Robert MacAdam, and Language Revival and Reconciliation in Belfast in the 19th Century

Performance Area | FREE

Robert Shipboy MacAdam (1808-95) made a unique and important contribution to the cultural life of Belfast. He was a major commissioner and collector of Irish manuscripts, and The Linen Hall houses his Comparative Lexicon of the Irish Language.

Join Professor Míchéal Ó Mainnín for a talk that will explore MacAdam’s views on the revival of the Irish language and its role in reconciliation, issues that continue to be of relevance to this day.

Professor Míchéal Ó Mainnín
Professor Míchéal Ó Mainnín is based in the School of Arts, English and Languages at QUB. His research interests are in linguistics; Irish and Scottish Gaelic literary texts; and Irish and Scottish identity and relations in the medieval and modern periods. He is Director of the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project and has contributed two volumes to the Place-Names of Northern Ireland series (one in collaboration with Gregory Toner). He is also a co-investigator on the OS200 project which is engaged in digitizing and remapping Ireland’s Ordnance Survey heritage. He is currently completing a book on the toponymy of the plain of Macha, centred on the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland at Armagh and Ulster’s ancient capital at Navan Fort. He is editor of the academic journal Léann (in collaboration with colleagues in the Universities of Galway and Limerick).