Digital support for historical periods of Irish

The historical periods of the Irish language can be generally classified as follows: Old Irish (c.600–900), Middle Irish (c.900–1200), Early Modern Irish (c.1200–1650) and Modern Irish (c.1650– present). The last ten to fifteen years have seen the rise in the number and variety of digital resources supporting the study of historical Irish texts, e.g. CELT [1] and RIA Online Archive [2]. In this paper, we will provide an inventory of the resources available. Special attention will be paid to two lexicographical projects: the electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language [3] and Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge [4]. The electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL), covering the period 600–1650, is available online and was most recently revised in 2013. Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge (FNG), a project of the Royal Irish Academy, aims at producing a historical dictionary of Irish covering the period 1600–2000. Currently texts for the period 1600 to 1926 are being lemmatized. In this paper we will also report on a study currently being undertaken which looks at the possibilities of interconnecting eDIL and FNG, focussing initially on verbs. Challenges from a computational point of view, as well as benefits for historical textual and linguistic research, will be discussed. [1] www.ucc.ie/celt/ [2] http://research.dho.ie/fng/index.php [3] http://edil.qub.ac.uk/about.php [4] www.ria.ie/research/focloir-na-nua-ghaeilge.aspx