September 20, 2024
After an Agreement to Divest From Israel, What’s Next for Trinity College Dublin?
By Evan Robins
The school’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment ended in just five days. But the path to divestment began before the encampment—and stretches far beyond.
(Mostafa Darwish / Getty)
Almost every corner of the student union offices are full of supplies. László Molnárfi apologizes for the mess. Groceries are piled up in the kitchen. Signs and broken-down tents, pillows and folded-up blankets are scattered across the hallways. Molnárfi, then-president of the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU)—or Aontas Mac Léinn Choláiste na Tríonóide in Irish—says the supplies would later be distributed to asylum seekers sleeping in tents outside of the International Protection Office and along the Grand Canal. Handwritten in black ink on the wall of Molnárfi’s office, right above a line of megaphones sitting single-file in front of his desk, reads “Victory to the students”. Below that, etched in a bold red marker and time-stamped to just two days prior on May 8: “TCD agrees to divest.”
As the new school term begins, Jenny Maguire, TCDSU’s new president, says the union is fundamentally changed by the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and remains steadfast in its commitment to a free Palestine. A large banner used for the encampment hangs on the wall behind her desk, serving as a symbol of the student movement’s ongoing efforts. It reads: “You are now entering Free Trinity,” a nod to Free Derry, an Irish autonomous area self-declared in Derry, Northern Ireland during The Troubles in the early 1970s. “We have reminded the university and all universities within Ireland of the power of the students and the bite that we still possess and are not afraid to use—which makes our bark a lot louder,” Maguire said. “The entire structure of the union is doubling down this year to become an even stronger campaigning body.”
