The Ramelton community will celebrate the life and times of Nobel Prize winner, Professor Bill Campbell, in the Town Hall on Saturday, September 24th next and it promises to be an occasion to remember.
This is truly one of those historic nights in the Town Hall and a big crowd is anticipated. Professor Campbell will be joined by family members and friends from far and near and there is a huge interest in the celebration.
The Tirconail Tribune reports that Professor Roy Greenslade will compere the night and The West Ocean String Quartet will provide the music.
Mr. Greenslade is Professor of Journalism at City University London and has been a media commentator since 1992 and spends much of his time at Ballyare.
Late last year Bill Campbell, the 86-year-old scientist from Ramelton was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine along with Japanese scientist Satoshi Omura.
The pair discovered a new way of tackling infections caused by roundworm parasites which can cause blindness and painful conditions, affecting people living in some of the poorest countries in the world.
Professor Campbell is only the second Irish person to win a Nobel Prize for Science, following in the footsteps of Earnest Walton, who collected the physics award in 1951.
Bill Campbell has been away from Ramelton for a long time, yet it remains home to him. And he loves going out walking and visiting Dunfanaghy where his late mother was born and reared.
“I’m immensely proud of my Donegal roots. I’m a Donegal boy and proud to be a Ramelton boy. It was a great place to grow up and was a great start to life,” he said recently.
A graduate of Trinity College and a current research fellow emeritus at Drew University in New Jersey, Professor Campbell is always proud to tell people about his Donegal roots, despite media in the US completely claiming him as their own.
“I begin every lecture by showing a picture of The Mall in Ramelton and then a picture of cows on The Mall… my father’s cows. And students always ask about it. Of course it has absolutely nothing to do with the lecture, but I like to tell people where I’m from because it is such a part of me.”
The Professor’s family are just as proud of the Donegal-born Nobel prize winner with his older brother Bert, aged 89 and who still lives in Donegal, joking that he got all the family brains.
The Campbell family was taught at their home in Ramelton, after their father had an altercation with the principal of the local school. Their father hired a teacher to school them at home before they were each enrolled in Campbell College, a boarding school in Belfast.
“We are so proud of Bill and it was wonderful talking on the phone to him about it. His work has made life-changing differences to so many people around the world,” Bert said.
Meanwhile the final preparations are gathering pace at the Town Hall for a night ‘Fit for a Nobel Prize Winner’ on Saturday, September 24th and everyone is welcome. Doors open at 8.00pm and proceedings will get underway at 8.30.