The Book of Trinity College Dublin 1591-1891Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland)
History
The Book of Trinity College Dublin 1591-1891
Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland)
Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland)
possibly that formerly occupied by the sub-prior, as tenants on a
terminable lease. During the fifty years which elapsed from the
suppression of the Monastery, the buildings must have suffered
very considerable dilapidation. Most likely they had not been
originally erected in a very substantial and durable manner; and
as little care seems to have been taken as to the maintenance of
the church, the hall, and the monastic dwellings, they must have
been for the most part in a ruinous condition. The total value of
the site and precincts is stated in a letter from Queen Elizabeth
to have been £20 a-year. At the close of the Queen’s reign the
City of Dublin did not extend towards the east beyond St. George’s
Lane, now called South Great George’s Street. An open space of
ground stretched from thence to All Hallows, with paths diverging
to different parts of a small stream, beyond which lay the site of
the old Monastery. The whole of the precincts at that time covered
about twenty-eight acres, of which twelve were in meadow, nine in
pasture, and seven in orchard. On the north, towards the river,
there was a boggy strip of ground covered by the water at high
tide, and bounded on the south by the path leading to St. Patrick’s
Well, near the present entrance to Kildare Street, and bounded on
the east by lands formerly belonging to the Abbey of the Blessed
Virgin, but then in the tenure of John Dougan, on the site of the
modern Westland Row.[139]
And such was the influence of the Archbishop, supported by his
Archdeacon, Henry Ussher, and by Luke Chaloner, of Trinity College,
Cambridge, and two Scotch schoolmasters, James Hamilton and James
Fullerton, who were at the time in Dublin, that the Corporation
convened the citizens to a general assembly at the Tholsel, where
they, after due deliberation upon the proposal to grant the site
of the monastery for the intended College, immediately proceeded
to make the grant. A Charter of Incorporation had in the meantime
been obtained from the Queen, on the petition of Henry Ussher. The
letter of Elizabeth to Sir William Fitzwilliam, Lord Deputy, and
to the Irish Council, announcing her consent to this arrangement,
is dated December 21st, 1591; and, on the 3rd of the following
March, Letters Patent passed the Great Seal.[140] The first stone
of the new building was laid on March 13th, 1592. Subscriptions
from the gentry in every part of Ireland were received for the
building, and on January 9th, 1594, the new College was completed.
No remains of this structure exist at the present day; indeed, no
buildings prior to the reign of William III. are now to be found
in Trinity College. The Elizabethan edifice consisted of a small
square court, which was always familiarly called The Quadrangle,
and which was removed early in the latter half of the eighteenth
century. Some parts of the old monastery were no doubt utilised in
the new building. As the visitor approached from Hoggen Green he
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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