William V. Shannon; Ex-Ambassador to Ireland

William V. Shannon, 61, a journalist and college professor who served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland under President Jimmy Carter. “His experience in foreign affairs and as a journalist and writer and editorial writer for The New York Times brought not only a vast experience, but a very high level of achievement to bear in his classes,” said Boston University President John Silber. Shannon taught a course on the American presidency and conducted graduate seminars in journalism after he returned from Ireland in early 1981. Before Carter appointed him an ambassador in 1977, he was an editorial writer with the Times. His books include “The American Irish,” a history of immigration from Ireland to the United States; “They Could Not Trust the King,” an account of the Watergate hearings; and “Our Sovereign State” and the best-selling “The Truman Merry-Go-Round.” In Boston on Tuesday of cancer.