[17] Founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I through a royal charter issued on the advice of the Archbishop of Armagh and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Adam Loftus, it was modelled based on the collegiate universities of both Oxford and Cambridge, with whom it shares a unique relationship.

[24][25] It stands on the former grounds of the Priory of All Hallows which was abolished by King Henry VIII, and served as the principal university of the ruling Ascendancy elite for over two centuries.

Alumni and faculty also include philosophers George Berkeley and Edmund Burke; scientists Erwin Schrödinger, William Hamilton, E. T. Whittaker, Charles Parsons, and Ernest Walton; and filmmakers D. B. Weiss and David Benioff.

The great building drive was mostly completed by the early 19th century with the inauguration of the Botany Bay, the square which derives its name in part from the herb garden it once contained.

[53] Medical studies had been taught in the college since 1711, but it was only after the establishment of the school on a firm basis by legislation in 1800, and under the inspiration of one Macartney, that it was in a position to play its full part, with such teachers as Graves and Stokes, in the great age of Dublin medicine.

[citation needed] Heron appealed to the Irish courts, which issued a Writ of Mandamus requiring the case to be adjudicated by the Archbishop of Dublin and the Primate of Ireland.

[citation needed] Trinity College was one of the targets of the Volunteer and Citizen Army forces during the 1916 Easter Rising but was successfully defended by a small number of unionist students,[62] most of whom were members of the university Officers' Training Corps.

McConnell, wrote in the Irish Times that certain state-funded County Council scholarships excluded Trinity College from the list of approved institutions.

At the beginning of the new century, it embarked on a radical overhaul of academic structures to reallocate funds and reduce administration costs, resulting in, for instance, the reduction from six to five to eventually three faculties under a subsequent restructuring.

[78] The main site of Trinity College has been described as retaining a tranquil collegiate atmosphere despite its location in the centre of a capital city,[79] and despite it being one of Dublin's, and Ireland's, most prominent tourist attractions, with more than 2 million visitors annually.

In addition to the core campus, Trinity owns a number of buildings nearby in central Dublin, as well as an enterprise centre near Ringsend and a botanic garden in Dartry.

"The imposing entrance to Trinity College, consisting of a central area flanked by two square pavilions, was built in the 1750s of Leinster Granite from Golden Hill, Co Wicklow, and Portland Stone was used for the architraves, swags, and Corinthian pilasters and half-columns...

Passing through the gateway one walks over a wooden floor of interlocking hexagonal setts (similar in pattern to the basaltic Giant's Causeway), and into Parliament Square, which is dominated by the identical Corinthian fronts, in Leinster Granite and Portland Stone, of the Chapel on the left and the Examination Hall on the right.

[96][97] The six-storey building, adjoining the Naughton Institute on the college's Pearse Street side, includes an Innovation and Entrepreneurial hub, a 600-seat auditorium, "smart classrooms" with digital technology, and an "executive education centre".

In November 2018, Trinity announced plans, estimated at €230 million, to develop university research facilities on a site in Grand Canal Dock as part of an "Innovation District" for the area.

[71] The provost serves a ten-year term and is elected by a body of electors consisting essentially of all full-time academic staff and a very small number of students.

Now the provost, while still formally appointed by the Government, is elected by staff plus student representatives, who gather in an electoral meeting and vote by exhaustive ballot until a candidate obtains an absolute majority; the process takes a day.

Over the years, while formal revision did not take place, partly due to the complexity of the process, a number of additional representatives were added to the Board but as "observers" and not full voting members.

The university has been linked to parliamentary representation since 1613, when James I granted it the right to elect two members of parliament (MPs) to the Irish House of Commons.

After a 2017 proposal by the SU Equality Committee, the Trinity College Board approved a three-year process changing the titles of first and second years to Junior and Senior Fresh.

Qualifications are measured as "points", with specific scales for the Leaving Certificate, UK GCE A-level, the International Baccalaureate and all other European Union school-leaving examinations.

[139] Disadvantaged, disabled, or mature students can also be admitted through a program that is separate from the CAO, the Trinity Access Programme,[140] which aims to facilitate the entry of sectors of society which would otherwise be under-represented.

Students from non-European countries, such as the United States, may be admitted directly if they have passed the International Baccalaureate or EU/EFTA exams and meet the minimum admission requirements.

[144] Undergraduate students of Senior Freshmen standing may elect to sit the Foundation Scholarship examination, which takes place in the Christmas Vacation, on the last week before Hilary term.

[145] Those from EU member countries are entitled to free rooms and Commons (the college's Formal Hall), an annual stipend and exemption from fees for the duration of their scholarship, which lasts 15 terms.

Among the Phil's Honorary Patrons are multiple Nobel Prize laureates, heads of state, notable actors, entertainers and well-known intellectuals, such as Al Pacino, Desmond Tutu, Sir Christopher Lee, Stephen Fry, and John Mearsheimer.

[167] The Hist has been addressed by many notable orators, including Winston Churchill and Ted Kennedy, and counts among its former members many prominent men and women in Ireland's history.

[227] In Karen Marie Moning's The Fever Series Trinity College is said to be where the main character, MacKayla Lane's sister Alina, was attending school on scholarship before she was murdered.

[229] Parts of Michael Collins,[230] The First Great Train Robbery,[231] Circle of Friends,[232] Educating Rita,[233] Ek Tha Tiger[234] and Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx[235] were filmed in Trinity College.

[238] In Sally Rooney's 2018 novel Normal People and its 2020 television adaptation, the main characters, Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan, are students at Trinity College and are elected scholars.