TCD Old Library marks 300 years

Celebrations marking the 300th anniversary of Trinity College Dublin’s iconic Old Library building began today.

The foundation stone for the library was laid in May 1712 but it took another 20 years to complete the building.

“The sheer scale of the library was very ambitious at the time when the college only had a few hundred scholars,” Trinity College Dublin librarian Robin Adams said.

Records about the building of the library will be displayed later this month as part of the celebrations.

The library receives more than 500,000 visitors every year to view the Book of Kells in the Long Room. However, the room’s famous ceiling was not part of the original design. “It was a bold step in the mid-19th century when they were running out of space,”Mr Adams said.

As the only library at the college for more than 200 years it was the place of study for many of the college’s most famous students such as writer Jonathan Swift, philosopher Edmund Burke and artist Mary Delany.

An exhibition of some rarer texts from over a quarter of a million books and hundreds of manuscript collections held at the library will open later this month. “We wanted to feature books wouldn't regularly be on display,” Mr Adams said.

A couple of 16th-century manuscripts outlining some of the indigenous Irish Brehon laws will be exhibited. Also in the exhibition will be a first edition of Martin Luther's Old Testament, a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible and 12th-century manuscript Winchcombe Psalter.

For more see tcd.ie/library/tercentenary.