[1] The work was supervised by a board of editors which included the historian Edith Johnston.
It was published as a nine-volume set in 2009 by Cambridge University Press in collaboration with the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), and contained about 9,000 entries.
[1] The 2009 version of the dictionary was also published online via a digital subscription and was predominantly used by academics, researchers, and civil servants.
Funding is from the Higher Education Authority, Department of Foreign Affairs, and Dublin City Council Libraries.
[3][4][5] For subjects to be eligible for inclusion, they must be deceased for at least five years and must either be born on the island of Ireland or have had a significant career there.