Graduates & future graduates ....
Our graduates seem to get all kinds of interesting jobs: media, translation, theatre, management, law, administration, import-export, writing, PR, diplomacy, recruitment, finance, football -- even teaching. Some go and live in Italy, for years at a time. To explore some options as a graduate, click on the Trinity Careers Services pages. If you're a former student, we'd love to hear from you.
Tanto per cominciare.... a short list in strictly alphabetical order
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Samuel Beckett -- graduated 1927. Lectured at Trinity College Dublin but thought better of it. Novelist, playwright, essayist, short-story writer (his first collection More Pricks Than Kicks (1934) opens with "Dante and the Lobster"). Nobel Prize, 1969.
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Deirdre Beecher -- After graduating in 2004, Deirdre spent two years living in A Coruña (Galicia, northern Spain), before moving to Milan where she works with the Cochrane Multiple Sclerosis Review Group, part of an international not-for-profit organization. She is currently doing a Masters in Library and Information Studies (distance learning) from Aberystwyth University, and planning to set up a TCD Graduates' Association for Italy.
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George Candon read Italian and French at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1997. Part of his undergraduate studies were done at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III. Upon graduating he went on to read for an MSSc in the politics of European integration at the Queen's University of Belfast. In 2006, after working in London, Italy and Paris, George was appointed Account Manager, Consumer Practice, with the Weber Shandwick public relations consultancy in Brussels. He is fluent in French, Irish and Italian and conversant in Spanish.
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Alice Chambers, who graduated in European Studies, works as a translator (specializing in finance) in Rome. She published her first novel, We Are Gold, in Spring 2007. The Sunday Tribune review called this 'a solid-gold debut' and praised the 'sense of intelligence behind the narrative'. Lucille Redmond, in the Evening Herald, called it 'a surprise best-seller, in great demand in the shops and outselling the more standardised books the publishers bet their britches on'. Amazon customers gave it 5-star reviews.
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Kenneth Clarke graduated in Italian & History of Art in 2001. He took the TCD MPhil in Medieval Language, Literature, and Culture, before doing an Oxford DPhil on Chaucer's Italian influences. Having been College Lecturer in Old and Middle English literature at Brasenose College Oxford, he is now a Junior Research Fellow in Italian at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
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Marco Cronin Conte graduated in Italian and Sociology in 2000. He is now a Trade Analyst at the Dublin office of ICE, the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade, where his responsibilities include editing the "Italy Trade News" bulletin, and specialist sectors of production such as wood, editorial/graphics/didactic, paper and paper technology, publishing, and printing.
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Ann Devitt graduated in 1996 with a first-class degree and Gold Medal, having written her dissertation on Michelangelo's poetry. She then took an MPhil in Theoretical Linguistics and a PhD in Computer Science. Having been a Research Fellow in Computer Science, she was appointed Lecturer in Education at Trinity College Dublin.
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Vivienne Hand took a BA (Mod) in Italian and French at Trinity, before doing an Oxford D. Phil in Italian. She is Professor and Head of Italian at the University of London, Royal Holloway College. Among her publications: Andrea Zanzotto (Edinburgh University Press, 1994); Mirage and Camouflage: Hiding behind Hermeticism in Ungaretti's L'Allegria (Troubador Publishing Ltd., Market Harborough, 2000), and Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy (Legenda, Oxford, 2006 ).
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Rachel Hickey graduated in 1999 with a Moderatorship in French & Italian. Before coming to Trinity she had lived in France for 6 years and worked for Clifford Chance Solicitors. After graduating she worked in Australia, then came back to Ireland and worked for Mason Hayes+Curran, one of Dublin's leading law firms. She was offered an apprenticeship in the firm, and studied law through the Griffith College conversion course and professional examinations at Blackhall Place. She is now a solicitor with Mason Hayes+Curran.
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Rosemary McCreery --- who graduated in 1972, served as Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations.
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Bláthnaid McKenna --- who graduated in French & Italian in 2007, was crowned Miss Ireland at the end of June 2007 and represented Ireland at the Miss World contest in China.
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Sarah Mulhern --- who graduated in Italian & Philosophy in 1990, is a consultant with Spencer Stuart, a leading management consulting firm specializing in senior-level executive search and board director appointments. Sarah has extensive international experience in the area of Information Technology and Internet development. For Sarah's views on languages and management, see a 2001 article in Business Week. She herself is fluent in English, French and Italian.
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Alan O'Leary --- who graduated in Italian & English in 1994, is Lecturer in Italian at the University of Leeds.
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Carol O'Sullivan --- was a Scholar of Trinity College. She graduated in Italian and French in 1995, spent some time in Italy, and completed a doctorate at the University of Cambridge on Beckett, Queneau, Joyce and literary translation. She does research on translation, and is herself a translator of contemporary Italian prose. Carol is Senior Lecturer in Italian Language and Translation Theory at the University of Portsmouth. Together with Martin Thom, she was awarded the 2006 John Florio Prize for translating Kuraj by Silvia Di Natale ( London, Bloomsbury, 2005).
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Maggie O'Sullivan --- who graduated in 1996 in Italian & French, lectured in Italian for the Business and Applied Language degrees at Waterford Institute of Technology. She took the TCD M.Phil in Applied Linguistics and also trained as a volunteer literacy tutor. In 2002 she became an adult education tutor in Kenmare Adult Education Centre, and is now District Literacy and Education Organiser for Kerry Education Service, based in the Kenmare area where she grew up. She says: "I've ended up doing a job I love ... I work with adults who left school early, and other marginalised groups, providing individual and group tuition through a network of tutors. I also work freelance as an Italian translator, specialising in investor relations, and I teach Italian to adults through Kerry Education Service."
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Herma Ryan --- a graduate in Italian and Classical Civilization (2005), Herma was part of the leadership team at Jobcare Ltd., the Dublin city centre voluntary agency, and now works in New York.
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Peter Sherrard --- graduated in Italian & French, 1998. He became Country Manager for Italy, and later Director of Communications, at Ryanair, possibly the world's most eloquent airline. In May 2008 he took on a new challenge as Director of Communications at the Football Association of Ireland.
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Marco Sonzogni --- completed a PhD in 2005, and is now Senior Lecturer in Italian at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. A prolific translator, editor and creative writer, Marco's latest works include a joint translation with Gerald Dawe of The Night Fountain: Selected Early Poems by Salvatore Quasimodo (Arc Publications, 2008).
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Niamh Sweeney --- took Italian in the European Studies degree, graduating in 2002. She works as a journalist and news presenter with RTE Radio.
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George Talbot --- who took a BA (Mod) in Italian and Philosophy, did postgraduate research in Pavia and and returned to Trinity to write his Ph.D on Montale and Translation (published as Montale's 'Mestiere Vile' (Irish Academic Press, 1995). George was Professor of Italian and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Hull, before moving to a similar position at Edge Hill University. His edition of Lord Charlemont's History of Italian Poetry from Dante to Metastasio was published in 2000; his latest book is Censorship in Fascist Italy, 1922-43.
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Dylan Tighe --- graduated with an overall First in Spanish and Italian, 2001. Went on to take an MA in Performance (with Distinction) at Goldsmiths College London. Actor, performer, writer (stage, film, TV, radio). In the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2009, Dylan was nominated for Best Director.