Ireland has a remarkable record of producing Nobel laureates, with such legendary figures as W.B.Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney all recognised in the literature category down the years.
The peace prize has gone to John Hume, David Trimble, Mairead Corrigan, Betty Williams and Sean McBride in the past, and yesterday the distingushed Donegal-born biochemist William C. Cambell became the second Irish scientist, after Ernest Walton, to be added to the roll of honour.
Professor Campbell, who was educated at Campbell College in Belfast and Trinity College in Dublin, received the award for his part in discovering a cure for infections caused by parasitic worms which afflict enormous numbers of people in Asia, Africa and South America.
However, it can truly be said that all our Nobel laureates in their own different ways have helped to make the world a better place.
