, benignissime Pater, pro serenissimis, regina Elizabetha hujus Collegii conditrice, Jacobo ejusdem munificentissimo auctore, Carolo conservatore, caeterisque benefactoribus nostris, rogantes te, ut his tuis donis recte et ad tuam gloriam utentes in hoc saeculo, te una cum fidelibus in futuro feliciter perfruamur, per Christum Dominum nostrum.

To thee be praise, to thee be honour, to thee be glory, O blessed and glorious Trinity. Blessed be the name of the Lord now and forever. We praise thee, most gracious Father, for the most serene ones, Queen Elizabeth the founder of this college, James its most munificent builder, Charles its preserver, and our other benefactors, asking thee, as we make use of these thy gifts rightly and for thy glory at this time, that we might exalt in thee together with the faithful happily in the future, through Christ our Lord.

Postcards a unique window on past

2008-11-11T14:00:00.003Z

This article was published in Trinity News on 11 November, 2008, the fourth 'Old Trinity' column.

Postcards a unique window on past

THE SIMPLE postcard has served its purpose well since its invention in the 1860s. Postcards remain, even in this age of digital communication, extremely popular. But apart from their primary function, they have also served to create a pictorial history, often depicting scenes found nowhere else.

Postcards of the main facade of Trinity College are in abundance, from those printed early last century and before to those available in shops around Dublin today. But other interesting and more obscure images of our college have been printed and, message appended, sent around the world.

King George V spent six days in Dublin in July of 1911, and he was welcomed to Trinity by the Chancellor of the University, the Earl of Iveagh. The postcard shown records the king on the steps of the Dining Hall, in a photograph which must have been taken from the roof of the chapel. Interestingly, the photo is by Lafayette, the same company which now takes photographs at commencements. The king wished the then newly-formed DU Officers’ Training Corp success and said that Trinity College “will, I am sure, always continue to hold its high place in the estimation of both Ireland and the world.”

The postcard of the University Philosophical Society’s conversation room is postmarked 1906. It is not the same room today’s students repair to after debates in the chamber of the Graduates’ Memorial Building; it is the current billiards room. One has to wonder what became of the furniture, books, bookcases and framed pictures which are seen in this picture.

The card titled “A ‘Junior Freshman’s’ Entrance Examination” shows a man, with his son, enquiring about admission to the college. It would be generous to simply say that the joke is in the contrast between the local father-son pair and the educated don. Rather, it seems that this card is positively anti-Irish. It dates from the first decade of the last century.

The oldest card shown here, “The Quadrangle, Trinity College”, shows a familiar view of Parliament Square, taken from Regent House. But there is one curious difference: the GMB has not yet been built (it was completed in 1904), and the old “Rotten Row” can still be seen to the left of the Campanile. The card’s author is forced to write his message on the side of the card with the picture in accordance with early postal rules.

The selection of postcards of our college available these days are not always particularly diverse or special, but the recent postcard of Lorraine Lawlor’s drawing of a worse-for-wear Trinity Ball couple outside Front Gate is an example of the potential for postcards to continue to depict Trinity in interesting ways.

THE COMMUNICATIONS Office’s website tells us that the bachelor in theology degree is to be replaced with the master in theology degree. The old BTh, which was introduced in 1988, will be abolished in favour of the new “MTheol” (do they mean MTh?). But no mention is made of the hood. Will the BTh hood – black, lined with black, edged with purple – be used, now with the masters’ gown? Or is there a new design?

The night climbers of Trinity College

2008-10-28T14:00:00.001Z

This article was published in Trinity News on 28 October, 2008, the third 'Old Trinity' column.

The night climbers of Trinity College

THIS TIME last year The Night Climbers of Cambridge was reprinted, bringing to a large audience the original guide to scaling the walls of Cambridge’s colleges, which was first published in 1937. It is a fascinating and entertaining description of the many forbidden routes which courageous nocturnal climbers have tackled in the University of Cambridge. While the hobby was never so popular in this university, we did have our own “night climbers” in the past.

Here in Dublin, as in Cambridge, the career of the night climber often began with an attempt to scale the walls to gain entry to college after the curfew. Students living in rooms were once required to be back in college by a certain time, and night roll, where the Junior Dean presided, was obligatory for those living in. These days, climbers are likely to be undergraduates intending to get back to a friend’s rooms after a night on the tear, or hoping to save on a taxi fare by sleeping in a society room.

When I was a student, not very long ago, one spot for late-night entry was opposite the train station on Westland Row – there were some excellent footholds in the wall. Cameras were installed on this area, unfortunately, and I know several graduates who earned their Junior Dean colours after being caught hopping over at this spot.

Not as easy, but away from the porters’ cameras, were the railings across from the Garda station on Pearse Street. The bus shelter gets a climber half of the way up, and it just requires a bit of effort to get over the spikes.

Only once did I go in over the railings behind the Luce Hall, with two others. The railings are precipitously high, and I was lucky not to be impaled, but the three of us were determined to get into Trinity Ball that night after being caught without tickets at a party in Botany Bay.

But these small climbs, undertaken in a slightly sozzled state, are insignificant compared to the ascents of The Night Climbers of Cambridge, which depicts fearless students scaling frighteningly high old buildings. The book cover shows a daredevil climbing the facade of our sister college, St John’s – and some amazing shots show figures perched on the pinnacles of King’s College Chapel.

Back in Dublin, our own holy grail is the Campanile. An issue of TCD: A College Miscellany in 1953 claimed that some students, along with a locksmith, had climbed to the top of the Campanile, entered through the small arches, and descended via ladders to the door, where the locksmith made a key.

The article seems hardly credible. It does carry a picture of Parliament Square taken through the grille of the Campanile, but I have taken a similar picture myself: if the door in one of the pillars is left open then entry is straightforward, and one can even engage in some campanology by pulling on the ropes.

The archive of the DU Climbing Club says that the craze of “buildering” – as they called it – became popular here in 1961, and the club even kept a guidebook for the college. Routes on the walls of the Graduates’ Memorial Building, New Square and the 1937 Reading Room are given, along with detailed instructions for climbing to the top of the Campanile.

According to an older issue of Trinity News, the first ascent was in Trinity week of 1962, when a red top hat was left to decorate the cross. It remained there until the following week when steeple jacks were called in and removed the hat at a cost to the college of £12. Offers by several climbers to remove the hat were rejected.

A TCD reporter of the time could not find any information on the climb. He mused in that paper on the possible origin of the red hat. He suggested, sarcastically, that it was a publicity stunt carried out by the socialist DU Fabian Society. Or perhaps, he wrote, the Climbing Club was expressing its exasperation at the poor quality of climbing routes in Ireland. Or maybe an American tourist had thrown his hat away and it had been blown onto the cross of the Campanile?

1965 saw another conquest, when the Climbing Club members – no other suspects this time – left a stuffed crocodile on top of the cross. It was “affixed to the summit with a spike through its belly” said the Climbing Club’s newsletter, which gave a romantic description of the climb. It mentions some close calls: the narrator says his friend helped him up at one stage by grabbing his ears!

The fire brigade were called in that year to remove the crocodile, says an old Trinity News. The same issue says that, since then, “there have been a few ascents, numerous attempts, and several unfortunate misunderstandings with porters as to the desirability of working off excess energy and intoxication in such a fashion.”

The lack of photographs and small contradictions in the accounts make one wonder how much of these stories are fantasy. CCTV, lighting and the diligence of the porters may have made Campanile-climbing extremely difficult, but if anyone does take on the challenge again, please take a camera with you!

IT IS WELL-KNOWN that the four figures on the Campanile represent divinity, science, medicine and law. The heads of Homer, Socrates, Plato and Demosthenes can also be seen on the structure. But what of the four coats of arms? One is that of the college. Another is the arms of either the Archdiocese of Dublin or the Archdiocese of Armagh (a count of the number of crosses formée fitchée on the pallium would distinguish) impaled with another’s arms. These are likely the arms of then Archbishop of Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, whose gift the Campanile was back in 1852. Can anyone confirm this and identify the other two?

I MENTIONED our so-called “sister college” above. People are fond of pointing out our association with St John’s College, Cambridge, and Oriel College, Oxford, with that fiendishly unreliable website as their source. It is true that an association was made with these colleges and KC Bailey records it in his History of Trinity College. In 1933, he says, “a ‘friendly association’ was established by mutual consent with Oriel College, Oxford, and, a few months later, an ‘alliance’ made with St. John’s College, Cambridge.” TCD: A College Miscellany says at the time that our scholars were involved in the arrangement. Honorary fellowships continue to be exchanged between our provost and the heads of Oriel and St John’s, but that seems to be the current extent of the relationship.

Stepping out of history's shadow

2008-10-14T14:00:00.001+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 14 October, 2008, with this introduction:

DUBC’s Irish Championship win recalls the glory days of old and ranks alongside the club’s greatest past achievments, writes Peter Henry.

Stepping out of history's shadow

A BIG WIN demands a big celebration, and on Friday week Dublin University Boat Club will mark the senior eight’s momentous victory in the Irish championships with a celebration to remember.

The club will be taking over the Dining Hall on the night of Friday, October 24, in what promises to be its largest get-together in living memory. As many as 260 people, students and graduates, will attend the drinks reception and dinner, which will also celebrate 1998 captain James Lindsay-Fynn’s World Championship gold medal win.

But why is the 2008 senior eight’s win – which occurred back in July – so important? Why is it not just another victory among the determined Boat Club’s many?

The Irish senior eights championship has been a big deal for every Irish club since it was instituted in 1912. Oarsmen of all clubs and backgrounds will declare that it represents the peak of rowing success in this county. This year, for the first time since 1981, the Big Pot – as it’s called – is back with the men in black and white.

The tradition of championship success did not begin for Trinity until 1922. Indeed, for the first years of the event, DUBC were in the final only once. The impact of the Great War on the university was felt among Trinity’s sports clubs, with education and athletic endeavour the least of many young men’s worries at the time.

Bow man Bobby Steen was first over the line in 1922, and again for Trinity’s second win in 1925. In 1926 a win came DUBC’s way yet again, won by the hosts at Trinity Regatta. The decade marked a tentative beginning to Trinity’s eventual dominance.

In the 1930s the event belonged to the men in black and white, who had adopted the new Fairbairn style of rowing. It was an uplifting string of triumphs: 1932, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938 all saw the Big Pot come home to old Trinity. The 1935 championship on the Suir in Waterford was the most dramatic of the decade: in Trinity’s heat, both Shannon and Neptune had to be rescued as their boats went under. The lucky DUBC crew drifted over the line as their own boat sank.

Trinity’s longest winning streak in the history of the race took place while the world was at war, with the DU eight winning every year from 1941 to 1946. The UCD club put a stop to this catalogue of glory, as they had previously done to the 1930s wins. The universities dominated those years: it was either Trinity or UCD first past the line from 1935 to 1951.

1949 was another memorable win, the Trinity students beating National at Galway Regatta. Robin Tamplin, who became president of DUBC in 2006, was sitting in the seven seat that year. He was in the stroke seat for the following year when the eight left UCD and Neptune behind them in New Ross.

But the years of Trinity’s dominance were over. Dublin University would no longer dominate Irish waters. Subsequent wins were glorious but sporadic. The UCD club had come to maturity, and Queen’s Belfast were looking for their share of the silver.

Two very tight races were won from behind to take the Big Pot in 1954. The next win, in 1958, was a close one. After being knocked out on the first day of Henley by Christ’s Cambridge, four days of banter ensued. Preparation for the senior eights championship in Dublin involved a stroll in the Wicklow mountains. A very lucky Trinity beat Garda Síochána by a third of a length that year.

It was 1967 before the next win came Trinity’s way, this time in Blessington, Co Wicklow. Coached by Robin Tamplin, DUBC beat UCD and Garda Síochána to win, and the entire eight were selected to race for Ireland at the Home International – as were two of the 2008 winning crew, Peter Heverin and Eoin MacDomhnaill.

A drought ensued, with UCD and the Gardaí the fastest crews in the country for the next decade. But Trinity had big plans, and by 1976 had claimed another championship win. This was the year before the pinnacle of the 20th century: the win at Henley Royal. An almost identical crew lifted the Big Pot in 1976 and the Ladies’ Plate in 1977.

Some people wondered if a Trinity student eight could ever do it again. It seemed as if the universities were out of contention as the standard of rowing in Ireland increased and increased. Big Pot-winning crews had Henley winners and Irish internationals on board. The students were out of their league.

But they did it in 1981. The nine men who won the championship that year celebrated the 25th anniversary of their triumph last year. Indeed, “will this be the new 1981?” is one of the questions the oarsmen in the black blazers have asked themselves every year since. It had been a preternatural hope: verbally expressed but doubted within. Could it really ever happen?

As 1981 faded into the past, it seemed less and less likely that a student eight from any Irish university could win the Big Pot again. One of Trinity’s apparent drawbacks was its focus on Henley. With very little time to prepare on their return to Ireland, the senior championship was often an afterthought.

When DUBC won the intermediate eights championship in 2006, it was rightfully lauded as a great win for the Trin’s first eight. But it was felt that this was as far as a student eight could go. After all, other Trinity clubs have to go outside of College to recruit members in order to stay competitive at the highest level – surely students couldn’t go it alone in rowing, the most demanding sport of all?

DUBC was sticking to its own rules – full-time Trinity students only – and paying the price.

But it can be done, and it has been done. They did it this year, defeating crews filled with Oxford blues and Irish internationals: a testament to unity, hard work, determination, solidarity and a love of the Boat Club. It was the 23rd time DUBC had won the event, and the first time in 26 years.

The senior eights championship is a big deal, and Trinity were up to the challenge of beating the best. And so Boat Club men of all ages will come to college next week to celebrate the greatest win of the generation. It’s going to be a great night.

The Phil’s reinvigoration of a colourful tradition

2008-10-14T14:00:00.000+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 14 October, 2008, without a headline, the second 'Old Trinity' column.

The Phil’s reinvigoration of a colourful tradition

THE PAST has a lot to offer the present, and Trinity’s past is a storeroom filled with valuable traditions. A lesson is always learned from any excursion into history, as history’s vast accumulation of knowledge and wisdom far outweighs the whims and fashions of the present. Chesterton wrote that tradition is the democracy of the dead, and here at Trinity we should always try to give our predecessors their vote.

This lofty vision of the glories of the past applies to the great things of the academy: law, medicine, science, theology and the other great disciplines of learning. But it also applies to the simple, and the simple is often more interesting than the grandiose. And so I direct my attention to one of the simplest things of all: one man’s necktie.

The president of the University Philosophical Society has a new tie. It is black, and stripes in red, pale blue and royal blue are repeated at intervals. The Phil has rescued a simple piece of its own tradition from near effacement, and its president and members now proudly wear the Phil tie when receiving distinguished guests to the Graduates’ Memorial Building.

The design of Phil’s tie may have been lost forever if a sharp graduate – William John White, LLB 1942 – had not committed to paper the provenance of this piece of silk in the alumni yearly of the time, Trinity: An Annual Record, back in 1953.

(The Phil celebrated its centenary that year, although it has since revised its origin backward, from 1853 to 1684. A big jump, and one which the editor of this year’s Calendar clearly doesn’t agree with: 1684 has vanished from beside the University Philosophical Society’s entry in this year’s DU Calendar!)

The Trinity periodical preserved a description of the Phil’s tie for posterity. The Phil, it said, “has made up, to some extent, for the absence of a ‘student’ tie in College by bringing out its own tie – a handsome piece of poplin (designed by Atkinson’s) in black with narrow red, pale blue and royal blue stripes.”

Quod erat demonstrandum, a tradition revived, one might think. But not quite: some old Phil members have produced from their wardrobes a black tie, with the stripes as described in 1953, but with the addition of a repeating pattern of the University of Dublin arms: a quartered shield with a crowned harp, an open book and a blazing castle.

This is an oddity: the University of Dublin’s arms were not granted until 1882, after both of the Phil’s alleged founding years. This could be forgiven, as confusions abound when it comes to the use of the arms of the college and the university. But the Phil has always used the college arms – the familiar harp, lion, book and castle – on its medals and stationary, so an explanation is demanded.

This newspaper may hold the reason. In June of 1963, an article on the heraldry of our institution was published in Trinity News, and the author was upset about the confusion between the college and the university. He mused on the college’s ties, writing:

“The sports clubs which describe themselves as Dublin University clubs correctly use the harp surmounted by crown on their ties. The College Historical Society also uses it on its ties, but the University Philosophical Society for some unknown reason does not.”

A progressive modernist in the Phil, drunk with the spirit of the 1960s, must have decided to deface the ten-year-old Phil tie with a logo not its own, all in response to one sentence in this newspaper! He even got it wrong: the Hist and many of the DU clubs use the crowned harp, but not the full shield as found on these later Phil ties.

This left the restorationist of 2008 with a dilemma: was the initiative of 1963 an organic development, carried out in a spirit of continuity with the past? Would Pope Benedict, the great proponent of the hermeneutic of continuity, approve of such a move?

Archaeologism triumphed, and this year the original tie saw the light once again, sans shields. The Phil’s pretty lady members, the remnant of the old DU Elizabethan Society, are taking advantage of the society’s new scarf, which is in wool and made in the colours of the tie.

And so the University Philosophical Society is like the householder of Matthew, “who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old”. Make sure to commend Barry Devlin and his predecessor, Ruth, when you see them, on their brave reinvigoration of tradition.

CONTINUITY is pursued in the Phil, but a venerated part of our university has made a major break with tradition this year. The University of Dublin Calendar was, for most of its existence, the Dublin University Calendar. That change barely scandalised a single pedant in, I think, the 1980s.

But this year, for the first time since its inception in 1833, the Calendar has been printed in a sans serif font. This change from Times to what appears to be Arial or Arial MT ought to be condemned: a pointless and miserable innovation.

MY PRESUMPTUOUSNESS has been highlighted: spraoi may be Irish for “fun”, but it does not “hardly need to be said” (as I wrote in the last Trinity News) that the word for a college party, or spree, derives from the Irish. A Scotsman himself, Dominic Esler, BA 2008, wrote to point out the Scots origin of the word. A consultation of the dictionary shows that “spree” first appeared in Scotland in the early 19th century to mean “a lively outing” or “a drinking bout”. Thank you, Dominic.

Paul Joseph Anthony Tansey, MA, MBA

2008-09-30T14:00:00.003+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 30 September, 2008.

Paul Joseph Anthony Tansey, MA, MBA

PAUL TANSEY, a former editor of Trinity News, passed away on September 21 at the age of 59.
The Blackrock College student came to Trinity to study economics and politics in the late 1960s. He succeeded Ted Oliver to become editor of this newspaper in Trinity term of 1970.

He was involved with the Students’ Representative Council, the forerunner to today’s Students’ Union. He started the Students’ Union’s tradition of publishing as founder and first editor, in 1970, of Liaison, which was succeeded by Union, Aontas and the University Record.

He was elected president of the Students’ Representative Council, also in 1970, and deputy president of the Union of Students in Ireland the following year. During his time in student politics he also spent a year in Prague with the International Union of Students.

John Spain, writing in the Irish Independent last Saturday, recalled Paul’s student days. The 1960s were a time of student rebellion, said Spain, but “Tansey saw through the revolutionary nonsense quicker than most. Unlike the rebels propping up the Buttery bar, he had a maturity about him that the rest of us lacked.”

Tansey took the BA and MA degrees. He returned to Trinity in the 1980s to study for the master in business administration degree, which he took in 1987. He also studied at the London School of Economics in the 1970s.

Soon after leaving Trinity he took up a position with The Irish Times, becoming economics correspondent two years later, in 1975. Apart from his year at LSE, he stayed with The Irish Times until 1983, when he became deputy editor of the Sunday Tribune.

He became an economic consultant, setting up Tansey Webster Steward Group, and published many papers on economics and finance.

His knowledge of economics was lauded in the newspapers last week. Joan Burton, deputy leader of the Labour Party, said he was “first among equals in the ranks of economic commentators”. John McManus, business editor of The Irish Times, said: “Without a doubt, his work both as a journalist and an independent consultant had an influence on the development of Irish economic policy over the last 30 years.”

He returned to The Irish Times last year, becoming economics editor.

Tansey died on the morning of Sunday, September 21, while playing tennis at the Enniskerry home of Dublin University senator Shane Ross, a long-time friend of his.

His wife, Olivia O’Leary, paid tribute to him at his funeral at St Patrick’s Church, Monkstown, last Thursday. She thanked him for 25 years of “fun, laughter and love”. He was remembered as a “wise old owl” with a “Rolls Royce mind”.

Among the mourners at Tansey’s funeral were Professor Antoin Murphy, Senator Shane Ross and provost Dr John Hegarty.

Paul Joseph Anthony Tansey, MA, MBA. Born August 17, 1949. Died September 21, 2008, aged 59.

Rusticated jibs and disapproving skips

2008-09-30T14:00:00.000+01:00

This article was published in Trinity News on 30 September, 2008, as the first of my 'Old Trinity' columns, with some sentences cut.

Rusticated jibs and disapproving skips

DOES YOUR skip disapprove of sprees? Has your wife been pestering you to clean your rooms? Has your new jib friend been rusticated?

Trinity College has many peculiar words, turns of phrase and acronyms which are its own. The words used in the above sentences would be more familiar to a student here in the 1960s, but they remain part of our cultural patrimony.

Much of the language used by our predecessors has been obliterated by time and taste. Older ways of talking about things – reading for a degree, or going up to College – have, sadly, become considered slightly embarrassing and have fallen out of use.

Long forgotten is the “skip”. No, not one of the oversized bins which deface our quadrangles, but a college servant who tended to the needs of the student in rooms. Oxford and Cambridge students still have their “scouts” and “gyps” respectively, and skip is likely a combination of these two words.

“Spree” was once – in the late 19th century at least – a term for an alcohol and banter session in rooms. It hardly needs to be said that it is an Anglicisation of the Irish word for fun, spraoi.

The undergraduate in rooms lived with his “wife”. Not the result of marriage, and certainly not a woman, wife simply referred to what we now call a roommate. The word became a little ridiculous when New Square sets were converted for the use of three people each – no one wanted to be accused of polygamy!

Innocent junior freshman students were once condescendingly called “jibs”. The word is over 200 years old: it appears in the irreverent late-18th-century Advice to the University of Dublin with the spelling “gib”.

Thankfully, we do retain some of our vocabulary. The freshman and sophister years have been safeguarded by official use. We attend commencements rather than graduation. We live in rooms in College, even if we only have one room, and even if the office of the Registrar of Chambers insists on “campus accommodation”.

An angry-looking man dressed in a military-style uniform once spoke to me about the dark old days when, he said, “you called us ‘porters’ and we called you ‘sir’.” With all respect to him, porters they were and porters they remain, despite the current fad for “security guards”.

“Trinity College” is a far more dignified title for our establishment than “TCD”, but the three-letter acronym was in use by the mid-18th century, and probably earlier. “UCD”, on the other hand, was not always the common term for University College, Dublin (which now never uses its rightful comma – long may we retain ours). “National” was the Dublin student’s colloquialism for that NUI college until the 1960s.

Trinity’s other special abbreviations are its unique and sought-after postnominals. The illustrious fellows are entitled to write “FTCD” – Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin – after their names. Scholars traditionally write “Sch” after theirs. The frequent use of that abbreviation seems to have fallen victim to the bland spirit of egalitarianism, and even the names of the members of the Scholars’ Committee are not suffixed by “Sch” in the Calendar.

Trinity Hall in Cambridge is colloquially referred to as “Tit Hall”. Not here, where we currently call our own Trinity Hall “Halls”. This plural version is not an old usage, but one which has been in vogue long enough for it to earn a place in the Trinity lexicon.

Another peculiarity is the “extern” examiner: not “external”, as you might expect. Similarly, your bachelor’s degree will be, all going well, an “honors” degree. For some reason the correct spelling is not used in reference to Dublin University degrees. Both of these oddities are preserved in the Calendar.

Of recent origin but in full health is that affectionate term for lady rowers, “mare”.

The word buttery is one of several words which are also used at other universities. It is not related to butter, as one might assume, but is a word for a liquor store room. It comes from the Latin butta – a cask – via the Anglo-French boterie.

We share the name of Michaelmas term with many other universities – Hilary and Trinity terms we share with Oxford. They are named after the feast days of St Michael the Archangel, St Hilary of Poitiers and the Most Holy Trinity, the last being our titular feast. Let us pray to the Holy Trinity, through saints Michael and Hilary, that these old term names be saved from the scourge of semesterisation.

Also in common with other universities are the terms for expulsion and suspension. As one goes up to a city and down to the country, so one is “rusticated” rather than suspended and “sent down” rather than expelled. Rusticus is Latin for “of the country”. Oscar Wilde enjoyed rustication, but after his time at Trinity, when he was at Magdalen College, Oxford.

There are undoubtedly many more examples of words special to our university. Words must have come and gone over the years which were never recorded, or which I have not encountered.

The eager jib shouldn’t be afraid to use these terms – or bring them back into use, as the case may be. At the very least their use will serve to irritate jealous acquaintances from National.

22 T. C. D.

2008-04-15T14:00:00.003+01:00

Written by William Wilkins in c1878 and reprinted in Trinity News on 15 April 2008, with this note:

The author, William Wilkins (Sch 1876, BA 1878, MA 1881), was the first student to combine mathematics with modern literature for his degree, which he did in 1878. This poem was originally published in the college periodical Kottabos and later reprinted in the compilation Echoes from Kottabos (ed RY Tyrell, 1906).

22 T. C. D.

UP here I sleep in the hawthorn scent,
It swims through my windows from lawn to lawn
While June’s first nights with their deep content
Possess my spirit from dusk to dawn.

I lying here, alone, a king,
In the centre of pleasances green and sweet;
Hearing the tree-tops murmuring,
Hearing the far-away sounds of the street.

With only to lean o’er the garden-bed,
To see steadfast Jupiter shine in the south,
To see Arcturus hang overhead,
And the stillness of spars o’er the river-mouth.

Eastward, westward, spread in the dark
An acre of grass, an acre of daisies:
Northward, a square; to the south, a park;
Mine is the midmost of pleasant places.

Hence I can see, as the midnight wears,
The first blue tides of the morning steal
Between the shores of cloud, among fleets of stars,
Blanching the coigns of the Campanile,

And all the divine repose that looms
Through the College Courts as the sweet hours go;
Palatial piles and their cloister’d glooms,
And dormer, and terrace, and portico.

While the sea-like city is laid asleep,
No motion or sound in its mountain heights
Of dark, vast waves,——or its furrows deep,
Sown with the lines of unnumber’d lights,

Till the blue turns grey, and the grey turns gold,
And the sea and land taste the new day’s breath;
And I hear the joys of the young man told
By the wakening birds in the boughs beneath.

And thus in the city, I scarcely sigh
For hollows that eglantines perfume,
And speedwells make like an undersky
Peering through clouds of chestnut bloom.

For I know my part in the treasure-trove
Of the glad green meads where June winds roam,
As I knew the looks of my fair first love,
As I know the shapes of our hills at home.

And so I sleep in the hawthorn scent
That dwells with me here like a haunting passion,
And so in the city I wait content
While the time draws on to the long vacation.

W. W.

A bright future for college's ancient dining tradition?

2008-04-15T14:00:00.000+01:00

This piece was published in Trinity News on 15 April, 2008, with this introduction:

“Peter Henry was very impressed by his recent experiences in England, where he dined at Oriel in Oxford and at Homerton and Emmanuel in Cambridge. He argues for the improvement and promotion of our own evening meal, Commons.”

A bright future for college’s ancient dining tradition?

STUDENTS AT Trinity College inherit an immemorial custom which, despite its value, is rarely taken full advantage of. A communal evening meal was considered integral to university education in the past, yet Commons nowadays is attended almost solely by Scholars and the odd Fellow.

The Provost, Fellows, Scholars and Sizars are entitled to free Commons. But it’s not just the presence of the neediest and the most studious students at Commons which deters the average undergrad. With the fee at just under €20 for a rushed three-course meal, it makes more sense to spend your money on a few litres of chocolate milk or some homemade cider from the College off-licence.

Yet at England’s ancient universities, college evening meals, usually called “Hall”, are extremely popular with students. Most colleges have a regular “Formal Hall” where smart dress is expected and a gown is recommended, the food is better than the usual daily fare and students have to book in advance to be sure of a seat.

If our own establishment took some steps towards promoting Commons as a meal which is not just for Scholars, it could have a healthy future and become a popular evening venue for students.

As it stands, the occasional student goes to Commons once during his years at Trinity, usually for novelty’s sake or because he has a Scholar friend.

Awareness is certainly lacking. There are, without doubt, some unfortunate students who have never heard of “Commons”. There are some things every undergraduate knows about Trinity: walking under the Campanile is a bad idea, this is the last ever Trinity Ball, and you can bring your own cans to the Pavilion Bar. Commons deserves a place on this list and some promotion would make a big difference.

Some initiatives wouldn’t go astray. First, the introduction of a bulk discount for Commons tickets would allow the average student to attend with reasonable regularity without breaking the bank. If the price was seen as reasonable, it would surely encourage more students to dine in. Indeed, value for money is probably more important to most people than simple cost: most students have plenty of cash and the poor get a grant.

A further concession might be made to the clubs and societies. Many of them, indeed, do attend Commons at Christmas, but some discounts for groups would undoubtedly bring more students to Commons and help make eating-in a more central part of the undergraduate experience.

A little more time allowed in the Dining Hall would do no harm at all. Perhaps the grace after meat could be said after the main course? This would allow the scholars to skip off back to their books and those who want to indulge in further intelligent discussion could do so, unrushed, over dessert and coffee. Failing this, even twenty minutes’ more time would improve the Commons experience.

Good food is always desirable. A recent review of Commons in The Irish Times pointed out that “pretty vile” food was standard fare even in the 1980s, so perhaps there isn’t so much cause for complaint. Of course, Trinity’s kitchens are graced with proud chefs, who will undoubtedly rise to any challenge to provide ever-more appealing dishes in the evenings.

A glass of stout is central to the Trinity dining experience and excuses should be tolerated no more. Lines from waiting staff such as “Guinness is only for scholars” and “only four glasses of Guinness per table” need to be exposed for the miserable lies that they are. A liberal attitude towards the provision of the drink, in honour of former Chancellors of the University Edward and Rupert Guinness, would go a long way towards instilling a love of Commons in the students of Trinity.

With the College’s modern guardians of morals being averse to the pleasures of alcohol, surely no argument could be made against the suggestion that a food-based event be promoted in College. Indeed, perhaps the same abstinent Fellows and Fellows-aspirant will spearhead the drive to bring Commons to the student hordes.

It should be noted that overindulgence in good food can itself be a sin. However, I suspect that the College Alcohol Policy was not written to protect our souls from an extended stay in purgatory, but rather to spare the porters and the Junior Dean the hassle of having to deal with intemperate young pups.

The introduction of once-a-month in-term formal Commons would also make Commons attractive to the average student. Some table cloths, a wine list and some slightly better food would make all the difference. And yes, a dress code: formality makes an evening special, and there’s always the local institute of technology if you have a complex about these kinds of things.

Scholars: wear your gowns! The right to wear the bachelors’ gown and a velvet cap was once a major incentive for the hard-working Schol hopeful and a hall full of gown-clad diners would certainly add to the atmosphere at Commons.

Perhaps some students, with more affection for alcohol than my sober self, may be deterred by the epicurean emphasis to dining in College. They will be pleased to hear that, at the analogous Halls at Oxford and Cambridge colleges, an undergraduate’s dining experience is sometimes merely the prelude to a night of bibulous intellectual conversation at the college bar, often followed by a crapulous stagger back to rooms.

But, of course, that kind of thing is not encouraged.

Imitation of English universities for imitation’s sake is a bad idea and that is not what is being proposed here. But dining is certainly one area where students at Oxford and Cambridge (and Durham, Nottingham and Bristol) have an advantage over us. If some brave individual – student or staff member – would take on the noble cause of the promotion of Commons, he would be doing a huge service to the university and its students.

Robert Desmond Harman, MA

2008-01-29T14:00:00.002Z

This article was published in Trinity News on 29 January, 2008.

Robert Desmond Harman, MA

Members of Trinity News received before Christmas the sad news that another of the newspaper’s early editors had passed away. Desmond Harman, chairman of Trinity News in Hilary term, 1963, died age 66 on 18 December.

Originally from Carrick on Shannon in Co Limerick, he read Hebrew and oriental languages at Trinity. He took his BA in 1965.

He was ordained in the Church of Ireland in 1967. He served as curate-assistant of Taney, Dundrum, for six years, followed by 13 years as rector of Santry and Glasnevin. In 1986 he was appointed rector of Sandford and Milltown and to several chaplaincies. In 1991 he was appointed a canon of Christ Church Cathedral. In 2004 he was appointed Dean of Christ Church Cathedral by the Archbishop of Dublin Dr John Neill, where he served until his death.

The Archdeacon of Glendalough, Edgar Swann, at the funeral Eucharist for Dean Harman, mentioned his skills, his editorial talents in particular:

“Even in College, certain skills were obvious in Desmond’s character. He became engrossed in the editorship of Trinity News, a task in which he showed great talent. It was a talent which was to come to the surface again when he became editor of the diocesan review.”

From 1981 to 2000 he was editor of the Church Review, undoubtedly drawing on his earlier experience as chairman of Trinity News. Church Review became established as one of the leading diocesan magazines in the Anglican Communion during his editorship.

He was in touch with Trinity News until recently. “I am so glad to see the present production,” he wrote last May. “It is a long way from what we did, but I suppose you have massive resources showered on you!”

Archbishop Neill paid tribute to him:

“Dean Harman’s death is a huge loss to the dioceses and the Church as a whole. He served in ministry for over 40 years and he will be remembered in every parish he served in as a gentle and caring pastor.

“For his wife Sue and their children, the loss of a loving husband and father will be profound, all the more so so close to Christmas. I have already offered my deepest sympathies and condolences both on my own behalf and on behalf of the clergy and people of the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough. Our love, thoughts and prayers are with them.”

The high esteem in which Dean Harman was held in Dublin was evident at his funeral Eucharist, which was attended by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin, the Lord Mayor of Dublin Cllr Paddy Burke, representatives of the Taoiseach and the President, and many bishops of the Church of Ireland.

The Very Revd Robert Desmond Harman, MA. Born 1941. Died December 2007, aged 66.

Dermod Dmitri Owen-Flood, LLB, MA

2008-01-15T14:00:00.004Z

This article was published in Trinity News on 15 January, 2008.
Dermod Dmitri Owen-Flood, LLB, MA

All those involved with Trinity News were saddened last term to hear the news that Dermod Owen-Flood had passed away. Owen-Flood was chairman of Trinity News in Hilary term, 1955, and had been involved with the newspaper since its inception in 1953.

During his time at Trinity, he worked as a professional actor with The Earl of Longford’s Theatre Company while also working with Trinity News and reading for his law degree. He was also Secretary of the Phil, having failed in an attempt to become Auditor of the Hist. Owen-Flood wrote for Trinity News under the pen names An Fear Cruaidh, Thersites and Colonel Tottering, and also wrote a religious column with the late Tony Jennings (Chairman in Michaelmas term, 1954) under the apt pen name Lucifer.

A profile of him in a 1955 issue of this newspaper called him an affable man who “stood forth as the most vigorous and ardent champion of Truth in the short but lively history of this journal.”

Owen-Flood took the LLB degree in 1955. Moving to Canada in 1956, he practised law in Victoria from 1964 until 1987, when he was appointed a judge. He was appointed a justice of the British Columbia Supreme Court in 1990 and remained on the bench until September of 2006, when he was forced to retire when he turned 75.

The Stonyhurst-educated Owen-Flood thanked his Jesuit education for outfitting him for his life in law. In his legal life, he was credited with a professional generosity: he was always willing to help those he worked with, and not one to hoard or guard knowledge or tricks he had learned during his time.

The well-respected Owen-Flood always tried to stay in touch with Trinity News. Last summer he wrote to say that Trinity News is now “more of a newspaper, which is as it should be”. In his time it was, he said, “more devoted to taking the mickey” – perhaps an underestimation of the achievements of the early Trinity News.

Remarking on his own time here, Owen-Flood said that “many in Trinity in my day were living in an imaginary past which, in some aspects, never existed. I felt, as did Provost Alton, that College had to move along and get with it. That is not to say that I thought Trinity should lose its identity – far from it.”

Trinity News, he said, “was of tremendous benefit to my law career”.

Dermod Dmitri Owen-Flood, LLB, MA. Born 1931. Died September 2007, aged 76.