MÓH: What stimulated your interest in history? PJ: One was an inspirational history teacher, Mr ‘Dan’ Dare of Dame Alice Owen’s school in Islington. The other was my family, amongst whom politics was the staple topic of conversation. My family was very divided, some on the left and some on the right. I also had … Read more
TC: Perhaps we can begin by asking you to tell us something about your background. PW: I was born in Askeaton, Co. Limerick, 56 years ago. In 1966 I got a scholarship and chose to go to University College Galway. If it had not been for the scholarship I doubt that I would have got … Read more
JS: Tell us about your background. DM: My father was a civil engineer, and I grew up in the Deep South because my father’s work took him there during World War II, and he established an office for the company he was with in Jackson, Mississippi. This greatly affected my career, in ways I can … Read more
MC: Tell me about your family connections with Ireland. PM: My mother’s family are Roches from County Cork, who have lived there since the middle of the thirteenth century. They are an Anglo-Irish family who always resided there—they weren’t absentees. I was brought up with a fairly ‘green’ understanding of the relationships between the people … Read more
PF: To what extent was a sense of Irish ethnicity a factor drawing you towards an academic interest in Irish Studies and particularly Irish migration? KM: Only in retrospect. Being born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, one primarily thought of oneself as being white as against others who were not. There was a much less … Read more