Deep History, Deepening Collaborations

58 Dictionary of Irish Biography - Royal Irish Academy ‘… the RIA’s Dictionary of Irish Biography is an epoch-making event in the history of Irish scholarship. It changes the state of knowledge in the twenty-first century as decidedly as the Ordnance Survey did in the nineteenth …’ – Seamus Heaney, 2009 The Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) is Ireland’s national biographical dictionary. One of the flagship research programmes based at the Royal Irish Academy , the DIB tells the island’s life story through the biographies of men and women born in Ireland, north and south, who came to prominence either at home or overseas, and the noteworthy Irish careers of those born outside Ireland. The DIB is an indispensable work of reference for scholars, students, journalists, broadcasters, genealogists, diplomats and the general reader interested in Ireland’s past. The DIB reached an important milestone on St Patrick’s Day 2021, when its online edition (previously hosted by Cambridge University Press as a subscription service) became freely available to all users. A broad range of individuals, from scientists to sportspeople, suffragists to soldiers are included in the online edition which now features nearly 11,000 lives and continues to grow. New entries are published twice annually, featuring important figures who have died in recent times and ‘missing persons’ — previously overlooked figures deserving fresh interest. The DIB is also available in print , with eleven volumes published by Cambridge University Press to date. It has also published several themed books which curate DIB entries to give a deeper insight into the lives of the men and women involved in major Irish historical events, movements and migrations. The DIB is funded by the Higher Education Authority , with additional funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Dublin City Libraries . The project is overseen by an advisory board, and its editorial team currently consists of Dr Eoin Kinsella (Managing Editor), Terry Clavin, Liz Evers, Dr Niav Gallagher, Dr Patrick Maume and Turlough O’Riordan. Towards an Infrastructure for Linked Open National Biographical Data The transition to an open access model for its online edition has transformed public awareness of, and access to, the DIB. Now, this is providing exciting opportunities to collaborate with new digital humanities ventures such as the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. This collaborative research has greatly enriched the Knowledge Graph for Irish History, a powerful resource for mapping out connections and relationships between individuals and significant events, places, or institutions from Ireland’s past. Already, over 10,000 individual DIB biographies have been linked to a huge range of historical records, bringing them to life and enriching our understanding of the world they lived in. The transformative power of Linked Open Data lies in how it can draw together and interlink information from diverse datasets — for instance individuals’ names, life-events, careers, occupations, gender, place of birth and death. The Knowledge Graph will interlink these isolated pieces of information and integrate them into the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, allowing researchers to uncover a wealth of historical knowledge.