The Royal Irish Academy/Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann champions research. We identify and recognise Ireland’s world class researchers. We support scholarship and promote awareness of how science and the humanities enrich our lives and benefit society. We believe that good research needs to be promoted, sustained and communicated. The Academy is run by a Council of its members. Membership is by election and considered the highest Academic honour in Ireland.
Read more about the RIAThe Dictionary of Irish Biography is Ireland’s national biographical dictionary. Devised, researched, written and edited under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy, its online edition covers nearly 11,000 lives.
Read more about Dictionary of Irish Biography
Read featured biographies and learn about the latest initiatives from the Dictionary of Irish Biography
To mark the start of the 2019 Dublin Horse Show and an exhibition celebrating 100 years of women showjumpers at the RDS, we are publishing the DIB entry on Iris Kellett, one of Ireland’s most celebrated, and decorated, equestrians.
Dungannon born Margaret Noble is better known in India as Sister Nivedita, educator and political activist. Read the DIB entry for her by Maurice Hayes.
Read about the life of Elizabeth Jackson, the mother of America's seventh president, Andrew Jackson, who hailed from Co. Antrim, by Dr Linde Lunney.
To mark Pride 2019 we are publishing our recent entry on celebrated musician and activist Philip Chevron (1957–2013), writer of the heartfelt 'Under Clery's clock' about his experience as a gay man in 1980s Dublin.
To mark Pride 2019 the DIB is publishing its entries on celebrated diarist Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831) and her life partner Lady Eleanor Butler (c.1739–1829), known as the ‘Ladies of Llangollen’.
This week we added thirty-nine new lives to the DIB online. One of the more intriguing is Peter Gulston, a notorious thief once cursed by Sophia Loren. Read our entry by Niav Gallagher below.
Please write to the Managing Editor, Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, or email dib@ria.ie