Sir, – I thoroughly commend TCD’s decision on a personal level, but more crucially on a professional level as a historian of modern and contemporary Ireland.
When considering the controversy over the removal of statues in 2021, Gary Younge, professor of sociology and a journalist, argued the “obsession with statues . . . mistakes adulation for history, history for heritage and heritage for memory. It attempts to detach the past from the present, the present from morality, and morality from responsibility. In short, it attempts to set our understanding of what has happened in stone, beyond interpretation, investigation or critique.”
To my mind the same holds true of a desire to consider the historic names of buildings as sacrosanct.
A university of all places is the right place to challenge this “adulation” and to promote discussion about how our built environment and the way we inscribe it reflects and reinforces certain power structures. I would like also to publicly acknowledge the work and expertise of Prof Eoin O’Sullivan, Dr Mobeen Hussain, Dr Ciaran O’Neill and Dr Patrick Walsh, which informed TCD’s decision.
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I should conclude by saying I will be taking up the Chair of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College Dublin in August 2023, and after this decision to “dename” the library, I am looking forward more than ever to many informed debates and conversations on these issues in the future. – Yours, etc,
LINDSEY EARNER-BYRNE,
Professor of Irish
Gender History,
School of History,
University College Cork.
Sir, – Trinity College’s decision to “dename” the Berkeley Library is only a first step. Now the college must choose a new name that will survive revision in turn by future generations. May I suggest the Jedward Library? – Yours, etc,
BRIAN McMAHON,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – Following the denaming of the library in TCD, a conundrum presents itself: namely, how to refer to the city of Berkeley, California, without signalling one’s tacit approval of slavery? – Yours, etc,
BRIAN AHERN,
Dublin 15.
Sir, – Pride comes before a fall in the rankings. – Yours, etc,
ULTÁN Ó BROIN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Can I suggest that Trinity College Dublin honour one of its finest and rename the library “The Leabhair Line” in honour of Joe Duffy? – Yours, etc,
ANNETTE ARQUETTE,
Kilmainham,
Dublin 8.
Sir, – It is interesting to learn that Trinity College has decided to dename the Berkeley Library because the philosopher kept slaves.
Have they contacted the US authorities and asked them to rename the university of the same name?
Since George Washington also kept slaves, should they not urge them to rename the state and federal capital too? – Yours, etc,
TIM McCORMICK,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – May I suggest that the former Berkeley Library be named for Trinity alumna Eavan Boland? – Yours, etc,
PARAIC HEGARTY,
Enniskeane,
Co Cork.
Sir, – If the present frenzy to dename and rename anything historically related to slavery continues unabated, we may have to consider seriously changing the names of the seventh and eighth months of the year to Quinquember and Sextember.
Julius Caesar and his nephew Augustus ruled an empire which like all empires was built on conquest, exploitation and slavery, and by this logic their names should be removed from any association with the calendar. – Yours, etc,
CHARLES DALY,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – Try as I might, I cannot see how renaming the Berkeley Library will make a whit of difference to slaves, living or dead. Perhaps in the morning, when we are getting dressed, we might give some thought to the clothing we are putting on which may have been made by a 10-year-old in a sweatshop. Of course, that might mean bringing inconvenience into our daily lives, and sure that would never do. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN MacDONAGH,
Malahide,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Sackville Street was renamed O’Connell Street in 1924. This was not an eradication of history but an engagement with it. Furthermore, as Dr Philomena Mullen has explained very clearly in this newspaper (“Trinity College library: ‘Man of his times’ argument does not get Berkeley off the hook”, Opinion & Analysis, January 26th), there were people who disagreed with slavery in Berkeley’s time, most obviously enslaved people. Those who are so offended by the name change of the library in Trinity should ask themselves who they identify with and what they are trying to protect. They are not protecting history. The research undertaken by the TCD Colonial Legacies Project, and the debates it has provoked, clearly enriches our understanding of the past. – Yours, etc,
Dr CAROLE HOLOHAN,
Department of History,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
Sir, – A lesson surely to would-be donors and philanthropists: if the legacy of Ireland’s greatest philosopher is not safe in Trinity College Dublin, whose is? – Yours, etc,
LENNON Ó NÁRAIGH,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.
Sir, – I wonder if God will perceive it as the Berkeley Library after our finite minds no longer perceive it as so. – Yours, etc,
COLIN WALSH,
Dublin 6W.