James MacKillop is an American scholar of Celtic and Irish studies, an arts journalist and an academic. A child of Gaelic-speaking Highland emigrants, he is also a near relative of St Mary MacKillop of Australia.
For more than forty years, MacKillop was a dedicated classroom teacher, winning the . Appointments included Michigan Technological University, Onondaga Community College, State University of New York College at Cortland and the Newhouse School of Public Communications. He also held a year’s appointment as Professeur Invité at the University of Rennes 1 in France. Separate from the classroom, MacKillop has been a professional author much longer and continues to publish. He has published more than two million words in nine books, dozens of scholarly articles and thousands of newspaper items. His best-known book is probably The Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, once the top seller in Celtic scholarship. Myth & Legends of the Celts is widely cited. His Irish Literature: A Reader, with Maureen Murphy has long been a favorite in university Irish literature courses. Speaking of Words was co-edited with Donna Woolfolk Cross, later author of the international best-seller Pope Joan. Writing for newspapers since college years, MacKillop has been most associated with the Syracuse New Times, where he has been the drama critic for decades, winning the Syracuse Press Club Award for criticism sixteen times. Joining as a graduate student, MacKillop has long been active in the , serving on the Executive Committee for ten years, organizing three national conventions, and serving as president, 1995-97. His candid, fact-checked Unauthorized History of the ACIS is available for free download at
With Maureen O’Rourke Murphy, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987. Revised as An Irish Literature Reader. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005
Fionn mac Cumhaill, Our Contemporary, Mythe et folklore celtiques et leurs expressions littéraires en Irlande, ed. R. Alluin et B. Esbarbelt. Lille, Fr: Université de Lille, 1986..
The Quiet Man Speaks, Working Papers in Irish Studies , 87-2/3, 32-44.
Meville’s Bartleby on Film, American Short Stories on Film, ed. E. Alsen. Munich: Langenscheidt-Longman, 1986..
Ireland and the Movies: From the Volta Cinema to RTÉ, Éire-Ireland, 18, no. 3, 7-22.
The Hungry Grass: Richard Power’s Pastoral Elegy, Éire-Ireland, 18, no. 3, 86-99.
Yeats, Joyce and the Irish Language, Éire-Ireland, 15, no. 1, 138-148.
Finn MacCool: The Hero and the Anti-Hero, Views of the Irish Peasantry, 1800-1916, ed. D. Casey and R. E. Rhodes. Hamden, Ct: Archon Books, 1977..
Ulster Violence in Fiction, Conflict in Ireland, ed. E. A. Sullivan and H. A. Wilson. Gainesville: University of Florida, Department of Behavioral Studies, 1976..
Yeats and the Gaelic Muse, Antigonish Review, no. 11, 96-109.
