Nursing - Mental Health Nursing

The role of the nurse is to provide evidence-based, culturally-sensitive care in order to assist the individual to lead an independent healthy lifestyle, overcome ill health or experience a peaceful death. The nurse achieves this through working as part of a professional multidisciplinary team to provide primary healthcare, acute hospital care, community and home and continuing care, based on individual and population health needs across the lifespan.

Students of nursing learn about caring and the complexities of health and illness through interactive teaching and learning strategies in the classroom and the healthcare environment. Practice (clinical and community) experience provides the student with opportunities to integrate the art and science of nursing and promotes the development of caring relationships with patients/service users and their families/significant others.

Nursing practice, rooted in compassion, draws upon extensive knowledge and experience to provide physical and psychological care of the highest quality. Nurses take centre stage in ensuring efficient and effective delivery of accessible, integrated and consumer-driven healthcare, creatively designing health related services, and ensure quality through advocacy, policy-making, service management, education and research.

The four-year nursing courses are offered in partnership with seven health service providers. Trinity’s linked health service providers for this course are: HSE South & West Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Mental Health Services and St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services.

Nursing: The course for you?

Do you love working with and for the benefit of people of all ages and from diverse backgrounds?

If you want a rewarding and respected career with great employment and travel opportunities, then the professional course in nursing could be for you.

A genuine interest in people and a desire to care for others are core requirements for any individual who wishes to become a nurse. In addition, you will need to have a keen interest in healthcare and be capable of working as part of a team. Like all professional courses in health sciences, nursing places extra demands on students’ time. It can be demanding, both physically and emotionally and so you should ensure that you are in a position to fully engage with the course during your time in Trinity.

Nursing at Trinity

The School of Nursing and Midwifery at Trinity has a world-renowned reputation and courses are taught by academics at the top of their discipline and profession. The School is ranked first in the Republic of Ireland and EU, and 10th worldwide in the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026. With more than 1,000 undergraduate nursing students in Trinity, you will become part of a vibrant student community – the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Trinity College Dublin is the largest School of Nursing and Midwifery in the country.

You will have the opportunity to meet and mix with students from all nursing disciplines and midwifery profession as you study core modules together. You will also form cohesive bonds within your own discipline as you begin to specialise within your chosen area of nursing.

Nursing students are taught theory predominantly in the School of Nursing and Midwifery building on D’Olier Street, which is a wonderful historic building in the heart of the capital. The School is a great place to learn and interact with classmates and with its close proximity to Trinity’s main campus, nursing students are never far from the centre of student life.

Graduate skills and career opportunities

Graduates from the Trinity School of Nursing and Midwifery will be competent, innovative, and caring professionals who are capable of leading change, shaping policy and responding to an ever-evolving healthcare environment.

You will be qualified to continue your education and further specialise should you wish to do so. The Trinity School of Nursing and Midwifery offers a wide range of postgraduate courses for furthering your studies.

There are FET Level 5 pathways available for TR091, TR093, TR095, TR097 and TR911. For details about applying with a FET Major Award, visit the TAP website here.

Your degree and what you’ll study

This course will provide you with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and professional values necessary to provide high-quality, competent and caring practice in your chosen discipline of nursing. There are two components to the nursing degree course; a theoretical component and a practice (clinical/community) component.

Theoretical component

The theoretical component will be taught in the Trinity School of Nursing and Midwifery building, the main Trinity campus and in the Trinity Centre for Health Sciences in St. James’s Hospital. Teaching methods include lectures, tutorials, practical classes, clinical skills laboratories, group teaching, web-based learning and reflective workshops.

A combination of examinations, essays, clinical projects, clinical skills, laboratory techniques, literature reviews (review of past and current literature relating to the subject matter), reflective practice (thinking about an experience and reflecting on its meaning) and clinical assessments are used.

For further information on modules/subjects, click here.

Practice (clinical/community) component

For the practice component you will be linked with one of the health service providers and also have clinical/community placements in a variety of settings. In Years 1 and 2, you will complete 26 weeks of supernumerary placement. In Year 3, you will undertake a 12-week paid Integrated Care Placement, and in Year 4, a 24-week paid internship.

Mental health nursing

Mental health nursing is a highly rewarding specialist nursing discipline. As a mental health nurse you will work with people who experience mental health difficulties in a variety of contexts, across the lifespan. Mental health nurses work in partnership with the person and their family/advocate to enable them to mobilise themselves as well as professional resources, in a way that promotes personal growth, maximum development of potential and recovery. 

Students will receive instruction and experience in the following areas:

• Mental Health nursing (inpatient mental health services)
• Mental Health nursing in the Community
• Specialist Mental Health nursing
• Mental health in older life
• Adult General nursing
• Management and leadership

Students who successfully complete this course will be eligible to apply to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse (R.P.N.).

What health service provider will you be training with?

When you accept an offer for one of the nursing courses you will receive orientation information from Trinity. This information contains a form asking you to indicate which health service provider you would prefer to be linked with. Requests are dealt with on a first-come, first-served basis. Where possible you will be assigned your first choice. If the number of applicants exceeds the number of places available, you will be assigned your second choice. A reserve list is held and if a vacancy arises it may be possible to transfer to your first choice. Most students are allocated their first choice of health service provider.

Optional international placements/opportunities during training

The Erasmus programme enables students to study at another European university as part of their university degree. This is an exciting opportunity for students to experience a core clinical placement in another European Union healthcare system for a maximum period of eight weeks duration. Erasmus exchange takes place in the second year of the course.

Current Erasmus partners include (dependent upon profession or nursing discipline): Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland; University of Malta; Lund University, Sweden; University College of Northern (UCN) Denmark, Aalborg, Denmark; Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, Netherlands; University of Maribor, Slovenia and the University of Barcelona, Spain.

Students can apply for summer international opportunities to attend a Summer School at Duke University, North Carolina, USA, or Hong Kong University, China, and a volunteering opportunity in Uganda, in Africa. Second-year general nursing students may also apply to undertake four weeks of clinical placement in the University of Sydney or the University of Queensland, Australia.