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Tue 05 May 2004The provocative provost: Who is John Hegarty?Dr Hegarty has an unusual background for a Trinity provost. He is a former Maynooth seminarian, in a college which elected its first Catholic provost only 13 years ago.He spent several years studying for the priesthood at Maynooth in the 1960s, but says it was "not for me". Instead, blinded by science, he took to studying physics, eventually emerging with a PhD from NUI Galway. Since then he has produced more than 140 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals.