Trinity College Dublin will officially launch the Eavan Boland Library on 10 March, following the announcement of its renaming in October 2024.

The College community will be invited to partake in a series of celebrations including an outdoor display and projections onto the Library’s façade about the poet, Eavan Boland, as well as an exhibit about the Denaming and Renaming hosted in the Library Foyer.

In December 2022, submissions were sought from the public and college community on a new name for the Berkeley Library, following a denaming petition from students. This process was led by the Legacies Review Working Group (LRWG) chaired by Senior Dean Professor Eoin O’Sullivan, and through the work of Dr Ciaran O’Neill and Dr Patrick Walsh and team from Trinity’s Colonial Legacies (TCL) Project. 

Trinity’s main library was named in 1978 after the philosopher George Berkeley, whose history as a slave-owner has since been well documented.

Eavan Boland. Photo credit: Joe St Leger

Between 15 November 2023 and 18 February 2024, over 850 submissions were received by the working group, leading to the Board’s decision on 26 April 2023 to dename the library, while acknowledging the contribution of Berkeley to the field of philosophy, and noting that his work would continue to be taught in the university.

The University announced that it was renaming its main Library after the acclaimed Irish poet Eavan Boland on the 9 October 2024, representing the first building on Trinity’s city centre campus to be named after a woman. 

Eavan Boland was one of the foremost women in Irish literature, publishing many collections of poetry, a memoir Object Lessons (1995), and works of criticism, as well as teaching and lecturing in Ireland and in the US. 

To mark the occasion, the Trinity Long Room Hub have chosen the following lines from Boland’s 1994 poem ‘Anna Liffey’ to feature on our Fellows’ Square-facing window display during the month of March:

 

Make of a nation what you will

Make of the past

What you can –

 

There is now

A woman in a doorway.

 

Join the ‘In Conversation’ on Eavan Boland with poets Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Katie Donovan & Victoria Kennefick on Tues, 11 March 2025 from 4.30pm-5.30pm in Regent House, TCD. All are welcome.  Please register here.

Read more:

The Library of Trinity College Dublin: Denaming the Berkeley Library

Trinity renames its main Library after poet Eavan Boland

Berkeley, Slavery, and Colonialism: context and research

Don’t get too exercised on his behalf. Berkeley was a big fan of cancel culture

The Eavan Boland Legacy