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Artificial Intelligence, “Ai”, has crashed the Celtic Festival, drunk, pushy, and getting in everyone’s face with some of the most obnoxious and un-authentic Celtic art of all time. We wouldn’t expect a very high standard of authenticity for the kitsch in the run-up to Saint Patrick’s Day, but there are some people using it who should know better. Alongside the green plastic bowler hats and shamrock Mardis Gras beads, in 2025 the tee shirt graphics have hit a new low in tone-deaf cultural illiteracy. The really sad thing is how many festivals, magazines, cultural organizations, and others who have a legitimate responsibility for our heritage that have been settling for the same appallingly low standard of clip-art and Ai generated tangles of spaghetti passing for Celtic interlace.
On this International Day of Celtic Art, 9th of June, 2025, I feel a strong need to help my friends understand what makes the style authentic and good, while at the same time cautioning against bogus imitations of this venerable art form. Celtic designs are often used to express Irish or Scottish heritage for jewelry, accessories posters, ads, signage, tattoos, and much more.
Michael Stone, network/Systems Administrator at Alfred University comments, “As someone that has to work with Ai a great deal, I'm very concerned about it - not about what it can or can't do today/tomorrow, but more long-term ramifications in generational knowledge and skills lost. It may be adept, but it is soulless. As human beings, we'd be wise to not relinquish our souls so readily. “
Ai images generated from descriptions of my own Celtic jewelry designs. Not only do these bear only the slightest resemblance to my work, the interlace alternation, continuity and the symbolic "never-ending-knot have all failed to be achieved.
That’s not to say that it has taken computers to screw up this venerable art form. Regular humans have been getting Celtic art wrong for centuries. Historically poor Celtic design is often a result on not knowing or not caring how it is supposed to be done as long as it suggests the interlace, spirals and geometric patterns of the ancient art. Ai will create very attractive images but when asked to create Celtic designs the results are a mish-mash, consistently even worse than that of uninformed human artists.
I am reminded of the scene in The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon tells Penny that her tattoo is the Chinese character for “soup”. How often has someone gotten a tattoo with a Chinese character that they think means “love” only to find out years later that it doesn’t? The tattoo artist didn’t know the difference and neither did the person receiving the art. The importance of this personal art assumed symbolism and meaning that it did not actually possess in its original language. Now they have a lasting symbol of their naïveté.
A poor understanding of the visual language of Celtic art can still create pretty designs. Unfortunately, much of what is being produced is like a song sung in an unfamiliar language, with mispronounced words and no sense of grammar. They may be aesthetically pleasing but will not be appreciated someone who is fluent.
Calligraphy, imaginatively decorated with correctly hand-drawn drawn interlaced knots.
The knotwork interlace, the interlaced forelocks of the animal faces and even the capital letters themselves follow a perfect alternation of crossing of over and under. This example is from the 8th century AD Book of Kells that is housed at Trinity College, Dublin
Celtic art scholar and Irish presidential candidate Donnacha MacGabhann of County Limerick, says, “I share the concern about what happens when Ai ultimately gets better at it. I can’t imagine Ai being programed to replicate the quality of work in the Book of Kells”. MacGabhann's 2022 BOOK OF KELLS a Masterwork Revealed: Creators, Collaboration and Campaigns can be seen here https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-book-of-kells
One of the charms of Celtic art is the complexity and sense of disciplined skill, which seems difficult but flows with order and creativity. Authentic interlace strives to alternate the crossings of the bands that are knotted or braided with unerring alternation of one pass over followed by one passing under. This weaving of cords or bands with regular over-under alternation usually are closed paths, so that there is no end to the knot. Ignoring these two conventions leads to the most frequent mistakes in poor Celtic art. These are the easiest errors to spot if you are informed of what makes Celtic art authentic. Confused order of interlace should be avoided.
Celtic art is more than just knots, shamrocks and Claddagh rings. In fact, shamrocks and Claddagh rings, while iconically Irish, are symbols from later historical periods. The Golden Age of Celtic art, 650 AD to 1200 AD, produced such masterpieces as The Book of Kells, the Ardagh Brooch and numerous High Cross or “Celtic cross” monuments, decorated with complex and beautiful art. Combining later medieval and more modern symbols of ethnic heritage with Celtic design is a perfectly natural evolution of the art in modern times. Other Celtic art motifs, spirals, interlaced abstract animal forms, zig-zag like “key” patterns and other geometric patterning also follow traditions that can be rendered and repurposed with understanding and respect for the traditions or hold potential to be botched.
Interlace errors sometimes happen as mistakes in the work of even the best Celtic artists. This embroidery is shared by Scottish artist Ruth Black of Inverness. See if you can spot the mistakes where the band crosses over twice in a row in two places? Errors such as this, in elaborate compositions are easier to forgive than getting it wrong because the designer either does not know or does not care about the traditional "rules".
Celtic art is a deep and complicated subject. To make this short blog a useful lesson I will emphasize again just two points regarding interlace or knotwork designs:
1. The order of interlace is very important. Authentic examples strictly alternate the weaving with the crossings passing over and under in regular alternation. Two or more overs or unders in a row are considered mistakes. In the cases of animal interlace or branching paths of strands, these may be unavoidable and should be designed to make the design adjustments as inconspicuous as possible. In straight knotwork or braids it is aways possible to maintain the integrity of the order of interlace.
2. The paths of knots are continuous. Braids and weaves should never end abruptly. In most cases a knot is designed so that it has no end. This can have symbolic significance. In the case of interlaced animal or plant forms, the ends of the strands are feet, tails, heads or leaves. Knotwork strands sometimes end as spirals or flow into key patterns or other motifs. Ignorance of these two rules accounts for most of the cringeworthy attempts at Celtic art.
Artists and friends at the International Day of Celtic Art Conference held at The Saint Patrick Centre in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland in 9-11 June 2023.
June 9th was declared the International Day of Celtic Art by the members of an online forum of Celtic artists, scholars and enthusiasts. The Discussion of Celtic Art group on Facebook has over 4200 subscribed members. There are many astonishingly skilled and talented Celtic artists working in the twenty-first century. High quality Celtic art and design is more available now than ever before.
The circular tile pattern is an excellent example of an attempt at creating something that looks Celtic, without the designer being fully informed as to the subtleties of the tradition. The loops overlap rather than weave as they should. It is still a very attractive design. The tile is in the floor of a church in Northern Ireland, probably made in the early 20th century or perhaps a little earlier. During this period of the Celtic Revival many good faith efforts were made to honor the tradition without the resources and understanding that have been recovered in the several generations since it was made. Ruth Black was commissioned to create some embroidery for the church. As an accomplished Celtic artists she reworked the design to follow the ancient style, thus maintaining a motif that is familiar to the congregation but also improving the authenticity and traditional integrity of the design. Ruth Blacks embroidery can be seen at https://www.angelforce.co.uk/
When I showed this picture to friends who are not initiated in the finer points of Celtic design, they generally thought it was very nice. This is the Celtic art produced by Google Gemini Artificial Intelligence. When asked for a woman in medieval clothing decorated with Celtic designs. Results: Cute girl. Pretty dress. The embroidery on the dress is NOT ugly but it is very far from what is would be considered authentic Celtic interlace. This kind of pretty, but quick and cheap substitute for real Celtic design is rapidly overwhelming the authentic heritage informed by generations of human skill and knowledge.
Several Ai generated Trinity knots, also known as Triquetra Knots compared with authentic, correctly rendered symbols expressed in contemporary Celtic jewelry.
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