Edmund Burke Predicted Trinity College’s Jettisoning the Past

Dublin, Ireland — Edmund Burke in bronze appropriately gazes at the world surrounded inappropriately by overgrowth at the front gate of Trinity College.

During the Covid lockdowns, school officials publicly reasoned that transforming the tiny, tidy, and trimmed lawns around the statues of Burke and his friend Oliver Goldsmith into an uncut half-acre might help save the planet. Trinity Senior Dean John Parnell explained that “lawn-mowing, ground preparation, and pesticide control can disturb important insects that feed and nest in the soil.”

About the Author

Daniel J. Flynn

Daniel J. Flynn, the author of The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, is an American Spectator senior editor, visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and YouTuber @RightWingWilderness.

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Dublin, Ireland — Edmund Burke in bronze appropriately gazes at the world surrounded inappropriately by overgrowth at the front gate of Trinity College.

During the Covid lockdowns, school officials publicly reasoned that transforming the tiny, tidy, and trimmed lawns around the statues of Burke and his friend Oliver Goldsmith into an uncut half-acre might help save the planet. Trinity Senior Dean John Parnell explained that “lawn-mowing, ground preparation, and pesticide control can disturb important insects that feed and nest in the soil.”