The Encyclopaedia of Ireland

The Encyclopaedia of Ireland took six years and cost €1,000,000 to compile. It is not a slender volume; its 1,256 pages contain more than a million words, 5,500 entries and 700 illustrations, and it weighs over 8lb. It is so full of variety that several very different reviews of it could in fact be written, without exhausting all its possibilities or virtues.

It was the inspiration of Fergal Tobin, publishing director of Gill & McMillan, Ireland's longest‐established and most wide‐ranging publishing house. “Single‐volume, single‐topic encyclopaedias were selling very well in other countries – and Ireland didn't have one”, says the...