From Irish hobo to Buddhist monk – an extraordinary emigrant

Dublin-born U Dhammaloka (Laurence Carroll, 1856-1914), a hobo in the States, became famous from Japan to Sri Lanka as a Buddhist monk and anti-colonial celebrity. He had at least five different names, was put under surveillance, tried for sedition and faked his own death. Laurence Cox (Maynooth University) tells stories from the new biography, “The Irish Buddhist: the Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire”.