Interview: Dr Ruth McManus, St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra

Interview date: 26 January 2010

What book do you wish you had written?
I’m not sure that there’s a particular book I would have written, but there are many which have influenced me and, I suppose, inspired my own work, among them urban historian Jim Dyos’s seminal study of Camberwell – Victorian Suburb: A Study of the Growth of Camberwell (1961) – which opened up a whole field of research.  I admire the meticulous scholarship of many authors, but won’t name them here for fear of offending those that I’ll inevitably forget to mention!

What would you do if you were not a geographer?
My childhood ambition was to be a rural postman, but I suspect that I would have found myself working in education in some way, at some stage.

When was the last time you looked at Wikipedia?
Yesterday, when I was looking for some background on Ivor the Engine.