He takes his place alongside a Zimbabwean (NoViolet Bulawayo), an Anglo-Indian American (Jhumpa Lahiri), a New Zealander (Eleanor Catton), a Canadian-Japanese American (Ruth Ozeki) and an Irishman (Colm Tóibín).
Royle had picked up the Irishman on a free from Leeds four years earlier but for Oldham that was the name of the game.
The artistic paucity of the project was reflected in the fact that I was cast as a low-life Irishman called Jonathan Flanagan.
Called "Reading the news", it was painted in 1871 by Richard Staunton Cahill, an Irishman who later moved to London.
Brian O'Driscoll was not the only Irishman dropped for the Lions' third Test against Australia last July.
When Morgan succeeded the sacked Alastair Cook last month following England's 5-2 series defeat in Sri Lanka it heralded expectations there might be a change in attitude more in step with the attacking philosophy of the Irishman.
The real James Maclaine was an Irishman of respectable family, though he himself managed only a patchy career as a grocer in London's Welbeck Street.
Of course, no label was stitched to his buttocks to say "Old England", as might once have been the case in a Punch cartoon, but the implication was plain enough, and faintly surprising in a society that frowns, at least officially, on national stereotypes and stories that relate the doings of a Welshman, an Irishman, etc.
The blustery nature of the early exchanges suited the more robust visitors and it was 10 minutes before Norwich were even able to work Hoolahan into a position to conjure, but the Irishman was quickly engulfed by vigilant defenders.
Golfer Rory McIlroy and tennis player Caroline Wozniacki announced their engagement in the early hours of New Year's Day, after the Northern Irishman proposed while they watched the midnight fireworks at Sydney's Harbour Bridge.
When opposition leader, he said the last Labor government "was a bit like the Irishman who lost 10 pounds betting on the Grand National and then lost 20 pounds on the action replay".
