Abstract
This essay seeks to give an overview of the study of Ireland and its culture in continental Europe from the late eighteenth century up to the present day. It discusses the early interest in Ossianic poetry, Celtic philology, and travel writing, together with the internationalist standing of modernist writers such as Joyce and Beckett as the roots of how and under which rubric Irish culture has been received by the general public and studied at universities, and then proceeds to examine the current state of Irish Studies and its prospects on the European continent.