Celtic Studies is a designated  research area of high importance in the University’s research strategy and the Research Institute for Irish and Celtic Studies has been established  to administer and progress the work of the subject. The staff complement of the Institute has been increased considerably recently by the appointment of new staff. At present, there are nineteen members of staff, including 2 AHRC-funded Research Officers, 2 RCUK Research Fellows, 1 Government of Ireland Research Officer, a Vera Furness Research Officer, and an Institute Secretary. There is additionally a large number of part-time staff who contribute to the Institute’s programmes. The subject was awarded a 5* in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, the highest grade achievable, indicating that the research output of the Institute is of international standing and placing it at the top of research in this area in the UK.

The research infrastructure provided by the University is very good. There is a Pro-Vice-Chancellor with special responsibility for research matters and a Research Department which oversees and administers all aspects of research provision. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor meets with the Director of the Research Institute and other members of the Institute each semester in order to discuss strategy and priorities and to assess progress.

The main objective of the Institute is to foster and develop a vibrant research culture and ethos in all aspects of its work. This is reflected in a variety of ways, such as the number of high-quality publications by members of the group, externally-funded research projects, the organization of conferences and colloquia, international collaborations, and the large number of research students and research degrees awarded.

The Institute has close ties with the scholarly Societies, Societas Celto-Slavica and Societas Celtologica Nordica. Members of the Institute occupy the positions of President and Vice-President of these Societies respectfully and edit their academic journals. The Institute also runs a series of research seminars on various aspects of Celtic Studies at which papers are presented by members of the Institute, including research students, and invited guests.

Specialisms include medieval Irish language and literature, textual scholarship, the transmission of senchas and historical verse, voyage literature, the Gaelic manuscript tradition, bardic poetry, placenames research, dialectology, lexicography, stylistics, minority languages, the sociolinguistics of Irish, the syntax and semantics of the verb in Irish, 18th and 19th century Irish language, literature and learning with particular reference to Ulster, modern and contemporary Irish literature, Scottish Gaelic literature from the eighteenth century to the present time, creative writing, Gaelic literature in translation, and applied  language studies (CALL, digitization, language corpora). The subject also plays a central role in the Academy of Irish Cultural Heritages.

Postgraduate supervision is available in almost all aspects of Irish and Scottish Gaelic language and literature and in a range of subject areas in the other Celtic languages.
Students are of central importance to the research culture of the subject and their progress is closely monitored: they maintain close contact with their supervisors and other staff; they are allocated dedicated space; and they are closely integrated into the fabric of the subject as a whole. In dealing with research students, the Institute collaborates closely with the Faculty’s Research Graduate School which has general across Faculty responsibility for research matters such as enrolment, training, progress, research space and other relevant issues.

Recent successful doctoral theses include studies of a range of different writers such as the poets Seán Ó Ríordáin and Cathal Ó Searcaigh; a case grammar of Modern Irish; an analysis of Irish proverbs; the languages of Ulster since the seventeenth century; editions of seventeenth century texts such as Cín Lae Ó Mealláin and An Leabhar Eoghanach; the mythological structure of the Early Irish tale Compert Con Chulainn ‘The Conception of Cú Chulainn’. Theses underway at present include a sociolinguistic study of Irish in the parish of Gweedore; a study of the work of the scribe Muiris Ó Gormáin; a biographical study of the Irish scholar Lambert McKenna; a study of food and drink as depicted in Medieval Irish writings; a study of macaronic verse in Irish, with emphasis on the period from the nineteenth century to the present day;  an edition and analysis of the Finn-cycle tale Eachtra an Cheithearnaigh Chaoilriabhaigh ‘The Adventure of the Narrow Grey-Striped Churl’; the storytelling tradition in the parish of Míobhuí, NW Donegal; community and tradition in the work of Michael Hartnett and Seamus Heaney; aspects of the verb in Irish texts of the seventeenth century; and a biography of the Scottish Gaelic poet Sorley McLean.

The Institute has generated significant funding in this past five years and is engaged in a number of prestigious scholarly projects. Ongoing projects include the following:

• Ulster Corpus of Written and Spoken Irish

• Collins Concise Irish-English/English-Irish Dictionary

• CAPAILL (Computer-assisted Practice Activities for Irish Language Learners)

• PACDIL (Online Published Additions and Corrections to the Dictionary of the Irish Language)

• eDIL (Digitisation of the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of the Irish Language)

• LDT (Linking Dictionaries and Texts). In collaboration with Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT), University College, Cork 

• The Power of Words in Traditional Medieval European Societies

See http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/lanlit/irish/research/ projects.html

Resources in Irish and Celtic Studies
Research students in Irish and Celtic studies are allocated dedicated space to carry out their research and they have access to computers, library carrels, the Mediathèque and the Language Resource Centre. The University and Institute have materials on first and second language acquisition and learning; data banks on errors and error analysis; Modern Irish lexicographical data; The Ulster Corpus of Written (Computerised) Texts; a collection of Irish manuscripts of 18th and 19th century texts relating to south-east Ulster; the Enrí Ó Muirgheasa library collection containing important works from the period 1880­1940. The University is also a minority language and culture documentation centre and collaborates with the University of Uppsala on minority language research, corpus linguistics and other projects.

Internet Resources
This guide contains pointers to Internet resources of interest to students and staff in Irish Studies at UU. It is not a comprehensive list but is intended to help you begin exploring the Internet : General Irish and Celtic Studies Sites, Irish and Scottish Place-names, Language, Newspapers and Magazines, Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias, Media, Literature, Electronic Journals (Mainly Table of Contents only), Celtic Culture, Electronic Databases, Music, Discussion Lists, Booksellers and Publishers, Institutions specialising in Irish, Gaelic and Celtic Studies.

Princess Grace Irish Library (PGIL)
EIRData 2000 is an extensive set of electronic literary text files dealing with Irish literary authors and their works in all periods, and is a tribute to Irish achievements in literature as well as testament to the Princess Grace's attachment to her Irish roots. The project is conducted by the University under the aegis of the Princess Grace Foundation (Monaco) with funding dedicated for the purpose by the Ireland Fund Princess Grace Memorial Library in Monaco.PGIL EIRData is an ambitious Internet project in Irish studies comprising an extensive set of digital records dealing with Irish literary authors and their works in all periods. It is the most comprehensive reference source of its kind in any medium, thus providing a robust and uniquely flexible platform for future advances in Irish cultural informatics.

Dr Grigory Bondarenko (Coleraine) is Assistant Editor on the AHRC-funded eDIL project. A specialist on Early Irish mythology and on the question of space in Medieval narrative, he has published a number of scholarly works, including a substantial monograph. He has another book at press on aspects of early medieval Ireland examining both its mythology and daily life. A founding member of Societas Celto-Slavica, he is on the editorial board of Odysseus which is published by the Russian Academy of Sciences and Volshebnaya Gora which deals with comparative religious studies. 

Dr Jacqueline Borsje was appointed to a Lectureship in Traditional European Cultures (with particular reference to Mediaeval Ireland) in 2005. A specialist on religion and society in early Ireland, she has published widely in peer-reviewed international journals and is author of From Chaos to Enemy: Encounters with Monsters in Early Irish Texts. An Investigation related to the process of Christianization and the concept of Evil (Turnout: Brepols, 1996). Dr Borsje leads or has led several research projects including ‘Signs of Doom. Supernatural attendants of Fate in Medieaval Irish texts’ and ‘The Power of Words in Traditional European Cultures’. She is a member of the consultative committee for Peritia. Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland,  and a member of the editorial board of Yorkshire Celtic Studies.

Dr Maxim Fomin (Coleraine) has research interests in Early Irish and Sanskrit. He has written a number of scholarly papers on the question of kingship in early Ireland and India and is currently Research Fellow in the Institute working on the AHRC-funded eDIL project, the digitization of the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of the Irish Language. He is a founding member and Secretary of Societas Celto-Slavica and is co-editor of the Society’s academic journal.

Dr Art Hughes (Belfast) has written on various aspects of Irish and the other Celtic languages, including work on the Irish revival in Belfast in the 18th and 19th centuries, Irish place-names, the dialects of Ulster Irish, bardic poetry and the influence of the Irish language on Ulster English. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Celtic Linguistics and is Celtic languages and literature review editor for Seanchas Ard Mhacha.

Hilary Lavelle MA (Coleraine) joined the team of the Institute in 2005, having recently completed a Masters in Translation Studies at University College, Galway. Her major research interests are in the field of translation studies. She began as a Research Associate on the Linking Dictionaries and Texts project and is now Vera Furness Research Associate on the Collins Concise Dictionary of Modern Irish.

Nioclás Mc Cathmhaoil has been recently appointed to a Lectureship at the Belfast campus. A specialist in Ulster Irish of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, he is currently completing his doctoral theis on the author and scribe Muiris Ó Gormáin.

Professor Séamus MacMathúna (Coleraine), Head of Irish and Director of the Research Institute for Irish and Celtic Studies, Prof Mac Mathúna has published widely on various aspects of Irish language and literature. His research interests include medieval voyage literature, Irish linguistics, bardic poetry, minority languages and Irish lexicography. A founding member of Societas Celto-Slavica, he is joint editor of the Society’s scholarly journal, sits on the editorial board of the Dictionary of Modern Irish (Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge) based in the Royal Irish Academy, and is consultant editor and external reader for the academic series Studia Celtica Upsaliensia. With Professor Ó Corráin, he is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Collins Concise Irish Dictionary.

Conor McClean has been recently appointed to a Lectureship at the Magee campus. He specialises in Modern Irish language and literature, including the sociolinguistics of Irish.

Dr Máire Nic Cathmhaoil (Belfast) has research interests in the language and literature of Ulster in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and in Modern Irish literature. She recently completed her doctoral dissertation Cín Lae Uí Mhealláin and is preparing it for publication.

Márie Nic Mhaoláin MA (Research Associate, Coleraine) is a distinguished Irish lexicographer and translator into Irish who was Managing Editor of Ó Dónaill’s Irish Dictionary and editor of An Foclóir Póca. She has translated a number of books from Italian, Welsh and English, the most recent being Dúile Fionnuisce (Freshwater Life) Pocket Guide (1996) and Réaltaí agus Pláinéid (Stars and Planets) Pocket Guide (1997). Eleven of her books have received awards from Oireachtas na Gaeilge. She is also a creative writer and reviewer of academic works. She  is a major contributor to the Collins Concise Irish Dictionary.

Professor Ailbhe Ó Corráin (Magee) has written widely on various aspects of Irish and Celtic linguistics and Irish literature. His research interests include the.syntax and semantics of the verb in Irish, stylistics, minority languages and Irish lexicography. He is author of A Concordance of Idiomatic Expressions in the Writings of Séamus Ó Grianna  (Belfast, 1989). Founding editor of Studia Celtica Upsaliensia, he has edited or co-edited a number of volumes in the series. He is Celtic languages consultant and contributor to the Swedish National Encyclopaedia. With Professor Mac Mathúna, he is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Collins Concise Irish Dictionary.

Dr Diarmaid Ó Doibhlin (Coleraine) is an expert on Irish language and literature in Ulster in the 18th and 19th centuries and on Modern Irish literature. He has written a wide range of works on various aspects of these subject areas, including work on religious literature and on the part played by Protestant women in the revival movement. He is also a creative writer who has published a number of poetry collections. He is editor of the Journal of the South Derry Historical Association.

Dr Pádraig Ó Mianáin (Coleraine) has research interests in Early Irish and in the application of technology to the study of Modern Irish. He has been a researcher on the research project Linking Dictionaries and Texts, is Irish Language Technologist for the Centre of Excellence for Teaching and Learning, and has recently published an edition of Talann Étair in the Maynooth Monograph Series of the Department of Old Irish.

Dr Pádraig Ó Mianáin (Coleraine) has research interests in both Modern Irish language and in Seventeenth Century Irish, particularly on the Irish Colleges which were established on the Continent in this period. He has published a range of articles on the Colleges and is an authority on the editing of Modern Irish texts and on Modern Irish lexicography.  Dr Ó Mianáin is a founding editor of the scholarly journal Teagasc agus Taighde and is a RCUK Fellow working as coordinating editor of the Collins Concise Irish Dictionary.

Micheál Ó Murchú M Phil (Coleraine) is a recognized authority on standard Irish and on Ulster Irish. His research interests include Modern Irish grammar, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, error analysis and the early history of the province of Ulster. He is the author of books on Irish Grammar (one with Colmán Ó Huallacháin) and numerous articles on Irish language and culture.

Dr Frank Sewell (Coleraine) has research interests in Modern and contemporary writing in Irish, bilingual writing in Ireland, translation, creative writing, and international aspects of Irish literature, especially Russian and Slavonic links. He has written extensively on all of these areas and has received a number of prestigious awards for his work, including the Arts Council Literature Award in 1999 and 2001. He is author of Modern Irish Poetry: A New Alhambra (Oxford: OUP, 2000), published in 2001 and, with Alan Titley, of A History of the Irish Book, Volume Two: The Printed Book in Irish: 1567-2000 (Oxford: OUP, forthcoming 2007).

Dr Peter Smith (Magee) has research interests in both modern and medieval Irish, Irish folklore and folk song, and sociolinguistics. Among his publications is a Bibliography of Irish literature relating to South-East Ulster and a number of articles in peer-reviewed publications on Irish historical verse. He is currently completing a book on the historical poetry of the eleventh-century writer, Gilla Cóemáin.

Professor Gregory Toner (Coleraine) has research interests in both modern and medieval Irish, Irish place-names¸ and Irish orality and literacy. Among his publications are two volumes in the Placenames of Northern Ireland series of monographs, one of which was co-authored, and numerous works in peer-reviewed journals. He leads the eDIL and Linking Dictionaries and Texts projects and is Director of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. He is currently completing a book for the Irish Texts Society on the Middle Irish tale Bruiden Da Choca.

Dr Iwan Wmffre (Coleraine) joined the staff of the Institute in 2005 as Lecturer in Brittonic and Celtic Studies. He is a specialist on Breton and Cornish, Welsh place-names, and Celtic phonology and sociolinguistics. In addition to having published a number of academic articles in scholarly journals, he is author of Language and Place-names in Wales: the Evidence of Toponomy in Cardiganshire (Cardiff, 2003) and The Place-names of Cardiganshire (Oxford, 2004).

The Irish  writer-in-residence in 2004-05 was the poet Gearóid Mac Lochlainn.

The information provided in this prospectus is correct at the time this page was published, but the research programme is subject to continuing development and the University reserves the right to make changes at any time before or after a candidate’s admission. As much notice as possible will be given of such changes.

Professor Séamus Mac Mathúna
Tel: +44 (0)28 7032 4557
Email: s.macmathuna@ulster.ac.uk

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