For my paper at the Celtic Seminar at @oxfordceltic.bsky.social, I wanted to have some strong visuals, and I have been so taken Sissi's Ulster Cycle art, I knew I had to commission her. She did such an excellent job, and I know I'll be using these images in lectures for years to come!
🚨Save the date!🚨 Tionólfar comhdháil ar Acallam na Senórach ar an 21-22 Lúnasa 2026, i gColáiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh. Clár ar ball. Beidh tuilleadh eolais le fáil ar www.ucc.ie/en/disappear... i gceann na haimsire.
We are now on Bluesky! Follow us for updates on our project, which will produce editions of the earliest version of Acallam na Senórach 'The Colloquy of the Ancients', the central Finn Cycle text from medieval Ireland. New software will also be developed to help in this work. 1/2
My copy of Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 89 just arrived today, and my article 'Tricks of the Trade: the Origin of Clessa in Irish Heroic Literature' is out! I am really proud of it, and I hope people enjoy it. I think it is a great example of the weird directions the evidence can take you.
If it is of any help, there's an online MA offered jointly by the Department of Early and Medieval Irish and the Department of Folklore at University College Cork that's focused on making these exact sort of subjects more accessible to international audiences.
A very interesting article by @emmettaylor.bsky.social about coercion of Naoise and Diarmaid in medieval recensions of these tales: www.brepolsonline.net/doi/full/10.... It will certainly make us rethink oral retellings! #fianna #celticstudies
Today my article 'Love Under Threat: Reconsidering the
Experiences of Noísiu and Diarmaid' was published, and is open access for anyone to read! It was originally a talk presented for @celticstudents.bsky.social, and I hope people like it!
doi.org/10.1484/M.GM...
I am really excited to present this paper! For Celticists the conclusions will probably not be particularly shocking, but I've got the legwork done (and a lot of really... weird retellings of LGE read) to actually prove a lot of expectations we've had about how the public engages with the sources.
Oh also everyone always insists they're retelling LGE but they're actually only doing Cath Maige Tuired. Not even just 'the bits of CMT in LGE', they're just doing CMT and calling it LGE.
I think what is catching my attention is that people -really- want the Fomori to be the like 'original first inhabitants' of Ireland, and I'm really not sure where that is coming from. There are different interpretations of this idea, maltheistic ones and Theogony-esque ones, but the root eludes me.
I'm currently writing a paper for later this month on the uses of Lebor Gabála Érenn in popular culture, and there's just fascinating stuff going on in attempts to 'Un-Christianize' the text (which of course is impossible, it is a Christian text not a shoddy palimpsest).
this leads to some issues of prestige, shame, and damage to honour? It is a quite curious section. The text was edited and translated by Kicki Ingridsdotter and is available online here: www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/di...
I discuss a lot of this at length in my thesis as well, which I'm happy to send over if you'd like it (though feel no obligation, nobody should have to read my thesis).
An interesting example with women is in the story Aided Derbforgail, where there is a urination contest between noble women, and
Philip O'Leary, 'Contention at Feasts in Early Irish Literature', Éigse 20; 'Verbal Deceit in the Ulster Cycle' Éigse 21; 'Fír Fer: an Internalized Ethical Concept in Early Irish Literature', Éigse 22; 'Honour-Bound: the Social Context of Early Irish Heroic Geis', Celtica 20.
As Finn says, the Irish heroic tradition has a lot of examples of this with the representation of aristocratic men in the literature, but it hasn't been directly examined in the context of gender before (though there's clearly Gender (and Class) Afoot). O'Leary's work is a great starting point:
I'll be up at DIAS next month talking about different versions of the 'Deirdre Story', and looking at exactly where we can draw the line between multiple versions of the same story and when it becomes a retelling!
(And a sneak-peak of what my half-secret post-doctoral project has been!)
This is a short thread of correspondence in the papers of Eoin MacNeill concerning the dismissal of Julius Pokorny from the Chair of Celtic Philology at the University of Berlin, under the provisions of the racist Nuremburg Laws of 1935. #HolocaustMemorialDay
Taking portions of my thesis and incorporating them into articles is just an exercise in me sitting here mumbling 'Okay how can I say this in half the words'.
How people receive, retell, reimagine stories is hands down my favorite topic. I love that you can see it in the past too! Like, Cath Maige Tuired being written by monks going 'Jeeze the Norse suck, lets write a story and cast the Norse as Fomori'! Stories as living things ever shifting and changing