Bishop Kenneth Good and Bishop Donal McKeown were honoured for their contribution to Church unity and their commitment to reconciliation in the wider community.

The pair were each given a Langton Award for Community Service. The citation accompanying Bishop Good's said it was "for giving strategic leadership to the local church to engage fully with the community, throughout his ordained ministry, most of which was in the complex community of Northern Ireland." Bishop McKeown's citation said his award was "for his exceptional and sustained dedication to the cause of peace and social cohesion in an environment of traditional interdenominational tension."

Bishop McKeown said the Lambeth Awards would serve as an encouragement to Church and wider civic society.

"It is a privilege to receive this Award along with Bishop Ken," said Bishop McKeown.

"As the disciples on the road to Emmaus discovered, the Truth can be encountered by those who walk together.

"Community is built by good relationships – and by emphasising our long, shared history rather than our more recent divided past. Along with the other main Churches in the area, we tried to look at the common heritage of St Columba. That enabled us all to look together at some of the recent contentious centenaries so that our young people could face the future with hope rather than fear.”

 

Bishop Good served as Bishop of Derry and Raphoe from 2002 to 2019. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and began his clerical life as a curate in Belfast and was later head of religious education at Ashton School, Cork. He became rector of Dunganstown in Co Wicklow in 1984 before returning to Northern Ireland in 1990 as rector of Shankill Parish, Lurgan, in the Diocese of Down and Dromore. There he worked with staff and volunteers to develop the Jethro Centre, which sought to improve wellbeing and nurture faith across the community in Lurgan. The centre uses a team ministry approach in areas such as peace and reconciliation, children's ministry, family ministry, youth and seniors.

 

His dioceses in the Northwest of Ireland encompassed the two political jurisdictions of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Engagement with civic society touched upon issues that stemmed directly from 'the Troubles'. Diocesan initiatives – most notably the diocesan vision, 'Transforming Community, Radiating Christ' – challenged teams at every level of parish life to become more visibly and more actively involved in community outreach. Bishop Good also organised a meeting between Protestant church leaders and families in the Bogside following publication of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry report.

Bishop Donal McKeown was ordained to the priesthood in 1977 and became a teacher from 1978 until he became president of St Malachy's College in Belfast in 1995. In 2001 he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Down and Conor.

Following his appointment by Pope Francis as Bishop of Derry in 2014, he developed a close friendship with Bishop Good, and together they made a conscious commitment to work together publicly as often as possible. In the City of Derry in the County of Londonderry, successive bishops have worked for reconciliation during the Troubles but also during more recent violence including the tragic murder of the journalist Lyra McKee.

The two bishops were involved in a series of Walks of Witness in 2017 which took them on pilgrimages to St Columba's birthplace in Donegal, to the saint's monastery in Iona and to Rome.

The pair also met the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, together during his visit to Derry-Londonderry in 2018.

This is the fifth year of the Lambeth Awards and in total 32 awards were given this year to people from across the Church and beyond in fields including evangelism, the Religious life, safeguarding, ecumenism, theology and interfaith relations.