The Irish Language Grimoire — Bibliography
Every word in the Grimoire is sourced. Sources: modern dictionaries, medieval texts, the placename database, the Ogham scholarship.
Modern Irish dictionaries
Foclóir.ie — the modern dictionary
The standard reference for contemporary written Irish. About 50,000 entries with native-speaker audio in three dialects.
Visit Foclóir → · cite by URL (e.g. focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/abdomen); accessed on 10 May 2026.
Teanglann.ie — Ó Dónaill, de Bhaldraithe, An Foclóir Beag
Three of the most-used Irish dictionaries on a single site. Ó Dónaill’s Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla (1977), de Bhaldraithe’s English–Irish Dictionary (1959), and An Foclóir Beag (1991).
Visit Teanglann → · cite by URL (e.g. teanglann.ie/en/eid/book); accessed on 10 May 2026.
eDIL — Old, Middle, and Early Modern Irish
The canonical reference for Irish in its earlier periods. 80,000 headwords covering roughly 700–1700 AD.
Visit eDIL → · cite as eDIL s.v. focal or by permanent URL (e.g. dil.ie/2345); accessed on 10 May 2026.
Dinneen — Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla (1927)
The most extensive Irish–English dictionary of its era. Patrick S. Dinneen, Irish Texts Society (1927). About 50,000 entries with deep coverage of dialect forms, literary register, and Munster vocabulary the later standard dictionaries omit.
Cite as: Dinneen, Patrick S. (1927). Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla. New edition, revised and greatly enlarged. Dublin: Irish Texts Society.
Medieval and early-modern texts
CELT — Corpus of Electronic Texts
The largest digital library of pre-modern Irish writing. Hosted by University College Cork. Free, open access.
Visit CELT → · for a specific text, cite the editor and year shown on that text’s CELT page; accessed on 10 May 2026.
Lebor Gabála Érenn
The medieval account of how Ireland was peopled. Six successive invasions, from Cessair before the Flood to the Milesians. Macalister’s edition + translation, Vol I (Internet Archive); CELT’s companion index at celt.ucc.ie/indexLG.html.
Táin Bó Cúailnge
The central epic of the Ulster Cycle. Queen Medb of Connacht invades Ulster for the Brown Bull of Cooley while Cú Chulainn defends the province single-handed. CELT edition.
Acallam na Senórach
The hinge between pagan and Christian Ireland. Late-12th-century framing-text in which the surviving Fenian heroes Caílte and Oisín tell Saint Patrick the lore of the Fianna and the place-names of Ireland. CELT edition.
Auraicept na nÉces
The medieval Irish grammatical and metrical handbook. Preserves the Bríatharogaim — the three sets of kennings the medieval file-poets used to teach the Ogham letters. CELT edition (Calder 1917); alternative free copy on Internet Archive.
Senchas Már
The largest collection of early Irish Brehon law. Compiled in the 7th–8th centuries. Covers status, property, contracts, marriage, fosterage, injury (éiric), and honour-price (enech). Text and translation free on Internet Archive (Ancient Laws of Ireland, Vol I).
Place names
Logainm.ie — the placenames database
The official register of Irish placenames. Every county, parish, townland, mountain, river, holy well, and historical site. Both Irish and anglicised forms; etymology where known; pronunciation audio for many.
Visit Logainm → · data © Government of Ireland; hosted by DCU with the RIA; accessed on 10 May 2026.
Ogham scholarship
Every Ogham claim on this site is sourced to modern scholarship. The works below are the load-bearing references for the Ogham gallery and the per-letter Bríatharogam blocks.
McManus 1991 — A Guide to Ogam
The modern scholarly standard for Ogham. Damian McManus, Maynooth Monographs 4 (1991).
Visit McManus 1991 → · cite as: McManus, Damian (1991). A Guide to Ogam. Maynooth Monographs 4. An Sagart, Maynooth.
Macalister CIIC — Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum
The original catalogue of Ogham inscriptions across Ireland and Britain. R. A. S. Macalister, Stationery Office Dublin (1945, two volumes). Assigns a CIIC number to every stone known when he wrote — the universal reference key the field still uses.
Print only — reprinted by Four Courts Press / Irish Manuscripts Commission; held in major research libraries. Online deep-links by CIIC number go through Ogham 3D and OG(H)AM Project. Cite as: Macalister, R. A. S. (1945). Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum, vol. 1. Stationery Office, Dublin.
Stifter 2022 — Ogam: Language, Writing, Epigraphy
The newest scholarly synthesis on Ogham. David Stifter, Anejo de AELAW 10, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza (2022). Integrates discoveries from the Ogham 3D and OG(H)AM Project digitisation programmes since McManus.
Cite as: Stifter, David (2022). Ogam: Language, Writing, Epigraphy. Anejo de AELAW 10. Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza.
Lowe 2008 — Inchmarnock
The Inchmarnock excavation publication. Christopher Lowe (ed.), Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (2008), with Katherine Forsyth’s analysis of the inscribed slates.
Cite as: Lowe, Christopher (ed.) (2008). Inchmarnock: An Early Historic Island Monastery and its Archaeological Landscape. Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Ogham in 3D & the OG(H)AM Project
The two open digitisation programmes covering the entire surviving Ogham corpus. DIAS (Dublin) and the University of Glasgow.
Visit Ogham 3D → · Visit OG(H)AM Project →
Open-source software & tooling
Everything powering the Grimoire on the live site runs on open-source code. The list below credits the projects we depend on.
Gaelspell — Kevin Scannell’s Irish spell-checker
The build-time gate that keeps typos off our pages. Open-source spell-checker for Irish, built up over 20+ years from the modern Irish lexicon.
Visit Gaelspell → · license GPL-2.0.
An Gramadóir — Kevin Scannell’s grammar checker
Kevin Scannell’s grammar checker for Irish. Open-source, about 500 regex rules covering common grammatical errors.
Visit An Gramadóir → · license GPL-2.0.
Caighdean — Kevin Scannell’s pre-standard normaliser
Kevin Scannell’s pre-standard-to-modern Irish converter. Open-source. Handles punctum-delens lenition (ḃ→bh, ċ→ch, ḋ→dh) and the -uidhe / -idhe / -ughadh suffix reforms.
Visit Caighdean → · license GPL-2.0.
The Irish Language Grimoire — Rosmerta editorial
Rosmerta Publishing’s own master document. Eighteen sections covering the core vocabulary of modern Irish, hand-curated by our editorial team. Where an entry could not be verified against an external source, it’s honestly marked as Rosmerta editorial in its note.