THE MOTION that night in 1965 was that “Irelands need is socialism”. Opposing, and the individual winner of the competition, with a devastating, quiet demolition of each of the proponents’ arguments, was the socialist representative of Queens University, Eamonn McCann.
In 1970 speaking to the motion that “Western democracy has failed”, a first-year economics student in UCD, Adrian Hardiman, now of the Supreme Court, just pipped Maynooth’s Vincent Twomey, now Professor of Moral Theology, and Trinity’s James Hamilton, now Director of Public Prosecutions.
For 50 years The Irish Timeshas sponsored the Republic's main, ever-lively student debating competition. Its final last night in Dublin City University was the product of a cull of 142 teams from 18 institutions North and South and was just as fiercely contested with many of its protagonists vying on either side against their natural inclinations – that is the discipline of debating.
If form is anything to go by, we will be seeing last night’s finalists prominent on other national stages in the future.
Debating, a more technically exacting discipline now, perhaps less spontaneous and emotional and more of a niche activity, and its place in college life have evolved. The large university societies still dominate, but in the 60s and 70s they were much more central to student life, attracting raucous weekly audiences of hundreds, and were fora to all shades of campus opinion. UCD’s Literary and Historical Society (LH), in its days in Earlsfort Terrace and then the huge Arts Block arenas, was a bear pit with no quarter given to its own or to visitors. There, memorably, outstanding Irish Times winners like the late psychiatrist Anthony Clare, journalist Patrick Cosgrave, and Hardiman cut their teeth.
Another member of the Supreme Court, Donal O’Donnell, former attorney general Dermot Gleeson, and the LSE human rights lawyer Prof Conor Gearty were among the glittering array of winning would-be lawyers who continue to dominate the competition.
The King’s Inns would be one of the few teams to break the Hist/LH virtual monopoly on the finals. A few who became journalists did make the grade, among them the first woman and first technical college winner, Marian Finucane, but also Henry Kelly, Sean Moran, and Brendan Keenan with teammate Derek Davis. David O’Sullivan, Ireland’s first Secretary General of the European Commission, comedian Dara O’Briain, Senator Rónán Mullen, and writer Gerry Stembridge have also been winners. Not a bad crop.