The traditional ceremony honours individuals who have distinguished themselves nationally or internationally, through their scholarship, creativity, public service or contribution to social, cultural, sporting or economic life.
Robert Lamb
Degree of Doctor of Music (DMus)
Mr Justice Francis Murphy
Degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD)
Niall Tóibín
Degree of Doctor of Arts (DArts)
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY: PROFESSOR DAVID COX, Head of the College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences in University College Cork on 4 June 2010, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa, on ROBERT LAMB
A Sheánsailéir, a Uachtarán, a mhuintir na hOllscoile agus a dhaoine uaisle, Chancellor, President, Colleagues, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Robert Lamb is a musician of many talents: performer, conductor, composer and arranger, educationalist and teacher. He is, first and foremost, a jazz trombonist: the finest player of his, and any other, generation.
Professors of Music and Brass Band Conductors will tell you that the trombone is not the most grateful of musical instruments, in the hands of Robert Lamb, it speaks evocatively, with a warm golden tone and long flowing, sinuous, melodic lines, in a blend of rhythm and pitch that can be at one moment, challenging and exciting, the next, elegant and evocative.
Robert Lamb was born on February 11, 1931 in 66 Dominic Street, Cork, which is just off Shandon Street. He was the eldest child of a family of five boys and six girls. As the house in Dominic Street was far too small for such a large family, Robert went to live with his grandmother, who ran a fruit and vegetable stall in Corn Market Street. As a child, Robert got up at five am every morning in order to help his grandmother set out the stall.
Robert has acknowledged that his grandmother was the most formative influence on his life: a powerful lady: energetic, strong, direct and honest, with a great passion for life. Her influence can be seen in Robert’s varied career and in the boundless energy of his music.
Apart from the sound of the Shandon Bells, the only direct musical influence on the young Robert was from one of the great musical institutions of Cork: the Barrack Street Band. Under the influence of Barney O’Toole, a teacher in the Barrack Street Band, Robert learned the rudiments of music and was taught to play the euphonium. His first musical notes, both on the euphonium and then later on the trombone, were heard in the Barrack Street Band and played on instruments loaned out by the Band.
Robert decided to take up the trombone when, still weak from a bout of food poisoning, it replaced the bulky euphonium because it was much lighter for him to carry around. He first became aware of the expressive potential of the trombone by listening to recordings of the American trombonist Tommy Dorsey, one of the brothers in the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. It was a life-changing experience: In Robert’s words, he could not believe “the beautiful sounds coming from the trombone”. He learned to play the trombone by listening to records on his mother’s wind up gramophone and playing along with the trombone solos. The child who initially wanted to become a footballer began to discover a musical talent for which there was, at that time, no family tradition.
Most children dream of running away to join the circus, but in Robert’s case, with parental consent, armed with his first trombone, bought from Crowley’s Window for sixteen pounds, he joined Duffy’s Circus as a circus musician. This experience helped him to develop as a player, whilst paying off the cost of his trombone by weekly deductions from his circus wages.
On his return to Cork Robert began to play with local bands like Dolly Butler’s Band. At the age of 16, still too young to be admitted to a place of entertainment, he could be found standing outside the Arcadia Ballroom listening to the great English Bands, such as Ted Heath and Jack Parnell (who he later played with in England) as they did their annual Irish gig.
In pursuit of ever greater musical challenges, Robert moved first to London where he played with Teddy Foster, Jack Parnell and Ted Heath, and then to New York to study with Charles Colin and to play with Charlie Barnet, Stan Kenton and Buddy Rich.
Robert arrived in America during the great age of jazz music when the big-band genre gave the opportunity to talented musicians to demonstrate their artistry within the freedom of the language of jazz, and a style of improvisation that emphasised individual creativity within a popular music idiom. There was considerable competition for places in the great jazz bands of the era, and his audition in Las Vegas for the Woody Herman Band provoked an intense debate between members of the band, some of whom wanted “a big name from New York rather than a nobody from Europe”. Robert blew the opposition away with the aid of some forceful playing on his trombone and Woody Hermann backed his own musical judgement by giving the job to the “nobody from Europe”. His judgement was vindicated as, through his evocative trombone playing, Robert Lamb became the golden voice of a golden age of music.
Robert Lamb thus became the first jazz musician from Ireland to become part of the great American jazz music scene. He played with the Woody Hermann band for three years. It was an intense and demanding experience playing with great musicians night after night, working the States from West to East and back again many times.
When Robert decided to return to London, his three years of playing with Woody Hermann made him unique; he had done something that no other European musician had done before. He had made a investment for life, he had both a personal reputation as a performer and the experience necessary to offer European musicians direct contact with the great performing tradition of American Jazz. He joined the BBC Showband and then the BBC Radio Orchestra. He embarked upon a performing career that included over 6,000 broadcasts for the BBC, frequent appearances on the BBC Television, ITV, and all the major European TV stations. He has also performed in over 200 major films for MGM, United Artists, Paramount, and numerous British production companies. He has directed broadcasting orchestras throughout Europe, appearing regularly at venues in Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Germany. When the great American popular musicians came touring Europe, including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis jnr, Barbra Streisand and Ella Fitzgerald, he joined the American contingent, strengthening the link between Europe and America and rising above both to become a truly international musician.
Once back in Europe Robert’s career took on ever new challenges as he began to exploit the natural communicative language of jazz in his own “classical” music, writing several works for orchestra including symphonies and concertos, with two important additions to the concerto repertoire for the trombone. He has won the Ivor Novello award and the French Blue Ribbon Award for composition. He remains active as a composer and, in 2008, a work for eight trombones was awarded America’s Emory Remington Award for excellence in composition.
From an early age, Robert has been pursued by swans, first as a child when the swans on the River Lee counterattacked the children from the northside of Cork, and then more productively, with a lifetime preoccupation with the legend of the children of Lir. Three different works inspired by the legend culminated in his magnum opus: “The Children of Lir” a work of symphonic proportions, written for narrator and orchestra and first performed in Dublin by Fiona Shaw and the National Symphony Orchestra.
His selection of the legend of the Children of Lir is indicative of the fact that despite his international success, Robert has never forgotten his Irish roots: I quote: “I believe that, as an Irishman, I have a heritage of hundreds of years of Irish Traditional Music instilled into me” In his work “the blues” have a tinge of “green”.
The story of the transformation of children into swans is also in some sense a metaphor for the life of Robert Lamb in which he was continually transforming himself into new areas of music experience firstly as a performer, than as a composer and arranger and finally as a teacher.
In 1982 Robert Lamb became the first Head of Jazz Studies at Trinity College London, the first of the four main Colleges of Music in London to introduce jazz studies into its music curriculum. Characteristically, he attacked this new challenge with verve and energy, founding, for example, the Trinity College Jazz Band and the Trinity Big Band, into which he poured his years of experience as a performer. His pioneering work in Trinity College has led to significant changes to the music education curriculum. In a few years, studies in Jazz and Popular Music have become an integral part of the music curriculum in Universities and Conservatoires around the world. The heart of this educational initiative is a close relationship between the performer and the composer typical of the jazz idiom, and the opportunity for composers to discover new areas of personal expression by combining the language of popular music with the structures of classical music.
Robert Lamb has a natural ability to communicate with young people. His communication skills combine his abilities as a performer with an understanding of the fundamentals of the power of music. They are deployed through master classes in which he passes his knowledge and experience onto future generations of musicians. The many successful master classes he has given include a return to his home ground: the Barrack Street Band, where he enthralled a new generation of young Cork musicians with his ideas on melody, harmony and, most of all, rhythm, a rhythm that arises from deep within the body, a rhythm that in jazz, is indeed the rhythm of life.
It is not possible to encompass a creative life so rich and varied as this one in a few short minutes. However, I am sure that Robert himself would be the first to admit, that he couldn’t have achieved what he has in life without the support of his wife Rita, his children Deirdre, Fiona and Siobhan and his eight grand children. We welcome many members of the family to UCC today.
In this year of celebration of the life and achievement of Cork musicians:
I present to you: Robert Lamb: son of Cork, musician of the world.
Praehonorabilis cancellarie, totaque universitas:
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus in Musica, idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo totique Academiae.
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TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY:
PROFESSOR IRENE LYNCH FANNON, Head of the College of Business & Law in University College Cork on 4 June 2010, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE FRANCIS D. MURPHY
A Sheánsailéir, a Uachtarán, a mhuintir na hOllscoile agus a dhaoine uaisle,
Chancellor, President, Colleagues, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Lawyers have a lot to put up with. They have been subject to harsh criticism and adverse social commentary for centuries. Here is a short example: “The first thing we do - let’s kill all the lawyers!” – uttered by a minor Shakespearean character in William Shakespeare’s Henry 6th. Its only merit is that it is concise and to the point!
Despite its sometimes poor public image, the law continues to thrive in Irish life. This is not the case for many of our institutions. The Church, banks and even the notion of property ownership are, at this moment, almost unrecognisable from how we thought of them a generation ago. In contrast, the law has provided us with a compass of sorts to help guide us through the turbulence. Two examples come to mind; the first, the entire NAMA project is based on a carefully crafted piece of legislation of just over 250 sections. Secondly, all of last year, judges of the High Court and Supreme Court have provided an independent and steadying hand in relation to the problems posed by the collapse of our construction sector, including valuations of property and the question of whether particular companies can be salvaged or not.
These two examples illustrate that for a small country, Ireland has a strong tradition of commercial law which is extraordinary. Mr. Justice Francis Murphy, in his career as a lawyer has contributed significantly to the enhancement of this tradition. He was called to the Inner Bar in 1969 and the same year took up a Professorship in the Kings Inn where he taught commercial law subjects, in particular company and tax law. It is fitting to report in this university setting that he has been described as a brilliant teacher. Recognised by his colleagues, he was Chairman of the Bar Council in 1974 and 1975, was appointed a Bencher of the Kings Inns in 1975 and a Judge of the High Court in 1982. He was elevated to the Irish Supreme Court in 1996 where he served from 1996 until his retirement in 2002.
Mr. Justice Murphy has demonstrated the qualities of an immensely skilled lawyer in the many judgements which he has handed down from his time in both superior courts. What are these skills which, when they are so polished, become imperceptible to the casual observer, or worse, the layman who thinks of himself as a lawyer? There is a crystalline clarity of thought, the ability to identify the crucial issues in a forest of complexities, analytical rigour which directs him to the principles of law best suited to a resolution of the issues and finally, a decisiveness which is sure-footed, but never arrogant and often quite circumspect. Allow me to give you a flavour of the range of problems upon which during one year on the Supreme Court Mr. Justice Murphy adjudicated (2001-the year before his retirement); the valuation of a pension fund on the takeover by a Finnish lumber company of an Irish company/supplier; the meaning of s.390 of the 1963 Companies Act regarding securities for costs in corporate litigation; the functions of an accountant in servicing a professional body; the damages awarded in defamation to a prisoner who argued that his reputation had been injured by the implied allegation that he was a sex offender and a case on the possible unconstitutionality of the imposition of court fees. This is just a small sample.
As with every kind of human endeavour from the poet crafting verse, to the soccer player scoring the perfect goal, the truly skilled make it all look so easy. It never is.
We are also honouring Mr. Justice Murphy for the dedication he has displayed as a public servant in the broader sense. In particular, following his retirement, his role as Chair of the Ferns Inquiry contributed enormously to our understanding of the problems of child abuse and of the principles which might be applied to resolve this most difficult of problems. At the time of the publication of its report in 2005, the then Minister for Children, Mr Brian Lenihan, paid tribute to Mr Justice Murphy and his inquiry group stating (November 2005) that ‘it is accepted on all sides that they have done an excellent job. The report is of a high intellectual quality and is practical and sensible in its conclusions.’ In light of recent developments regarding the publication of the Ryan Report (chaired by Mr Justice Sean Ryan) and the Murphy Commission (Chaired by Ms. Justice Yvonne Murphy) honouring Mr Justice Francis Murphy for the seminal contribution of his enquiry is appropriate and timely.
Other aspects of his broader service to Irish society are also significant. Mr. Justice Murphy was Chairman of the Revenue Powers Group, Commissioner of the Law Reform Commission, and Chairman of the Irish Sports Anti-Doping Appeal Panel. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland, Chairman of the Residential Institutions Redress Review Committee, and Chairman of the Financial Services Appeals Tribunal, a body which will be of increasing significance given the nature of the financial crisis we face.
Finis Origine Pendet, the end depends on the beginning. Mr. Justice Murphy began as a lawyer in the 1960s and fortunately for us, continued to hone his skills to perfection. This encomium will also end as it began, with a quotation. This time from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the great American jurist and Supreme Court Justice who more than 100 years ago expressed his belief that no profession was as rewarding as the law. In what other profession he asked, “does one plunge so deep into the stream of life, so share in its passions, its battles, its despair, its triumphs.” (Address in Suffolk, MA to the County Bar Association, 1885) Mr. Justice Murphy chose this path, this stream. Today we honour the significance and depth of his achievements.
Praehonorabilis cancellarie, totaque universitas:
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus in utroque Jure, tam Civili quam Canonico, idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo totique Academiae.
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TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY:
PROFESSOR DES MACHALE, Associate Professor of Mathematics, School of Mathematics in University College Cork on 4 June 2010, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Arts, honoris causa, on NIALL TÓIBÍN
A Sheánsailéir, a Uachtarán, a mhuintir na hOllscoile agus a dhaoine uaisle, Chancellor, President, Colleagues, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
When the famous escapologist and illusionist, Harry Houdini, appeared on the stage of the Cork Opera House, he introduced his act as follows:
Ladies and gentlemen, I will now perform a trick so complex and devious, that it will fool all of the people of Cork City, and half the people of Macroom.
To-day I would like to introduce to you a man who is respected, admired and loved by all of the people of Cork, and that includes Macroom, and indeed by all of the people of Ireland and those beyond our shores.
Niall Tóibín was born on the Southside of Cork City in Friars’ Walk, on November 21st 1929, but he is a Northsider by adoption, disposition, conviction, and upbringing. By my calculations, that birth date makes him eighty years of age, but as you can see, he is rather well preserved, and doesn’t look a day over seventy—nine. Niall’s father, Sean Tóibín, gaeilgoir, author and Renaissance man, was born in Passage West, and his parents came from Waterford and West Cork. Sean Tóibín was the author of two delightful books — Blatha an Bhoitrin and Troscan na mBanta, on wayside and meadowland flowers, both written in the Irish language.
Niall’s mother, from whom it appears he inherited his magnificent sense of humour, was a Kerrywoman, from Beaufort near Killarney. She was Siobhán Ni Shúileabháin, or Han Sullivan to her friends.
It comes as no surprise therefore, that Niall Tóibín, steeped in the Irish language since infancy, has always been a great lover and speaker of our native tongue. His sketch in which he portrays a CIA agent intimately conversant with the Donegal, Connemara, and Dingle dialects of the Irish language is both hilariously accurate and devastatingly funny. And for those few internationally who might still have difficulty pronouncing his name, his website has a phonetic rendition as follows:
NIALL, as in KNEEL,(K-N-E-E-L); TOE, as in the foot appendage, (T-O-E); and BEAN, as in the vegetable (B-E-A-N). The temptation to label him as Ireland’s Mister Bean is almost irresistible!
After a glittering educational career at the North Mon, Niall took the Civil Service clerical officers’ examination and was called to Dublin in 1947 as a civil servant. But soon the call of the theatre proved too strong and after several amateur bilingual successes, including pantomime and semi-professional work on the stage of the Abbey Theatre, he joined the Radio Éireann Repertory Company as a full-time actor.
Over the past fifty years, Niall Tóibín has become one of our foremost actors, appearing regularly on stage, television, and film, both in Ireland and internationally, in a range of parts of immense breadth. His soft mellow voice, which has never lost its Cork origins, is familiar to all of us as narrator, voiceover, and commentator.
I am not really qualified to comment on the undoubted merits of Niall Tóibín’s extensive dramatic achievements, but I would like to single out a few of his performances that have special memories for me. I was a postgraduate student at the University of Keele in the English Midlands, when one afternoon a coach pulled up beside me and someone said “We are going to the Nottingham Playhouse to see a play by an Irish playwright, and we have a spare ticket. Do you want to come?” “Who is he?” I asked. “Samuel Beckett”, I was told, “And he’s great gas - you’ll love him”. Now this was 1971, and to my shame I had never heard of Beckett before this, but, ever eager for adventure, I jumped on board the coach. That evening was superb; it was Waiting for Godot with Peter O’Toole and Donal McCann as the tramps, and Niall Tóibín as Pozzo. For me it was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the works of Samuel Beckett. When an actor is on stage, he has no idea who is in the audience, and what effect he might have on those who see and hear him.
And who can forget Niall Tóibín’s portrayal of Brendan Behan in Borstal Boy? The physical resemblance is literally staggering and the accent so realistic that one has to pinch oneself to be reminded that it is not the bould Brendan in person on stage. Niall Tóibín has also appeared in over thirty full-length feature films which have brought him international recognition and fame. He was Joe, the man who refused to die, in Far and Away; he was the shifty O’Keefe in Ryan’s Daughter, and in Eat the Peach, I loved him as the Yank who had never been to America. His range of roles and parts is almost unbelievable, and yet he is quite believable in every part he plays - from John B. Keane’s The Field in Moscow, to Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, The Ballroom of Romance, Bracken, and Bob Quinn’s Poitin - versatile does not even begin to describe him. I bet that when Murphy’s Stroke, about a bunch of Irishmen who took the bookies to the cleaners, was being cast, Niall was the first and last choice for the lead.
The list of serious writers he has interpreted on stage is an impressive one too—Brian Friel, Eugene O’Neill, Tom Kilroy, and Hugh Leonard, for example, and he showed he could mix it with the big boys internationally when he portrayed Father MacKay in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, in the company of Claire Bloom, Anthony Andrews, Jeremy Irons and Laurence Olivier. He has also played a more down to earth priest, Father MacAnally in Ballykissangel. I think Niall Tóibín would have made a lovely priest in real life, though of course he would have been a bishop or maybe even the first Irish pope by now if he had chose that career path. Mind you, it is not too late yet for him to follow in the footsteps of our own Monsignor Alfred O’Rahilly.
Of course, to keep body and soul together, Niall has lent his talents to popular television sagas and series, most notably The Clinic, Stay Lucky, Bracken, and the aforementioned Ballykissangel, for example. Ironically, this is the way many great actors achieve public acclaim and recognition.
I freely admit that when Dr. Declan Kennedy and I jointly nominated Niall Tóibín for a Doctorate in Arts, Honoris Causa, it was not just his serious dramatic accomplishments we had in mind, impressive as they may be. In an area where I can claim some little expertise, I declare that Niall Tóibín is the finest comedian that this country has ever produced. As a standup, he is without parallel and leaves the alternatives trailing in his wake. His LP/CD Alive and Kicking, which I have played endlessly, is for me the essence of Cork and indeed Irish comedy. Sadly, our national broadcaster RTE has never really done justice to his comic talents, though I do remember one glorious scene from a series of Mr. T, advertising a perfume with the unlikely name of Langours, which shows him dancing through the countryside in slow motion advising viewers to “Get Langours To-Day”.
Niall’s powers of mimicry and his range of Irish accents are incomparable in both languages. I come from the West of Ireland, but I never really realized what a Mayo or Galway accent sounded like until I heard him take it off.
In the bog below Belmullet, in the counta of Mayo.
That is the way we natives speak up there, and Niall Tóibín renders a one hundred per cent accurate reproduction. If you want to hear the full range of Irish accents, North, South, East, and West, listen to his superb parody of The Four Farrellys.
The range and versatility of Niall’s comedy are little short of amazing. His portrayal of Slipper , for example, in the much loved television series The Irish RM, is that of the quintessential Irish rogue as seen through Anglo-Irish eyes. I am certain that Somerville and Ross would have heartily approved.
Humour and comedy are in my opinion the most difficult of the art forms, and if you do not believe that, try standing up sometime in front of an audience to make them laugh, especially if they have paid to hear you. My perspective is that the joke is the ultimate art form and a person who invents an original joke form is as worthy of credit as Mozart, Rembrandt, or Shakespeare. Niall Tóibín has almost singlehandedly invented the Cavanman Joke, and in honour of his conferring to-day I would like to present him with a new Cavanman joke that I have composed, for his exclusive use. Of course I cannot do the accent anything as well as he can, but here goes:
A Cavanman arrived home unexpectedly one lunchtime to find a plumber’s van parked outside his house. He exclaimed, “I hope to God the wife is havin’ an affair”.
Some of you will be aware of our Cummings Library of Humour here at UCC, one of the largest such special collections in the world, consisting of over 15,000 items including books, magazines, videotapes, and compact discs, housed in the Boole Library. Needless to say, the works of Niall Tóibín have pride of place there.
I believe that Niall Tóibín has never been doctored before, but he has received many awards in his long career. These include a CFT Excellence Award, a Jacob’s Award, a Tony Award, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award on Broadway, and the Sunday Independent Irish Life Special Award. But to-day’s award is from his own people in his home town and surely the Freedom of Cork City cannot be far behind.
There are many, many other aspects of Niall Tóibín that time does not allow me to elaborate on, but which I feel should be mentioned, if only briefly. There was his long and happy marriage to his beloved wife Judy, who is sadly no longer with us. He is a good family man, delighting in his children and grandchildren, whom we welcome here to-day. There is his surprisingly good golf handicap, the subject of a recent article in the Irish Times. He does an immense deal of work for charity in a quiet and unobtrusive way, but never seeks the limelight for his generosity and kindness.
Now, when I hear pieces like you have just heard from me, I must admit that I feel suspicious - is the man a paragon of all the virtues, without blemish or fault? So I set myself the task of finding some little flaw in his character, some example to show he is human like the rest of us. I had to search long and hard, but find one I did; a minor flaw admittedly, but a flaw nevertheless. In Niall’s riveting autobiography, Smile and Be a Villain, published in 1995, written from the heart and certainly not ghosted like many showbiz autobiographies, and a cracking read which I can thoroughly recommend to you (where was I?) yes in Chapter Four, page 50, there occurs the following sentence:
Of all school subjects, Mathematics in all its torturing manifestations, was of no interest to me - a complete blank.
Dear, o dear, o dear, bang goes my life’s work in the day job. But then Niall Tóibín is in good company. Another great Irish wit, Oscar Wilde, has written
There is only one subject unfit for human conversation over breakfast, and that is mathematics.
Niall Tóibín, we admire you for your dramatic talents, envy you for your sense of humour, and love you for your warmth and humanity.
A cairde gaoil, is mor an onor domsa an cheim seo a bhronnadh ar Niall Tóibín, ard- fhear, ard-aisteoir, ard-fhear greann, agus ard-Chorcaioch.
Praehonorabilis cancellarie, totaque universitas:
Praesento vobis hunc meum filium quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus in Artibus, idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo totique Academiae.
P ictured at UCC today (June 4th 2010) were: Mr Justice Francis Murphy (LLD), Niall Tóibín (DArts), Robert Lamb (DMus) and Dr Michael Murphy, President, UCC.
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