RIOBAG SHONAIS ‘the straggling long hair growing on a woman’s chin’

Catriona Black’s ‘Sly Cooking: 42 Irresistible Gaelic Words’ looks at words collected in Eriskay in the 1890s which have fallen out of use and suggests that they might be usefully brought back.

Launched on 28 October and available to order now through Acair Books.

http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/collection-of-lost-gaelic-words-to-be-revived-1-4586363/amp

Representatives of the eDIL Project will be joining forces with members of the Gersum Project at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas later this month. The event will include an interactive session with the audience and is entitled ‘True Relatives and False Friends: Understanding Old Words and Their Meanings’.

The date is 25th October, the time is 5-6 pm, and the venue is the Faculty of English, 9 West Road, Cambridge. Please come along, if you’re in the vicinity for what is shaping up to be a fun and informative evening.

https://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk

Foclóir Stairiúil na Gaeilge (the Historical Dictionary of Irish, from 1600 onwards), based at the Royal Irish Academy, is currently advertising a fixed-term position as a Project Assistant. Closing date for applications is 3rd October.

https://www.ria.ie/news/focloir-stairiuil-na-gaeilge-vacancies/cuntoir-tionscadail-focloir-stairiuil-na-gaeilge

'Ulidia 4: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales' has just been published by Four Courts Press. The volume is co-edited by Gregory Toner (PI of the eDIL Project) and includes papers by Prof. Toner ('A Tale of Two Wives: Sense and Senselessness in Serglige Con Culainn) and by eDIL's Sharon Arbuthnot (Gesture and Verbal Pronouncement in Some Ulster Cycle Tales).

Hardback copies can be ordered through the link below:

http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2017/ulidia-4/contents

Maxwell Henry Close is someone whose sponsorship of the Dictionary we were not aware of until today.

Born in Dublin in 1822, Close was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and later became a Church of Ireland clergyman. He made a significant contribution to the study of geology, but was also a founder member of the Gaelic Union and the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language.

In his will Close left £1000 to the Royal Irish Academy to be used for the publication of what became the Dictionary of the Irish Language.

He died on this day (12 September) 1903.

Thanks to ainm.ie for drawing our attention to this extraordinary donation which seems to have gone unacknowledged for far too long.

Tomorrow (Friday, 1st September), at 3.30pm, Prof. Máire Ní Mhaonaigh will be delivering a workshop on eDIL at the XVI International Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. If you are at the conference, please come along; if you know someone there, please spread the word!

https://uit.no/om/enhet/aktuelt/arrangement/sub?p_document_id=522075&sub_id=523796&p_dimension_id=

Recently we 'mapped' followers of the @eDIL_Dictionary Twitter account. Apparently, about 44% of our followers are based in Ireland, 22% in the UK and 18% in the USA. No real surprises there, but it is fascinating to see the other places where at least a few people have an interest in early Irish....

On Thursday, 6th July, we'll be participating in the session 'Lexicography and Loanwords in Britain and Ireland I' at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. The session kicks off at 11.15am in Little Woodhouse Room, University House, and we'll be joined by representatives from the Gersum Project (University of Cambridge) and the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (Aberystwyth University) in what we hope will be an entertaining and informative morning. Please come along if you are in the vicinity!

Very much looking forward to our pre-conference event in Edinburgh tomorrow. As part of the run-up to 'Celtic Knot: Wikipedia Language Conference', Sharon Arbuthnot will be speaking on 'The eDIL Project and Online Engagement' at the Main Library from 2pm onwards. Tickets have all gone, but there is a full day of talks on 'innovative approaches to open education, open knowledge and open data' on Thursday, 6th July. Further details:

https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2017