The event honors award-winning writer Colm Tóibín and Irish business leader Dómhnal Slattery.
NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House will honor Irish business leader Dómhnal Slattery and award-winning writer Colm Tóibín at its 2020 Gala. The annual event will be held on Tuesday, February 25 from 6:30-10:00 p.m. at NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life.
Loretta Brennan Glucksman will present Mr. Slattery with the Lewis L. Glucksman Award for Leadership in recognition of his immense achievements over three decades, most especially for establishing Avolon as a global leader in aircraft leasing. The Lewis L. Glucksman Award for Leadership is awarded in memory of the co-founder of Glucksman Ireland House, whose career in finance and philanthropy is relived constantly through the teaching, learning, and research fostered in the House.
The Seamus Heaney Award for Arts and Letters will be presented to Mr. Tóibín by author Alice McDermott in recognition of his outstanding literary accomplishments on the international stage. The Seamus Heaney Award for Arts and Letters is given in memory of the late Nobel Laureate, who was a great champion of Glucksman Ireland House and an honored guest at the 2013 Glucksman Ireland House Gala.
Dómhnal Slattery is an aircraft leasing pioneer and the founding CEO of Avolon. Established in 2010, in what was one of the world’s largest private equity funded start-ups, Avolon has rapidly grown to become a $30 billion company and the world’s third largest aircraft lessor. Dómhnal has now founded and scaled two of the world’s top five aircraft lessors, an industry in which Ireland is the proven global leader. Recognised as one of Ireland’s leading entrepreneurs, Dómhnal is a passionate voice in seeking to position Ireland as a global centre of excellence for innovation. He is committed to investing in initiatives both inside and outside of the aviation sector with a proven track record for supporting the arts.
Colm Tóibín is the author of nine novels, including The Blackwater Lightship; The Master (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize); and Brooklyn (the Costa Book Award Winner), which led to a movie of the same name featuring Saoirse Ronan. He has also authored two story collections, and Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know, an examination of the fathers of Wilde, Yeats, and Joyce. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. Three times shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.
Tickets begin at $1,000 per person. For more information and to purchase a seat please email ireland.gala@nyu.edu.
Update
Marie Heaney, writer and widow of the late Seamus Heaney, was originally supposed to present Mr. Tóibín with the Seamus Heaney Award for Art. But she is unable to travel from Ireland for the gala.
About Glucksman Ireland House
Glucksman Ireland House is NYU’s Center for Irish and Irish-American Studies and one of the top-ranked academic Irish Studies programs in the United States. Through innovative undergraduate and graduate academic curricula and extensive public programming, it provides access to the best in Irish and Irish-American scholarship and culture.