[citation needed] In May 1897, tenders were invited by Trinity College Dublin, to design a replacement for the residential buildings known as Rotten Row.

The ground floor houses its Debating Chamber, frequently used by The Phil, The Hist and The Theo, specifically designed for oratory purposes, with its two-floor high ceiling, carved balcony and Ionic pilasters.

On the chamber's west wall is a bronze relief of George Ferdinand Shaw former Librarian of the Phil and Senior Fellow of the college.

[3] The conversation room of the University Philosophical Society is also on the ground floor, and provides its membership with a meeting area to sit, talk, and relax.

Further up the stairs and facing onto Library Square is a large stained glass window depicting Epaminondas and Demosthenes, the greatest of all the Greek orators.

Trinity College tradition holds that the rooms of the society's founder Edmund Burke, were in House 28 of Rotten Row, Library square,[5] and as such, part of the location upon which the building stands today.