Birthday bash for UCG's Lit & Deb

ADAM Clayton of U2, Samuel Beckett and Siobhan McKenna make unusual bedfellows, but all three are united by one common attribute: they are the only honorary members of UCG Literary & Debating Society, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this week.

"We travelled to Paris and Beckett accepted his honorary membership," says former Lit & Deb auditor Conor Bowman (1986-87), who is now a barrister. "He was very nice, very kind. I still have some postcards and letters from him."

The Literary & Debating Society is the largest debating society in Britain or Ireland, since all 7,000 UCG students are automatically members. Its birthday celebrations continue tonight with a Women's Forum at 8.00 p.m, a Literary Day tomorrow, a Past Auditor's Debate on Thursday and a Strauss Ball on Friday.

"Its just great crack," says Bowman of his old stomping ground. He remembers inviting the then NIHE Limerick to participate in a debate, at which they insisted on debating the NIHE's right to university status. "It was a bad move on their part. There were lots of cracks, such as how the NIHE was great for people who didn't want to go on to third level." Bowman was also the victim of an attempted coup, which ended in up in a minor brawl in the Kirwan Theatre.

Such moments of "physical discussion" are probably part and parcel of the Lit & Deb's history, since it may well have evolved from a one of the many debating forums which were popular in the 19th century. The possible instigation may have been the work of one Robert Blake who ran a discussion group in Galway and may have invited scholars from the newly founded Queen's University to attend.

Its members went on to make their mark in all areas of public life, from the battlefields of France in the Great War (where at least four former auditors perished) to the cut and thrust of the House of Commons.

At one point, the prevalence of UCG graduates in the House caused Lord Justice Rentoul to remark that he had seen "seven Galway students waiting at the same moment in the House of Commons to catch the Speaker's eye. I referred to this fact when I rose to speak, and I said no other British College had so many men in the House at that time."

Alumni of the Lit & Deb now play their part in our own Oireachtas, including Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht Michael D Higgins, who was auditor in 1965.

"It was like an extraordinary piece of theatre," he says. "The hecklers were very good and proficient and one had to be razor sharp running this time. It had to be done with devastating speed and accuracy. You could die quickly."

He remembers crowds thronging the Greek Hall, where the debates were held.

"The meetings were always on Thursday nights in the Greek Hall, which could comfortably hold 300, but in which there would usually be 400. The standard of debating was very high in the country anyway. Former participants included Sean O hUiginn, chairman of Bord Failte and former secretary of the Department of the Taoiseach, and UCG professor, Gearoid O Tuathaigh; in the L&H there was Paddy Cosgrove and Anthony Clare and Eamonn McCann was debating in Queen's. It was an extraordinary couple of years."

It is probably a fact which he would, if he thought hard about it, prefer not to be known, but Irish Times journo Patsy McGarry was once Mr UCG. As he sat down to participate in a debate of the college's Literary & Debating Society in 1975 there was a ruckus in the hall and it was duly announced that this rather shy young man was, well, Mr UCG.

"I nearly died with embarrassment," he remembers. "I was a very shy kid and I wished the ground would open up under me." Yet McGarry gained not just a slightly mortifying title from his years in UCG. He was auditor of the Lit & Deb from 1974-75 and could probably lay claim to being midwife at the start of Democratic Left TD Eamonn Gilmore's political career.

"Eamon was a very good debater and I was his campaign manager the first time he went up for election. He got the highest vote of any UCG president and then was voted in for a second term."

In fact, UCG was a breeding ground for some of the most influential left wing figures - Michael D Higgins, Gilmore, Pat Rabbitte and future members of the Workers Party all embarked on their embryonic political careers with the Lit & Deb frequently operating as their birthing house.

"It was a great time to be in college," says McGarry. "There was a terrific ferment and a great interest in world affairs and politics. UCG was a very radical campus. For a period of one week we occupied most of Galway city and in each case Michael D intervened to protect us from the guards."

He remembers Michael D Higgins as one of the most flamboyant figures at the Lit & Deb. "He had this mannerism of buttoning and unbuttoning his jacket when he got animated, which he often did, especially on Third World issues. You'd always expect his buttons to go flying off into the crowd."

Judge Sean Delap, was an undergraduate student in UCG from 1949-52, an auditor of the college's Irish debating society and a participant in the Lit & Deb's debates. "I remember the debates which caused the most interest usually involved engineers," he says. "If there was any topic that put them in a bad light they would arrive in a mob and try and disrupt proceedings."

At that time, the treasurer of the Lit & Deb was always a member of staff while the deputy treasurer was a student. Delap remembers accompanying the then deputy treasurer on a mission to get money for a reception from Professor Tommy Dillon, the treasurer of the Lit & Deb.

"We were having an intervarsity debate and we approached him for money. He asked us how much we wanted and we said £25, which was an astronomical amount at that time. `For God's sake,' he told us, as he was signing the cheque, `get them to drink stout.'"