Trinity College Dublin

During the eighteenth century Trinity College was seen as the university of the Protestant Ascendancy. Parliament, meeting on the other side of College Green, made generous grants for building. The first building of this period was the Old Library building, begun in 1712, followed by the Printing House and the Dining Hall. During the second half of the century Parliament Square slowly emerged. The great building drive was completed in the early nineteenth century by Botany Bay, the square which derives its name in part from the herb garden it once contained (and which was succeeded by Trinity College's own Botanic Gardens). Following early steps in Catholic Emancipation, Catholics were first allowed to apply for admission in 1793,[14] prior to the equivalent change at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. Certain disabilities remained. In December 1845 Denis Caulfield Heron was the subject of a hearing at Trinity College. Heron had previously been examined and, on merit, declared a scholar of the college but had not been allowed to take up his place due to his Catholic religion. Heron appealed to the Courts which issued a writ of mandamus requiring the case to be adjudicated by the Archbishop of Dublin and the Primate of Ireland.[15] The decision of Richard Whately and John George de la Poer Beresford was that Heron would remain excluded from Scholarship.[16] This decision confirmed that the legal position remained that persons who were not Anglicans (Presbyterians were also affected) could not be elected to Scholarship, Fellowship or be made a Professor. However within less than three decades of this all disabilities imposed on Catholics were repealed as in 1873, all religious tests were abolished, except for entry to the divinity school. However, the Irish Catholic bishops responding to the increased ease, due to these changes, with which Catholics could attend an Institution which the Bishops saw as thoroughly Protestant in ethos, and in light of the establishment of the Catholic University, in 1871 implemented a general ban on Catholics entering Trinity College, with few exceptions. "The ban" despite its longevity, is associated in the popular mind with Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid as he was made responsible for enforcing the ban from 1956 until it was rescinded by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland in 1970, shortly before McQuaid's retirement. Prior to 1956 it was the responsibility of the local Bishop.