Research Overview

My main research interests lie in the interactions between the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon worlds and Latin literature, and New Testament apocrypha.

I am happy to consider PhD research proposals in any of these areas.

Current Research

I am completing a monograph on the political, historical and religious implications of the mediaeval legend that St John the Baptist was killed by an Irish druid.

I am working on a new critical edition of Eadmer's Historia Nouorum in Anglia, 'History of Recent Events in England', a text which is essential for our understanding of England and its external relations in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Several articles are also in press or currently in progress.

Selected Publications

JUST PUBLISHED: Learning Old English (ed., with Zhangfeng Xu). A new multimedia edition of the University of Aberdeen language course created by the late Dr Duncan Macrae-Gibson (Aberdeen University Press, November 2019). To order, email aup@abdn.ac.uk.

'Contested Consecrations and the Pursuit of Ecclesiastical Independence in Scotland and Ireland in the Early 1120s', North American Journal of Celtic Studies 2.2 (2018), 155-78

'Constructing the Magical Biography of the Irish Druid Mog Ruith', in Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: The Occult in Pre-Modern Sciences, Medicine, Literature, Religion and Astrology, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and Boston, MA,, 2017), pp. 219-29

Trials and Translations: the Latin Origins of the Irish Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols (Aberdeen, 2013)

‘The Heretic and the Hibernophobe: Foreign Perceptions of Ireland from Antiquity to c. AD 1200’, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies 7.1 (2013), 1-51  Available at:https://www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/content-images/JISSv7.1_sample.pdf

‘“Soldiers Strong in the Strife”: Passiones as Cynewulf’s Sources on the Apostles’, Anglo-Saxon 4 (2010), 121-43

‘Sex, Satire and Sanctity in Moriuht: a Foreigner’s View of Mediaeval Irish Penitence’, Mediaeval Scandinavia 20 (2010), 133-40

Tallaght, Bishop Mael Ruain, and the Culdees: Six Texts on Discipline and Memory (pamphlet) (Cambridge, 2008)

‘By the Bishop of Babylon? The Origins of the Collected Latin Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles’, in The Legacy of M.R. James, ed. L. Dennison (Donington: Shaun Tyas/Paul Watkins, 2002), pp. 128-38

‘Apostolic Passiones in Early Anglo-Saxon England’, in Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England, edd. Kathryn Powell and Donald Scragg, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, 2 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2003), pp. 103-19

‘Mog Ruith and Apocalypticism in Eleventh-century Ireland’, in The Individual in Celtic Literatures, ed. J.F. Nagy (Celtic Studies Association of North America Yearbook 1) (Dublin, 2001), pp. 51-60


Research Funding and Grants

Recent External Research Grants

Royal Society of Edinburgh Arts & Humanities Small Grant, 2015-16, for Druidic Apocalypse and Church Reform in Mediaeval Ireland -- research at Cambridge University Library and conference dissemination

British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Grant, 2015-17, for Druidic Apocalypse and Church Reform in Mediaeval Ireland -- research at the Warburg Institute Library, University of London, and conference dissemination

Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland Research Incentive Grant, 2016-17, for A New Critical Edition of Eadmer’s ‘History of Recent Events in England’ -- research at the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and conference dissemination

Recent Internal Research Grants

School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, grant to conduct research at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, and to attend the CSANA conference at UCLA, February-March 2018

School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, grant to conduct research at the Warburg Institute Library, University of London, April 2017

Santander Mobility Award, for visit to Cambridge University Library, May 2015

School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, grant to conduct research at the Warburg Institute Library, University of London, April 2015

Principal’s Excellence Fund, University of Aberdeen, grant to present a paper, ‘The Druid Mog Ruith, the “Irish Apocalypse” of 1096 and the Western Church’, at the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, October 2014

School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, grant to present a paper, ‘Scots, Sots and Stereotypes: Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian Encounters with Ireland’, at the Medieval Academy of America Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, and to conduct research at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, April 2014

Conference Grants for ‘Subversions of Classical Learning’ Research Theme

(Organiser, on behalf of the Sir Herbert Grierson Centre for Textual Criticism and Comparative Literary History and the Centre for Celtic & Anglo-Saxon Studies, University of Aberdeen)

External Grants

Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, Event Sponsorship for ‘Subversions of Classical Learning: a Conference to Commemorate the 150^th Anniversary of the Birth of Sir Herbert Grierson’, January 2016

Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, Conference Grant for symposium on ‘Reviving the Dead: Classical Imitation in Renaissance Literature’, May 2015 (collaborative application)

Internal Grants

Principal’s Interdisciplinary Fund, and Centre for Early Modern Studies, University of Aberdeen, grants for ‘Subversions of Classical Learning: a Conference to Commemorate the 150^th Anniversary of the Birth of Sir Herbert Grierson’, January 2016

Centre for Early Modern Studies, and School of Language and Literature,, University of Aberdeen, grants for symposium on ‘Reviving the Dead: Classical Imitation in Renaissance Literature’, May 2015

School of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, grant for workshop on ‘Satirical Voices: (Re)Imagining Satire from Antiquity to the Present’, May 2014