Address at the opening meeting of the twenty-fourth session
Thomas O'Hagan · Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) · 1871
THE rules of the Statistical Society of Ireland cast on its President, at the close of his term of office, the duty of delivering an address with reference to its aims, constitution, history, progress, or prospects; and I do not feel myself at liberty to evade that duty, although, in the new circumstances which have recently grown around me, I can only hope to discharge it perfunctorily and imperfectly.Very multifarious and onerous occupations have permitted me to give too little attention to your ordinary meetings, and I have no time to prepare anything in the least worthy of this occasion and this presence.But I cannot shrink from endeavouring to express, in brief and simple words, my appreciation of the importance of your Society , and to offer such encouragement, as I can, to honourable and fruitful effort amongst its members, by pointing to its successes in the past and to its capabilities of usefulness in the future.This, at least, I owe you for the real distinction you have conferred by giving me your Presidency.I am proud of that distinction, because it came to me in succession to very eminent persons-the late Archbishop Whately and Judge Longfield-and passes from me to one not less distinguished as an economist than as a jurist and a judge ; and because it identifies my name with the annals of a body in many respects unique in Ireland,-devoted with rare intelligence and persistent industry to her practical service,-and entitled to trust and honour for the good it has done in the past, and is destined, I have no doubt, to accomplish hereafter.For nearly a quarter of a century, the Statistical Society of Ireland has laboured to accomplish for our country what has been, in Eng-PART XXXIX.1