Séamus Mac Mathúna


Séamus Mac Mathúna is an Irish language and Irish literature scholar and university professor.

Biography

Séamus Mac Mathúna was born in Belfast in 1945 where he attended St. Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, Belfast. He then attended Queen's University Belfast where he obtained a B.A. in Celtic Studies. This was followed by post-graduate research into Indo-European, Old Norse and Linguistics at the University of Zürich and the University of Iceland, Reykjavík. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Celtic Studies by Queen's University Belfast.
In 1970, he was appointed to a Lectureship in Celtic Languages and Literatures at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He then moved to a Statutory Lecturer in Modern Irish at University College, Galway in 1976. In 1980, was appointed Professor of Irish at Ulster University from which he retired in 2014.

Research

He has conducted research into Early Irish language and literature; Irish folklore; the syntax, semantics and lexicon of Irish; and Celtic links with Nordic, Slavic and Germanic cultures.

Awards

Publications

These are detailed in the Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
A Festschrift in his honour was presented to him on his 75th birthday and launched at the 17th International Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica held in Uppsala on 7–10 May 2020.