Trinity College is the oldest University in Dublin and was founded in 1592 when a small group of Dublin citizens obtained a charter from Queen Elizabeth I.

Trinity College has its dark story too, precisely a ghost’s story.

We have to go back to the night of March 7, 1734, when the infamous shooting and death of Edward Ford occurred.

Edward Ford was the son of the Archdeacon of Derry. He became a Fellow of the College at 24 years old in 1730. He lived at House 25 in the Rubrics, the oldest building within Trinity College, designed as residences for the students and fellows.

He was described by one colleague as an “obstinate and ill-judging man” He was intensely disliked by the undergraduate body, as he had a tendency to interfere with student matters.

When a group of students wrecked the rooms of Hugh Graffan, one of his colleagues, he tried to discover the offenders. He received dire warnings for that.

After midnight on that night, a group of young men wearing white attacked the Front Gate porter and headed towards the college’s New Square (known then as the Playground). Here they smashed Ford’s windows. He got up, took out his pistols, and shot at the gang, who fired back at him. Ford received shots to the head and body, and after two hours of agony, died.

Just before he died, when asked if he knew who shot him, he answered, “I do not know, but God forgive them, I do”.

Some Fellows discovered that a student called Cotter and his friends had been drinking all day. Also, they found an empty punch bowl, some bottles and glasses, powder, a recently fired gun, and white clothes in Cotter’s room at House 22.

Four students were accused: James Cotter, later Baronet of Rockforest, and Member of the Irish House of Commons for Askeaton, John Crosbie, later 2nd Earl of Glandor and Member of the Irish House of Commons for Athboy, Boyle, then Bachelor of Arts and Scholes who married an heiress.

The four were put on trial for murder in July 1734, but the trial was a mess, and the Lord Chief Justice found in favour of the four.

The college’s Board disagreed with the verdict, and Cotter and his friends were expelled.

According to a College tradition, at dusk, Ford’s ghost haunts the Rubrics wearing his powdered wig and Georgian attire and then strolls down to Botany Bay before fading into the air.