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Work on the Royal Irish Academy’s historical dictionary of the Irish language started in 1976 – and could take its 10 dedicated compilers a further 100 years to complete, writes ROSITA BOLAND

IT’S ALMOST impossible to predict what 2110 will be like, apart from the likelihood that few of us will be around to experience it. However, when you think of how things might be a century from now, it’s probable that the job you are currently doing is not something that presses first to your mind. But for Úna Uí Bheirn of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), editor of Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge, this is something she does think about. That is because it may well take another century before Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge – a historical dictionary of Irish – will be published. The project started in 1976.