Nollaig Ó Muraíle facts for kids
Nollaig Ó Muraíle is an Irish scholar known for his important work on old Irish texts. He published a famous version of Leabhar na nGenealach (which means 'The Book of Genealogies') in 2004. This book is a huge collection of Irish family histories. In 2009, he became a member of the Royal Irish Academy, a group that honors top scholars in Ireland.
About Nollaig Ó Muraíle
Nollaig Ó Muraíle was born in Knock, County Mayo, a place in Ireland. He went to National University of Ireland, Maynooth for his studies. There, he worked towards his PhD degree, which is a high level of education.
He worked for the Ordnance Survey of Ireland from 1972 to 1993. His job was to research and record Irish placenames. Later, he taught Irish and Celtic Studies at Queen's University Belfast until 2004. From 2005 to 2014, he was a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Irish at National University of Ireland, Galway. He is married to Tresa Ní Chianáin and they have two children, Róisín and Pádraic. Today, he lives in Dublin.
His Big Project: The Great Book of Irish Genealogies
In 1971, Nollaig Ó Muraíle started working on a very old and important book called Leabhar na nGenealach. This book was written by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh a long time ago. It's like a giant family tree for many Irish families. His professor, Pádraig Ó Fiannachta, helped guide his work.
When he joined the Ordnance Survey in 1972, he had already translated over a hundred pages of the book. Getting access to the original handwritten book was hard. But finally, in 1979, he began copying the original text. He finished this huge task in 1981. It took him 88 visits to the library!
He started typing his copy of the book in 1982 and finished in 1984. By 1988, he also managed to copy another part of the book called the Cumire. In 1991, he finished his PhD paper, which was all about Mac Fhirbhisigh and his work. This paper was very long, with over 1,000 pages.
In 1998, a man named Éamonn de Búrca offered to publish Nollaig Ó Muraíle's work. De Búrca wanted the book to have both the original Irish text and an English translation. Nollaig Ó Muraíle had only planned to publish the Irish text. But de Búrca's idea won.
The book was published in 2004 and was called The Great Book of Irish Genealogies. It came in five large volumes and had 3,100 pages! This huge work is Nollaig Ó Muraíle's most important gift to Irish history and scholarship.
