Irish Language Societies

Some of the publications issued by those editors were initiated by private enterprise, and a few were helped by assistance from the State. But most of them were the result of voluntary societies associated for the purpose. The earliest of these was the ” Gaelic Society,” formed in Dublin in the first decade of the century. This was succeeded by the ” Iberno-Celtic Society,” of which the moving spirit was Edward O’Reilly, the compiler of a dictionary (1820), and of a list of ” Irish Writers.” In Belfast another ” Gaelic Society ” was formed about 1830 by Robert McAdam and Dr. Samuel Bryson. More important and fruitful, however, was the ” Irish Archaeological Society,” which was founded in 1840 by the exertions of Dr. George Petrie and the Rev. J. H. Todd, and which continued its operations for nearly thirty years.

 The ” Celtic Society,” founded on a more popular basis by John O’Daly in 1846, frequently co-operated with the preceding society. Next came the ” Ossianic Society,” devoting itself to ” Fenian ” literature, six volumes of which it published. Some of the older texts were also published by the ” Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language,” founded in 1876, and by the ” Gaelic League,’* founded in 1893, societies whose other activities will be treated of subsequently. In the meantime official patronage had been stimulated to some extent, and State aid contributed to the publication of some lumes of Irish literature in a series known as the ” Rolls Series ” issued in England under the direction of the Master of the Rolls for the time being), and in the six volumes issued by the ” Brehon Laws Commission,” established in 1852.

 In recent years the ” Irish Texts Society,” founded in 1898 under the influence of the language revival, and devoting itself altogether to publication, has been responsible for the issue of a number of texts. In addition to the volumes issued by those societies, a number of pieces have been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, in various archaeological and other periodicals, in ” Eriu ” under the auspices of the ” Irish School of Learning,” in the ” Revue Celtique ” in France, and in ” Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie “
in Germany.