The subject has a high income stream, and staff and student support arrangements and postgraduate training are excellent. The Institute is committed to fully supporting its postgraduate students.
Specialisms include medieval Irish language and literature, textual scholarship, the transmission of senchas and historical verse, voyage literature, the Gaelic manuscript tradition, bardic poetry, place-names research, dialectology, lexicography, stylistics, minority languages, language policy and planning, the syntax and semantics of the verb in Irish, 18th and 19th century Irish language, literature and learning with particular reference to Ulster, modern and contemporary Irish literature, Scottish Gaelic literature from the eighteenth century to the present time, creative writing, Gaelic literature in translation, applied language studies (CALL, digitization, language corpora) and Irish folklore.
Postgraduate supervision is available in almost all aspects of Irish language and literature and in a range of subject areas.
The research infrastructure provided by the University is of a high quality. The Institute has a Director who is responsible for the day-to-day running and management of the subject area. A Pro-Vice-Chancellor has special responsibility for research matters in the University and the Ulster University Doctoral College oversees and administers all aspects of research provision. PhD opportunities in Irish and Celtic are overseen by both the Doctoral College on Belfast and Magee campuses and by the Research Director who work in close partnership.
the organization of conferences and colloquia, international collaborations, and the large number of research students and research degrees awarded.
The Institute has close ties with the scholarly Societies, Societas Celto-Slavica and Societas Celtologica Nordica. Members of the Institute occupy the positions of President and Vice- President of these Societies respectively and edit their academic journals. The Institute also runs a series of research seminars on various aspects of Celtic Studies at which papers are presented by members of the Institute, including research students, and invited guests. Members of the Institute edit Studia Celtica Upsaliensia and Studia Celto-Slavica.
Students are of central importance to the research culture of the subject: they maintain close contact with their supervisors and other staff; they are allocated dedicated space; and they are closely integrated into the fabric of the subject as a whole.
In addition, Ulster is a partner in the new collaborative Doctoral Training Centre in the Celtic Languages, Literatures and Cultures, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the period 2014-19. A consortium of 12 higher education organisations across the UK award doctoral studentships and support the training of students in a new, collaborative fashion. The Consortium Members are the universities of Aberdeen, Bangor, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oxford, Swansea, Queens University Belfast, Ulster University, the University of the Highlands and Islands/Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies; the Centre is managed by the University of Glasgow. Students are enabled in an unprecedented way to partake of shared supervision and resources across these universities, and to engage with partners outside the higher education sector.
Research students in Irish and Celtic studies are allocated dedicated space to carry out their research and they have access to computers, library carrels, and the Language Resource Centre. The University and Institute have materials on first and second language acquisition and learning; data banks on errors and error analysis; Modern Irish lexicographical data; a collection of Irish manuscripts of 18th and 19th century texts relating to south-east Ulster; the Enrí Ó Muirgheasa library collection containing important works from the period 1880-1940. The University also collaborates with a number of other Universities on minority language research, corpus linguistics and other projects.
This guide contains pointers to Internet resources of interest to students and staff in Irish Studies at Ulster. It is not a comprehensive list but is intended to help you begin exploring the Internet: General Irish and Celtic Studies Sites, Irish and Scottish Place-names, Language, Newspapers and Magazines, Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias, Media, Literature, Electronic Journals (mainly table of contents only), Celtic Culture, Electronic Databases, Music, Discussion Lists, Booksellers and Publishers, Institutions specialising in Irish, Gaelic and Celtic Studies.
EIRData 2000 is an extensive set of electronic literary text files dealing with Irish literary authors and their works in all periods, and is a tribute to Irish achievements in literature as well as testament to the Princess Grace’s attachment to her Irish roots. The project is conducted by the University under the aegis of the Princess Grace Foundation (Monaco) with funding dedicated for the purpose by the Ireland Fund Princess Grace Memorial Library in Monaco. PGIL EIRData is an ambitious Internet project in Irish studies comprising an extensive set of digital records dealing with Irish literary authors and their works in all periods. It is the most comprehensive reference source of its kind in any medium, thus providing a robust and uniquely flexible platform for future advances in Irish cultural informatics.
Dr Comer is Lecturer in Irish at Magee and formerly Irish Language Technologist in the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. He is President of Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League) and has completed his doctorate on the place-names of Coleraine and surrounding areas. He supervises in the area of Irish traditional music and place-name tradition.
Professor Ó Corráin is Professor Emeritus of Modern Irish. He has published extensively on various aspects of Irish language and literature. Most recently, he published a number of books on the Irish Poet Giolla Brighde O hEodhasa. He also specialises in the Irish grammatical and metrical traditions, Irish verb, language planning, lexicography and Celto-Nordic LInguistic interface.
Dr Doherty lectures in traditional music at the Magee campus. As a traditional arts consultant she has worked on various national and international projects, and was a Traditional Arts Specialist with the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon (2005-2008). Her research fields include Cape Breton fiddle music, Irish traditional music, Performance – fiddle Safe Trad (Performance Injury Prevention project) and Traditional arts industry.
Dr Fomin has research interests in Early Irish and its comparison with other Indo-European linguistic and cultural traditions, including Armenian, Latin, Sanskrit and Greek. He has published extensively on the question of kingship in early Ireland and India and was Assistant Editor of the AHRC- funded eDIL project, the digitization of the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of the Irish Language and published Instructions for Kings. Secular and Clerical Images of Kingship in Early Ireland and Ancient India. Heidelberg, 2013. Dr Fomin is Principle Investigator on the AHRC-funded Stories of the Sea: Maritime Memorates in Irish and Scottish Gaelic Folklore Traditions, and also specialises in oral heritage and material culture of the modern-age Celtic traditions. He is a founding member and Secretary of Societas Celto-Slavica and is co- editor of the Society’s academic series. He also specialises in Irish folklore and oral tradition, having supervised students in the areas of Irish folklore collection, Irish story-telling and the Irish belief system with an emphasis on the Otherworld.
Dr Hughes has written on various aspects of Irish and the other Celtic languages, including work on the Irish revival in Belfast in the 18th and 19th centuries, Irish place-names, the dialects of Ulster Irish, bardic poetry and the influence of the Irish language on Ulster English and recently published Late Old Irish lenition and the modern pan-Gaelic verb, pp. 310, Curach Bhán, Berlin 2013. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Celtic Linguistics and is Celtic languages and literature review editor for Seanchas Ard Mhacha.
Dr Mac Cathmhaoil is Lecturer in Irish at the Magee campus. A specialist in Ulster Irish of the 18th and 19th centuries, he was awarded his doctorate in 2010 for a thesis on the author and scribe Muiris Ó Gormáin which has been published as Muiris Ó Gormáin: Saol agus Saothar Fileata. Cló-Iarchonnacht. He is Principal Investigator on the project between Ulster and University of Copenhagen exploring the influence of the printed medium on the oral traditions of Ireland and Scandinavia.
Professor Mac Mathúna is Professor Emeritus and has published widely on various aspects of Irish language and literature. His research interests include medieval voyage literature, Irish linguistics, bardic poetry, minority languages, and Irish lexicography. Founding President of Societas Celto- Slavica, he is joint editor of the Society’s scholarly journal, sits on the Editorial and Management Boards of the Dictionary of Modern Irish (Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge) based in the Royal Irish Academy, and is consultant editor and external reader for the academic series Studia Celtica Upsaliensia. Chair of the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise’s Celtic Studies Sub-Panel, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Member of the Royal Irish Academy. With Professor Ó Corráin, he is Co-Editor- in-Chief of the Collins Concise Irish Dictionary.
Dr Ó Domagáin is Lecturer in Modern Irish working on the Concise Irish-English/English-Irish Dictionary. He was awarded his doctorate on the present state of Irish in the parish of Gort a’ Choirce, Co. Donegal, in 2009. He is course director for the MA in Modern and Contemporary Irish at the Belfast campus.
Senior Lecturer in Irish, Dr Ó Dónaill has research interests in Early Irish and in the application of technology to the study of Modern Irish. He is Ulster’s representative on the Tools for CLIL Teachers, has been a researcher on the research project Linking Dictionaries and Texts, specialises in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), and has published an edition of Talann Étair in the Maynooth Monograph Series of the Department of Old Irish at NUI, Maynooth.
Dr Ó Néill is Provost of the Magee campus since 2016. He works closely with Irish language public organisations across the island of Ireland, and has extensive links with the USA and Canada in the field of Irish Studies. His doctorate – an edition of An Leabhar Eoghanach – was awarded in 2007. Formerly editor of An tUltach (2007-10), Dr Ó Néill is Irish language editor of Dúiche Néill.
Dr Sewell has research interests in Modern and contemporary writing in Irish, bilingual writing in Ireland, translation, creative writing, and international aspects of Irish literature, especially Russian and Slavonic links. He has written extensively on all of these areas and has received a number of prestigious awards for his work, including the Arts Council Literature Award in 1999 and 2001. He is author of Modern Irish Poetry: A New Alhambra (Oxford: OUP, 2000), published in 2001 and Selected Poems: Seán Ó Ríordáin. Yale University Press 2014.
Dr Smith has research interests in both modern and medieval Irish, Irish folklore and folk song, and sociolinguistics. Among his publications is a Bibliography of Irish literature relating to South-East Ulster and a number of articles in peer-reviewed publications on Irish historical verse. In 2008 he published Three Middle-Irish Historical Poems Ascribed to Gilla Cóemáin: A Critical Edition of the Work of an 11th-Century Irish Scholar and Politics and Land in Early Ireland: A Poem by Eochaid Úa Flainn. Éitset áes ecna aíbind, Berlin: Curach Bhán Publications, 2013.
I graduated from Ulster University in 2012 with a first class Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree in Irish Language and Literature. I gained invaluable experience during the course of my studies while researching for my undergraduate dissertation and while researching for a Masters of Research. I graduated with distinction for my thesis entitled ‘Tradisiún an Cheoil ar Oileán Thoraigh’ in 2013.
At present I am a graduate student researching for my PhD thesis entitled ‘The Irish of An Tearmann, Co Donegal’ under the supervision of Professor Ailbhe Ó Corráin and Dr. Peter Smith.
I intend to carry out a comprehensive linguistic analysis of the Irish dialect of An Tearmann, Co Donegal in its terminal phase. This important dialect has not been previously linguistically investigated. There is a very small number of native speakers remaining in the parish of An Tearmann and it is important that this is recorded and archived for a number of reasons.