Madam, - Professors of Irish and Celtic Studies from universities in Ireland and abroad wrote some months ago to the president of University College Dublin to express grave disquiet about a proposal by UCD to discontinue early and medieval Irish (old Irish) as a full degree subject. As no response has been forthcoming and as UCD has gone ahead with its proposal, we feel bound to draw the issue to public attention.
Together with Latin, old Irish is the linguistic bedrock on which all study of the sources for the early history and literature of Ireland is founded. For more than 150 years, ever since the study of Irish and the other Celtic languages was first placed on a scientific footing by the great German scholar Johann Caspar Zeuss (in whose honour An Post recently issued a commemorative stamp), the subject of Old Irish has been a focus of academic study for historians of language and literature the world over.
The primary responsibility for cultivating the study of Old Irish rests with Irish universities and learned institutions. For much of the 20th century UCD enjoyed a distinguished national and international reputation as a centre of Old Irish, and its professors and alumni have played a pivotal role in developing Irish and Celtic studies generally. As Ireland's largest university, UCD has a special obligation to continue to foster and develop the training of students in the vernacular language and literature of early and medieval Ireland. It cannot be allowed simply to place the onus of doing so on other universities with fewer resources.
By withdrawing Old Irish as a degree subject, whether to save money or for any other reason, UCD is undermining its own standing as well as that of Ireland as an international centre of learning in the humanities.
It is also failing in its constitutional obligation to cherish and support the study of Ireland's cultural heritage. We believe it is incumbent on UCD to retain the capacity to provide full-scale degree training for students in the subject, and we wish to urge that all necessary measures are taken to ensure this.
Now more than ever, in a prosperous country facing the future with self-confidence and optimism, the obligation to provide the means for teaching and research in the areas of culture that are unique to Ireland should be self-evident.
- Yours, etc,
LIAM BREATNACH, Senior Professor, PÁDRAIG A. BREATNACH, Senior Professor, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies;
THOMAS CHARLES-EDWARDS, Professor of Celtic, University of Oxford;
JOHAN CORTHALS, Professor of Indo-European Linguistics, University of Hamburg;
Prof MARKKU FILPPULA, University of Joensuu, Finland;
MÁIRE HERBERT, Professor of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork;
FERGUS KELLY, Senior Professor, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
PIERRE-YVES LAMBERT, Directeur d'études de philologie celtique, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris;
JAMES McCLOSKEY, Professor and Chair, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Cruz;
KIM McCONE, Professor of Old and Middle Irish, NUI Maynooth;
MÍCHEÁL MAC CRAITH, Professor of Modern Irish, NUI Galway;
Prof NEIL MCLEOD, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia;
DAMIAN McMANUS, Professor of Early Irish, Trinity College Dublin.
Prof JOSEPH NAGY, University of California, Los Angeles;
MÁIRÍN NÍ DHONNCHADHA, Professor of Early and Medieval Irish, NUI Galway;
Dr MÁIRE NÍ MHAONAIGH, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge;
TOMÁS Ó CATHASAIGH, Professor of Celtic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University;
SEÁN Ó COILEÁIN, Emeritus Professor of Modern Irish, University College Cork;
Prof PÁDRAIG Ó NÉILL, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
RUAIRÍ Ó HUIGINN, Professor of Modern Irish, NUI Maynooth;
ERICH POPPE, Professor of Celtic Studies, University of Marburg;
PETER SCHRIJVER, Professor of Celtic, University of Utrecht;
STEFAN ZIMMER, Professor of Linguistics and Celtic, University of Bonn.