Queen's birthday honours:Sixty-seven people from Northern Ireland are included in Queen Elizabeth's birthday honours list.
Among them are a senior PSNI officer, a former Belfast newspaper editor, senior civil servants and a host of names from the voluntary, community and local services sector.
The highest award in Northern Ireland is given to Stephen Leach, director of Criminal Justice and chairman of the Northern Ireland Criminal Justice Board. He is made a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB).
Three senior public servants are awarded with CBEs. They are Gerard Keenan, former chief executive of the Social Security Agency; Thomas McGrath, who has chaired the Northern Ireland Tourist Board since 2003 and serves as a member of Tourism Ireland; and Dr Jane Wilde, who is director of the Institute of Public Health in Ireland.
PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Peter Sheridan is among 15 individuals awarded an OBE. His citation simply reads "for public service".
Ulster Orchestra chairman Tom Collins receives an OBE for his role in promoting music in Northern Ireland. He is a former editor of the Irish News.
Derek Alcorn, chief executive of Citizens' Advice Northern Ireland, also receives an OBE, as does John Dudley Francis Fisher for his work as chair of the Carlingford Lough Commission.
The bulk of the awards are MBEs. Among the recipients are the Rev Dr Gary Mason, a Methodist minister in Belfast, a prison visitor and a committed community and youth worker; and Lynsey McVicker, an Irish hockey international.
Salman Rushdie, the controversial novelist who spent years under threat of death after an Iranian fatwa, said he was "thrilled and humbled" by the knighthood awarded to him in Queen Elizabeth's birthday honours yesterday.
Also in the list, which contains an array of stars from sport, showbusiness, fashion, the arts and industry, are Oleg Gordievsky, the former Soviet spy who defected to Britain, cricketer Ian Botham, Dame Edna Everage creator Barry Humphries, and fundraiser and terminal cancer sufferer Jane Tomlinson.
Botham said that the money his efforts raised for leukaemia research was possible only because of his celebrity status as a cricketer. "One does not work without the other," he said yesterday. "What I achieved on the cricket field and the status I achieved with the public has allowed me to then go and raise the money for leukaemia."
There is a CBE for Humphries, who as Dame Edna once welcomed the queen at a concert in Buckingham Palace with the words: "The Jubilee girl is here, possums." It brought the house down. Humphries said he was "deeply honoured - at last I can address Sir Les Patterson and Dame Edna Everage on an improved footing".
There is a CMG (Companion of the Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George) in the Diplomatic List for Gordievsky, a one-time colonel in the KGB who became the highest-ranking KGB defector ever. The citation is "for services to the security of the United Kingdom".
Other big names in the list include: Ryan Giggs, the Manchester United footballer; Teddy Sheringham, the West Ham striker and former England star; Last Of The Summer Wine actor Peter Sallis, along with actress Sylvia Syms, rock star Joe Cocker, TV historian David Starkey, and Nicky Clarke, hairdresser to the stars.