Association of Celtic Students

Failt ort ! Welcome to the first in the series of posts on the Celtic Students Blog where we talk about learning the Celtic Languages. This post deals with Manx, Gaelg/Gailck to its speakers, the Celtic language native to the Isle of Man. Nowadays, the Island has around 2000 speakers of Manx (according to the Isle of Man census in 2011). If you are interested in joining their ranks, here are some phrases to start you off. If you speak Irish or Scottish Gaelic, some of the words below may be familiar to you once you sound them out; don’t be intimidated by the spelling!  Failt ort/erriu (falch ort/ER-yoo) – Welcome (sg/pl). Moghrey mie (MO-ruh meye) – Good morning. Fastyr mie (FASS-tuh meye) – Good afternoon. Oie vie (ee veye) – Good night. She mish [Juan]/[Moirrey] (shay mish…) – I am [John]/[Mary]. Kys t’ou/ta shiu ? (kiss tow/ta shoo) – How are you (sg/pl)? Ta mee [ braew ]/[ mie dy liooar ] (ta mee brow/meye duh LYOO-uh) – I am [fine]/[okay]. Gura mie ayd/eu (GU-ruh meye ...

In this first post about historical Celtic scholars and in celebration of International Women’s Day I want to highlight two women who made important contributions to Irish studies and say a little about their lives – Eleanor Knott and Cecile O’Rahilly.   Eleanor Knott (1886-1975) is perhaps the better studied of the pair. Her archives are held by The Royal Irish Academy and Trinity College Dublin, who also hosted a conference about her and her work in 2016.   Eleanor did not attend university but took courses at the School of Irish Learning where she became part of a network of scholars based in Dublin in the early 20th century. Her archives are mainly made up of private letters and postcards that range from requests for lexical information to notes about events in the senders’ personal lives. There is also information about publishing – both her own works as well as in her role as the co-editor of Ériu.   In the 1920s she published her two-volume edition and translatio...