Some extra bits:
isn't that much of a difference in terms of proficiency and quality of education.
Nor can or will there be. All Irish medical schools are responsible to the Irish government for quality of training. The same specific external examiners go through all the medical schools in the country to make sure all students are at the same level for pass/fail and honours.
On the other hand, Trinity might be a better bet. It has a greater reputation in general because of the famous people who have graduated from there (Yeats, Beckett)
Trinity is the best for literature and classics, and especially because of the author alumni. This isn't really of much help in medicine, though does help that some doctors like to engage in the study of the fine arts to show their worldliness (and it can get pretty thick for some of them laying it on, especially in the Dublin hospitals).
UCD's science isn't all that well known...it's better for things like economics and business. However, Trinity has a really strong science base. While I'm sure UCD is similar, it's not as known.
I disagree with you there. For the past 30 years UCD has been the science, IT, and business powerhouse for Ireland. The biggest investments in new centers continue to go to UCD. RCSI and Trinity will be working out of UCD in the newest science center of excellence announced this month (this makes sense anyways, RCSI and Trinity don't have any more physical property downtown). I don't know why that UCD got its bigger share of the investments/funding to grow faster than the others, my best guess is that it is due to the fact that UCD is the Catholic university for Dublin in a 95% Catholic country during the last 50 years, and the Catholic school is where the public wanted to put their money--giving it the largest and more complete of the high-tech services. RCSI was always a private school, depending on only a minority of Irish, and taking the rest from oil state countries, so had its funding from there and its alumni. For UCD/Trinity funding nowadays, catholic/protestant doesn't matter much at all in the allocation of resources, but over the last century, UCD ended up the better in the regards of what kinds of facilities and programs they can put on.
I would agree however, that more famous people come to Trinity (or rather, are paid for their appearance, usu. around 50-100,000 E a pop). Gorby was there last month. I had exams or would have gone in to hear him present.
Also, for regular students there, it takes more points on their leaving cert to place in to science/medicine at TCD than UCD, which could kind of be synonymous to SAT ranking and acceptance based on SAT scores (except theirs are subject and not aptitude based).
Trinity in the years that I checked edged out UCD by about 5 points on the leaving cert. However, this is quite a misleading statistic to consider on its own, since the class sizes are so different: Trinity has been hovering around 70 Irish and UCD takes about 125 Irish. The top 70 of UCD are more likely to be higher than the top 70 of Trinity in points, overall, but UCD has more spots so they can continue to keep going on the list. RCSI usually ranks third place in points needed, but this is again a misleading stat to quote against RCSI, since (a) the number one selection criteria for medstudents now is how close is the school or hospital to home (so they don't have to pay a Dublin rent of about 10000E/yr for an apt to get their entitled free education) and (b) medical school in Dublin is more common among the upper class (unfortunate, but true--even though the cert is fair, kids in lower s/e classes need to work, there is no correction factor for that like there is in the UK), and (c) most of the upper class doesn't live by RCSI, they are out in D4 or D8.
Something that may help answer the original question:
There is a single Canadian in the graduating class of UCD this year. She signed her residency deal privately before the match started, (a USA hospital), so she can just concentrate on her studies for final year instead of doing the interviews/applications/letters/stress. To do that approach, one does an elective at the place (in the summer before final year) where one wants to work and this works both ways: they can see if you are good, and you can see if you would like to be there for another 3-4 years to train. (As an aside, notice the inherent bias possible by presenting incomplete data to sway an argument: one could either say "100% of all Canadians at UCD matched, and did so ahead of time without even having to go through the match" or "It is pretty rough, out of all the Canadians at UCD only one of them managed to successfully sign outside the match.") But I digress, I have studied too much public health / bias in research during the last few weeks.
That said, the original poster should go to Dublin and decide firsthand whether Dublin would be a place that would fit well for the next half-decade, and if so what school fits the desired learning environment best. Flights into Dublin are cheap from now until the St. Patrick's day rush, when they will start to cost more.
By the way, there is a band of young people quite gifted with the violin, that play often on Grafton street nowadays. They look like this, only happier:
<img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" />
Worth a listen if you come by.
Best wishes,
roo
but that's besides the point).
