Celtic Revivals: Authenticity and Identity Conference
British Museum 16-17 January 2016

Although the Celtic Revival is usually associated with the late 19th century, this conference will demonstrate how it constitutes a whole series of revivals, beginning in the medieval period and continuing into the modern. Leading art and design historians, archaeologists and curators will present the Celtic Revival as a rewriting, recreation and reimagining of the past. Central to these discussions will be the themes of national and cultural heritage and identities, authenticity and innovation, and the network of ‘Celtic’ connections that span across time, space, media, disciplines and national/cultural borders

Conference Details and Program

Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum
Coffee and lunch provided
Conference Fee +exhibition visit £50 (£35 concessions/students)

9:30 Registration and coffee

10.15 Introduction

10.30 The Concept of Style in Celtic Art
Colum Hourihane, Princeton University, Emeritus

11:00 TBC
Raghnall Ó Floinn, National Museum of Ireland

11:30 Break

11:45 Relics, Reliquaries, and the Presence of the Past
Karen Overbey, Tufts University

12:15 Celtic, Scotch and Stuart: Queen Victoria and Scottish Identity
Helen Ritchie, Fitzwilliam Museum

12:45 Lunch

14:00 ‘In the tradition of my race’: Evoking the Celtic past in later medieval Ireland
Rachel Moss, Trinity College, Dublin

14:30 Medieval Gaelic manuscript miscellanies: changing cultural contexts
Siobhán Fitzpatrick and Bernadette Cunningham, Royal Irish Academy

15:00 Celtic Revivals and Reappropriations in Art and Books 1760 – 1951
Murdo Macdonald, University of Dundee

15:30 Coffee break

16:00 Evoking Ireland’s Celtic “Golden Age”: Textiles for the Honan Chapel at University College Cork
Nancy Netzer, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College

16:30 Compton Chapel – Revealing the Sources of its Celtic Symbolism
Louise Boreham, Independent Researcher

Sunday 17 January

8:00 Visit to Celts: art and identity (drop in between 8 and 10am)

10:00 Coffee

10:30 The Druids and the Evergreen: authenticity and originality in fin de siècle Scotland
Frances Fowle and Heather Pulliam, University of Edinburgh

11:30 Celtic collections: the curatorial appetite for ‘Celtic crosses’ in nineteenth-century Scotland
Sally Foster, University of Stirling

12.00 Lunch

13:00 Gods, warriors and saints: Celts on parade in Edwardian Scotland
Elizabeth Cumming, University of Edinburgh

13:30 The Death of Tewdrig (1848): ‘A sculpture illustrative of Cambro-British History.’
Oliver Fairclough, National Museum Wales

14:00 Break

14:15 The Celtic Revival in the Visual Culture of Wales
Martin Crampin, University of Wales

14:45 Ireland 1893 – 1917: Celtic Revival or Celtic Twilight?

Organised by the British Museum and University of Edinburgh
The conference is supported by The Kilfinan Trust