Societies to Welcome Prominent Guests in 2015

Award winning actors, directors, artists and international human rights advocates are among those visiting Trinity College this year.

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College will welcome a wide variety of guests this coming academic year. LawSoc, The Phil, and the Hist revealed their respective programmes to Trinity News.

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The Phil will welcome two more guests in the coming week, after Steve Coogan on Monday: The deaf, virtuoso percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie on the 23rd, and director Baz Luhrmann on the 24. Also visiting the Phil this year are Dame Judi Dench, and Fall Out Boy guitarist Pete Wentz. The latter two, along with Steve Coogan, were touted as guests for last year but subsequently failed to show. The Phil will also host Iranian human rights activist Maryam Namazie. Last year Ms Namazie cancelled a planned visit to the Society for International Affairs (SOFIA), accusing College of imposing conditions on her presentation. Other guests include Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic, Northern Irish band Snow Patrol, broadway performer Kristen Chenowth, Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage and the chief campaign strategist for Barack Obama, David Axelrod. Dates remain unconfirmed for all these guests.

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Irish comedian Katherine Lynch will be the first guest for the Hist, on September 23. The executive director of Amnesty International, Colm O’Gorman, and Senator David Norris will visit soon after, on September 30, and October 1 respectively. Moral philosopher and professor at Princeton University, Peter Singer will appear on October 13, in a joint event with Trinity’s new Altruism Society. President Michael D. Higgins will visit to Trinity on December 7. Marita Conlon­Mckenna, author of the Under the Hawthorn Tree Series, and actors Simon Pegg, Sean Bean and Robert Sheehan have been mentioned as guests for the Hist.

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LawSoc will present a series of renowned guests from various disciplines of law and beyond, with guests such as Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under­Secretary­General and Executive Director of UN Women. There will also be discussions on transgender rights and equality in Ireland featuring activist Mara Keisling. Other anticipated guests include Alastair Campbell, former director of communications and strategy to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Suits actress, Sarah Rafferty; British journalist and former editor-in­-chief of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger; and American founders of the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, will also make an appearance.