Analysis

Joe Lynam: Dublin City decision to honour Greta has rightly been ridiculed

Giving the young climate activist the Freedom of the City is premature, but it does underline the fact that Ireland needs a formalised honours system

Greta Thunberg: ‘Who knows what Greta Thunberg might get up to in the next 60 or 70 years in her life – though to be fair she will have the right to ‘join the militia to defend the city from attack’’. Picture: Getty

Greta Thunberg must have looked at the map of Dublin and smiled. Any place that contains suburbs with names such as Dolphin’s Barn, Foxrock, and Leopardstown must be the right place for me, she may have thought. “I am at one with nature and Dublin must be like that as well,” she may have reflected when she received her emailed invitation to get the Freedom of the City with the Hurdle Ford.

The fact that ...