Paul Muldoon is one of Ireland's most outstanding contemporary poets, and one of the most admired English-Language poets anywhere in the world. I appear, rather cleverly, though perhaps too cleverly, along with my book The Cruthin in his Annals of Chile . Born in Belfast, Owen Mc Cafferty is one of Ireland's leading playwrights and has been viewed as the most distinctive writer currently emerging from theatre in Northern Ireland. “Missing You” (recorded by Tina Turner and Sting) is Chris Sandford's most famous song and he played it in the Round with Nashville's Thomm Jutz, songwriter, guitarist, producer and Colum Sands,member of the Sands Family, one of Ireland's favourite musical groups.
I joined the Lord Mayor, Councillor Pat Convery,who made a Special Presentation, the Katherine Brick Award for Young Songwriter of the Year, in the presence of Ian Brick and his son Michael. I knew Katherine and Ian Brick from my student days at Queen's, when Ian became President of the Student's Union in 1967. Katherine and Ian Brick were major players in the Atlantic Bridges project to build cultural links between Northern Ireland and the American South, and I helped initiate it with them in 1994.
Born in Rosebery Street, East Belfast, Ian received all of his formal education in Northern Ireland. He graduated from Queens University Belfast in 1968 with a Ph.D. in pharmacology. His research work was in the field of beta blockers and cardiology. He was part of a team that published the first paper in this field. He married Katherine (Mc Sorley) of Omagh ,County Tyrone on December 30th that year.
After 10 years in the U. K. with ICI Pharmaceuticals, Ian returned to Ireland as Managing Director of Cullen & Davidson, a small company specializing in retail pharmaceuticals. In 1980 Ian and two partners founded the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology in Dublin. The company went public in 1984 on NASDAQ and this necessitated the emigration of the Brick family to the USA. The company was engaged in worldwide clinical trials of newly discovered pharmaceutical compounds particularly in the HIV research field. Ian and Katherine moved to Nashville in 1987.In 1990 Ian founded Pharmaceutical Laboratory Services in Baltimore, Maryland, which was subsequently purchased by his major competitor in 1994.
Katherine along with Ian initiated a Sister Cities link between Belfast, and Nashville, Tennessee which has resulted in the annual Belfast/Nashville Songwriters Festival. She encouraged tourism, cultural and economic ties between the two cities. Katherine was also a supporter of the Avon Breast Cancer Walk and Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art along with many other charities in Nashville. The beautiful Katherine, to the shock and grief of her family and friends, however, died suddenly on 22nd February, 2008.
In an interview to Culture Northern Ireland, Katherine had said:
‘We realised after some years here that most people did not realise that their ancestors may have come from Northern Ireland and Scotland,’
‘In fact, they were unaware that local president of the USA, Andrew Jackson, had parents who came over from Carrickfergus. This is what prompted us to approach Sister Cities here in Nashville with the suggestion to link with Belfast.
‘In 1994, we met with the Sister Cities committee and put across the proposal. The cities were roughly the same size, and music and ancestry were strong connections. We then accompanied a group of Nashville people to Belfast where we met with Dr Ian Adamson, the Lord Mayor (recte Deputy) at the time. We had a really interesting and enjoyable trip, and the committee subsequently decided to make Belfast a Sister City.’
I made a follow-up visit to Nashville in 1995 and the link was sealed.
In 2008 I attended the memorial service for Katherine at the Church of Ireland Centre, 22 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast, just opposite the Students Union building of Queen's University, an institution for which she and her husband have been most generous benefactors. The Union has a Brickie's Bar. He received the OBE for all his work over the years. And I was so happy to attend the Award in her name at the Crescent Arts Centre. I am sure she would have been pleased.
To be continued