Literary and Historical Society (University College Dublin)
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The Literary and Historical Society (L&H) is University College Dublin's oldest debating society and the College Debating Union, founded by John Henry Newman the year before he opened his Catholic University of Ireland, in 1855. Cardinal Newman set up a debating union to promote discussion and a passion for knowledge that would thrive outside of teaching hours.
Since its early days in a basement in the city centre the society has always been the home of controversy and heated debate upon politics, religion, ethics, sport and law. Attempts have been made to shut the society down but the students would not allow it. Today the Literary & Historical Society, at the grand old age of 150, is older than UCD itself and still hosts the most entertaining and influential debates in Ireland.
A 150th Anniversary book, edited by Frank Callanan SJ, has been published to update James Meenan’s centenery history of the society, published in 1955. The book, together with the reprinted centenary history, details the complete story of Ireland's most famous debating society and comprises a range of articles, by various personalities from the L&H's past, on the last 50 years of the Society.
Most of the College's other societies, including the Students' Union, trace their roots from the L&H . It claims over 22,000 ordinary members, of which around 3,000 from the College are enrolled each year (at a cost of €2), making it one of the largest societies in UCD and in Ireland.
Traditionally, the Society gathers once a week to debate a topic of the day. When based in Earlsfort Terrace, the L&H met on Saturday nights in the old Physics Theatre, but upon moving to the new Belfield campus, the weekly meetings moved to a Friday where they remained until recent years. Historical and controversial debate topics in the past have included Home Rule for Ireland, a ban on debating The Communist Manifesto in 1949, and more recently, debates on immigration and the death penalty. During its history, the Society has been addressed by every President and Taoiseach since the foundation of the State and by figures such as Pádraig Pearse, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, who was unsuccessful in his bid to become Auditor of the Society in 1900, Barry McGuigan, Richard E. Grant, Robin Cook, Gary Lineker, Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma, Paul McGrath, Bob Geldof, Bill Bryson, Alex Ferguson, and Nobel laureates in every discipline, from Irishmen like Seamus Heaney and John Hume to international figures such as John Nash.
The Honorary Fellows of the Society include F. W. De Klerk, Rev Jesse Jackson, Prof. Noam Chomsky, Rodger Moore, Nancy Cartwright and the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, among many others.
Former auditors of the society include Mr. Justice Adrian Hardiman of the Irish Supreme Court, Dermot Gleeson SC, Oliver O'Brien and Dara O'Briain.
Since the mid-1990s in particular, the Society has undergone a significant change in its fortunes and style. Sponsorship secured from Fiat Ireland allowed the L&H to expand its operations and to act more ambitiously.
As well as debates, the Society has also diversified its activities, presenting comedy and nightclub events, two magazines, movie showings, guest lectures and the Strauss Ball.
The L&H is, by a significant margin, the most successful debating society in Ireland. The Society has won a number of international debating competitions and has enjoyed dominance in The Irish Times and Mace debating competitions as well as international and national intervarsities. The Society has attended the World Universities Debating Championship, and progressed further, more than any other Irish society, and has sent teams as far afield as Asia, Australia, Africa nad North America. In 2005/2006 UCD hosted the World Universities Debating Championship. The Society also promotes and organises competitive debating in schools across Ireland both through the Individual Schools' Mace, and the Denny Schools Debating Competition and the AIB L&H Junior Schools' Competition, which reach secondary schools throughout the country.
The auditor for the 153rd Session is Michael MacGrath, a law student and alumnus of Blackrock College.
