Madam, - As someone concerned about old and medieval Irish studies and about our cultural heritage in general, I am amazed that UCD, from which I received an honorary degree, and where I taught on a Fulbright, would cut back on something so important, not only for Indo-European studies but the Irish identity itself, as its BA in old and medieval Irish.
I funded a project at the Royal Irish Academy which was called Thesaurus Linguarum Hiberniae, Treasury of the Irish Languages, which paralleled the project I began in the University of California at Irvine to computerise ancient Greek.
It is thriving while the study of old and medieval Irish is shrinking.
I am seriously concerned, because I thought universities were there to safeguard our cultural heritage.
I am a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the proud bearer of an Irish passport (my son lives in Listowel). My family were survivors of the Famine and braved the coffin ships to America.
I am fiercely proud of my Irish heritage.
They say that a language is the soul of a people.
For a while we had to struggle to keep it, but now are we collaborating to endanger its priceless manuscripts and the learning that is necessary to appreciate them? Are we selling our soul for shallow budgetary considerat-ions? - Yours, etc,
MARIANNE McDONALD, Professor of Classics and Theatre, University of California, San Diego, California.