Trinity College study to investigate university's links to British Empire and slavery

The university produced many graduates who criticised the British Empire. File picture.

Trinity College Dublin has launched a new study examining the university's links to the British Empire and the colonial slave trade. 

Ireland's oldest university said the investigation will "examine, interrogate and reflect on its complex colonial legacies" as part of an extensive project. 

The study aims for the university and the public to gain a better understanding of its place in the wider world, focusing not just on the college's links to the Atlantic slave trade, but also researching the historical and intellectual links to the British Empire. 

Trinity's links to the early abolitionist movement, a campaign to ban slavery, are well established including popular critiques of slavery by Trinity fellows and graduates, Edmund Burke and James Mullalla. 

Other famous critics of the British Empire from the college include members of the United Irishmen. 

Graduates and Empire

However, the study also wants to examine the roll of the university in producing graduates to serve the British Empire with connections between college departments and imperial activities in Africa, East Asia and India already established. Some examples include Anatomy, Zoology, Divinity and Engineering. 

The announcement of the study builds on the recent attention drawn to the fact that George Berkeley, the globally renowned philosopher for whom Trinity’s library was named following its completion in 1967, was also a slave-owner. 

“We are really excited about the Trinity's Colonial Legacies project. It gives us an opportunity to have a critical conversation about Trinity's multiple connections to empire. 

"Ideally that would take place in an open and transparent process that is as inclusive as possible. 

"We are a University community and debating ideas, legacies, and identities is a key part of what we do," said Professor Ciaran O’Neill, one of the historians leading the project.

Home and abroad

Professor Patrick Walsh, a historian of the eighteenth century, said Trinity’s financial and other connections to the slave trade as well as the university's role in Ireland's own colonisation, are all part of wider narratives of imperialism. 

“We are delighted to begin this research exploring Trinity's multi-faceted connections to empire at home and abroad over the last four centuries and to contribute to an important ongoing public conversation within Trinity and within Irish society about our colonial legacies and how they have shaped our complex present," said Dr Walsh. 

An open competition has been organised for a post-doctoral research fellow to join the two-year investigation. 

An advisory board including Profesor Vincent Brown, a Harvard professor of American History and Trinity Chancellor and former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, will oversee the study.