It has taken me a while to decide about what I wanted to say here and where I wanted to be when I wrote it. For me it made sense to wait until I was on a visit home to Cork, Ireland as this is the place where my journey to Michael’s door first began.

I started my PhD in University College Cork in 1996 and my thesis was on The Application of SGML/TEI to complex, multilingual and historical text processing. Ireland in 1996 was a remote outpost for this type of research but thankfully I was blessed with having the support of Peter Flynn and Professor Donnchadh Ó Corráin . Both realised that I was going to need a wider community of experts and collaborators if I was going to progress. Donnchadh provided the funds from his various budgetary pots to send me to the Susan Hockey-led CETH summer school in Princeton over the summer of 1996. This is where I met Michael for the first time.

I had heard of him before that and had built up a mental image of a tall, long blond-haired surf dude type. I got the tall bit right. I can’t remember a single intellectual exchange but I remember the sense of well-being and feeling entirely at home. I remember summer evenings on the veranda of our student accommodation sipping wine with Michael, Willard McCarty and Wendell Piez. I remember one CETH delegate who wore a sarong but no underwear and who each evening lost the sarong with subsequent visits by the campus security team. I remember frantic forays led by Michael into nearby bushes in an attempt to find the damn sarong and cover up the offender. Michael was, invariably, propelled forward to greet the campus security team. Michael’s reputation for his ability to sprinkle magic fairy dust and soothe frazzled nerves was firmly secured. I left that summer school with lifelong friends, Michael being one of them.

Upon my return to Cork discussions with Peter and Donnchadh began to revolve around the hunt for an appropriate external examiner for my PhD thesis. I wanted no nodding donkey or ass on a chair, simply rubber stamping it or, even worse, rejecting it. I wanted someone I respected and whose opinion mattered to me. Michael was, in the end, the only candidate acceptable to me.

I fully expected his immediate cooperation as it all made so much sense. I had a degree in German, a Masters in History and I was doing a PhD about how to apply TEI to process early Irish texts that contained old Norse, Hebrew and Greek for good measure! In my youthful arrogance I saw myself as Michael’s ideal student. I rang him and he categorically rejected the idea out of hand and without hesitation. I was surprised but determined. I laid siege (in as much as you could between Ireland and Chicago) to his door, with calls, emails and faxes. I got to know Wendy Plotkin very well remotely! Eventually, Michael agreed to fly to Cork to discuss it further.

Peter and Donnchadh were fantastic hosts but they made it clear to me that the job of convincing Michael was mine alone. So for the first day we did the dance of Irish hospitality, a visit to Blarney castle where Michael kissed the Blarney Stone, an introduction to some fine Irish whiskeys and I even gave him my copy of Heinrich Bőls Irisches Tagebuch.

On Day 2, it was down to business and I told Michael I knew he wanted to examine this PhD and that he better spill the beans on the impediment. What he told me left me gobsmacked. He said he couldn’t examine my PhD because having him as my examiner would sink all my future prospects of an academic career. He explained that he had no academic standing and had failed to get an academic post in medieval German philology. With him on my team, I would be doomed. I think I started to look at him as if he’d grown two heads. How could this man, gifted with this enormous intellect, feel like he was a failure? And then I got mad. How dare he decide that an academic career would be the holy grail, the epitome of success for ME. I blasted his ears off. I left him in no doubt about what I made of the hallowed halls of academe. To me it was little more than a gladiator ring filled with aggressive, venomous cage fighters. I wanted my PhD for my own personal fulfilment and I wanted to exit that world and pursue a career in industry. I certainly didn’t see this as a retreat to some failed world. That conversation surprised us both and cleared the path for me to become Michael’s student and for him to become my examiner.

Michael’s agreement to take up the role came with other conditions, he felt he also had some other things beyond the remit of a thesis to teach me. I agreed and things were set in motion. Michael examined my PhD and not a single paragraph went uncommented or unchallenged. I was awarded a PhD in 1998. I left the academic world behind but not my friendships or my interests. I watch from afar and smile when I see comments from well-remembered and respected members of the tribe. I’ve loved reading the tributes to Michael from John Turnbull, Peter Flynn, Wendell Piez, Steve DeRose, Allen Renear, Paul Caton and Syd Bauman! Big hugs guys from me!

On August 16 I was on a road trip on the border of Arizona and Utah with my teenage daughter, Winter. A car journey with a teenager is a rare opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation. She asked me which people had the biggest influence on me. The name Michael Sperberg-McQueen came to my lips and I told her about Michael who examined my PhD but more importantly gave me three valuable things to think about. (1) He told me I’d catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I remember looking at him oddly and asking surely you need to kill flies, not catch them! He smiled and told me one day I’d understand. 25yrs later I very much adopt this approach when I chair the European Vehicle manufacturers group where the aim is to to collect warring representatives into a collaborative group and create a coherent, industry approach. (2) Michael told me to strive to become Ginny and not Hermione. We read Harry Potter together and from the first book I was a Hermione disciple. Michael argued that Ginny would reign supreme, and he was right. (3) Michael told me if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

When I reached my hotel in Flagstaff on the evening of the 16th, there was the message waiting for me. I picked up the message from Jon Bosak… I spent the evening staring into space.

Well, Michael, I’ve learned your lessons. It only took the best part of 25yrs! Thank God your prayers to become a tenured medieval German philologist went unanswered. For us, you created a tribe and community where ideas could be exchanged without fear or favour. You “tamed the savageness of man and made gentle the light of this world.” Go forth bearing the love and gratitude of a worldwide tribe.

Mavis Cournane (cournane@gmail.com), Cork, September 13th 2024.