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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book began life in the spring of 2014 when, freshly started in a lectureship at UCD, I was asked to verify whether or not V. V. Giri, the fourth president of India, had studied at the University prior to the 1916 Rising. Little did I imagine that what started out as such a small task would open into a fascinating journey of discovery into an almost forgotten episode in the deeply connected histories of India and Ireland. Firstly, I would like to thank John McCafferty, John O’Dowd, Una Watkins and Lorraine Woods for starting me on that path and for their patience and encouragement as this project grew and developed. I was lucky and deeply grateful to have received the advice and assistance of Kate O’Malley and Gajendra Singh in the course of my research.They gave generously of their time and expertise in helping me track down new literature and sources of which I knew so little at the outset. Likewise Matt Perry, Padraig Yeates, Declan Downey and Maurice J. Bric have provided very useful insights throughout this project. I am especially grateful to Professor Bric who was kind enough to present me with his own autographed photo portrait of Giri which he had received many years before. Special thanks to Eve Morrison and Eunan O’Halpin for offering their comments on the text. I am deeply grateful to Spurti Subramanyam for her assistance in researching the lives of some of Dublin’s Indian students following their return to India and to Colm O’Flaherty for his diligent work in sourcing and reproducing the images presented here.

I further wish to thank all the staff at UCD Archives, Paul Kelly and the office of the President of UCD for permission to consult the minutes of UCD’s Governing Body and Academic Council; and to Professor Orla Feely and UCD Research. At the King’s Inns my thanks go to Juliane Galle and Síle O’Shea, all the staff of the National Library of Ireland, the National Archives, Trinity College Dublin Library and the Departments of Early Printed Books and Manuscripts, and the Jesuit Archives in Dublin who were extremely helpful as always. In London, my thanks are due to the British Library and the staff of the Asian and African Studies Reading Room as well as to James Broadhead and Karrie Keogh for welcoming me into their home during my time researching there. At Irish Academic Press, my sincere thanks go to Conor Graham and his colleagues. To my family, my first draft editors and constant encouragers – Daragh, Deirdre, Clíona and Aoife – my thanks as always. My special thanks to Thea for her love and support.

Finally, this book is dedicated to my good friend Kalyan Chakravarthi Golla. In his memoir, V. V. Giri wrote of his last days in Dublin: ‘[I] was expecting to finish my courses in the University and later go to Philadelphia to study for my Master of Law degree.’2 War, revolution and politics meant that Giri’s wish to travel onwards from Ireland to the United States was never fulfilled. Instead he returned home to Berhampore where he threw himself into the Indian independence struggle. Almost a century later, having been awarded his PhD in Dublin, Kalyan travelled onwards to Philadelphia, where he is now a postdoctoral researcher in Thomas Jefferson University. In your next adventure Kalyan, I send you my best wishes.

Conor Mulvagh

University College Dublin

November 2015