UCD Law Society celebrates a century of ambition, rivalry, egos and energy

FOR A few hours in UCD’s O’Reilly Hall on Saturday night – amid some 200 guests, legal gossip and students fluttering deferentially around sages, judges and hotshot corporate lawyers – an observer might have presumed on a genial relaxation of rivalries and ancient feuds.

That would have been a very foolish inference. After a dinner of filo parcels stuffed with goat’s cheese, ginger and chilli, followed by roast sirloin accompanied by a grand reserve Domaine de la Baquiere, the Hon Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell of the Supreme Court rose to address a critical, blazingly combative jury of past and present UCD auditors and their lieutenants.

It soon became apparent that the learned judge was carrying some historical baggage. Namely, the fact that his own stab at auditorial immortality had been stymied by Eugene McCague (later to become a managing partner and chairman of Arthur Cox). Spurned 33 years ago by a margin of three votes, the future Supreme Court judge had bided his time. Then came the call from the centenary committee of the UCD Law Society to deliver the prestigious keynote address.

His wry, witty, gently satirical 35-minute speech was themed a voyage “worthy of Joseph Conrad, in search of the lost soul and heart of the UCD law society”.

He first tried looking at the documented history, which, sadly, turned out to be “remarkably thin” since it was based on an unattractive “Kim Il-Sung style” cult of personality – “a roll of brilliant auditors, Arthur Cox, Desmond Williams, Cecil Lavery, Cahir Davitt, Tom Finlay, Tom O’Higgins, Eamonn Walsh, Declan Costello, Paddy Connolly, Donal Barrington, Hugh O’Flaherty, Hugh Geoghegan,

Eoin Fitzsimons, Harry Whelehan, Peter Shanley, Michael McDowell, Conor Geart,” Not to mention Mr McCague. In short, the judge was not impressed at this lame substitute for history and called time – to much laughter from certain tables – on “their self-satisfied coded references to each other by year only . . . So 1960 here is married to LH 1972, who is talking to Mr 1972 SC TD AG minister for justice vice-president – about the careers of 1980, 1983, 1988 at the Bar and how are they doing and what about 1991 and 1995 . . .” (For non-initiates, the first three respectively are the Hon Hugh Geoghegan, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan and Michael McDowell).

“This fetish of referring to whole calendar years as if they belonged to an individual, it’s like some Chinese calendar gone mad, with some oversubscription for the Year of the Rat”.

So then his search for the lost soul of the society moved into an excavation of some of “the less recognisable names”. Alas, not even Google could help him locate Mr 1923, or Mr 1926 “and if Mr 1930 every existed – which I doubt – then he may be a man of some longevity and have become the best barman in Rochester, New York, 1998”. The upshot of this, the learned judge pronounced gravely, was that the UCD Law Society was only 76 years old, and the celebration was “24 years too early”. However, Kieran McCarthy, the current auditor, he said, had agreed to honour the night’s tickets in 2035, provided the holder had not eaten or drunk anything.

The judge then took his search to a more personal plane, taking his audience back 33 years to a glorious vision of what might have been the 1978 Belfield Spring. All dashed, alas, by Mr McCague’s “ruling elite”, their machinations and 12 mendacious voters. On foot of which, Mr 1972 SC TD AG VP had observed: “Democracy is a much over-rated process if you want to choose a strong leader.”

Desperate by now, the judge turned back to the society's minutes for inspiration, conceiving a Mad Men-style series focused on the contrasting position of women in the society then and now. In 1944, for example, Miss O'Higgins had proposed a vote of thanks to the ladies' committee for "the excellence of the teas"; there were references to the morals of the Law Society "wenches". Then for the vital contrast, the learned judge turned to 2009, only to discover what was "the annual glamour models' debate". Not quite the progress he was hoping for, he said.

Finally his eye fell on the society’s debate topics for 1950-51: the need for a new Constitution; the merits of a bicameral legislature; the position of the Catholic Church; the importance of sport; the relations between the sexes. And at the bottom was the world-weary comment of the records secretary: “In 100 years, it will all be the same.” He seemed to have found some truth, said the judge: “However different the surroundings, the topics, the activities, what the society has always celebrated is youthful ambition, ability, intelligence, some unmanageable egos, energy, rivalry, friendship, the surprising connection between the two, some romance even, and a lot of fun.” Not such a dark secret after all then.

This session’s auditor, Kieran McCarthy, and convenors Ciarán Ahern and Conor O’Hanlon showed few signs of ego while announcing that there was free admission to Krystle nightclub afterwards. As for 1978, it wasn’t all bad for Judge O’Donnell. Reader, he married the society’s correspondence secretary.