Pssssttt… we’re not really Celts…
As Fintan O’Toole says, it’s not really a secret (subs needed). Lot’s of people know it, but no one seems to want to talk about it. The Celtic Fringe is a Oxford myth cooked up by the polymath keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, and popularised in a book called The Antiquities of Nations. The integrity of our ancient Celtic identity is, it seems, bogus. “There never was a Celtic invasion of Ireland or Britain. The identity our Celtic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany dates back, not to the mists of time, but to 1707″ (Just after the first Act of Union in fact). O’Toole goes on:
Edward Lhuyd, brilliantly, argued that Gaelic, Cornish, Breton and Welsh were related to the language spoken by the ancient Gauls. He called these languages “Celtic” (largely because the term Gallic then denoted the hated French) and suggested that they had spread to Britain and Ireland through migration.
In an intellectual culture saturated with classical learning, the link with the “Keltoi” who had invaded ancient Greece, and with the Gauls whom Caesar slaughtered and described, was flattering, not least in Ireland. Instead of being marginal people, we were the remnants of an ancient and once all-powerful European civilisation. With the rise of 19th-century cultural nationalism, this ready-made genealogy, with its neat racial distinction between Celts and Saxons, was far too useful to be refused. In an era obsessed with so-called scientific racism, it provided a seemingly natural case for Irish independence. The Celtic Twilight (or as that rare sceptic James Joyce called it, the Cultic Twalette) added a rich layer of modern cultural prestige.
Indeed, he argues that the only thing genuinely Celtic about ancient Ireland was our ancestor’s predilection for ‘Celtic bling’:
There is an Iron Age material culture that is evident in findings from northern Europe between Paris and Prague. It is named after a site in Switzerland called La Tène and is associated with what we call the Celts (there is no evidence that these people ever used the term or even identified themselves as a single ethnic group).
And none of the things you would find if these people invaded or migrated to Ireland – their pots, their houses, their burial-sites, their coins, their horse-fittings – exist here. There are high-end La Tène-style objects, but virtually all of them are of recognisably local manufacture. As Barry Raftery, one of the leading authorities on Iron Age Ireland, puts it of the presumed Celtic invasion, “It seems strange that a warrior aristocracy supposedly responsible for imposing so many aspects of its culture on the indigenous population . . . should have had almost no impact on the archaeological record.”
In fact, what both archaeology and genetic studies show is continuity – broadly the same people who built Newgrange continuing to inhabit the island, speaking a version of the language of the Atlantic seaboard from which they had originated. What did happen in the Iron Age is that an emergent aristocracy began to adopt the international style they knew from trade and other contacts. Local craft-workers produced their own versions of Celtic chic – a bit like us copying Gucci or Prada. It was a way for the knobs to distinguish themselves from the yobs. As the archaeologist Simon Jones puts it, “‘Celtic art’ . . . is not a marker of ethnic identity but of status, wealth, and power”. If we are Celts today because our elites developed a taste for continental bling, then half the denizens of Foxrock and Montenotte are Italians.
As mentioned previously in last years post, the Philippines is a good example of a country that has adopted different languages without whole-scale invasion and population replacement.
There are over 100 local Philippine languages and when the Spanish landed and started building their churches the Spanish language spread rapidly.
With the coming of the British and the Americans the Spanish culture was actively discouraged and started to decline.
Next came the Japanese in world war two who installed a government and printed the national money etc. They were only there for a few years however and being pretty ruthless invaders, their influence was resisted and there is no lasting linguistic effect.
Then came the Americans with their great world war 2 naval battles that pushed the Japanese back to their home islands. American English was established in the schools and the educated looked to America culturally. America is looked on fondly because it set up a national parliament and then got the heck out of the country. (Lessons for more modern times perhaps).
American English is now pretty well widespread although the Philippino’s have decided that a local indigenous language was needed to unite the different linguistic peoples and Tagalog, the main language of Luzon, is compulsory throughout primary and secondary education. So now, all of the young speak Tagalog as well.
With the continual rise of China economically, it is not improbable that the Chinese language may come to replace English in the future as one of the official widespread languages and used by the educated and elite.
Thus this country has a history just in the span of a few centuries of quickly adopting languages without any widespread movement or replacement of peoples. In fact you would have a hard job replacing the population biologically. In the next 15 years there will probably be 25 million more of them in and outside of the Philippines.
It is entirely normal to come across people in the Philippines (outside Manilla) who may speak English, Tagolog, plus three local regional languages. The older population in some areas who are relatively wealthy may also speak some Spanish, and it is common that after the English ‘Hello” the next words are often the Spanish “Come Sta” or “Comus ta tu” for how are you ? If they work in the tourist sector, they may also know some Japanese or German.
People in the Philippines talk to each other and change languages in mid sentence regularly and nobody seems to notice. I remember being at mass once in Luzon and the priest, in English, at the end of the homily says “and the really important thing to get out of this is ……..” and then continued to my bewilderment in Tagolog. Same thing happens on TV when they advertise where to get a really great deal and then swap from English to Cebuano or Olongapo.
In this way it is easy to see how people can speak several languages at once so that over time people just think of it as speaking rather than using different languages. If one particular language is favoured for education or business, or law, or inter-island communication it would be quite easy for that one language to dominate without it being really noticed by the population at large.
I don’t think we know much about the pre celtic Irish languages (unfortunately) but if it was the situation where there were a whole lot of different Irish dialects and languages rather than a uniformed united civilisation (likely) then the language of the advanced civilisation of it’s day – Celtic, could quickly be adopted and dominate, without the need for any invasion IMHO.
This whole Celtic Mist shIte really is a monkey on the back.
Yeah, my bloodline is from the west of Ireland, so there’s a pretty good chance one of my ancestors was one of the original Neanderthal-murderers that wandered onto this island.
Big deal.
Regardless of how it occurred, my ancestors took to the whole Celtic thing because it was marginally better than what they had come up with.
In the same way you don’t not use an invention just because you don’t like where the inventor was born.
All this feeling the need to justify current realities with the past has led to the ludicrous situation where both sides feel the need to claim Cucuhulain.
Real head the ball stuff.
“Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts” Declaration of Arbroath 1320.
I think its rather obvious that these accounts of Irish / Scots lineage predate the Act of Union by some 400 years and Anglo-Israelism by some 500 years.
The whole debate about Celtic origins is nothing more than English insecurity, because they have no real connection with the land their anscestors invaded. To boot, the English don’t know if they are Ancient Briton (Celtic), Dane / Norse, Anglo-Saxon or Norman. This insecurity has recently given rise to the English questioning their own Cultural identity and also explains why they are trying to identify cultural traits and values of ‘Britishness’, because they don’t have a tangable cultural identiry of their own.
Even legendry heroes the English have long venerated as their own (ie King Arthur and Robin Hood) were in fact userpt from the Natives. Current historical inquiries into the likes of Arthur have revealed, that being far from an English King, was more likely a Celtic Chieftain of either Cymri or Scots origins. As for ol’ Robin Hood, historical investigations have revealed that he never existed in Sherwood Forest, so the English now maintain that he was a composition of various outlaws. However, if one were to move the Robin Hood lengend 400 miles north, Sherwood Forest becomes Sterling Forest, and apart from the name of the main protagonist, everything else fits with the Wallace legend. So in light of this, everything the English have held dear has been slowly reroded away, and they have been left with nothing. One can infer that these cultural insecurities have led to various attacks on Irish / Scots / Welsh cultural identities. This is nothing more than a tantrum being thrown by a huffy little child and the epitome of the “If we can’t have it, then you can’t have it either” mentality.
Posted by Wilde Rover on Feb 06, 2007 @ 07:23 AM
>Yeah, my bloodline is from the west of Ireland,
>so there’s a pretty good chance one of my
>ancestors was one of the original Neanderthal-
>murderers that wandered onto this island.
>Big deal.
Amen brother!!!
Homo Sapiens (who I hope you are descended from) had nothing to do with Neanderthals
As mentioned previously in last years post, the Philippines is a good example of a country that has adopted different languages without whole-scale invasion and population replacement.
Surely, the Philippines was actually invaded and subsequently dominated by both the Spanish and the Americans, which is precisely what O’Toole says did not happen in Ireland.
Psssssssssst the English are not really Anglo Saxons
Pssssssst the Welsh are not really Celts
Pssssssssst the Scots are not really Scots
Psssssssssssssssssssssst
The Irish are Irish .
With meaning to bend to Godwin’s Law, doesn’t this whole issue strike anyone of being a version of nazi-light. The undercurrent of many of these comments seem to be that person A, being somehow more pure of blood is therefore a better person than person B.
There is nothing wrong per se with studying lineage, but anyone who lets their past define their present has a real problem.
I am impressed by the contributors’ ability to get offensive, ad hominem, sectarian about such an abstract historical debate such as this.
Nevertheless, I have to say that I think Fintan is wrong. There is a famous statue from Ancient Greece called the dying Gaul. It commemorates a victory over the Galatians, that Celtic tribe to whom St Paul wrote an Epistle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul
Well your man looks just like a Paddy. Or many Welshmen I know. And the fact is that many of the statues from Ancient Gaul have that typical Irish head: impossibly tall and narrow (dolichocephalic). Do you know I think we’re Celts after all.
“Homo Sapiens (who I hope you are descended from) had nothing to do with Neanderthals”
Yes. You’re right. A bit vague.
I meant to say my dark-skinned ancestors who cleared the valleys of Europe of those rather nasty big hairy whitefellas with the furrowed brows and the penchant for guttural utterances.
“What did happen in the Iron Age is that an emergent aristocracy began to adopt the international style they knew from trade and other contacts. Local craft-workers produced their own versions of Celtic chic – a bit like us copying Gucci or Prada.”
I heard the same of the local “english” while the Vikings were active – it became very trendy to adopt viking dress and ornaments.
Also, gotta love P O’Neill going on about the English having no culture in a post written in…. well, it’s not Celtic (to give Dub an example of a country that lost it’s language despite no major immigration, just a ruling class).
And anyway, while there may be no such thing as a celtic race, there is even less likely to be an Anglo-Saxon race, since before the country was unified there were lots of kingdoms founded by different germanic invaders (Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and even those pesky invaders from nearer to home…)
Hello Mick F.
Just wondering post number five, would that be playing the ball or the man? I’m confused, please help me better understand the site’s rules.
rule man
Sorry post number five page two.
Mr. Baker
Post twenty page two, where is the ball, or are you just trying to knock ovewr the man? Rules are only for some I suppose?
rule
You should have noticed that the comment I was responding to, in your reference, has since been edited.
My view was to leave it as was and point to the unreasonableness of what was said.
Subsequently, another moderator decided differently.
NOW.. on the actual topic..
No race is pure we are all mongrels this is true. We are homo-sapien, but just so you know Me and my fellow neandratrall’s had a bigger brain, and a better place to rest our sunglasses on, then homo-sapiens did, and some anthropologists theorize that homo sapiens and neandrathrall’s inter bred to make modern humans, it is a popular theory in anthropology, a kind of mixed marriage if you will–but definetly us neanthrall’s were smarter than you homo sapiens, we were just wooed by your more beautiful females.
We are all one now though–oh well
Cavve man speaks!
See rule 2.
Hello Mick and Peter,
I read rule two thanks Mick.
Very formal and all that, no mention of ball or man. So thanks for clarifying the rules of the site, and the other part of my question Mick is were you on page two comment five playing the ball or the man? Maybe we could phrase this as “the spirit of the law,”as opposed to the “rule of the law.” Mick maybe I am being unfair the question was rhetorical, methinks you played the man, am I wrong?
Pete,
I don’t know maybe my computer is busted your comment is still there. If another moderator removed it I stand corrected. I do ask who moderates the moderator? Sorry more rhetoric, you should moderate your own self as you so wisely advise others. Back to the topic? Good advice Mr. Baker, as many a wise person has said, Peter take your own advice.
The topic–people are defined by their culture, norms, values and beliefs, call it Celtic, Irish or whatever, but the Irish nation was and is different from the English,before and even now. Maybe later we can all share and celebrate in the simalarities and differences of cultures everywhere–I hope so, and I agree Mick we need no label to define culture.
rule man
PS
I am no big believer in your play the ball rule anyway, I’m more of an anarchist, but still if you make the rules try and follow them,or stop preaching and editting others, not including, with all due respect, your fear of the lible laws.
Brittania waives the rules so I suppose you have much company in your enforcement of the rules you sometimes waive.
love always,
rule man
“I am no big believer in your play the ball rule anyway, I’m more of an anarchist..”
Riiight… ok then. You’ll accept our decision then.
Re post 19
Accept your decision to moderate others and not moderate your self, is that what you are asking the rule man? I suppose anarchists might accept your play the man sometimes rule and sometimes not depending on your mood, frustration level, inability to articulate etc. …so what are you saying then Peter, rule man should accept your decision because she/he is an anarchist or that the moderators’ rules are maybe I don’t know…anarchy? If so god bless your site, oops do anarchists believe in god? or…Some are more equal than others? 4 feet good 2 feet bad. Moderators good, commentators bad. Now there is some great f***ing English culture good old George Orwell.
See you later,
It’s certainly not for everyone… But maybe you should read this, before you go…
“Local craft-workers produced their own versions of Celtic chic”
In much the same way as Celts in other localities did, perhaps. Or is that too far fetched?
Tom,
My main point is that the permanent resident numbers were very small. The Spanish language can be widespread without their being a major Spanish population. The American English language can then supplant that without there being a major American English population. Tagalog (the main language of Luzon island) can then supplant these throughout the 7000 islands without the Luzonians dominating biologically. In fact all of the islands send thousands of internal migrants to Luzon each year, so if anything, the indigenous Tagalog areas are being supplanted. Although the Tagalog language is the one that spreads.
I wouldn’t categorise the Spanish or American (save the brief WW2 liberation period) as an invasion. And i don’t think there was a Celtic invasion of Ireland.
The main issue i was addressing is that a language can spread without invasions that supplant the native population. French in Africa, Spanish in many Indian dominated central and south American countries, the english speaking Irish in America (and Ireland), ancient Latin across Europe, English in the Carribean, Hebrew from essentailly European / Russian immigrants etc etc.
Also people have come to think of themselves all over the world by terms erroneously used to describe them. The British are not the original Pritanni tribe, the American Indians or West Indians are not Indians, the Welsh are not “foreigners”, the Philippino muslims (called moros) are not moors, even the Philipino’s are not descended from King Philippe of Spain. The same goes for locations. The original Australians have nothing to do with the Latin word for “southern”, very few Africans have anything to do with the Afri people of ancient Carthage, Most Asians have nothing to do with the Greek work for Anatolia (present day Turkey). etc etc.
What is interesting is that many peoples who in ancient times had limited contact with other groups of people different to themselves, didn’t find it necessary to define themselves collectively by any certain terms.
In the absence of this, their designation today comes from outsiders reference to them (usually the travelling Europeans) either through geography – Australis, first contact of local tribes – Pritanni, erroneous names – moros, indians, foreign term for the collective -Wales, Philippines, or shared culture – Celtic.
Of course we are all part of the same human race, but biologically the traditional Irish are closer to the basques and Atlantean Iberian european fringe than to the central european areas where sprung the Celtic civilisation.
So what ? My children are going to be half King Philipp’s anyway.
As an aside, in general, I don’t think people shouldn’t get all worried about talking about genetics. It’s a topic just like any other.
abucs, parallels between two separate situations are only relevant if you can show the … wait of it… parallels. Otherwise, it’s no more meaningful than saying “Mr X in Japan won a million on Lotto. Therefore, every millionaire in New York acquired his wealth by investing in a lottery ticket.” No-one is disputing that a non indigenous language can be systematically imposed. Indeed, it would be hard to put that argument when we now speak English as our first language in Ireland, wouldn’t it?
Yes it would Dubliner.
I was trying to answer your question –
” how Gaels came to speak a Celtic language. The stooges have no explanation for this beyond embarrassing themselves by claiming that it was the result of ether “a small upper crust†or kidnap of women over many years.†Heh. Game over”.
and also Tom’s question -
The key issue is how a Celtic language spread to Ireland. Is there any example in recorded history of a people adopting a completely new language wholesale without some element of migration?
I think evidence against a wholesale invasion or migration in Ireland’s case, is the totality of the lack or recorded history of battles or resistance etc. There is no record of a native people and their resistance against the Celts, and there is no history of the European Celts going off to invade Ireland or celebrating their victories once they landed. There is a lack of the surviving native peoples, or their language and culture. Also the genetics of the people in Ireland now are not the same as the peoples from the European Celtic Hallstat areas. The skeletons of people dug up from pre Celtic times, as far as i am aware, show no difference to the peoples walking around the place now.
Maybe they have a touch less meat on their bones –
)
I wouldn’t categorise the Spanish or American (save the brief WW2 liberation period) as an invasion. And i don’t think there was a Celtic invasion of Ireland.
This is where the argument perhaps come down to semantics. Both the Spanish and the Americans militarily conquered the Philippines and established themselves as the politically dominant groups, without necessarily contributing much the gene pool.
For a Celtic language to have spread to Ireland, something similar, allowing for iron age conditions , must have happened. i.e. a small group of Celtic incomers must have established themselves as a politically dominant group.
Your Philippines parallel shows that this could have happened without much population replacement.
I think it makes sense to call that an invasion, and I don’t see why that term should be restricted to events involving significant population replacement. By that criterion many major historical invasions did not happen or were minor events.
TG,
‘For a Celtic language to have spread to Ireland, something similar, allowing for iron age con’ditions , must have happened. i.e. a small group of Celtic incomers must have established themselves as a politically dominant group. ‘
Ireland had a 20 year long ‘nuclear ‘ winter in the 12th century BC as per Professor Baillie of Queen’s College . During this ‘no or very much retarded growth’ period it’s likely that the population was decimated or fled to warmer climes . Celtic speaking peoples started to move out from central europe circa 1000 BC and it was probably the case that they came to Ireland in small groups and tribes over the 1000 years -1000 BC to the time of Christ /recorded history. One or other of these tribal celtic languages became dominant over time and became the lingua franca of all the inhabitants both celtic and non celtic alike . As Peter Beresford Ellis points out the Celts were not a distinct ‘race’ but a mixture of peoples with a particular culture who were the first europeans to make use of iron and the horse. This would have been sufficient to give them a cultural advantage over any surviving pre celts . These pre celts were the people who gave Ireland it’s prosperous Bronze Age and who built the ancient centres of Newgrange and also Stonehenge in England and other mound type monuments elsewhere throughout western, southern and northwestern europe .
‘By that criterion many major historical invasions did not happen or were minor events.’
Even the so called Anglo Saxon ‘invasion of England ‘ is now seen to have been the creation of british historians looking for a glorious past on which to hang the appendage of the later British Empire . It’s true that Anglo Saxons did ‘invade’ England but it’s also true that most of the people of England have remained ‘pre celtic and pre anglo saxon etc etc in their ancestry . The English language’s simplistic ‘grammar’ and almost complete lack of noun inflexions originated as a result of the confluence of the spoken Danish of the Danelaw and the middle english of western England in the 10th /11th centuries and their need to communicate for purposes of trade etc etc. Add in a lot of norman french ‘fancy’ words from the 11th century on and medieval English was soon on it’s way . The Black Death helped to expedite the advance of English from second class status in England as the plague had a dispoportionate effect on town dwellers many of whom would have been norman french speakers.
It’s estimated that 25,000 Normans ‘conquered’ Anglo Saxon England due mainly to Norman war technology and castle building skills and a bit of luck due to familial treachery within Harold’s family .
Had Harold not had to exhaust his troops by the long march to Stamford Bridge and back to Hastings he might well have defeated the Normans in which case English as we know it today would not exist . It would probably sound something like a cross between Danish and Friesian (Dutch Dialect) or Flemish i.e a disease of the throat
Perhaps Harold’s brother deserves a vote of belated thanks for his ‘treachery’
As for Dermot Mc Murrough the cuckolded King of Leinster -well the jury is still out on that one