Qualla: University of Dublin

University of Dublin: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Matpib, Public domain. On four mornings each academic year, a procession winds through Parliament Square at Trinity College. A mace-bearer leads. Behind him come the registrar, the proctors, the Provost, and a knot of black-robed senior academics in colored hoods - doctors and masters of the University of Dublin. They are heading to the Public Theatre, where they will conduct the only business the University of Dublin has ever really conducted: voting on degrees. The Chief Steward will call ad scrutinum. The voting will happen in Latin. The candidates whose names have already been approved by Trinity's Board, an entirely separate body that occupies the same buildings and largely the same people, will be made graduates. The University and the College have been ruled by the High Court to be one body. Mostly nobody minds.

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Image: User:Matpib | Public domain

University of Dublin: Mater Universitatis

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Hurson, CC BY-SA 4.0. Queen Elizabeth I issued a royal charter on 3 March 1592 establishing both Trinity College and a University of Dublin to which Trinity would belong. The charter named her mater universitatis - the mother of the university. The First Baron Burghley, William Cecil, was named the fi...

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Image: Rob Hurson | CC BY-SA 4.0

University of Dublin: The Steamboat Ladies

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dronepicr, CC BY 2.0. For a few extraordinary years at the turn of the 20th century, the University of Dublin became a quiet engine of educational fairness. Women had been allowed to study at Oxford and Cambridge, to sit examinations, to see their results published - and were then refused the degrees ...

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Image: dronepicr | CC BY 2.0

University of Dublin: Conducted in Latin

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ben Brooksbank, CC BY-SA 2.0. The public commencements remain rigorously formal. Each meeting is headed by a caput consisting of the chancellor, the provost of Trinity College, and the senior master non-regent - any of whom can veto any decision. The Chief Steward calls 'ad scrutinum' to bring candidates unde...

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Image: Ben Brooksbank | CC BY-SA 2.0

University of Dublin: Three Senators

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit XeresNelro, CC BY-SA 4.0. The University of Dublin has elected representatives to parliament since 1613, when James I granted it the right to send two members to the Irish House of Commons. The franchise was originally limited to the Provost, Fellows, and Scholars of Trinity. In 1832 it expanded to includ...

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Image: XeresNelro | CC BY-SA 4.0