28.05.2019

At a ceremony in NUI on Tuesday 28 May 2019, the NUI Chancellor, Dr Maurice Manning conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature (DLitt) on Dr Michael J. Conry for his exceptional contribution to Irish folklore and industrial archaeology.

Speaking at the conferring, the Chancellor said that ‘Michael Conry has provided for generations to come a priceless record of the way of life in rural Ireland not so long ago but now almost completely forgotten’.

Michael Conry had a long and distinguished career as a scientist with An Foras Talúntais. This sparked his interest in Ireland’s rural past and rural environment. As a result, over the past thirty years he has published nine books on a variety of subjects. Reflecting how generations of country people were both shaped by and shaped their immediate environment, his books record extinct or virtually extinct occupations ranging from culm makers and stone fence cutters to bilberry-pickers and rabbit trappers.

His works include Carlow Granite: Years of History written in Stone (2006), Picking Bilberries, Fraocháns and Whorts in Ireland, The Human Story (2011) and the Rabbit Industry in Ireland 20th Century Snaphots. 

 

Images from the event

 

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