The appointment this past week of John X Miller to the position of ‘Honorary Consul of Hungry’ in the City of Cork will have come as little surprise to those who know him best.

Through his role as Director of the Vision Centre and General Manager of Cork Civic Trust, John has become known as a tireless campaigner for the establishment of new links, both on an institutional and personal level, between Hungary and Cork city for some years now.

Highly regarded in art, business, social and council circles Miller, a well travelled individual, has made friends throughout the four corners of the globe during a life less ordinary. He has assumed a myriad number of roles in places as far flung as Nigeria, Malawi, Bangladesh, Thailand and South Cork including record store manager, teacher, aid-worker, media-and-communications lecturer, film critic and even novelist.

John, born and bred in Dublin, first moved to Cork in 1978 having already experienced life outside Ireland. “I came to Cork in 1978 after three years spent teaching in Nigeria.

I used to manage the Sound Cellar in Dublin when I was a student. It’s a heavy metal store now, but at the time it was the only rock-record store in Ireland. Other bigger stores were mostly selling classical and showband records prior that. It feels like a different century…well it was a different century I suppose.”

John’s venture to Africa in 1975, as it transpires, provided his first unlikely link to Hungry. “I’ve no idea why I choose Nigeria,” he says thinking back, “but I think it was a sub-conscious thing. I always had this marked desire to go to Africa, maybe because my father used to get the missionary magazines and I would always see them around the house.

While in Africa John’s interest in community development also blossomed, when along with an acquaintance he started a basic-aid programme in the region. When he returned to Ireland he took up a position with Concern looking after their media department for the whole of the country from Cork. However, as John explains, “the wanderlust bug was well and truly under the skin by this point”, and further treks across the seas beckoned.

“I worked in a lot of emergency zones, dangerous places at the time like Bangladesh and Thailand, before going to work in Malawi, where I got back to teaching, among other things. Strangely enough I actually became the national film critic while there. I’ve always loved movies and at one point I was a freelance writer for the Irish Press where I did film reviews.”