In 2001 and following Professor Dumville's paper in Gildas: new approaches, Clancy argued that
St. Ninian was a Northumbrian spin-off of the name Uinniau (Irish
St Finnian), the Irish missionary to whom
St. Columba was a
disciple, who in
Great Britain was associated with
Whithorn. He argued that the confusion is due to an eighth century scribal spelling error, for which the similarities of "u" and "n" in the
Insular script of the period were responsible.[2] Clancy has also done work on the Lebor Bretnach, arguing that it was written in Scotland.[citation needed]
His works include:
(with Gilbert Márkus), Iona: the earliest poetry of a Celtic monastery, (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1995)
(ed.), The Triumph Tree: Scotland’s Earliest Poetry, 550–1350, (Canongate: Edinburgh, 1998) with translations by G. Márkus, J.P. Clancy, T.O. Clancy, P. Bibire and J. Jesch
"The Scottish provenance of the ‘Nennian’ recension of Historia Brittonum and the Lebor Bretnach " in: S. Taylor (ed.), Picts, Kings, Saints and Chronicles: A Festschrift for Marjorie O. Anderson (Four Courts: Dublin, 2000) 87–107
"A Gaelic Polemic Quatrain from the Reign of Alexander I, ca. 1113" in: Scottish Gaelic Studies vol.20 (2000) 88–96