De hÓir, Éamonn Proinsias (1921-1975), director of the Ordnance Survey

Éamonn Proinsias de hÓir was born Edward Francis Dore as one of three children and the only son of Edward Thomas Dore and Nora Daly. A devoted nationalist, he later adopted the Irish spelling of his name. Born in 1921, he studied at University College, Dublin and gained an MA degree in Modern Irish in 1941. While at UCD, he was active in An Cumann Gaelach and in the Language Movement. After some further postgraduate work he joined the translation department of the Dáil.

In 1957, de hÓir was appointed director of the office of the Ordnance Survey. During his tenure, he upgraded and expanded the work of the Placenames Commission and became the country’s leading authority on place names. In 1964, he founded the Placenames Association (An Cumann Logaimneacha) to inform the public of the Commisson’s work and established the Association’s journal, Dinnseanchas, which he continued to edit until his death. De hÓir gave several lectures annually, wrote a number of articles on Irish language subjects and in 1963 published a book in Irish on the lives and work of Eugene O’Curry and John O’Donovan, his nineteenth-century predecessors in the Placenames Office. De hÓir also had a deep interest in archaeology and was a long-standing member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. He died suddenly on 20 December 1975 at Meath Hospital, Dublin, aged 54.