For several years now Trinity College Dublin, along with other third-level colleges, has worked with government to bring small numbers of students out of Gaza and on to Irish campuses to continue their education in safety, funded by a variety of scholarships.

The numbers have never been huge. In the first year (2024-2025) Trinity welcomed three postgraduate students who managed to leave Gaza when it was still possible. Last year we welcomed 15 undergraduate and postgraduate students to courses ranging from global health, energy science, intercultural studies, engineering, business and sustainability, international and comparative law.

They are a tiny proportion of our community. For context, Trinity’s student population is 23,000 of which about 5,000 are international (non-EU) students. Each arrival was preceded by weeks or months of planning, assisting with academic applications, sourcing funding and then the uncertainty of visa applications and decisions, waiting to see if other permissions to travel would be issued. Finally, we had the evacuation.

To a person, these students did not just meet the admission requirements but were academically excellent. They surpassed all expectations, despite the transition to a new country, a new community and living with, as one of our students describes it, “survivor’s guilt”.

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Our experience has been replicated across colleges and universities across the country, which have raised close to €4 million for 2025-2026 to ensure these students would........

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