UCD CELEBRATED one of its most famous sons on Bloomsday by unveiling a new portrait of the writer by artist Robert Ballagh and honouring some of Ireland’s greatest poets.
The college’s highest award, the Ulysses medal, was bestowed on Séamus Heaney, who was described in his citation as someone “who had made the work of other great Irish poets even more audible in the ears of the wider world”.
The university also conferred honorary doctorates on five holders of the Ireland chair of poetry – Harry Clifton, Michael Longley, Paul Durcan, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and John Montague – as well as Ciaran Carson, poet and founder of the Séamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast.
Garry Trudeau, Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist and creator of Doonesbury, was also honoured at yesterday's ceremony.
Trudeau confessed to having never read Ulyssesto the end. However, he admitted to being overjoyed to have been conferred.
The new portrait of Joyce by Ballagh was put on view for the first time at the university yesterday. Ballagh said that a rare photograph of the writer, which featured in The Irish Timeslast year, served in part as an inspiration for the painting.
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