Dr William Mahon

Dr William Mahon is an American from the state of New Jersey who spent some fifteen years teaching Irish on behalf of Cumann na Gaeilge i Boston (Boston Irish Society), Boston College and Harvard University before joining the Welsh Department in Aberystwyth in 1995. He wrote a PhD thesis on early medieval Irish Lexiography (1987) but over the years the main focus of his research has been on Irish language and literature between 1600-1850.  The fruits of this research was published in part in Kirwan’s Irish Catechism (1991), a subject which is of great interest to him in terms of social history and dialectology, and in The History of Éamonn O’Clery (2000), a new edition and translation of Stair Éamainn Uí Chléire (c.1708), a parodic and allegorical novella by Seán Ó Neachtain (c.1640-1727).

Currently he is preparing  a new edition and translation of Táin Bó Geanainn [Stealing Geanainn’s Cattle],  a comic novella written circa 1700. Dr Mahon  also specializes in the history of the Irish language in America and has recently published two books on the subject – Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in Villanova University, Pennsylvania (2007) and Thomas Griffin (1829-96) of Corca Dhuibhne & the Irish Community of Lawrence, Massachusetts (2007).  Dr Mahon lectures on all levels of Modern Irish and Early Modern Irish in the Welsh Department, and has developed a new course on Modern Irish for beginners at Level 1. He is also a musician  who performs traditional Irish music on the flute and brings his knowledge to his module on ‘Traditional Music of the Celtic Nations’.

Publications

Thomas Griffin (1829-1896) of Corca Dhuibline and the Irish Community of Lawrence, Massachusetts (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, 2007) xii + 207pp.

Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in Villanora University, Pennsylvania (Dublin: School of Celtic Studies[Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies], 2007) 102 pp.

'Eoghan Rua  Ó Suilleabháin's Aisling Parody: An Phis' Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica (2007)

'Old-Irish Verse Fragments Attributed to Fer Muman mac Echtain', Studi Celtici 4 (December 2006), 223-256 pp.

'Moddau a thonyddiaeth cerddoriaeth Iwerddon', Canu Gwerin, 23 (2000), 63-92.

The History of Éamonn O'Clery (Seán Ó Neachtain): Translated and Annotated with an Edition of the Irish Text, (Indreabhán, 2000), 231pp.

'The Aisling elegy and the poet's appropriation of the feminine', Studia Celtica, XXXIV (2000), 249-70 pp.