‘Snowball’ Higgins made a freeman of Ennis

President Michael D Higgins has been made a freeman of a town he used to reach by cycling eight miles every morning during his schooldays.

Raised in a farmhouse at Ballycar, Newmarket-on -Fergus, Co Clare, the President yesterday became only the second man to be made a Freeman of Ennis, following the honour bestowed on three-time world boxing champion Muhammad Ali in 2009.

At the ceremony, mayor of the soon-to-be defunct Ennis Town Council, Cllr Peter Considine, said: “It took us 400 years to give this honour and now we have given it twice in three years, and I suspect this is probably the last one.”