Elizabeth Boyle

@thecelticist.bsky.social

6750 Followers 3292 Following

Historian/writer • @maynoothuniversity.ie • executive committee @mediumaevum.bsky.social • deputy chair of board @dublinnorthwest.bsky.social • Fierce Appetites (Penguin, 2022) • rep'd by Robert Caskie • extreme metal fan • she/her

A photo of me & my daughter taken 20 years ago today, a few hours after she was born. We are in a hospital bed and I am holding her tiny hand.
A black and white photo of my father as a young man (c. mid 1960s) in a football kit, kneeling, holding a football and surrounded by teammates.
The river Barrow at St Mullins, Carlow.
Members of the School of Celtic Studies at Maynooth University gather around a traditional currach.
A laptop screen showing the opening few lines of an article entitled Middle Irish Theories of Cognition by Elizabeth Boyle (Maynooth University). It begins by quoting the Liber de ordine creaturarum on how faith should be believed rather than analysed because it cannot be known through "secular discernment".
Front of a so-called Fassaroe inscribed cross, in the churchyard at Shankill, South Dublin.
The view from inside the chimney of a disused nineteenth-century lead mine at Carrickgollogan, South Dublin, showing the stonework and the light at the top of the chimney.
Remains of the (twelfth- or thirteenth-century?) church at Rathmichael, South Dublin.
A copy of Andrea Wulf, The Traveller: the Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity, published by Allen Lane.
William Blake, The Inscription Over The Gate (1824-6).
Bukayo Saka, looking proud - as he should - in his Arsenal shirt.
A handsome black cat with a moody and seductive stare, posing with a kind of Burt Reynolds vibe.
St Joseph's Square, Maynooth, with clear blue skies, ivy-clad walls and lush green trees and bushes in the square.
The editor of the Irish Times, Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, at a podium in Hodges Figgis bookshop in Dublin. A large seated audience is watching him.
A copy of Home Economics by Caitríona Lally.
The spire of the chapel at Maynooth University visible in the distance, framed by trees, bushes, grass and wild flowers.
Some handwritten notes in French by Henri Gaidoz on the Félire Óengusso and Stokes's edition thereof, pasted into the front of Gaidoz's copy of the book.
The first page of a review by Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville of Whitley Stokes's edition of the Félire Óengusso, pasted into a copy of the edition itself.
The exterior of the red binding and boards of a nineteenth-century book. A pen to the left shows the considerable size of the book, which is 32cm x 25cm.
Dr Patrick Wadden (DCU) on the left and Dr Ben Guy (Cambridge) on the right. Each is holding a glass of wine, and Patrick is also holding a copy of their new publication, Propaganda and History in the Medieval Celtic Lands: Interrogating a Paradigm (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2026).
A proof copy of Sally Hayden, This is Also a Love Story: Searching for Good in a Divided World, which will be published on 21st May.
A group of PhD students looking at a copy of Elizabeth Boyle, Fierce Appetites. Photo credit: Dr Catherine Emerson.
A paperback copy of Elizabeth Boyle, Fierce Appetites: Lessons from my Year of Untamed Thinking.
A photo of Galway city showing the River Corrib and the Salmon Weir Bridge, and - at the other side of the river - the cathedral. It is a sunny day and the sky is blue.
Census return for my great-grandfather's household in Carleton Road, Marino, Dublin, listing Reginald White and his wife, Catherine White, and their six children: Louisa, Margaret, Ernest (my grandfather), Gladys, Kathleen and Eileen.
A cartoon showing a viking building a large ship from Lego. Two other vikings are standing in front of the ship-in-progress, one of whom is saying "I tell you, Lego Legosson, your method of building will never catch on".
A screenshot of the covers of three academic monographs: Michel Summer, Willibrotd Between Ireland, Britain and Merovingian Francia (690-739): Beyond Mission; Ronan Mulhaire, Irish Kingship in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: Approaches to the Study of Power; Niall Ó Súilleabháin, Social Élites in Medieval France: Status, Wealth and Power in the Loire Valley, c. 850-1150.
Poster for tonight's Maynooth University event entitled "In conversation with Sally Hayden: Reporting from Lebanon, Syria & beyond in turbulent times", with a subheading "Join us for an evening of insights from the frontlines of international journalism". The event was hosted by Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute and the Department of Law & Criminology.
A large crowd of people protesting against Trump's incessant gobshitery outside the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta. It's a sunny day with a cloudless blue sky - perfect for fighting back against the rise of fascism.
A paperback copy of Yiyun Li, Where Reasons End.
Title page, stating: Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lectures 20 Elizabeth Boyle The Moral Economy in Early Medieval Ireland Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic & Hughes Hall University of Cambridge
A table laden with dishes of Syrian food including fatoush and stuffed vine leaves. A large central platter has 4 whole seabass on a bed of rice, decorated with lime, carrots, nuts and corn. The empty plates have napkins on them decorated with a crescent and the words Ramadan Mubarak.
Screenshot of the headline and subheader of an article on Irish news site the Journal, reading: Temple Bar tourist trap pub installs giant St Patrick with a pint, then covers it with a bin bag Then they replaced the bin bag with a green cloth. More as we get it.
A black and white photo of a dense crowd of people, predominantly African-American men, outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, as the coffin of MLK is carried out of the church. The front right (from the viewer's perspective) pallbearer is Rev. Jesse Jackson. The photo was taken by Don Hogan Charles, who was the first African-American man to be hired as a staff photographer for the NY Times.
A road in central Dublin with relatively little traffic, lined with leafless trees, and with the sun rising on the horizon and the sky filled with yellow, pink, red and purple.
L-R: Karl Agell, me, Ron Holzner, seated at a table in Whelan's, Dublin.
The Lie, Mary O'Malley The lie that a protester shot dead by ICE in Minneapolis was a terrorist, the lie that killers set loose on their own cities are victims, the lie that a poem is a gun. A poem is not a gun, though a poem from the pen of Akhmatova or Neruda or Mandelstam, not one of whom ever to my knowledge fired a shot, might in certain conjugations of the stars lodge in the heart and spread out across mountains and borders across languages and the sea and you can’t shoot it down, or lock it up or alter its pixels. It is played on the hollowed reeds of dead bones. A poem like that is a bomb. Mary O’Malley’s most recent collection, The Shark Nursery (Carcanet), was winner of the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry 2025
Maynooth University Early Irish & Celtic Studies Research Seminar, semester 2, 2025-6. 12 February: Dr Seán Ó Hoireabhárd, Positioning Meath and Clonard in the Central Middle Ages. 12 March: Prof. James Palmer, Pagan Knowledge, Christian World: Science, Medicine & Religion, c. 600-900. 23 April, Dr Edel Bhreathnach, New Religion, New Pots: Newgrange, St Brigit and Imported Pottery. All seminars are at 5pm in Room 2.31, Iontas Building, North Campus, Maynooth University. For queries: elizabeth.boyle@mu.ie
Lady Liberty lies on a hospital bed, the torch of justice fallen from her hand. At the head of the bed stands a masked ICE agent, firing a gun. At the other end of the bed is the disappearing body of ICU nurse Alex Pretti, only his hands and the arms of his hospital scrubs visible as he disappears towards what one can only hope is a peaceful light.
A tabby cat sleeps on a table. In front of her is a modern notebook on the left and a nineteenth-century notebook on the right. In the background a dark book-lined wall is visible.
A tabby cat sitting on my lap while I am seated at a table with a white tablecloth - there is a modern lined notebook with a pen, and a nineteenth-century notebook open on the table.
View from the air of part of Dublin Bay (in the centre-right of the photo), and the east of Dublin city wrapped around it, taken from a Ryanair plane (the tip of the wing visible in the picture) at night with a couple of patches of cloud visible above the city.
A PowerPoint slide showing an artwork by comic-maker Marnie Galloway, in which modern (digital) artists are presented as though they were scribe-artists in a medieval monastic scriptorium. The three modern-medieval figures are surrounded by mythical creatures and leafwork in a modern take on medieval manuscript art.
Part of New Court at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. This is a 19th-century addition to the 14th-century college, built in Ketton stone. The entrance to the chapel is visible at the right of the picture and the entrance to the dining hall is left of centre. The photo is taken in early evening, so the building is lit inside and a lamp post is in the foreground at the far left of the picture.
Picasso, Women at their Toilette (1956)
A black and white photo of my father as a young man. He is dressed in an old-fashioned football (soccer) kit, kneeling, and holding a football (soccer ball). He is surrounded by other teammates - two kneeling either side of him, and others who are only visible from the waist down are standing behind him.
A heart-shaped glass bauble, with the embracing figures of Moominpappa and Moominmamma (from the Moomins) painted on it. The bauble is hanging with gold thread over a Christmas stocking.
A hardback copy of Helm by Sarah Hall, published by Faber.
A group of smiling young people standing in a kitchen: two Southeast Asian girls, one Black teenage boy, one white girl, along with one middle aged white man. Another middle aged white man is visible in the background on the left. The white girl, on the right of the group, is holding a dog, who is distracted by something off camera. The Black boy is affectionately resting his elbow on the head of the taller of the Southeast Asian girls.
A Christmas tree, almost 2 metres tall, decorated with lights, ribbons and baubles that are mostly silver and red, in a bay window at night.
The back of a man (wearing an Eyehategod hoodie from the History of Nomadic Behavior album) looking through albums at the Sound Cellar, Dublin.
The rocky cliffs of Howth, along the coast north of Dublin. The Irish Sea is visible on the left, and the sun is low on the horizon.
The chapel at St Patrick's College Maynooth, a neo-Gothic architectural masterpiece, filled with people.
Dr Sparky Booker of Trinity College Dublin giving her lecture on fifteenth-century petitions to the Irish parliament. Her PowerPoint slide visible on the screen to her right (left of photo) shows a map of Ireland and images pertaining to the Irish parliament in the later Middle Ages.
A word cloud of my most used words on Bluesky this year, in which the most prominent words include: Ireland, medieval, Irish, history, book, Dublin, family, research and university. Slightly smaller words include: women, Black, Atlanta, modern, happy, light, students, novel, books, happy and free. The smallest words include: essay, live, hope, food and lecture.
An orange safety sign with black writing which states: CAUTION. HOT WORKS IN PROGRESS.
Prof. Deborah Hayden (Maynooth University) presenting a paper, with the title slide of her presentation showing that her paper was on "Cath Maige Tuired and the Conceptualisation of Medicine in Early Medieval Europe".
A copy of Fergus Kelly's new edition and translation of The Triads of Ireland, published yesterday by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
An array of Syrian dishes (rice dishes, salads, lamb, stuffed cabbage leaves and stuffed vine leaves), spread out on the floor. Two people's hands are visible reaching in to serve the food.