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Trinity's Berkeley Library to be named after Eavan Boland

Madd Finn

The Trinity Library, previously named after renowned philosopher and slave owner George Berkely is to be renamed after the poet Eavan Boland.

Renowned in Ireland as someone whose works have featured frequently on the Leaving Cert course I doubt if her oeuvre is as well known outside these shores. But she ticks the boxes.

She went to Trinity.

She was a woman.

She didn't own slaves.

She wrote about "Irish identity".

Can't think of any other reasons why she might have been so honoured. Any of her poems I've read have moved nothing in me other than a yawn. But maybe I'm just out of touch with the modern zeitgeist.

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eightieschewbaccy

She's very much so well known on a global scale, even got inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Won plenty of prizes in poetry and would be a pretty renowned poet globally. So yep, she's very much so a pretty notable Irish figure and not known just because of leaving cert poetry. Given the fact we're very much so a country known for our literary talents, think it's a pretty good choice.

ancapailldorcha

Good move from my alma mater. I don't know if there was a campaign behind it but if so, I am not aware. We shouldn't be venerating slaveowners by naming things after them.

In April 2023, TCD decided to remove George Berkeley’s name from its main library because of the Irish philosopher’s association with slavery. Since this ‘denaming’, its largest library has been known simply as The Library.

This decision was made on the basis that the continued use of Berkeley’s name was “inconsistent with the university’s core values of human dignity, freedom, inclusivity and equality”.

Trinity Legacies Review Working Group, established by the college in November 2022 in an effort “to contextualise and historicise the university’s deep links to colonialism” took into consideration “evidence-based submissions”, which were open to the public, on the naming of the library.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2024/10/09/trinity-college-dublin-renames-former-berkeley-library-after-poet-eavan-boland/

Good to see them being proactive about this.

...Ghost...

Eavan who?

Nobody outside of the box ticking diversity group will care about this. The Berkeley library will still be known as the Berkeley library, or Main Library. The new name won't stick, save for the name plate it's etched on.

elperello

Excellent choice.

A fitting tribute to woman who was an important and authentic female voice in Irish literature.

https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/top-stories/featured/trinity-renaming/

Mr. CooL ICE

She was the one poet that I studied for and she came up in my LC in 2002 despite my teacher convincing us all to focus on Heaney. So I fully support this. Gwan the Boland.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701450#Comment_122701450

She was an acclaimed poet. Plenty of people care, obviously. I doubt Trinity's staff and academics are going to exert themselves to whitewash the memory of a slaver.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701450#Comment_122701450

It just comes across as ignorant to pretend as if she was a nobody. Obama quoted her on his visit here, Biden quoted her last year. The New York Times, New Yorker, Washington Post, Economy and other publications across the globe ran obituaries upon her death. So you might somehow be oblivious to her but she was a significant figure in poetry and should very much so be celebrated as such.

I didn't realise posters were such avid fans of the philosophical works of Berkeley.... 😂

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1646563238115409923?t=s2pkux3Cvhmx3bh7C1zI7w&s=19

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701504#Comment_122701504

If they did a vox-pop on Grafton St asking people about it, 99% of people would say “who”?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701517#Comment_122701517

Based on what?

ArmaniJeanss

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701450#Comment_122701450

Yeah, pretty much the same way everyone still calls it Sackville St, despite the name plates saying O'Connell St.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701517#Comment_122701517

99% of people on Grafton Street don't go to Trinity, so not sure how your survey would be in any way relevant.

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701523#Comment_122701523

Peoples knowledge of obscure poets.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701530#Comment_122701530

She's not obscure. I recall studying her in English and she won acclaim worldwide.

Oscar_Madison

I guess you get used to a name - be it a bridge, a train station or in this case a library.

in 1966 Amiens st station was renamed Connolly Station and Kingsbridge to Heuston station.

I wasn’t alive at this time but years later I’d often hear my parents say Amiens or Kingsbridge when referring to the stations - something you probably wouldn’t hear happen anymore now .

Reckon the staff will keep referring to it as Berkeley till they retire but any new students entering the college will likely refer to its new name.

It’s probably not a bad idea to consider a few other building or bridge name changes etc to commemorate more contemporary people who have contributed to Irish society but what I wouldn’t like to see is a complete eradication of history either no matter how disturbing it may be

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701517#Comment_122701517

I'd doubt that tbh, she only died in the last few years. There's been documentaries about her, she was quoted by Obama when he visited here. Anyone who reads would be familiar with Costa Book awards, she won one posthumously in 2020. Plus she's in the leaving cert so she's as well known as Seamus Heaney for anyone who did their leaving.

Do you think a vox-pop would find a huge familiarity with George Berkeley on the streets? 😂

TokTik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701548#Comment_122701548

I did my Higher Level English in my Leaving and today is the first I’ve heard of her.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701555#Comment_122701555

And? Maybe she wasn't on the syllabus that year. In terms of you having never heard of her, think this is more a case of you priding yourself on your ignorance more than anything.

She would be considered among the best Irish poets in the 20th and 21st century. That would put her up there with Seamus Heaney, Patrick Kavanagh, Yeats. And that's not just my opinion. Unknown niche Irish poets don't manage to get obituaries in major News Publications in the UK and US. 😂

silliussoddius

There's a Berkeley library?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701615#Comment_122701615

There was.

I never used it as I did a STEM degree so I was always in the Hamilton and the Pav.

kabakuyu

At least they didn't name it after mickey D.

sprucemoose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701450#Comment_122701450

id say the average irish person would be much more likely to know who boland is compared to berkeley, seeing as she is one of ireland's most famous poets and is regularly one of the poets on the leaving cert english syllabus.

but yeah, its all about 'box ticking diversity'…….

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701555#Comment_122701555

"I've never heard of her, so I'm gonna assume that everyone else is just as ignorant as me, even though I never knew who Berkely was either"

Fixed that for you

Madd Finn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701600#Comment_122701600

I have heard of her, but only because I came across some of her poems that were on my daughter's Leaving Cert syllabus some years back and I looked them over in a "what are they teaching our kids nowadays?" fit of curiosity. One was called Famine Road and the other was some musings about her daughter's bedroom.

Neither a page turner for me, but then art is always subjective.

What are her good poems?

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701528#Comment_122701528

You could equally say the same about Berkeley

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701699#Comment_122701699

In the context of this news, why do you find the idea of a slaver more palatable than one of Ireland's most prominent artists?

Quantum Erasure

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701414#Comment_122701414

Trinity Legacies Review Working Group, established by the college in November 2022 in an effort “to contextualise and historicise the university’sdeep links to colonialism”

👀

[Deleted User]

Eavan Boland is good choice, always liked her poetry. Pity she didn't live to see it - would only have been 80 this year.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701843#Comment_122701843

Is there a point here?

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122701860#Comment_122701860

The entire college has deep links to colonialism, didn't papists face a lot of restrictions. What will the working group do to contextualise and historicise that?

I think it just reeks of of some luvvies sitting around patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Who knows, in a hundred years the group might find some dirt on Boland and re-name it.

Cordell

This is stupid. People like him are remembered and celebrated for their achievements, in spite of their shortcomings because the good they did greatly outweighs any (real or perceived) bad. It's like the removal of those statues from that hotel, removing and destroying art and legacy in the name of ideology - I wonder who else do that?

I'm not saying that Eavan Boland doesn't deserve the honor, what I'm saying is that George Berkley doesn't deserve this disgrace.