Electronic Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature 1942–71

Compiled by Rolf Baumgarten

Edited by Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh

© School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2004

ISBN 1 85500 189 6

Introduction

Preface to BILL (1986)

The function of this bibliography is twofold. In the first place, the detailed classification system used provides a survey of material published in each specific subject area, entries being duplicated where necessary. Secondly, indexes of words and proper names, first lines of verse, sources, and authors, facilitate the identification of particular items.

This bibliography could not have been completed without assistance from many quarters. I must thank, particularly, those scholars who supplied me with lists of their publications. I am also indebted to the staffs of various learned institutions and libraries in Ireland, Britain, and on the Continent. I had helpful discussions with Pádraig de Brún, the late David Greene, and Brian Ó Cuív, at various stages of the work. Miss Cathleen Sheppard helped materially in its preparation.

Rolf Baumgarten

Introduction to E-BILL

The Electronic Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature 1942–71 (= E-BILL) is an electronic edition of Rolf Baumgarten's Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature 1942–71 (= BILL), which was published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 1986. It was decided to digitize BILL in order to make its contents more widely available and also to facilitate searching its detailed and numerous entries. The preparation of an electronic edition, here referred to as E-BILL, also had the advantage of easily generating a much-needed author-short-title index of BILL, which is to be published separately in book form. E-BILL is being made available in CD format and also on the world-wide web (bill.celt.dias.ie/vol3). The latter has two extra features not available in the former due to technical limitations: these are the `reading list' feature and the facility to search by entry number, both of which are discussed below.

The contents of BILL have been reproduced as closely and as accurately as possible although some minor editorial alterations have been necessary in order to suit the needs of the electronic version. In BILL repetition of certain items of information is avoided by the use of long dashes, `id.', `ibid.', usually with reference to a preceding entry. Such abbreviations have been expanded in most cases thereby ensuring that each entry contains all relevant information pertaining to it, and can display independently out of its original numerical context, e.g. in a list of an author's publications. This includes reviews which display as `Rev. of [ . . .]', where [. . .] indicates the title (or short title) of the publication under review, full details of which can be found by clicking the link { } which follows; note also that reviewers' names are always followed by (rev.).

No attempt has been made to check the accuracy of individual references in BILL although numerous minor errors, inaccuracies and inconsistencies have been silently emended, including typos, incorrect numerical references in the indexes, and errors in the numbering of entries in cases where the overall sequence of numbers would not have been affected by emendation. Alterations to incorrect numbers which would affect subsequent entry numbers have not been made, e.g. 7768 (which should read 7767) and 8068 (which should read 8059) have been allowed to stand; this means that no entries are associated with the numbers 7767, 8059–67. Entries with letter extensions (e.g. 5658a–f) have also been retained, as emendations in such cases would alter subsequent entry numbers. Major emendations have been noted in the text: see, for instance, entry number 4769, where the reference details are incorrect in BILL. New information has usually been added in square brackets. References in the indexes to 4481a (s.v. Aided Diarmada; Aed Baclám; Betha Máedóc Ferna; Forbuis Droma Damhghaire) and 2420a (s.v. Ó hUidhrín, Giolla na Naomh) have been deleted as these entries do not appear in the main text of BILL. A number of abbreviations have been added to the list of abbreviations.

New cross-references have been added: these consist of entry numbers enclosed by set brackets { }, which also serve as hyperlinks.

The display and quality of special symbols will depend on the web browser used to access E-BILL. For instance, the punctum delens over f and s will in many browsers display as f. and s. respectively.

E-BILL can be searched by (Sub)Classifications, Authors, Author / Textual Sources, First Lines of Verse, Words / Proper Names, Manuscript Sources and, in the web version, by entry number (or number range limited to 100 records). The CD version cannot be searched by entry number due to technical limitations. Note that the third index in BILL ('Sources') has been split in two and renamed as Author / Textual Sources and Manuscript Sources. For technical reasons, subheadings not assigned classification labels in BILL have been assigned new labels, which end in one of the following extensions: .01, .02, .03, .04, .05, .06, .07, .08, .09. Abbreviations can also be searched and can be accessed by clicking the link abbreviations. It is important to note that the ordering of items in the indexes Authors, Author / Textual Sources, First Lines of Verse, Words / Proper Names is the same as that of BILL. However, the ordering of the Manuscript Sources index is different: see Principles of Ordering in indexes.

The results of a query automatically list in numerical order according to entry number ('ID'). However, all lists can also be ordered according to authors' names or titles of publications. Any number of entries can be added to a reading list by clicking Reading List. Individual items can be deleted from a reading list by clicking remove from reading list under the relevant entry. Note that the reading list feature is available only in the web version of E-BILL.

No attempt has been made to eliminate the reduplication and repetition of individual entries throughout the new database. Consequently, in lists of individual authors' publications multiple references to the same publication occur frequently. For instance, Brian Ó Cuív's `Literary creation and Irish historical tradition' and Alan Bruford's Gaelic folk-tales and mediaeval romances both occur six times each in the database; Nora K. Chadwick's `Geilt' occurs nine times. Multiple references have been retained for a number of reasons. The different contexts in which a publication occurs in the database can be instructive to researchers in informing them of the content of the publication in question. The information given for an individual publication can vary from one citation to another: compare, for instance, entry 2282 with 6506, and 3907 with 5519 and 8194. Similarly, the reviews listed of some publications may vary from citation to citation: compare, for instance, entries 1240–42 and 3535–37.

For assistance with proof-reading I am grateful to my colleagues Liam Breatnach, Clare Downham, Margo Griffin-Wilson, Fergus Kelly, Malachy McKenna, Róisín McLaughlin, Siobhán Ní Laoire, Aoibheann Nic Dhonnchadha, Brian Ó Curnáin, Pádraig Ó Macháin, Máirtín Ó Murchú, Michelle O Riordan. I am very grateful to Áine Mhic Aodhagáin for retyping the whole book and to Colin Dunne for designing the CD cover and disk label. Most of all I am grateful to Gavin McCullagh without whose expertise this electronic edition would not have come to fruition.

In a work of this nature some minor errors will inevitably remain: users of this bibliographical database are invited to communicate corrections to the Bibliographer, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 10 Burlington Road, Dublin 4 or, alternatively, by e-mail to

Principles of Ordering in Indexes

In the indexes Authors / Textual Sources, First Lines of Verse, Words / Proper Names, the lemmata are left in their original forms, whether early or late, but they are arranged according to certain notional procedures based on the spelling of Early Modern Irish. Thus, c, t, p, of Early Irish, will be found alphabetized as g, d, b, where they represent voiced plosive consonants. Initial changes are disregarded, apart from n after the preposition before vowels, and h in surnames. Within words, h (except in ch, th, ph) and the glides a and o are likewise ignored. On the other hand, the glide i is counted even when not written. Consonants are treated as double or single according to the conventions of Early Modern Irish. In the same way, the diphthongs written oe, oí, ae, aí, are alphabetized as ao(i). The combinations sg, sd, sb, are treated as if written sc, st, sp. Other instances of ordering based on phonological or semantic, rather than orthographic consideration are either covered by cross-references, or are immediately obvious, such as the treatment of variously spelt unaccented vowels, or the grouping together of elements such as Loch and Lough, or similarly spelt surnames, e.g. Ó Súilleabháin and O'Sullivan.

In the indexes of Words and Proper Names, and Author / Textual Sources, the definite article at the beginning of lemmata is disregarded.

In the index of First Lines of Verse, while unstressed words, such as is (copula or conjunction), de (preposition), do (verbal particle), mo, do, to (pronouns), are included in the alphabetization, variant spellings or elided forms thereof are disregarded; the vocative particle a, even when not written, is included in the alphabetization.

In the index of Author / Textual Sources, groups of comparable entries, such as those beginning with Life / Lives, are sub-classified according to key-elements (in this case, personal names), even where the latter are preceded by other words. The surname prefixes Ua and Ó are both treated as Ó, and female surnames are entered under their masculine forms. De of surnames and of titles of works is treated in the same way as the unstressed words referred to above in relation to the index First Lines of Verse.

In the index of Manuscript Sources, manuscripts in Ireland and Britain are listed according to the name of the libraries in which they are held; manuscripts held in other locations are listed by country.

Some names of institutions and some titles of series and miscellaneous volumes are included with authors in the index of Authors. In contrast to the other indexes, the arrangement here is strictly according to spelling, except that Ua and Ó, female surnames, and items beginning with the article, are treated as in the index of Author / Textual Sources.

Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh

Technical Aspects of this Edition

This information is prepared, stored and distributed in adherence with best practices: strict adherence to unpatented Open Standards (HTML V3, LaTeX, Unicode) for greatest accessibility; a strongly normalized SQL database design for highly flexible access; modular software architecture, to avoid reliance on one vendor; use of free, open source software which discourages lock-in (Linux, MySQL, Apache, Perl, PHP, WVTools). Many thanks are due to the Free Software Community and in particular to the authors, developers and testers of Linux, MySQL, The Apache Web Server, Perl, PHP and the WVTools. System requirements include any recent, standards compliant, Web Browser with Unicode and Frames support (e.g. Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, etc.), and also fonts to display IPA, Greek and Western European alphabets.

Gavin McCullagh