Go Ahead and Argue
The polemic tradition of the L&H breeds some great orators, as Tim Fanning finds out

To the impecunious student of the 1950s – an era devoid of banal television and beer promotions – the L&H was a cheap Saturday evening’s entertainment. Maeve Binchy believed the drama of the meetings in the tiered arena of the physics theatre in Earlsfort Terrace was “the sex of the 1950s” – but with the drinking taking place afterwards.
Others – legal tyros, budding comedians and hacks-on-the-make have used the Society to hone their career skills. Adrian Hardiman remembers “people forming their own judgements and learning how to do things. We watched each other very carefully”. The Society has always mirrored national preoccupations (curious then that members often seemed to expend more energy on elections rather than debates).

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