William Shakespeare’s "Hamlet" may have been based on an ancient Irish story

Research argues that the story behind Hamlet can be traced to an eighth or ninth-century Irish tale that names a figure resembling Amlothi. Dr Lisa Collinson says her study found Irish references to Admlithi and proposes the tale was carried to Scandinavia by sailors, where it later evolved into the Amleth legend that inspired Shakespeare.

Hamlet was Irish. Back in 2011, this was news that might surprise anyone but James Joyce. It turns out that the source model for the brooding Dane wasn't Danish at all.

Scholars of literature have long known that William Shakespeare based his famous tragedy "Hamlet" on the 12th-century story of Amleth. But until 2011, few suspected the story was of Irish, not Scandinavian, origin.

In 2011, Doctor Lisa Collinson, an expert in Old Norse languages from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland,  claimed that the tale of Amlothi (Shakespeare's source myth) is actually Irish.

"The name Amlothi is highly unlikely to be Norse in origin," Collinson told Aberdeen University.

She continuned “Earlier scholars based theories about the Gaelic origins of Hamlet on an odd name – ‘Amlaide’ - embedded in a short verse found in Irish annals. They constructed interesting arguments which allowed for Celtic influence on ‘Amlothi’, but they struggled to explain the form of the annal name, which remains obscure.”

Finding references to a character named Admlithi in an Irish story from the eighth or ninth century, Collinson discovered that it tells of a king who breaks social taboos and pays the price in a bloody finale.

Admlithi of Eire became Hamlet of Elsinore, Collinson believes. And we shouldn't be surprised if stories that originated in Ireland, England, or Denmark were traded alongside goods since Viking times.

"It’s likely that sailors played a critical role in the story’s transmission to Scandinavia," Collinson said.

* Originally published in 2013, updated in 2026.