Irish universities have slipped down global rankings in recent years but they still hold their own against the world's best in certain disciplines, according to a new league table published on Wednesday.

Trinity College Dublin led the way with five top 50 rankings, mainly in humanities. These were English language and literature (down from 25th in 2014 to 32nd), politics and international studies (up from 46th to 33rd), history (up from 48th to 39th), biological sciences (up from the 51-100 bracket to 48th) and modern languages (down from 42nd to 49th).

UCD had two top 50 rankings, coming 40th in veterinary science and 45th in development studies. UCC was the only other institution from the Republic with a top 50 entry, with Pharmacy at 49th.

The fifth edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject underscores Ireland's relative strength in humanities and both medical and biological sciences. Irish universities will be disappointed however that they did not perform better in technology and related fields like materials science. Only UCD received an entry for the latter, ranked in the 151-200 bracket.

Of the 36 subjects profiled this year, UCD had 29 listings, TCD had 25 and UCC 13. A new entry in the expanded survey this year was the National College of Art and Design, which makes the top 100 in art and design.

NUI Galway features in nine of the 36 subjects examined, making the top 150 in history and the top 200 in computer science and information systems, English language and literature and earth and marine sciences. Maynooth University makes top 150 in geography and ranks in other two subjects, while DCU makes the top 250 in modern languages computer science and chemistry.

University of Limerick (UL) makes the top 300 in four subjects, while Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) appears in electrical and electronic engineering.

Irish institutions took up 88 places across the tables, 69 of them in the top 200. Compared to last year, 36 places were unchanged, 22 moved up against 2014 positions, 14 were new entries and 16 fell.

At the head of the league table of 894 universities were Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with first place rankings in 11 disciplines, and Harvard University, with 10 first place rankings.

TCD’s dean and vice president of research, Prof Vinny Cahill, welcomed the findings. “This achievement is a testimony to our globally competitive research and to our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of teaching.”