John Waddell, former Professor of Archaeology at the University of Galway, is one of six non-fiction authors selected for the 2026 Michel Déon Prize for his work The Celtic World: A History.
This Royal Irish Academy competition, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, celebrates the writer of the best non-fiction book habitually living on the island of Ireland. Titles were nominated by both members of the public and the publishing community through the RIA’s website
A graduate of University of Galway, Professor Waddell studied at the University of Glasgow and worked in the National Museum of Ireland before returning to Galway in 1970.
The Celtic World: A History (Four Courts Press ) is an historical exploration of our understanding of the ancient Celts and the concept of a European-wide world inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples developed over time.
The study of this Celtic past has often been a disputed and debated territory, and for centuries the true story of these Celtic-speakers of old was obscured by fanciful origin myths. Their origins and subsequent history were slowly revealed when linguistic studies and archaeological discoveries in the nineteenth century began to expose a rich and complex narrative that is still being clarified today.
The other five books shortlisted for the 2026 Michel Déon Prize are: Dublin’s Stained Glass. A guide to the finest twentieth-century windows cultural studies by David Caron (Four Courts Press ); Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals by Maurice J Casey (Footnote Press ); Land Is All That Matters: The Struggle That Shaped Irish History by Myles Dungan (Head of Zeus/Bloomsbury ); Monasticism in Ireland, AD 900-1250 by Edel Bhreathnach (Four Courts Press ); Rory O’Connor: To Defend the Republic by Gerard Shannon (Irish Academic Press/Merrion Press ).
