( clxv ) 



This motion was acceded to on the part of the Government by the 

 Duke of Eichmond and Gordon, Lord President of the Privy Council. 



About the same time your Council received from their Excellencies 

 the Lords Justices of Ireland (in the absence of His Grace the Duke of 

 Abercorn) an intimation of their willingness to receive a Deputa- 

 tion on the subject of the transfer of the Academy's Vote. They 

 accordingly waited on their Excellencies (the Lord Chancellor and 

 the Yice-Chancellor) at Dublin Castle, on the 27th June, 1876, and 

 presented the following Memorial, the importance of which seems to 

 the Council to justify their now placing it before the Academy : — 



" May it please yotjk Excellencies, 



"We, the Council of the Eoyal Irish Academy, beg to 

 approach your Excellencies in the hope of inducing you to 

 exercise the influence of your high of&ce to obtain a reversal 

 of the action of certain Departments of the Government, by 

 which ^the charge of the Parliamentary Yote for the Academy 

 has been transferred from the Irish Government to the 



■^ Science and Art Department, South Kensington. 



■^ " It is probably within the knowledge of your Excel- 



lencies that a communication was, in Eebruary last, ad- 

 dressed to the Academy by the Eight Hon. Yiscount Sandon, 

 Vice-President of the Committee on Education of Her Ma- 

 jesty's Privy Council, propounding a scheme which involved 

 a proposal for the transfer of the Academy's Collection of 



■ Antiquities to a Science and Art Museum in Dublin, to be 

 B, provided by the State, under an officer of the Establishment 



■ known as the Science and Art Department, who would be the 

 ' , medium of communication with that Department. 



" The Academy, whilst consenting to the proposed trans- 

 fer, attached thereto certain conditions, and, amongst others, 

 the following : — That the Academy should not be subject, in 

 the conduct of its aiiairs, or the expenditure of its grants, to 

 any control on the part of the Science and Art Department, 

 or any of its officers ; and should continue to be accountable, 

 as at present, through Her Majesty's Irish Government, for 

 all sums voted by Parliament. 



" To the letter embodying these conditions we have 

 never received any reply, further than a formal acknow- 



