Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh will visit Trinity College Dublin founded by Queen Elizabeth I,  today  (Tuesday, May 17th, 2011).  In honour of the royal visit, Provost, Dr John Hegarty, will host a reception in Trinity’s Long Room situated in the College’s 18th century Old Library building, where Ireland’s wealth of talent in all aspects of research and education at both Trinity College Dublin and the wider university sector in Ireland, in culture and the arts, and innovation and entrepreneurship will be represented.

Queen Elizabeth I provided the legal charter to establish the university in 1592 in response to the petition of the citizens of Dublin for a seat of learning for Ireland.  The reception in the Long Room aims to showcase how this has contributed to Ireland’s educational landscape and to generations of intellectual thought, debate and rigorous scholarship.

For over 400 years Trinity has produced some of the world’s great minds across the sciences and the humanities, including two Nobel Laureates, Samuel Beckett in literature and Ernest Walton in science. Literary greats such as Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde are followed by the creative genius of more recent graduates, such as writers, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Anne Enright and Sebastian Barry. Philosophers such as George Berkeley and Edmund Burke are together with more contemporary alumni such as former UN Human Rights Commissioner,  Dr Mary Robinson.  These have been joined by scholars across the growing higher education sector in Ireland.

Commenting on the significance of the visit, Provost, Dr John Hegarty says: “The visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Trinity College today is a milestone in our history; Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to a small College ‘near Dublin’ − a College that she never saw.  Little could she have known how Dublin itself and her College would grow in the intervening centuries to become a University where some of the world’s significant discoveries would be made in the sciences, and that it would nurture some of the world’s greatest writers and scholars.  It is with great pride that we welcome Queen Elizabeth II to Trinity, a place of learning that provides our students with opportunities that would have been unimaginable in 1592.  Joining us today are distinguished scholars from across the whole island of Ireland.  I am confident that − working together − we can create a bright future for our people. We will look back at this day with particular joy.  Our links with our sister island are long and deep; today is a historic celebration of that.”

In providing a contemporary showcase of Ireland, the Queen will meet with members of Trinity’s staff, students and academic community along with representatives from the sciences, medicine, arts, humanities and culture from both Trinity College and the wider university sector in Ireland, as well as those from leading Irish institutions and society.  Full details are available online. 

The groups will highlight areas in which Ireland excels: biological and life sciences; music and visual arts; literature and theatre; history and culture; physical sciences; environment and energy; medicine; politics and society* (more details available online).  They will be joined by representatives from the higher education sector; student body as well as the local community in the environs of Trinity College in Dublin.  They will be introduced to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II by Trinity scholars and teachers drawn from all of these fields.

During their visit to the Long Room, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh will be escorted by Provost, Dr John Hegarty and greeting party¹ where they will also view the Foundation Charter of Trinity College Dublin, by Queen Elizabeth I, as a seat of learning, and a coat of arms, believed to be from the original Elizabethan building of the College.

They will be shown the Book of Kells², a 9th century gospel manuscript written and illustrated by Columban monks, famous throughout the world for its beautifully intricate decoration and representative of Ireland as a seat of art and learning.

They will see the College Harp − Ireland’s oldest harp dating from the 15th century and on which Ireland’s national emblem is based.

The Queen will also see a copy of the first book ever printed in the Irish language in Ireland which was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571, an Alphabet and Catechism 'Aibidil Gaoidheilge agus Caiticiosma’.

The current exhibition in the Long Room celebrates’s 300-years of Trinity’s School of Medicine (1711-2011) titled ‘The Best Doctors in the World are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman’ (Jonathan Swift). The Trinity School of Medicine pioneered medical education in Ireland and was joined in the course of the nineteenth century by medical schools in the newer Irish universities.  Together they produced generations of skilled practitioners who gained distinction around the world. 

Physicist and Nobel Laureate Ernest Walton is also remembered in a smaller exhibition where his Nobel citation and medal along with personal and academic papers donated to Trinity are on display.

Source: http://www.tcd.ie