Protest at Trinity College Dublin

Sir, – In his attempt to pillory the Gaza solidarity encampment at Trinity College Dublin, Alan Shatter claims that its strength is limited to “between 50 and 75 TCD students out of the approximate 19,000 attending the college” (Letters, May 8th).

In fact, Trinity News revealed on Monday that an overwhelming majority of 80.44 per cent of TCD students polled “said they approved of the encampment”, and 85.96 per cent “expressed disapproval” at TCD management’s response to the Israeli state’s actions in the Gaza Strip.

As for Mr Shatter’s view that it is “extraordinary” that the growing movement is “being taken seriously”, Trinity News also reported that the TCD Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (TCD BDS) group, which leads the solidarity encampment, recently enjoyed “a surge of over 75 per cent in membership”.

Mr Shatter lambasts the student movement for calling for an end to academic ties with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University, which he lauds as “fully integrated institutions of higher learning and not part of any fictional apartheid”. In fact, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem hosts the Talpiot programme, which provides the Israeli military with elite expertise in technology, and Bar-Ilan University has collaborated with the Israeli military to provide artificial intelligence technology for unmanned combat vehicles.

Emerging Ireland tour of South Africa may yield stars of the future

---

How Ireland drinks now: Teetotallers, wine-o’clockers and ex-drinkers

---

‘It is about power and control’ - scale of Baby Reindeer-type stalking in Ireland stuns researchers

---

Tony O’Reilly obituary: Ireland’s first business superstar whose spectacular fall led to bankruptcy

---

The student movement’s tactics have been thoroughly vindicated by concrete commitments undertaken by TCD management over the past days. In contrast to “numerous protests since October, as well as launching petitions, email pickets and other actions”, which TCD BDS report that college management “never engaged with”, the solidarity encampment has quickly led to college management making a public commitment to swiftly divest from “companies that have activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and appear on the UN blacklist in this regard”. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,

Donnybrook,

Dublin 4.

Sir, – I am quite sure that most people would agree with Alan Shatter that TCD’s academic and research ties with Israel are positive and worthwhile (Letters, May 8th).

However, the fact is that the Israeli military has severely damaged or demolished all 12 universities in Gaza and 80 per cent of its schools. It has also been reported that thousands of students and teachers have died, as well as around 100 university professors.

A recent UN expert report has expressed concern that the pattern of attacks on schools, universities, teachers and students had raised serious alarm over the systematic destruction by Israel of the Palestinian education system.

The war in Gaza is not an issue that academics and universities can avoid and leave any response to politicians, Far from being something “ideologically flawed and ill thought out”, the students camping out in TCD might take some comfort from the contention that the widespread student protests in American universities may have had some influence on the decision by the US administration to pause a bomb shipment for Israel, over concerns that it was going ahead with a major ground operation in Rafah. – Yours, etc,

MARTIN McDONALD,

Terenure,

Dublin 12.

Sir, – I thought it worth pointing out to Deirdre de Bláca (Letters, May 7th) that, unlike every other university on this island, direct government funding constitutes only a small proportion of Trinity’s income – not much more than 10 per cent if memory serves (roughly €50 out of annual income of about €450), which I would have said is pretty good value for money.

Trinity does indeed raise substantial funds from visitors who, as Ultan Ó Broin puts it (Letters, May 7th), visit on a “pay-per-view basis” to see the Book of Kells which he would prefer to see returned to the town of Kells or a national institution. Here I would simply say that, firstly, on the matter of visitors having to pay, nobody puts a gun to tourists’ heads and forces them to visit Trinity. Secondly, many who pay to visit the College are not particularly interested in the Book of Kells and come to see the Long Room of the Old Library which some consider one of the most beautiful rooms in the world.

And thirdly, for the last 400 years Trinity has at least kept the Book of Kells safe. When this State was founded a hundred years ago, many other books and archives were handed over to its care in the Public Records Office in the Four Courts.

One group of “patriots” then decided they would take possession of the building at the start of our Civil War, while another group of “patriots” proceeded to blow it to smithereens, destroying a national archive stretching back seven hundred years.

Now at last, an effort is being made to salvage and reconstruct what remains from that scandalous episode. The director of this wonderful Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (www.virtualtreasury.ie) is a historian, Dr Peter Crooks, based, funnily enough, in Trinity College Dublin. – Yours, etc,

SEÁN DUFFY,

Senior Fellow,

Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History,

Trinity College Dublin,

Dublin 2.

Sir, – Passing Trinity yesterday, I noticed that the “Encampment Events” included an Irish speaking workshop, dabke circle dancing and how to wrap a keffiyeh. I wonder how those activities are of benefit to the besieged people of Gaza or how they might persuade Israel to cease its assaults on them. – Yours, etc,

SEAN BYRNE,

Dublin 13.