New Ian Paisley biography goes live on free research site

Previously behind the paywall, the Royal Irish Academy’s new Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) website (www.dib.ie) contains almost 11,000 life stories of significant figures dating back to St Patrick and Brian Boru.

As well as Dr Paisley, new St Patrick’s Day additions include former taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald and institutional abuse campaigner Christine Buckley.

The directory tells the island’s life story, north and south, through the biographies of prominent men and women born in Ireland and the noteworthy Irish careers of those born outside Ireland.

You can read about the families of William Butler Yeats, James Joyce and Arthur Guinness. 

Music features strongly too, with works on George F Handel, Phil Lynott and Rory Gallagher.

The directory includes a number of key figures who had a major impact on Ireland without being born on the island.

Those biographies include Oliver Cromwell and Winston Churchill, Arthur Balfour and Sir Robert Peel, and the site is fully searchable by either name, place, period of time or keyword.

Biographies range in length from 200 to 15,000 words, covering diverse figures across a broad range of human activity from scientists to sportspeople and from suffragists to soldiers, however, the living are not included.

The DIB was first published in nine volumes in 2009 by Cambridge University Press, along with a paywall digital version hosted and maintained by the publisher.

A further two volumes followed in 2018, as well as several hundred new entries being added online.

The switch to the open access model means all of the directory entries can now be accessed from anywhere in the world.

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