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I am a first-generation Dubliner; my late father was born in Kilworth, county Cork, and my mother in Tullamore, county Offaly. I graduated from UCD with a BA (1st class hons) in Archaeology and Geography in 1983. Encouraged by Professor Michael Herity, I successfully completed the two-year MA in Archaeology in one year (1984; 1st class hons), for which I was awarded the NUI's three-year Travelling Studentship in Archaeology. I went to the University of Durham in 1985-86 (where Professors Rosemary Cramp and Brian Roberts of the Departments of Archaeology and Geography respectively provided inspirational mentorship and still-appreciated friendship), the Courtauld Institute of Art in the University of London in 1986-87, and the Centre d'Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale, Université de Poitiers, in 1987-88 (where Professors Piotr Skubiszewski and Marie-Thérèse Camus were as kind as they were erudite). In 1988 I was awarded a DEA in the History of Art by Poitiers. I returned to UCD in 1988 for my PhD in Archaeology, for which I was very pleased to have Prof. Herity as supervisor, and I presented my thesis, Irish Romanesque Architecture and Architectural Sculpture, in 1991, with Dr Richard Gem as the external examiner. I joined the Department (now School) of Archaeology in UCD as a post-doctoral Newman Scholar in 1994. I achieved my ambition to teach in academia when I was appointed to a temporary lectureship (to teach the Bronze Age!) in 1996 and a permanent lectureship (to teach medieval archaeology) in 1998. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer four years later, and to Associate Professor four years later again. For three years (2004-6) I was Director of the UCD International Summer School. I was awarded a UCD President's Research award in 2002-3 and an IRCHSS Senior Research Fellowship in 2008-9, and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA) in 2007. I was the Head of the School of Archaeology from 2011-2014, and I am currently Deputy Principal in the College of Arts & Celtic Studies.