Letters of Kuno Meyer to Douglas Hyde, 1896–1919

Abstract

No single individual did more to ‘make Irish respectable’ in the decades before and after 1900 than the great German scholar Kuno Meyer. But while Meyer’s tireless activities as an editor and translator of Irish texts and as a populariser of ancient Irish literature has long been documented, less is known about his activities ‘behind the scenes’. A newly discovered cache of letters and postcards that Meyer sent to Douglas Hyde during the years 1898–1919 now reveals the full extent of that background activity and the extraordinary level of encouragement and support that he gave to the movement to establish a ‘native school’ of Irish scholars, culminating in the establishment (in 1903) of the School of Irish Learning in Dublin.