Frank DArcy has lived in Derry since 1972 and lectured until his retirement at the Institute for Continuing Education and its successors at Magee College, a campus of the University of Ulster. Previously, in Dublin, he had edited the weekly Hibernia for a period, and worked for the Irish Independent as a leader writer, literary editor and commentator on European Affairs. His particular interests include the history of Irish emigration, especially but not exclusively that of the eighteenth century.