[166] St. Andrew’s Church appears in old documents as Parochia Sancti Andrea de Thengmothe.
[167] Stubbs: History of the University of Dublin, p. 145.
[168] A Grace passed the Senate of the University on the 20th of June, 1890, authorising admission to the degree of Doctor in Science of those who shall have been engaged in Scientific Investigation for not less than three years after graduating in Arts, and published results of independent work tending to the advancement of any branch of Science, and judged of sufficient merit by the Provost and Senior Fellows. Graduates of Trinity College who desire to devote themselves to the pursuit of any branch of Science can therefore now obtain a Scientific Degree on the ground of research. Facilities are afforded in the various schools for those who desire to acquire experience in conducting scientific researches, either by assisting in carrying out investigations actually in progress, working independently, or pursuing inquiries arising out of those recently conducted in the Schools.
[CHAPTER IX.]
DISTINGUISHED GRADUATES.
Felix prole virum.—Virgil.
The close of the sixteenth century was a brilliant period in the history of the English people. Three years before the measure for the foundation in Dublin of a College “whereby knowledge and civility might be increased” passed the Great Seal, the “Invincible Armada” had suffered disastrous defeat at the hands of English seamen. The Queen, who had “confirmed to her people that pillar of liberty, a free press,” had shown herself possessed of a deeper sympathy with her subjects than enemies were willing to allow her, and the determined spirit of her ancestors—determined whether in the good cause or the bad—had been displayed at a crisis of supreme gravity. It was a good omen for the future of the “College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity,” that it could write beneath the portrait of this sovereign, “Hujusce Collegii Fundatrix.”