President Michael D. Higgins launched facsimile reproduction of Lia Fáil Irishleabhar Gaeilge Ollscoil na hÉireann, edited by Douglas Hyde...Thursday, 21 March 2013 - National University of Ireland, .49 Merrion Square at 5.30pm..President Michael D. Higgins today launched a facsimile reproduction of Lia Fáil Irishleabhar Gaeilge Ollscoil na hÉireann. This is a journal of modern Irish studies edited by Douglas Hyde when Professor of Irish in UCD and originally published by the NUI..The Chancellor of NUI, Dr Maurice Manning welcomed the President. Replying to the President, Professor Liam Mac Mathúna, editor of the new edition of Lia Fáil, remarked that: ?We are very honoured this evening that President Michael D. Higgins has joined us in recognising the outstanding contribution which Douglas Hyde made to Irish life over a period of more than sixty years, as he laboured tirelessly as a pioneering revivalist, as a dedicated scholar and as an active participant in public affairs?..Professor Mac Mathúna also noted that ?the care taken by the National University of Ireland with Lia Fáil, and the recognition accorded by President Michael D. Higgins to its editor and his predecessor, Dr Douglas Hyde, may be taken as being indicative of an ongoing national commitment to Irish language scholarship, which will continue to have its central forum in the pages of Éigse: A Journal of Irish Studies, the successor to Lia Fáil?. The latest edition of Éigse, edited by Professor Mac Mathúna will be published shortly..Note.Hyde was appointed first Professor of Modern Irish in UCD in 1909. In 1922 the Senate of the National University of Ireland accepted a recommendation from the Professors of Irish that the Dr. Adam Boyd Simpson bequest should be used to fund 'a journal of Irish research'. Hyde (Dubhglas de h-Íde, An Craoibhín) was appointed editor. The result was Lia Fáil, an Irish language journal. Four volumes were published between 1925 and 1932, the year of Hyde's retirement from U