Bruce D. Boling is a linguist, historian, and librarian whose research focused on the Irish language with specific emphasis on the English dialects spoken in Ulster. Boling received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the University of Iowa, a Master's in Library Science from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Masters and PhD in linguistics with a specialty in Celtic languages from Harvard University. He taught courses in linguistics at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and held research fellowships at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. Boling also worked as a language consultant and a librarian at Brown University, the University of Wyoming, the Library of Congress, and the University of New Mexico.
Using immigrants’ letters and other sources, Boling sought to reconstruct the Ulster region’s 18th- and 19th-century dialects. He also collaborated with historian Kerby Miller on several projects related to Irish immigration history, including Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan: Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675-1815 .
From the guide to the Bruce Boling Irish Language Papers, Bulk, 1970-2000, 1905-2001, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)