November University of Galway announces 2022 Honorary Degree recipients

The University will also celebrate Honorary Degree recipients from 2021.

University of Galway today announced the recipients of Honorary Degrees at the 2022 Winter Conferring ceremonies.

The celebrations take place from Wednesday November 23 to Tuesday November 29, and the Honorary Degree awardees will join more than 3,600 students graduating over the five days. 

The four people to be conferred with Honorary Degrees at the 2022 Winter Conferring are:

• Margaretta D’Arcy: Activist, actress, playwright and writer, and member of Aosdána.
• Lelia Doolan: Film director, producer and writer.
• Dr Jerry Cowley: Medical doctor, Irish barrister, and public representative.
• Ronan Scully: Humanitarian, volunteer and charity fund-raiser.

The University will also celebrate two of the Honorary Degree recipients from 2021 who were unable to be previously conferred due to the challenges arising from the pandemic:

• Máirtín O’Connor: Renowned traditional musician and composer.
• Mary O’Malley: Award-winning poet and member of Aosdána. 

Photos of the awardees are available at the following link Honoraries 

Speaking ahead of the conferring ceremonies, President of University of Galway, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, said: “On behalf of University of Galway, I am delighted to be in a position to recognise this group of extraordinary individuals, and to recognise them at the same time as we celebrate the achievements of over 3,600 of our students across our four Colleges.  Each one has made an excellent and distinctive contribution to public life, the betterment of society and the interests of humanity, leaving the world in a better place than we found it, which is the responsibility of us all.

“It is also great to be able to mark the achievements of our outstanding graduates and those being conferred with an honorary award for the first time under our new name and our new identity and celebrate everything that Ollscoil na Gaillimhe – University of Galway stands for, whether it’s through our values, our work for the public good and being in and of our place.”

The full schedule for the winter 2022 conferring ceremonies is available at https://www.universityofgalway.ie/conferring/. 

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