The Awards won by John Hume

Nov07
by admin on November 7, 2013 at 9:50 pm
Posted In: Derry, Donegal, Greencastle, L/Derry, Moville

John Hume is regularly seen about Moville and Greencastle, on the shore walk and in the restaurants and pubs of the town. He even sang at last year’s DylanFest in Rosatos.

Here, according to Wikipedia, are the awards that John Hume has won:-

Awards

Honorary D.Litt, St Thomas University, Fredericton, N.B., 2007
Honorary LL.D., Boston College, 1995. One of the 44 honorary doctorates Hume has been awarded.
Four Freedoms, Freedom of Speech Medal Recipient, 1996
Nobel Prize for Peace (co-recipient), 1998.
Martin Luther King Peace Award, 1999
International Gandhi Peace Prize, 2001.
Freedom of both cities of Derry City & Cork, 2004.
Gandhi, King, Ikeda Community Builders Prize, 2005 (presented by the Martin Luther King International Chapel, Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia)
Honorary Patron, University Philosophical Society, Trinity College Dublin.
Ireland’s Greatest (public poll conducted by RTE), 2010
Knight of Saint Gregory, 2012

Ireland’s Greatest

On 22 October 2010 John Hume was announced as Ireland’s greatest person. This was announced by Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show after a vote by RTE viewers. Hume was up against Michael Collins, Bono, James Connolly and Mary Robinson for the title.

So Many

There’s so many awards there that they have even forgotten to mention the French Legion of Honour which is their highest award and is rarely given to foreigners. Indeed, there was a big kick-up about it earlier this year in France when it was given to Bob Dylan. If you see John about, have a look on his lapel and you’ll see it there. It is a very small badge.

He is the only person to have won the Triple Crown of Peace Prizes, The Nobel Peace Prize, the Martin Luther King Peace Award and the International Ghandi Peace Prize.

Credit Union

And, on the top of that, he was instrumental in getting the Credit Union started in Ireland. Indeed he says that that is the thing he is most proud of, as it has done more for people of both persuasions on both sides of the border than anything else he has done.

He told me that before the Credit Union there were lots of pawnbroker shops in Ireland and now there wasn’t one. I said to him “So St.Patrick got rid of the snakes, and you got rid of the sharks”.

It’s great to have such a great man living in our midst.