Richard James ‘Jim’ Hayes

Richard James ‘Jim’ Hayes I Clongowes 1917-1920

Richard James ‘Jim’ Hayes (1902-76), cryptologist, director of the National Library of Ireland and the Chester Beatty Library, was born in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick, but grew up in Claremorris, County Mayo, attending Clongowes in 1917-20. He graduated from TCD with three honours degrees taken simultaneously, subsequently obtaining a doctorate in law. He joined the National Library of Ireland, where he was appointed director in 1940. During World War II he was seconded to the army as a code-breaker, but continued to run the library part-time. His linguistic skills, keen memory and organised mind led to major successes in intelligence work. He was the first cryptologist to break the German multi-dot codes, disclosing their whole intelligence network in Ireland. His greatest breakthrough was to unlock the complex letter-based ciphers that had baffled the British experts at Bletchley Park, who regarded him as a genius. (Irish and British military intelligence cooperated closely.) After the war, Cecil Liddell, head of MI5’s Irish section, admitted that a ‘whole series of ciphers couldn’t have been solved without Hayes’s input’. His academic work was largely bibliographical. He edited (with Bríd Ní Dhonnchada) a three-volume bibliography of modern Irish writing, entitled Clár Litridheacht na Nua-Ghaedhilge (1938), the nine-volume catalogue Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilisation (1965), followed in 1970 by a nine-volume companion catalogue listing periodical articles. He also wrote a book on the study of modern languages. The services of the National Library were greatly expanded and modernised by Hayes, although his imaginative plan to effectively merge it with the Trinity Library was rejected by the government in 1959. He was member of the Royal Irish Academy and served on the boards of the Abbey Theatre and the Arts Council. His final public service was to set up and manage the library of oriental and western manuscripts, books and artefacts presented to the state by his friend, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. He was a keen rugby and motor-sports enthusiast.