Although I realised quite early that my choice of options for the following year, the year of graduation, had been misguided, the public face of 1960 was of achievement and recognition.

As a scholar, I paraded in my distinctive gown, showed off my diction when declaiming grace at Commons, and relished the contact and friendship with other scholars.

The latter had been opened up by participation in meetings of the Scholars’ Committee, which brought together the top undergraduates from all faculties. I had also won recognition as a debater, being selected with Peter Hinchliffe to represent the Hist in the Irish Times and Observer Mace competitions for the University debating teams of the British Isles. A team from the Phil also took part in these competitions and as its team consisted of my classmates, Hallam Johnston and Jack Daniels, away trips to other universities for competitive or friendly debates became more and more convivial.

Competitive debating also exposed me to the realities of contemporary political discussion in Ireland and in Britain and I began to develop a platform of liberal idealism as a reference point from which to argue for or against almost anything with equal conviction.

Effective public speaking, like so many skills, however, owes most to practice and experience. At that time Trinity’s main rival, University College Dublin, was still based in the city centre and the Saturday evening debates of its Literary and Historical Society, the L and H, held in the vast Physics Theatre at Earlsfort Terrace, were the recognised proving ground for any undergraduate with a pretension to public performance.

I began to go there frequently and was delighted to acquit myself reasonably when I first took the floor. You spoke from behind the long mahogany laboratory bench, with a huge blackboard space behind you, and the audience showed no mercy or respect for anyone. Much of the fun came from persistent and often very witty heckling. Maiden speakers failing to make the grade could be contemptuously dismissed by being completely ignored or counted out. You had to be either insensitive or tough to survive beyond a count of five in the noisy amphitheatre.

In addition to following my course and developing my skills as a debater, 1960 brought me some responsibilities through election as Auditor of the Metaphysical Society and Senior Committee Member of the Hist, and through an invitation to be a member of the staff of Trinity News. These responsibilities taught me a great deal and each in its own way provided a great deal of interest and entertainment, yet none of them proved entirely satisfying and left me disappointed with my own levels of performance.

To be Senior Committee member of the Hist is regarded as the natural staging post for taking on one of the major offices of the Society. I soon saw that should I wish to become Auditor for the 1960-61 Session I could be confident of election. At the same time, the work involved would be enormous, particularly the preparation of a paper for the inaugural meeting, and the invitations to distinguished visitors which are essential to the success of each meeting. I did not see how I could both accept these burdens of office and achieve a 1st class Honours degree through my final examinations in 1961.

On the face of it the 1st class Honours degree looked attainable, and the better investment, where future career possibilities would be concerned. The College’s Careers and Appointments Office had told me that visiting companies were always interested in students with a First and that a First would also guarantee access to the best opportunities for postgraduate study. To be Auditor of the Hist did not quite carry the cachet of the Presidency of the Oxford or Cambridge unions and did not seem to weigh as surely in the career balance.

I opted for the academic challenge and declared my intention relatively early, not realising that it is not necessarily the wisest policy to signal specific ambitions before it becomes necessary. This decision in effect opened the way for others to pursue the Hist’s officer post and committed me mentally to a programme of reading and work which would force me to turn down tempting opportunities of travel or distraction.

A distraction I did accept, and which I enjoyed immensely, was an invitation to help two enthusiastic rowers from the Hist Committee make up a four to compete in the annual “Club” Fours at the College Boat Club regatta. This involved getting up early enough to be out on the water for a training session at 7 a.m. each day over a number of weeks preceding the regatta. I loved the atmosphere of the boathouse at Island Bridge on the Liffey and the row upstream past the boathouses of other clubs. The reeds and low trees reflected on the flat surfaces of misty mornings brought an aesthetic edge to the tension of the turn before each trial descent of the course.

It was a new experience to row as part of a team in a skiff with sliding seats. As a novice, I rowed in fear and dread of “catching a crab”, that moment of shock when the momentum through the water snatches a misplaced blade and forces the oar back into one’s chest with a blow capable of throwing its victim over the side, were it not for the straps anchoring your feet to ensure maximum thrust from thigh and back.

“Catching a crab” can throw even the best of oarsmen completely out of rhythm and off course. The Hist four was most at risk when the final push for the finishing line just beyond the boathouse demanded maximum effort. Control decreases dramatically the more exhausted you are. In the practice weeks the four Hist oarsmen became good friends, enjoying the workouts and getting back to College in time for lectures. We exceeded our own expectations by reaching the Club fours semi-final.

My election as Auditor of the Metaphysical Society, as for the Auditor of the Hist, involved a writing obligation, in this case to prepare a paper for discussion at one of the Society’s regular meetings. This was my first experience of choosing an essay topic for myself rather than simply responding to examination questions or a particular motion or request.

If I had felt happier about consulting the Faculty staff, I would almost certainly have been advised to focus on a topic narrower than my personal choice, which was to attempt a survey of the life and work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The idea behind attempting such a survey was to create an opportunity for any undergraduate who might be interested to learn something of the philosopher I believed to be the most significant of the 20th century. Metaphysical Society meetings were open to all and advertised widely in the College. I hoped that the name Wittgenstein would attract the attention of students studying languages, mathematics and engineering. This sense of outreach was encouraged by the attractiveness to me of Wittgenstein’s character and lifestyle as portrayed in a memoir by one of his former Cambridge students.

In preparing my paper, I visited the quayside house at Killary Harbour on Ireland’s West coast where Wittgenstein had lived and worked for a time. The visit was possible because the house had become a youth hostel. It had been owned by the family of another of Wittgenstein’s Cambridge students, M. O’C. Drury who, I had learnt, taught psychology to TCD medical students. Dr. Drury, who was said to have taken up medicine because of Wittgenstein’s famous advice to his students – “Whatever you do, don’t teach philosophy” – accepted an invitation to speak on my paper when the date for the Metaphysical Society meeting was agreed.

I had great difficulty completing, in time for the meeting, a paper which I considered an adequate response to my reading and research, and which seemed worthy of the importance of my subject. While the meeting was a success, I felt not enough was made of Dr. Drury’s presence – here, after all, was a disciple who had had direct contact with the master. I was disappointed too that, when Professor Furlong awarded the annual medal for the best paper presented to the Metaphysical society, my effort was not his preferred choice.

The invitation to join the staff of Trinity News came through Frances Jane Ffrench. She invited a number of her classmates to help keep the paper alive and argued strongly for its importance as a source of information, as a voice for undergraduates, and as a useful vehicle for bringing important College issues to the attention of the outside world. Reluctantly deciding to join the Trinity News team, because of the likely demands of weekly staff meetings and other possible obligations, I soon recognised that it might be a useful element in future career options if I could claim to have been a student journalist. I was shocked to find that I was expected to prove my mettle by selling advertising space in the newspaper to bars and cafés in the College environs before my editorial peers would consider giving me opportunities to appear in print.

Read more: 1961 – Graduation