Women had been refused membership of the society until 1969. Soon after the change in the rules, the society debated the motion ‘That this House reveres the memory of Mrs Pankhurst' with Rosaleen Mills participating (the motion, however, was defeated). The first female auditor, future Tánaiste Mary Harney, was elected in 1976. the society has had four female auditors. The society's Bicentennial Meeting in 1970 was addressed by US Senator Edward Kennedy, at which he called the society "the greatest of the school of the orators" .