Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín

Source: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/m%C3%ADche%C3%A1l-b-%C3%B3-mainn%C3%ADn/ Parent: https://www.qub.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/anthropology-irish-ba-ql56/

View Scopus Profile

Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín

Professor

https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8368-4944

Phone+44 (0)28 9097 3717
EmailM.Omainnin@qub.ac.uk
Room 02.003 - 8 University Square

United Kingdom

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

onomastics; dialectology; language and identity in Ireland and Scotland; language and conflict; early modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic language and literature

1990 …Research output 2001: 1Research output 2002: 1Research output 2005: 2Research output 2007: 2Research output 2009: 4Research output 2010: 3Research output 2012: 1Research output 2013: 2Research output 2014: 1Projects 2016: 1Research output 2016: 1Research output 2017: 3Research output 2018: 3Research output 2019: 1Research output 2021: 1Research output 2022: 2Research output 2024: 3Research output 2025: 32025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Research Interests

Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín is a graduate of NUI Galway (BA 1984; MA 1987) and Queen’s University Belfast (PhD 2002). He was first employed in Queen’s in 1987 as a research associate in the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project and has been a lecturer in Irish & Celtic Studies since 1997. His principal research interests lie in the areas of linguistics (particularly onomastics); Irish and Scottish Gaelic literary texts; and Irish and Scottish identity and relations in the medieval and modern periods.

He is Director of the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project (www.placenamesni.org) and has contributed two volumes (one in collaboration with Gregory Toner) to the Place-Names of Northern Ireland series. He is currently completing his monograph on the toponymy of the plain of Macha, centred on the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland at Armagh and, closeby, Emain Macha (Navan Fort), the focal centre of Ulster kingship in the medieval period. He is also co-investigator on the AHRC-funded four-year project on multilingualism, MEITS (www.meits.org), led from the University of Cambridge. A further ongoing project is concerned with providing a digitised edition of Wagner’s four-volume Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects for the School of Celtic Studies in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

He is editor of Léann: Irish Chumann Léann na Litríochta (vol. 1, 2007; vol. 2, 2009, vol. 3 (2014, in collaboration with Máire Ní Annracháin of UCD) and vol. 4 (2016, in collaboration with Rióna Ní Fhrighil)), and Ainm: A Journal of Name Studies (vol. 9, 2008; vol. 10, 2009). He is on the advisory board of Aiste. Studies in Gaelic Literature (University of Glasgow).

Teaching

Mícheál has taught widely at undergraduate level across the range of Irish and Scottish Gaelic language and literature (both medieval and modern). He is particularly responsible for the teaching of Irish phonetics and dialectology, Scottish Gaelic language and literature, and late medieval Gaelic literature (all of which are driven by his research interests).

At postgraduate level, he also has options on onomastics and language and identity, and has supervised dissertations on a range of linguistic and literary topics (including sociolinguistics and language politics, dialectology and onomastics, travel literature, literature of the Irish Revival, medieval and modern Scottish literature).

My gallery

Selfie

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics where Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín is active. These topic labels come from the works of this person. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

2 Similar Profiles
Languages Social Sciences
Policy Social Sciences
Poet Arts and Humanities
UK Social Sciences
Place names Arts and Humanities
Research Arts and Humanities
Literature Arts and Humanities
Episode Arts and Humanities

View full fingerprint

Projects

1 Active
R1647AEL: Open World Research Initiative (OWRI)

Carruthers, J. (PI) & Ó Mainnín, M. B. (CoI)

23/09/2016 → …

Project: Research

Ireland
Languages
France
Policy
Speaker

Research output

6 Article
6 Chapter
5 Chapter (peer-reviewed)
2 Book
2 More
2 Data set/Database
1 Conference contribution
1 Digital or Visual Products
Fire, protection and purification in medieval Irish hagiographical and related texts

O Mainnin, M., 28 Jul 2025, (Accepted) The Elements in the Medieval World: Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Fire. Cesario, M., Magennis, H. & Ramazzina, E. (eds.). Brill, (Elements, Nature, Environment: Multidisciplinary Perspectives from the Ancient to the Early Modern World; vol. 4).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review - ### The pan-Gaelic onomasticon: the case of Gleann Masáin and Trian Masáin

O Mainnin, M., 2025, (Accepted) Onomastications: a festschrift for Simon Taylor. Clancy, T., Hough, C. & Williamson, E. (eds.). Glasgow, p. 1-10

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review - ### The place-names of County Antrim

Kane, F. & O Mainnin, M. B., 19 Sept 2025, Antrim history and society: Interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish county. Murphy, E. & C. D. (eds.). Dublin: Geography Publications, p. 709-728 (History and Society County Series; vol. 32).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter - ### Dánta Grádha and Scotland: Gearóid Iarla, Donnchadh Caimbéal and the Book of the Dean of Lismore

O Mainnin, M., 2024, Seal re Saobhnós: essays on Irish courtly love poetry. Ní Mhurchú, S. & Hoyne, M. (eds.). Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, p. 71-106

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review - ### Minoritized languages in France and Ireland: policy, practice, vitality

Carruthers, J. & Ó Mainnín, M. B., 04 Jul 2024, Historical and sociolinguistic approaches to French. Carruthers, J., McLaughlin, M. & Walsh, O. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 362-386 25 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review