These fascinating recollections, impressions and
musings by Trinity College students in the seventies
includes such luminaries as music impresario Paul
McGuinness, theatre director Michael Colgan, writer
James Ryan, historian Robert O'Byrne, publisher Antony
Farrell, Judge Fidelma Macken and a host of others who
have all, in their different ways, shaped the Ireland of
today. The seventies was a particularly tumultuous
decade in Trinity; Catholic students were allowed into
College while British grants opened Front Gate to a
welcome invasion by the Northern Irish. West Brits,
Irish nationals and Irish expats together created a
unique mix of cultures, sensibilities and nascent ideas.
As a decade of political and social upheaval unfolded -
from the availability of the Pill and the illegal sale
of condoms to the horrors of Bloody Sunday and the
Dublin bombings - Irish youth began to embrace a future
free from the tribal rituals and posturings of their
forefathers: this was the generation that saw it all.
Buoyed by idealism, alcohol and gentler substances,
contributors to Trinity Tales delve back into a kinder
time when everything felt possible, and growing up
occurred beyond the College walls. Kathy Gilfillan (TCD
1968 - 72) has curated an extraordinary collection of
evocative personal narratives, some hilarious, others
tinged with melancholy. Whether you went to Trinity or
not, these deeply human testimonies to idealism,
innocence and ambition will find an echo in anyone
interested in Ireland's future past.
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