A Christmas message.

A Mayo round tower and an unexpected crucifixion scene from 1625.

🌲2️⃣2️⃣🎁 Irish manuscript culture Dr Chantal Kobel is a leading scholar of the material culture of medieval and early modern Irish manuscripts. Having held positions in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies @scs-dias.bsky.social for seven years, she has been teaching Irish palaeography and… 📖

The proofs before Christmas and a rare foray into the twentieth century!

Just published is @pomuirch.bsky.social's review of the Festschrift for Patrick Sims-Williams, edited by Simon Rodway and Erich Poppe. Available here: journal.fi/scf/article/...

📣 BAIS PRIZES 2026: We are pleased to announce our Book, Essay and Bursary prizes for 2026! See the BAIS website for details on how to enter and eligibility: irishstudies.co.uk/prizes-and-f...

We now go live to the Office of the Principal…

Looking forward to giving a talk at @haskoliislands.bsky.social @mshl-cdha.bsky.social next week about #oldnorse #icelandic manuscripts and #htr. Love the poster and the idea of popcorn accompanying academic talks btw. Join us on-site or online (but you won’t get popcorn online).

Tá ComharTaighde 11, an t-eagrán is mó go dtí seo, anois beo, a chlann. Ailt agus léirmheasanna scolártha ar chuile réimse de Léann leathan na Nua-Ghaeilge #Litríocht #Teanga #Lámhscríbhinní #Oideachas #Gàidhlig #DántaGrádha #Foilsitheoireacht #Filíocht #Stair: comhartaighde.ie

This afternoon (Wednesday) Prof Brendan Kane of @uconn.bsky.social will deliver the O’Donnell Lecture at the University of Edinburgh, on Irish-English relations in the early modern period! All welcome! Details below 👇

In an instance of pathetic fallacy, the Appleton Tower has started to crumble!

@fabula-lht.bsky.social www.fabula.org/actualites/1...

Cyffrous iawn. Newyddion arbennig o dda i Adran y Gymraeg ag Astudiaethau Celtaidd yn #Aberystwyth sydd wedi enill grant ymchwil mawr o’r @leverhulme.ac.uk Llongyfarchiadau i Simon! #AstudiaethauCeltaidd

Become part of this movement to safeguard minoritised communities and their linguistic and cultural heritage - check out the website here. You can get in touch to join or come along to a meeting first to find out what it's all about. www.scriptkeepers.org

I'm delighted to see this new article out in the world, published in Studia Celtica Fennica - a philological study of a minor glossary preserved in a sixteenth-century legal miscellany. journal.fi/scf/article/...

A full house of staff and students for the last #Gaelic #palaeography reading group of the semester at the University of Edinburgh! #LámhscríbhinníGaeilge

📢Darlith Goffa J. E. Caerwyn a Gwen Williams 🗓 9 Rhagfyr 🕔5.00yh 🗣 Jerry Hunter Adran y Gymraeg, Prifysgol Bangor ‘“Digenhedlu yn rhy bell”: y Dyneiddwyr, y Beirdd a Hunaniaeth Genedlaethol Gymreig yn Oes y Tuduriaid’ 📍Yn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru ac ar lein 🔗 www.uwtsd.ac.uk/cy/news/darl...

Llongyfarchiadau enfawr @gwenddolen.bsky.social

From @yrheniaith.bsky.social podcast Early Welsh language literature from the Americas includes a poem from 1596 imagining a dolphin carrying a message from a ship in the Caribbean home to Wales Benjamin Franklin (yes, that one) printed a Welsh language book in 1730! nation.cymru/feature/yr-h...

Deeply dodgy dealings … www.theferret.scot/consultancy-...

Including an edition of an eighteenth-century Manx sermon on theft, by Christopher Lewin, currently a Marie Curie Fellow in Celtic and Scottish Studies @uoe-llc.bsky.social

“Meal do naidheachd!” to Rob Dunbar who has won the RSE Sir Walter Scott Medal for his work on language policy, literature and culture. We spoke to students Elizabeth and Chris about the man behind the medal: https://llc.ed.ac.uk/news/professor-rob-dunbar-wins-the-rse-sir-walter-scott-medal

This year’s O’Donnell Lecture at the University of Edinburgh will be given by Professor @brendankanect.bsky.social of @earlymodirish.bsky.social fame. Brendan is Visiting Leverhulme Professor in Edinburgh in 2025 and 2026.

We know he is Scotland’s greatest historian because he has told us so himself 😂 🤡

'The Scottish Greens have lodged an amendment to the Scottish Government's Tertiary Education and Training Bill – set to be debated this week – which they believe will help to "boost the wages of ordinary workers".' 1/2

The principal of Edinburgh Uni earns around £420,000 a year. This week his staff were on strike over the threat of redundancies. It's time we got the pay of uni and college bosses back under control. MSPs can back my plans to do that on Wednesday. www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politic...

A-nochd 👇

Glad to have written the opening chapter of this important volume. Nice to be asked to write something so close to home, the typos notwithstanding!

A reminder that this year's Canna Lecture will take place on tomorrow evening (Friday) in Edinburgh! Bidh an Dr Màrtainn MacGriogair a-mach air bàrdachd agus eachdraidh nan Gàidheal anns an 19mh linn. llc.ed.ac.uk/celtic-scott...

#Edinburgh colleagues, remember to contact your MSPs and MP to make them aware of the vandalism senior management are threatening at UoE through compulsory redundancies! #UKHE

The manuscript of the week is RIA MS 23 P 16, Leabhar Breac. Written in Irish by Murchadh Riabach Ó Cuindlis, at Cluain Lethan and Lothra (Lorrha) in Múscraige Tíre, in north Co. Tipperary, it is the largest Irish vellum manuscript by one scribe.

If you care about the future of University of Edinburgh, call or email your local MSP on Monday: Monday, 17 November: Call your MSP. UCU has prepared a briefing here, but you can also simply call and tell your story. These cuts will affect the whole city. www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/lobby-your-m...

Join us online for this year’s Breandán Ó Buachalla Lecture, organised with the support of @nlireland.bsky.social. The lecture, “The harp and the harper in Classical Irish Poetry” will be given by Dr Deirdre Nic Chárthaigh. Registration now open www.nli.ie/exhibitions-...

I'm told this will be out in early to mid December. Please forgive coming episodes of shameless self-promotion and make a note of launch dates in your diaries! UCC 19 February Boston College 11 March NYU Glucksman House 12 March Royal Irish Academy 25 March www.cambridge.org/ie/universit...

Ní fiú cac an diabhail RTÉ, seriously.

For the evening that’s in it… To paraphrase Othello (and CJH), Michael D has done the state some service, we know it.

This afternoon I ran an embodied manuscripts workshop at Edinburgh CRC and we looked at some extraordinary manuscripts (just look at CRC MS 19👀👇), and I had the opportunity to spend time talking to some very interesting, engaged and enquiring students - honestly what could be better? Thank you LAMPS

Wonderful workshop today on the materiality of manuscripts with @bryonycoombs.bsky.social at Edinburgh University’s Centre for Research Collections.

Laoch ar lár…

Maireann an grá atá ag fonnadóirí Chonamara d'amhráin Raiftearaí. Ceithre a cinn a casadh aréir i gcomórtas Choirn Uí Riada: Eanach Dhúin, Neansaí Walsh, Brídín Bhéasaí & Caismirt an Phótaire leis an Uisce Beatha. Agus bhí an bua, den 3ú huair, ag Michael Frank Ó Conghaile, a chas péire díobh!

'His book tour brought him to Cambridgeshire, where he would marry and have two children with Susannah Cullen, an Englishwoman from Ely. They settled in Soham, supported by a local network including abolitionist friends, safe...when reactionary “church and king” mobs were targeting reformers.' 1/3

Aberystwyth has joined a global network of 350 Creative Cities that have been recognised for their excellence in creative fields across the world by becoming Wales’ first UNESCO City of Literature

“Ever since I was a boy in Raasay, and became aware of the difference between the history I read in books and the oral accounts I heard around me, I have been very sceptical of what might be called received history…” —Somhairle MacGill-Eain / Sorley MacLean (1911–1996) #Gaelic #history

The #ScottishGaelic Texts Society Annual #CannaLecture will take place at the University of Edinburgh on 21 November 2025, delivered by Dr Martin Macgregor. llc.ed.ac.uk/celtic-scott...

Leabhar ùr do chloinn le Tawana Maramba, a chaidh tro fhoghlam tro mheadhan na Gàidhlig ann an Dùn Èideann agus a ghabhas pàirt anns an tachartas 'Blasad' againn air 29 Samhain aig an Leabharlann Nàiseanta (www.nls.uk/whats-on/bla...) www.bbc.co.uk/naidheachdan...

Brian Friel's "Translations" in Dakar: www.theguardian.com/global-devel...