Trinity College Dublin honours Martha Dow Fehsenfeld

The Samuel Beckett Society is delighted to congratulate its long-time member, friend and colleague Martha Dow Fehsenfeld on the award of an honorary Doctorate in Letters from Beckett’s alma mater Trinity College Dublin.

The ceremony took place online in accordance with COVID restrictions for the first time in the University’s history. The occasions Public Orator, Professor Anna Chahoud, acclaimed Martha’s splendid achievement in her oration, declaring ‘Martha and her Mentor (Samuel Beckett) recognised each other’s rare ability to listen, to pay attention…. she has devoted over 30 years to find and edit Beckett’s letters, researching archives, but mostly ‘going around to see people’, as he had asked her to do. She travelled the world to retrieve, copy, research the context of each letter. He had given her 50 letters; she edited 16,000…. Beckett trusted this woman to handle the documents of his life in exactly the way that he wanted.’