Thomas Desmond Williams
Encyclopedia
Thomas Desmond Williams was an Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 academic and Professor of Modern History
Modern history
Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages. Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period after the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution...

 at University College Dublin
University College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...

 (UCD).

His parents were UCD Professor of Education W.J. Williams and Angela Williams (née Murnaghan). His maternal grandfather was George Murnaghan
George Murnaghan
George Murnaghan was an Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. He represented the Mid Tyrone constituency from the United Kingdom general election, 1895, until the United Kingdom general election, January 1910.-References:*...

. He attended a primary school run by Dominican nuns and was taught by his father for his secondary education
Secondary education
Secondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...

.

At UCD he won scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

s, and in 1942 was awarded the John Brooke
John Brooke
John Brooke was a significant British historian. He studied history at the University of Manchester under Lewis Namier:, and in 1951 became Namier's principal assistant for the History of Parliament. When Namier died in 1960, Brooke succeeded him as editor of the section dealing with 1754 to 1790...

 memorial scholarship, after which he joined the legal profession. He worked for the British Foreign Office and was a member of British Intelligence during the Second World War.

He became Professor of Modern History at UCD in 1949. In 1953, in a series of articles in the Leader and Irish Press, he accused the war-time Irish Minister to Spain, Leopold Kerney
Leopold H. Kerney
Leopold H. Kerney was the first Irish Minister Plenipotentiary to be appointed to Spain and remained at this post from 1935 until his retirement in 1946...

, of having been a Nazi collaborator. Kerney sued him for libel, and despite Williams having been supplied with captured German documents by the British Foreign Office to boost his case, Kerney won the case.

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