Yoko Ono: honoured in Dublin

Yoko Ono spoke of her late husband John Lennon’s love of Ireland yesterday as she received her lifetime achievement award for…

Yoko Ono spoke of her late husband John Lennon’s love of Ireland yesterday as she received her lifetime achievement award for her contribution to the worlds of art, music and campaigning, writes Aishling Phelan.

‘‘John, who sometimes considered himself 100 per cent Irish, would have loved to see me honoured in this way by the city he loved,” she said at Dublin’s Mansion House. “When he was born, his mother was English and his father was Irish and he didn’t have too much opportunity to see his father, so he had this yearning for being Irish. In a way it was sad because he was always talking about that, you know.”

The Japanese artist and peace activist was honoured as part of the Dublin Biennial Pop-Up contemporary art exhibition that is running in the Point Village until Sunday next.

Her Wish Tree for Ireland has been at the heart of the exhibition. The wishes of 55 artists will be sent to The Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland where a column of more than a million wishes now feature.