Louise O'Neill: 'We drove home, joking about finally having a doctor in the family'

"It was such an honour, not just to be given the doctorate, but to be able to speak at the graduation ceremony. To be a part of such a special day for these young people and their families, even if only in a small way."

Pictured award-winning author and columnist Louise O'Neill, who received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Law from University College Cork at its School of Law conferring ceremony on Friday Pic: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

THE letter arrived in the summer of 2019. It was on UCC headed paper, it looked official, but I was wary. Like John Banville, being told he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature, was I the victim of an elaborate hoax? A follow-up email from the President of the University put paid to any suspicions and a date in May 2021 was pencilled into the diary. It seemed like a lifetime away. So much could happen in two years, after all.

Anyway. You know what happened. I put that letter to one side, and while I thought about it wistfully from time to time, I presumed it wouldn’t happen. The woman who had been my point of contact, a professor at the University, had been seriously ill with Covid and it would have been inappropriate to email and say: “Hi! Remember me? What about MY thing?” There were much more important things going on, of course, but as everyone who has had a wedding or a Christmas party or a family reunion cancelled because of the pandemic will know, there’s a small, selfish part that wants to wail “why me?”.