approaching Celtic literatures

for readers who do not speak or read any Celtic languages, access to Celtic-language literatures is often mediated through more than two centuries of colonial stereotypes, R/romanticism, outdated translations, and (re)interpretations by outsiders, many of whom themselves did not know any Celtic languages. as the Scottish Gaelic scholar William Gillies has observed in the context of the controversy surrounding James Macpherson’s Ossian poems, published in the 1760s, “a series of value-judgments embedded themselves in people’s thinking about Gaelic poetry. Not, what was Gaelic poetry like, but what must it be like (this was the outsiders’ version) or what ouchoght it to be like (this was the insiders’ version)” (“On the Study of Gaelic Literature,” 9-10). even as the Ossian controversy wound down around the turn of the 19th century (at least for English-speaking audiences), dominant-language audiences for Celtic-language literatures have continued to be caught up first and foremost in a complex constellation of ideas about what these literatures must be like, informed by colonial histories extending back to the Roman period, the Romantic movement’s valuation of “nature,” the development of race science in the 18th and 19th centuries, and subsequent offshoots of these, perhaps most notably the development of neopaganism.

all of this has created a situation where ideas about Celtic-language cultures and communities, and the “Celtic fringe” more broadly (encompassing areas like Cornwall, where Celtic languages died out relatively recently and have subsequently been revived), have circulated at several degrees of remove — if not entirely disconnected — from the real literatures, cultures, and communities, both past and present, that produced the “Celtic literature” that dominant-language writers like Ernest Renan, Matthew Arnold, Standish James O’Grady, Isabella Augusta (aka “Lady Gregory”), W.B. Yeats, Lewis spence, and Robert Graves popularized and presented to dominant-language audiences. a search for “Celtic literature” on Wikipedia or whatever your preferred search engine is will turn up results that are, at best, vague and, at worst, wholesale fabrications presented as “authentic” “Celtic” “folklore” (or, worse, simply “lore”). without access to texts in Celtic languages, it can be difficult or impossible to know where to begin. where and how does one find actual Celtic-language literatures in adequate, responsible English translations?

there are six modern Celtic languages, divided into two groups.

I should note in particular that Scottish Gaelic is distinct from Scots, an unrelated Germanic language spoken primarily in the Lowlands of Scotland that diverged from Early Middle English. Scots will be most familiar to English-speakers from the poetry of Robert Burns, from some well-known ballads, and from being treated as a ~funny meme~ by non-Scottish audiences on social media. Scots has its own literary and folk traditions, as a stigmatized language of rural communities and the urban working class, that are worth exploring (I particularly recommend Harry Josephine Giles’s sci-fi verse novel Deep Wheel Orcadia, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2022), but it is beyond the scope of this introduction.

this reading list is divided into a bunch of sections, including literature in premodern Celtic languages (primarily medieval, but I also point towards a source for the continental Celtic languages of classical antiquity) and literature in the modern Celtic languages:

  1. mixed anthologies of Celtic-language literatures in translation
  2. premodern Celtic-language literatures in translation, encompassing primarily but not exclusively medieval Gaelic literature from Ireland and Scotland and medieval Welsh literature
  3. Celtic-language folklore in translation, currently limited to Irish and Scottish Gaelic, because these are what I’m most familiar with
  4. modern Celtic-language literatures in translation
  5. Celtic-language films
  6. a selection of critical and historical texts on Celtic-language literatures, Celtic-language communities, and dominant-language Celticism
  7. works cited as part of this reading list

before I get to the lists, a few notes.

first, I have not read every text here (in particular the translations of modern Celtic-language literatures); my goal is to provide a broad basis for entering the fields of various Celtic-language literatures and cultures. Breton unfortunately gets particularly short shrift here because it’s very difficult to find Breton-language texts in English translation; I suspect the field is a bit broader in French, but — frankly — I haven’t really looked into it, so I don’t know.

second, it is an unfortunate reality that actually accessing Celtic-language texts in translation can be difficult even when translations are theoretically available; for this reason, particularly in the premodern literature and folklore section, I have included a selection of 19th- and early 20th-century translations that are freely available online. these should be taken with a grain of salt: purely at a philological level, our understanding of premodern Celtic languages has improved significantly since the 19th century, and older translations are often marked by outdated ideas about medieval culture and religion and about anthropology and folklore. take the paratexts — introductions, notes, commentaries, appendices — in this kind of material with a strong skepticism; in some cases it should probably be entirely disregarded. I’ve added notes with caveats to specific texts, as well.

third, for a number of reasons — not least the relative paucity of translators — many Celtic-language texts have been translated by their authors (“self-translation”). I and others have major reservations about this (see the pieces by Corinna Krause, Wilson McLeod, and especially Christopher Whyte in the works cited). self-translation, especially in the context of bilingual editions (a common format for Gaelic poetry), creates the illusion of transparency, eliding the fact that every translation is an act of interpretation and that the author’s interpretation is not necessarily the only one (or even the best, as I’ll note in a few cases below). in some cases, particularly with prose translations, self-translations amount to rewritings, as I observed of Manon Steffan Ros’s English translation of her novel Llyfr Glas Nebo (published as The Blue Book of Nebo), which significantly deemphasizes the original novel’s interest in Welsh culture and literary history, centering English-language texts intead, in sometimes bizarre ways. this is unfortunately an unavoidable problem for readers who are not equipped to approach the texts in their original language, but I encourage you to keep it in mind and, in the case of bilingual editions, to at least glance at the Celtic-language text from time to time. it’s also worth noting that the problems presented by self-translation are not unique to self-translation but rather particularly thorny examples of the dominance of a broader ideology of translation in the English-speaking world that sees transparency or invisibility as an ideal; for those curious to get into critical translation studies, I would particularly encourage looking at work by Lawrence Venuti (most notably The Translator’s Invisibility) and Arianne Des Rochers (Language Smugglers; full disclosure, I’m biased on this one because Arianne is a close friend and I edited the manuscript).

finally, I just want to add that it’s never been easier to learn a Celtic language, even if you’re outside the regions where they’re spoken and don’t have access to in-person classes. there are several established distance programs teaching Scottish Gaelic, for example (I started with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye; there’s also Colaisde na Gàidhlig in Cape Breton), and I found the model of SaySomethinginWelsh extremely useful (coupled with Duolingo for vocabulary) in jump-starting my Welsh. the Celtic Languages wiki has links to online courses and learning materials, as well. it’s never too late to start learning!

(as with all things, this was not produced in isolation: there are lively literary communities in the Celtic languages. mòran taing (many thanks) to many people who have contributed directly — responding to my calls for additional Welsh and Irish suggestions — or indirectly — with book recommendations over the past decade — to this list.)

1. mixed anthologies

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Francis Boutle Publishers has published anthologies of work in multiple genres and spanning multiple time periods in four of the six modern Celtic languages (as well as other denied languages and in some “smaller” European languages like Maltese), and there are a few of other anthologies of this kind.

2. premodern literature in translation

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this spans four groupings: inscriptions, mostly fragmentary, in ancient Celtic languages (Gaulish, Celtiberian, etc.) that have been published in translation; medieval Cornish literature; medieval Gaelic literature, spanning Ireland and Scotland; and medieval Welsh literature.

in this vein, it is crucial to keep in mind that we have no direct textual evidence for “pagan” religious beliefs and practices in any Celtic-language-speaking region. every single medieval text in a Celtic language was produced in a Christian context: Celtic-language communities were early adopters of Christianity (and, indeed, this was a bone of contention when Germanic tribes began colonizing Britain), and every medieval account of “pagan” times in Ireland, Scotland, or Britain was produced by a Christian writer. this colors every aspect of these texts, from frankly unhinged figural interpretations to denigrations of druids to invocations of the Christian god by ostensibly pagan heroes and gods. it is difficult, if not altogether impossible, to say anything definitive about pre-Christian religious practice in Ireland or Wales on the basis of textual evidence; the most promising source we have is archaeological evidence, which has its own limitations.

to that end: bluntly, anyone who talks about “Irish mythology” or “Welsh mythology” as if these are things we have immediate and unproblematic access to is either lying to you themselves, repeating lies or misrepresentations from discredited 19th- and 20th-century scholarship, or repeating lies or misrepresentations from neopagans and neopagan-adjacent writers like Robert Graves. the selected bibliography of critical texts includes some readings on this point; in particular, I would recommend Mark Williams’s The Celtic Myths That Shape the Way We Think (aimed at non-academic readers) and Ireland’s Immortals (more academic but very good and still imo reasonably accessible) and Ronald Hutton’s work on druids and on “mythological” readings of medieval Welsh literature.

(we are on only slightly firmer ground with ancient texts, since much of our evidence comes from Greek and Roman writers who were, at best, chauvinist and, at worst, actively elaborating on and expanding colonial stereotypes designed to justify Roman imperialism. Juan Carlos Olivares Pedreño’s “Celtic Gods of the Iberian Peninsula” provides a useful overview of some of the methodological challenges of reconstructing continental Celtic religions.)

2a. ancient Celtic languages

mostly these are published in scholarly publications. the only general-audience example I’m currently aware of is Joe Koch’s The Celtic Heroic Age: Literary Sources for Ancient Celtic Europe and Early Ireland and Wales (Celtic Studies Publications), which provides translations of two Gaulish religious inscriptions. Koch is also useful because he provides a broad selection of Greek and Roman authors who wrote about populations they identified as “Celtic” or who are now identified as “Celtic,” but note that Koch is a proponent of the controversial “Celtic from the west” hypothesis, and this colors some of his presentation of the material in the book.

2b. medieval Cornish literature

medieval Cornish literature is a particularly striking example of the status of Christianity in Celtic-language communities, because apart from some glosses and one long poem it’s really just a collection of late medieval religious plays. I haven’t read any of them but I’ve heard some of them are kind of wild, and one of them, Bewnans Ke, includes an Arthurian episode.

2c. medieval Gaelic literature

I use the phrase “medieval Gaelic” to highlight that the Gaelic world in much of this period extended from Ireland to the Isle of Man to almost all of Scotland. mostly, however, people will speak of “medieval Irish” literature, written in “Old Irish” or “Middle Irish.”

given the large volume of (once) popular and still accessible work in English in this area, I should highlight two specific authors to avoid. first: despite appearances and some misleading framing, Isabella Augusta, aka Lady Gregory, for the most part did not produce translations but rather syntheses and retellings of medieval texts, and her work is marked by the same fin-de-siècle cultural sensibilities that can make even older scholarly translations of medieval literature unreliable. second: less well known now but very popular and influential (including on Augusta/Gregory and on Yeats) in his day is Standish James O’Grady, whose work is mainly comprised of unabashedly revisionist retellings (with some unhinged politics). (I would, independently of this assessment, recommend O’Grady as a novelist if you’re interested in early antecedents of the fantasy genre, but do not read it expecting that you’re getting “the real story” in any way; see this series of blog posts by Finn Longman for a longer discussion of O’Grady’s novel The Coming of Cuculain that contextualizes his work and discusses his interpretations and sources.)

the Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT) at University College Cork hosts freely available translations of many medieval Gaelic texts; I highlight a few I particularly like below, alongside some anthologies.

2d. medieval Welsh literature

in addition to the printed translations listed below, the Early Merlin Poetry project, launching imminently, will include translations of some of the earliest Welsh poetry about Merlin (aka Myrddin).

3. Celtic-language folklore in translation

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Celtic-language folklore is maybe the group of Celtic-language literatures that’s most difficult to untangle from popular and R/romantic misrepresentations, neopagan inventions, and outdated anthropological interpretations. trying to find accurate information on (for example) fairies using search engines or Wikipedia is nearly impossible unless you already know where to look.

unfortunately, many 20th-century folklore collections are also difficult to access, meaning that most of what casual readers are likely to be able to find is 19th-century collections. these present a major problem even beyond the normal methodological problems of reading a printed version of an oral performance, namely that the texts published by folklorists like John Francis Campbell are not exact transcriptions of a performance but rather a subsequent reconstruction based on notes and the folklorist’s memory. as such, while they are an invaluable resource for the study of these bodies of folklore, they should be approached with a bit of caution, especially because folklorists like Campbell also often produced composite texts, combining multiple performances into a single, more “literary” or “cohesive” text. the result is something that may be representative of the tradition as an aggregate, or taken as an average, but isn’t necessarily representative of any individual performance or version of a given narrative or song.

19th- and early 20th-century folklore collections are also often marked by outdated ideas about anthropology, folklore, and comparative mythology. when reading these collections, take any paratextual material — introductions, appendices, notes — with, at the very least, a significant grain of salt.

due to gaps in my own knowledge, the loss of traditional Cornish-language oral narratives as the language died in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and also the fact that less Welsh material has been translated, this section is currently essentially limited to Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic material, but it should be noted that some Breton oral texts are available in The Turn of the Ermine.

3a. Cornish folklore

the only Cornish-language oral text I’m aware of is a song collected from a non-speaker in the 19th century, the “Cranken Rhyme.”

3b. Irish folklore

there are a lot of dubious collections billing themselves as “Irish folklore” — Yeats’s Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, for example, mixes Yeats’s idiosyncratic interpretations and accounts of Irish folklore (the idea of the leannán sí as a kind of vampiric force, for example, is afaik a Victorian invention popularized by Yeats) with English-language literary compositions, including some of Yeats’s own poetry. for the purposes of this section, I am only including collections of folklore that are explicitly translated from Irish originals.

while we’re here, I want to point you towards the dúchas.ie, the digital collection of the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin. this includes a huge volume of material, from digitized (and sometimes transcribed) manuscripts to photographs to audio recordings, in Irish and English. I want to highlight in particular the Schools’ Collection, the result of a project that saw thousands of primary school students from across the Irish Free State collect folklore, history, and local traditions from their communities between 1937 and 1939. it’s an extraordinary resource, including material in both Irish and English, and while it’s limited in some ways it’s a unique and fascinating picture of communities across Ireland in the late ’30s.

finally, I want to emphasize that while there are variations between the Gaelic-language oral traditions of Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, many traditional oral narratives are widely shared across the three regions. the Fionn Folklore Database project at Harvard University is both a useful resource and a useful example, as it catalogues the shared tradition of stories of the Fiann(a), the warrior-band led by Fionn mac Cumhaill, across the wider Gaelic world. usefully, it includes summaries of the stories as well as noting where different versions of stories can be located.

3c. Manx folklore

the Irish Folklore Commission worked throughout the Gaelic world, not just in Ireland, and in 1948 they recorded some of the last native speakers of Manx. transcriptions of these recordings were published bilingually in 2003 as Skeealyn Vannin / Stories of Mann (Manx National Heritage).

I should also note John Clague’s Cooinaghtyn Manninagh / Manx Reminiscences, a set of notes on non-narrative elements of folklore: holiday traditions, food, marriage, death, etc. unfortunately, since it was published in 1911, it’s quite dated and includes, for example, a wild section on “Sun and Moon Worship” that draws both on discredited 19th-century ideas about “solar mythology” as the original religion and on discredited linguistic theories that held that the Celtic languages were related in some way to the Semitic languages. as a result, it is as much — if not more — a document of its time period as it is of actual Manx folklore; nonetheless, taken with a healthy skepticism and criticsm, there is some stuff in here that’s potentially of interest.

finally, I want to emphasize that while there are variations between the Gaelic-language oral traditions of Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, many traditional oral narratives are widely shared across the three regions. the Fionn Folklore Database project at Harvard University is both a useful resource and a useful example, as it catalogues the shared tradition of stories of the Fiann(a), the warrior-band led by Fionn mac Cumhaill, across the wider Gaelic world. usefully, it includes summaries of the stories as well as noting where different versions of stories can be located.

3d. Scottish Gaelic folklore

due to the influence of James Macpherson’s Ossian poems (1760-1763) there was a significant amount of interest in Scottish Gaelic folklore. because of my own language background it’s also the body of Celtic-language folklore that I’m most familiar with, so this is the most expansive section of the folklore recs. one of the most important 19th-century collections, John Francis Campbell’s Leabhar na Féinne, unfortunately for English readers does not include translations, but, in contrast to collections of Irish-language folklore, many collections of Scottish Gaelic folklore have been published bilingually, which is really useful if you’re interested in learning to approach these texts in the original language.

in addition to the printed collections I list below, the Scottish Gaelic world is extremely fortunate to have a voluminous collection of ethnographic field recordings freely available online through Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches, which has thousands of digitized recordings from all over Scotland in Gaelic, Scots, and English. if you’re looking at a printed collection, especially one published in the 20th century that may include information on its audio source, it’s worth poking around Tobar an Dualchais to see if you can find a recording of the text. the one caveat is that if you’re looking for songs you may want to filter out recordings from the BBC archives, as otherwise you’ll mainly get recordings from the Royal National Mòd, which are not necessarily reflective of traditional performance styles.

the Beaton Institute at Cape Breton University also has a substantial collection of Gaelic material, and material in English related to Gaelic communities, some of which is available online.lis

in addition to collections of particular oral texts, I want to mention the work of the 19th-century folklorist John Gregorson Campbell, who published — among other things — two major syntheses and commentaries on Gaelic folk tradition: Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1900) and Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1902). these have since been reedited together with an expansive introduction by Ronald Black under the title The Gaelic Otherworld (Birlinn) which is an invaluable reference.

finally, I want to emphasize that while there are variations between the Gaelic-language oral traditions of Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, many traditional oral narratives are widely shared across the three regions. the Fionn Folklore Database project at Harvard University is both a useful resource and a useful example, as it catalogues the shared tradition of stories of the Fiann(a), the warrior-band led by Fionn mac Cumhaill, across the wider Gaelic world. usefully, it includes summaries of the stories as well as noting where different versions of stories can be located.

3e. Welsh folklore

while compiling titles for this reading list-essay, I stumbled on A People’s Poetry / Hen Benillion (tr. Glyn Jones), an anthology of Welsh folk poetry originally performed with harp accompaniment, published in translation by Seren Books. I hope to find more collections of Welsh folklore in the future and will update this section if/when I do.

4. modern Celtic-language literatures in translation

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I am unfortunately not aware of any Manx literature in English translation outside of the anthologies listed above. for texts where the translation was published separately from / subsequently to the original I give the publication date in brackets following the publication date for the translation.

4a. Breton

I have recently become aware of two (2) Breton texts published in English translation!

an unfortunate reality to be conscious of when approaching modern Breton literature is that a number of the most prominent Breton writers of the middle of the 20th century collaborated heavily with the Nazi occupation, which supported Breton nationalist organizations and funded Breton-language publishing and broadcasting. I discuss mid-century authors’ activities during World War II with their books in the list below.

4b. Cornish

there are several anthologies and collections of modern Cornish poetry available bilingually, as well as a few other things.

single-author books

  • Ray Clemens (tr. Ray Clemens), Tri Yw Niver Hudel / Three Is a Magical Number; An Kelegel / The Chalice (novel, Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek, 2018): Clemens describes this as a “teen adventure”; it’s published bilingually with material to support learners reading the text.
  • Ken George (tr. Ken George), The Cornish Ordinalia, the Missing Play: The Childhood of Christ (play, Cornish Language Board, 2006): an imagined-reconstructed version of a companion play to the Cornish Ordinalia (see above).
  • Pol Hodge (tr. Pol Hodge), The Zen of Mutation / Mab Stenek Veur: Poems in Kernewek with translations to English (poetry, Cornish Language Board, ??)
  • Mick Paynter (tr. Mick Paynter), A Worm’s Folly: Poems in Cornish (poetry, Francis Boutle, 2011)
  • Tim Saunders (tr. Tim Saunders), Fenten Feryl: Drolla Marner / Virgil’s Fountain: A Seafarer’s Tale (poetry, Francis Boutle, 2019)
  • Tim Saunders (tr. Tim Saunders), Termynyow a Dheu / Coming Times (poetry, Francis Boutle)
  • Tony Snell (tr. Tony Snell), Pan dheuth an Glaw / When the Rain Came: Selected poems 1980-2005 in Cornish with translations (poetry, The Cornish Language Board, 2007)

anthologies

  • Tim Saunders (ed.), Nothing Broken: Recent Poetry in Cornish (poetry, Francis Boutle, 2006)
  • Tim Saunders (ed.), The Wheel: An Anthology of Modern Poetry in Cornish, 1850-1980 (poetry, Francis Boutle, 1999)

4c. Irish

there’s a fair amount of Irish prose available in translation, and somewhat less modern Irish-language poetry (though not none) and a few plays. note that I’ve identified a few exemplary texts of the Gaeltacht autobiography genre (life stories by native Irish-speakers from rural Irish-speaking communities, popular in the early 20th century) above.

prose

this is not in any way a comprehensive list of Irish-language prose in translation; it’s focused on some classics and some recent translations that are more likely to be accessible. you’ll notice, unfortunately, the relative lack of books by women available in translation.

  • Dónall Mac Amhlaigh (tr. Valentin Iremonger), An Irish Navvy: The Diary of an Exile (Collins Books, 2013 [1960]): Mac Amhlaigh’s diary from his time working in London in the 1950s.
  • Dónall Mac Amhlaigh (tr. Mícheál Ó hAodha), Exiles (Parthian Books, 2021 [1986]): a novel about two working-class Irish people, a man and a woman (but, crucially, not a couple) living in London after World War II, inspired by Mac Amhlaigh’s own experiences as an Irish emigrant during the period.
  • Dónall Mac Amhlaigh (tr. Mícheál Ó hAodha), A Soldier’s Song (Parthian Books, 2023 [1962]): an autobiographical novel based on Mac Amhlaigh’s time in the Irish army.
  • Seosamh Mac Grianna (tr. A.J. Hughes), The Big Drum (Benmadigan Press, 2009 [1972]): a novel about two rival marching bands in County Donegal (northwest Ireland) between 1912 and 1917. written in 1935 but only published in 1972.
  • Myles na gCopaleen aka Flann O’Brien aka Brian Ó Nualláin (tr. Patrick C. Power), The Poor Mouth (Dalkey Archive Press, 1996 [1940]): Brian Ó Nualláin, best known to English-speakers by the pseudonym Flann O’Brien, is known for a number of English-language novels, but he was a native Irish-speaker and also wrote in that language, including this incredible parody of the Gaeltacht autobiography genre, about a young man in a rural community where it always rains.
  • Ó Cadhain, Máirtín (various translations, see below), Cré na Cille (1949): widely regarded as the greatest, or one of the greatest, Irish-language novels, about the ghosts who inhabit a rural graveyard. there are several translations, the first of which was only published in 2015:
    • Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson (tr.), Graveyard Clay (Yale University Press, 2016)
    • Alan Titley (tr.), The Dirty Dust (Yale University Press, 2015)
  • Brian Ó Conchubhair (ed.), Twisted Truths: Stories from the Irish (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2011): an anthology of stories by a wide range of contemporary Irish-language writers.
  • Breandán Ó hEithir (tr. Breandán Ó hEithir), Lead Us into Temptation (Dufour Editions, most recently, 1991 [1976]): a novel about a university student balancing his studies and the temptations of student life during Easter week as Ireland officially becomes a republic and leaves the Commonwealth.
  • Elizabeth O’Hara aka Éilís Ní Dhuibhne (tr. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne), Snobs, Dogs and Scobies (Little Island, 2011 [2006]): a short, YA-ish novel about three teenagers each in a moment of crisis whose lives are intertwined. notably, this was first published simultaneously in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, with a translation by Beathag Mhoireasdan. Ní Dhuibhne is a prolific writer working in both English and Irish, as well as a trained folklorist.
  • Peter O’Leary aka Peadar Ua Laoghaire (tr. Cyril Ó Céirín and Kit Ó Céirín), Séadna (Glendale Press, 1989 [1904]): arguably the first novel in Irish (it’s the first novel-like text; my understanding is that there’s just some disagreement about whether it’s accurate to call it a novel).
  • Ó Siochfhradha, Pádraig (tr. Patricia Egan and Peter Fallon), Jimeen (O’Brien Press, 1919): a classic short comic novel about a troublemaker boy in a rural community.
  • Ó Tuairisc, Eoghan (tr. Mícheál Ó hAodha), I Am Lewy (Bullaun, 2022 [1977]): a stylistically experimental short novel from the perspective of a six-year-old described by the publisher as a “unique, impressionistic account of a tumultuous few months in the early 1920s”.
  • various (tr. various), Fourfront: Short Stories from the Irish (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1998): short stories in translation by four contemporary writers, Micheál Ó Conghaile (who, n.b., is gay), Pádraic Breathnach, Dara Ó Conaola, and Alan Titley.

in addition to the above entirely-from-Irish books, I want to especially note for the benefit of SFF readers three anthologies edited by Jack Fennell of mostly stories originally written in English but each containing several stories translated (by Fennell) from Irish:

  • A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction (2018), containing stories by Art Ó Riain, Cathal Ó Sándair (an extremely prolific writer of books mainly for young readers), and Tarlach Ó hUid.
  • It Rose Up: A Selection of Lost Irish Fantasy Stories (2022), containing stories by Mícheál Ó Gríobhtha and Tomás Ó Máille.
  • Your Own Dark Shadow: A Selection of Lost Irish Horror Stories (2025), containing stories by Tomás Bairéad and Micheál Mac Liammóir.

poetry and drama

while most poetry collections in Irish are published monolingually, many poets have “selected poems” books available in English translation. I’ve included a small selection of poets here, as well as one play.

  • An Craoibhín aka Douglas Hyde (tr. Isabella Augusta aka Lady Gregory), Casadh an tSúgáin, or The Twisting of the Rope (1901): one of the first plays to be staged in the Irish language. Hyde is perhaps best known as the future first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945.
  • Declan Kiberd and Gabriel Fitzmaurice (ed.), An Crann faoi Bhláth / The Flowering Tree: Contemporary Irish Poetry with Verse Translations (Wolfhound Press, 1991): anthology of a wide panorama of modern Irish-language poetry.
  • Gearóid Mac Lochlainn (tr. various), Sruth Teangacha / Stream of Tongues (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2002): an anthology of the Northern Irish poet Gearóid Mac Lochlainn’s poetry (I think all of it at the time, or nearly all) translated by a star team of translators including Ciarán Carson (who also translated the Táin; see above). Mac Lochlainn’s poetry is sharply political and also at times quite funny, weighing in on the language politics of literary salons, the Troubles, the fetishization of the Gaeltachtaí, and more.
  • Máire Mhac an tSaoi (tr. Louis de Paor), An paróiste míorúilteach / The miraculous parish (O’Brien Press/Wake Forest University Press, 2011): a selection of Mhac an tSaoi’s poems. she was a groundbreaking femminist poet who, among other things, drew heavily on Classical Gaelic verse forms and broke with conventions in her representation of women’s sexuality.
  • Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (tr. various), Pharaoh’s Daughter (Gallery/Wake Forest University Press, 1990): Ní Dhomhnaill is one of the most important contemporary female poets in Irish; this was the first collection of her poems to be published in English translation, but several others are now available in translation.
  • Doireann Ní Ghríofa (tr. Doireann Ní Ghríofa), “Noctuary: Dishwasher” (Samovar, 2017 [2016]): just one poem, but it’s a good one.
  • Máirtín Ó Díreáin (tr. Frank Sewell), Rogha Dánta / Selected Poems (Wake Forest University Press, 2020): Ó Díreáin was a major modernist poet.
  • Gabriel Rosenstock (tr. Paddy Bushe), Rogha Dánta / Selected Poems (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2005): Rosenstock is particularly influenced by non-Irish poetry (of which he is a prolific translator) and has more recently turned to haiku.

4d. Scottish Gaelic

between approximately 1975 and 2015 (and to some extent still since 2015) the large majority of Gaelic poetry was published in bilingual editions, usually with an English translation by the author. as a result, pretty much anything from that period that you find will be accessible in translation (though note the caveats re self-translation that I offered in the introduction). to that end, I offer recommendations of a few particular collections and anthologies, rather than listing every single Gaelic poetry book that’s available in translation.

prose and graphic novels

outside of the anthologies I highlighted above, very little Gaelic prose is available in translation, but there are a few things.

  • Duncan Blair (tr. John A. Macpherson and Michael Linkletter), Fògradh, Fàisneachd, Filidheachd / Parting, Prophecy, Poetry: Rev. Duncan B. Blair (1815-1893) in Mac-Talla (Cape Breton University Press, 2013): a collection of mostly non-fictional prose and some poetry by the 19th-century writer Duncan Blair that was originally published in the Gaelic newspaper Mac-Talla, published in Sydney, Nova Scotia from 1892 to 1904.
  • Angus Peter Campbell aka Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul (tr. Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul), The Girl on the Ferryboat (Luath, 2013): a “vividly evoked Scottish tale of chance encounters and of family memories, regret, love and loss. Combines myth, music and linguistics to recount the memory of a hazy summer's day on the Isle of Mull”, according to the blurb. published simultaneously in Gaelic and English.
  • Ealasaid Chaimbeul (tr. Mary Flora Galbraith), Air Mo Chuairt / My Journey (Acair, 2016 [1983]): I’m obsessed with this book, the autobiography of Ealasaid Chaimbeul, a long-time teacher from the Outer Hebrides, completed just before she died. Chaimbeul was simultaneously an ordinary woman and an extraordinary one — a dedicated teacher who worked all across the Highlands and Islands, a proponent of Gaelic culture, an extremely funny deadpan writer imo, and apparently so much an aficionado of the Glasgow Subway that her university friends were concerned she might be living in it (she was not; she just loved the subway). this book is a delight in every way.
  • Dòmhnall Iain MacDhòmhnaill (tr. Bill Innes), Fo Sgàil a’ Swastika / Under the Shadow of the Swastika (Acair, 2011 [1974]): an autobiographical account of the author’s experiences as a Nazi prisoner of war during World War II. MacDhòmhnaill was part of the 51st Highland Division that was captured at St-Valéry in 1940 (the subject of a sadly untranslated but excellent Gaelic novel by Anndra Dunn).
  • Norman MacLean aka Tormod MacGill-Eain (tr. Tormod MacGill-Eain), Dearest Dacha (Birlinn, 2011 [2005]): a dark comedy about an organized crime ring in South Uist.
  • Norman MacLean aka Tormod MacGill-Eain (tr. Tormod MacGill-Eain), Tricksters (Birlinn, 2011 [2007]): a comic novel about a struggling actor.
  • Donnchadh MacGillÌosa aka Duncan Gillies (probably tr. by Donnchadh MacGillÌosa), Crann-fìge / Fig Tree (Acair, 2022): MacGillÌosa has been one of the most prolific Gaelic short story writer of the 21st century, and this collection, his fourth, was published bilingually.
  • Angus MacLeod aka Aonghas MacLeòid, an actor, artist, teacher, and Gaelic activist from Nova Scotia who stars in the short film Faire Chaluim MhicLeòid (see below) has written two cosmic horror/horror fantasy graphic novels, both published by Bradan Press:
    • Aonghas MacLeòid (tr.), Doors (2023 [2022])
    • Aonghas MacLeòid (tr.), The Twilight (2022 [2021])
  • Barbara Satchel (tr. Mòrag Law), Dìleab Cholbhasach / A Colonsay Legacy (Acair, 2013): a collection of short essays, mostly either autobiographical or on community history, by a writer from Colonsay, originally published in the long-running Gaelic literary magazine Gairm.
  • Iain Crichton Smith aka Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn (tr. Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn), Murdo and Other Stories (Gollancz, 1981 [2006]): as you can see from the publication date, this is a weird one. the short story/novella/short novel “The Missionary”, first published in English in Murdo and Other Stories, was originally written in Gaelic, but the original was only published in 2006.

poetry and drama anthologies

in addition to Duanaire na Sracaire / Songbook of the Pillagers, mentioned above, there are a bunch of large anthologies of Gaelic poetry periodized roughly by century, as well as one recent anthology of Gaelic drama. for convenience, I’ve put the poetry anthologies in chronological order, followed by several other poetry anthologies, with the drama anthology at the end.

  • Colm Ó Baoill and Meg Bateman (ed.), Gàir nan Clàrsach / The Harp’s Cry: An Anthology of 17th-Century Gaelic Poetry (Birlinn, 1994)
  • Ronald Black (ed.), An Lasair: An Anthology of 18th-Century Gaelic Verse (Birlinn, 2019)
  • Donald E. Meek (ed.), Caran an t-Saoghail / The Wiles of the World: An Anthology of 19th-Century Gaelic Verse (Birlinn, 2019)
  • Ronald Black (ed.), An Tuil: An Anthology of 20th-Century Scottish Gaelic Verse (Birlinn, 1999)
  • Christopher Whyte (ed.), An Aghaidh na Sìorraidheachd / Facing Eternity: Eight Gaelic Poets (Polygon, 1991): a kind of spiritual sequel to Nua-bhàrdachd Ghàidhlig (see below), focus on eight then relatively new poets, four women and four men (including Whyte himself, the first openly gay Gaelic poet).
  • various (tr. various), Cuimhneachan / Remembrance: Gaelic Poetry of World War One (Acair, 2015)
  • Peter MacKay and Iain S. Macpherson (ed.), An Leabhar Liath / The Light Blue Book: 500 Years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse (Luath, 2016)
  • Dòmhnall MacAmhlaigh aka Donald Macaulay (ed.), Nua-bhàrdachd Ghàidhlig / Modern Scottish Gaelic Poetry (Canongate, 1976): a landmark anthology of Gaelic modernist poetry that effectively canonized the five big names of Gaelic modernism: Deòrsa Mac Iain Deòrsa (George Campbell Hay), Dòmhnall MacAmhlaigh (Donald Macaulay), Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean), Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn (Iain Crichton Smith), and Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson).
  • Emily McEwan (ed.), Òr a Mhaireas / Lasting Gold: New Nova Scotia Gaelic Poetry (Bradan Press, 2022): an anthology of contemporary poetry by Nova Scotia poets, I believe the first anthology of Gaelic poetry from Nova Scotia since ca. the ’60s other than Lodaidh MacFhionghain’s single-author collections (see below).
  • Donald E. Meek (ed.), Tuath is Tighearna / Tenants and Landlords (Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1995): an anthology of specifically political poetry from the 19th-century, focused on the land rights movement.
  • Michelle Macleod (ed.), Dràma na Gàidhlig: A Century of Gaelic Drama (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2021): an anthology of eight Gaelic plays with English translations, including one by Iain MacCormaig, author of the first Gaelic novel, and two recent plays by women.

single-author poetry collections

which is really to say: a list of major poets and poets I would recommend. there are others I really like, but not all are available in English in standalone collections — you can find many of them in the anthologies above. I also must note that these are skewed towards “modern” poetry, but many poets have continued to compose in “traditional” styles (sometimes as songs, sometimes just using traditional verse forms); I’ve included a few examples of both “traditional” poets who mainly composed orally and contemporary songwriters, and you can find other examples of both in anthologies. notably absent from this list (but present in some of the above anthologies), for example, is the 19th-century poet Màiri Mhòr nan Òran (literally “Great/Big Mary of the Songs”), who composed important and still popular protest music in connection with the land rights movement.

the takeaway here is that the Gaelic world is blessed with many gifted poets, and you should read them.

  • Dòmhnall Aonghais Bhàin aka Donald MacDonald (tr. Ronald Black), Smuaintean fo Éiseabhal / Thoughts under Eiseaval (Birlinn, 2000): a South Uist poet who has been described as “one of the last of the traditional Gaelic bards”, Dòmhnall in fact worked in both traditional and non-traditional verse forms (and wrote one of my favorite Gaelic free verse poems).
  • Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna (tr. Fred MacAmhlaidh), Òrain is Dàin le Dòmhnall Dòmhnallach à Uibhist a Tuath: notwithstanding the monolingual title, this is actually a bilingual edition of songs and poems by Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, best known as a World War I poet, composer of the love song “An Eala Bhàn”.
  • Anna Frater (tr. Anna Frater), Fon t-Slige / Under the Shell (Gairm, 1995): Frater is one of my favorite Gaelic poets — every poem in this collection is a banger, from the political poems to the love poems to a heartbreaking lament for her grandmother and her great-grandfather, who died in the Iolaire disaster in 1919.
  • Rody Gorman (tr. Rody Gorman), Beartan Briste / Broken Judgmentshroudloomdeeds (Cape Breton University Press, 2011): Gorman is an Irish poet who works primarily in Scottish Gaelic. he’s developed a particular method of translation that he calls “intertonguing” (a literal calque of the Gaelic “eadar-theangachadh”, meaning “translation”) which produces things like “judgmentshroudloomdeeds”. of particular note for SFF readers, Gorman’s approach to translation provided the model for Harry Josephine Giles’s prose translations of her sci-fi verse novel Deep Wheel Orcadia, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2022.
  • Sandaidh NicDhòmhnaill Jones is a contemporary poet and songwriter who works in both free verse and more traditional verse forms. she has two collections, both of which she did the translations for herself, notable for including sheet music for the songs in them:
    • Crotal Ruadh / Red Lichen (Acair, 2019)
    • An Seachdamh Tonn / The Seventh Wave (Acair, 2021)
  • Pàdraig MacAoidh aka Peter MacKay is the current Makar (the national poet of Scotland), the first to work primarily in Gaelic, and has published two collections, both translated by himself:
    • Gu Leòr / Galore (Acair, 2015)
    • Nàdar De / Some Kind Of (Acair, 2020)
  • Lodaidh MacFhionghain aka Lewis MacKinnon (tr. Lodaidh MacFhionghain), Famhair / Giant, and other Gaelic poems (Cape Breton University Press, 2008): MacFhionghain, from Nova Scotia, was the first non-Scottish poet to win the poetry crown at the Royal National Mòd, and this collection has some of my favorite Gaelic poems. the one caveat here is that unfortunately for English readers I think MacFhionghain is an excellent poet in Gaelic and only an okay poet in English, so take the English translations with the caveat that the Gaelic is better.
  • Somhairle MacGill-Eain aka Sorley MacLean: widely considered the greatest Gaelic poet of the 20th century and the premier (though not the first) Gaelic modernist.
    • if you really want to dive in, Caoir Gheal Leumraich / White Leaping Flame (Birlinn, 2011) collects all of MacGill-Eain’s poetry.
    • for a taster, his groundbreaking 1943 collection Dàin do Eimhir is available in two translations:
      • Somhairle MacGill-Eain (tr.), Dàin do Eimhir / Poems to Eimhir (Polygon, 2007)
      • Iain Crichton Smith aka Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn (tr.), Eimhir (Acair, 1999)
    • for a more mixed anthology, try Hallaig, and Other Poems (Polygon, 2014), including what I consider to be the single greatest Gaelic poem, “Hallaig”, a devastating meditation on the impact of the Highland Clearances on MacGill-Eain’s home island of Raasay.
    • if you’re feeling political, I can’t recommend An Cuilithionn 1939 / The Cuillin 1939 and Unpublished Poems (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2011) highly enough — it is an exhilarating socialist long poem/epic centered on an apocalyptic conflict between the mountains of the Isle of Skye and the (literal) bog of capitalism.
  • Alasdair C. MacIlleBhàin aka Alasdair C. Whyte (tr. Alasdair C. MacIlleBhàin), maim-slè (Theatre gu Leòr, 2021): poems reflecting on the Gaelic history and traditions of MacIlleBhàin’s home island of Mull, also used as the basis of a musical album and a stage performance. probably my favorite recent poetry collection.
  • Aonghas MacNeacail (tr. Aonghas MacNeacail), dèanamh gàire ris a’ chloc / laughing at the clock: New and Selected Poems (Polygon, 2012): the late Aonghas MacNeacail is one of my favorite poets in any language, and this collection has some of his best work in it.
  • Donald A. MacNeill (tr. Alasdair Scouller), Moch is Anmoch (House of Lochar, 1998): a collection of “traditional” poetry by an Oronsay and Colonsay poet. this is kind of obscure but I enjoyed it!
  • Catrìona Mhoireach (ed.), Doras gun Chlàimhean (Acair, 2022): despite the monolingual title and blurb, this is actually a bilingual edition, collecting the poetry and songs of Murchadh MacPhàrlain, known among other things for composing the unofficial Gaelic anthem “Cànan nan Gàidheal”.
  • Flòraidh NicPhàil (tr. Flòraidh NicPhàil), Maraiche nan Cuantan (Acair, 2012): despite the monolingual title and blurb, this is actually a bilingual edition. NicPhàil is particularly known as a songwriter for her work with the trad super-group Skipinnish.
  • Effie Rankin (ed.), As a’ Bhràighe / Beyond the Braes: The Gaelic Songs of Allan the Ridge MacDonald, 1794-1868 (Cape Breton University Press, 2004): a collection of poetry by a major emigrant poet who settled in Nova Scotia in the early 19th century.
  • Christopher Whyte aka Crìsdean MacIlleBhàin (tr. Christopher Whyte), Uirsgeul / Myth (Gairm, 1991): as I mentioned above, Whyte was the first openly gay poet writing in Gaelic, and his poetry, which draws on influences from across Europe (here Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, Slovenia) is gorgeous.

4e. Welsh

there’s a huge caveat here, which is that I know very little about Welsh-language poetry, though I look forward to expanding that section in the future.

prose

there’s quite a bit of Welsh prose in translation, and notably for SFF readers this includes several translations of speculative works (mainly science fiction but at least one liminal fantasy, as well)! as usual, this is not a comprehensive list, but a list of things I am aware of (which is necessarily skewed towards my interests). Welsh prose in translation has at times had a tendency to be de-localized, presumably responding to, as J.L. George has described, a sense that there’s no market for things that are “too Welsh”. Fflur Dafydd’s The Library Suicides and Manon Steffan Ros’s The Blue Book of Nebo present particularly striking examples of this, but it’s something to keep in mind generally.

  • Dafydd, Fflur (tr. presumably Fflur Dafydd), The Library Suicides (Hodder and Stoughton 2023 [2009]): this translation/adaptation of Dafydd’s award-winning 2009 dystopian thriller Y Llyfrgell gets mediocre reviews, which I suspect is because it has apparently been fairly aggressively de-localized — in the Welsh it is very much Set In The National Library Of Wales and About Welsh Literary History, and I can see why it would fall flat given that.
  • Grahame Davies (tr. Grahame Davies), Everything Must Change (Seren Books, 2007 [2004]): a political novel about a young woman in contemporary Wales and a young woman living in the 1930s. the English translation is described as “translated and extended by its author”, so note that this is even less “the same” book as the Welsh than any translation already is.
  • Islwyn Ffowc Elis (tr. Meic Stephens), Shadow of the Sickle (Gomer Press, 1998 [1953]): a novel about the tensions a landowning family in rural Powys after World War II whose son becomes a communist.
  • Islwyn Ffowc Elis (tr. Stephen Morris), A Week in Future Wales (Cambria Futura, 2021 [1957]): a classic — and arguably the first — Welsh science fiction novel, about a man from 1950s Wales who is twice projected into the future, once into a utopian Cymru Rydd (Free Wales) and once into a horrifically dystopian anglicized “West England”. a little clunky (and at times very wacky) but absolutely worth a read.
  • Caryl Lewis (tr. Gwen Davies), Martha, Jack and Shanco (Parthian Books, 2007 [2004]): “Bound together by blood ties, Martha, Jack, and Shanco live on a farm in Wales, where their lives unfold in the eerie half-presence of their dead parents”. this was Wales Book of the Year in 2005.
  • Llŷr Gwyn Lewis (tr. Katie Gramich), Flowers of War (Parthian Books, 2022 [2014]): an autobiographical novel or memoir (it’s described both ways) exploring Lewis’s family’s history, focused on his great-uncle who died in Syria during the Second World War.
  • Saunders Lewis (tr. Meic Stephens), Monica (Seren Books, 1997 [1930]): a controversial short psychological (or perhaps psychosexual) novel that provoked moral outrage when first published. Lewis was a controversial but major figure in 20th-century Welsh literature and politics.
  • Robin Llywelyn (tr. Robin Llywelyn and Gwen Davies), White Star (Parthian Books, 2003 [1992]): a fantasy novel (Parthian describes it as a “romantic fantasy”; I believe I’ve seen it described elsewhere as “postmodern”) that won the Prose Medal at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1992. the sequel is also available in translation by the author as From Empty Harbour to White Ocean.
  • Robin Llywelyn (tr. Diarmuid Johnson), Vatilan the Dish Thief (Parthian Books, 2009 [1995]): a collection of fantasy short stories.
  • Mihangel Morgan (tr. Christopher Meredith), Melog (Seren Books, 2005 [1997]): a liminal fantasy about a failed scholar whose life’s work is interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious young man who claims to be looking for a lost manuscript from his distant, colonized, maybe-nonexistant homeland. Mihangel Morgan is a genius, and I don’t say that lightly.
  • Owain Owain (tr. Emyr Wallace Humphreys), The Last Day (Parthian Books, 2024 [1976]): a groundbreaking dystopian sci-fi novel that notably inspired a concept album by Welsh-Cornish singer-songwriter Gwenno. not without flaws, as I observed in my review, but extremely compelling in spite of them.
  • Daniel Owen (tr. Stephen Morris), Rhys Lewis, Minister of Bethel (Brown Cow Publishing, 2015 [1885]): not the first Welsh novel, but considered to be the first “significant” Welsh novel, a pseudo-autobiography exploring the tensions between faith and modernity in industrial Wales.
  • Caradog Prichard (tr. Philip Mitchell), One Moonlit Night (New Directions, republished by Canongate, 2015 [1961]): another contended for the greatest Welsh-language novel of the 20th century, a grim and powerful portrait of a rural community slowly being crushed by capitalism and English domination, struggling to survive and sustain itself in the face of forces far beyond its control. Prichard’s prose is wild in Welsh and while somewhat less wild in English still effective.
  • Kate Roberts (tr. Wynn Griffiths), Tea in the Heather (2002 [1959]): a short novel covering five years in the life of a young child in slate country. Roberts was one of the most important realist writers in 20th-century Welsh literature, and also possibly a lesbian.
  • Kate Roberts (various translators, see below), Traed mewn Cyffion (1936): a family saga that begins in 1880, has been translated twice:
    • Katie Gramich (tr.), Feet in Chains (Parthian Books, 2013)
    • John Idris Jones and Idwal Walters (tr.), Feet in Chains (John Jones, republished by Seren Books, 2002)
  • Manon Steffan Ros (tr. Manon Steffan Ros), The Blue Book of Nebo (Deep Vellum/Firefly, 2021 [2018]): this epistolary postapocalyptic novel about a mother and son alone in the village of Nebo after a total societal collapse (including the nearby nuclear plant melting down) won the Prose Medal at the Eisteddfod. in Welsh I would say it straddles the line between adult fiction and teen fiction (though to me it feels adult); in English it was published as a young adult novel and won the Carnegie Medal. I have since discovered that the English translation is heavily localized, in sometimes perplexing ways — changing characters’ names (“Dylan” instead of “Siôn”) and replacing load-bearing references to Welsh literature with references English texts instead (in one notable instance, Harry Potter replaces Daniel Owen’s Rhys Lewis). in either language, it’s a troubling look at survival, isolation, and whether it is possible for the Welsh language to flourish again.

poetry and drama

this section desperately needs expansion — I’m working on it (and accepting recommendations).

  • Menna Elfyn, various collections: Elfyn is a major contemporary poet (also, fun fact, Fflur Dafydd’s mother), and a number of her poetry collections have been published bilingually by Bloodaxe Books, including:
    • Cell Angel (1996)
    • Cusan Dyn Dall / Blind Man’s Kiss (2001)
    • Perffaith Nam / Perfect Blemish (2007)
    • Bondo (2017)
  • Menna Elfyn and John Rowlands (ed.), The Bloodaxe Book of Modern Welsh Poetry: 20th-century Welsh-language poetry in translation (Bloodaxe, 2003): 400 pages of 20th-century Welsh poetry in translation! I should read this, honestly.
  • Saunders Lewis (tr. Joseph P. Clancy), The Plays of Saunders Lewis (4 vols., Christopher Davies, 1986): Lewis is a controversial figure in 20th-century Welsh literature and politics, but also a major playwright. these four volumes collect all of his plays in translation.
  • Siân Northey and Ness Owen (ed.), A470: Poems for the Road / Cerddi’r Ffordd (Arachne Press, 2022): this was recommended on Bluesky as a translation that’s explicitly aimed at a Welsh audience: it’s a bilingual anthology with English poems translated into Welsh and Welsh poems translated into English, focused on the A470 highway, which runs across Wales between Llandudno in the north and Cardiff in the south.
  • Iestyn Tyne (tr. unclear, possibly Iestyn Tyne), Unspecified Spaces / Stafelloedd Amhenodol
    • (Broken Sleep Books, 2023 [2022]): Iestyn Tyne is a young, contemporary poet (born in 1997) who won both both the poetry crown and the poetry chair (the highest awards) at the Urdd National Eisteddfod (essentially the youth Eisteddfod). I haven’t read this particular collection, but I love Tyne’s poetry.

5. Celtic-language films

(back to contents)

a few things to note here: one, I’m including some television programs where these are available with English subtitles; two, a lot of these are short films, so they’re a pretty minimal time investment; three, there are more things available in all of these languages with no subtitles; four, some of these are (currently) on YouTube or Vimeo, and I’ve included links to these where possible. I should also note that I haven’t seen all of these films, so I can’t speak for all of them directly. something it’s vital to keep in mind when exploring Celtic-language (and, indeed, any denied-language) visual media is that there’s typically just less available for filmmakers to work with: less money, fewer actors, less audience, less general interest. it’s important to approach these films and TV shows with the understanding that, for the most part, you’re not going to be seeing a Hollywood production but rather people creatively working to do more with (often quite a lot) less.

as a general note re television programs, if you’re not in the UK (and so don’t have access to iPlayer or S4C’s online materials), the streaming service MHz Choice currently has a handful of programs in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh with English subtitles; previously they also had a program in Breton. they’ve had more (and different selections) in the past. if you’re interested in exploring Celtic-language television, it might be worth a look. I’ve also included links to Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh language-learning TV programs (broadcast between 1979 and 1995), both because they may be useful if you’re interested in learning the languages and also because due to the demographics of these language communities language-learning media often has a cultural status that can seem unusual from an English-speaker’s perspective, both because many people used such programs and because many people worked on such programs. if you’ve never seen a program like this (English-speakers may be familiar with similar media for other languages, like Destinos for Spanish or French in Action and Téléfrançais for French), it’s worth taking a look.

I should also mention — avoid “Celtic-Films”/“Celtic_Films” on social media (or in film production), as they’re fascists.

5a. Breton

  • the only Breton-language visual media with English subtitles that I am aware of is a short drama/thriller series titled Fin ar Bed. unfortunately, while this was previously available on MHz Choice, it appears it’s been taken down. hopefully it will be available again in the future.
  • I do also want to note (read: taunt you with) the trailer for the Welsh-Breton feature film Kan ar Mor, of particular note for SFF readers because it draws on the legend of the drowned city of Ys/Kêr-Is, which has been a recurring source text for dominant-language fantasy writers. unfortunately (the constant refrain with Breton), I haven’t been able to access the film anywhere. :-(

5b. Cornish

  • Hwerow Hweg (2002, 89 mins., dir. Antal Kovacs): a drama/thriller about a jilted lover’s revenge.
  • Skynt: The Musical (2010, 16 mins., dir. Ian Bucknole): a short, bilingual musical (dialogue in English, lyrics in Cornish), an optimistic rejection of austerity and a sharp — if a bit rosy-eyed — critique of the economic marginalization of Cornwall and the impact of tourism.
  • Trengellick Rising (2023, 29 mins., dir. Guy Potter): a historical drama about an 18th-century soldier on the coast watching for enemy ships.

5c. Irish

in addition to the specific films noted below, the Irish-language broadcaster TG4 makes many of their programs available online (if not always long-term) with subtitles in English (and in Irish, a nice novelty).

feature films

this is only a limited selection of the small but growing body of Irish-language feature films!

in addition to the films below, I should mention An Taibhse (The Ghost, 2025), which bills itself as the first horror film in Irish. unfortunately, as Eoin P. Ó Murchú indicates in his review of the film (in Irish), despite its impressive production values, the language use is extremely bad, to the point sometimes of being incomprehensible without reference to the English subtitles. probably best to avoid it.

  • Arracht (sometimes called Monster in English, 2019, 86 mins., dir. Tomás Ó Súilleabháin): a historical drama set in the 1840s about the Famine, British colonialism, land politics, and murder. really good imo.
  • Foscadh (2021, 93 mins., dir. Seán Breathnach): a contemporary drama about a sheltered young man whose parents die, forcing him to grow up quickly.
  • Graveyard Clay (Cré na Cille, 2007, 92 mins., dir. Robert Quinn): the ghosts inhabiting a graveyard in Conamara speak to each other. based on the novel of the same name by Máirtín Ó Cadhain (see above).
  • Kings (2007, 88 mins., dir. Tom Collins): a group of men who emigrated from the Conamara Gaeltacht to England reunite for the funeral of one of their friends and grapple with their histories. stars Colm Meaney; I can’t speak to the quality of his Irish as I watched this in ca. 2009 and didn’t know any of the language yet.
  • Kneecap (2024, 105 mins., dir. Rich Peppiatt): a fictionalized narrative of the real Irish-language hip-hop trio Kneecap, based in Belfast. I haven’t yet been able to see this but I’ve heard it’s really good (it also made the Best International Film Oscar shortlist).
  • Poitín (1978, 65 mins., dir. Bob Quinn): the first feature film in Irish, a controversial crime drama challenging romantic stereotypes of rural Ireland.
  • The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin, 2022, 96 mins., dir. Colm Báiréad): given its strongly positive critical reception, including an Oscar nomination for Best International Film, this is probably the film non-Irish-speakers are most likely to have heard of. a coming-of-age drama about a 9-year-old girl who is sent to stay with relatives in An Rinn, a Gaeltacht in rural Waterford.
  • Róise & Frank (2022, 84 mins., dir. Rachael Moriarty and Peter Murphy): comedy-drama about a woman who has been mourning the death of her husband and is brought out of her shell by a stray dog.

short films

there are a ton of Irish-language short films on YouTube — for example, Screen Ireland has a playlist of older ones — so I’m just highlighting a few that I’ve either enjoyed or taught (or both) or that are classics. searching “Irish language short film” on YouTube will find you more.

  • Beirt le Chéile (2013, 11 mins., dir. Stephen Daly): two young men who were childhood friends have found themselves on opposite sides of the 1916 Easter Rising.
  • Cáca Milis (2002, 18 mins., dir. Jennifer Keegan): a young woman meets an older, blind man on a train. a staple of Irish language classes.
  • Fíorghael (2005, 9 mins., dir. Macdara Vallely): three patients at a therapist’s office find themselves at odds with the rude and Irish-speaking receptionist and decide to teach her a lesson — in Irish.
  • Lipservice (1998, 19 mins., dir. Paul Mercier): the Irish-language inspector comes to school for oral exams, but the star student is nowhere to be found.
  • Oidhche Sheanchais (A Night of Storytelling) (1935, 11 mins., dir. Robert Flaherty): a storyteller tells a traditional story to a family. this was the first sound film produced in Irish, directed by Robert Flaherty while he was working on his (in)famous feature film Man of Aran and starring three of the cast members. the film was thought lost until a print was discovered at Harvard University in 2014.
  • What does “Irishness” look like? (2018, 6 mins., dir. Ola Majekodunmi): a short bilingual documentary interviewing immigrants and people of color about their experiences in Ireland.
  • Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom (2003, 13 mins., dir. Daniel O’Hara): a young Chinese man, dissatisfied with his life, learns Irish but discovers a frustrating contradiction when he gets to Ireland. the racial politics of this one are a bit wild but for better or for worse it’s a classic.

television

as noted above, TG4 has many of their programs available online, from dramas to documentaries. some Irish-language programs are also available on MHz Choice.

  • Eipic (2016): a teen drama produced in conjunction with the anniversary of the 1916 rising, about a musical “revolution” in contemporary Ireland. I only got to watch two episodes of this before it was gone from TG4’s website but I enjoyed what I saw.
  • An Klondike (aka Dominion Creek, 2015-2017): a Western/Northern following three Irish emigrant brothers during the Klondike Gold Rush. apparently currently available on “Tubi”.
  • No Béarla (2007-2008): a comic documentary in which TV presenter Manchán Magan attempts to travel around the country using only Irish, with mixed success. some episodes (including all of the first season, I believe) are on YouTube
  • Now You’re Talking (1995): if you’re interested to learn Irish, check out this language-learning program produced by BBC Northern Ireland!
  • Ros na Rún (1996—): if you like soap operas, the Irish-language soap opera Ros na Rún, broadcast by TG4, has been running since 1996, and I’ve been told it’s fun.

5d. Manx

  • Ny Kirree fo Niaghtey (The Sheep Under Snow) (1983, 22 mins., dir. George Broderick): a documentary providing historical context for the traditional song “Ny Kirree fo Niaghtey”.
  • Solace in Wicca (2013, 11 mins., dir. Andy North): a kind of bonkers and rather romanticized short film based on a famous witch trial on the Isle of Man.

5e. Scottish Gaelic

in addition to the specific films linked below, there’s an annual Gaelic short film competition called “FilmG”, many films from which are available on YouTube. not many of them have subtitles, though, so you may have to poke through them to find something that’s accessible if you don’t know Gaelic. also, as with Irish, searching “Scottish Gaelic short film” on YouTube will turn up some more things. note that the quality of Gaelic in amateur film production can be variable.

films

  • An Ceasnachadh (2000, 55 mins., dir. Mike Alexander): an extremely revisionist but nonetheless quite good historical drama about the removal (or theft, depending who you ask) of the Stone of Scone by Scottish nationalists in 1950, centered on Kay Matheson, a young Gaelic-speaking teacher, played by the contemporary singer Kathleen MacInnes.
  • Còig Puing a Trì (2018, 5 mins., dir. Lana Pheutan): a trans woman prepares herself to come out to her sister. there are some things about it that I don’t think are ideal, but I also think it does a solid job portraying the operations of transmisogyny, and the end is devastating. (n.b., there’s no physical violence, only words.) Lana Pheutan has made several short films for FilmG (including this one; note also her short drama about domestic violence and revenge, Sòlas, which is unsubtitled but I think fairly accessible) and I really wish someone would give her money to make a feature-length film.
  • Faire Chaluim MhicLeòid (The Wake of Calum MacLeòid) (2006, 8 mins., dir. Marc Almon): the elderly title character looks back on his life trajectory and the ways his family has dispersed from their home in Cape Breton. notable for being produced in Cape Breton, starring the local writer, teacher, and language activist Aonghas MacLeòid.
  • The Illusionist (2010, 79 mins., dir. Sylvain Chomet): as with many of Sylvain Chomet’s films, this is low-dialogue, but I wanted to note it because a reasonable portion of the dialogue there is is in Gaelic. an animated film based on an unproduced script by Jacques Tati, about an elderly French illusionist who bonds with a young Gaelic-speaking woman from the Hebrides.
  • Pìobairean Bhòrnais (2004, 10 mins., dir. Catrìona Black): this is a really cool short animated film built on a real archival audio recording of a Gaelic oral narrative about a young man who encounters a fairy who gives him the gift of piping.
  • Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle (2007, 90 mins., dir. Simon Miller): follows the relationship between a young boy and his grandfather after his parents die and he and his siblings come to live with their grandparents, interwoven with the Gaelic oral tradition represented by his grandfather’s stories. absolutely gorgeous, one of my all-time favorite movies. the first Scottish Gaelic feature film, written by the contemporary poet Aonghas MacNeacail and starring the contemporary writer Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul/Angus Peter Campbell (see above). if you have access to BBC iPlayer, this airs on BBC Alba periodically and can sometimes be viewed on iPlayer.

television

if you’re in the UK or otherwise have access to BBC iPlayer, BBC Alba’s programming is typically subtitled in English. as far as I know only one Gaelic fictional TV program is available internationally (Bannan).

  • Bannan (2014—): a drama/soap opera set on a fictional island, available through MHz Choice. Dòl Eòin MacFhionghain (the main character’s love interest) is hot and the show is nicely committed to having him get shirtless or down to his underwear.
  • Can Seo (1979): if you’re interested in learning Gaelic, check out this vintage language-learning program from the ’70s.
  • Machair (1993-1999): a landmark in Gaelic visual media production, the first large-scale drama(/soap opera) produced in the language. achieved an unprecedented mainstream popularity even with English-speaking audiences at the time. unfortunately it’s frustratingly difficult to find; it’s been intermittently on YouTube but isn’t there currently.
  • OMC! (2022—): short sketch comedy, largely available on BBC Alba’s YouTube channel.
  • Speaking Our Language (1993-1996): a language-learning program not unlike Can Seo but produced in the ’90s.

5f. Welsh

I know less about Welsh-language television or short film production, but I know they’re out there. if you’re in the UK, you may have better access to Welsh-language media through S4C (the Welsh-language broadcaster) and BBC Cymru. there have actually been a lot of Welsh-language feature films; the trick is accessing them and accessing them with English subtitles if you don’t speak Welsh.

films

  • American Interior (2014, 92 mins., dir. Dylan Goch and Gruff Rhys): a bilingual musical documentary about the 18th-century Welsh explorer John Evans and his quest for a mythical tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans. Superfurryanimals lead singer (and Welsh-speaker) Gruff Rhys embarks on a musical tour following Evans’s path, leading him from Caernarfon to the Mandan Nation (where he meets the late Edwin James Benson/Wéroke Wáatashe, the last native speaker of Mandan) in North Dakota to New Orleans.
  • The Feast (2021, 93 mins., dir. Lee Haven Jones): a ~folk horror~ film about resource extraction and (by the looks of it) class. I haven’t seen this because I’m squeamish about horror, but it gets pretty good reviews.
  • Hedd Wyn (1992, 123 mins., dir. Paul Turner): a mildly revisionist (mainly in its portrayal of its female characters, unfortunately) but nonetheless very powerful biopic about the poet Hedd Wyn, who famously won the bard’s chair at the National Eisteddfod of Wales posthumously in 1917, following his death in the Battle of Passchendaele. nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
  • Patagonia (2010, 119 mins., dir. Marc Evans): a contemporary drama mixing two stories, about a couple from Wales who travel to the Welsh-speaking community known as “Y Wladfa” in Patagonia, Argentina, and a woman and her younger neighbor from Y Wladfa who travel to Wales to visit the woman’s mother’s childhood home.
  • Solomon and Gaenor (1999, 105 mins., dir. Paul Morrison): a drama about a romance between an Orthodox Jewish man and a gentile woman ca. 1911. also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
  • Y Sŵn (2023, 89 mins., dir. Lee Haven Jones): a period drama about the dramatic events leading up to the establishment of the Welsh-language broadcaster S4C following the 1979 UK General Election. I haven’t seen it yet, but look at this trailer.

television

  • Fflam (2021): a bilingual (Welsh and Turkish) drama series about a couple (played by Welsh actress Gwyneth Keyworth and Turkish actor Memet Ali Alabora) whose life is thrown off course by memories of the past. has lesbians, too, apparently!
  • Hinterland – Y Gwyll (2013-2016): this is kind of an odd one because it’s actually fairly well-known outside of Wales — in its English version: the entire show was filmed twice, once in English and once in Welsh. it’s a noir/police procedural show set in Aberystwyth.
  • Now You’re Talking (1990-1991): if you’re interested in learning Welsh, check out this language-learning program produced by S4C in the early ’90s. (not to be confused with the Irish-language program of the same name, which it provided the model for.)
  • Pobol y Cwm (1974—): long-running Welsh-language soap opera (in fact the longest-running soap opera produced by the BBC in any language).
  • Y Wers Gymraeg (2012-2013): it’s not subtitled, but I do want to give a shoutout to this comedy web series about a dysfunctional Welsh-for-adults class. the first few episodes have a moderate amount of English in them and I think some of the humor conveys well. notably it includes several episodes of a parody of programs like Now You’re Talking, called “Dysgu’r Iaith yn ’87” (Learning the Language in [19]87).

6. critical and historical texts

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general background reading

  • Chapman, Malcolm. The Celts: The Construction of a Myth. St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
  • Johnes, Martin. Welsh Not: Elementary Education and the Anglicisation of Nineteenth-Century Wales. University of Wales Press, 2024.
  • Newton, Michael, ed. Celts in the Americas. Cape Breton University Press, 2013.
    • this is a useful reference that discusses the diasporas of Celtic-language communities in (primarily) North America, with introductory chapters giving historical overviews of each diaspora.
  • Sims-Williams, Patrick. “Celtomania and Celtoscepticism.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 36 (1998): 1-35.
  • Stewart, Ian. The Celts: A Modern History. Princeton University Press, 2025.
  • Stroh, Silke. Gaelic Scotland in the Colonial Imagination: Anglophone Writing from 1600 to 1900. Northwestern University Press, 2017.
  • Watson, Moray and Michelle Macleod, ed. The Ediburgh Companion to the Gaelic Language. Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
  • various, ed. A Guide to Welsh Literature. University of Wales Press/Christopher Davies, 1976-1998.
    • a six-volume series introducing Welsh literature from the earliest medieval poetry to 1996
  • various, ed. A New History of the Isle of Man. Liverpool University Press, 2001—.
    • an as-yet-incomplete five-volume history, currently made up of volumes 1 (on the natural history of the island), 3 (on the medieval period), and 5 (on the period from 1830-1999)

premodern literatures and cultures

in addition to some specific recommendations below, the Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures series, published by University College Cork, has a number of accessible introductions to different bodies of premodern Celtic-language literatures, as well as publishing editions of and commentaries on particular texts.

these suggestions are heavily skewed towards Gaelic and Welsh material; I’m just not familiar with the scholarship on the Cornish mystery plays or on medieval Breton.

  • Bromwich, Rachel, A.O.H. Jarman, and Brynley F. Roberts, ed. The Arthur of The Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature. University of Wales Press, 2020.
  • Hutton, Ronald. Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain. Yale University Press, 2009.
  • Hutton, Ronald. “Medieval Welsh Literature and Pre-Christian Deities.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 61 (2011): 57-85.
  • Jenkins, Dafydd, ed. The Law of Hywel Dda: Law Texts from Medieval Wales. Gomer, 1988.
    • an edition and translation of a major compilation of medieval Welsh legal texts.
  • Jones, Aled Llion. Darogan: Prophecy, Lament and Absent Heroes in Medieval Welsh Literature. University of Wales Press, 2013.
  • Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988.
    • this book sounds like it will be very dry and boring, but my undergrad advisor was correct: it is absolutely fascinating.
  • Lloyd-Morgan, Ceridwen and Erich Poppe. Arthur in the Celtic Languages: The Arthurian Language in Celtic Literatures and Traditions. University of Wales Press, 2019.
  • Ní Bhrolcháin, Muireann. An Introduction to Early Irish Literature. Four Courts Press, 2009.
    • conceived specifically as an introduction for non-specialists and students just beginning to work with medieval Gaelic literature.
  • Rodway, Simon. “The Mabinogi and the shadow of Celtic mythology.” Studia Celtica 52 (2018): 67-85.
  • Williams, Mark. The Celtic Myths That Shape the Way We Think. Thames and Hudson, 2021.
    • this is a general introduction, intended for a popular audience, to the content and reception of a selection of medieval Gaelic and Welsh narratives and their receptions in modern literatures (both in English and in Celtic languages).
  • Williams, Mark. Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth. Princeton University Press, 2016.
    • this is a detailed and much more scholarly but still, I found, fairly accessible examination of the development of ideas about “pagan gods” in Ireland, from classical antiquity to the present.

modern literatures and cultures

I’ve selected a few things from the University of Wales Press catalogue that I’ve either read or encountered, but you could do worse than to just poke around in it and see what seems interesting/relevant. given my own background, the selection of material on Scottish Gaelic is most comprehensive; additionally, a large volume of the scholarship on modern literature in Irish and Welsh is written in those languages.

  • Aaron, Jane. Welsh Gothic. University of Wales Press, 2013.
    • discusses texts in English and Welsh.
  • Brooks, Simon. Why Wales Never Was. Tr. Simon Brooks. University of Wales Press, 2017.
    • looks at the cultural and political situation of Wales in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. note that Books is a polemic and not uncontroversial writer.
  • Bruford, Alan. Gaelic Folk-Tales and Mediæval Romances: A study of the Early Modern Irish ‘Romantic Tales’ and their oral derivatives. Dublin: The Folklore of Ireland Society, 1969.
    • this was published in connection with the journal Béaloideas, which is on JSTOR — if you have institutional or individual JSTOR access you may be able to get it there.
  • Chapman, Malcolm. The Gaelic Vision in Scottish Culture. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1978.
  • Dymnock, Emma and Wilson McLeod, ed. Lainnir a’ Bhùirn – The Gleaming Water: Essays on Modern Scottish Gaelic Literature. Dunedin Academic Press, 2011.
  • Ezeji, Cass. “Speaking Our Language: Past, Present and Future.” Scottish Affairs 30.2 (2021): 231-239.
  • Gessesse, Naomi. “What it’s like being black in the Scottish Gaelic community.” gal-dem 6 August, 2019. Archived 22 March, 2022.
  • Kent, Alan M. Literature of Cornwall: Continuity, Identity. Difference 1000-2000. Redcliffe Press, 2000.
  • Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. Harvard University Press, 2002.
  • Ó Ceallagih, Ben. Neoliberalism and language shift: The Great Recession and the sociolinguistic vitality of Ireland’s Gaeltacht, 2008-18. Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2019.
  • Ó Ciosáin, Niall. Print and the Celtic Languages: Publishing and Reading in Irish, Welsh, Gaelic and Breton, 1700-1900. Routledge, 2024.
  • O’Leary, Philip. multiple works by a prolific scholar of modern Irish-language writing:
    • Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State, 1922-1939. Penn State University Press/University College Dublin Press, 2004.
    • Irish Interior: Keeping Faith with the Past in Gaelic Prose, 1940-1951. University College Dublin Press, 2010.
    • The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival, 1881-1921: Ideology and Innovation. Penn State University Press, 1994.
    • An Underground Theatre: Major Playwrights in the Irish Language. University College Dublin Press, 2017.
    • Writing beyond the Revival: Facing the Future in Gaelic Prose, 1940-1951. University College Dublin Press, 2011.
  • Stroh, Silke. Uneasy Subjects: Postcolonialism and Scottish Gaelic Poetry. Rodopi, 2011.
  • Trower, Shelley. Rocks of Nation: The Imagination of Celtic Cornwall. Manchester University Press, 2015.
    • this is a fascinating book about the relationship between geology and literature specifically vis-à-vis Cornwall and the construction of it as a “Celtic” space.
  • Watson, Moray. An Introduction to Gaelic Fiction. Edinburgh University Press, 2011.

7. works cited

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  • Des Rochers, Arianne. Language Smugglers: Postlingual Literatures and Translation within the Canadian Context. Bloomsbury, 2023.
  • Gillies, William. “On the Study of Gaelic Literature.” Litreachas & Eachdraidh / Literature & History: Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 2. Ed. Michel Byrne, Thomas Owen Clancy, and Sheila Kidd. Roinn na Ceiltis, Oilthigh Ghlaschu, 2006. 1-32.
  • Krause, Corinna. “Self-translation: in dialogue with the outside world.” Lainnir a’ Bhùirn – The Gleaming Water: Essays on Modern Gaelic Literature. Ed. Emma Dymock and Wilson McLoed. Dunedin Academic Press, 2011. 115-131.
  • Krause, Corinna. “‘Why bother with the original?’: Self-translation and Scottish Gaelic poetry.” Self-Translation: Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture. Ed. Anthony Cordingley. Bloomsbury, 2013. 127-140.
  • McLeod, Wilson. “Translation and Gaelic: Current Challenges and Contorversies.” Quaich: An Anthology of Translation in Scotland Today. Ed. Madeleine Campbell, Georgina Collins, and Anikó Szilágyi. Everytpe, 2014. 3-12.
  • Olivares Pedreño, Juan Carlos. “Celtic Gods of the Iberian Peninsula.” e-Keltoi 6 (2005).
  • Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A history of translation. Routledge, 1995.
  • Whyte, Christopher. “Against Self-Translation.” Translation and Literature 11.1 (2002): 64-71.
  • Whyte, Christopher. “Translation as Predicament.” Translation and Literature 9.2 (2000): 179-187.

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