Season 3, Episode 7: Irish Manuscripts in the British Library featuring Seosamh Mac Cárthaigh

Celtic Students Podcast

In this episode, Nina Cnockaert-Guillou talks to Seosamh Mac Cárthaigh (Joseph McCarthy), a PhD student at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic of the University of Cambridge. On top of his fascinating PhD research, Seosamh completed a 3-month internship at the British Library in London in 2021, during which he updated the online catalogue for pre-1600 Irish manuscripts. Seosamh discusses the internship work, what he enjoyed and the challenges he faced. He also describes the amazing treasures found in medieval Irish manuscripts, from scribes writing notes complaining when others take their pens to spinning wheels of vellum. This episode provides great insights into the world of medieval Irish scribes and of the British Library.

This episode was recorded in June 2022.

Host: Nina Cnockaert-Guillou

Guest: Seosamh Mac Cárthaigh

Language: English

Music: “Kesh Jig, Leitrim Fancy” by Sláinte, CC BY-SA 3.0 US (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/), available from freemusicarchive.org.

Links to initiatives, organisations and texts mentioned in the episode:

An Chuallacht

An Cumann Drámaíochta

DIAS, School of Celtic Studies

[Note: Seosamh mentions that the Irish manuscripts in the British Library go back to the 13th century but there are also two 12th-century manuscripts, Harley 1023 and Harley 1802]

Standish Hayes O’Grady, Robin Flower, and Myles Dillon, Catalogue of Irish manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London, 1926–1953).

Harley 5280

Digital Framework for the Medieval Gaelic World

Egerton 89

eDIL, Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

British Library catalogue

Egerton 1782

Egerton 1781

Additional 30512

Egerton 92

[Note: When Seosamh talks about Egerton 90 he meant Egerton 88, which is available on ISOS]

Twitter @BLMedieval

Seosamh’s blog posts on the Medieval Manuscripts Blog:

‘Irish voyage tales for the holiday of a lifetime’, 17th March 2021

‘Giant ants, golden apples and a killer cat’, 21st August 2021

‘Afterlives and otherworlds: three ghost stories from medieval Ireland’, 31st October 2021

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/celticstudents/message