Periodic Reporting for period 4 - CLIC (Classical Influences and Irish Culture)
Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-09-30
The ERC project Classical Influences and Irish Culture (CLIC, grant no. 818366) addresses Ireland’s unique and hitherto underexplored history of cultural engagement with models from ancient Greece and Rome. It asks why Ireland, a northern European country never colonized by Rome, has such a rich history of classical reception, and what is distinctive about that history? The project answers these questions through a multi-thematic analytical approach, anchored to nine themes of diachronic relevance: language; land; migration; Troy; satire; Platonism; female voices; material culture; and global influence. The multi-thematic approach provides a heuristic framework that generates dialogue between normally disparate fields, such as classical reception studies, Irish and British history, English-language literature, Irish-language literature, medieval studies, postcolonial studies, philosophy, material culture, women’s studies, and global studies. The project engages with contemporary preoccupations surrounding the politics and history of the divided island of Ireland, such as the decade of centenary commemorations for the foundation of an independent Irish state (1912-1922, 2012-2022), the on-going political divisions in Northern Ireland generated by Brexit and the Northern Ireland Protocol, and recent scholarship on the complexities of Irish cultural identity. These issues are a springboard for opening new avenues of investigation that look far beyond the past 100 years, but are linked to them. Our project argues that sources from classical antiquity have consistently been exploited in thematically specific ways across the island, and throughout its history. The research sheds new light on the role of classical culture in shaping social, literary, and political discourse in Ireland and in facilitating the articulation of diverse Irish identities. The project’s central objective is to demonstrate the overwhelming pervasiveness of appropriations of classical culture in Ireland from the medieval period to the present day. Understanding Ireland’s deep-rooted indigenous and pre-colonial expertise in classical learning translated into Irish vernaculars and native forms, and the continuing legacy of classical appropriation for social and political expression across the island, generates new perspectives on the polyphonic diversity of Irish history, culture and identities.
Since the project launch in October 2019, work has progressed in line with the eight objectives (O) listed in the Description of the Action. A database of references to classical allusions in Irish literature continues to be developed (O1). This now contains close to 1100 works of literature from the medieval period to the present day by c. 200 Irish authors, including c. 60 female authors and c. 300 Irish-language works. Data can be searched through over 700 mythological figures, over 350 historical figures, and close to 600 classical locations, or through 75 classical sources. Each literature entry contains Notes explaining the significance of its classical allusions, and an accompanying bibliography. Newly published data becomes immediately accessible at https://classicalirish.au.dk/(opens in new window) .
Through over one hundred dissemination talks to both specialist and public audiences, our project team has presented research on the core research objectives associated with the project’s nine themes. Open access project results (O8) include a new anthology of medieval Irish sources that engage with classical antiquity, along with analytical essays (Classical Antiquity and Medieval Ireland, Bloomsbury 2024), a major result of the project's 'Language' theme (O3). Three edited volumes analyzing case studies from the medieval period to the twenty-first century present results on three further key project themes: Graeco-Roman Influences in Irish Visual and Material Culture (Classics Ireland special issue 31, 2024) on the material culture theme (O6); Irish Migrations and Classical Antiquity (Bloomsbury, 2026) on the migration and land confiscations themes (O2); Irish Platonisms (Bloomsbury, forthcoming) on the Platonism theme (O4). Individual chapters within these collections, along with an additional four peer-reviewed articles by project members, address other key project themes: Troy (O4); satire (O3); female voices (O5); and global influence (O7).
Through over one hundred dissemination talks to both specialist and public audiences, our project team has presented research on the core research objectives associated with the project’s nine themes. Open access project results (O8) include a new anthology of medieval Irish sources that engage with classical antiquity, along with analytical essays (Classical Antiquity and Medieval Ireland, Bloomsbury 2024), a major result of the project's 'Language' theme (O3). Three edited volumes analyzing case studies from the medieval period to the twenty-first century present results on three further key project themes: Graeco-Roman Influences in Irish Visual and Material Culture (Classics Ireland special issue 31, 2024) on the material culture theme (O6); Irish Migrations and Classical Antiquity (Bloomsbury, 2026) on the migration and land confiscations themes (O2); Irish Platonisms (Bloomsbury, forthcoming) on the Platonism theme (O4). Individual chapters within these collections, along with an additional four peer-reviewed articles by project members, address other key project themes: Troy (O4); satire (O3); female voices (O5); and global influence (O7).
Progress of the project beyond the state of the art is exemplified by the Open Access project results.
The volume 'Classical Antiquity and Medieval Ireland' (Bloomsbury 2024) gives unprecedented access to the extraordinarily wide variety of medieval Irish texts in Middle Irish that retell or engage with Graeco-Roman mythology and history. These include the 'antiquity-sagas', synchronistic poetry, world chronologies, lesser-known Irish poetry and prose, linguistic and metaphysical tracts, placename lore, medieval historiographies, and warriors of Irish legend recast as classical heroes. Extracts are presented alongside translations and accompanying essays to showcase the expertise in classical learning that flourished in medieval Gaelic Ireland, and played a significant role in shaping Irish cultural identity from about 800-1500 CE.
The volume 'Graeco-Roman Influences in Irish Visual and Material Culture' (Classics Ireland 31, 2024) generates a new framework for understanding the impact of classical influences on Irish visual and material culture as a pre-colonial trend, shedding new light on traditionally 'Celtic' artefacts from the 'Ardagh chalice' to Celtic high crosses, and tracing that influence to various different expressions of Irish identities from the early modern period until the twenty-first century.
The volume 'Irish Migrations and Classical Antiquity' (Bloomsbury 2026) argues that ancient Greece and Rome have shaped Irish migration narratives from the earliest texts to the 21st century. These classical models emerge in response to four key drivers of migration: war, economic need, religious motivation and the pursuit of education. Rather than passive inheritances, Graeco-Roman forms are used both to join and to challenge dominant frameworks, offering tools for cultural participation and strategies of resistance to exclusion.
Individual peer-reviewed articles and chapters further contribute to progress beyond the state of the art, and further expected results include:
A volume charting Irish interactions with Platonist thought, again across varied identities, from the seventh to the twentieth centuries (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
A volume evaluating the politics of linguistic inclusion and exclusion in the dynamic engagements of Irish with Latin, Greek, and English, from the medieval period to the present day.
The volume 'Classical Antiquity and Medieval Ireland' (Bloomsbury 2024) gives unprecedented access to the extraordinarily wide variety of medieval Irish texts in Middle Irish that retell or engage with Graeco-Roman mythology and history. These include the 'antiquity-sagas', synchronistic poetry, world chronologies, lesser-known Irish poetry and prose, linguistic and metaphysical tracts, placename lore, medieval historiographies, and warriors of Irish legend recast as classical heroes. Extracts are presented alongside translations and accompanying essays to showcase the expertise in classical learning that flourished in medieval Gaelic Ireland, and played a significant role in shaping Irish cultural identity from about 800-1500 CE.
The volume 'Graeco-Roman Influences in Irish Visual and Material Culture' (Classics Ireland 31, 2024) generates a new framework for understanding the impact of classical influences on Irish visual and material culture as a pre-colonial trend, shedding new light on traditionally 'Celtic' artefacts from the 'Ardagh chalice' to Celtic high crosses, and tracing that influence to various different expressions of Irish identities from the early modern period until the twenty-first century.
The volume 'Irish Migrations and Classical Antiquity' (Bloomsbury 2026) argues that ancient Greece and Rome have shaped Irish migration narratives from the earliest texts to the 21st century. These classical models emerge in response to four key drivers of migration: war, economic need, religious motivation and the pursuit of education. Rather than passive inheritances, Graeco-Roman forms are used both to join and to challenge dominant frameworks, offering tools for cultural participation and strategies of resistance to exclusion.
Individual peer-reviewed articles and chapters further contribute to progress beyond the state of the art, and further expected results include:
A volume charting Irish interactions with Platonist thought, again across varied identities, from the seventh to the twentieth centuries (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
A volume evaluating the politics of linguistic inclusion and exclusion in the dynamic engagements of Irish with Latin, Greek, and English, from the medieval period to the present day.