Page:An Irish-English dictionary, being a thesaurus of words, phrases and idioms of the modern Irish language, with explanations in English.djvu/17

Rh (Belfast), M. O'Brien (Ballyvourney), D. D. Murphy (Valentia), T. Hayes, P. O'Daly. Dr. J. P. Henry also took a great interest in the work all through its progress, and furnished useful lists of local words.

To Miss Eleanor Hull, Hon. Sec. of the Irish Texts Society, who took a keen personal interest in the work from the beginning, I am indebted for much sympathetic encouragement and many useful suggestions.

I wish to record my appreciation of the kindness I received from Mr. J. J. MacSweeney and assistants of the Royal Irish Academy, Mr. Lyster and assistants of the National Library of Ireland, Mr. De Burgh, Mr. Hall and assistants of Trinity College Library. The labour of seeing the work through the press was considerably lightened by the intelligence and efficiency displayed by the staff of Messrs. Sealy, Bryers and Walker.

Although this work was laid on my shoulders quite unexpectedly, it is curious to recall that the production of an Irish Dictionary was one of the dreams of my boyhood. If the realisation of that dream be not as splendid as the original conception, it is some compensation to reflect that the work, in spite of many imperfections, will be useful to thousands of students, and will help on the work of cultivating the rich and vigorous, but sadly neglected, language of the Gael.