New Member of Royal Irish Academy from NUI Galway

New Member of Royal Irish Academy from NUI Galway Today (4pm, 30 th May) Daniel Carey was admitted as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy continuing a 229 year Academy tradition of recognising outstanding achievement in the world of learning. Daniel Carey is Professor of English at NUI Galway. Educated at McGill, TCD, and Oxford, he has published Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson: Contesting Diversity in the Enlightenment and Beyond (2006), and six edited collections on intellectual history, travel and colonialism. He is general editor of Richard Hakluytäó»s Principal Navigations (1598-1600), 14 volumes (OUP, in progress), the first critical edition of the landmark collection of English travel. Rose Anne Kenny who graduated from NUIG with MB, BCh, BAO 1977, MD 1986 was also admitted. She is now Professor of medical gerontology at Trinity College Dublin where she established the Trinity Ageing Research Centre and the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing. She leads a large multidisciplinary group investigating the ageing process and common age related disorders. The research informs health and social policy in Ireland. She is internationally recognised for her expertise on syncope and neuro cardiovascular function. At the ceremony admitting the new members, Professor Mary E. Daly, President of the Royal Irish Academy said: äóÖThere is a major onus on researchers to ensure that Europe remains a world leader in the twentieth first century. But the emphasis on research that yields a return, in the form of patents, company formation or new drugs, tends to deny researchers the necessary breathing-space, the time to reflect, to allow for the wrong turns, the brilliant idea that collapses, or the unexpected lines of inquiry that might ultimately deliver something different to the original proposal, but something that is much more exciting. When the Royal Irish Academy elects members, it does so, on the basis of a candidateäó»s publications and research record äóń the sole criterion is quality. This research may help in the treatment of disease, or it may enhance our understanding of a past civilisation. Members of the Academy should not shirk from their responsibility to tell people that basic research is important and that government support for fundamental research is a hallmark of a civilised societyäó». The other new Members admitted included Morgan Kelly, the economist who predicted the property bubble would burst, and Geraldine Byrne Nason, the former Secretary General at the Department of the Taoiseach and one of Irelandäó»s most distinguished diplomats and civil servants.