§ Mr. JOHN O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin possesses, in addition to some thirty or forty Irish vellums, a unique collection of considerably over 1,000 paper manuscripts in the modern Irish language, which are invaluable for the literary and social history of modern Ireland; that the only thing in the nature of a catalogue available to students of these manuscripts is a fifty-year-old manuscript catalogue of less than half of the entire collection; that, although the Royal Irish Academy has issued some hundreds of volumes of publications, it has never published or printed a catalogue of a single line of these valuable modern manuscripts; and whether, seeing the importance of these manuscripts as materials for the study of Irish history, he will take steps to impress upon the Academy the necessity of providing students of its manuscripts with all reasonable facilities for utilising them as well as of beginning forthwith the publication of a catalogue of its manuscripts, such as the British Museum and other libraries have already published?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy informs me that the existing manuscript catalogue has been completely revised up-to-date, and there is now no Irish manuscript in the Academy's collection which is not included in the catalogue. This catalogue is available whenever required by students. The Academy would gladly see this manuscript catalogue printed if funds for the purpose were available.