Higgins salutes lifetime achievement of old friend and veteran actor Niall Tóibín

IF YOU are going to be upstaged on a night you receive a lifetime achievement award you might as well be upstaged by an old friend who just happens to be the next president of Ireland.

Veteran actor Niall Tóibín was given the Irish Film and Television Academy lifetime achievement award last night and President-elect Michael D Higgins turned up to present it to him.

The pair know each other “as long as I’m going to the theatre,” Higgins said when he arrived at the Irish Film Institute last night with his son Daniel.

Higgins took time out from writing his inauguration speech to honour Tóibín.

“When I heard it was Niall getting a lifetime award I wanted to be here,” he said.

The friends embraced last night before going on to the auditorium where Tóibín, who will be 82 later this month, reminisced on his life as an actor and stand-up comedian – stretching back to his time in primary school.

When asked by Gay Byrne why he got into acting, Tóibín responded with his trademark self-deprecating humour: “Because I knew I was great and because it made me rich – not really.”

He rated his stage appearance as Brendan Behan in The Borstal Boyas the highlight of a long career on stage, screen and television.

He won a Tony on Broadway for his appearance in the play and was synonymous in the public mind with Behan for decades.

He knew the writer personally in the 1950s, describing him as an “absolute howl” when sober but a “pitiful drunk”.

Tóibín became quite emotional talking about his late wife, Judy, who died after a long battle with cancer 10 years ago. The couple had five children. She was a “wonderful woman with a big heart”, he said.

Before presenting the lifetime achievement award, Higgins thanked the crowd for the standing ovation they gave him, but said “this is Niall’s night”.

Niall had a “great sophisticated brain, but a great wonderful heart that aspired to the best things that Irish people aspire to,” Higgins said.

For Tóibín it was the “greatest privilege” to have “Michael D – he’s only President-elect yet” to present him with the award.

“If you have any problems up there just give me a ring. I’ll do my best for you.”

Among those who turned out last night for the award were actors Stephen Rea, Bosco Hogan and Bryan Murray.