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Trinity Tales | FEATURE
STUDENT LIFE
... conspicuous sobriety was frowned upon. Nor, contrary to tradition, was it us natives who were the most dedicated practioners (though we kept abreast) but the Sloane Rangers, the tough fops with silk scarves and snarling red two-seaters. This lot, public-school men who weren’t bright enough for Oxford or Cambridge, and posh gels not tall enough for the Brigade of Guards, created noise out of all proportion to their numbers, bawling ‘Charles!’ and ‘Miranda!’, Brideshead style, and revving their little roadsters. But you know all this. What you may not know is that some are still in circulation...
Trinity, in those days, wasn’t much about work, though quite a lot of reading got done. The word meant different things. To the question, ‘What are you reading?’ one might have replied, depending on context, “Honours Maths”, “the racing page”, or even, in exceptional circumstances, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” The old circular Reading Room, presided over by the good natured Harry Bovanizer (the name of eighteenth- century Rhenish-Palatine origin), seemed as much a social focus as a locus of serious study. Packed to the doors like a fashionable restaurant, it was used partly as a pick-up joint. Girls dressed up then to go into College, the cobbles playing hell with their high heels. Men dressed up too, sort of, except for slobs like myself who wore the same sweater and jeans for four years. Front Square was like a Dior catwalk and the two sexes sat in the Reading Room with blurry volumes before them, sizing up the talent out of the corners of their eyes. The air crackled with sexual electricity.
Derek Mahon M.A. (conferred 1986): Ghostly Rumble Among the Drums
TRINITY TRIBES
Trinity, as I would fi nd, was divided into tribes. Looking back I can distinguish Posh English, Boho English, Local Intellectuals, Politicos, and Clever Country.
The Posh English bred a small subset of Irish Sloane Rangers (though that nomenclature was yet to come). Northerners tended to make up tribes of their own, divided between those who had long hair, and those who came into the Buttery carrying motorbike helmets protectively in front of them. Some managed to slide out of either rank and adopt a local tribe. The gap between arts people and scientists yawned like a chasm...
From 1969, a Foundation Scholarship brought me free Commons with all the stale stout I could drink, a stipend, and rooms in College – rescuing me from fl at life, which I rather regretted. The atmosphere, if not monastic, tended to the boys boarding school; women could not live in College and were supposed to leave the precincts by midnight. Worldy wise skips with an eye to a bribe for an overnight guest knew different. ‘Five shillings for a boy, ten shillings for a girl.’ But from my eyrie at the top of No 3, I could see everyone who came in and out of Front Gate, and watch the Internationalists selling Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book ...
Roy Foster M.A., PH.D. (1971): Tribalism 1967
(Photo captioned: Week of Trinity Ball, summer 1964. Right foreground: Heather Lukes B.A. (1967) (in hat); to her right: Anthony Weale B.A. (1965); Petra Lewis, née Freston (wife of Jeremy Lewis B.A. (1966), in striped dress)
(Photo captioned: Rosemary Gibson M.A., M.Litt. (1965), B.A. Commencements, Front Square, TCD, 1966)
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