Madam, - I write in connection with the recently publicised decision by UCD not to fill the Chair of Old Irish, and subsequent correspondence in your columns.
Others have testified to the prestige of this chair and of the eminence of the professors who have graced it, and have stressed the symbolic importance of certain specialised chairs in Irish subjects for the reputation of Irish scholarship internationally. I would wish to associate myself with these writers, and add the following based on my acquaintance with Celtic Studies inside and outside Ireland.
Early Irish literary and linguistic studies are at a genuinely exciting stage right now. There are new directions and techniques and new inter-disciplinary possibilities. Crucially, there is a new generation of high-calibre yoounger scholars at work in Ireland and Britain, in Europe and America today, who can exploit these new avenues to the maximum.
The benefits and kudos which would result from a well-chosen appointment to the UCD chair at this time are manifest to anyone 'in the field'.
If the UCD authorities have not been made sufficiently aware of these facts, then they should have been. If they were aware of them and did not act, then questions need to be asked. If financial imperatives rather than will are at the heart of the matter, then the questions need to be directed at the HEA and the Minister.
This really is a matter of national importance. - Yours, etc.,
Prof. WILLIAM GILLIES, FRSE, FRHistS, FSAS, Braid Avenue, Edinburgh EH10 6ED.