Our MA in Celtic Civilisation is concerned with the history of the Celtic peoples from central Europe to Ireland, and from the early Iron Age into the Middle Ages. The focus is on Ireland's affinities with the outside world: our European inheritance in prehistoric times, and the manner in which Ireland influenced European culture in the early Christian period. Celtic literature, mythology, languages, learning, and the Celtic saints are particular topics of study.

 

Students are encouraged to develop their skills through a close reading of sources. You will have the opportunity to study medieval Welsh and Latin, and to take advanced courses in literary studies, paleography, and textual editing. Provision has been made for supervised independent research to allow you to broaden and deepen your scholarly interests, while a 20,000-word thesis gives scope to postgraduates to complete a significant piece of work in a specific area of interest.

 

On successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• identify basic Old Irish grammatical forms, and translate sentences that illustrate their use;
• translate selected passages of Medieval Welsh prose;
• transcribe Early Irish texts from manuscript sources;
• write and present a seminar paper on an agreed topic;
• present the results of supervised research on a topic within the discipline in the form of a fully-annotated thesis.