Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [58]
Trinity’s greatest treasures are kept in the Old Library’s stunning 65m Long Room ( 896 2320; East Pavilion, Library Colonnades; adult/student/child €9/8/free; 9.30am-5pm Mon-Sat year-round, noon-4.30pm Sun Oct-Apr, 9.30am-4.30pm Sun May-Sep), which houses about 250,000 of the library’s oldest volumes, including the breathtaking Book of Kells (see the boxed text, opposite). Your entry ticket includes admission to temporary exhibitions on display in the East Pavilion. The ground-floor Colonnades was originally an open arcade, but was enclosed in 1892 to increase the storage area. A previous attempt to increase the room’s storage capacity had been made in 1853, when the Long Room ceiling was raised. Other displays include a rare copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which was read out by Pádraig Pearse at the beginning of the Easter Rising in 1916. Also here is the so-called harp of Brian Ború, which was definitely not in use when the army of this early Irish hero defeated the Danes at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. It does, however, date from around 1400, making it one of the oldest harps in Ireland.
Continuing clockwise around the Campanile, there’s the 1937 Reading Room and the Exam Hall (Public Theatre), which dates from 1779 to 1791. Like the chapel, it was the work of William Chambers and also has plasterwork by Michael Stapleton. The Exam Hall has an oak chandelier rescued from the Houses of Parliament (now the Bank of Ireland) across College Green, and an organ supposedly salvaged from a Spanish ship in 1702, though evidence indicates otherwise.
Behind the Exam Hall is the 1760 Provost’s House, a very fine Georgian house where the provost (college head) still resides. The house and its adjacent garden are not open to the public.
To one side of the Old Library is Paul Koralek’s 1967 Berkeley Library (Fellows’ Sq; closed to public). This solid, square, brutalist-style building has been hailed as the best example of modern architecture in Ireland, though it has to be admitted the competition isn’t great. It’s fronted by Arnaldo Pomodoro’s 1982 sculpture Sphere Within Sphere. George Berkeley was born in Kilkenny in 1685, studied at Trinity when he was only 15 years old and went on to a distinguished career in many fields, particularly philosophy. His influence spread to the new colonies in North America where, among other things, he helped to found the University of Pennsylvania. Berkeley, California, and its namesake university are named after him.
South of the Old Library is the 1978 Arts & Social Science Building, which backs on to Nassau St and forms the alternative entrance to the college. Like the Berkeley Library, it was designed by Paul Koralek; it also houses the Douglas Hyde Gallery of Modern Art ( 896 1116; www.douglashydegallery.ie; admission free; 11am-6pm Mon-Wed & Fri, 11am-7pm Thu, 11am-4.45pm Sat).
Trinity’s newest attraction is the Science Gallery ( 896 4091; www.sciencegallery.ie; Pearse St; admission free; exhibitions usually noon-6pm Tue-Sun, cafe 8am-8pm Tue-Fri, noon-6pm Sat & Sun), a refreshingly lively and informative exploration of the relationship between science, art and the world we live in. Past exhibits have touched on a range of fascinating topics, including whether antidepressants really work and how technology can make clothing ‘think’. The ground-floor Flux Café, bathed in floor-to-ceiling light, is a pretty good spot to take a load off.
Behind the Rubrics Building, at the eastern end of Library Sq, is New Sq. The highly ornate Victorian Museum Building ( 896 1477; New Sq; admission free; by prior arrangement), built from 1853 to 1857, has the skeletons of two enormous Giant Deer just inside the entrance, and the Geological Museum upstairs.
The 1734 Printing House, designed by Richard Cassels to resemble a Doric temple, and now used for the microelectronics