DHO: Goodbye and thanks

Over the past five years, the Digital Humanities Observatory has been a crucial component of the Humanities Serving Irish Society initiative funded under PRTLI 4. The DHO has carried out an extensive programme of lectures, workshops, summer schools, symposia and public lectures. These have been eagerly received and we have hopefully contributed to raising the level of digital humanities scholarship amongst Irish scholars, enhancing skills and reputations not just in Ireland, but also in Europe and around the world. We have developed and deployed creative, and innovative digital platforms such as DHO:Discovery and DHO:DRAPIer that have embraced the needs of HSIS scholars and established a strong and respected Irish position in the Digital Humanities leading to Irish participation in exciting new European initiatives such as DARIAH. In an effort to explore the possibilities of Digital Humanities online, and in collaboration with our HSIS partners, we have also built many cutting-edge digital editions and catalogues such as Saint Patrick's Confessio Hyperstack, the Doegen Records Web Archive and Reading East.

In the immediate term the assets of the DHO will be maintained directly by the RIA. Please use the contact info@ria.ie should you need to be in touch with the those maintaining the DHO assets.

Strong Irish engagement and participation in European projects is one of the many testaments to the success of the DHO and of the HSIS consortium. In the future, the newly formed Irish Humanities Alliance will be fulfilling a unified role of humanities advocacy on behalf of Irish higher education institutions. The investment in HSIS and the DHO has put Irish humanities scholars in a solid position to continue to grow this valuable community and allow it to flourish in the future.

Best regards,

Shawn Day and Niall O'Leary