This research theme embraces five areas:

Irish, International and Comparative Studies of Literature and History

The Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing and the Centre for Irish-Scottish and Comparative Studies are included in this area. The latter is associated with the Irish Scottish Academic Initiative, established in 1995, which formally links the Schools of History, English and Celtic/Irish at the Scottish universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Strathclyde with those of Queen's University Belfast  and of Trinity College Dublin.

Art History

Education, research and publication in all aspects of Irish Art History are fostered by the Irish Art Research Centre (TRIARC). Its activities include a postgraduate programme, provision of symposia and conferences exploring aspects of Irish art, the development of a visual archive and the publication of research.

A major project, the ‘Visual Archive of Irish Art' to catalogue and research aspects of the collection, believed to be the largest such collection in the world, has been partly funded by a substantial donation from the Getty Foundation.

Languages of Ireland

We aim to become the national and international reference point for enquiry relating to language in Ireland. This area comprises three programmes:

• Language and Society brings together work in linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, speech and language therapy and deaf studies
• Irish Voices is developing the analysis and synthesis of expression and emotion in speech, and the analysis and synthesis of Irish and Hiberno-English
• Policy and Pedagogy is working in the area of policy-oriented research on language in Ireland

Contemporary Irish History

The Centre for Contemporary Irish History is responsible for a number of funded research projects and will be linked to the proposed Archive for Modern and Contemporary History to ensure that contemporary Irish historical materials are well conserved, are fully described for resource discovery and to support the research effort at PhD and postdoctoral levels as part of the College Library.

Creative Arts

Creative Arts in Trinity comprises three separate areas of research:

• Theatre:  currently embraces two initiatives, The Irish Theatrical Diaspora Programme and Beyond Borders: Globalization and Inter-culturalism in Performance
• Arts and Technology: centres on a proposed National Centre for the Creative Arts and Technology as an interdisciplinary centre that fosters international level research in the intersection of the arts (individual literary creativity, the visual arts, drama, music and dance) and technology. This Centre is intended to address both theoretical and practical research issues. It aims to create a critical mass of research activity and in doing so attract international researchers of high caliber.
• Film Studies: The Irish Film Research Project is becoming the gateway for researching all aspects of Irish film history. It incorporates the Irish Film and Television Database which is cataloguing all films and major television programmes made in Ireland, about Ireland and Irish-produced, worldwide since the beginnings of cinema and the annual Irish Postgraduate Film Research Seminar, which promotes postgraduate film studies research and publication.