The Correspondence of Myles Dillon 1922-1925

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This book collects the letters of Myles Dillon home to his father John, and the letters of his father (and other correspondents, such as Osborn Bergin, Gerard Murphy and Douglas Hyde) to him, during the period of Myles' study in Germany, in Berlin, Bonn and Heidelberg, while on a travelling scholarship from University College, Dublin from October 1922 to June 1925. Myles Dillon, who later became Senior Professor in the Celtic section of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, studied mainly Old Irish in Germany, but also Sanskrit and Indo-European philology, under eminent authorities in these fields, such as Thurneysen, Pokorny, Heinrich Zimmer Jr and Ferdinand Sommer.

The letters, however, are of considerable interest far beyond the subjects of Celtic Studies and German university life. Myles Dillon was an astute observer of political, social and cultural developments in Germany, a country which in the early 1920s experienced social and economic hardship. His father, a major figure in Irish politics since the days of Parnell and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party before its demise in the elections of 1919, was an equally well-informed critic; he comments acidly on the progress of the new Irish Free State during this time of Civil War and post-war reconstruction. The book also contains a selection of Myles Dillon's articles on Germany which appeared in Irish periodicals of the time.

John Dillon is Professor of Classics, Trinity College Dublin. Joachim Fischer is lecturer in German, University of Limerick.