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Statutory Public Lectures

Each year the School arranges for a lecture which is open to the general public and which is intended to present research in Irish and Celtic Studies to a wide audience. This Statutory Lecture is held in alternate years in Trinity College, Dublin and University College, Dublin, and usually takes place as part of the Tionól in November.

Nowadays the Statutory Lectures are recorded and made available on the website, so that they are freely available to audiences around the world. Scroll down to see the latest ones.

Previous Statutory Public Lectures

2023
Máire Ní Mhaonaigh: ‘The whole landscape a manuscript’: reading the environment in dindshenchas
Part of Tionól 2023
View the lecture and download the list of references.
2022
Liam Breatnach: The Limitations of Satire in Medieval Ireland
Part of Tionól 2022
2021
Ruairí Ó hUiginn: Thurneysen’s Heldensage (1921) and the Heroic Age
Part of Tionól 2021
2020
Cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic
2019
Robin Chapman Stacey: Of Purity and pork: legal imaginaries in early Ireland.
View the lecture.
Part of Tionól 2019
2018
Liam Breatnach: Poetry on the edge: marginal verses in mediaeval Irish manuscripts – Download Handout
View the lecture.
Part of Tionól 2018
2017
Thomas Charles-Edwards: Early Irish law and the laws of Western Europe, 400–800
View the lecture.
Part of Tionól 2017
2016
Barry J. Lewis: The Impact of the Anglo-Norman Conquest on Hagiography in Wales and Ireland
View the lecture, and download the notes (PDF).
Part of Tionól 2016
2015
Ruairí Ó hUiginn: The Emergence of Modern Irish
View the lecture, and download the notes (PDF).
Part of Tionól 2015
2014
Liam Breatnach: The Church in the Laws of Early Mediaeval Ireland
View the lecture
Part of Tionól 2014
2013
Fergus Kelly: Early Irish Music: An overview of the linguistic and documentary evidence
View the lectureHandoutWhat do the early Irish texts tell us about the history of music in this country? The main emphasis in this lecture will be on the period between the coming of Christianity in the 5th century and the Anglo-Norman invasion in the late 12th century. Topics to be discussed include the identification of the stringed instruments crot and timpán, the use of wind-instruments in military contexts, the development of bag-pipes, the functions of percussion instruments, and the various styles of singing mentioned in the texts. There will also be an account of the evidence for dancing in early Christian Ireland.The lecture will conclude with a summary of the role of music in early Irish society, and a discussion of the Church’s attitude towards different types of music, as well as an account of the frequent association between music and the supernatural in early Irish literature.Part of Tionól 2013
2012
Máire Herbert: Irish History and World History: Some views from the pre-Norman era
Part of Tionól 2012
2011
Liam Breatnach: Poet and scholar: The education of the fili in early mediaeval Ireland
Part of Tionól 2011.
2010
Damian McManus: The Bardic Poetry Database: opportunities and challenges for future scholarship
Part of Tionól 2010.
2009
Fergus Kelly: Women’s rights and duties in early Irish law, with special reference to marriage
Part of Tionól 2009
2008
Pádraig A. Breatnach: The Four Masters and their Works: A Team Enterprise
Part of Tionól 2008
2007
Katharine Simms: The Nature and Function of Bardic Poetry: an introduction to the DIAS bardic poetry database
Part of Tionól 2007
2006
Pádraig Ó Riain: The Book of Glendalough: a continuing investigation
Part of Tionól 2006
2005
Liam Breatnach: Mediaeval Irish law and mediaeval Irish literature
Part of Tionól 2005
2004
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh: The body in Táin Bó Cúailnge
Part of Tionól 2004
2003
Seán Ó Coileáin: When oral becomes literary: the case of Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire
Part of Tionól 2003
2002
Liam Breatnach: ‘Satire, praise and the early poet’
Part of Tionól 2002
2001
Aoibheann Nic Dhonnchadha: ‘Medical writings in Irish: translations of the works of Bernard of Gordon’
Part of Tionól 2001
2000
Fergus Kelly: ‘The early Irish wisdom-texts: origins and ethos
Part of Tionól 2000
1999
Máirtín Ó Murchú: ‘The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language II’
1998
Máirtín Ó Murchú: ‘The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language I’
1997
Pádraig Ó Macháin: ‘Ar thóir téacs agus údair i bhfilíocht na scol’
1996
David Howlett: ‘Scoti ludentes, the Irish at play in their earlier letters’
1995
Terence McCaughey: ‘Dr. Bedell and Mr. King’
1994
Thomas O’Loughlin: ‘The view from Iona: Adomnán‘s mental maps’
1993
Gwenllian Awbery: ‘Does Welsh have a future?’
1992
William Gillies: ‘The Book of the Dean of Lismore’
1991
Neil Buttimer: ‘Manuscript and book in pre-Famine Gaelic Ireland’
1990
R. Mark Scowcroft: ‘Abstract narrative in Ireland’
1989
Máirtín Mac Conmara: ‘The Irish affiliations of the Catechesis Celtica’
1988
Fergus Kelly: ‘Early Irish Farming: the evidence of 7th-8th century law-texts’
1987
Rolf Baumgarten: ‘The Galatians: Celts in Asia Minor’
1986
Proinsias Mac Cana: ‘The Early Ulster-Scottish Hero Cycle’
1985
Mícheál Ó Siadhail: ‘Irish and English – Aspects of Language Contact’
1984
Heinrich Wagner: ‘The Celtic Invasions of Ireland and Britain: Facts and Theories’
1983
Nessa Ní Shéaghdha: ‘Translations and Adaptations’
1982
Malachy McKenna: ‘The Breton Literary Tradition’
1981
Brian Ó Cuív: ‘Ireland’s Manuscript Heritage’
1980
Mícheál Ó Siadhail: ‘The Standardization of Irish Orthography’
1979
Heinrich Wagner: ‘Origins of Pagan Irish Religion’
1978
James P. Carney: ‘Aspects of Archaic Old Irish’
1977
Karl Horst Schmidt: ‘The Languages of Gaul and Britain in Roman Times’
1976
Fergus Kelly: ‘Early Irish Justice’
1975
Breandán Ó Buachalla: ‘Settler and Native in Seventeenth-Century Ulster’
1974
David Greene: ‘Makers and Fakers’
Brian Ó Cuív: ‘Personal Names, Epithets and Nicknames in Irish’
1973
Rolf Baumgarten: ‘A Bibliographer’s View of Irish Studies’
1971
Myles Dillon: ‘The Oldest Irish Stories’
1970
Roparz Hemon: ‘Written and Colloquial Breton’
1969
David Greene: ‘The Chariot in Early Irish Literature’
Brian Ó Cuív: ‘The Linguistic Training of the Mediaeval Irish Poet’
1968
James P. Carney: ‘The Lost Book of Glendalough – A Preliminary Investigation’
1966
Daniel A. Binchy: ‘Tribe and Clan – The Celtic Evidence’
Daniel A. Binchy: ‘A Thousand Years of Irish – Corpus Iuris Hibernici’
1964
Myles Dillon: ‘Finding the Celts’
Daniel A. Binchy: ‘The Book of Rights and Irish Pseudo-History’
1962
James P. Carney: ‘Sedulius Scottus – A Man of Adequate Piety’
Daniel A. Binchy: ‘The Ritual Hunger Strike in Ancient Ireland’
1961
Paul Thieme: ‘Prehistoric Origins of Indo-European Poetry’
1960
Caerwyn Williams: ‘Early Welsh Personal Names’
1959
Daniel A. Binchy: ‘The Origins of the so-called High-Kingship’
1958
James P. Carney: ‘O’Hussey and Maguire – A Study in the Relationship of Poet and Patron’
1957
Daniel A. Binchy: ‘Tara and Cashel’
1956
Myles Dillon: ‘The Book of Rights’
1955
James P. Carney: ‘The Old Irish Poems on the Blessed Virgin’
1953
Daniel A. Binchy: ‘Celtic Kingship’
Myles Dillon: ‘Linguistic Borrowing and Historical Evidence’
1952
Heinrich Wagner: ‘The Irish Linguistic Atlas – A Preliminary Report’
1951
David Greene: ‘The Art of Translation’
1950
Brian Ó Cuív: ‘Irish Dialects and Irish-Speaking Districts’
1949
James P. Carney: ‘Suibhne Geilt and the Children of Lir’
1947
J. Lloyd Jones: ‘The Court Poets of the Welsh Princes’
1946
Cainneach Ó Maonaigh: ‘Sgríbhneorí Gaeilge d’Órd San Froinsias’
1944
John Macdonald: ‘Scottish Gaelic and its Literature’
1943
Ifor Williams: ‘Early Welsh Poetry’
1942
Thomas F. O’Rahilly: ‘The Two Patricks’