Trinity Marks Proclamation Day
Posted on: 07 April 2016
As part of the many Trinity events marking the Centenary of the 1916 Rising, on Proclamation Day, March 15th, there were several special initiatives including a video of our students studying around the globe reading the Proclamation, the launch of a collection of 17 translations of the Proclamation, an academic symposium entitled The 1916 Proclamation in its National and International Context and our students participating in a nationwide reading of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic by all educational institutions.
The collection of 17 translations of the 1916 Proclamation was launched at a special reception hosted by the Provost, Dr Patrick Prendergast with the Lord Mayor, Críona Ní Dhálaigh and ambassadors to Ireland in attendance. Each ambassador received a copy of the Proclamation in their own language. The translations were commissioned by the Trinity Centre for Literary Translation.
They included translations in Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish that can be viewed on the Decade of Commemoration website to complement the original English and Conradh na Gaeilge versions.
Director of the Trinity Centre for Literary Translation, Sarah Smyth, said: “Translation is at the heart of all commemoration — translation from one time to another, from one place to another and from one language to another.”
The Provost speaking at the launch said: "Today is the centrepiece of Trinity’s year-long commemoration of the Rising. The College was a key location during the Rising – the campus was turned into a hospital for the wounded, and within a week 4,000 troops were stationed here. This centenary has provided us with the opportunity to explore what happened within College walls a 100 years ago. And it’s an opportunity for us, as a centre of learning and creativity, to examine the legacy of the Rising, historically and artistically."
The reading of the 1916 Proclamation on the Berkeley Podium as part of a nationwide initiative, along with all educational institutions, was organised by the TCD Students’ Union 1916 Centenary Initiative. The students’ reading was accompanied by performances by members of Trinity’s Trad Society.
Trinity’s historians debated and discussed the Proclamation in a symposium entitled The 1916 Proclamation in its National and International Context organised by the Trinity Long Room Hub, and the School of Histories and Humanities.
The 1916 Proclamation is regularly misquoted and often misunderstood, according to Professor Patrick Geoghegan who, along with historians Anne Dolan, Eunan O’Halpin and Micheál Ó Siochrú among others, provided a fresh interpretation of one of the most iconic documents in Irish history at the public discussion to mark the country’s first ‘Proclamation Day’. Professor of Modern History and Trinity Long Room Director, Jane Ohlmeyer chaired the event