| Chair of Celtic University of Glasgow | |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1956 |
| First holder | Angus Matheson |
| Website | www.gla.ac.uk/celtic |
The Chair of Celtic is a professorship at the University of Glasgow, established in 1956 by an endowment from merchant James Crawford, the Ross Trust and the university's Ossianic Society. [1]
In 1942, dyestuff and chemical merchant James Crawford died, leaving a portion of his estate to the university to found a chair in Celtic language and literature. The chair was established in 1956 using these funds as well as contributions from the university's Ossianic Society and the Ross Trust. [1] The first professor, Angus Matheson, was appointed that year. Matheson, formerly senior lecturer in Celtic at the University, remained in post until his death in 1962. [2]
In 1963, Derick Thomson was appointed to the chair. Thomson, also known under his Gaelic name, Ruaraidh MacThòmais, had been lecturer in Welsh at the university from 1949 until 1956, when he became head of the Department of Celtic at the University of Aberdeen. [3] He was editor of Scottish Gaelic Studies, a journal produced by the Aberdonian department, [4] founded Gairm, a quarterly Gaelic magazine which ran for over 50 years under his editorship, and continues to write extensive poetry. He was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the university in 2007. When Thomson retired in 1991, he was succeeded by a fellow Aberdeen academic, Donald MacAulay, who had succeeded Thomson as editor of Scottish Gaelic Studies in 1978. [4] MacAulay took over the chair in 1991, remaining at the university until 1995. [1]
MacAuley was succeeded by Irish academic Cathair Ó Dochartaigh, who studied at Queen's University Belfast, received a PhD from the University of Aberdeen, and lectured at the Department of Celtic at the University of Aberdeen between 1972 and 1983. He worked outside academia from 1984 to 1995 in Dublin and North Wales, before taking over the chair in Glasgow in 1995. Ó Dochartaigh was succeeded in 2005 by American academic Thomas Owen Clancy. [1] Clancy studied at New York University, and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, and now specialises in Dark Age Celtic literature. [5] In 2001, he put forward a theory that St Ninian, an eighth century missionary among the Pictish peoples of what is now Scotland, was in fact a Northumbrian spin-off of St Finnian, the British missionary to whom St Columba was a disciple. He argued that the confusion is due to an eighth century scribal spelling error, for which the similarities of "u" and "n" in the Insular script of the period were responsible.
The Chair of Celtic is based within the Department of Celtic and Gaelic, part of the School of Humanities in the College of Arts.
Sorley MacLean was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.
The Royal National Mòd is an Eisteddfod-inspired international Celtic festival focusing upon Scottish Gaelic literature, traditional music, and culture which is held annually in Scotland. It is the largest of several major Scottish Mòds and is often referred to simply as the Mòd.
Iain Crichton Smith, was a Scottish poet and novelist, who wrote in both English and Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow, but moved to the Isle of Lewis at the age of two, where he and his two brothers were brought up by their widowed mother in the small crofting town of Bayble, which also produced Derick Thomson. Educated at the University of Aberdeen, Crichton Smith took a degree in English, and after completing his national service in the Army Educational Corps, went on to become a teacher. He taught in Clydebank, Dumbarton and Oban from 1952, retiring to become a full-time writer in 1977, although he already had many novels and poems published.
Celtic studies or Celtology is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to the Celtic-speaking peoples. This ranges from linguistics, literature and art history, archaeology and history, the focus lying on the study of the various Celtic languages, living and extinct. The primary areas of focus are the six Celtic languages currently in use: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
Thomas Owen Clancy is an American academic and historian who specializes in medieval Celtic literature, especially that of Scotland. He did his undergraduate work at New York University, and his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently at the University of Glasgow, where he was appointed Professor of Celtic in 2005.
Derick Smith Thomson was a Scottish poet, publisher, lexicographer, academic and writer. He was originally from Lewis, but spent much of his life in Glasgow, where he was Professor of Celtic at the University of Glasgow from 1963 to 1991. He is best known for setting up the publishing house Gairm, along with its magazine, which was the longest-running periodical ever to be written entirely in Gaelic, running for over fifty years under his editorship. Gairm has since ceased, and was replaced by Gath and then STEALL. He was an Honorary President of the Scottish Poetry Library, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy. In June 2007, he received an honorary degree from Glasgow University.
The Macaulay family of Uig in Lewis, known in Scottish Gaelic as Clann mhic Amhlaigh, were a small family located around Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. There is no connection between the Macaulays of Lewis and Clan MacAulay which was centred in the Loch Lomond area, bordering the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands. The Macaulays of Lewis are generally said to be of Norse origin because of the etymology of their surname and also because of the islands' Viking Age past. However, a recent analysis of the Y-DNA of men with Scottish surnames has shown that a large number of Hebridean Macaulays are of Irish origin. In the 17th century, however, tradition gave the Macaulays an Irish origin. By the end of the 16th century the dominant clan on Lewis was Clan Macleod of The Lewes. Other notable Lewis clans were the somewhat smaller Morrisons of Ness and the even less numerous Macaulays of Uig. The Macaulays were centred in the area surrounding Uig on the western coast of Lewis, and had a deadly, long-standing feud with the Morrisons, whose lands were located on the northern coast around Ness. Today the Lewis surname Macaulay is considered to be a sept name of the Macleods of Lewis. There are two other nearby clans of Macaulays who may, or may not, be connected to the Lewis clan—the Wester Ross Macaulays, and the Uist MacAulays.
The Fernaig manuscript is a document containing approximately 4,200 lines of verse consisting largely of political and religious themes. The manuscript was composed between 1688 and 1693 by Donnchadh MacRath in Wester Ross and is notable for the author's unique orthography which is, like the more famous Book of the Dean of Lismore, based upon English, rather than Classical Gaelic, phonetics. Although the manuscript has been studied, "translated" in accordance with correct Gaelic orthography and republished – for the first time in 1923 by Calum MacPhàrlainn – it has been said that it has yet to be reliably interpreted.
There is no standard variety of Scottish Gaelic; although statements below are about all or most dialects, the north-western dialects are discussed more than others as they represent the majority of speakers.
Scottish Gaelic literature refers to literary works composed in the Scottish Gaelic language, which is, like Irish and Manx, a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. Gaelic literature was also composed in Gàidhealtachd communities throughout the global Scottish diaspora where the language has been and is still spoken.
Angus is a masculine given name in English. It is an Anglicised form of the Scottish Gaelic and Irish Aonghas, which is composed of Celtic elements meaning "one" and "choice". A variant spelling of the Scottish Gaelic name is Aonghus. The Irish form of the Scottish Gaelic name is Aengus. A pet form of the given name Angus is Angie, pronounced "an-ghee", which represents the Scottish Gaelic Angaidh. A short form of the given name Angus is Gus, which may be lengthened to Gussie. The feminine form of Angus is Angusina.
The MacMhuirich bardic family, known in Scottish Gaelic as Clann MacMhuirich and Clann Mhuirich, and anglicised as Clan Currie was a prominent family of bards and other professionals in 15th to 18th centuries. The family was centred in the Hebrides, and claimed descent from a 13th-century Irish bard who, according to legend, was exiled to Scotland. The family was at first chiefly employed by the Lords of the Isles as poets, lawyers, and physicians. With the fall of the Lordship of the Isles in the 15th century, the family was chiefly employed by the chiefs of the MacDonalds of Clanranald. Members of the family were also recorded as musicians in the early 16th century, and as clergymen possibly as early as the early 15th century.
James MacLagan or McLagan was a Church of Scotland minister and collector of Scottish Gaelic poetry and song. His manuscript collection, known as the McLagan Collection, comprises some 250 manuscripts of primarily Gaelic song and poetry collected in the second half of the eighteenth century. The collection includes works by many of the best-known 17th- and 18th-century Gaelic poets such as Iain Lom, Màiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh and Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair.
William Ross was a Scottish writer of Romantic poetry in Scottish Gaelic from the Isle of Skye and a parish schoolmaster, who is often referred to as, "The Bard of Gairloch." According to Derick S. Thomson, "Ros is justly regarded as the leading poet of love of the eighteenth century." Despite being widely viewed, however, as a, "love-lorn romantic who died of unrequited love", Ross was also very capable of poking fun at himself. More than two hundred years after his death, Ross remains a highly important and admired figure in Scottish Gaelic literature. Along with his iconic eulogy for the 1788 death of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, one of Ross' most famous songs is the lament, Cuachag nan Craobh, the tune of which is now known throughout the Anglosphere as The Skye Boat Song, based on multiple sets of Scottish English lyrics composed a century later.
Dòmhnall MacAmhlaigh was a Scottish Gaelic poet and professor.
James Logan (1797–1872) was a Scottish author on Gaelic culture, best known for his 1831 book The Scottish Gaël.
William Matheson was a Scottish Gaelic scholar, academic, and ordained minister of the Church of Scotland.
A Celtic society is a type of society at the four ancient universities of Scotland, and sometimes more broadly, at a city level, which were founded between the late 18th and mid-19th centuries in the wake of the Celtic Revival and Romanticism, with the primary aim of supporting the practical and academic study of the Scottish Gaelic language and culture. The student societies are the oldest at their respective universities, and were instrumental in campaigning for the establishment of academic departments dedicated to Gaelic studies.
The Linguistic Survey of Scotland was a long-term project at the University of Edinburgh to cover the use of language in Scotland, including Scottish English, Scots and Scottish Gaelic.
