Theatre director Garry Hynes doesn't have any sheep, but if she did she could graze them on Galway's Eyre Square this morning. "Maybe I will bring Druid up instead," she quipped yesterday when she became the first Irish woman to be awarded the freedom of Galway city.
Hynes is the 25th freeperson on a roll of honour that stretches back to former president Douglas Hyde and includes Seán T Ó Ceallaigh, John Hume, US presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and golfers Christy O'Connor, snr and jnr.
The first woman to be so conferred was former US first lady Hillary Clinton, and second was Burmese pro-democracy detainee Aung San Suu Kyi. At yesterday evening's ceremony, Hynes expressed support for the activist and appealed for her immediate release from house arrest.
Hynes said it was an "extraordinary honour, and the greatest to get when it is from your own place". She holds honorary degrees from NUI Galway, Dublin University (TCD) and the National Council for Educational Awards. "But this one makes me terribly, terribly proud."
Hynes was nominated by outgoing city mayor Cllr Brian Walsh, who said she had "committed most of her life to artistic endeavour", had put Druid Theatre Company on the map and had been "constantly innovative, creative and ambitious".
Hynes was a co-founder of Druid in 1975 and was artistic director from 1975 to 1991 and from 1995 to date. Among her many successes are a Tony award for best director of a play for her 1998 production of The Beauty Queen Of Leenane and an Irish Times/ESB award for best director for Sive and The Good Father.