- Joseph Watson (academic)
Joseph Watson (Seosamh) is Professor of
Modern Irish atUniversity College Dublin , a Celtic Faculty chair which dates from the foundation of the National University.Professor Watson was head boy at RBAI ('Inst') during 1961-1962 from where he won an open scholarship in Classics to King's College,
Cambridge . He carried out postgraduate work thereafter inCeltic languages atEdinburgh University and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and, following a period in theIrish Civil Service , was appointed to the Dept of Modern Irish at UCD in 1970.As Seosamh Watson, he is familiar to students and scholars of Irish language and literature on account of numerous academic, as well as more popular, books and articles. He has made a special linguistic study of the Scottish Highlanders' culture in
Nova Scotia and is particularly interested in connections betweenUlster and GaelicScotland . He is a founding member of the International Society for Dialectology and Geolinguistics, and joint editor of the multi-volume UNESCO Atlas Linguarum Europae, published in theUniversity of Florence , and is a laison with theNational Spiritual Assembly of Ireland for theAssociation for the Baha'i Studies for English Speaking Europe [ [http://bahai-library.com/resources/scholarship.report2.html Association for Baha'i Studies Report on Scholarship, 1997] ] Watson has presented an Irish Gaelic translation ofThe Hidden Words byBahá'u'lláh . [ [http://bahai-faith.manvell.org.uk/gaelic/briathran_falaichte/treorachadh.htm Irish Gaelic translation of "The Hidden Words" by Bahá'u'lláh] ]Prominent members of Ireland's Bahá'í religious community, he and his wife, Dr Vivien Hick of the
National Museum of Ireland , have six children. They helped set up the Oideas Gael adult learning institution inGlencolmcille ,County Donegal . Programmes there are attended now by over 1,000 participants annually. [ [http://www.ucd.ie/press/newpre17.htm Instonian to be UCD's Professor of Irish] , UCD Press Releases]He has been dean since 1995 of UCD's Celtic Studies Faculty.
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