“I have a banjo down in one of the rooms, but I’m not very proficient at it. My love of traditional music was cultivated in the early 70s while living at 40 Longwood Avenue, South Circular Road, Dublin. A friend of mine, John Burke from Kerry, told his landlady that I was looking for somewhere to live, and I fell on my right-hand side here. It was the home of two sisters from Ennistymon in Co. Clare called Josie and Peg Murphy. The house was famous because of its visitors. Josie was a larger-than-life person and a Clare woman to her toenails, whereas her sister Peg was the quiet one. I can safely say that Josie was responsible for keeping Irish traditional music alive in Dublin during the 70s. She was always organising something to do with Irish music even though she didn’t play an instrument. She just loved it! Every December, my job was to take the doors off the hinges on the ground floor and store them in the shed out the back. All the furniture in the house would then have to be arranged into the space.  On New Year’s Eve, the Chieftains would come to Josie’s at 11 pm, and every Clare person living in Dublin would make their way there too. The Chieftains were always first there and up in the kitchen. After a while, they would sit up on my makeshift stage and play till 5 a.m.! Everyone would leave then, and we’d head down the quays with Josie and Peg to get mass at 6. As soon as we were home after mass, Josie would put a turkey in the oven.  Some hours later, we’d hear her call, “lads, your dinner is ready”, and we would all sit around the table like a family. She really looked after us students, and she and Peg were the loveliest of people. They even had my parents up from Offaly one New Year’s Eve and gave them two armchairs right in front of The Chieftains. It was a big deal to be invited to one of these sessions as an outsider. That was never lost on me, and it was by pure fluke that I got to live there for three fantastic years. Annemarie and I met in 1976, married two years later and have been living here in Dublin 3 ever since. I was always involved in our local GAA club, St Vincent’s and then our lads started to play GAA. We have three grown-up sons and five grandchildren. Our first granddaughter was born last year, and you should see her with a hurley! In 1976, after graduating from the DIT Kevin Street with a degree in Chemistry, I got my first job at the Institute for Industry and Research Standards (IIRS). It was a very exciting time. I was getting paid a wage, playing every sport and enjoying life. Annemarie had finished her nursing training and also was working in her very first job at the Bons Secours Hospital in Glasnevin. A few years later, a notice for a job as a forensic scientist caught my eye, and I applied and got the job. Forensic Science is the use of science in the investigation of crime. If you go to a crime scene, there is always evidence, which is the ‘silent witness’. Every contact leaves a trace, and the ability to detect it is only getting more and more sensitive. There was no DNA profiling back in the 1970s or early 80s. I remember well when on 22^nd December 1979, a young girl called Phyllis Murphy vanished in Newbridge. A massive search party went out to look for her, but the weather took a bad turn and hampered search efforts. Her body was discovered one month later in the Wicklow mountains. The conditions at the time of her disappearance meant that evidence which would have been otherwise lost due to the passage of time was preserved. ABO blood grouping techniques were available at the time, eliminating some of the suspects, but there just weren’t enough scientific advances to do anything more. It was very frustrating. We stored all the samples of human cells found at the crime scene, hoping that science would evolve quickly enough to find Phyliss’ murderer. In 1984, the whole world of forensic science, including ourselves in Dublin, was watching when British scientist, Alec Jeffreys, discovered that every person could be separated by their DNA profile. Police in the UK, struggling to solve the murders of two teenage girls, decided to use Jeffreys technique. Initially, nothing happened, but soon after, police were informed of a local man boasting that he had given a friend’s blood sample to the police instead of his own. Following his arrest, his blood sample was tested and BINGO! There was a match to prove he was the person they were looking for.  Colin Pitchfork was the first murder conviction based on DNA profiling evidence. We had a lot of unsolved cases that had to be revisited, but we were hopeful that this exciting advance in Science would help us. When the DNA samples were tested from the Phyllis Murphy case, they were a match for John Crerar, a suspect who had been ruled out years earlier because of his alibi. It was great to tell the Gardai the good news, and 23 years after her murder, Phyllis Murphy’s killer was brought to justice. We have come a long way since then. DNA is being used more now. The evidence has always been there, but the ability to detect it has increased dramatically. Science is constantly evolving; that’s why we always keep samples. I worked as a Forensic Scientist for 31 years for the Department of Justice and was very fortunate never to have a murder case where I knew the people involved. Every day was different, as was every case, and things were constantly changing. It was sometimes very stressful, but most of the time, I found it fascinating. Coming from a farm in Drumcullen in Co. Offaly, I’d walk to school in Killyon after I milked the cows. Back then, we had to milk by hand, and I was always late for school. But as I got older, I was the opposite. Deadlines were very much part of my work, along with constant reports and court cases, so time became important. I am retired now; however, for the past eleven years, I have been lecturing on the DNA and Forensic Analysis (Hons) MSc course at TUD, Tallaght.  I’m proud that nine former students are working in forensic science. I always tell my students that they can achieve whatever they want to. My parents were always very positive, so I get that optimism from them. I gave up Science in secondary school after two years because I didn’t like it, and look where I ended up! There’s always a way if you really want something”.