LAST Thursday, Queen’s University invited me to make a keynote lecture to mark becoming Honorary Professor of Practice in Politics and Public Affairs.

It was truly humbling, and even more so to see the number of people who turned up to listen.

In my world, I am more used to writing speeches for others to deliver than giving those speeches myself.

It was an exceptional honour because I was the first in the Kelly family to go to university in the early 1980s, just over a hundred years after my great-great-grandfather, also Tom Kelly, was thrown off his tenant farm in Mullaghbane.

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He ended his days labouring at Newry Port, only to die from exhaustion in the workhouse.

The journey from workhouse to becoming an honorary professor at a Russell Group university would have been unimaginable for Thomas Kelly in 1885.

I was brought up in a single-parent family. My dad was a carpenter (readers will be glad to know he was not a much-vaunted toolmaker, like the father of the UK PM) and the son and grandson of carpenters too.

Most Catholic/nationalist families have travelled similar journeys between three to four generations or less.

It’s one of the reasons the Catholic community put such an emphasis on getting an education.

Most had nothing much to give or leave in financial terms, so they focused on supporting children learning and bettering themselves.

Americans believed it was a mark of success for one generation to improve the wellbeing of the next, but they usually meant in monetary terms.

Ireland has a rich oral tradition backed up and maintained by monks who recorded everything.

Even when Europe was in the Dark Ages, Ireland was exporting men and women of learning to places like Bobbio, Fiesole, St Gallen, Liège, Vienna, Salzburg and Iona. They had centres of learning all over Ireland too.

My grandfather’s eclectic book collection adorns my book shelves: the complete Dickens collection, the poetry of Speranza (Lady Wilde), Thomas More and Robert Burns. Graham Green novels and tomes like ‘Labour in Ireland’ by James Connolly and ‘The Labour Movement’ by the acclaimed writer WP Ryan.

As a trade unionist, my grandfather knew knowledge is power. My own father was determined I would not follow him onto a building site – he needn’t have worried, as I am much better at handling a pen than a saw.

The introduction of the 11-plus in the late 1940s gave us the most talented single generation of nationalists in the north – the civil rights generation. Men and women who saw a ladder out of poverty through education.

It’s somewhat unfair that because of later revelations about the injustices – inexcusable injustices, cruelty, and sometimes abuse, physical and sexual – by some members of religious orders, we can dismiss the overall contribution of all religious in providing education and opportunity to mainly children from working-class backgrounds.

They intentionally (or unintentionally) gave a springboard to those who would start an unstoppable march towards irrevocable change and equal rights in Northern Ireland.

As part of last Thursday, I was asked to explain my own political activism, my views on the peace process, and developments further afield which threaten democracy.

Suffice it to say for now that we need to listen to Mark Carney, who said: “We can and must elevate reason over reaction.”

QUB also asked if I would nominate a person I admired to be interviewed alongside me in a fireside chat. It wasn’t a difficult choice to make. The man I chose was Richard Moore, founder of the charity Children in Crossfire.

A British soldier fired a plastic bullet into a playground which hit a 10-year-old Richard face-on. It was a life-changing moment – Richard was blinded.

And yet, somehow out of this tragic and wholly wrong but avoidable event, Richard built a fulfilled life – returning to school, going to university, creating a business, singing and playing in a folk group, getting married, having a family, running two pubs, and finally founding a charity which helps children in third-world countries which are affected by conflict and poverty.

In Richard’s uplifting biography called “Can I Give Him My Eyes”, he recalls his devoted father giving him the best advice ever: “Don’t let a single cloud ruin your sunniest days.”

It’s sage advice and Richard never has – no self-pity, no bitterness, just getting on with life, supported by love and self-determination.

Richard even managed to meet and become friends with the soldier who shot him.

Whether he would admit it or not, there is a stoicism to Richard. He summed things up: “Sometimes people do bad things. The soldier did. This does not necessarily make them a bad person.”

This is nothing short of incredible generosity. Little wonder one of his greatest fans is the Dalai Lama, who said of Richard: “I preach forgiveness. Richard lives it.”

After I first met Richard, I trekked with him in Guatemala. It was tough going.

One day we had to cross a gorge by walking over a rickety half-made bridge… I felt I couldn’t do it as I fear heights.

I initially kept looking for alternative crossings. Then the boul Richard got up, tagged to someone else, and confidently walked across.

I said to myself: “Look at that and catch yourself on.” So dripping in sweat, I nervously crossed.

I then threw myself on the ground beside Richard and said: “You are truly inspirational – I could never have crossed had you not given a lead.”

To which Richard replied, laughing: “Tom, sure I never know if one foot is following the other or across what!” I laughed too.

A man who can show courage and make you feel good when your courage fails you couldn’t be anything other than a hero.

A man who can show courage and make you feel good when your courage fails you couldn’t be anything other than a hero

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