Bookseller Charlie Byrne, writer and former novitiate Patricia Burke Brogan, and composer and musician Carl Hession have been awarded honorary degrees from NUI Galway (NUIG).
Painter, playwright and poet Patricia Burke Brogan, who recently published her biography Memoirs with Grykes and Turloughs, was proof that "the lone individual can make a difference", said Prof Patrick Lonergan.
Her award-winning play Eclipsed drew on her experiences as a novitiate, later leaving the convent where she had seen much suffering endured by Magdalene women.
Mr Byrne was working on an archaeological dig in Eyre Square when he saw the opportunity to open a secondhand book stall in 1988.
The stall became a bookshop on Dominic Street and latterly the Cornstore – or "Narnia" as TripAdvisor has described it. It was awarded Irish Times bookshop of the year award in 2013.
Hession had been an "inspirational teacher and mentor " at Coláiste Iognáid secondary school in Galway, Dr Mary Fleming said.
His “wide array and variety of traditional and classical music collaborations is evidence of his creative genius as composer, pianist and arranger”, she added.
LORNA SIGGINS
