Woman takes over as head of Royal Irish Academy

The Royal Irish Academy has appointed a woman as chief executive for only the second time in its 228-year history. Laura Mahoney was acting chief executive from November 2010 and succeeds Patrick Buckley, who died last year.

Ms Mahoney (39) was born in Leicester and has a degree in history from the University of Sussex. She came to Ireland in 1996 to pursue a master’s degree at University College Dublin. She joined the academy in 1999 and led a successful application for State funding to establish the Digital Repository of Ireland. She has managed numerous grant programmes, including those for Science Foundation Ireland and Atlantic Philanthropies. The academy is Ireland’s academy for scholarship in the sciences, humanities and social sciences.