German scholar of the Celtic languages and editor whose translations made him the chief interpreter of early Irish literature for English and German readers.

In 1884 Meyer became a lecturer in German at University College, later the University of Liverpool, and published his English translation of Aislinge Meic Conglinne (English title, The Vision of MacConglinne, 1892), an irreverent medieval parody of the religious “vision,” a popular genre of ancient Irish literature. About the time he became professor of Celtic studies, he began publishing, with Alfred Nutt, his translation of Imram Brain (English title, The Voyage of Brân, 2 vol., 1895–97), an early Irish narrative of a voyage to the Other World. In 1903 he established the School of Irish Learning, Dublin, and the following year founded its journal, Ériu (“Ireland”). He also established German reviews of Celtic studies and was a principal contributor to them. He became professor of Celtic studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin, in 1911, when the second edition of his Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry was published. He also published Learning in Ireland in the Fifth Century (1913).