Offaly man receives Honorary Doctorate from Trinity College Dublin

It was a great day for a well known Birr man, and indeed the town itself, when John Feehan was granted an honorary Doctorate in Science in Trinity College Dublin.

His bibliographer and friend George Cunningham (himself also the recipient of an honorary doctorate from University of Limerick) accompanied John to the TCD ceremony.

The following Citation was read out during the ceremony:

“Earth science began with the observation of fossils. Listen to this story from ancient Greece: 'Xenophanes thinks that the land is mixed with the sea and that with time it is dissolved by moisture, saying that he has the following proofs: that shells are found inland and on mountains, and in the quarries of Syracuse the outlines of fishes and seaweeds, in Paros the outline of coral in the depths of the stone, and in Malta marble impressions of all kinds of sea creatures.'

"No less historic are the discoveries of John Anthony Feehan, MRIA, geologist, botanist, ecologist, environmental author and communicator, inspiring interpreter of the Irish landscape and of 'the other book of Revelation,' Life on Earth. The magnificent Slieve Bloom and Devil's Bit mountains in central Ireland were his first research laboratory, when our brilliant Bachelor in Science was pursuing his Master's and PhD in Geology. He still recalls the day, 9 May 1976, when he came upon the perfect impression of a seed-fern inside a grey mudstone; his amazement at the discovery of plant fossils in mid-Silurian rocks, the oldest plant fossils in the world, proving that multicellular life on land existed 425 million years ago. For half a century he has communicated his knowledge, far beyond the walls of his memorable lectures in UCD.

"He has published over 30 books, 70 academic papers, and countless conference proceedings, pamphlets, booklets and articles. The success of his documentaries, 'Exploring the Landscape' and 'Exploring the Celtic Lands,' continues today in the 'Wildflowers' series, which he, together with his wonderful family, initiated in the dark days of 2020. He has written about geology and botany, archaeology, farming and local heritage.

"He has described for us flowers and trees, mushroom stones, 'relics of a vanished lakeland' and bogs, 'wild and wonderful places' from the ice of twelve thousand years ago. He has taken us on a dazzling journey back in time to an unimaginably far distance. But his heart and his voice are firmly fixed on the future, crying for the conservation of natural heritage and the restoration of biodiversity. In his spiritual writings he reminds us that our 'Common Home' is a 'web of relationships' and a 'rainbow of living diversity', expressed on Earth in various wondrous ways in every geological age, beyond what human eyes can see and the human mind can imagine.

"That rainbow is dimming. Let us pledge our commitment to restore its brilliance, as we welcome in to our highest ranks an amazing advocate of Nature as Creation.”