In Trinity in war and revolution, Tomás Irish offers a consideration of the struggles of Trinity College in the intense social, cultural and political changes in Ireland in the turbulent early years of the twentieth century. In the course of seven chapters, the book explores Trinity’s role during the home rule crisis, First World War, Easter Rising, War of Independence, the Irish Civil War and beyond. It also looks at the impact these events had on the college, its staff and students.
Trinity College occupied a peculiar position in Ireland. A bastion of Protestantism and the Ascendancy, the college was as much the object of long, covetous glances from nationalists and the Catholic church as it was the butt of their vilifications. Irish navigates confidently the twists and turns in the history of the college; from the pomp and celebration of its three-hundredth anniversary to the fearful uncertainty of Ireland in the post-revolutionary period. This period witnessed, as Irish skilfully narrates, a process wherein Trinity’s social and cultural pre-eminence diminished, leaving the institution financially crippled, adrift and dislocated in post-partition Ireland.
Trinity College was, as Irish argues, a conservative institution with a propensity for producing radical figures such as John Redmond and Douglas Hyde (p. xvii). However, its role in the home rule crisis went beyond providing one of the central figures of the period in Sir Edward Carson. Trinity was a stronghold of Irish unionism and its provost, Sir Anthony Traill, placed the college squarely against home rule, going so far as to demand the college be excluded from any settlement and remain a British enclave in the heart of Dublin (p. 49). Irish argues that the college was never divorced from political and social reality. But its intervention in events was seldom without controversy. During the Dublin Lockout, for example, the efforts of college clergy to provide relief for the families of strikers were condemned as proselytising. The Catholic church in Dublin characterised the college’s intervention as a ‘fight for souls’ (p. 65).
Like other universities across Britain and Ireland, a significant number of staff and students, some 500 men from the college community, died in the First World War (p. 203). The book offers a vibrant and poignant discussion of the impact of the war on the college. Irish provides a forthright discussion of Trinity’s role in the escalating political violence in Ireland during the war and after. The college, he points out, had a leading part in the theatricality of Easter week, ‘playing out its historic role as pantomime villain’ by locking its gates and providing a base from which the army could suppress the rebellion (p. 148). The political convulsions of the period left Trinity floundering as its political and social influence withered away (p. 205). Even so, the college sought ‘quietly to do right by all parties’, dutifully sending its M.P.s to the short-lived southern Irish parliament established by the Government of Ireland Act (p. 212).
Irish deftly chronicles the impact of the War of Independence and Civil War on the college. Trinity was often directly embroiled in conflict. A 21-year-old student, Kathleen Wright, was shot dead in June 1921 when the I.R.A. attempted to disrupt a cricket match at the college (p. 215). In the same year, Dorothy Stopford Price, a medical graduate joined republican forces, ‘offering her medical expertise to the West Cork Brigade of the IRA’ (p. 216). The book concludes with an examination of the college’s search for stability and meaning in the new, post-partition Ireland where it struggled financially and with the reality of new social and political elites.
Irish does not seek to rescue Trinity’s reputation nor offer a hagiography. Trinity in war and revolution is a layered, complex and candid exploration. It offers, for example, a fascinating examination of the college’s sometimes problematic relationship with the Irish language. For all its rigorous scholarship, the book is eminently readable. This is enhanced by the judicious use of sumptuous illustrations, images and historical documents. These compliment the over-arching narrative and analysis to great effect. Trinity in war and revolution offers a vibrant, immersive and rewarding history which deserves to be read widely.
