ON MAY 8th 1997, Dr Micheline Kerney Walsh passed quietly from our midst. Watching the case with which she lectured to members of Salamanca University in Spanish on the historical links that bound Ireland and Spain, or deciphered early 17th century handwriting in a French Archives; noting the evident affectionate respect with which she was treated in our embassies in Madrid and Paris, it was clear that there was more to this petite and unassuming woman than the eye met. One was in fact in the company of Ireland's foremost authority on the Irish of mainland Europe in the two centuries that spanned roughly 1590 to 1790 - the Earls, the Wild Geese, the students, the soldiers, the businessmen, the women.
Her background had fitted her admirably for the kind of work which was her particular contribution to Ireland's understanding of one aspect of its history. Her beloved father, Leopold Kerney, was an Irish businessman in Paris, who was close to the leadership of our emerging country in 1919. He became Irish consul in France, and later served as Ireland's first ambassador to the court of Spain. Her mother was a Frenchwoman.
Micheline thus grew up in France and Spain, and she turned this multilingual fluency to good account as she devoted half a life time to collecting the records of the Irish on the Continent.
As a languages graduate from UCD, she found a kindred spirit in the late Professor McBride of the Spanish and Italian Department. She joined him as assistant director of the "Overseas Archives" he had founded as a home for the records of our European diaspora and training ground for others to carry on the good work. While the Overseas Archives was discontinued after Micheline's retirement, her personal collection of documents is destined to be housed in the Cardinal O Fiaich Memorial Library and Archives, Armagh, of which she was a trustee. The opening of this new institute next year, our increased integration with continental Europe and the improved linguistic skills of the preset generation of students all give us reason to hope that this specialist archives will one day serve as a fitting monument to the vision and diligence of these two pioneers.
On retiring from UCD, Micheline did not stop working.In fact, it was now that she really blossomed, it was now that the fruits of those long years of patient combing of Continental archives started to bear fruit. Articles and lectures increased in frequency and she produced her masterpiece, Destruction by Peace - an account of Hugh O'Neill's life after he left Ireland based for the first time on a thorough investigation and reproduction of the documentation held in Spanish archives. It turned accepted views on their heads and won her the highest academic degree, the D.Litt., or Doctor of Letters.
Her close friend and supporter, Cardinal O Fiaich, wrote the preface, and the Armagh Historical Society published the book. It was also a fitting complement to her other work on the Spanish connection - a four volume directory called Spanish Knights of Irish Origin. Spain, too, recognised the value of her contribution: the King of Spain made her a Dame of the Order of Isabel Ia Catolica - the female equivalent of a knighthood.
Typically, she was still hard at work when God called her. She did not really age; and so well did she pace herself in the latter years, and so involved was she in her work, it was easy to forget that no one goes on forever. She is survived by her children, Terence, Micheline, Aideen, Monique and Michael, and her brothers Jean and Eamon
Ar Dheis De go raibh a anam!