Royal Bank of Scotland notes have literary quotes on them, from Sorley MacLean, Norman MacCaig, Mark Alexander Boyd & Neil Munro. They’ve also had pictures of wildlife AND famous people on them since 2016, because somehow they managed to figure out that banknotes have two sides
The #C19th Gaelic poet & songwriter Màiri Nic a’ Phearsain (Mary MacPherson) – known as Màiri Mhòr nan Òran (Great Mary of the Songs) – was born #OTD, 10 March 1821. Much of her work was political & was especially focused on the struggle for land rights
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www.thenational.scot/news/1914541...
The manuscript of the week is RIA MS 23 E 25, Lebor na hUidre / The Book of the Dun Cow. This 12th century manuscript is best known for containing the oldest extant version of the Táin Bó Cuailgne, or the Cattle Raid of Cooley, a renowned Irish epic.
This episode’s guest is Dr Petra Johana Poncarová, a native speaker of Czech who has become a distinguished scholar of Gaelic literature and an award-winning poet in Gaelic. 🏴🇨🇿
Petra’s perspective is totally unique, and I’m very glad to share this conversation with you.
pod.link/1865430519
"When Bishop Dermait of Armagh died in 852, an annalist ... wrote an obituary lauding him as 'the most learned of all the teachers of Europe' ... This sense of community with their continental neighbours is often denied to the people of early Ireland, in part by the tendency to label them as Celts."
Blagiontráíl nua: Táin Bó Cuailnge ó Éirinn go dtí an Astráil agus ar líne! Léigh anois! www.ria.ie/blog/tain-bo...
@dias-isos.bsky.social @corrigans.bsky.social
A wooden flask or bottle from the early medieval period found in Leitrim, Ireland and now on display in the National Museum of Ireland Archaeology in Dublin
Leather bottle • Leitrim
This leather bottle or flask was found deep in a bog in Cloonclose, County Leitrim.
From the decoration, it is believed to date to the early medieval period, making the bottle at least a thousand years old.
#Ireland ##SpéirGhorm #Archaeology 🏺 #EarlyMedieval
Poster showing a manuscript image and giving the following information: PUBLIC LECTURE: Dr Sarah Corrigan Newman Tàin Bò Cuailgne: How the Manuscript Tradition of the Irish Epic Ended, and Ended Up, in Melbourne. The St Mary’s Newman Academic Centre (SNAC), Manuscript Táin Bó Cuailnge (‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’) is a nineteenth-century manuscript copy of the most famous Irish narrative of the Middle Ages. Although its oldest surviving copies were produced in the twelfth century, the story of the Táin is set in the first century, and it has been argued to have been written in several periods in between. This talk will highlight the dual significance of this beautiful manuscript by exploring the history of its contents, the physical object, and its creator, Seosamh Ó Longáin, the last official scribe of Ireland. Wednesday 11 March 2026 5–6pm Venue: The Oratory, Newman College, University of Melbourne, 887 Swanston Street, Parkville. Bookings / Free Entry Online: https://www.trybooking.com/DJULZ Email: outreach@snac.unimelb.edu.au Telephone: (03) 9342 1614
And will have more opportunity to talk about the fantastic project of getting @rialibrary.bsky.social MS 24 B 1 digitised and displaying and discussing it alongside the Newman College Táin manuscript here @unimelb.edu.au ...
I had a fantastic sneak peak at the @rialibrary.bsky.social Genesis Bone ahead of @pomuirch.bsky.social’s lunchtime lecture today, an animal bone carved with biblical text by 19th-century Irish language scholar Thaddeus Connellan! 📜🦴
We’re taking over the AK Bell Library on Saturday for a free day-long celebration of stories, libraries, and history! 🎉
Don’t miss the chance to see Mary Queen of Scots’ last letter on display at Perth Museum, then pop in to see us for a day packed with talks, games, storytelling, and more.
Dr Niamh Wycherley @niamhwycherley.bsky.social and myself are holding up the flag for postgraduate programmes in Early Irish @ceilteachomn.bsky.social at @maynoothuniversity.ie today. Maynooth Early Irish offers a range of postgraduate programmes:
Taught MA in Medieval Irish Studies (1 yr)
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Scotland’s Pictish carved stones, dating from the first millennium CE, display a number of symbols of unknown meaning. Some symbols show animals, some are abstract/geometric, but the same designs can be found from Shetland to the Borders
#WyrdWednesday
blog.historicenvironment.scot/2025/08/what...
Page from an early twentieth century manuscript will illuminated border
Page from an early twentieth century manuscript with prose in a single column followed by verse in two columns with illuminated initials beginning each stanza
Page from an early twentieth century manuscript with an illustration of Fergus arriving in Scotland and greeting Naoise and Deirdre. Naoise responds to the greeting while Deirdre shrinks away from Fergus, and the chessboard that Naoise and Deirdre were playing at is overturned between them.
Detail of an elaborate border around a section of text in an early twentieth-century manuscript.
I came across the COOLEST early C20th MS today - The text is from Augusta Gregory's 1902 Cuchulain of Muirthemne (US access only, use a VPN if you need to!) catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/10168...
The Gleninsheen Gorget - a stunning late Bronze Age collar which was discovered in 1930 at Gleninsheen in County Clare. Now part of the collections at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. 📸 My own. #FindsFriday #Prehistory #Ireland
Welsh Grammar
This manuscript was written in the early 17th century. It was probably owned by Iolo Morgannwg as it contains notes in his hand. It is a copy of the grammar used by the poets in the 16th century, although not an exact copy.
Date: 17th century BMSS/2
www.jstor.org/stable/commu...
Puzzle Binding!
Tricky! These are almost as rare as hen's teeth, and we just...
Had One???
And, it includes HOW Many Books? (Five from Germany c. 1601 and a blank one at last count...) #Vexierbuch #DosADos @newberrylibrary.bsky.social (Case C 823 .966)
The next readings are on Scottish and Irish topics; surely it's Gaelic time?
The @carantes.bsky.social online anti-fascist Celtic Studies reading group is back back back March 20th at 4-6pm Welsh time
This time we are doing a series on GENDER, starting with freely accessible work by @hjosephinegiles.bsky.social and @finnlongman.com
Join us here: carantes.org/contact/
Pleasure to be at the launch of @claireconnolly.bsky.social excellent new book last week, and to also get chance to nip into @ucclibrary.bsky.social to see some of their Irish-language manuscripts, including this bit of unexpected visual Romanticism!
Church with valley in the background.
Kilmartin Parish Church and Glen, Argyll, Scotland.
Kilmartin is host to one of the most remarkable prehistoric and historic valleys in Europe, filled with cairns, standing stones, and stone circles, with the early medieval Dàl Riatan centre of Dunadd at its southern terminus.
"These centuries-old connections between language and the environment challenge dominant views of how best to protect habitats. Scottish Gaelic’s vitality as a living language would surely suffer if fishing were to be curtailed, and much of the knowledge bound up in it...would be lost too."
Amazing treasures of medieval legal history - the Catslechta ˙ (or Cat-sections) - an old Irish legal text on cats and part of an Old Irish legal compilation (the Senchas Már) #medievalsky
The Lisnacrogher Sword Plates from Antrim. Copper alloy front plate of scabbards. The front plate terminates in a cast copper alloy chape. The surface is decorated with incised symmetrical curvilinear decoration in the La Tène style
These beautifully decorated bronze scabbard plates were part of an important hoard of Iron Age objects found in a bog at Lisnacrogher near Ballymena, Antrim, in the 19th century.
You can see them in the brilliant Ulster Museum, Belfast.
Adomnán was a real one. Imagine actually holding people accountable for war crimes! 🤪
Medieval manuscript illustration featuring a human figure in a patterned robe gesturing towards a rabbit playing a horn. The scene is adorned with decorative floral elements and gold accents.
Medieval manuscript illustration showing a person riding a donkey, followed by a running dog and a wolf. The scene is surrounded by decorative floral patterns with gold leaves. The text above is in Old French.
A medieval manuscript illustration features a person seated, adorned with a gold robe, and gesturing towards a green parrot perched on their hand. The scene is bordered by intricate blue and gold designs.
A medieval illustration depicting a person holding a circular object, possibly a mirror or shield, facing a creature resembling a goat with a long, curved tail. The scene includes decorative foliage with multicolored leaves. The background is parchment-like, typical of manuscript art.
Love Your Pet Day 🐾
Medieval manuscripts are full of dogs, birds, rabbits and other companions. Sometimes helpful, often looking chaotic!
Shelfmark: Bodl. 264, fols. 20v, 57v, 58r, 20v
More pet content coming soon: Pets and Their People opens 11 March at the Weston Library.
Powis Castle - a weirdly fairytale red turreted building on a terraced garden hill
You realise how stacked in favour of the aristocracy life is when a family can be outlawed for open rebellion against the king, lose a good chunk of their money in a stock bubble and still be living here by the end of it
I keep seeing Amazon's "Carpe deals, every diem" advert and I am so bothered that they've left "dies" in the accusative case
"What would a Celtic fantasy that engages with the “Celts” as real people in real places, rather than as common aesthetic property—a mystical veneer that anyone can apply to their writing—look like?" strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... by @coimeas.bsky.social
A one-day festival of words and music will take place this spring, marking the bicentenary of Iolo Morganwg, one of Wales’s most influential, imaginative and controversial cultural figures ✍️Jules Millward wp.me/p8Mk4U-1fhW
(I can absolutely believe that most Western leaders for the past decade+ don't read more than what's on the teleprompter though)
