Eavan Boland plaque installed on Trinity's Library

Tuesday 15 September 2026 was a landmark day for Trinity College Dublin as the plaque confirming the renaming of its main Library after the poet Eavan Boland was finally installed.

The Library is the first building on Trinity's city centre campus to be named after a woman. Formerly known as the Berkeley Library, it is considered one of the finest modern buildings in Ireland, being a pure example of the “Brutalist” style of bare concrete architecture popularised by le Corbusier. 

Trinity's Board decided in October 2024 to give Boland's name to the Library after a period of research, analysis and public consultation overseen by the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group (TLRWG).  

It had been decided in April 2023 that the continued use of George Berkeley’s name on its main Library was inconsistent with Trinity’s core values of human dignity, freedom, inclusivity, and equality. 

In September 2024, after a process of deliberation including consideration of the 855 public submissions, the TLRWG identified several options for the renaming of the Library, with their preferred recommendation being The Eavan Boland Library. 

Eavan Boland (below) was one of the foremost women in Irish literature, publishing many collections of poetry, a memoir Object Lessons (1995), as well as teaching and lecturing in Ireland and in the US.

A paper by TLRWG member Catriona Crowe noted that Boland’s “great achievement was to move women from the object (muse, dream, symbol) of poetry to the subject who was writing the poem.” Her name, she wrote, “would bring a magnificent poetic, scholarly and feminist reputation to a building dedicated to the humanities.”  

Inside the Eavan Boland Library, a multimedia display on the denaming and renaming of the library is open to visitors. More information can be read here.

Media Contact:

Catherine O’Mahony | Media Relations | catherine.omahony@tcd.ie