Roy Geary interviews

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the ESRI. This blog and the UCD Geary Institute is named for its first director, UCD and Sorbonne trained statisician Prof Roy Geary. In recognition of the anniversary, John Bowman is broadcasting interviews with Geary from the RTE archives (Sunday 8.30am RTE Radio 1 and online here). The interview played here was recorded when Geary was 85. Even these brief snatches of conversation make it clear that he had a brilliant mind. In this week's show he discusses his Geary C, which he calls a "poor man's Durban Watson"; working with Arthur Griffith at the foundation of the Irish Civil Service; his role in the split along North/ South lines of Ireland's soccer team; and how boredom is the greatest menace faced by the elderly. Prof. Geary is interviewed about 20 minutes into the show.
The opening section is given over to interviews with the Cloney family of Fethard on Sea, who found themselves at the heart of one of the most sensational examples of sectarianism in a national history that has an embarrassment of such small-minded episodes. For a pithy summary of the outrageous ordeal faced by the Cloney family I highly recommend listening to last week's Bowman.