Maynooth University
Femme Formidable Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason
O
ne of Maynooth’s most accomplished alumni, Geraldine Byrne Nason grew up in Drogheda and graduated from Maynooth with a BA in English and Irish in 1980 and completed an MA in English in 1981. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Maynooth in 2015. Currently based in Paris, Geraldine serves as Irish Ambassador to France and Monaco but her location hasn’t stopped her from being an active board member of the Maynooth Alumni Advisory Board (MAAB). The Ambassador spoke to The Bridge about her fondest memories of Maynooth, her varied ambassadorial duties, Brexit and more.
Ambassador Byrne Nason with President of France, François Hollande
For your undergraduate degree, you studied English and Irish at Maynooth. How did you decide on this course of study? As a Leaving Cert student in Presentation Convent Greenhills Drogheda in 1977, deciding on a college course was not as complex as it is today. Some of my teachers encouraged me to consider medicine. Looking back on it, it was a moment that I was lucky to pass on. I had no interest whatsoever in medicine or science – my first love was literature. My wonderful parents Gerry and Helen saw university not as a job application but as an opportunity for me to learn how to think. Without knowing it, they were really living out the Nussbaum idea of a broad education that cultivates humanity – even if that would have been a rather exotic thought in 1970s Drogheda! My mum and dad harboured that instinct and it was a real gift to me. Was there a particular reason why you chose Maynooth? In Greenhills I was guided by two brilliant English teachers – Sr Magdalene Lyons and Seamus Hosey, who subsequently became producer of RTE’s The Arts Show. A