Brendan Howlin

Retired Labour Party Leader

Brendan Howlin grew up in Wexford town and was educated locally in the Faythe and at Wexford CBS. He later attended St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin, and qualified as a primary school teacher. During his career as a teacher he was active in the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, before embarking on a career in full-time politics.

He was a TD for the Wexford constituency from 1987 until his retirement in 2024. He previously served as Leader of the Labour Party from 2016 to 2020, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform from 2011 to 2016, Leas-Cheann Comhairle from 2007 to 2011, Deputy leader of the Labour Party from 1997 to 2002, Minister for the Environment from 1994 to 1997, and Minister for Health from 1993 to 1994. He was a Senator from 1983 to 1987, after being nominated by the Taoiseach.

Veronica Campbell

President, South East Technological University

Before assuming the role of President, Professor Campbell put her PhD in Neuropharmacology to use in the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin.

She has held several senior leadership roles in Trinity College Dublin, including Dean of Graduate Studies and Bursar & Director of Strategic Innovation; in the latter role from 2015 to 2021 Prof Campbell oversaw the commencement of a €300M capital project portfolio in the university.

Professor Campbell currently serves on the Board of the Atlantic Institute, based in Oxford University, and was the inaugural chair of the Global Brain Health Institute of Trinity College and UCSF. She is a former President of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland (Biomedical Sciences Section).

Bob Harris

Warden of Skellig Michael

For over three decades, Bob Harris kept the lighthouse on one of the most remote, forbidding, and beautiful places on earth. His international best-seller, Returning Light: Thirty Years on the Island of Skellig Michael is an outstanding piece of nature writing, garnering unanimous praise from critics.

"A heartfelt, profound memoir about the importance of place and what it really means to belong." — Belfast Telegraph “It is impossible to do justice to the beauty of Returning Light. The whole book is a poem.” — Margaret Renkl, New York Times Book Review