The recent death of Michael Adams, founder and managing director of Four Courts Press, may have a profound significance for the world of Irish archives for it was Michael, alone among the commercial Irish publishers, who regularly published books on Irish archival and manuscripts topics. As early as 1988, when still with Irish Academic Press, Michael agreed to publish the Directory of Irish Archives, when none of the other academic publishers were interested, and when he left IAP to concentrate on  Four Courts Press in 1995 he took the title with him and supported the publication of subsequent editions. As he developed the Four Courts list he found space for archival publications, especially those with ecclesiastical themes. 

A catalogue of the map of the estates of the archbishops of Dublin appeared in 2000; seven volumes of cathedral records were published as part of the Christ Church history project between 1998 and 2001, and the RCB Library Texts and Calendars series was inaugurated in 2002.  In 2004 Gerry O’Brien’s study of the Irish public records appeared and a volume of essays in celebration of the UCD Archives Department, Archives and Archivists, came out in 2006. More recently he published Arlene Hogan’s study of the cartularies of Llanthony, a beautifully illustrated catalogue of medieval manuscripts in TCD Dublin and Daniel McCarthy’s challenging re-appraisal of the Irish Annals.

Michael seldom spoke about his life before publishing and so it was a surprise to most to read in The Irish Times that he had trained as a butcher. As one of his authors remarked, that may have explained his editorial style which, on occasion, could be as decisive as a blow from a cleaver. He did not suffer fools gladly, liked people to get to the point and could not abide authors who did not deliver. Otherwise, he was, for the most part, an affable character, and never more so, than after the formalities of a book launch were over when he could whisk away a favourite author and few carefully chosen friends. Ensconced in a small restaurant with his cigarette lit and his glass filled with red wine, Michael, who rarely spoke at book launches, would relax and talk freely and entertainingly about many of the fascinating characters he had encountered in the world of publishing.

If his past was something of a mystery, the one thing, which apparently everyone knew about him, was that he was a member of Opus Dei. Oddly enough, I never recall him mentioning it but then I suspect that he regarded it as a given fact of his life, which required neither explanation not apology. Certainly it never seemed to get in the way and those of us from other faith traditions were always made welcome at the garden parties which he held in the community in Dalkey where he lived in recent years. He once remarked to me that he thought of himself as ‘an old fashioned kind of Catholic’, which, at the end of the day, does not seem such a bad epitaph.

Raymond Refaussé
RCB Library