For nearly 300 years after the publication of Bedell’s Bible in 1685, no other complete Bible in Irish was published. Then, in 1981, Catholic scholars produced the Maynooth Bible, a translation in modern Irish. In its foreword, the Maynooth Bible recognizes the “great achievement on the part of The Church of Ireland when they published their version of the Bible in the 17th century.” That, of course, was Bedell’s translation, although, in fact, until very recently the Catholic Church prohibited Catholics from reading the Bedell Bible.
The scholars who produced the Maynooth Bible published some of their preparatory work in 1971. One part of this was the Pentatúc (Pentateuch), the first five books of the Bible. In recognition of the pioneering work that Bedell had done, those Catholic scholars included the note “In memory of William Bedell” inside its cover page.
The translators of the Pentatúc used the Irish term “Iávé” for God’s name in many of the places where it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, represented by the Tetragrammaton or YHWH. Examples can be found at Exodus 6:2-13. Sadly, when the complete Maynooth Bible was eventually published, the editors—unlike Bedell—decided to remove the divine name completely from their translation and substitute “an Tiarna” (the Lord) in its place.