Fr Gary Donegan A well-known Belfast priest has been honoured for services to the community by Queen’s University Belfast.
Fr Gary Donegan, who is best known for his community and peacebuilding work in North Belfast’s Ardoyne area, was awarded an honorary degree by the university last Thursday.
The Passionist priest, who was born in Newtownbutler, Co. Fermanagh, and ordained in 1991, was appointed to Ardoyne’s Holy Cross parish in 2001, where he helped protect schoolchildren from loyalist protesters and over the rest of his 15 years there played a key role in peace talks and other negotiations in the area, working across the religious divides.
He has since become a highly respected speaker on peace-building, reconciliation, and community cohesion, and is now based at the Tobar Mhuire retreat centre in Crossgar, Co. Down.
He has described the degree as a “touching recognition” from a city that will always be in his heart.