2020 - 2029
Honorary Citation by Dr Barry Monahan for Jeremy Irons
Into the mouth of the fratricidal villain Claudius, Shakespeare put the lines:
My words fly up; my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Hamlet’s uncle was a murderous liar, and a malicious performer of deceit. For the Bard, deception meant separating language from ideas, and divorcing action from both. He knew that to achieve truth, thoughts and words must be inseparable. The greatest actors engage us emotionally, as their bodies become sites where words and thoughts and actions harmonise.
This is the mastery of Jeremy Irons. And over numerous roles he has embodied this artistry with meticulous skill. He has done so with an incredibly variety of characterisations: depictions of personalities of deep, opaque oiliness and of the calmest, pellucid spirituality.
The variety of Jeremy’s portraits is as diverse as his characters have been rich and nuanced. He has never dodged the challenge of complexity, whether psychological or technical. He embodied in duplicate within the same frame, two personalities, when he played twin brothers in Dead Ringers. In The Mission – his collaboration with his dear friend David Puttnam – he embodied Gabriel’s gentle devotional strength. And with his distinctive creative elasticity he provided a very differently embodied voice for Scar with his unique version of Claudius in the Hamlet-inspired The Lion King. The final tragic fall of Gabriel in The Mission left tears in my mother’s eyes, and his depiction of Scar had the same effect on my four-year-old niece (although for different reasons as she hid behind the sofa).
When I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned in passing his fascination with antiques, an interest that saw him taking time repairing old pieces of furniture. I imagined him carefully spending time healing the souls of injured articles from our history. I was really taken by that idea and the image of the actor’s fingers delicately working to restore and preserve the personality of the past thing. I thought of how, in its own way, cinema captures and preserves moments of Jeremy’s performances for posterity… At least for a future whose possibility we are responsible for determining. Jeremy’s 2012 documentary film Trashed confronts this responsibility head-on. It explores the threat of accumulated mountains of waste disposal and their toxic impact on our planet. It highlights the disproportionate consequences of environmental poisoning in geographical areas that are the most economically disadvantaged.
We were fortunate to have a special screening of Trashed here in UCC, and Jeremy came to present the film and discuss it with us. I will never forget the solemnity with which he stood before the screen: simultaneously proud of his work, and earnest about its message. Fifteen years before that he had risen to the admirable challenge of both acting in and directing Mirad a Boy from Bosnia, a conscientious human tale about the suffering of refugees from that war torn state. Jeremy told me that he “works to live” and not the other way around, however, whether offering creative works that are morally challenging, emotionally entertaining, or both, his commitment to the profound importance of art and culture is incontestable.
Jeremy: this evening we celebrate your talent and welcome you as a friend. We want you to know how profoundly your values and philosophy reflect ours in the acknowledging the sublime nobility of the arts. This award marks not only UCC’s recognition of your magnificent achievements, but also our gratitude for your generosity in sharing those with us.
Congratulations.