Kathy Gilfillan

These time-capsule recollections of Trinity College students in the seventies include those of U2 manager Paul McGuinness, director of the Gate Theatre Michael Colgan, novelist James Ryan, writer Robert O'Byrne, judge Fidelma Macken, publisher Antony Farrell, Dillie Keane of Fascinating Aida, Mary Harney, Liz O'Donnell and others, who have in different ways shaped the Ireland of today. The seventies were significant, with Catholic students allowed into the College as British grants enabled a welcome invasion by the Northern Irish; post-Woodstock, a global counterculture was at work. Together, Irish nationals and expats created an interesting fusion of sensibilities, styles and philosophies. As the decade of political and social upheaval unfolded – from the availability of the Pill to the horrors of Bloody Sunday and the Dublin bombings – Irish youth came to embrace a changed Ireland. Buoyed by idealism and other substances but tethered by pragmatism, contributors to Trinity Tales mirror a time when everything felt possible.

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