J.H. Lloyd was a member of the Society for the Preservation of Irish Language and of Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League). Lloyd was particularly interested in dialects and he travelled widely in Irish-speaking areas gathering linguistic data and folklore. Discouraged with the Gaelic League, he left Ireland in 1916, returning in 1920. He died in 1939.

In 1933 Lloyd deposited correspondence and other papers with the Academy. The deposit was converted to a donation in 1950 by Lloyd’s executor W.J. Lloyd.

The papers consist of correspondence with a very wide range of Irish scholars, linguists, writers, critics and poets e.g. Kuno Meyer, Osborn Bergin, Alf Sommerfelt, Alexander Bugge, Douglas Hyde and many others. The collection includes manuscript poems by A.E. Blythe, fl.1870.