Francis Brinkley

Francis Brinkley was born in Parsonstown House, County Meath in 1841, the youngest of thirteen children in a family steeped in Irish learning and public life. He left for Japan in 1867 and never returned, becoming a military advisor, scholar, and dictionary maker who spent more than forty years inside Meiji Japan. The boy from Meath became a bridge between two worlds, carrying Irish discipline into Japanese modernity and Japanese nuance into English writing.