In 1776, Trinity became the first university to hold Chairs in modern continental languages, with founding posts in French and German, and Spanish and Italian. Now, 250 years later, the College is hosting a year-long programme to celebrate its pioneering history of modern language education.
Past and present students, faculty, dignitaries, Ambassadors and Embassy representatives gathered for an opening ceremony at the Trinity Long Room Hub on January 29th to kickstart “Languages 250 at Trinity (1776-2026)”.
The slate of events runs from now until October. It includes two Hely-Hutchinson Memorial Lectures, by professor Yves Citton and author Ulrike Draesner, as well as conferences surrounding translation and modern language practice in Ireland.
“Languages 250 at Trinity” not only commemorates the work and history of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies, but makes a case for the future of linguistic and cultural plurality in Ireland – remembering the College’s pioneering initiative 250 years ago.
A year after he was appointed Provost of Trinity College in 1774, John Hely-Hutchinson proposed “two professors or teachers of modern languages, the one of whom teaches the French and German, and the other the Spanish and Italian languages”.
Hely-Hutchinson envisioned students using the languages they learned at Trinity to travel elsewhere, a design somewhat shared by initiatives at Oxford and Cambridge that had been started and abandoned 50 years prior to Hely-Hutchinson’s proposal. The proposal was a radically original, though much-criticised, initiative.
In the late 18th century, the idea of modern languages as objects of academic study didn’t exist as it does now. Students at Trinity and other universities were instructed only in Greek and Latin, as part of their set curricula.
The appointment of the Chairs marked a “democratising shift, in the university context, from the ancient to the modern, from the study of classical languages to the learning of vernacular and foreign languages”, current holder of the Chair of German (1776), Mary Cosgrove, noted at January’s opening ceremony.
Today, Trinity boasts the longest-standing continuous Chairs of French and German anywhere in the world.
The first Chair, R Antonio Vieyra Transtagano, began teaching Spanish and Italian at Trinity in 1775. Later that year, Anthony D’Esca arrived to teach French and German. Transtagano was the author of a Portuguese dictionary and grammar, and D’Esca a Berlin-born Voltaire scholar.
It wasn’t until October 29th, 1776, that the Chairs were formalised, after a charter from King George III approved the appointment and funding of the two professors.
Although Transtagano and D’Esca initially only held lectures supplementary to Trinity students’ normal school curriculum and tuition, the Modern Languages programme began developing in the 1830s.
Courses expanded to consider philology and literary history, and to recognise the role of modern language skills for a commercial, professional and international education.
What had started as an extracurricular education for gentlemen’s travel began to grow into the modern humanities disciplines that we know today, cementing Trinity as a global leader in modern language education.
While the College began with French, German, Spanish and Italian, the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies now houses seven departments, including Hispanic Studies, Irish and Celtic Languages, Near and Middle Eastern Studies, and Russian and Slavonic Studies.
As Ireland’s linguistic and cultural makeup has shifted, so have the promises of Trinity’s language education.
Provost Dr Linda Doyle remarked that modern language education at Trinity aims to equip students for a diversifying island and world.
“Trinity is immensely proud of its 250-year-old tradition in modern language education and remains committed to the promotion of modern languages to create a more open, tolerant, and culturally diverse world”, she said.
Ireland is increasingly multicultural and multilingual, with the most recent census noting a growing 751,507 Irish residents who speak a language besides Irish or English at home. Amidst these changes, foreign modern language education is becoming increasingly pertinent.
For example, this year marks the endpoint of the Department of Education and Skills’ nine year “Languages Connect” plan, which aims to strengthen foreign language education in Ireland, including in higher education.
250 years after Hely-Hutchinson’s original proposal, modern language education at Trinity remains a conduit to a broader world.
As Pat Cox, President of the Jean Monnet Foundation and former President of the European Parliament, said at the opening ceremony, “A shared language confers a sense both of connection and belonging even in the most trying of contexts.”
