George Irish

James Alfred George Patrick Irish, generally known as George Irish or J. A. George Irish, is a Montserratian academic, musician, composer of the national song, community leader and social engineer.

Irish is a graduate of the University of the West Indies, and the first recipient of that institution's Ph.D. degree in Spanish. He has taught at UWI, where he headed the Department of Spanish, in the Dominican Republic at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), and in the United States at the City University of New York (CUNY) where he is Professor of Caribbean and Latin American Studies.

Irish also heads the Caribbean Research Center and the Office of International Programs at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York (part of CUNY). He is Editor-in-Chief and founder of the scholarly Journal of Caribbean studies, Wadabagei, and President of the Caribbean Diaspora Press Inc. and Caribbean American Research Foundation Inc. in New York.

He is co-founder and Chancellor of the Universidad Popular de Desarrollo Sostenible de Las Americas (UNIPOP) and founding Board member of the International Center for Sustainable Development (CIDES) in Panama.