Kenneth H. Jackson

Who was Kenneth H. Jackson?

Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson was an English linguist and a translator who specialised in the Celtic languages. He demonstrated how the text of the Ulster Cycle of tales, written circa AD 1100, preserves an oral tradition originating some six centuries earlier and reflects Celtic Irish society of the third and fourth century AD. His Celtic Miscellany is a popular standard.

He married Janet Dall Galloway on 12 August 1936. Their two children, Alaster and Stephenie, were born in the United States but brought up in Scotland. In retirement, Jackson continued his work on place-names and Goidelic languages. However he suffered a stroke in 1984 that restricted his work.

An obituary was published in The Times on 8 March 1991 and in Nomina 15.