Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker walked its cobbles and possibly the world’s most beautiful manuscript sits at its core. How then, are we allowed to doodle on Dublin’s Trinity College?
Should you have welcomed 2013 in Dublin, you may have seen something curious on a Dublin landmark. Emblazoned on the hallowed façade of Trinity College was the projected message LOVE FROM DUBLIN.
But when it comes to Ireland, one message is never enough.
Do you doodle?
On 14 March, that same façade will come alive with collected doodles from the world.
This is where we come in.
We’re giving you the chance to add your digital doodle to Trinity’s façade. All you need to do is enter the DUBLIN Doodle competition on Facebook, draw your doodle and check back here on 14 March to watch the best entries beamed live all over one of Dublin’s most iconic buildings.
Imagine, a single doodle could slide your name onto the long list of Trinity’s creative minds.
There’s no getting away from it – Trinity has nourished some incredible creative talents.
Picture them: Oscar Wilde fleeing across the cobbles to his next lecture. Samuel Beckett fiddling with his pencil in the library. Bram Stoker day-dreaming about Count Dracula in the shadows of the courtyard or Jonathan Swift estimating how many Lilliputians it would take to tie down Gulliver.
While those former students may be long gone, the beautiful buildings are just as they left them.
Devil in the detail
Like so much of Ireland’s historic heritage, Trinity College began its life in Dublin as a religious site.
But looking at the college today, it’s hard to imagine it as the site of the 16th-century All Hallows monastery. Majestic and mathematically perfect friezes, hulking ionic columns and four-storey buildings sing of a confidence, a history and of Trinity’s heralded position in Dublin’s cityscape.
It’s certainly not the Spartan look of a clandestine cloister. In fact, one look at its façade is a clue to the decadence that lies within.
As entrances go, Trinity’s is a winner. You approach its front door flanked by the statues of two huge Irish intellects: the philosopher and accepted father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, to your left, while on your right, Oliver Goldsmith, author of the Vicar of Wakefield, stands deeply entranced by his book.
True story
Ahead, studded with star-shaped iron buttons, is a door more belonging to a castle keep than a city college. Take a minute to crane your head skyward and pick out the blue and gold clock that has been the meeting point for rendezvous and reunions over the decades.
Enter the DUBLIN doodle competition, and one day you can visit Trinity again.
If you do, be sure to point your finger to the façade and say to passers-by, “You know, one time, I drew all over this.”
That’s bound to impress them.
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