Trinity College Dublin's historic Front Gate damaged in car ramming.
Man, 68, questioned over collisions with ancient wooden doors and with vehicles in centre of Irish capital in the early morning.
The wooden doors into Trinity College Dublin have been extensively damaged after a car rammed into them.
A 68-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the incident on Tuesday morning at one of the world's oldest universities.
A number of other vehicles around College Green, in the centre of the Irish capital, were also damaged in the collision, at around 6.30am.
A spokesperson for Trinity College said that despite the car being "pursued by college security, it drove through the front section of the college and then drove back towards Front Gate, which had been closed by college security".
"However, the driver proceed to ram into the historic entrance a number of times, succeeding eventually to break through it and causing damage. The driver then proceeded to drive on to Dame Street, followed by Nassau Street and against the traffic on Dawson Street, where he was arrested by the gardaí at approximately 6.35am.
"Due to the incident, Front Gate will be closed all day today for repairs, and it is anticipated that it will reopen tomorrow. The entrances to Pearse Street and Nassau Street will remain open."
Gardaí from Pearse Street station are questioning the man, and police have closed the main gates to the university while their investigations continue.
Elizabeth I was on the throne and England was strengthening its control over Ireland when Trinity College Dublin was granted a royal charter to open, in the 1590s.
A prayer in Latin is said even now in her honour at a special dinner each evening for Trinity scholars.
Trinity's long list of famous alumni includes the 18th-century satirist and author of Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift; Wolfe Tone, the leader of the 1798 rebellion against British rule; the physicist Ernest Walton, who won the Nobel prize for his work on the atom; the philosophers Robert Berkeley and Edmund Burke: the playwrights Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett; and Ireland's two female presidents, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese.
The university is a major tourist magnet, with hundreds passing through its wooden doors into a partially cobblestoned square almost every day of the year.
Trinity College Dublin or "Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath" in Irish, is formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth. It was founded in 1592 by from Queen Elizabeth and is is Ireland's oldest university.
Trinity was set up in part to consolidate the rule of the Tudor monarchy in Ireland, and it was the university of the Protestant Ascendancy for much of its history. Roman Catholics had been permitted to enter as early as 1753,although certain restrictions on their membership of the college remained until 1873. However the Catholic Church in Ireland forbade its adherents from attending until the late 20th century. It wasn't until 1904 that women were first admitted to the college as full members.
Trinity College is a legal deposit library for Ireland and the United Kingdom, and therefore legally entitled to a copy of every book published in Great Britain and Ireland and consequently receives over 100,000 new items every year. The Library contains circa five million books, including 30,000 current serials and significant collections of manuscripts, maps, and printed music.
The Book of Kells is by far the Library's most famous book and is located in the Old Library, along with the Book of Durrow, the Book of Howth and other ancient texts. Also incorporating the Long Room, the Old Library is one of Ireland's biggest tourist attractions, and holds thousands of rare, very early, volumes.
Amongst the graduates are included notable people in the fields of arts and sciences like Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett (Nobel Laureate in Literature), Ernest Walton (Nobel Laureate in Physics), three holders of the office of President of Ireland, and one Premier of New Zealand (Edward Stafford).