Trinity College

In front of you is the front gate of Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university. Queen Elizabeth I founded it by royal charter in 1592, on the land of a suppressed Augustinian priory that then lay outside the walled city.

1A university for the Protestant elite

For centuries it was the university of the Protestant ruling class. Catholics could enrol, but until 1793 they had to swear an oath that prevented them from graduating, and until 1873 they couldn't hold scholarships or professorships. Later it was the Catholic Church that forbade its faithful from studying here without a bishop's permission, a ban not lifted until 1970.

2The front and its guardians

The façade you see went up in the 1750s. The statues are by John Henry Foley and depict two former students: the political thinker Edmund Burke and the writer Oliver Goldsmith. Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett also passed through these gates.

Inside, the Old Library has kept the Book of Kells, a gospel book illuminated around the year 800, since 1661.

Walk through the gate and you'll reach Front Square. At the far end stands the Campanile, from 1853. Students say anyone who walks under it while the bell rings will fail their exams, which is why so many walk around it.

3What to look for

• The statues of Burke and Goldsmith, either side of the entrance.
• The clock in the pediment, above the main door.
• The Campanile, at the end of the square, and who dares to walk beneath it.