Madam, - Belinda McKeon (The Irish Times, June 6th) has properly called your readers' attention to the need for a strong scholarly base in this country for the increasingly international discipline of Irish Studies. Her stress on the medieval inheritance, and the need to support scholarly activity in this area in Irish universities, is entirely welcome.
Readers of The Irish Times will be aware of the severe financial difficulties experienced by the universities at present. Government spending cuts endanger the whole scholarly community and its core activities of teaching and research.
There is, nevertheless, in Trinity College and elsewhere, much flourishing teaching and research in medieval Irish studies. In this university alone, taught masters' degrees in Medieval History and Early Irish attract students who go on to research degrees.
In the departments of Irish and Medieval History, in addition to the excellent work of Profs Terence Barry, Liam Breatnach, Damian McManus and Katharine Simms, and Drs Seán Duffy and Jurgen Uhlich, there are funded research projects - in particular the Irish Scottish Academic Initiative's "Bardic Poetry" project, which aims to make all bardic poetry, published and unpublished, available in computer-readable form, and the Galloglass Project, which studies the migration of Scottish mercenaries to medieval Ireland.
The filling of the chair of Old Irish (not yet vacant) is planned.
Medieval Irish studies may be under siege, but this college and the arts faculties are committed to their defence. - Yours etc.,
HOWARD SMITH, Dean, Faculty of Arts (Humanities),
EILÉAN NÍ CHUILLEANÁIN, Dean, Faculty of Arts (Letters), Trinity College, Dublin 2.