Ruth Negga will return to her roots in a new RTÉ series, Trinity’s Treasures, as she gets unprecedented access to Trinity College’s iconic library.
The library has undergone its first major renovation in 300 years.
Now, well-known students will step back to where they spent their formative college years.
In the first episode, Oscar, Tony and Emmy-nominated actress and producer Ruth Negga explores some of Trinity’s unique literary treasures in the university’s literature, poetry and theatre collections, and takes a trip down memory lane to the Drama Department where she started out. Trinity’s library is the largest of any university in the country.
The Old Library – known as the Long Room – was built in the early 1700s and contains some of the university’s oldest books, including the famous Book of Kells. Ruth meets Trinity’s Librarian and College Archivist Helen Shenton and is given access to unique writings from Irish literary icon Samuel Beckett.
Ruth also meets young drama students who perform from the celebrated works of Beckett, Shakespeare and John Millington Synge. She views early drafts of Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, which she herself performed on the London stage.
Speaking about taking part in the series, Ruth said: “I studied in Trinity from 1999 to 2002 and I trained as an actor in the Samuel Beckett Centre. When I’m in Dublin, I tend to walk through the college because it’s so beautiful and I feel very proud to have gone here. I loved my training, and I loved being a student here.”
She continued: “I love books, I love words, I love plays. [For Trinity to create] a guided personal tour of some of the works that I have personally performed in and admire and the writers that I admire, I mean, that’s such an honour.”
She spoke about the “privilege” she felt when she looked through the library.
“Art is political because it’s essentially documenting people’s response to the world in time. I think that’s important, that documentation, to feel and also to feel like we’re not just alone. We have ancestors, you know, that we are have been bequeathed all this, this great knowledge and profundity, and we must mind it for the next generations, you know.
“It’s a privilege to sit in front of these documents, but I think what’s great about the library is that it’s accessible to everybody. You know, these are not just for academics. Here, they’re for everybody. They’re for the whole island.
“What an immense amount of art this island has produced. You know, that’s something to be really proud of. I mean, I know we know it and we’re aware of it, but it’s just it’s extraordinary to be reminded of what’s possible.”
Trinity’s Treasures airs this Friday 17 July 2026 at 8.30pm on RTE One and RTÉ Player
