Thomas Noel Mitchell
1991 – 2001
Thomas Noel Mitchell1 was nominated as Provost Watt’s successor on 2 March 1991. A native of Mayo, he was born in Castlebar on 7 December 1939 and graduated with a ‘first’ in Latin and Greek at University College Galway in 1961. He then pursued an academic career in the USA, gaining a doctorate from Cornell University and in 1978 he became Professor of Classics at Swarthmore College.
Having spent a year in Trinity on a Mellon Foundation Research Fellowship in 1975/6, he returned in 1979 having been appointed to the Chair of Latin. With research interests centred in the history and politics of the late Roman Republic, Mitchell has won wide acclaim for his work on Cicero.
He held the annual officerships of Senior Dean and Senior Lecturer and as chairman of the Quatercentenary Committee, he supervised the development of an imaginative programme for the 1992 celebrations.
Although religion has happily ceased to be an issue, at the time of his appointment Mitchell was the first catholic to become Provost by normal process of election.
Painting Details:
By Carol Graham
Oil on canvas