Niall has received an honorary doctorate for having attained outstanding distinction in his field from University College Dublin. The other semester’s honorary doctorate recipients included cancer support advocate and public sector chief executive Sir Ciarán Devane; poetry anthologist Niall McMonagle; diplomat David Donoghue; and scientist Alistair Hetherington.
Architecture critic Rowan Moore has written a review of the Bishop Edward King Chapel with the title “The Answers to their Prayers” that was published in the Observer Magazine. The article touches on the broader themes of the interpretation and appropriation of religious symbolism in architecture, and in this context praises the paradoxical nature of the chapel; “It is…heavy and light, a bastion and a boat, a wall and a drape. It has presence, but doesn’t dominate.” Describing the form and materiality of the building Moore writes, “The building is crafted and considered: it makes ideas physical: it has intentions and carries them out in its space and matter.”