Trinity College Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin, was founded during this reign. Sir John Perrot had proposed to convert St. Patrick's Cathedral into an university; but Loftus, the Protestant Archbishop, would not allow it, because, according to Leland, "he was particularly interested in the livings of this church, by leases and estates, which he had procured for himself and his kinsmen." When the Deputy, whom he cordially hated, had been withdrawn, he proposed a plan which gave him the credit of the undertaking without any expenditure on his part. The site he selected was in what was then called Hogges-green, now College-green; and the place was the "scite, ambit, and presinct"[2] of the Augustinian Monastery of All Saints, which had been founded by Dermod MacMurrough, King of Leinster, A.D. 1166. Dr. Loftus, after obtaining this grant, and such rents as still belonged to the old Catholic monastery, endeavoured to raise a subscription to supply the further funds still necessary to complete the work. In this he signally failed; for those to whom he applied excused themselves on the plea of poverty. Other funds were therefore sought for, and easily obtained; and the revenues of some suppressed Catholic houses in Kerry, Mayo, and Ulster, were taken to endow and erect the Protestant University.

Ruin on the Blackwater

Notes

[2] Presinct.—History of the University of Dublin, by W. B. S. Taylor, London, 1845.