Daniel O’Connell’s former house at 58 Merrion Square was packed with academics for Wednesday evening’s launch of the Arts and Letters conference organised by the Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre. Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court told Prof Thomas Bartlett of the University of Aberdeen that he always “feels a certain frisson knowing that Mr O’Connell lived here”.
Hardiman, who is a former auditor of the UCD Literary and Historical Society, told me that he wrote a thesis on Daniel O’Connell for his history degree, before going on to the King’s Inns, where he qualified as a barrister.
The director of the centre, Kevin Whelan, was accompanied by his wife, Anne Kearney.
He said that O’Connell wrote letters at his desk in the house every day from 4am until 8am. Other notables who lived at No 58 were the boxer Jack Doyle and the film star Movita.
The professor of English at Oxford University John Kelly was accompanied by his wife, Christine. She informed me that her grandfather Denis O’Rahilly, from Kanturk, was a second cousin of The O’Rahilly.
The former head of the department of history at the University of Limerick, Prof Ruan O’Donnell, mentioned that he’s looking forward to today’s game of American football between Notre Dame and Navy. He is attending with his son, Cormac, who is about to start studying law at UL and plays on the Munster under-19 rugby squad.
There was no sign of benefactors Martin or Carmel Naughton at the launch. They were hosting a dinner at their new orangery at Stackallan House, in Co Meath, for 100 guests to mark the Notre Dame v Navy match. On Thursday evening they held another dinner, for another 100 guests.
Who we spotted: Author Barry McCrea; J Nicholas Entrikin, vice president and associate provost of Notre Dame; Prof Joe Lee; Mary Hanafin