Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/647

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DUBLIN
  


country. The corporation consists of a provost, 7 senior fellows, 25 junior fellows and 70 scholars. A vacancy among the fellows is filled up by the provost and a select number of the fellows, after examination comprised in five principal courses, mathematics, experimental science, classics, mental and moral science and Hebrew. Fellowships are held for life. Until the year 1840 the fellows were bound to celibacy, but that restriction was then removed. All except five (medical and law fellows) were bound to take Holy Orders until 1872. The scholars on the foundation (or “of the House”) are chosen from among the undergraduates, for merit in classics, mathematics or experimental science. The pecuniary advantages attaching to scholarship (£20 Irish, free commons, and rooms at half the charge made to other students) last for four years. Students after an examination are admitted as fellow-commoners, pensioners or sizars. Fellow-commoners, who have decreased in numbers in modern times, pay higher fees than the ordinary undergraduates or pensioners, and have certain advantages of precedence, including the right of dining at the fellows’ table. Sizarships are awarded on examination to students of limited means, and carry certain relaxations of fees. They were formerly given on the nomination of fellows. Noblemen, noblemen’s sons and baronets (nobilis, filius nobilis, eques) have the privilege of forming a separate order with peculiar advantages, on the payment of additional charges. The mode of admission to the university is in all cases by examination. Various exhibitions and prizes are awarded both in connexion with the entrance of students and at subsequent stages of the course of instruction, which normally lasts four years. There are three terms in each year—Michaelmas (beginning the Academic year), Hilary and Trinity. The undergraduate is called in his first year a junior freshman, in his second a senior freshman, in his third a junior sophister, and in his fourth a senior sophister. The usual arts and scientific courses are provided, and there are four professional schools—divinity, law, physic and engineering. The undergraduate has certain examinations in each year, and four “commencements” are held every year for the purpose of conferring degrees. Freedom is offered to students who wish to be transferred from Oxford, Cambridge, or certain colonial universities to Trinity College, by the recognition of terms kept in the former institutions as part of the necessary course at Trinity College. In 1903 it was decided to bestow degrees on women, and in 1904 to establish women’s scholarships. The funds of the college, arising from lands and the fees of students, are managed solely by the provost and seven senior fellows, who form a board, to which and to the academic council the whole government of the university, both in its executive and its legislative branches, is committed. The council consists of the provost and sixteen members of the senate elected by the fellows, professors, &c; the senate consists of the chancellor or his deputy and doctors and masters who keep their names on the books. The average number of students on the books is about 1300. By an act passed in 1873, known as Fawcett’s Act, all tests were abolished, and the prizes and honours of all grades hitherto reserved for Protestants of the Established Church were thrown open to all. The university returns two members to parliament. (See Dublin University Calendar, annual.)

There remain to be mentioned the following buildings in Dublin. The permanent building of the International Exhibition of 1865 adjoins the pleasure ground of St Stephen’s Green. This building was occupied by the Royal University of Ireland until its dissolution under the Irish Universities Act 1908, which provided for a new university at Dublin, to which the building was transferred under the act (see Ireland: Education). The new university is called the National University of Ireland. At the same time a new college was founded under the name of University College. The Royal University replaced the Queen’s University under the University Act (Ireland) in 1879. No teaching was carried on, but examinations were held and degrees conferred, both on men and on women. On the west side of St Stephen’s Green is the Catholic University (1854), which is under the Jesuit Fathers and affiliated to the Royal University. Between Trinity College and St Stephen’s Green, a large group of buildings includes the Royal Dublin Society, founded in 1683 to develop agriculture and the useful arts, with a library and gallery of statuary; the Science and Arts Museum, and the National Library, the former with a noteworthy collection of Irish antiquities; the Museum of Natural History, with a splendid collection of Irish fauna; and the National Gallery of Ireland, founded in 1853. Here was once a residence of the duke of Leinster, and the buildings surround the open space of Leinster Lawn. Educational foundations include the Royal College of Physicians, of Surgeons and of Science; the Royal Irish Academy, with an unequalled collection of national antiquities, including manuscripts and a library; and the Royal Hibernian Academy of painting, sculpture and architecture. In 1904 the formation of a municipally supported gallery of modern art (mainly due to the initiative and generosity of Mr Hugh Lane) was signalized by an exhibition including the pictures intended to constitute the nucleus of the gallery. In 1905 King Edward VII. laid the foundation stone of a college of science on a site in the vicinity of Leinster Lawn. The full scheme for the occupation of the site included, not only the college, but also offices for the Board of Works and the Department of Agriculture. The famous Dublin Horse and Agricultural Shows are held at Ball’s Bridge in April, August and December.

The most notable churches apart from the cathedrals are Roman Catholic and principally modern. The lofty church of the Augustinians in Thomas Street; St Mary’s, the pro-cathedral, in Marlborough Street, with Grecian ornamentation within, and a Doric portico; St Paul’s on Arran Quay, in the Ionic style; and the striking St Francis Xavier in Gardiner Street, also Ionic, are all noteworthy, and the last is one of the finest modern churches in Ireland. Among theatres Dublin has, in the Royal, a handsome building which replaced the old Theatre Royal, burnt down in 1880. Clubs, which are numerous, are chiefly found in the neighbourhood of Sackville Street; and there should further be mentioned the Rotunda, at the corner of Great Britain Street and Sackville Street, a beautiful building of its kind, belonging to the adjacent hospital, and used for concerts and other entertainments, while its gardens are used for agricultural shows.

Suburbs.—To the west of the city lies the Phoenix Park. Here, besides the viceregal demesne and lodge and the magazine, are a zoological garden, a people’s garden, the Wellington monument, two barracks, the Hibernian military school, the “Fifteen Acres,” a natural amphitheatre (of much greater extent than its name implies) used as a review ground, and a racecourse. The amenities of Phoenix Park were enhanced in 1905 by the purchase for the crown of land extending along the Liffey from Island bridge to Chapelizod, which might otherwise have been built over. To the south lies Kilmainham. Here is the royal hospital for pensioners and maimed soldiers. Close by is Kilmainham prison. To the west the valley of the Liffey affords pleasant scenery, with the well-known grounds called the “Strawberry Beds” on the north bank. In this direction lies Chapelizod, said to take its name from that Iseult whom Tennyson, Matthew Arnold and Wagner made a heroine; beyond which is Lucan connected with the city by tramway. Northward lies Clondalkin, with its round tower, marking the site of the important early see of Cluain Dolcain; Glasnevin, with famous botanical gardens; Finglas, with a ruined church of early foundation, and an Irish cross; and Clontarf, a favoured resort on the bay, with its modern castle and many residences of the wealthy classes in the vicinity. South of the city are Rathmines, a populous suburb, near which, at the “Bloody Fields,” English colonists were murdered by the natives in 1209; and Donnybrook, celebrated for its former fair. Rathmines, Monkstown, Clontarf, Dalkey and Killiney, with the neighbourhood of Kingstown and Pembroke, are the most favoured residential districts. Howth, Malahide and Sutton to the north, and Bray to the south, are favoured seaside watering-places outside the radius of actual suburbs.

Communications.—The direct route to Dublin from London and other parts of England is by the Holyhead route, controlled by the London & North Western railway with steamers to the port of Dublin itself, while the company also works in conjunction with the mail steamers of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company to the outlying port of Kingstown, 7 m. S.E. Passenger steamers, however, also serve Liverpool, Heysham, Bristol, the south coast ports of England and London; Edinburgh and Glasgow, and other ports of Great Britain. The railways leaving Dublin are the following: the Great Northern, with its terminus in Amiens Street, with suburban lines, and a main line running north to Drogheda, Dundalk and Belfast, with ramifications through the northern countries; the Great Southern & Western (Kingsbridge terminus) to Kilkenny, Athlone and Cork; the Midland Great Western (Broadstone terminus), to Cavan, Sligo