UCC honour for 'pure Cork' author Conal Creedon

An author and playwright hailed as “pure Cork from the start” has been conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Arts at UCC.

Cónal Creedon has written novels, short stories, prose, criticism, stage plays, radio drama, and film documentaries, and has won multiple prestigious awards in recognition of his work.

He grew up in the heart of Cork city, at the Inchigeela Dairy on Devonshire St, where his family had traded for more than a century.

His 1994-1998 RTÉ Radio series Under the Goldie Fish brought to the not-Cork parts of the country a true-to-life cast of quare hawks, aul’ wans, beours, and gowls.

His novels Passion Play and Begotten Not Made have been critical and commercial hits, as have his collections Spaghetti Bowl, Pancho and Lefty Ride Out, and Pancho and Lefty Ride Again.

His Second City Trilogy was commissioned and performed during Cork’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2005, and it played also that year in New York and Shanghai. Last year, in Montreal, he became the first Irish artist to receive the prestigious Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts; and in the same year he received the Irish Books, Art and Music (IBAM) Award for Literature, presented in Chicago.

DOCTORATE

UCC president Professor John O’Halloran said Mr Creedon was being presented with an honorary doctorate in recognition of his extensive contribution to Cork’s life and culture.

“For his brilliance and brio as a person and public figure; and in light of an extraordinary body of work, with more hopefully to come, Cónal Creedon richly deserves to be presented for enrolment as a doctor of this university,” he said.

Mr Creedon, who served as UCC writer in residence in 2016, said he was hugely honoured.

“2025 has been an exciting year for me, but there’s something very special and dear to my heart about receiving this accolade in my hometown,” he said.