Ábhar neamhbheo leis an gcéad ghealach lán den bhliain agus Iúpatar sa spéir, agus trí aláram slándála ar an talamh.

Nominations are open for DH Awards 2025. Anyone can nominate things that are #DigitalHumanities, available to voters, and updated in 2025. #DH Nominations close 2026-02-26 and the only way something gets on the ballot. You only need to nominate something once. dhawards.org/dhawards2025...

🎶 I wish everyone a successful and joyful New Year 2026 🥂🍾 Robad mellach, a meic mo Dé, dingnaib réimenn ascnam tar tuinn topur ndílenn dochum nÉirenn. Co Mag nÉolairg, sech Beinn Foibne, tar Loch Febail, airm i·cluinfinn cuibdius cubaid ocna helaib.

Good intentions pave the way to the next excuse. Happy 2026, everyone.

An article by Simon Rodway (University Aberystwyth) about his current project for a dictionary for early Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland.

Irish etymology for the end of the year. "Leopardstown" has nothing to do with leopards, but is a noah spelling for *Leperstown "place for the people with leprosy". But there's more to it. As @frankie49.bsky.social writes, the Irish name of the place is Baile na Lobhar. However, Ir. lobhar.../1

2026 was a great year. www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

𝗗𝗶Ⓐ𝗴𝗻𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 24 Let’s continue with the discussion of previously suggested dialectal features of Old Irish. The modern regional distinction between the negative particle ní < OIr. ní· (most dialects in Ireland) and cha < OIr. nícon· (Scottish Gaelic and parts of Ulster Irish), has been... /1

Ná bí ag ró-smaoineamh. Is cuma le héinne thú.

From the removal of joy to global destruction, 16 reasons I hate AI www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

Photo story: Futureproofing a 700-year-old manuscript www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

🎄🏺 Vendredi 2️⃣6️⃣ décembre #calavhist Post Scriptum Et voilà ! 24 textes, 24 exemples montrant que les Gaulois, loin d’être analphabètes, recouraient bien plus largement à l’écrit qu’on ne se le représente parfois.

It's the season of dying. Last week, two university colleagues of mine died on the same day. Earlier this week, Prof Klaus Zelzer (Vienna), a specialist on Late Latin literature, died in his 90th year. He was one of my formative teachers at the University of Vienna. In a very roundabout way,... /1

You can tell that LotR was written by an academic because Gandalf disappears for like 20 years doing research to answer a single question.

𝗗𝗶Ⓐ𝗴𝗻𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 23 My News items from the DiⒶgnostic project come to a close for 2025 with a brief overview of other, practical things that happened recently. Stavros Angelis, who was the Senior Technical and Digital Officer at the Maynooth Arts and Humanities Institute @muahi.bsky.social,... /1

Tá greann dóite ann nach bhfuil inaistrithe. Is bronntanas é seo do na Frainciseoirí anseo.

I don't think that this evidences a general Gaulish changes of s > h (> Ø), but it is rather a specific (pan-?)Celtic loss of initial *s in unstressed words. See my article about "lenition of s in Gaulish": www.academia.edu/31776775/Len... /1

🎄🎁🎅 Mercredi 2️⃣4️⃣ décembre #calavhist Plombs du Larzac RIG (L98) env. 100 de notre ère

This was the Old Irish Advent Calendar 2025, brought to you by the Department of Early Irish @ceilteachomn.bsky.social at @maynoothuniversity.ie. Rather impaired by the flu, I wish you a happy Christmas and a joyful festive season on behalf of all my colleagues.

🌲2️⃣4️⃣🎁 Rétglu etir rind We, the staff of Maynooth’s Department of Early Irish, want to bring the relevance of medieval Ireland and its culture closer to audiences in Ireland (and beyond) by disseminating our work beyond academia, for example through appearances in TV documentaries and radio shows. 📖

🎄🍗🍽️ Mardi 2️⃣3️⃣ décembre #calavhist Plat de Lezoux RIG (L66)

🌲2️⃣3️⃣🎁 Medieval Irish History Podcast The staff in the @maynoothuniversity.ie Department of Early Irish have a lot of experience when it comes to the public dissemination of their research, but none more so than Dr Niamh Wycherley. As part of her @researchireland.ie Pathway Grant, she started… 📖

🎄☃️⛄ Lundi 2️⃣3️⃣ décembre #calavhist Tuile de Chateaubleau RIG (L93) environ IIIe siècle

Tá tú cosúil le Daidí na Nollag. Ní chreideann duine ar bith ionat níos mó.

The MS of the week is RIA MS D ii 1, the Book of Uí Mhaine. This late 14th century manuscript contains a late Middle Irish versified form of the 17 Wonders of the Night of Christ’s Birth. This apocryphal tradition includes miracles such as fruiting vines in the middle of winter🍇

🌲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… 📖

Today is - also - National Robin Day: www.rte.ie/lifestyle/li... It was therefore very appropriate that two of those critters celebrated the day with us in Brú na Bóinne.

We had a great day out today - up early in the morning for sunrise on Winter Solstice Day in Newgrange (alas, no, we were not in the chamber...). The magically lit Boyne River and the Visitor Centre at half 7 in the morning. /1

🌲2️⃣1️⃣🎁 OPal+ As a spin-off of the OG(H)AM project, our Glasgow colleague Prof Katherine Forsyth secured AHRC @ukri.org follow-on funding for the Digital Humanities study of the neglected palaeography of ogam. Even though strictly speaking a Glasgow project, Maynooth researchers played a central… 📖

🎄🍀⛄ Dimanche 2️⃣1️⃣ décembre #calavhist Plomb de Chamalière RIG (L100) Première moitié Ier siècle de notre ère

🎄🧶✨ Samedi 2️⃣0️⃣ décembre #calavhist Cartouche de Martialis RIIG (CDO-01-19) ; RIG (L13) Deuxième moitié du Ier siècle

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Ovine Christmas wishes from Theresa Illés.

🌲2️⃣0️⃣🎁 Cisalpine Celtic literacy Dr Corinna Salomon (Vienna) is an expert on ancient, pre-Roman writing systems in northern Italy (e.g., www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLwT...). She investigated the origin of the runes and contributed to Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum (tir.univie.ac.at/wiki/). 📖

⬇️ A remarkably informed article about deciphering ancient scripts (except for one big howler...). www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

📻 Listen back: Dr Niamh Wycherley of the Dept of Early Irish (Sean-Ghaeilge) was on Newstalk's Let Me Explain With Sean Defoe, talking about what medieval Christmas was like in Ireland and whether pagans had similar festivals around the same time of year 🎄 www.goloudplayer.com/episodes/206...

2 scoláireacht ar fáil i Scoil an Léinn Cheiltigh 2 scholarships available in the School of Celtic Studies Sprioc: 5 Eanáir 2026 Deadline: 5 January 2026 www.dias.ie/2025/12/05/v... @dias.ie

🎄🍾🏺 Vendredi 1️⃣9️⃣ décembre #calavhist Stèle de Plumerguat RIIG (MOR-01-01) ; RIG (L15) IIIe ou IVe siècle ?

🌲1️⃣9️⃣🎁 DiⒶgnostic On 31 August 2023, the very last day of my sabbatical year 2022/3, I was informed by the IRC (@researchireland.ie) of the award of an Advanced Laureate Award for ‘DiⒶgnostic – Tracing Diatopic Variation in a Corpus of Old Irish’. This four-year project started in December 2023. 📖

There's a lot to be said here. Most people take it as a 1sg deponent verb, but the ending ought really be -ūr, not -or (unless this is Latin influence). Maybe it is a 3sg passive, like OIr. -berar < *beror. As for the stem formation, I don't think that MARCO- can simply correspond to *marko-...

🎄🍪🥛 Jeudi 1️⃣8️⃣ décembre #calavhist Peson de fuseau (Autun |Augustudum) RIG (L117)

Well, we don't know the word for "year" in Gaulish, but if we extrapolate from Insular Celtic, we could construct something like this: blēdanī nouiā ratomārā ("a blessed new year")

The LEIGHEAS project Irish Medical Manuscript of the Month for December 2025 is TCD MS 1435 (E.3.30), containing Irish versions of works by Petrus de Argellata, Bernard of Gordon & John of Gaddesden, as well as this diagram of the 7 tunics of the eye: leigheas.maynoothuniversity.ie/leigheas-man...

It’s official, Christmas has started! A magnificent night at the annual Maynooth Carol Service last night, bringing three amazing nights of performance to a close. A signal for many that Christmas is here.

🎄🕯️⛄ Mercredi 1️⃣7️⃣ décembre #calavhist Peson de fuseau, Saint-Révérien RIG (L119)

Its performance at yesterday's wonderful Christmas Carol Service at @maynoothuniversity.ie & St Patrick's College Maynooth reminded me to send out this precious link, just because: Dino Lipatti playing "Jesus bleibet meine Freude" www.youtube.com/watch?v=R008...

By this calendar, 18th December is the Feast of Epona.

"Why Do Old Irish Verbs Look So Weird?" - Part 2 of a video introduction on Old Irish which Jack of all Languages began last week. www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Y1... It contains a bit of input from me.

🌲1️⃣8️⃣🎁 Now You’re Talking… Old Irish Francesco Felici came from Italy to Maynooth in 2018 to pursue a PhD at the Department of Early Irish. Francesco is an avid learner and teacher of a wide range of languages, but he wanted to crown his life-long linguistic obsession with studying Old Irish. 📖

Hi @seadogdriftwood.bsky.social, there is only one defixio among them that is Gaulish. As far as I am aware the only publication about it is a suite of 4 articles in the most recent volume of Études Celtiques (50 (2025): www.cnrseditions.fr/catalogue/re...