Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and Tobar an Dualchais welcome new postgraduate researchers

Liam Alasdair Crouse has been appointed to take up Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and Tobar an Dualchais’ collaborative PhD project, funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities.

And Isabelle Flower will be the first student to undertake Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’s new Masters by Research degree, and will be working on a project exploring confidence among Gaelic speakers.

Liam’s project will bring new ethnographical approaches and cutting-edge scholarship to bear upon the rich Gaelic oral heritage made available online by Tobar an Dualchais, Scotland’s digitised folklore and oral history resource.

Based in Uist, Liam has an academic background in Celtic Studies, Archaeology and Gaelic-language publishing.

He has worked for several years with Ceòlas Uibhist helping to preserve, promote and research Uist’s Gaelic heritage, and in his spare time is a keen sailor, a piper and a poet.

Liam said: “I was elated to be offered the studentship to research Uist’s Gaelic folklore at such a high level with this PhD project.

“Since moving to the islands in 2015, I am beginning to grasp the sheer breadth, depth and import of this community’s cultural endowment.

“It is such a great opportunity to be able to explore these subjects in partnership with two organisations which are to the fore in this field.”

Isabelle has a first-class degree in Gaelic and French from the University of Glasgow, and is a former student of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, where she was awarded Student of the Year in 2018.

She said: “As a previous student at Sabhal Mòr, I’m delighted to return to begin a Masters degree, with a research project that will study Gaelic speakers’ confidence and attitudes towards language. Scotland’s National Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture is the perfect place for this kind of research, providing opportunities and experience unavailable in other universities.”

Abigail Burnyeat, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’s head of research, welcomed the two research students, saying: “We are delighted that Liam and Isabelle will take the next steps in their academic careers here at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. The projects they will be working on will make an important contribution to our research on Gaelic language and culture, and our community of researchers looks forward very much to working with them over the course of their degrees”.