Braving the cockpit of controversy

Debating: The Literary and Historical Society (the L&H) was founded in 1855 by John Henry Newman as a forum for debate among the students of his Catholic University, which is now UCD.

His aim was that the society would become "the Alma Mater of the rising generation". The L&H, by extension, was to become the cockpit of debating controversy for that rising generation - and so it came to pass. Its first 100 years were chronicled in a centenary history edited by James Meenan. Now Frank Callanan has edited a history of the society from 1955 to 2005. Both volumes are now published as companions and are good reading for those who want to remember, or to discover for the first time, a slice of life in the leading Irish university - the powerhouse of independent Ireland.

Maeve Binchy explains the significance of the L&H in her youth. It was on Saturday nights, "the sex of the fifties". Her maiden speech, she confesses, "wasn't great" or "even good". But it was her first time. And it was the first speech from a woman student that year. And she still remembers the blood-red mist in her eyes and the roaring in her ears. The L&H, she "knows", was magic. And when I met Maeve at the launch of the book in Belfield last week, we both relived a little of that magic.

The latest volume has more than 60 monographs, which cover a 50-year period, written in the main by former auditors and committee members. The fun and excitement of it all rushes out of the pages. It is, of course, not a little self-adulatory. But not overly so. Self- deprecation and fondness are there as well.

The L&H is very much a living thing. It doesn't have its own building. It has always had to share its accommodation with the day-to-day lecture halls of the university. It has practically no regalia and its greatest treasures are its minutes books, which would give the casual reader almost no understanding of its proceedings. The L&H lives in the minds and hearts of each generation of members. And that is the value of recording its history - not as continuous narrative but as a succession of very personal vignettes.

In the early years of the 1955-2005 period, conflict with authority, in the larger-than-life form of Michael Tierney, gave an edge to many of the society's activities. His claimed right to approve outside speakers must have been manna from heaven to auditors, who were thereby transformed into heroic champions of the downtrodden student body. In an era of authority and of relative poverty (Michael Lowey records that one pre-meeting pint was all the students could afford), Saturday night at the L&H was a central part of the social existence of many, but by no means all, of the students of the 1950s and 1960s. That they could pit their wits and intellects with great figures of politics, literature and public life (or witness their colleagues attempting to joust with such luminaries) and could socialise in the process without even the smallest admission charge was riches indeed.

Desmond Green, who, more than other auditors, had to deal with Michael Tierney, recounts their turbulent relationship in great detail, but still thought Tierney to be "a very nice man, who carried many wounds". As Tierney's youngest nephew I can vouch for his kindness and warmth. During those turbulent times, I was a long-staying guest during summer holidays at University Lodge, and had the run with my cousins of the entire Belfield campus, then a huge aggregation of large, frequently boarded-up houses and surrounding farms awaiting transformation into the Belfield of today. At the age of 10, to go into Tierney's study after a day spent exploring the broad acres of that estate, and there to be read aloud The Lord of the Rings in front of a log fire, was heaven itself. While joining battle with the students on issues of authority, Tierney had not only discovered Tolkien in the late 1950s but had shared Middle Earth with his nephew and grandchildren. Bliss indeed.

Charles Lysaght, as always, writes beautifully and authoritatively of his days in the society. Kevin Myers, another writer of our times, recounts with less enthusiasm the L&H of the late 1960s. Of his speech there, he says:

I spoke once, an improvised affair on housing, a maiden speech that was treated with the respect that a gang of tomcats might show a she-cat in heat. Mauled, I trickled off the stage, never again to darken its door with any rhetorical flourishes.

Kevin, of whom I am very fond, was not the first nor the last to suffer at the hands of the L&H mob. But his reference to the topic of "housing" as the battleground for his rhetorical nemesis in all probability conceals the real reason for a poor reception on the night: he was given in those days to long ideological orations about social injustice. The tomcats had probably heard it all before! But, meantime, Kevin has learned the hard way how to command his readers' attention.

Anthony Clare (auditor, 1963-1964) played a leading role in the society, and in its subsequent commemoration, by convening the ad-hoc group to re-enact James Joyce's Drama and Life paper, which Joyce presented to the L&H on January 20th 1900. One hundred years later, I found the re-enactment hugely interesting. Gerry Stembridge scripted the evening. The minutes include a reference to Eoin MacNeill, my grandfather, chairing a meeting a week prior to the delivery of Joyce's paper. That Joycean centenary commemoration eventually led indirectly to the publication of the latest history.

PASSING TO THE period of my own involvement in the society, I found a rich mother-lode of happy, well-written memories. I confess readily that I was not the wittiest, the most persuasive or the most entertaining of speakers. I was surrounded by far more talented orators. But I enjoyed every minute of it, especially the "dog eat dog" atmosphere which (with the exception of the maiden speakers) cut everyone down to size.

The issue of the move to the Belfield campus was for 20 years on the minds of the L&H debaters. Given that the visionary project was being driven by Michael Tierney, it was predictable that those who viewed him as Dr Tyranny would also tog out against Belfield.

In a small sleepy city, the scale of the Belfield project was easy to discount. And there was a "town and gown" aspect. Belfield seemed far away from the bookshops, the bars, the restaurants and cafés that formed the backdrop to UCD student life. Contrary arguments were raised about the possibility of expanding UCD in the city-centre zone between Leeson Street, Harcourt Street and the canal. But, in truth, if UCD had not gone to Belfield it would have stayed in an institutional cul-de-sac. So, in the end, it fell to Adrian Hardiman to move the L&H to Belfield, and from Saturday to Friday nights. That decision was right, if not without consequence. It took a good deal more deliberation to attend the society's meetings, in terms of geography and commitment, once the move to Belfield was made. Gone were the days that you could leave your options open as to whether to stay all evening at a meeting or slip away quietly to Kirwan's or some city-centre dancehall.

Changed, too, was the physical context of the L&H. Belfield theatres are raked, steep-sided cockpits compared with the flatter auditoria of the two physics theatres in Newman House and Earlsfort Terrace. Compared with the TCD Hist's chamber, the L&H has a far more threatening aspect for the faint-hearted speaker.

Original pioneers in Belfield felt that a day in college resembled a day at the airport - an isolated, unsettling, type of student life. But, as Hugh Brady said when launching the book, graduates should now take the time to walk the campus - and not just at weekends - to see how Michael Tierney's project has developed and is developing.

Nottoo lugubrious, I hope, to suggest that a book of this kind resembles a visit to a cemetery. The newer graves may be of less interest (except to the recently bereaved, of course) than the sculptures, graves and vaults of earlier times or, for that matter, of one's contemporaries. So the more contemporary chapters might appear less compelling to me than those populated with familiar names and faces. But they show a vibrant, rich vein of similar lore. And the writing styles, though diverse, are really attractive and engaging and vivid. I confess total amazement at the clear recall not merely of events but of sequences of events which many contributors display so many years later. Gerry Danaher, for instance, seems to have almost photographic recall of his time in the L&H.

The begrudgers will knock this book, the L&H, and the self-importance of it all. But the fate of begrudgers is on the lips of the people. UCD is the alma mater of the rising generation. It is the powerhouse of the Irish State. Its oldest debating society is worth celebrating, remembering and keeping. It is a pleasure as a politician to be invited back to speak. For it is the place where I met not only my wife, Niamh, but many of my best and oldest friends. Well done to Frank Callanan, his collaborators and publishers. In these liberated days, the L&H may not be, as Maeve Binchy puts it, "the sex" of student life - but, then again, it may be.

Michael McDowell is Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform

The Centenary History of the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin 1855-1955, edited by James Meenan, has been reissued by A&A Farmar with a new biographical essay on James Meenan by Charles Lysaght (€35)