College Historical Society

The College Historical Society is, according to the College Calendar and Historical record, the oldest and original collegiate student society. The Society has been the premier intellectual forum in Ireland and has been at the forefront of college life since its inception in 1770. As well as providing the scene for Edmund Burke, Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet’s first steps into political debate, the Society has played a part in the formative years of great Irish writers such as Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, and Samuel Beckett, all former members. Having been addressed by figures such as Winston Churchill and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Hist is the venue for important speeches in Trinity College.

As the world’s oldest undergraduate society, the Hist set the model for debating societies throughout the British Isles and United States; in Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale. In February 1815, Hist committee members travelled to Cambridge University to assist the foundation of their debating union, a society which exists to this day as one of the Hist’s corresponding societies.

Meeting each Wednesday for 250 years, the Hist has debates many of the most important questions in Irish society and global politics. We has hosted many of the worlds most important intellectuals and influential figures who have addressed and been questioned by our members, and we have provided a social venue through which they can be both challenged in their beliefs and challenge those of others.