Title: Alumni Dublinenses: Trinity College, University of Dublin
Date: 1593-1860
Description: Trinity College Dublin was the first higher education institution to be established in Ireland. This database includes, in addition to the name of the student, the name and occupation of the father and the name of the schoolmaster under whom the youth previously studied are routinely given.
Source: Alumni Dublinenses: a register of the students, graduates, professors and provosts of Trinity College, in the University of Dublin edited by George Dames Burtchaell and Thomas Ulick Sadleir (1924)
Compiled by: UHF volunteers
The following paragraph is taken from the Preface of the Alumni Dublinenses:
Most of the students entered as Pensioners, the word originally meaning one who paid a fixed sum annually, and not, as now, the recipient of such. They ranked above the Sizars, who were allowed free education in consideration of performing certain, at one time menial, duties, and below the Fellow Commoners (Socii Comitates), who paid double fees and enjoyed several privileges, including that of finishing the College course in three years instead of four. Briefly, then, it may be taken that the Sizars were sons of poor parents, frequently the clergy; the Pensioners of persons of moderate incomes; and the Fellow Commoners, of the wealthy, or, as was often the case in the nineteenth century, of those who wished that their sons should get through College with as little delay as possible.