TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN will dename their Berkeley Library after months of petitioning and protesting from students and representatives from the university.
The library has been named after George Berkeley since 1978. Berkeley was an Anglo-Irish Bishop, scholar and philosopher who was awarded a founding fellowship from the university in the early 1700s.
However, Berkeley’s ownership of slaves, and connections to the slave-trade, made many students and representatives from the university, including the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union, to petition to change the name.
According to the university’s own studies, conducted in the process to dename the library, Berkeley bought slaves who worked on his Rhode Island estate in the United States in 1730 and 1731.
Berkeley, of which Berkeley University in California, US is named, sought to advance ideology in support of slavery.
Trinity’s Provost, Dr Linda Doyle, said Berkeley’s “enormous contribution” to philosophy was “not in question”.
“However, it is also clear that he was both an owner of enslaved people and a theorist of slavery and racial discrimination, which is in clear conflict with Trinity’s core values,” the Provost added.
TCD said: “Today’s decision was taken by the University’s Board following several months of research, analysis and public consultation overseen by the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group, which is considering legacy issues on a case-by-case basis.”
The university said they decided the use of the name on its library is “inconsistent with the University’s core values” of human dignity, freedom, inclusivity, and equality.
Trinity plans to adopt a “retain-and-explain” approach to a stained-glass window which commemorates the slave-owner and portraits depicting Berkeley will be assessed in the future by a new overall College policy on artwork.
Academic Gold Medals memorialising Berkeley will also be reviewed by the relevant academic department.
It is still unknown what new name will be given to the university’s largest library, but TCDSU voted last year to rename it to the “X library”, as a placeholder name, and called on Provost Doyle, to change the name.
This #SlaveryRememberanceDay we call on TCD to make a firm commitment to rename what has been referred to as the Berkeley Library up until this point. #RenameTheBerkeley #RenameTheX pic.twitter.com/pcn2ZGv8Lb
— Gabi Fullam #RenameIt (@TCDSU_President) August 23, 2022
President of TCDSU, Gabrielle Fullam said today, “This victory shows that there is no tradition too sacred to question. Our buildings deserve to be celebrated by the community who uses them.”
Fullam added, “I worked with the Trinity Colonial Legacies Project to deliver a recommendation to re-name the library to the University Board.”
Dr Doyle said, “The landscape of a university, especially one as old as Trinity, is not static. Each generation of students and staff deserves a chance to influence decisions,”
The Provost said the students of the university “called on us to address the issue”.
“We welcome their engagement, and we thank the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group for its assistance in providing evidence-based information to underpin this decision,” Dr Doyle added.
Professor Eoin O’Sullivan, Senior Dean and Chair of the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group, said he was “grateful to those who contributed their time and expertise” to the issue and claimed that the university received close to 100 submissions from the public on the matter.
“We are committed to addressing issues around Trinity’s complex legacy, from an evidence-based perspective and on a case-by-case basis,” Dr O’Sullivan added.
In September 2022, the Sinn Féin branch of the university petitioned to rename the library after Theobald Wolfe Tone. Later in the academic year, the university also invited suggestions from the public for what a new name would be.
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