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Life
1912-97 [George Francis Mitchell]; son of Dublin merchant family; ed. High School, Dublin, & TCD; grad. Natural Science; appt. assistant to Professor Knud Jessen of Copenhagen working on field studies of post-glacial sediments in Ireland; appt. Reader in Irish Archaeology (1959-65) and Professor of Quaternary Studies (1965-79); also served the College as Junior Dean (1945-51), Registrar (1952-66), Senior Tutor & Snr. Lecturer (1967-70), and returned as Pro-Chancellor, 1985-88; elected President of the Royal Irish Academy 1976-79;
elected to the Royal Society, 1973; President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries in Ireland, with strong associations with the National Museum of Ireland, the Royal Dublin Society [RDS] and the Zoological Society of Ireland; elected President of An Taisce (the Irish National Trust); held the Boyle Medal of the Royal Dublin Society (1978) and became the first recipient of the Cunningham Gold Medal in 104 years; he moved into Townley Hall - former TCD agricultural station outside Drogheda - with his wife Lucy and two daughters and ran the “big house” as a student retreat and study centre; the artist Lillias Mitchell was his sister.
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Works
The Irish Landscape (1976), The Shell Guide to Reading the Irish Landscape (1986), Archaeology and Environment in Early Dublin (1987), Man and Environment in Valentia Island (RIA 1989), and The Way That I Followed (Country House, 1990) - an autobiography modelled on Robert Lloyd Praeger’s The Way That I Went (1936);