Robert Atkinson. 



among us well remember the earnestness with which, during his 

 service as Secretary of Council, Atkinson threw himself into every 

 matter affecting the business of the Academy, the zeal with which 

 he laboured to secure efficiency in all its departments, and the cogent 

 vehemence with which he advanced and enforced his views whenever 

 the need for discussion arose. Many more are able to recall with what 

 vigour he carried the same aspirations and the like qualities into the 

 Presidential Chair. Those who do not so remember him will find a 

 sufficient illustration of these characteristics in the pamphlets entitled 

 "The Proposed Charter of the Eoyal Dublin Society" (1883), and 

 " The Proposed I^ew By-Laws of the Eoyal Dublin Society" (1889), 

 which were provoked by his apprehension of injury to the welfare 

 of the Academy. Atkinson's active association with our work lasted 

 almost to the very close of his career; for in 1906, on the termi- 

 nation of his period of office as President, he was again elected to 

 the Council, of which body he was thus continuously a member for 

 the long space of thirty-two years — a period of continuous service 

 only exceeded among his contemporaries by the unique record of 

 Dr. Ingram. Some time before the close of his Presidential term 

 Atkinson had betrayed symptoms of failing health ; and already, 

 before the j)ortrait painted in his honour for the Academy by Miss 

 Purser could be executed, he had lost much of that vigorous physical 

 energy which had once been almost as remarkable as his intellectual 

 activity. In the latter part of 1907 his decline was rapid, his failing 

 powers obliging him to resign his Chair in Trinity College. He 

 died at his residence, Clareville, Eathmines, on January 10th, 1908, 

 and was buried at Walton-Wrays Cemetery, Skipton, Yorkshire. 

 He had married, December 28th, 1863, at Gateshead, within a few 

 days after taking his degree, Hannah Maria Harbutt, by whom he 

 is survived. 



It may be said without the slightest risk of exaggeration that, 

 apart from his professorial duties, Atkinson found in his association 

 with this Academy the main interest of his life ; and he regarded 

 his election as President as the crowning incident in his career. 

 Indeed the principal event in that career, outside his connexion 

 with the University on the one hand, and the Academy on the 

 other — viz., his appointment in 1888, by the Brehon Law Com- 

 missioners, to edit the concluding volume of the Ancient Laws 



[ n ] [2*] 



