"I am a comparative latecomer to the project of a new history of the L&H, which was already advanced in planning when I was asked to act as editor," declared Frank Callanan SC some time ago. "I was agreeably surprised to find it a rejuvenating experience. I had only to look at the names of some of my contemporaries in the L&H to be gripped by a powerful and very pleasant surge of loathing which I was pleased the passage of years had done nothing to expunge or diminish. I felt I had chosen the objects of my dislike wisely and well."
Well spoken, Sir. That is the truth about that peculiar time of life, late adolescence/early adulthood: not merely does one fall in love for the first time, but one falls in hate too. And though the first love, or even possibly loves, of that time might pass from the heart and remain mere molecular residents of those brain cells reserved for memory, the hatreds live on far more vibrantly in the emotions. For hatred that results from a public display of insincere undergraduate virtue endures with a truly passionate ardour, one that is freshly renewed over the years that follow, every time one sees the hated one's name being freshly acclaimed in the media.
Vital lesson
That is the vital lesson in life: the patently insincere, the worthless, the guileful, the trimmers, the bullying bombasts, the artful posers will in full maturity so very often be festooned with honours. The only way to survive this injustice is to allow oneself an invigorating spasm of detestation every time you see the name and, thus refreshed, to proceed with life.
And maybe that's one of the reasons why the L&H has proved such a powerful institution in Irish academic life. It so often gives one an early foretaste of how the morally fraudulent often succeed in life. To be sure, the L&H has always provided a great celebration of rhetoric, verbal facility, and punning drollery; but, a guinea to a groat, travel back over the decades and you will find that some of the damnedest popinjays in Irish professional life cut their teeth in the oratorical chicanery of the L&H.
In addition, of course, you'll find that some of the cleverest, most dedicated participants in Irish political, legal, commercial and academic life first emerged in the L&H: it was there that they learned confidence, and how to present an argument, and how to charm and flatter their way to success when logic and fact might not stand in their favour.
Mass on Saturday
These things do not change; other things do. And alas, in the slothful, heretical epoch in which we live, a weak and irresolute Catholic Church permits sabbatical duties be performed on a Saturday. This is the equivalent of saying that a mandatory rule is mandatory, at your discretion. With standards plummeting everywhere, is it surprising that the L&H should now meet on a Friday, instead of the Saturday, as it did for the first century-and-a-quarter of its history? Perhaps it feels uncomfortable in rivalry with the Mass.
What I never understood in those distant days when, as a pale and bashful infant, I would slink into the back row of the L&H auditorium was the reason the guest speakers had accepted their invitations. Why bother? Had they nothing better to do with their lives than to address the saliva-bedecked tonsils of a motley band of students, most of whom were not remotely interested in what their guests had to say? For what had brought most of the audience together was an utter bafflement at how to pass these excruciating hours of a Saturday night - as it then was, in those distant days before students had the alternative of a rollicking good Mass to go to.
Yet there it was, the mystery of the L&H: eminent historians, respected politicians, distinguished academics would give of their time to the serried ranks of the unwashed and lonely, while alongside them on the platform they could eye the coming generation of achievers in Irish life. For that is the other truth about the L&H: eminence within its organisation almost certainly was a declaration of an ambition for, and an apprenticeship in, later eminence in a larger Irish life.
Fascinating insight
So whatever one's feelings about the L&H - and mine are decidedly mixed - its membership and its history provide a fascinating anthropological insight into how Irish life has worked down the decades. For few auditors of the L&H went on to muck out the animal cages in Dublin Zoo.
The last history of the society was written nearly 50 years ago, and Frank Callanan is to edit the next volume, 1955-2005, to celebrate the L&H's sesquicentenary. The organising committee is looking for pictures, memoirs and anecdotes, both from those who loved and participated in the L&H, those who were indifferent to it, and those who loathed it. Equally, they are anxious to learn from "the hapless masochists" - Frank Callanan's words, and ones with which I concur heartily, though in singular form they apply equally to him as editor - who were guest speakers.
If you can add to the stock of knowledge about the L&H since 1955, or, quite as pressingly, contribute financially - yes, naturally, they're looking for money - contact the project co-ordinator, Prof John Kelly, at Room 112, Engineering Building, UCD, Dublin 4.