Betha Colaim Chille - Life of Columcille #247129

Of the following Life of Columcille, written by Manus O'Donnell in 1532, the first 157 sections were edited and translated by the late Richard Henebry, and sections 157 to 232, by A. O'Kelleher, in the Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie III-V, IX, and X, during the years 1901 to 1914.<br><br>The work was thus progressing with exceeding slowness when, in 1916, it received an unexpected impetus. In June of that) year the attention of the Irish Fellowship Club of Chicago was drawn by President James of the University of Illinois to the importance of encouraging Irish studies in American universities, and by one of the present editors to the great number of Irish manuscripts still inedited. The Hon. John P. McGoorty, who presided at the meeting, invited the cooperation of persons interested in Irish studies, both within and outside the Irish Fellowship Club, to act upon these suggestions. A society was organized under the name of the "Irish Foundation of Chicago", to membership in which all persons interested in Irish studies are eligible. The aim of the Foundation is to foster the publication of Irish texts in America by offering academic stipends to train scholars in the Irish language and to enable scholars already trained to devote themselves to the work of editing.<br><br>The first fellowship was shortly afterward established. The Foundation guaranteed to the University of Illinois a stipend of twelve hundred dollars to enable a Research Fellow in Gaelic to give his entire time to the editing of Irish manuscripts. Rev. A. O'Kelleher, of the parish of SS. Peter and Paul at Great Crosby, and Lecturer in the University of Liverpool, was offered the appointment in November, 1916. He came to Illinois at once and has since that time devoted himself exclusively to the work of editing. Under the generous auspices of the Graduate School of the University of Illinois it has been possible to publish this Life of Columcille after somewhat less than two years of his tenure of the fellowship.