PUBLICATIONS
My career in languages began as a translator and interpreter in Spain, first with Marathon Oil U.K. and then with the Spanish Navy. After moving to Scotland in 1991 I worked mainly for the University of Aberdeen and Grampian Language Training, assignments ranging from translation of technical documents for the oil and gas industry to interpreting at the sale transaction of a fishing boat. I also tutored in Spanish for oil companies and schools as well as at Aberdeen University.
In 1997 I turned to my life-long interest in Celtic and Gaelic Studies, immersing myself in a good many years of academic work. I graduated from Aberdeen University with a first-class MA (Hons) in Celtic Studies and History, and then with a PhD (Celtic). I worked for the University as Teaching Fellow and as a Research Fellow, and it was during those years that I published a scholarly monograph and several papers, detailed below.
By Poetic Authority: The Rhetoric of Panegyric in Gaelic Poetry of Scotland to c.1700 (Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2012)
‘The high-kingship of Alba in classical poetry of Scotland: the evidence from classical and pre-classical poetry’, Scottish Gaelic Studies 28 (2011): 21–48
Review of Wilson McLeod and Meg Bateman (eds), Duanaire na Sracaire / Songbook of the Pillagers. Anthology of Medieval Gaelic Poetry (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2007), Scottish Gaelic Studies 28 (2011): 333–4
Review of Pádraig Ó Macháin (ed.), The Book of the O’Conor Don: Essays on an Irish Manuscript (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2010), Scottish Gaelic Studies 28 (2011): 346–51
‘The Earl of Argyll and the Goill: the “Flodden poem” revisited’, Scottish Gaelic Studies 24 (2008): 137–68
‘Law and the rhetoric of sovereignty in late-medieval Ireland: perspectives from the work of Tadhg Óg Ó hUiginn’, Éigse 36 (2008): 195–214
‘Kingship imagery in Gaelic poetry of the classical period’, Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 3, ed. W. McLeod et al. (Edinburgh: Dunedin, 2006), 39–55
Review of Wilson McLeod, Divided Gaels: Gaelic Cultural Identities in Scotland and Ireland, c.1200-c.1650 (Oxford U. P., 2004), Scottish Gaelic Studies 22 (2006): 232–5