Eklogai Autobiografikai

I arrived in Dublin in 1986 to take up a position as Lecturer in Pure Mathematics at Trinity College. A relatively stable lifestyle established itself over the first two decades of living in Dublin. Something of a personal crisis developed towards the end of those two decades which came to a head in the summer of 2006. But that is another story. On arrival in Trinity, two lecture courses were assigned to me; a second year lecture course on analysis in several real variables and a degree-level lecture course on algebraic topology. (By some weird coincidence, the two lecture courses I am currently teaching, during the semester in which I am writing this, are a second year module on analysis in several real variables and a degree-level module on algebraic topology.) So I settled down to prepare my lecture notes (writing them out in pencil on writing paper, so that I could copy the notes onto the blackboard to enable the students attending the lectures to make a verbatim copy). Als...

I was appointed to a lectureship in pure mathematics at Trinity College Dublin in 1986, and took up the post in October 1986. The visual appearance of the college was very different then. Some impression of the appearance of "Trinity's surly front" can perhaps be gleaned from the three following poor-quality scans of slide photographs taken sometime within the first year following my arrival in Dublin. For the first five years after my arrival in Trinity the School of Mathematics occupied House 39 in New Square, but was subsequently moved to its current location in the houses alongside Westland Row, notwithstanding the very forceful objections of many of the academic staff of the School. An appeal was made to the Visitor, and heard by the Visitor and Chancellor of the University. The result of the appeal did not forestall the move of the School of Westland Row, but, in consequence of the appeal, a computer room was made available to students of mathematics ...