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Elizabeth Boyle

@thecelticist.bsky.social
7K followers 3.3K following 1.3K posts

Historian/writer • @maynoothuniversity.ie • executive committee @mediumaevum.bsky.social • deputy chair of board @dublinnorthwest.bsky.social • Fierce Appetites (Penguin, 2022) • rep'd by Robert Caskie • extreme metal fan • she/her

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Reposted by Elizabeth Boyle
Sally Hayden @sallyhayd.bsky.social · 1h
Extremely late but I got a substack: substack.com/@sallyhayd
substack.com
Sally Hayden | Substack
Journalist; photographer; author of 'My Fourth Time, We Drowned' and 'This is Also a Love Story'.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 9h
Members @ifut.bsky.social staged a 1-hour walkout today at Maynooth as part of the Irish public sector pay dispute. Grateful also to the Postgraduate Workers' Organisation for their support. Solidarity with our colleagues in other unions who have begun working to contract. Power to the people! ✊️
Members of Maynooth University Postgraduate Workers' Organisation supporting the 1-hour walkout by the Irish Federation of University Teachers. A crowd of IFUT members and supporters gather while staging a one-hour work stoppage as part of the Irish public sector pay dispute. IFUT members and supporters gather during a one-hour work stoppage. A flag from the Climate Justice University Union is prominent in the bottom half of the photo.
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Dónal Hassett @donalh.bsky.social · 9h
Great turnout for our one hour IFUT work stoppage today at Maynooth, part of the broader public sector campaign for fair pay and working conditions. We wre joined by a great cohort from the Postgraduate Workers' Organisation. Now I have to source some intimidating bunting for the picket...
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 12h
Along with my fellow trade union members, I am withdrawing my labour for one hour today, 12-1pm, in #solidarity with other public sector workers in Ireland, including teachers & nurses, as part of the public sector pay dispute. ✊️ climatejusticeuniversitiesunion.org/statement-of...
climatejusticeuniversitiesunion.org
Statement of Solidarity with Public Sector Workers and Students
The Climate Justice Universities Union stands in solidarity with Ireland’s public sector workers and their trade unions taking industrial action. We also stand in solidarity with students and their un...
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It was a lovely event - I hope you enjoyed it!
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
On Tuesday @ceilteachomn.bsky.social said a proper farewell to @davidstifter.bsky.social, who has taken up a senior professorship @scs-dias.bsky.social: a lovely, warm speech from @dhaydenceltic.bsky.social, gifts including a print by Maura McDonnell, & some parting words of wisdom from David 🥂
Prof. David Stifter smiles while holding a framed print of the spire on the Maynooth University South Campus by artist Maura McDonnell. Prof. Deborah Hayden gives a speech. Some graduate students are visible in the background.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Oh retractionwatch.com/2026/10/02/p...
David Ho, a climate scientist at the University of Hawaii, responded to our request for comment on the paper by saying he was not interested in reading it. “I’m sorry, but I’d rather keep my brain cells,” he said.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Huge congratulations to my PhD student @lydiahursh.bsky.social, who just submitted her thesis @ceilteachomn.bsky.social on "Gendered Politeness in Medieval Irish 'tochmarca'", using sociolinguistic politeness theory to analyse speech in medieval Irish "wooing" tales. Brava, Lydia! #MedievalSky
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Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Exciting new finds on the English immigrants living in early 10th-c. Rome.
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Dr Mary McAuliffe @drmarymcauliffe.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Court hears of ‘significant’ and ‘out of blue’ change of practice by Minister for Justice www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/co...
irishtimes.com
Four students from Gaza challenge ‘irrational’ visa refusal to pursue studies
Court hears of ‘significant’ and ‘out of blue’ change of practice by Minister for Justice
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"What the islanders discovered were extensive burial grounds, decorated stonework and early buildings – all the features belonging to a major sixth-century monastery, comparable to the much better known site of Iona a little to the south-west." #MedievalSky www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
theguardian.com
‘Hugely exciting’ finds on tiny Scottish island shed light on spread of Christianity
Community-funded archaeological excavations of ‘really important’ sixth-century monastery also rewrite story of Lismore
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"The resulting image of reality is haunting. Every fact is only a fact relative to something else, and even the fact that a fact is relative to something else is itself relative. There is no ground floor." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
theguardian.com
On the Equality of All Things by Carlo Rovelli review – a physicist’s guide to life, the universe and everything
Near-mystical musings from a scientist who believes we are on the brink of a revolution in understanding ourselves
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Of course I know Bernhard, but Ranke's post is about pedagogy - writing a guide for students on how to edit texts - & how AI will not displace the core skills of manuscript transcription, language & translation any time soon because the available tools cannot do the job, aside from the human value.
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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ooop www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Ancient sheep virus found hiding in medieval parchment
Newly recovered sheeppox sequences reveal when and how the virus emerged
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The Lever @levernews.com · 28/09/2026
NEW: @DavidSacks pushed Trump to reject new AI safeguards. At the same time, his venture capital firm was investing in AI startups positioned to benefit from looser rules. Now, that firm is raising a new $1 billion fund.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Substack post by Ranke de Vries which not only shows that AI won't be taking over Medieval Irish Studies any time soon (thankfully), but also makes an eloquent case in favour of sitting with the difficulty of manuscript transcription. #MedievalSky rankedevries.substack.com/p/ai-and-med...
rankedevries.substack.com
AI and medieval Irish manuscripts
Just no.
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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Looking forward to this!! 👇
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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 28/09/2026
Delighted to have gotten my own copy today! @realmandeville.bsky.social #medievalsky
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It's REALLY good so far!
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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.northsky.social · 27/09/2026
This spellbook (~13th c.) is great. It's got spells for invisibility, protecting travellers, predicting pregnancy, causing love and hate, and scrying in a mirror. The magician started a spell for "gathering demons," but seems to have had second thoughts and stopped after 4 words. @theul.bsky.social
Brown, waterstained paper bifolium on a blue background next to a yellow label that reads T-S K1.132 (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-K-00001-00132/2)
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A while ago, I sat down with Dave Musgrove of @historyextra.bsky.social to talk about "How to Argue like a Medieval Irish Monk" for his Life Lessons from History podcast. Some thoughts on knowledge, humility & right action. #MedievalSky #Spéirghorm historyextra.supportingcast.fm/listen/life-...
historyextra.supportingcast.fm
HistoryExtra | Argue like a medieval Irish monk
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Controversial. I prefer:
A copy of the 1996 doom metal EP Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) by Cathedral.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Excited to receive an advance copy of @realmandeville.bsky.social's The First Witches, out with Penguin in Feb 2027. Beginning with the 14th-cent. Kilkenny witch-hunt & spreading across Europe, this book traces the early manifestations of what would eventually become the so-called "witch craze".
An advance proof copy of Anthony Bale, The First Witches: An Extraordinary Story of Magic, Strife and Tragedy, forthcoming with Penguin in February 2027
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Prof Ben Pohl @benpohl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Term card of the @bristolcms.bsky.social seminar series 2026/27 just dropped, incl. the first in our brand-new series of distinguished CMS Global Lectures. Spread the word and join us and our stellar line-up of speakers in person or online. Every medievalist welcome! #medievalsky #skystorians
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"The find suggests possible trading routes between Viking-controlled Shetland with Anglo-Saxons in England, or that it could be treasure from a Norse raid."
bbc.com
Rare Anglo-Saxon coin unearthed in Shetland
Archaeologists say the discovery suggests possible trading links between Viking and Anglo-Saxons.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
😆😭
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
1st lecture today in my "Humour in Medieval Celtic Literature" module. The idea was to get students to develop a vocabulary of humour in order to analyse why something is considered funny. What the students actually learned was that I don't know how to spell either "humorous" or "innuendo". 🤦 Oops!
A whiteboard with terms relating to humour written on it: comic triple, satire, parody, irony, double entendre, pastiche, and so on. Two words - humorous and innuendo - are spelled incorrectly.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"When I use these records to unearth my enslaved ancestors, I’m using them for a purpose that was different than what it was initially intended for. Our product is restoring the humanity of a person." www.theguardian.com/news/2026/se...
theguardian.com
Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online
Exclusive: Collection’s 300,000 pages record lives of enslaved people in countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad
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David Stifter 🍵📄🦊 @davidstifter.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
What do Catherine Connolly, Donald Trump and myself have in common? We are all mentioned in this article in the Irish Times by Ronan McGreevy: www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026... @scs-dias.bsky.social @dias.ie
irishtimes.com
Was Catherine Connolly ‘trolling’ Donald Trump by giving him an obscure medieval text at the Áras?
US president gifted new edition of Voyage of St Brendan, a book which has a centuries’ long back story
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Thank you for ruining my weekend. 😆
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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Delighted that the first essay in CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW, a special issue of Public Humanities, ed by me & Eleanor Barraclough, is now available! Check out @thecelticist.bsky.social brilliant essay ‘De Ira’ & bookmark this page for further essays this autumn! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Special issue of Public Humanities journal on Creating the Medieval with artwork by Kristen Haas CurtisAbstract for Creating the Medieval Now special issue: essays by medievalists who are also creative practitioners on how their practice operates as their mode of scholarship.Elizabeth Boyle’s essay De IraAbstract for Elizabeth Boyle’s essay De Ira
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Elsbeth @historecluse.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Two great historians meditating the changes to university life, a wonderful piece. I am reminded what a life-changing experience it was to spend three postdoctoral years in English academe (and studying English academe) and with what relief I left it.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Really interesting #OpenAccess article by Ziyang Li on "palimpsestic" medievalism and Arthurian myth in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant. #MedievalSky link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Rubbing and rewriting: Medievalism in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant - postmedieval
This article argues that Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant recasts the Arthurian myth of British origins through what I deem a palimpsestic form of medievalism. This process of ‘rubbing and rewriting’...
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"From the moment I was born Palestinian, my existence was political." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
theguardian.com
No Land to Stand On by Mahmoud Khalil review – a searing account of political imprisonment
The Palestinian Columbia student snatched by ICE writes about his Kafkaesque ordeal with a quiet fury
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
My daughter loves and rewatches the show and - even worse - sees our own mother-daughter relationship reflected in the Lorelai-Rory relationship, which I find horrifying because I absolutely despise both characters. 😆😭
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Fantastically interesting article by the brilliant @francescatinti.bsky.social out now in English Historical Review on language and identity in early medieval England. #OpenAccess #MedievalSky academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
academic.oup.com
Languages, Identities and Communication in the Age of Bede*
Abstract. This article seeks to address the underexplored role of language as a marker of identity in the early medieval period by focusing on England in t
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"The brothers travelled more than 2,500 miles (4,100km) over eight months in their “dispersal” – when a young dog comes of age and must establish new territory to find a mate and start a family of their own." www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘Like a Disney movie’: Three wild dog brothers make Africa’s longest journey
As three siblings came of age and had to leave their pack, scientists tracked the dogs’ perilous 2,500-mile odyssey to find their own territory
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
As someone who housed a young Syrian refugee in Ireland - a single man of fighting age, indeed - I can tell you that he was a refugee precisely because he *didn't* want to fight. He is a kind, clever, hard-working young Muslim man (and now, I am happy to say, an Irish citizen, a husband & a father).
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I was also astonished when I saw her age - I wouldn't have guessed that she was in her late 70s at all.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Very nice to hear a sane voice from Piddington. Serious respect to this woman, who is apparently already being othered by more bigoted villagers.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"You must go at your life with a broadax." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/b...
nytimes.com
Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81 (Gift Article)
Her Thoreau-like account of journeys in the woods, published when she was 28, was the first of many ruminations on life and nature, good and evil.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Oh, this is sad news. She was a wonderful thinker, always worth reading and listening to. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Bonnie Greer, writer and cultural commentator, dies aged 77
The British-American novelist and playwright who regularly appeared on panel shows will be remembered for her ‘warmth, humour and generosity’, says her husband
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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
How do we think about the "Fall" of Rome today? What can we do to frame it in a more productive way? Our new open access article tries to tackle these questions and offer a new view of the scholarly narrative of the end of Rome. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end | The Journal of Roman Studies | Cambridge Core
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It will be revised for publication and will be published next year as a pamphlet and open access online PDF. I shall post when it is out!
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Hi Lorraine. We don't record these seminars because they're very much "work in progress" & the speakers are usually looking to get feedback on their ideas, but that talk is part of a bigger project on Clonard (led by @niamhwycherley.bsky.social) so I am sure it will be published in due course!
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I'll be teaching my "Humour in Medieval Celtic Literature" module this semester so this new edition & translation by Liam Breatnach @scs-dias.bsky.social of a 9th-century Irish poem on satirising the powerful - "wounding with weapons of mockery" - is a perfect addition to the syllabus! #MedievalSky
A copy of Liam Breatnach, Fíngein mac Flaind's poem on the Fir Arda: an Early Medieval Irish Reflection on the Limitations of Satire, published in 2026 by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
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Rachel Pope @prehistorian.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I do recommend spending some time exploring this database, if only to get a sense of the scale: britishslavetraders.org
britishslavetraders.org
The Register of British Slave-Traders
The Register of British Slave-traders compiles and presents information on all known slave-traders in Britain who invested in the trafficking of captive Africans from 1563 to 1807.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The water tasted good!
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I was on a research trip today on the Meath/Cavan border &, among other things, I visited St Ciaran's Well at Castlekeeran, Co. Meath, named after the 8th-century St Ciarán of Bealach Dúin, not the more famous St Ciarán of Clonmacnoise. (Yes, I drank the water!) #MedievalSky #Spéirghorm
St Ciarán's Well at Castlekeeran, Co. Meath. There is a metal ladle on a chain beside the bedrock well, for visitors to drink the water. A rag tree at the head of St Ciaran's Well, and a white candle in front of it. The waterway at St Ciaran's Well in Castlekeeran, Co. Meath.St Ciaran's Well, Co. Meath.
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Elizabeth Boyle @thecelticist.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"The novel often reads as a realist Irish rural story ... But in Duncan’s fiction that tradition converges with a cerebral European mode that is drawn to philosophy, architecture, madness and exile. I can’t think of another writer who draws from the same seams in any comparable way."
theguardian.com
A Thought Without Collision by Adrian Duncan review – a brilliant interrogation of philosophy and wonder
With a character inspired by Wittgenstein, this exploration of the mysteries of the universe draws on multiple philosophical traditions
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