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The Trinity College Science Safari is a free walking tour that takes the visitor on a journey through 400 years of science in Ireland, relating some strange but true stories along the way

TRINITY COLLEGE Dublin (TCD) is surely Ireland’s most ingenious quarter. For more than 400 years – longer than any other Irish institution – it has been a centre of ideas, discovery and innovation, in philosophy and the natural sciences, in engineering and mathematics. No surprise, then, that the college can lay claim to a host of intriguing and unusual stories, from the date of the Creation to the man who split the atom. In terms of artefacts, there’s a fascinating model of the engine that electrified the 20th century, and a gem of a museum in an attic that is Dublin’s loveliest yet least-known.