The US ambassador to Ireland, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, Belfast author Mr Sam McAughtry, and music promoter Mr Paul McGuinness, are among 12 people who are to receive honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland this year.
The NUI conferred the degree of LL D (doctor of laws) honoris causa on the President, Mrs McAleese, on January 29th. The Senate has also announced that it has decided to confer new honorary degrees.
Mrs Kennedy Smith will receive the LL D with Mr McAughtry and Mr McGuinness. Also receiving the honorary LL D will be Mr George Bain, the vice-chancellor of the Queen's University, Belfast; Prof John F Dewey, professor of geology, University of Oxford, who between 1994 and 1996 acted as extern examiner for the NUI; Mr Philip Lynch, the chief executive of IAWS, Dublin; Mr T.J. McHugh, retired Cork City manager; and Mr Patrick O'Neill, group managing director, Avonmore Waterford Group, Kilkenny.
Mr B. Francis Saul, chairman, B.F. Saul Real Estate Investment Trust, US, whose family originally came from east Cork, and Mr Edward Walsh, president, University of Limerick, will also receive honorary LL Ds. Receiving honorary D.Litts (doctor of letters) are Ms Ines Praga Terente, head of the department of English at the University of Burgos, Spain; and Ms Helen Vendler, literary scholar, University of Harvard, Massachusetts.