close
more_vert

After a while you will agree with me that it leads nowhere. This is the eternal discussion between IE vs non-IE / Basque which has raged on in Iberian circles for centuries. It is similar to the Celtic debate, but this one is even worse as it is spread out over such a vast territory (ie all of Europe).

But it is still fun to see the word 'celtic' overused in Galician brochures (or Irish and welsh brochures for that matter). People who see links like the Galician bagpipes, the wet and green landscape or large numbers of Brig- placenames as evidence of a Celtic uber-nation get too carried away, especially when you think that Celtic *culture* was almost as strong almost everywhere in Iberia, France or Germany, just faded away faster later on.

I have seen this debate for decades and it definitely arises passions and never leads anywhere. But it is great fun sometimes, isn't it?

Great fun if at times infuriating. I have just watched the repeat of Rudgley's "Celts". Great to see so many locations, infuriating to hear him constantly saying "Celts" when the French archaeologists said "Gauls" and the Irish ones said "Irish". He went on and on and only retrieved things by putting the case in perspective in the last few sentences. Anyone missing the last 5 minutes would have received the same old nonsense unchallenged. I kinda wonder if that last 5 minutes will not be chopped for American television.

As regards language - we really need to look much further back in time to the origins of modern Welsh, Erse, Manx, Cornish etc. Let us stop calling them the "Celtic languages" now and study them and their relationships with each other and with the rest of Europe. Clearly they originated (if language can ever be said to originate anywhere at any particular time) and developed long, long before the brilliant Iron Age cultures mistakenly called "Celtic" ever arose.

The ideas that really fascinate me are along the lines of trade routes and how ideas, goods and people moved around in the ancient world.