8 hours ago
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- Irish Independent
Wexford author Colm Tóibín awarded prestigous honorary degree from Oxford University
On Wednesday, June 25, Tóibín was awarded the honorary degree of Doctors of Letters for his contribution to literature and journalism from the University of Oxford.
The degree honours individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of literature, the creative arts, and humanities.
The university outlined the long list of accomplishments that made him eligible for the coveted award.
"Professor Colm Tóibín, FRSL is an Irish novelist, writer, journalist and academic. He currently serves as the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. Professor Tóibín's work has been widely recognised and shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. His novel Brooklyn (2009) was also adapted into an Oscar-nominated film. Professor Tóibín is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024 and in 2023 was awarded the Bodley Medal,' they said.
Being awarded at the private ceremony alongside him was Dame Jacinda Ardern, Lord Melvyn Bragg, Clive Myrie, Professor Serhii Plokhii, Professor Timothy Snyder, Sir Mo Farah, Professor Robert S Langer and Professor Erwin Neher.
On the morning of the ceremony, the heads of colleges, university dignitaries, holders of the Oxford degrees of Doctor of Divinity, Civil Law, Medicine, Letters, Science, and Music, and the honorands assemble, in full academic dress, in one of the colleges, where they enjoy Lord Crewe's Benefaction. They then walk in procession to the Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street.
The University dignitaries enter the theatre in procession; those who are to receive honorary degrees wait in the Divinity School where they sign their names in the Honorary Degrees Book. They are then escorted into the theatre by the Bedels.
Once the proceedings have been opened by the Chancellor, each honorand is introduced by the Public Orator with a speech in Latin and admitted to his or her new degree by the Chancellor. The Orator then delivers the Creweian Oration on the events of the past year and in commemoration of the University's benefactors. In alternate years the Professor of Poetry delivers the second part of this speech.
For over 100 years All Souls College has hosted a lunch after the ceremony for the honorands, their guests, and other senior members of the collegiate University and the local community. This is then followed by a garden party hosted by the Vice-Chancellor.
