Irish language champion Linda Ervine receives Trinity honorary degree

Posted on: 13 June 2025

Four exceptional individuals were conferred today with honorary degrees of the University of Dublin at Trinity College Dublin [13 June 2025]. 

Linda Ervine, the driving force behind the Turas Irish language centre in Belfast (above on far right), businessman and philanthropist Dermot Smurfit (second from left), renowned osteoporosis expert Moira O’Brien (seated, left), and Sir Donnell Deeny (at rear with Provost Dr Linda Doyle), one of the most notable judges in Northern Ireland and a Trinity Pro-Chancellor, received Trinity’s highest honour from Chancellor Dr Mary McAleese at a ceremony conducted in Latin in the historic Public Theatre.  

Trinity awards honorary degrees each year to recognise exceptional achievements by individuals in their respective fields. 

Further details on the awardees are as follows:  

Linda Ervine (Doctor in Letters) 

Linda Ervine is manager of and has been the driving force behind the ‘Turas’ Irish language centre, in Belfast. She is the founder of Scoil na Seolta, the first Integrated School to teach through the medium of Irish. In this regard she has made a remarkable and entirely unique contribution to the development of both the Irish language in Belfast, and to cross-community understanding in Northern Ireland. Coming from a working-class Protestant background, she was part of a cross-community group of women who, in 2011, began taking Irish classes under the auspices of the Methodist Church’s East Belfast Mission which was itself based in a working-class loyalist, or loyalist, area of inner-East Belfast.  

She subsequently took over the project and has been responsible for Turas becoming the largest Irish language centre in Belfast with over 600 weekly learners. Most of these are from a Protestant/Unionist background. 

She argues forcefully that the Irish language is not something for Unionists to fear. Rather, they should embrace it as part of their own heritage. Ms Ervine has been a generous supporter of Trinity’s Belfast Campus-based M Phil in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation. At significant personal cost and with huge courage in the face of oppositional extremism from within her own community, she has built a vibrant community based on language learning in a deprived part of Belfast where no such community previously existed or would have been imaginable.  

Her work resonates with the vision of a shared future and of intercultural understanding within the north, across the island, and between the UK and Ireland. She received an MBE in 2021 and an Honorary Doctorate from QUB in 2023. 

The public orator Anna Chahoud declared Linda Irvine a “fearless promoter of Irish language education in Northern Ireland.”  As well as leading the hugely successful Turas centre, she noted, “setting up a Gaelscoil in East Belfast, the first of its kind for primary education, has been the most recent initiative of this intrepid woman, whom not even the unfairest opposition could deter.” 

Sir Donnell Deeny (Doctor in Laws) 

 Sir Donnell Deeny has been an influential graduate of Trinity College Dublin, where he graduated in 1973, having served as the Editor of TCD Miscellany, Captain of the University Challenge Team, and Auditor of the College Historical Society (Hist) winning the Irish Times debating competition on three occasions. He is one of the most notable judges in the history of the High Court and Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. His judgments, over 300 in all, have been cited in more than thirteen legal textbooks, including Halsbury’s Laws. He has also served as President of the Irish Legal History Society, where his notable discourse on Irish legal history is about to be published. He is, thus, a distinguished figure in Irish and British legal history, with a remarkable career in the courts of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. His influence extends far beyond the courtroom most notably through his exceptional leadership on the global stage as Chair of the UK Spoliation Advisory Panel (a role that involves addressing the restitution of Nazi-looted art) earned him an international reputation as a leader in legal and ethical integrity and fairness where complex historical injustices are at issue.  

Sir Donnell’s work has been acclaimed by experts as a legal triumph and has brought him international recognition, reinforcing his status as an authority on provenance and restitution matters. In June 2023, the Irish Government established an expert committee tasked with advising on the sensitive and significant issue of the restitution and repatriation of cultural objects and the appointment of Sir Donnell Deeny as chair of this committee was a testament to his vast expertise and distinguished career in the field of cultural restitution. He is a former Chairperson of Opera N Ireland and of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, High Sheriff of Belfast in 1983 and founding Chair of the Ireland Professorship of Poetry.  

Finally, his long-standing involvement with Trinity College culminated in his appointment as Pro-Chancellor of the University of Dublin in 2014 – a role from which he will retire at the end of this academic year. 

"His judgements have made history,” said the public orator Anna Chahoud of Donnell Deeny, “but he is also an immensely influential figure in promoting ‘all things that are right’ in this island.” 

“In our times, we cannot imagine anyone who would provide better judgement, legal and ethical expertise than this superb champion of justice, formidable orator, and exquisite connoisseur.” 

Dermot Smurfit (Doctor in Laws) 

Dermot Smurfit is a pioneering Irish businessperson and noted philanthropist – and it is primarily for the latter that he is nominated for this award. Together with his older brother Michael, he built the family packaging firm, Jefferson Smurfit, into one of Ireland’s most successful and internationally acclaimed public companies. Today it is the largest paper and packaging producer in the world. Now in his 80s, and retired from executive management, he continues to play a role in the business world as an investor and non-executive director of boards and is a quietly transformative philanthropist to the causes he supports. While preferring not to publicize his giving and averse to public recognition, he has been an exceptionally generous supporter of initiatives in health and higher education over decades. He is a Supporter of Great Ormond Street Hospital and of Crumlin Children’s Hospital, a Vice-President of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and Chair and Founder of the Friendship Ball – a bi-annual fundraising gala which raises money for cardiac research. A steadfast advocate for investing in higher education, he was on the Board of the University of Limerick’s Foundation and is among Trinity College Dublin’s most generous benefactors. As well as personally supporting projects across the University - most notably the Old Library Redevelopment Project and the Trinity Business School - he also continually encourages others in his global networks to support Trinity and is a member of the Provost’s Council. Since retirement from Smurfit Group Limited, he has brought his managerial and investment skills to his career as a philanthropist. His giving is both generous and strategic: he understands the importance of focusing on a few key causes - in his case, health, and higher education - and donating in a way that brings maximum value to the initiative and serves as a multiplier to leverage further investment. 

Public Orator Anna Chahoud said Dermot Smurfit had “always embraced challenges, including the all-important task of saving companies and jobs. This is a man who cares for people and for a just cause.” 

"To us, he is an invaluable benefactor and advisor of our University, a member of the Provost’s Council, and the generous and vocal supporter, at home and abroad, of the University’s commitment to inspire future generations.” 

Moira O’Brien (Doctor in Science) 

Moira O’Brien is 91 years of age and is still working for the benefit of public health. She spent most of her research and teaching career at Trinity College Dublin where she is Fellow Emerita and Emeritus Professor of Anatomy. She was founder of the first Human Performance Laboratory in Ireland (based in Trinity). This laboratory was used by a generation of top Irish athletes, Olympians, and Irish teams to enhance their training and improve their performance. She set up the first full-time Masters in Sports Medicine degree programme in Ireland and Great Britain and established the first Certificate in Maximising Performance and Monitoring of Training in Sport.  

She was Chief Medical Officer to the Irish Olympic Council from 1979-89, being the Irish team doctor in the Moscow, Los Angeles and Seoul Olympic Games, and an expert advisor for Norway in the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. 

 In all contexts, Prof. O’Brien fought for equal participation opportunities for women in sport in general and in the Olympics in particular. In a recent pre-Paris Olympic event hosted in Trinity on 18th April 2024, she was hailed as a pioneer in Sports Performance by the Chief Executive Officer of Irish Olympic Committee, Peter Sherrard. She was the first female Professor in the School of Medicine in Trinity College Dublin. She has over 120 academic journal publications, has written or co-authored 31 books, and has given over 650 presentations.  

She established the first dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) bone density clinic in Ireland within the Anatomy Department in Trinity; to diagnose and assess the risk of developing osteoporosis in both men and women She challenges the indifference in the field insisting that osteoporosis is preventable and treatable. She is an expert consultant on osteoporosis and is President of the Irish Osteoporosis Society (IOS). She has received many outstanding awards including The Sir Roger Bannister Award in 2015 for a lifetime’s contribution to the field of Sport and Exercise Medicine and the first Lifetime Achievement award by the Irish Osteoporosis Society in 2015. 

Public Orator Anna Chahoud praised Moira O’Brien’s “transformative foresight” in introducing a bone density scanner to Ireland in 1990, “establishing herself as a pioneer in the treatment of osteoporosis and remaining a leading authority in the field to this day”, as well as being “sport’s wisest and most eloquent advocate”. 

ENDS

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