Professor Geraldine Sheridan, Emeritus Professor of French in the School of Languages & Literature at the University of Limerick, has been admitted as a new member of the Royal Irish Academy in recognition of her academic excellence in the area of the humanities and social sciences. Professor Sheridan is an eminent and widely published specialist of the Enlightenment and French Cultural history, with landmark books published both in France and the English-speaking world on Lenglet Dufresnoy, women workers in the trades of eighteenth-century France; and the educational tradition of the Huguenots.

Professor Sheridan is among only 22 academics on the island of Ireland to achieve this highest distinction. For 227 years, membership of the Royal Irish Academy has been keenly competed for, as it is the highest academic honour in Ireland and a public recognition of academic achievement. There are now 466 members of the Academy, in disciplines from the sciences, humanities and social sciences. Those elected are entitled to use the designation ‘MRIA’ after their name. Members of the Academy include: Seamus Heaney, Frances Ruane (ESRI), Mary Robinson, Patrick Cunningham (ESOF Dublin 2012), Maurice Manning (NUI Chancellor), Patrick Honohan (Central Bank), Mary Canning (HEA) and writer and cartographer Tim Robinson.

Professor Sheridan’s recent work includes a monograph on the iconography of women in the trades in eighteenth-century France, which casts new light on historical and cultural aspects of women’s work (Louder than Words: Ways of Seeing Women Workers in Eighteenth-century France, 2009); a collection of essays edited with Viviane Prest on the contribution of French Huguenots to educational endeavour in eighteenth-century Europe (Les Éducateurs huguenots dans l'espace européen à l'époque moderne, 2011); and (with Dr. Michael Griffin, UL) a digitalised, searchable edition of the influential Magazine of Magazines, published in Limerick from1751to 1769, and now made available to the public. For more information go to  http://www3.ul.ie/ecrg/digitisation-magazine-of-magazines

The Royal Irish Academy is an all-Ireland institution that promotes excellence in scholarship, recognises achievements in learning, and undertakes its own research projects. The RIA was founded in 1785.