Anyone passing through central Dublin might conclude that the country's rulers must be educated at that spacious Oxbridge-style institution, whose buildings and cricket/rugby pitch (delete according to season) occupies a large slab of the city centre. Not so. Trinity has prominent political alumni, notably Labour leader Dick Spring and president Mary Robinson.
But the real powerhouse is a few miles south, in more functional surroundings in Donnybrook. University College, Dublin educated alumni to be proud of nos 110 and 111, former Taioseach John Bruton and the beneficiary of his Chirac-like early election, successor Bertie Ahern.