Auditor’s Introduction
Welcome,
The College Historical Society has been the premier intellectual forum in Ireland since its foundation by Edmund Burke in the 18th Century. It acts as a training ground for Ireland’s brightest to hone their skills in critical reasoning, articulation, and communication.
As the world’s oldest undergraduate society, the CHS set the model for debating societies in Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, and throughout the British Isles and the United States. In February 1815, CHS committee members travelled to Cambridge University to assist the foundation of their debating union, a society which exists to this day as one of CHS’s sister organisations.
Since this time, the institution of the debating society has gone from strength to strength and exists today as a stage for public figures to address the issues of the day as well as a forum for the intellectual development of undergraduate students.
With addresses from figures such as Winston Churchill, Senator Ted Kennedy and Valéry Giscard D’Estaing the CHS is the venue for important speeches in Trinity College.
In its contemporary setting the College Historical Society has produced three Fulbright Scholars in the last three years and provides a debating forum that attracts the world’s most prestigious speakers. Nobel laureates, heads of state, intellectuals and political activists come to Ireland each year to address the society’s members.
I look forward to seeing you in the new term.
James Walsh
Auditor 240th Session
The Hist
