College Historical Society (Trinity College, Dublin)
 |
|
| Founded | 1770 |
|---|---|
| Home Page | TheHist.com |
| President | Prof. David McConnell |
|
Officers of the College Historical Society, 248th Session |
|
| Auditor | Paul Molloy |
| Treasurer | Éamonn Sweeney |
| Correspondence Secretary | Kayleigh Newcomb |
| Record Secretary | Catherine Kelly |
| Censor | Tigran Simonian |
| Librarian | Liam Smith |
| Debates Convenor | Julie Davis |
| Events Convenor | Kevin Smyth |
| Senior Member of Committee | Clare Elwell |
Officers of the College Historical Society, 248th Session
The College Historical Society (CHS) – popularly referred to as The Hist – is one of the two debating societies at Trinity College, Dublin. It was established within the college in 1770 and can be traced back to the club formed by the philosopher Edmund Burke in Dublin in 1747. It is the oldest surviving undergraduate student society in the world.
The society occupies rooms in the Graduates' Memorial Building at Trinity College. Prominent members have included many Irish men and women of note, from the republican revolutionary Theobald Wolfe Tone and the author Bram Stoker, to founding father of the Northern Irish state Edward Carson and first President of Ireland Douglas Hyde, and in more recent times Government Ministers Mary Harney who was the first female auditor of the society and Brian Lenihan.
The first meeting of the College Historical Society took place on Wednesday, 21 March 1770,. The society took into its care the minute book of Burke's Club, founded 1747, from which the Hist has since drawn inspiration. Its other precursor was the Historical Club, founded 1753, of which Henry Grattan was a member. James Reid became the first Auditor of the Hist later in 1770. It was a time of great change in Ireland and the Western world, at the height of the Enlightenment and before the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. From its inception it showed itself to be at the forefront of intellectual thought in Ireland, and many of its members later went into politics. In 1782, Lawrence Parsons was elected as an MP for the University of Dublin at 24, having served as Auditor of the Hist just the previous year.
...
Wikipedia