World-renowned historian is still a Conahy man at heart - Kilkenny Live

ABOVE: Joe in his rugby playing days with Stade Francais

It was on his return that his old mentor, FX Martin, again intervened to set him on the path to great things.
A telegram had been received at the family home in Rathkyle, saying Prof Martin wanted to see Joe when he was home. Over the Christmas holidays they met in Dublin, where Prof Martin pulled a file out of his briefcase and told Joe to sign it.

The file was an application for a scholarship to attend a British University, that had been created to celebrate the UK entering the European Common Market. Two days later Joe got word that he had the scholarship, and he was on his way to Cambridge!

In those days, the mid ’70s, there was a feeling in UCD that if you were good enough to pursue a PhD you would be better to go away to do it at another university. Many, like Joe, did. There were strong links between UCD and Cambridge, with many students going to the British university to continue their studies, and many Cambridge educated historians returning to teach in Ireland.

Choosing a doctoral topic took a bit of time, for Joe. The more he thought about it the less he wanted to continue with the same area as his masters topic, and, influenced by his growing interest in European history and his time in France, he opted for French history as his topic.

Informing his professor Geoffrey Elton about the change was nerve-wracking for Joe, but the response was positive - with the famed Professor Elton telling the Irish student he should always do something he wanted to do, not something he thought he should do!

Ironically, the change of topic meant there was no one to supervise Joe’s PhD in Cambridge, he even briefly considered a move to Oxford, but a thesis supervisor was found.

Joe’s second year as a Cambridge student was spent in Paris, doing research. He lived in a community of international students researching French history. When he returned to Cambridge he would write a chapter of his doctoral dissertation at a time, then post it to his supervisor in London.

During the last year of his thesis Joe was keeping an eye out for academic posts, and landed his first teaching position at Maynooth University. After two years a job came up at the University of Manchester that exactly fit with Joe’s talents - teaching history and French! It was the start of a movement by the university to link modern languages with other subjects.
Manchester already had a professor teaching modern French history, and Joe took on medieval France, setting a precedent for future college positions.

At the time it was unusual for people to teach across two departments, and eventually Joe was made a full member of the history department, where he stayed until his retirement in 2011. Click NEXT to continue the story...