Thanks, Paddy.

Thanks, Paddy.

I’m very sad to hear that Paddy O’Carroll died this weekend in Cork. He was one of my first teachers in Sociology, and a man of deep intelligence, humanity, and insight into Irish society and especially its political community. Famously disorganized in lecture, he was nevertheless sharp as a pin in conversation. I can’t count the number of times he brought me up short with some observation or anecdote that I’d spend the rest of the day thinking about. He taught me each of my three years as an undergraduate, he supervised my M.A. thesis, and he urged me to go to America—as he had done, uncommonly enough for an Irish social scientist in his time—to learn more. He was the first person I thanked when I wrote my book. I am sorry I won’t again be able to see him light up with glee at the prospect of telling me something, be it about a river he’d fished recently, or some stroke a local TD had pulled. I líonta Dé go gcastar sinn.