Life
1788-1812, b. Dublin, solicitor; learned Irish under pseud O’Hara; issued Grammar of the Irish Language, 1808, under pseud. ‘Edmond O’Connell’. Published 1st Vol. of a trans. of Keating’s Foras Feasa, 1811; began compiling an Irish dictionary. RR DIB OCIL
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Commentary
William J. Maguire, Irish Literary Figures (1945), calls him the son of Dublin tradesman; Irish scholar, and founder of Gaelic Society; published one vol. of a trans. of Keating’s History of Ireland with the Irish text on collateral pages and memoir of the author; acknowledged by Edward Reilly in the pref. to his Irish Dictionary (1821); In Transactions of the RIA, Vol. 15, 1882, ‘Sect. on Polite Literature’, pp.3-88, sub tit. ‘Remarks on the Irish Language, with a review of its Grammar, Glossaries, Vocabularies, Dictionaries ... ‘, are remarks on Haliday by James Scurry under the heading Uraicecht Na Gaedhilge, a Grammar of the Irish Language (1808), octavo, pseud. “EOC” but actually by William Haliday. By this account, Haliday’s preface dedicates his Grammar to the Highland Societies of Edinburgh and London, and earnestly entreats Irish and Scotch to ‘unite their endeavours in reviving Gaelic as their common language ... concludes by an address, in the words of Hugh McCurtin, to the generous natives of England to give us their confidence and affection. His short introduction does equal honour to the head and heart of the writer.’ The Grammar consists of 1) Pronunciation and Orthography, 2)parts of Speech, 3) Syntax (following McCurtin in dividing the subject into Concord and Government, 4) Prosody, in the manner of O’Molloy, Lluyd [sic] and Vallancey, 5) Contractions and Ogham, followed by a ‘vocabulary of the Gaelic Language.’ [Quotes from Scurry]. (Maguire, op. cit., p.86-88.)
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Notes
Listed as William Halliday [sic] in Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, p.289.
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