Dr Caitlin Ellis is a historian of medieval Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia, particularly
focused on the various longstanding connections between them. She has published
on the Vikings and Normans in Ireland, on Irish kingship and diplomacy, and more,
all drawing on Old and Middle Irish texts. She is a regular guest on podcasts
including Gone Medieval, The Medieval Irish History Podcast, and Echoes of History,
and has a made a couple of appearances on TV documentaries.
She moved to Norway in 2023 to take up the post of Associate Professor of Nordic
Medieval History at the University of Oslo. Before this, Caitlin lived in Dublin for two
and a half years as a postdoctoral scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, the Dublin
Institute for Advanced Studies. She taught modules on “Early Ireland from Patrick to
Clontarf” and “The Vikings in Ireland” at Maynooth University. Much of her free time
was spent swimming in the Irish Sea. She was trained in the Department of Anglo-
Saxon, Norse & Celtic at the University of Cambridge. As a student she learnt some
modern Irish, spending a surprisingly sunny summer in An Cheathrú Rua/Carraroe,
Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland.
Caitlin is a board member of the Societas Celtologica Nordica (promoting Celtic
Studies in the Nordic lands), having co-organised the society’s 18th International
Symposium, held in Oslo in 2024. In June 2026 she will deliver a keynote lecture at
the “Past, Present, and Future after Conquest: 1066, 1169” conference in University
College Dublin.
After learning of its existence from an unexpected conversation in a tent sauna, she
became an active member of Mná Oslo Irish Choir – something which has greatly
enriched her time in Oslo.
