In this edition of Trinity Tall Tales, I’d like to expand on the idea of Trinity once being a relatively lawless place. It being Christmas, there is a sense that, when one walks past the green and red lights of the Campanile or the lit-up fir tree in Front Square, the College is some kind of surreal, untouchable environment. Classes finish, exams are taken, and the pressure that arises from these low, grey winter skies and oppressively silent libraries is lifted. Students, if they even bother to come in at all after this is all said and done, finally give themselves the opportunity to look around and appreciate our campus as a beautiful place, rather than one representing unfinished assignments and half-baked arts block situationships. I hope to expand on this whimsy by again revealing that Trinity was not always a space associated most directly with work or study. The truth is, in reality, much more ridiculous and funny.
For example, take Trinity’s Climbing Society, a group with a long and storied history at College. Don’t let their seniority on this campus fool you, as they are more than willing to consider themselves as a “drinking club with a climbing problem”, as they said in a recent interview with this very newspaper. Authenticity, in my book, is always one of the most admirable traits one can have, and in this case, Climbing Society sticks steadfastly to its roots.
Its roots, if you’d like to know, began long before any climbing wall or even a dedicated sports centre existed at Trinity. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, according to our old friend and amateur Trinity historian John Engle, the then-young Climbing Club existed in flux. As climbers with nothing to climb close by, they forced themselves to make do. Rather than fade back into the archives of defunct clubs and societies, the climbers decided to climb what they had. In this case, it was many of the beautiful campus buildings that awe tourists and prospective first-years today. They belayed on the old Business Building, mounted the Memorial Building, lifted themselves to the top of libraries, and even climbed the Campanile.
With the prospect of being caught and apprehended by campus security always a hazard, student leaders of the society had to find a way to ensure that new members were skilled enough to scale even the most obtuse and steep buildings on campus quickly and quietly. They decided that, each year, they would task young prospective members to climb to the tip of the Campanile’s wrought iron cross and hang something on it. For several years, this was usually a top hat. Once, it was even a stuffed crocodile, which, according to the archives of Trinity News, required the help of the local fire department to remove.
The Climbing Club, recognising the increasing risk associated with their bad-boy reputation on campus, understood that in order to keep members safe and within their limits, a proper ranking system for climbs on campus was necessary. They gathered each of their strongest and most daring climbers, and they climbed and mapped every possible route on every building with a proper handhold on campus, from the Exam Hall to the GMB, to even the towering white walls of Front Gate. Everything was ranked and catalogued, and soon there was a comprehensive guide to mounting each of campus’s storied structures. Often, these guides included blueprints for a quick escape route, in case one was seen by security during their ascent. The guide was signed only with initials, and so the Climbing Club members continued to flourish under the guise of secrecy, despite often living their university experiences on the edge (literally).
One of the most famous close-calls for the Climbing Club took place on one fateful night-climb along the GMB’s western route, considered one of the most difficult climbs possible on campus according to the guide. Two lads took it upon themselves to reach the top and found themselves revealed by a security guard’s flashlight close to the summit. They ducked inside an open window, which happened to lead to the room of one Jose Xuereb, a student living in the west wing of the GMB accommodation. A knock was heard at the door not long after this, and the two lads ducked underneath Jose’s bed. When Jose answered the door, he was greeted with a drowsy Junior Dean, alongside several surly guards. They demanded to search his room, and Jose stepped aside. After a quick search, they found nothing amiss, and they left to search elsewhere. The lads, in the meantime, made their getaway, this time through Jose’s front door, rather than a window.
To me, this process of “buildering”, whether through formal James Bond-esque break-ins during Trinity Ball or late-night scrambles up the Campanile, is representative of something more. I don’t believe it’s just the English student in me that swoons a little bit when I hear about what campus used to be. I don’t believe it’s romanticism to admire how the sides of campus’ pristine tourist hotspots were soiled with the dirty boots of those who, instead of textured stonework and stained glass windows, saw nothing more than something to climb. Today, with College’s expensive habits and doting nature on the preservation of our old buildings, juxtaposed with increasing fees, living costs, and campus security, I sometimes feel, in my weaker moments, that it is only so that one day a new generation of tourists can take their own Instagrammable photos of our campus. Most of the time, though, I have hope that, if ever the College decided to take away the climbing wall in favour of another Book of Kells Experience, that one day we would wake up to another top hat on the Campanile.
