Founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a Protestant way of thinking about God, Trinity has long been Ireland’s most prestigious college. Originally, the student body was limited to rich Protestant men. Women were admitted in 1903, and Catholics – though allowed entrance to the school much earlier – were given formal permission by the Catholic Church to study at Trinity in the 1970s (before that they risked mortal sin :-0).
Today, more than half of Trinity’s 18,000 students are women, and there are Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim student societies on campus. Notice that on campus, the official blue-and-white signs are bilingual – and the Irish comes first.
The Book of Kells in the Trinity Old Library
The Book of Kells – a 1,200-year-old manuscript of the four gospels – was elaborately inked and meticulously illustrated by faithful monks. Combining Christian symbols and pagan styles, it’s a snapshot of medieval Ireland in transition. Arguably the finest piece of art from the Middle Ages, the Book of Kells shows that monastic life in this far fringe of Europe was far from dark.
The Book of Kells was a labor of love created by dedicated Irish monks cloistered on the remote Scottish island of Iona. They slaughtered 185 calves, soaked the skins in lime, scraped off the hair, and dried the skins into a cream-colored writing surface called vellum. Only then could the tonsured monks pick up their swan-quill pens and get to work.
The project may have been underway in 806 when Vikings savagely pillaged and burned Iona, killing 68 monks. The survivors fled to the Abbey of Kells (near Dublin). Scholars debate exactly where the book was produced: It could have been made entirely at Iona or at Kells, or started at Iona and finished at Kells.
For eight centuries, the glorious gospel sat regally atop the high altar of the church at Kells, where the priest would read form it during special Masses. In 1654, as Cromwell’s puritanical rule settled in, the book was smuggled to Dublin for safety.
Here at Trinity College, it was first displayed to the public in the mid-1800s. In 1953, the book got its current covers and was bound into four separate volumes.
Our visit had three stages:
- An exhibit on the making of the Book of Kells, including poster-sized reproductions of its pages (which is our best look at the book’s details
- the Treasury, a darkened room that contains the Book of Kells itself and other, less ornate contemporaneous volumes, and
- the Old Library (called the Long Room), containing a precious collection of 16th – to -18th century books and objects.
The Turning Darkness into Light exhibit, with a one-way route, puts the illuminated manuscript in its historical and cultural context. This is important as it prepares you to see the original book and other precious manuscripts in the treasury.
The continuous loop video shows the ancient art of bookbinding and the exacting care that went into transcribing the monk-uscripts. They vividly depict the skill and patience needed for the monk’s work.
The Book of Kells contains the four gospels of the Bible – two are on display at any given time. Altogether, the manuscript is 680 pages long (or 340 “folios,” the equivalent of one sheet, front and back). The Latin calligraphy – all in capital letters – follows ruled lines, forming neat horizontal bars across the page. Sentences end with a “period” of three dots.
The text is elaborately decorated – of the hundreds of pages, only two are without illustration. Each gospel begins with a full-page depiction of an Evangelist and his symbol: Matthew (angel), Mark (lion), Luke (ox), and John (eagle). The apostles pose stiffly, like Byzantine-style icons, with almond-shaped eyes and symmetrically creased robes. Look at the amazing detail. The true beauty lies in the intricate designs that surround the figures.
The colorful book employs blue, purple, red, pink, green, and yellow pigments – but no gold leaf. Letters and borders are braided together. On most pages, the initial letters are big and flowery, like in a children’s fairy-tale book.
Notice how the playful monks might cross a “t” with a fish, form an “h” from a spindly-legged man, or make an “e” out of a coiled snake. Animals crouch between sentences. It’s a jungle of intricate designs, inhabited by tiny creatures both real and fanciful.
Scholars think three main artists created the book: the “goldsmith” (who did the filigree-style designs), the “illustrator” (who specialized in animals and grotesques), and the “portrait painter” (who did the Evangelists and Mary).
The Old Library: The Long Room, the 200-foot-long main chamber of the Old Library (from 1732), is stacked to its towering ceiling with 200,000 books. Lining the room are about 40 marble busts of famous writers, philosophers, and scholars (Shakespeare, Plato, Jonathan Swift). For centuries, the busts represented only men – until 2022, when four women were added.
Among the displays here, we find one of a dozen surviving original copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Patrick Pearse read out its words at Dublin’s General Post Office on April 24, 1916, starting the Easter Rising that led to Irish independence. Notice the inclusive opening phrase (“Irishmen and Irishwomen”) and the seven signatories (each of whom were later executed).
Another national icon is nearby: the oldest surviving Irish harp, from the 15th century (while often called the Brian Boru harp, it was crafted 400 years after the death of this Irish king). The brass pins on its oak and willow frame once held 29 strings. In Celtic days, poets – highly influential with kings and druids priests – wandered the land, uniting the people with songs and stories. The harp’s inspirational effect on Gaelic culture was so strong that Queen Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603) ordered Irish harpists to be hung and their instruments smashed. Even today, the love of music here is so intense that Ireland is the only country with a musical instrument as its national symbol. You’ll se this harp’s likeness on the back of Irish euro coins, on government documents, and on every pint of Guinness.
Here are some more photos of an amazing Library and an amazing campus. Enjoy!
