Page number 42
Unfortunately, as Count Dracula has loomed ever larger in popular culture, Bram Stoker, his creator, has faded into the background. His obscurity is particularly unfortunate for Trinity since he attended university here and was an important figure in college history as the only person to be both Auditor of the Historical Society (Hist) and President of the Philosophical Society (Phil). Indeed, Stoker once described the Hist as Trinity’s ‘supplementary school’, and he should know, given that he served in the offices of the Society Librarian, Record Secretary, and in 1872 was elected Auditor (by one vote). It is probably true to say that Bram probably spent more time in the gym and in college societies than he did in the lecture hall or the library. His athletic achievements while a teenager in Trinity are extraordinary for someone who had been extremely fragile and even close to death while a child. There hardly seems to have been a sport in which he did not participate and he apparently excelled in rugby, walking races, gymnasium, sling shot, high jump, trapeze, and rowing. He was on the rugby team, and in 1867 won prizes for weight-lifting and for the five- and seven-mile walks. Stoker’s conviviality, sociability and devotion to physical health and exercise, all developed and perfected in Trinity, can certainly still be felt in his greatest novel. Dracula , after all, is a text in which a group of physically robust, intelligent, literate and companionable young men form a kind of discussion club (what commentators have dubbed the ‘Crew of Light’), complete with a secretary keeping detailed notes, all under the direction of an older mentor. Hist and Phil speeches and debates sometimes involved the supernatural and the Gothic, so there is certainly no real gap between Stoker’s life as a Trinity student and his work as a popular novelist. Moreover, he may even have first encountered that iconic name, Dracula, while attending Trinity. Jason McElligott, the Director of Marsh’s Library, has demonstrated that Stoker visited the library seven times in 1866 and 1867, and called for an eclectic variety of very specific items. Lurking in one volume Stoker consulted, Peter Heylyn’s Cosmographie (1652), is a reference to ‘Dracala’, and the ‘battell of Cassova’ (1448), cited in the Count’s speech to Jonathan Harker as one of the key events in his family’s history. We can (perhaps), situate Dracula’s ‘origins’ in Stoker’s social, sporting and reading habits while a student in Trinity – reason enough to bring the author out of the shadows of his most famous creation.
Page number 43
Photo credit: Amoroso Films The Key to success on world stages Libby Key, BA (2014), shares with Trinity Today how her passion for blending cultures and her collaborative spirit has shaped her unique path to success in the music industry You studied French and Italian at Trinity and excelled in your studies. How did your time at Trinity influence your academic and personal development, and did it play a role in your decision to pursue a career in music? From a developmental perspective, I found studying and living in Ireland a period of significant personal growth: I grew up in England, but with an Irish family, and so going back to Ireland to study and live was a very different experience. England and Ireland are very different culturally and so it’s always exciting to immerse yourself in a different culture. This culture obviously wasn’t entirely alien to me but experiencing it abroad through your family is very different to living it day-to-day. Career-wise, I have always loved languages so studying at Trinity was a chance for me to pursue my passion for learning and languages. I sang in the Boydell Choir at Trinity and played as a violinist in the Trinity Orchestra, and it was with them I performed at my first music festival (Forbidden Fruit Festival), so I kept my music up. Little did I know I would be pursuing it professionally just a few years later. Winning the annual ‘Evaso Radice prize’ for your thesis is an impressive achievement. Could you tell us more about your thesis and how it connects to your current work in the music industry? My thesis was called ‘Itanglese: Stories of Sicilian Emigration.’ It was a study of the fascinating hybrid language formed by Sicilian migrants in Anglophone countries. As a linguist, I was always interested in dialects and how they connect to the land around them. The Sicilian dialect really fascinated me, so I spent a summer in Sicily studying it. It turns out there isn’t just one Sicilian dialect, there is a multitude of variants so my wonderful professor, Dr Giuliana Adamo, helped me bridge the gap with the phenomenon that is ‘itanglese’ – the hybrid language of Italians living in English-speaking countries. There is a lot of ‘itanglese’ music – songs like ‘Tu vuò fà l’americano’ and ‘Mambo Italiano’ and since my thesis, I added a lot of these songs to my repertoire as a jazz vocalist. Transitioning from academia to the music industry can be quite a leap. What motivated you to pursue a career in music, and what were some of the challenges you faced during this transition? Straight after living in Dublin, I moved to Los Angeles for two years and lived with a family of actors. Watching them make a living from what they loved was really inspiring to me and gave me the confidence to do it myself. Whilst in LA, I worked as a journalist for L’Italo-Americano, an Italian-American newspaper, and I think this was the gap that bridged academia to music. This gap introduced me further to the creative and songwriting world. There isn’t the same pre-defined career path in music as there is in academia, so that’s hard. If I’m to really exaggerate, I think a successful career in music requires 1% talent, 50% hard work, and 49% self-belief. Finding that self-belief day after day and continuing to work very hard even when you don’t immediately reap the rewards can be very trialling and I would say was the hardest step between academia into music. Your cousin and fellow Trinity graduate, Aoife Nessa Frances, is also a musician recognized by the Irish Times as one of ‘The Best 50 Irish Music Acts Right Now’ in 2020. How has your family’s creative background influenced your own musical journey and collaborations? My cousin and I come from a very creative family – our grandparents were one of ten and grew up in Abbeyfeale. Aoife’s father is a fiddle-maker, my mother writes plays, and my grandmother was a dressmaker, so I’m sure there is some element of creativity being passed down the generations! My mother was determined that me and my siblings would be musical, so I was playing a 1/32 sized-violin when I was still in nappies! I couldn’t read a note of music until I was eight as I learnt everything by ear, so I think it’s what helped me in languages too. My Dad also always had great music playing in the house and as a child, I would go to sleep to the sounds of him playing flamenco guitar, so it’s thanks to them for my initial introductions.
