Social skills are a must these days, but outsiders can be leaders too

WHAT do Hitler, Einstein, WB Yeats and Eamon de Valera have in common? Autism, according to a Professor of Psychology at TCD.

Professor Michael Fitzgerald believes that there's a strong link between autism and men of exceptional ability, and suggests that each of the three men showed clearly autistic behaviour throughout their lives.

Post-mortem psychoanalysis of political and literary figures is always problematic, tending, as it does, to diminish their achievements by re-categorising them as resulting from disease or disability, rather than effort and ability. The ultimate reductio ad absurdum of this approach is the view of the Battle of Waterloo which holds that Wellington won it, not because he managed his 'infamous army' superbly, but because of Napoleon's piles. According to this theory, the Little Corporal's haemorrhoids were so inflamed, he couldn't think straight and so made the massive misjudgments which caused his defeat.