Obituary: David William Miller / CMU history professor, expert on Ireland

A history professor for 45 years at Carnegie Mellon University, prolific author and expert on the history of Ireland, David W. Miller had only the most tenuous of connections to the Emerald Isle.

“He later found that he had some Irish ancestors, but he didn’t know it at the time that he was doing all of his research,” said his wife, Margaret Miller.

Despite his lack of an obvious familial attachment to Ireland, there were few who knew its religious history better, students and colleagues said.

“He was the leading authority of religion in modern Ireland,” said his former graduate student Peter Gilmore, of Squirrel Hill. “He taught a course in the history of religion, and he was a world-recognized expert in Irish culture.”

Mr. Miller, 79, of Point Breeze, died Sunday of Alzheimer’s disease.

Born in Coudersport, Potter County, Mr. Miller moved as a young boy to Jackson, Miss., where his father got a job as a civil engineer.

He went on to Rice University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1962, and met fellow student Margaret Vick Richardson, who would become his wife in August 1964.