The Royal Irish Academy

Throughout the 18^th century, Gaelic scholars and their patrons were working long and hard at their studies. There were schools and small groups dotted around the country who would meet and work away on their manuscripts and teaching of the language. While some of these groups became of a reasonable size for such a difficult time, they were extremely limited in what they could do and how far they could expand their work. What was required for such studies was an organisation which had a large and continuously growing library which scholars could take and provide work in a centralised sysmbers with more than 60 honorary members, who include Edmund Burke, Charles Darwin, Max Planck, Maria Edgeworth, Albert Einstein and Max Born. The Academy’s library has been a major resource for those studying Irish history, archaeology, language, culture and natural history. ‘The library holds the largest collection of Irish manuscripts in a single repository, prime among those being the Book of the Dun Cow (c. 1100), the later medieval Leabhar Breac, the Book of Ballymote, and the Annals of the Four Masters.’

              With one of the academies focus’ on Irish antiquities, the study of Irish historical documents and the Irish language was safe from being locked away and forgotten as Charles O’Conor had once feared. The Academy brought together great scholars from all over Ireland on a continuous basis where the other smaller societies established in the decades beforehand had failed to do so for any prolonged period of time. With the academies ever growing library came a platform for the growth of interest in the study of Irish heritage and ancient documents, with this study came an important requirement for the reading of these ancient documents and that was knowing the Irish language. The academy was established on the grounds of taking in people from all across the island without discriminating between their Catholic and Protestant backgrounds. This step was especially important as the Protestant interest in the native culture was drastically increasing at this time and grew into the unified republican identity.

              Throughout its history the academy has produced many projects and journals either translating from Irish or producing materials in Irish. In 1904 the academy began producing the journal Éiru which is still running to this day. The academy has been undertaking a project since 1976 called Foclóir Stairiúil na Nua-Ghaeilge (Historical Dictionary of Modern Irish). The dictionary will cover between 1600 to the present day comparing old Irish and modern Irish rather than the usual Irish – English dictionary.

              The Academy was only one of many organisations to come, Belfast was becoming a hot spot for Protestant interests in Gaelic studies and the creation of similar societies in the city would soon arrive. As in Dublin, scholars established schools in and around the main towns and cities, bringing together the greatest the Gaelic people had to offer. With this congregation of native scholars and plenty of Protestant gentry taking an interest, the inclusion of the native works was a must during the formation of the Belfast Reading Society.