PROFESSOR DAVID STIFTER DELIVERS INAUGURAL LECTURE AT NUI MAYNOOTH ON STUDY OF OLD IRISH

Discovery of new words in renowned liturgical manuscript will unlock secrets in other Old Irish documents

2nd February 2012: Professor David Stifter today delivered his inaugural lecture to an audience of colleagues and students at NUI Maynooth, marking one year as Professor of Old Irish at the Department of Old and Middle Irish in the University’s School of Celtic Studies. Professor Stifter, an Austrian native, developed an interest in Old Irish while a student of historical linguistics in Vienna.  There, his enthusiasm for Celtic languages prompted his professor to direct him towards NUI Maynooth, a centre of excellence in linguistics.

In his lecture, Professor Stifter described his work, part of which involves the translation of a text in a famous liturgical manuscript called the Stowe Missal.  Written around 800 A.D. and housed in the Royal Irish Academy, this manuscript is the source of much fascination to linguists, with many passages hitherto considered incomprehensible.  He also detailed the exciting discoveries of two new Old Irish verbs and several nouns from the text, which will help unlock mysteries in other Old Irish scripts.

Professor Stifter studied the Stowe Missal using a methodology of linguistics and philological analysis, with the assistance of Jacqueline Borsje, an expert in comparative religion. The text involved in his study is the third of three charms contained in the Stowe Missal, all concerning health afflictions.  In medieval Ireland, charms, spells and incantations recited by priests were considered powerful means against disease and afflictions.  This particular charm concerns urinary disease and Professor Stifter chose it because no proper translation had ever been made of it, with some in the past describing the text as nonsensical, having analyzed the manuscript incorrectly and misinterpreted certain letters.  However, Professor Stifter has linked these phrases back to Old Irish words and unearthed meaning.  

During the lecture, Professor Stifter demonstrated how one begins to decipher an Old Irish text, and exhorted the audience to see it as a fun exercise, akin to making a jigsaw puzzle.  “We chose this particular charm as it represented a challenge for us, having been misinterpreted in the past. A handful of mostly very short medical charms have found their way from the medieval period into our time, not infrequently preserved on the fringe pages and margins of manuscripts. Because of the specific stylistic and linguistic exigencies of this genre that set it apart from more ordinary specimens of Early Irish prose or poetry, their analysis and interpretation can be demanding,” said Professor Stifter.

Speaking at the lecture, NUI Maynooth President, Professor Philip Nolan commented: “This is a fascinating topic of research and Professor Stifter’s lecture conveyed the excitement involved in the translation of one of the most complex sections of the Stowe Missal.  NUI Maynooth’s Department of Old and Middle Irish has a worldwide reputation for excellence and is renowned for its progressive techniques. The methodical and innovative work detailed here today has made an extremely important contribution to the field of Old Irish.”

Professor Stifter has published widely on the Old and Middle Irish language and literature, and on the Continental Celtic languages (Celtiberian, Gaulish and Lepontic). His introductory handbook Sengoídelc. Old Irish for Beginners (Syracuse University Press 2006) has been adopted for teaching Old Irish in universities world-wide and was awarded the 2006 Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture of the American Conference for Irish Studies.

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Professor David Stifter

Professor David Stifter is the professor of Old Irish since 2011. He studied Latin, Russian and Indo-European linguistics in Vienna, and received his Mag. Phil. in 1998 for a thesis on the Old Irish influence on the Latin of the Nauigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. He spent the year 1995/6 in Maynooth studying Old and Middle Irish with Prof. Kim McCone. In 2003 he was awarded the doctorate for a thesis on the didactics of Old Irish. From 2000–2008 he was contract assistant at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna. During this time, he played a major role in establishing and developing the Celtic studies programme at the University of Vienna.

He has published widely on the Old and Middle Irish language and literature, and on the Continental Celtic languages (Celtiberian, Gaulish and Lepontic). His introductory handbook Sengoídelc. Old Irish for Beginners (Syracuse University Press 2006) has been adopted for teaching Old Irish in universities world-wide and was awarded the 2006 Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture of the American Conference for Irish Studies. He is founder and editor of the interdisciplinary Celtic-studies journal Keltische Forschungen (Vienna 2006–) and of its accompanying monograph series (Vienna 2010–). He co-edited several volumes in Celtic and Indo-European linguistics, among them the four-volume collection The Celtic World. Critical Concepts in Historical Studies (Routledge 2007).

His research interests are comparative Celtic linguistics (esp. Old Irish and Continental Celtic) and language contact in the ancient world and on the early medieval British Isles.