{"id":2000,"date":"2013-01-30T22:58:23","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T22:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ballymenachamber.co.uk\/?p=2000"},"modified":"2013-01-30T23:11:52","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T23:11:52","slug":"neeson-receives-freedom-of-the-borough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/?p=2000","title":{"rendered":"Neeson receives Freedom of the Borough"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday 28th<\/sup> January the Freedom of the Borough of Ballymena was conferred on Liam Neeson OBE in a spectacular ceremony in the Braid. Hundreds of well wishers braved a wet and windy day to greet Liam as he arrived. The wait was well worth while as he spent several minutes outside waving and acknowledging the cheers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Liam Neeson acknowledges the large crowd as he arrives at the Braid<\/h6>\n

At a special council meeting the Mayor, Alderman PJ McAvoy proposed the honour. He said that he was proud to have known Liam for many years. The Mayor continued \u201cYou are a credit to yourself, your family, friends and the community. You are the most famous Ballymena man in the world. You are also a true professional who has made an outstanding contribution to your profession\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Councillor Tommy Nicholl seconded the proposal. He said that the accolade was much deserved and that not only Ballymena but also Northern Ireland had come a long way in the past few years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

L-R Councillor Tommy Nicholl, Mayor Alderman PJ McAvoy, Liam Neeson OBE and Anne Donaghy (Town Clerk and Chief Executive)<\/h6>\n

Following the conferment a special Civic Banquet followed. Pupils from St. Patrick\u2019s College and the Northern Regional College had made a special video highlighting Liam\u2019s life and career.<\/p>\n

At the Banquet Liam made a very moving acceptance speech. He said that he and PJ went back a long way \u201cHe was my boss when I was at Guinness and he kept me on the straight and narrow. He is both a plain speaker and a hard worker, attributes which are both much appreciated in Ballymena.<\/em><\/p>\n

I am delighted to see a new Northern Ireland emerging from the dark days, now hopefully left a long way behind us. I can promise you that I will continue to be an ambassador for Ballymena, as I have always been\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mayor Alderman PJ McAvoy presents the Freedom Scroll to Liam Neeson OBE with Anne Donaghy (Town Clerk and Chief Executive) looking on<\/h6>\n

Photographs courtesy of John McIlwaine<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday 28th January the Freedom of the Borough of Ballymena was conferred on Liam Neeson OBE in a spectacular ceremony in the Braid. Hundreds of well wishers braved a wet and windy day to greet Liam as he arrived. The wait was well worth while as he spent several minutes outside waving and acknowledging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,18,36,31],"class_list":["post-2000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","tag-achievement","tag-ballymena-borough-council","tag-events","tag-international-success"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}