Graduated with a Masters Degree in Archaeology from NUI University College Dublin in 1975.
Worked on excavations in Glenulra (later Céide Fields) and Belderrig, Co. Mayo, with Seamas Caulfield and on Rathgall hillfort with Barry Raftery.
Received a Masters Degree in Local History from NUI Maynooth in 1994 and completed a PhD In History in 1998 there in 1998.
Author of Mayo’s lost islands: the Inishkeas (Four Courts Press) in 1999 and several other articles on the north Mayo region.
Was principal of Dundrum College, Dublin from 1982 to 2008, with a career break as CEO of the Airfield Trust, Dundrum, from 1999 to 2005.
Retired from the Co. Dublin VEC in 2008 and lives in Dundrum.