Engaging and influential university teacher who studied the ‘cute hoor’ culture

Far from being an ivory tower academic, Paddy O'Carroll, the influential UCC sociologist and political scientist who has died aged 77, was a man rooted in the politics and culture of modern Ireland.

Born in Dublin, he grew up on a 26-acre farm in Derrintoney, Drumshanbo, Co Leitrim, where learning was encouraged by his mother, who lectured in mathematics and chemistry in UCD’s education department, and also by his father, a Garda superintendent.

Schooled locally, he went on to St Mel’s College in Longford and then UCD, where he studied agricultural science. Joining the Department of Agriculture as an instructor, from 1961 to 1967 he advised farmers in Longford, Tipperary and Galway on livestock and tillage, later becoming a farm buildings inspector with countrywide responsibility.

Realising, however, that the problems then confronting Irish farmers were mainly sociological, he decided on a radical career change which involved going to the United States, where he did a masters degree and PhD in sociology and political science at the University of Louisiana.

An inspiring lecturer, if famously disorganised, he treated students as peers and equals. As his daughter Anne succinctly put it, “ he wore his learning lightly and he was inclusive”.

Great storyteller

A big man, 6 foot 4 inches tall, he was a great storyteller and was blessed with a mischievous sense of humour. His passions were gardening and salmon angling.

His early career gave him rare insights into Irish society and its political community. After joining UCC’s sociology department in 1971, he produced many journal articles under the pen name JP O’Carroll.

His lively style did much to enhance his own reputation as a standard-bearer and the faculty’s importance as a vibrant teaching and research centre.

His seminal articles include a brilliant analysis of Ireland’s unique brand of “clientelism”, the academically correct term for a political phenomenon otherwise designated in the title of his widely acclaimed 1987 paper “Strokes, cute hoors and sneaking regarders: the influence of local culture on Irish political style”.

According to a recent commentary, O'Carroll's thesis was that Ireland wasn't really a democracy at all but a country where inherited loyalties and partisanship meant you were either "for Fianna Fáil or you weren't".

His observations on the impact of the bishops on the 1983 abortion referendum were forthright. He accused them of treating traditional beliefs as “absolute and all alternatives as anathema. There is no grey area where reasonable opposing views can be examined. The referendum was treated as a rite of renewal directed to the maintenance of cultural supremacy.”

His publications also include a book on Éamon de Valera and his times, in which he collaborated with Prof John A Murphy; an analysis of what Leitrim did for John McGahern; a commentary on the need for change in higher education policy; and an examination of the GAA in the light of the Cork players' strikes.

In her appreciation at his funeral , his daughter Clíona, who teaches in the UCC folklore department, recalled that “he had curiosity about all of human experience, was always looking to find a point of communication with anyone who came within his orbit, a way to bring about meaningful human contact, through interaction that was funny or serious or absurd or poetic or just plain bonkers”.

Lighting up with glee

Listing his qualities, fellow sociologist Linda Connolly said that “most of all, he loved talking with colleagues”. In a blog, Prof Kieran Healy, a former student and colleague, said: “I am sorry I won’t again be able to see him light up with glee at the prospect of telling me something, be it about a river he’d fished recently, or some stroke a local TD had pulled.”

He is survived by his widow, Máire, children Anne, Niall and Clíona and brothers Frank, Gerard and George.