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

2024

Professor Barry J. Lewis: Dosparthus yw y gerd, a barnu a ellir arnei: the Welsh bardic poet as literary critic
Part of Tionól 2024

View the lecture and download the list of references.

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

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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

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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 5^th century and the Anglo-Norman invasion in the late 12^th 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’