Group - College Historical Society Trinity College Dublin

The College Historical Society (commonly known as The Hist within College) was founded in Trinity College in 1770 and traces its creation to the historical society founded by the philosopher Edmund Burke in Dublin in 1747. The Hist is the oldest undergraduate student society in the world. It occupies rooms in the Graduates' Memorial Building of Trinity College, Dublin, which it shares with the University Philosophical Society, and the College Theological Society. Its members included many Irish men and women of note, from the republican revolutionary Theobald Wolfe Tone, the noted author Bram Stoker, to founding father of the Northern Irish state Edward Carson and first President of Ireland Douglas Hyde, in more recent times, two current cabinet members, Mary Harney and Brian Lenihan. The College Historical Society was founded by Edmund Burke in 1770, with James Reid as its first Auditor, when Burke's Club (founded 1747) merged with the Historical Club (founded 1753). It was a time of great change in Ireland and the Western World, at the height of the Enlightenment and before the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. From its inception it showed itself to be at the forefront of intellectual thought in Ireland, and many of its members later went into politics. Theobald Wolfe Tone, later leader of the United Irishmen, was elected Auditor in 1785, and Thomas Addis Emmet was a member of the committee. The society was briefly expelled from the College in 1794, but readmitted on the condition that "No question of modern politics shall be debated". In 1797 the poet Thomas Moore and the nationalist Robert Emmet were elected as members. Eight members of The Hist were expelled in 1798 in the run-up to the Rebellion, and a motion was later carried condemning the rebellion, against their former Auditor.