was born in Co. Clare and spent most of his working life as a journalist with the Irish Times. A life long student of Irish history, particularly the 19th Century. He is the author of ‘John Blake Dillon Young Irelander 1814-66‘, published in 1990 and ‘Famine Diary‘,1998. He has a particular interest in the Young Ireland movement of the 1840's in which Charles Gavan Duffy (pictured left) from Monaghan was involved through the establishment of 'The Nation' newspaper. In 1978 he published a book on John Mitchel.