Hugh Bredin also taught voluntarily at Long Kesh Hugh Bredin, who has died aged 85, was a senior lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in scholastic philosophy and will be remembered for his prolific writing, strong social conscience, his diverse range of interests and his commitment to his students. Such was his political awareness, he was one of a number of academics who publicly opposed internment without trial in the North during the Troubles and he taught prisoners in Long Kesh on a voluntary basis. A lifelong friend of Seamus Heaney from schooldays, he had a keen interest in poetry, art and literature.
He had a facility for languages and translated writings on medieval aesthetics by Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher, novelist and cultural critic. Hugh Terence Bredin was born in Coleraine, Co Derry, in April 1939 and grew up in Maghera, where his parents were primary school teachers. He attended secondary school at St Columb’s College in Derry, where Heaney was one of his classmates.
Later Bredin registered to study for the priesthood in Maynooth University, but took a degree in English instead as he was said to have been disillusioned with the regimentation and potential boredom of a church vocation. He became a school teacher and taught from 1961 to 1964 before opting to register for a master’s degree in philosophy at QUB. He credited the university’s professor of philosophy Theodore Crowley for encouraging him to pursue an academic career.
Bredin sha.