U2 frontman Bono and actress Dame Judi Dench were among a group of luminaries conferred with honorary doctorates in Trinity College Dublin yesterday.
The President of the European Parliament Mr Pat Cox, historian Prof Roy Foster, and Supreme Court judge Mrs Catherine McGuinness were also honoured.
Bono - who received the award wearing his trademark wrap-around sunglasses - was honoured both as a "star lead singer and composer of chart-topping numbers," and as a man "much to be admired for his humanitarian concern for the sufferings of mankind". Reading the citation in Latin, Prof JV Luce said the U2 singer had earned the right to disagree with Plato, who believed changes in music were not in the public interest ("pro bono publico").
Having established his band "among the most celebrated in the world", he had turned his attentions to the redress of injustice, and now "the voice of Bono, backed by the wind of popular approval, is heard in the councils of the great".
Praising the singer's campaign to promote debt relief, Prof Luce added: "He is well aware that salvation for a world in crisis does not spring solely from charitable feelings, but also demands clarity of thought and wise management".
Dame Judi Dench was honoured as one of Britain's greatest actresses. But Prof Luce noted: "She belongs to us also, for her mother was Irish and attended Dublin's Wesley College, and her father graduated in medicine in this college and gained distinction as an actor within these walls".
Mr Pat Cox was rewarded as "a parliamentarian of great eloquence and tenacity who has recently won outstanding distinction for his country and himself by becoming the first Irishman to be elected President of the European Parliament".
Winning election as an MEP in 1989, he quickly became the parliamentary leader of the European Liberal Democrat parties: "From this position of authority he later launched such a well-judged attack on the Santer Commission that the whole body, tainted by the shortcomings of two if its members, was compelled to resign."
Prof Luce compared him with Ulysses, "who set out to Troy from a small western island and made a major contribution to Greek fortunes by the sharpness of his mind, the fluency of his utterance, and the soundness of his judgement."
Mrs Justice McGuinness was praised for the "mental vigour and independence of judgement led her in ready championship of a multitude of good causes". She was also "unfailingly polite, pleasant to deal with, and sympathetic to litigants".
Prof Foster was described as someone who stood "high in the ranks of contemporary Irish historians". He was a man "outstanding for his industry, fair-mindedness, and care for truth, who through the spoken and written word has done much to raise Ireland's profile in Britain".
