Richard Irvine Best

Who was Richard Irvine Best?

Richard Irvine Best, often known as R. I. Best, was an Irish scholar who specialised in Celtic Studies.

Best was born into a Protestant family in Derry and educated at Foyle College before working for a time in a bank. As a young man he went to Paris to study Old Irish, where he met Kuno Meyer and attended Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville's lectures at the Collège de France. On his return to Ireland he translated the latter's Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais et la Mythologie Celtique into English and became Assistant Director at the National Library of Ireland in 1904.

He married Edith Oldman, a musician, in 1906 and the couple were active in the administration of the Feis Ceoil. Edith was six years Best's senior and the sister of Professor C. H. Oldman of University College Dublin. The couple had no children.

From 1913 onwards he published his multi-volume Bibliography of Irish Philology and Manuscript Literature: Publications. Best was director of the National Library from 1929 to 1940. He was Senior Professor of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies from its establishment in 1940. He was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy from 1943 to 1946.