Rumfuddle
Registered User
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2002
- Messages
- 195
The whole area of etnicity is very tricky. Everywhere is to varying degrees a mixture of everywhere else.
The Angles and the Saxons would've more specifically come from what we now call Germany. There were also significant invasions and settlements from modern day Scandinavia. Then the Normans arrived, who were originally from the Scandinavian peninsula too but had become very French along the way before taking over most of Britain. They may be said to have set the tone for subsequent centuries, but it does make for quite an ethnic mish-mash.
As regards the Celts being more British than later arrivals - what about the pre-Celtic peoples? And the historical Celts were not a monolithic people. There were several waves of invasion and settlement of both Ireland and Britain by what we now call Celts (derived from the Ancient Greek word for barbarians, they didin't call themselves Celts.)
I think we have to be very careful here. And would the Celts being more British than the Anglo-Saxons make the average Irishman more British than Queen Elizabeth (A Hun?) - Funny, given that all through school we had it drummed into us that we're Irish not British - that the British Isles is an incorrect term, that the correct term is Britain and Ireland. ( Something I stubbornly still stand by for historical reasons, though I understand and respect the term British Isles at the same time. I just never use it ,I can't...)
In recent years there's been much talk of the "Celtic Nations" . I find it interesting that in Irish Gaelic the word for Wales is "An Bhreatain Beag", meaning Little Britain, but that in a recent Irish-English dictionary they've included the Welsh word Cymru, as if hoping to nudge out the traditional term as it contadicts current dichotomies where the rugged yet poetic Celt confronts a crude caricature of an effeminate treacherous Sasanach. That's all just smug, rabble-rousing - and an insult to intelligence.
I mention all of this not in an attempt to demolish "Celtic" nationalisms, rather in the interest of lively debate. And as someone who recognises himself as emotionally very nationalist. But given the atrocities that have been commited in the name of Irish patriotism, I would never like to let emotion to dominate over reason
Rant finished
The Angles and the Saxons would've more specifically come from what we now call Germany. There were also significant invasions and settlements from modern day Scandinavia. Then the Normans arrived, who were originally from the Scandinavian peninsula too but had become very French along the way before taking over most of Britain. They may be said to have set the tone for subsequent centuries, but it does make for quite an ethnic mish-mash.
As regards the Celts being more British than later arrivals - what about the pre-Celtic peoples? And the historical Celts were not a monolithic people. There were several waves of invasion and settlement of both Ireland and Britain by what we now call Celts (derived from the Ancient Greek word for barbarians, they didin't call themselves Celts.)
I think we have to be very careful here. And would the Celts being more British than the Anglo-Saxons make the average Irishman more British than Queen Elizabeth (A Hun?) - Funny, given that all through school we had it drummed into us that we're Irish not British - that the British Isles is an incorrect term, that the correct term is Britain and Ireland. ( Something I stubbornly still stand by for historical reasons, though I understand and respect the term British Isles at the same time. I just never use it ,I can't...)
In recent years there's been much talk of the "Celtic Nations" . I find it interesting that in Irish Gaelic the word for Wales is "An Bhreatain Beag", meaning Little Britain, but that in a recent Irish-English dictionary they've included the Welsh word Cymru, as if hoping to nudge out the traditional term as it contadicts current dichotomies where the rugged yet poetic Celt confronts a crude caricature of an effeminate treacherous Sasanach. That's all just smug, rabble-rousing - and an insult to intelligence.
I mention all of this not in an attempt to demolish "Celtic" nationalisms, rather in the interest of lively debate. And as someone who recognises himself as emotionally very nationalist. But given the atrocities that have been commited in the name of Irish patriotism, I would never like to let emotion to dominate over reason
Rant finished
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that its degenerating 
)
