Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom offers a well-researched and accessible survey of the complexities of Northumbrian and Gaelic relations between the seventh and eleventh centuries. Although the topic is hardly novel, the interdisciplinary approach that Fiona Edmonds has adopted represents an innovative framework for exploring the subject, incorporating textual material, personal name studies, church dedications, material culture, and landscape history. The result is a comprehensive study that engages with the communication routes between the Northumbrian kingdom and Gaelic world, and the subsequent political and ecclesiastical links that emerged.

In the first chapter, Edmonds clearly outlines early medieval perceptions of Gaelic and Northumbrian peoples, and the contemporary terminologies used to distinguish them. Linguistic and documentary evidence from both regions is invoked to trace the formation of early medieval Northumbrian and Gaelic consciousnesses, reflecting contemporary scholars’ understandings of two distinct peoples and how their identities were perceived to change between the seventh and eleventh centuries. Edmonds rightly observes the limitations of such sources and those of material evidence, before reviewing interdisciplinary approaches to cultural interaction. Significantly, she identifies factors that prevented previous scholars from adopting such an approach to the multifaceted and persistent natures of Northumbrian-Gaelic relations, including Northumbria's geographical location on the (now) Anglo-Scottish border; its peripheral position in English history, generally; and the long-standing assumption that “Saxon and Celt (whether Gaelic or Brittonic) inhabited distinct and antagonistic spheres” (18–19).

Chapter 2 considers political aspects of Gaelic influence during Northumbria's “Golden Age,” likewise drawing on textual evidence. To overcome the relative paucity of such material in certain parts of Northumbria, Edmonds incorporates archaeological evidence to supplement her discussions of mobility within the Irish Sea region. Mobility is a recurring theme, featuring prominently in discussions of how Northumbrian kings developed both beneficial and adversarial political links. Of particular significance here is the crucial role of the Isle of Man in facilitating such political connections among various groups, from the fifth and sixth centuries until Edwin's early seventh-century conquest of the island. Mobility remains prominent in chapter 3, which explores the deterioration of eighth- and ninth-century Northumbrian-Gaelic diplomatic connections, characterized by the fragmentation of Northumbrian dynasties and external conflicts with the Gaelic world, such as declining links with the Dál Riatan kindred, Cenél nGabráin. Such fragmentation certainly helped facilitate Scandinavian incursions and settlement in Northumbria, and it is unsurprising that discussion of Gaelic-Scandinavian relations with the kingdom should form the remainder of the chapter. Here, Edmonds addresses the kingdoms of Strathclyde and Cumbria, which otherwise feature insignificantly within the existing scholarship, utilizing a range of material to establish their ninth- and tenth-century significance as “conduits of Gaelic influence” (58). Likewise, the Isle of Man reemerges as a prominent locus in the politics of the Irish Sea region during the Viking Age.

The fourth chapter examines the practicalities of travel and communication between Northumbria and the Gaelic world, offering an assessment of the overland, riverine, and seaborne routes that might have been utilized. It includes two useful maps that illustrate the Roman roads traversing Northumbria and offering available routes to the Irish Sea and the other routes available for entry to (modern) Scotland.

Chapters 5 and 6 offer analyzes of ecclesiastical contacts during the “Golden Age” and Viking Age, respectively. The first highlights artistic and intellectual exchanges evinced in manuscripts and their circulation, such as the tradition of including vernacular glosses. Unfortunately, Edmonds argues that the absence of surviving manuscripts from the north and west of Northumbria “rules out consideration of artistic and intellectual exchanges” (99), which suggests a potential oversight that does not account for the large body of sculptural evidence surviving in the region, although this material is addressed eventually. Apart from this, she offers a comprehensive analysis of three groups of churches or clerics (Iona and Lindisfarne, the Columban familia and the Cuthbertine communities, and York and Whithorn), which underscore parallels between Northumbrian and Gaelic ecclesiastical activities. Building on these ecclesiastical parallels, chapter 6 examines the foundation of new churches and the transmission of saints’ cults from the Gaelic world to Northumbria during the Viking Age, such as saints Santán and Bega. In particular, Edmonds invokes onomastic and dedicatory evidence to establish these connections, which indicate an enduring Gaelic and Gaelic-Scandinavian interest in the Northumbrian Church between the eighth and twelfth centuries and the veneration of particular saints among Gaelic-Scandinavian communities settled in the Irish Sea region.

Chapter 7 assesses the different channels and contexts of Gaelic linguistic influence in Northumbria. Notably, Edmonds examines various degrees of bilingualism in Northumbria, Old English ecclesiastical words that might have been borrowed from Old Irish, and aspects of Gaelic linguistic influence apparent in Norse place-names and other onomastic evidence. Such connections demonstrate enduring Gaelic linguistic influence that appears to have peaked in the mid-eleventh century, particularly within the Furness peninsula and Irish Sea regions.

Rather than attempting to assign Gaelic or Northumbrian identities to the material culture analyzed in chapter 8, Edmonds traces the contacts architecture, sculpture, and metalwork items evince between particular groups and locales. For example, she highlights ecclesiastical architectural or landscape features, comparing the sanctuary zone at Wetheral (Cumbria) with Irish curvilinear enclosures or the D-shaped Enclosure at Hoddom (Dumfries and Galloway). Sculptural contacts and shared influences are considered in terms of patronage and typological and iconographic features, such as the Ruthwell Paul and Anthony depiction, although this discussion omits any references to Éamonn Ó Carragáin's Ritual and the Rood (2005) or his essay on this subject, “The Meeting of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony: Visual and Literary Uses of a Eucharistic Motif” (in Keimelia: Studies in Medieval Archaeology and History in Memory of Tom Delaney, ed. Gearóid Mac Niocaill and Patrick F. Wallace [1988], 1–58), which may have favorably supplemented Edmonds’ arguments. Finally, she offers a detailed survey of how the distribution of highly portable metalwork items across the Insular world reflects multiple phases of short- and long-range interactions between the peoples inhabiting it, and any specific cultural associations they might have wished to accentuate.

Gaelic Influence offers a useful contribution to the scholarship, and Edmonds’ interdisciplinary approach to the material yields fruitful results that convincingly demonstrate the long-standing Northumbrian-Gaelic contacts revealed by a range of material and linguistic evidence. The book is almost entirely free from typographical and copyediting errors, and its organization is unambiguous. Edmonds clearly and cogently establishes and concludes each chapter's arguments, making this book ideal for a wide range of audiences interested in Northumbrian history. Her consideration of the extant evidence for the north and west of Northumbria is striking, and enables a coherent understanding of the regions’ sociopolitical significance, which is often deemed obscure due to the paucity of documentary evidence. The same may be said for the Isle of Man, which emerges as a prominent link between the Northumbrian kingdom and the Gaelic world within Edmonds’ rigorous analysis of the extant documentary, linguistic, and material evidence. Overall, Edmonds has succeeded in presenting an engaging and dynamic answer to the question of Gaelic influence in the Northumbrian kingdom, within an innovative interdisciplinary framework.