RTE’s Tony Connelly to receive St Columb’s College award

The 54-year-old is to receive St Columb’s College’s Alumnus Illustrissimus award at the College’s Past Pupils’ annual dinner.

The event will take place at the City Hotel on Friday evening.

The award is presented annually to a past pupil who has achieved something of major significance or has made a considerable contribution in his own field.

Award recipients are chosen by the St Columb’s College Past Pupils Union.

Past winners of the Alumnus Illustrissimus award include Nobel Laureates John Hume and Seamus Heaney, musician Paul Brady, football manager Martin O’Neill and composer Phil Coulter.

Tony Connelly, who attended the College in the 1970s and early 1980s, is RTE’s Europe chief and is based in Brussels.

His journalistic career kick-started when he began writing articles for the Derry Journal. He joined RTÉ in 1994 as a television and radio reporter.

He has reported from conflicts in Rwanda, Angola, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Georgia and Gaza.

In 2001, he was appointed Europe correspondent for RTÉ News and Current Affairs and was appointed the network’s Europe Editor in 2011.

He has built up a Europe-wide profile with his authoritative and well-sourced Brexit briefings.

He’s broken Brexit stories internationally, much to the ire of some who have argued that British journalists should be briefed or leaked to first – and that leaking to the Irish was another slight by the EU against the UK.