Emmet Larkin, 1927-2012

Retired University of Chicago history professor Emmet Larkin spent most of his career studying and writing about Irish history and the role of the Roman Catholic Church after the country's 19th century potato famine.

Mr. Larkin, 84, died of multiple myeloma and renal failure Monday, March 19, in St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago, according to his wife, Dianne. He had lived in Hyde Park since coming to the U. of C. in 1966.

"He became the most important historian of Irish Catholicism in Ireland, Britain, America — everywhere the Irish were," said Lawrence McCaffrey, a retired professor of Irish and Irish American history at Loyola University Chicago....