Gerald O'Carroll

Who is Gerald O'Carroll?

Gerald O’Carroll is an Irish writer and historian. Born in Tralee, County Kerry in 1952 he is the second of ten children of James, an insurance broker, and his wife Elizabeth. Gerald was educated at Catholic primary schools in Tralee and Castlemaine where the family moved to live about 1961. He attended the Catholic St. Brendan's College, Killarney, before going to University College Cork where he graduated BA in Hisory, English and Geography in 1972. He taught at second level under the Limerick City Vocational Education Committee, and for short spells on secondment in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Madrid, Spain. Gerald O'Carroll retired from teaching in 1997 to concentrate on research and publication. All of his published works draw their inspiration from the history of the south west of Ireland, particularly County Kerry, with particular emphasis on the 12th century Norman settlement and the later Elizabethan and seventeenth-century settlements. These interests informed his first book, the writings of Mr Justice Robert Day, a Kerry native and Dublin based member of the court of King's Bench. Gerald O'Carroll next undertook the writing of a history of Tralee.