Sir, – I listened with great interest to Trinity College’s librarian and archivist, Helen Shenton, explain on the TV news the process by which the library, formerly named after slave owner and slavery apologist Bishop George Berkeley, has been renamed after the poet Eavan Boland.
Ms Shenton described the process as “transparent and evidence-based”. As part of the process nominations were invited from the public: 855 were received, of which Boland received 59 (less than 7%), far behind Theobald Wolfe Tone, who received 264 (nearly 31%).
Why then was Tone not chosen? He was a graduate of the college, an active member of its Historical Society and, moreover, his aspiration “to abolish the memory of all past dissension; and to substitute the common name of Irishmen in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter” laid down the template for a modern definition of Irishness, a nationality based on rights and on citizenship, an aspiration surely relevant today in the face of a burgeoning narrow and hate-filled ethno-nationalism, both at home and abroad.
Of course a consultation process is just that – it is not mandatory (and I have nothing against Eavan Boland). Nevertheless, in the interests of “transparency and, indeed, “evidence”, I think Trinity should let us know why Tone wasn’t chosen. – Yours etc,
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TOMMY GRAHAM,
Editor, History Ireland (and Trinity graduate),
Palmerston Place,
Dublin.
