Furthering the Irish Fiction Initiative with the Loeber Collection of Irish Fiction

The Smurfit Collection in Irish Studies was established by Dr. Michael W.J. Smurfit. Among his many achievements, Michael is a fellow of the International Academy of Management and holds honorary doctorates in law from Trinity College, Dublin; the National University of Ireland; University College, Galway; the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Babson College, Boston. He is also the honorary Irish consul to the principality of Monaco and has been honored by the royal family there and by the governments of France, Venezuela, and Colombia.

The Smurfit Collection in Irish Studies has played a significant role in securing the Loeber Collection, an incomparable repository of Irish fiction — some 1,900 titles and more than 500 reprints of works by both well-known and lesser known authors — in support of Notre Dame’s Irish Fiction Initiative. The goal of this initiative is to build the Irish fiction collection, from the 18th through the 21^st centuries, into the top collection in the world. Gathered by Rolf and Magda Loeber, medical faculty of the University of Pittsburgh, this collection serves as the basis of the Loebers’ own work, a detailed bibliography of Irish fiction.