Born in 1946 and educated in Dublin, he was an English professor and visiting poet at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, USA from 1970 to 1971, and published two volumes of poetry in the early 1970s.
In the 1980s he served as counsellor in the Irish Embassy in London where, according to Garret FitzGerald, he did very useful work in the run up to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
This gave him a ready entrée to several segments of British society, including important sections of the Tory party.
His role was to influence a wide range of MPs, particularly Conservatives, in favour of Irish policy.
[1] He served as Irish ambassador to Korea (1989–93),[2] Japan and Spain (1994–98)[3] before becoming Ireland's permanent representative to the United Nations from 1998 until 2005.