The Gujaratis are one of the most cosmopolitan of Indian communities. Their presence is felt in every business centre in the world; they practically control the diamond exchange in Antwerp.

At the end of the 19th century, several enlightened families in the Gujarat capital, Ahmedabad, established the first textile factories, creating what became known as the Manchester of India and led the way for the rapid industrialisation of the sub-continent's major urban centres.

Even though I knew some of this background when I arrived in Ahmedabad in 1980 to study architecture, it was a surprise to find how persistent the presence of the past was - and still is.

The 15th century walled city remains virtually intact in its basic structure of buildings and services and more particularly in the complex layering of dependencies that allow different communities to coexist.

As an eager and ignorant student, the combined challenge of adjusting to a new system of learning in the college and the more mundane demands of everyday living were all-consuming. I became immersed in the life of the place. Ireland and things Irish where of another planet.

It was therefore a great surprise to come upon Miss Dorothy Shannon from Belfast. She presided over the Zenana, or ladies' bungalow, in the Irish Presbyterian Mission Compound. You would think she had arrived only days before. In fact, she had been there for 25 years.

We took tea and shortbread on the verandah and I learned of her work with the leper colony on the banks of the Sabarmati river and the home, Jivandwar - the door to life - she set up outside the city for the lepers' children. Dorothy and Dr Jean Shannon (no relation), who came from a good Northern farming background and who worked with the tribals in the hills of East Gujarat, were the last in the line of Irish Presbyterian missionaries who had come to India 150 years before.

Through this contact, I began to discover the extent to which Irish people have been involved with India since the arrival of the British. In parts of Gujarat people are proud to identify themselves as "Irish Christians". On one of my visits home, the officer at Bombay airport was practically light-headed with the prospect of how much he might charge me for overweight baggage. Realising that he was from Gujarat I began to talk to him in Gujarati, which slowed his calculations a little. But when he saw that I was Irish he became emotional and recalled the Christian Brother who had taught him at their school in Mount Abu, Rajasthan. The calculator was put away and we parted some time later the best of friends.

One is constantly reminded of the different orders at work in education by people who went to the convents and the schools. I was recently told of a Father MacDonnell, a Redemptorist, who toured the Bombay presidency and had congregations rigid with the fear of God.

On the way to Jodhpur through south Rajasthan the train stops at Erinpura. This "Irishtown" is an abandoned military cantonment established towards the end of the last century by Captain Irving of the Indian army. Irish involvement in military life has been documented and also popularised by Kipling in his Barrack Room Ballads.

Col Meadows Taylor from Harold's Cross had a distinguished military career in India as well being a novelist of note in the 1860s. His Confessions Of A Thug is an account of a community of professional murderers outlawed by the British.

Margaret Noble, or Sister Nivedita, was an Irish woman who died in Calcutta in 1911 having become a Hindu nun. She was a follower of the great social and religious reformer Swami Vivekananda. Annie Besant, founder of the Theosophist Movement, had strong family links with Cork.

The Irish were also involved with the administration. Bertie and Reggie Glancy from Roscommon came to India in the early part of this century and worked their way up the civil service before retiring in the 1940s, both with knighthoods for services rendered.

Earnest O'Gorman Kirwan from Dublin was an eye specialist who spent his working life in Calcutta before retiring in the 1940s. His patients included the King of Nepal. The anecdotes of Irish lives in India under the British are endless and should be collected and studied. It is interesting to speculate on the nature of the particular attachment of the Irish and the Indians in the light of our shared history. Ireland was of special interest to the leaders of the Indian nationalist movement from the late 19th century on. Nehru and others paid particular attention to the details of Irish political activity at the time.

Of course, there were many Indians connected with Ireland. Ranjit Singh, the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar State, spent most of his life in England due to a dispute over who should sit on the throne at home. With nothing else to do he became the legendary cricketer who played for England at the turn of the century. For many years he owned the Ballynahinch estate in Connemara.

The more recent links with India continue to be strong and revolve now around business and technology. The Ireland India Business Economic Association was recently set up by Indian businessman, Kutti Nair, to strengthen Irish links. More than 20 years ago the Ireland India Cultural Society was set up to promote cultural exchange. This year it plans a commemoration for the 50th anniversary of Independence.

Arthur Duff is a partner with Duff/Tisdall architects and is a former secretary of the Irish-India Cultural Society