How did the Book of Kells end up in Trinity College Dublin?

Not only is the Book of Kells one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions, with about one million visitors a year, it is also a cash cow for Trinity College Dublin.

Latest financial records for the university show that income from the Old Library – which houses the 1,200-year-old manuscript – reached almost €17 million in 2022.

Ticket prices of €19, or €25 when including a new immersive digital experience, help generate a weekly income somewhere in the region of about €350,000 for the college in busy summer months.

However, the student encampment at Trinity over the college’s ties to Israel has shut off access to the attraction and will likely pose steep financial challenges for the college.

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It is just the latest in a series of protests since last September which have resulted in student groups blockading access to the manuscript on five separate occasions over issues such as the cost of accommodation and tuition fees.

While student groups increasingly see it as a legitimate form of leverage in disputes, university management insist it is counterproductive.

“Though Trinity is a public university, it cannot survive solely on Government funding and must find other sources of income,” Trinity’s provost Dr Linda Doyle, said in a recent message to students.

“It would be great if that were not the case, but this is our reality. The income from the Book of Kells is therefore not ‘nice to have’ additional income.

“It is the income that keeps the university going and it supports initiatives such as the student hardship fund. Any loss of income at the Book of Kells directly affects our ability to deliver services for our students, not to mention our legal obligation to financially balance the books.”

She added that while management had no problem with protest, the rules of the university state that protest is not permitted to disrupt the normal operation of activities in college.

It led to management handing a €214,000 fine to Trinity College Dublin’s Students’ Union (TCSDU) last week, mentioning five dates on which protests were cited for partial losses of college income.

The disruption, meanwhile, is a source of growing frustration for tourists travelling long distances – mostly the US – seeking to explore more about their Irish identity.

Others have called for the manuscript to be relocated to a national museum, where the public can access it free of charge.

The question of how it came to be in Trinity’s ownership dates back to the 1650s, when a church in Kells where it was housed was destroyed. It was relocated to Dublin for safety, where it came into the hands of the university.

“It was the only library of any size at the time, library, really,” says Dr Rachel Moss, an art and architectural historian at Trinity. “The college was collecting biblical manuscripts, which had a lot to do with the Church of Ireland trying to prove that they were the one, true church.”

Ideally, it would be free for everybody, but with visitor numbers comes conservation costs, security, providing information for visitors

—  Dr Rachel Moss

She says the Book of Kells was initially accessed by biblical scholars for research, where the text was regarded as more significant that the artwork.

It became a source of much greater public interest after being put on public display from the mid-19th century; a visit by Queen Victoria helped to raise its profile abroad.

It was free to view initially, but charges were later introduced when visitor numbers began to grow.

Charging for entry, Dr Moss says, has helped to manage numbers, protect the visitor experience and pay for security, conservation and education outreach.

[ Trinity students’ union vows to continue protest until all demands regarding Israeli ties are met ]

“Ideally, it would be free for everybody, but with visitor numbers comes conservation costs, security, providing information for visitors,” she says.

The distinct smell in the Long Room, she says, is the result of humidity and dust from around one million visitors a year combining with slowly decomposing centuries-old books. The university is midway through an expensive restoration of the Old Library to protect books and manuscripts for future generations.

As for now, she would like to see public access restored to the manuscript, described in the Annals of Ulster as “the chief treasure of the western world”.

“People have travelled long distances and really want to see it, and they are being denied access,” she says.

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