This year's Seán Mac Airt Memorial Lecture was given by Anne Connon (Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork) on Thursday 30th November 2023. You can access the recording of the talk, entitled "Chasing Down Placenames in Acallam na Senórach: locating Co. Down placenames in the stories of Finn mac Cumaill"  below.

Click here to access the lecture recording.

The Ulster Place-Name Society's Annual Autumn Lecture is held in memory of Irish-language scholar and founder of the Ulster Place-Name Society, Seán Mac Airt (1918-1959). Seán Mac Airt was born in Keady, Co. Armagh. He received his early education at the De la Salle College in Keady and then won a scholarship to St Patrick's College, Armagh. He graduated from QUB with a BA in 1939 and was awarded an MA by QUB for his research on ‘The verbal system of bardic poetry’. In 1942 he joined the staff of the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and remained there until 1948 when he returned to Queen's, where he was head of the department of Celtic for ten years. As well as establishing of the Ulster Place-Name Society in 1952, Mac Airt edited the society's Bulletin, as well as contributing regularly to scholarly and Irish-language journals. Seán Mac Airt died from illness in Belfast in June 1959.