Irish impresario Harry Crosbie has received an honorary OBE presented to him this evening by British ambassador Dominick Chilcott.
Mr Crosbie has received his award for his services to British and Irish cultural relations and for his part in the state visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in May last year.
Mr Crosbie’s wife Rita, daughters Claire and Alison, son Simon and their families, including eight grandchildren and Mr Crosbie’s sisters Madeline Flanagan and Pauline Costello attended the short ceremony at the ambassador’s residence Glencairn in Dublin.
Two former ambassadors to Ireland, David Reddaway and Julian King were also among the guests.
In a citation before the red-ribboned OBE was presented, Andrew Staunton, deputy chief of mission at the embassy said the spur for the award was “Harry’s key role in the success of the historic state visit of May 2011”, with the concert at the convention centre, a concert “which helped changed history”.
The embassy had almost no budget for the concert and the first person they turned to was Mr Crosbie. “He played an invaluable and irreplaceable role in putting together the gala performance” with a top flight cast of performers.
Mr Staunton said “this entailed a huge amount of unpaid work for Harry at a time when his wider business interests, in the aftermath of Ireland’s economic crash, needed every bit of his attention”.
There were a number of iconic and ground breaking moments in the Queen’s visit to Ireland, the diplomat said. “But the moment people most talk about now, as the time when the scales of history turned, the occasion at which the Irish people were able to let their emotion out, was those cathartic few minutes when tears streaked down the faces of 2,000 Irish people giving Her Majesty a standing ovation at the end of the concert Harry had such a key role in organising.”
It was “a public moment of collective reconciliation” and “pure history making magic”.
He added that since the queen’s visit, relations between Britain and Ireland “have been better and more settled than ever before”.
Both governments were committed to strengthening links and “making the most of all those things we have in common. This is a wonderful legacy of the queen’s visit to Ireland, a legacy that Harry Crosbie OBE had such an important part in creating.”
Presenting the award the ambassador said it was “in recognition of these valuable services that Her Majesty the queen has appointed you to be an honorary officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British empire”.
A delighted Mr Crosbie said afterwards the concert was a collegial event and it could not have happened without the generosity of some of the biggest names in the business, and the efforts of his partners in Live Nation.
“It was a historic thing and everyone involved was a patriot in that the images that came out of it went all around the world and showed Ireland as a dynamic and beautiful place to do business.”
