One of the best-informed authorities on Irish affairs, Dr. McKiernan is an author, lecturer, script writer and presenter of nearly 100 TV programs about Ireland. Most of these were telecast nationally on educational channels. Currently he acts as a consultant on Irish matters and serves as executive director of Irish Educational Services which operates in Ireland.

His Irish honors include an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland and the UDT Endeavor Award for Tourism. He is also the only American ever to have been made an Honorary Life Member of the 206-year-old Royal Dublin Society.

In the U.S., in addition to his own doctorate from Penn State University, Dr. McKiernan has received honorary doctorates from three other universities.

Dr. McKiernan has also been widely honored by Irish organizations, including the Irish University Graduate Club, the Wild Geese and the Irish Charitable Society of Boston. He has been awarded the JFK Gold Medal by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Éire Society Gold Medal and the Irish Charitable Society of Boston Gold.

Dr. McKiernan’s best-known Irish contribution may be the founding, together with his wife, of the Irish American Cultural Institute, which has enjoyed the official patronage of successive Irish presidents since 1964. He also founded, and for 20 years edited, Éire Ireland, the institute’s quarterly journal. He is the Honorary Chair of the New Hibernian Review, published by the Irish Center at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

Dr. McKiernan and his nine children lived in Ireland at various times; his wife’s ancestors came from West Cork and his from Counties Clare and Cavan.