Freedom of the City to be conferred on Greta Thunberg and Duncan Stewart tonight

The freedom of Dublin City will be awarded to Greta Thunberg and Duncan Stewart at a ceremony this evening.

Lord Mayor of Dublin Caroline Conroy said, “I am honoured to present The Freedom of the City to Duncan Stewart and Greta Thunberg. This award is the highest Civic honour Dublin City can bestow.”

“It is a privilege for me to confer the Freedom on these two very deserving recipients, both of whom I admire greatly for their efforts to help us tackle the most pressing global problem of our time.” 

Duncan Stewart said, “When the Lord Mayor called me and asked me would I accept a nomination for the award, I was really shocked and certainly very honoured. I would like to thank the Lord Mayor for what she has done, and Dublin City Council in general. Really I don’t deserve it, but certainly when I see Greta Thunberg also on the platform I feel very proud because I have such great admiration for her and all the incredible work she’s doing for our young generation.”

Thunberg will not be in Dublin to collect the award in person, but Jessica Dunne and Sumaya Ahmed, both from the youth climate strike movement in Ireland, will be speaking on her behalf. 

The recipients will receive gifts from the Council, with Stewart receiving ‘Ready to Fly’, an elegant form sculpture crafted from 4,000 year old bog oak by Irish artist Tony Downey.

Thunberg will be receiving a nature-inspired drop pendant comprising 3 delicate gum nuts suspended from a hand-forged hoop by Irish jeweller Shimara Carlow. 

Stewart is well-known as the presenter of the long-running RTÉ series Eco Eye, which recently ended it’s long run on the national broadcaster, while Thunberg shot to fame in the late 2010s as the face of the Fridays For Future movement, a movement that sparked the greatest debate surrounding the environment in a generation.

The Freedom of the City has previously been conferred on 86 people ranging from Presidents to Prisoners of Conscience to people in Sports and Entertainment. The first recipient of the Freedom of the City was Isaac Butt in 1876. The most recent recipients were Ailbhe Smyth, Professor Mary Aiken and Kellie Harrington in 2022.