Tóibín set to take doctorate honour

ACTOR and comedian Niall Tóibín is to receive an honorary doctorate of arts in his native Cork next week.

The 80-year-old will receive the honour at University College Cork on June 4, the day after a civic reception is staged for him at Cork City Hall by Lord Mayor Dara Murphy.

He will be honoured by the college alongside retired Supreme Court judge Francis Murphy and Cork-born musician Robert Lamb.

Niall Tóibín’s entertainment career began in 1953 when he quit the civil service to join the Radio Éireann Repertory Company. In the intervening decades, his career has spanned the Abbey Theatre stage, numerous television series, top movies and has earned him awards on both sides of the Atlantic.

He has also been instrumental in the promotion of the Irish language and, although living most of his life in Dublin, is still recognised as a Corkonian through and through.

Mr Justice Murphy is best known outside legal circles as the chair of the inquiry into clerical child abuse in the Catholic diocese Ferns, which published its shocking report in 2005.

He served in the Supreme Court from 1996 to 2002, having sat in the High Court since 1982, and currently chairs a number of public bodies including the Financial Services Appeals Tribunal.

Robert Lamb will receive a National University of Ireland doctoral degree in music at next week’s ceremony, to honour his career as one of the world’s best known trombonists.

He has worked with musical legends such as Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holiday and Frank Sinatra, and has performed in more than 200 major films and on 6,000 BBC broadcasts.