Page 120 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Europe

118  BRIT AIN AND IRELAND

2 Merrion Square
alumni of more recent times
include the playwrights Oscar £ DART to Pearse. @ 4, 7, 25, 44, 66
Wilde (1854–1900) and Samuel & many others.
Beckett (1906–89).
The oldest surviving part of Merrion Square is one of Dublin’s
the college is the red-brick largest and grandest Georgian
building (the Rubrics) on the squares. Covering about 5 ha
east side of Library Square, (12 acres), the square was laid
built around 1700. The Old out by John Ensor around 1762.
Library itself dates from 1732. On the west side are the
Its spectacular Long Room impressive facades of the Natural
measures 64 m (210 ft) from History Museum, the National
end to end. It houses 200,000 Gallery of Ireland, and the
antiquarian texts, marble busts front garden of Leinster House,
View down the central aisle of Trinity of scholars and seat of the Dáil
College’s Old Library the oldest harp in and the Seanad
Ireland. Below the (the two houses
1 Trinity College Library is the of the Irish Parlia-
College Green. Tel 01-896 2320. £ Treasury, where the ment). The other
DART to Pearse. @ 4, 7, 10, 14, 15, 46, college’s most three sides of
48 & many others. Old Library and precious volumes the square are
Treasury: Open daily. Closed 10 days at – the beautifully lined with lovely
Christmas. & 7 ∑ tcd.ie illuminated Georgian town-
manuscripts houses. Many have
Trinity was founded in 1592 produced in Ireland brightly painted
by Elizabeth I on the site of an from the 7th to the doors and original
Augustinian monastery as a 9th century – are features, such
bastion of Protestantism. It kept. The most as wrought-iron
was not until the 1970s that famous, the Book Portrait of St. Matthew from balconies, ornate
Catholics started entering the of Kells (see p127), the Book of Kells door knockers,
university. Its cobbled quads may have been and fanlights.
and lawns still have a monastic created by monks from Iona, The oldest and fin est houses
feel, providing a pleasant haven who fled to Kells in 806 after are on the north side.
in the heart of the city. In front a Viking raid. The scribes Many of the houses – now
of the main entrance, on College embellished the text with predominantly used as office
Green, are statues of two of intricate patterns as well as space – have plaques
Trinity’s most famous 18th- human figures and animals. detailing famous former
century students, playwright Almost as fine is the Book occupants, such as Catholic
Oliver Goldsmith and political of Durrow, which dates from emancipation leader Daniel
writer Edmund Burke. Literary the late 7th century. O’Connell (No. 58), and poet

Facade of Trinity College, Dublin, the Republic’s most prestigious university
For hotels and restaurants see p138 and p139

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