The tenth dinner of the Oxford and Cambridge Society was held in the Kildare Street and University Club in Dublin on 11 May attended by over 60 alumni/alumnae of the two universities, with those of Cambridge in a comfortable majority.    John Stevenson (Fitzwilliam 1955) was the senior alumnus present.

 In accordance with the usual custom a university grace was said, on this occasion by Anthony Harvey (St Catherine’s 1977) who recited the grace of his own college.   The Boat races and other events and happenings in the two universities during the year were reviewed briefly before dinner by the chairman Charles Lysaght (Christ’s 1962).

After dinner, toasts of the two universities were proposed.  Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly (Churchill and Pembroke), Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Medicine at Cambridge, proposed the toast of Oxford.  He gave an entertaining and informative address on his own career from schooldays and medical studies in his native Dublin on to Oxford, where he developed his interest in the genetic causes of disorders.  Research in this field became his life’s work and led to a professorship in Cambridge and his role directing its famous Institute of Metabolic Science.  Mark Pery-Knox-Gore (Queen’s Oxford 1974), the secretary of the society, proposed the toast of Cambridge.

Summing up, Charles Lysaght said that the Society had never had a better address than that which they had heard from Sir Stephen.  He thanked his committee whose Cambridge members are Margaret Hunter (Jesus 1986) and Declan Downey (Queen’s 1989).  He expressed regret at the lack of support down the years the Society had received from Cambridge University, whose alumni office had not even been willing to meet the travel costs of dons from the university coming to address the annual dinner.