Taken from an article written by Maurice Smyth in the Weekend Herald 05/08/06

It was a motley line-up at an Irish university to receive the floppy cap of an honorary doctorate - a philosopher, a papal knight, a clinical pharmacologist, an expert in visual postmodernism, an algebraist and a former boy cattle drover.

But even an expert in herding cows can be admitted to the bosom of academia, especially when he has something the others don't - a place, albeit irritatingly for him, on a New Zealand rich list.

Hugh Green, 75, of Auckland, grew up in rugged Donegal believing wealth to be a hot meal and boots that kept water out. He now has wide-ranging business interests in oil and gas exploration in Taranaki and Wanganui.

As a 17-year-old he laboured in Scottish hydro tunnels; these days he's said to be worth $190 million.

The National University of Ireland, on the shores of Galway Bay, has just honoured his lifetime achievements with a doctorate of laws.

As he clasped his scroll, the son of a publican turned cattle dealer was in distinguished company, including the university's president, Dr Iognaid O. Mutrcheartaigh and former Irish Prime Minister Dr Garret Fitzgerald, who felt the heat of Green's Republican passion while on a lecture tour in Auckland two years ago.



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Taken from a cutting of the Irish Guardian. Article placed sometime in 2006.
Many thanks to Nell Delaney for giving us access to this.

THE DEATH has occurred of a lady. which sees the end of a remarkable journey begun.in Craanford at.the turn of the century culminating in political prominence in New Zealand.

Mrs. Cecelia Bolger (nee Doyle), aged 104 years, who passed away peacefully at the Mission Rest Home, New Plymouth, New Zealand, on Palm Sunday, April 9th 2006, was one of many Irish people who took that great leap of faith into the unknown, emigrating to foreign shores.
However, hers was one family which turned their fortunes around, resulting in the election of her son to the position of Prime Minister of New Zealand in 1990.



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