Scotland/Alba

Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City

Angus and Dundee City

Argyll and Bute

Ayrshire

Clackmannanshire

Dumfries and Galloway

Dunbartonshire

Falkirk

Fife

Glasgow

Highland Region

Inverclyde

Lanarkshire

Lothian and Edinburgh

Moray

Orkney

Outer Hebrides

Perth and Kinross

Renfrewshire

Scottish Borders

Stirling

Scottish glens

Scottish hills and mountains

Scottish passes

Scottish rivers

Scottish lochs

Scottish firths

Scottish Islands

Other islands

Scottish regions

Pre-1975 counties

The post Gaelic Map of Scotland and Gaelic Place Names appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

The good news is that there is an uplifting side to the rather somber “State of Gaelic in America” type reports. Many of the comments that have come in on recent Gaelic culture and language posts have identified the need to do something helpful and have pondered about what that might be. The need is fairly inescapable. After a great deal of group discussion and individual cogitation, an impressive and excited group of Scottish Gaelic scholars, artists and activists have come together to support the creation of a new organization called The Scottish Gaelic Foundation of the U.S.A., or simply Gaelic USA.

Creation of a national Gaelic support organization like Gaelic USA can achieve many very positive changes within the Gaelic community on behalf of Gaelic culture itself as well as outside the Gaelic community, within the larger mainstream Scottish American heritage community. There is little question that the mainstream Scottish American heritage community could be representing the diversity of Scottish heritage much better. Gaelic is certainly not the only valid heritage experience that should be better acknowledged, understood and expressed. Perhaps the long overdue recognition and development of the living Gaelic culture and heritage will highlight the potential for increased awareness of Scots language heritage and other cultural expressions that have grown from what we today call Scotland.

Another popular discussion thread seeks alternative, truly Gaelic ways to celebrate Gaelic heritage; ways to supplant or to complement those mainstream expressions of Scottish heritage that do not portray Gaelic culture and heritage with accuracy, integrity and equity. Among other initiatives, Gaelic USA will support and complement the outstanding Scottish Gaelic cultural groups already engaged in these kinds of activities on local and regional scales, such as the awesome work and energy of Slighe nan Gaidheal operating in the Seattle, Washington area.

So please hop over to the new Gaelic USA website. It is a new and developing site, but you will find a great deal of outstanding information already there. Most importantly, as Gaelic USA is still on its journey of creation, we would love to hear your ideas and reactions. You will find plenty of substance to discuss and consider and opportunity to comment.

So check it out and discover who is already backing the Mission and Scope of Work for this new, inclusive Gaelic ethnic organization. Add your name to a growing list of supporters and begin to follow along as Gaelic culture and heritage enters a new era in recovery and revitalization in the United States.

Click here to visit Gaelic USA and don’t forget to leave your thoughts and ideas! Happy exploring!

The post Doing Something Good For Gaelic: The Scottish Gaelic Foundation of the U.S.A. is underway! appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

Somhairle died in 1996. Had the Gaelic people, culture and kingdom not been overtaken and marginalized (i.e. stolen) by Anglo aggression, ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation, October 26th would likely be a national Gaelic holiday. Somhairle Mac Gill-Eain was a living, breathing 20th century Gaelic hero. He was relevant and influential. But he is largely forgotten by the Gaelic diaspora.

Here is how the Sorley MacLean Trust describes Mac Gill-Eain’s work:

“His poetry is characterised by its innovation and boldness, both in its approach and subject matter. In his seminal work Dàin do Eimhir, his poetry speaks of love, choice, suffering and injustice, and simultaneously considers the seismic political events that were to shake Europe to its foundations in the 1930s and 1940s. Events such as the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Fascism were welded together with his own intense personal feelings to produce poetry that has attracted national and international acclaim.”

Instead of national celebration, Scotland and the Scottish diaspora – including the highlands and islands Gaelic diaspora – allow October 26th to pass by each year in sad, defeated silence. After all, Burns Nights are not that far away. Now there’s something to celebrate, right? Pull on that philabeag (wi’ hope it still fits) and dust off the Prince Charlie and piper’s hose and claim your Scottish highland heritage at your local Burns Supper. Even though Robert Burns was no Gael. Not even close.

Why does the Gaelic diaspora celebrate other people’s heroes at the expense of our own? It is done because that is what we have learned to do from those who have crushed our own Gaelic language and heritage and supplanted it with theirs. It is time for that craziness to stop. Fondly remember Robert Burns if you like. But if you are a Gael, it is time to discover your own heroes. Celebrate them.

You can read Somhairle’s words today and you should. The Sorley MacLean Trust website is a fantastic place to begin (don’t worry, you can read it all in English!). But you can listen to his thoughts as well. Do not allow this day to pass without hearing Somhairle Mac Gill-Eain’s own voice:

Niteworks’ “Somhairle”

This is a fantastic recording backed by a haunting musical soundtrack. Great work. Did you hear what the great man said directly to you? He does not allow the Gaelic diaspora off the hook in terms of the root causes of the forced Gaelic march toward extinction.

“Our culture is vitiated by the sentimentality of those who have gone away,” he says. Mac Gill-Eain’s word “vitiate” means to spoil, destroy and ignore the validity of a thing.

Yep. That’s us celebrating Robert Burns. That’s us teaching our children to dress up in Victorian costumes and dance the Anglo created knock off called “Highland” dancing and telling them it’s Gaelic. That’s us utterly failing to pass-on our Gaelic language and culture to the next generation of Gaelic Americans and instead filling our children’s wee heads with Anglo baloney and celebrating non-Gaels who actively marginalized Gaelic culture. The kids aren’t buying it by the way.

That’s us helping to murder our own culture and heritage, year in and year out. Do you think Gaelic revitalization is something that only people in Scotland need to think about? Do you think we Gaelic Americans have no part in it?

Think again.

The post “Our children are bred for emigration” appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

If one looks at Scotland from a certain perspective, it is completely possible to identify two distinct worlds co-existing under one Alban sky. A close reading of north Britain human history reveals about 1,300 post-Roman years of a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, dynamic melting pot of Gaelic, Pict, Norse, Briton and finally Anglo Saxons and Normans. Rich, diverse, cultural intersection. So long as your village wasn’t burned, but even then … every century has one or two of its own challenges.

Eventually, however, history runs into an 18^th century nation that has been steadily reduced to a bi-cultural, bi-lingual majority/minority society that even today hosts a societal element that prefers to reduce cultural diversity even further. An onlooker can see a Scotland that has been assimilated and strained of its former native cultural richness in such a way as to yield only two distinct products. Gaelic. Not Gaelic.

Sadly, Gaelic is the only non-Anglo culture that heavily influenced Scotland throughout history that actually persists as a vibrant human community in Scotland, natively speaking it’s own language. That is a tremendous achievement. Today’s Gaelic community in Scotland is remarkable for its tenacity in the face of an astoundingly backward opposition to Gaelic language speakers’ rights.

Now, hop across the pond. In the United States we find the Scottish diaspora suffering the same unbalanced and troublesome cultural pattern. Today’s Scottish American heritage tradition developed in the 19^th and 20^th centuries largely without contribution from scholarly Gaelic study and increasingly outside of native Gaelic culture including language.

In the United States, genuine understanding of Gaelic immigrant history and culture simply does not exist as the history is almost entirely yet to be written. What an awful – but real – state of affairs: Scottish Americans do not yet have access to resources necessary to understand and appreciate the reality of our distinct Gaelic heritage and identity. And we have largely lost our language, despite the thousands of Gaels who emigrated here living and speaking Gaelic when they arrived. What we can see of the culture is awesomeness. There is so much more yet to reveal.

In light of the lack of Gaelic influence, it isn’t surprising that it has been effectively argued that the Scottish diaspora is the world’s leading brand ambassador for the classic Scottish image of romanticized Tartanry and military Highlandism. That is not the sin. This is the sin: Contrary Gaelic intrusions into the popular story lines are usually discouraged as being political or, boring, or quaint, or worse yet, absolutely useless and of no interest, as Gaelic is often misunderstood to be a dead end that was properly deposited in the unrecoverable past ages ago.

My Gaelic immigrant ancestor came to America in 1776 from Inverness. He was almost certainly bilingual, speaking at least Scottish Gaelic and English, possibly Scots and likely other languages as well. Many like him came here as Gaels with Gaelic families that were left behind in Scotia. Once in North America, Gaelic immigrants spawned families each of which now number in the multi-hundreds, if not thousands in some cases. Sadly, we descendants have largely been reduced to blandly monolingual Scottish Americans, speaking English only – because that is what Americans are supposed to do.

So how should I approach today’s tartan clad, country dancing, claymore swinging Scottish heritage tradition that is so unlike my own actual Gaelic heritage? Simply stated, the Scottish heritage celebrated today is not a celebration of my culture. In many ways, it is a celebration of the marginalization of my culture.

The trend is this: studies have found that those who have become deeply interested in their real Gaelic heritage simply do not mix, by and large, with the highland games and Burns Supper crowd which is where so many people go to learn about and celebrate a Scottish heritage that is new to them. Two Scotlands; two Diasporas.

Today’s active mainstream Scottish Americans understand and celebrate a snapshot of Scotland. A slice only, and too much of it just simply made up or terribly misinformed but understood to be real and perpetuated. The Scottish American community could easily be moving to change, adapt, innovate and update to integrate new scholarship and to support new research as well as to aggressively support and encourage Gaelic language learners. A strong Gaelic American movement could help that to happen.

The truth is, the mainstream stuff is not selling very well to most Scottish Americans, especially the very savvy younger ones. On the other hand, the Outlander stuff is attractive, not in small part because it portrays Gaelic language and culture in a primary, accurate and unromanticized form. And Jamie Fraser.

The active and interested Scottish American heritage community is aging and by all indications it is not growing. As a leader in that community I used to be quite concerned about the internally acknowledged fact that younger people aren’t buying it as much as they need to. Young folks are staying away from what can often be a rigid unwelcoming sometimes nonsensical Scottish American world in droves. Oh the hand wringing.

The good news is, I no longer care so much about that part of the Scottish American world that is rigid, unwelcoming, and nonsensical, because there is an awesome true Gaelic heritage scurrying about in the wings and ready to explode with new awareness and youthful vitality. This is where Gaels’ work should focus. It is not antithetical to the Scottish clan heritage but it is not satisfied with Anglo-centrism or fantasy.

Today’s Anglo-Scottish tradition may be a valid cultural and heritage expression. It is a tradition of fairly recent birth. It doesn’t celebrate my Scottish heritage; it shuns or is indifferent to Gaelic heritage. Accepting it is like asking someone of Lakota Sioux ancestry to be satisfied describing themselves as an “early American”. It simply is not in my DNA.

For today’s Gael, congeniality with the dominant Scottish tradition is one thing; celebration of it is yet another. Everyone is free to choose. But continuing to allow today’s form of Scottish heritage to overshadow and prevent further understanding of Gaelic heritage is a third thing altogether and comes with very negative consequences for Scottish cultural celebration. The solution is more focus and initiative on Gaelic culture and language – Gaelic heritage.

Here is what is in my DNA: Gaelic history and heritage. Despite it being overshadowed and largely forgotten for so long, Gaelic culture in America is not gone. Further, the historical and cultural resources necessary to recover and reclaim Gaelic American history, culture and language are available and bursting with new information – much of it written in Gaelic. We can do this.

It is critical to understand that for my family and many others, the loss of Gaelic culture happened on our side of the Atlantic. People came to British North America and then the United States as Gaels but the culture failed to make it past the first two or three generations here. It is completely appropriate that I be interested in – not to mention a bit disturbed by – the loss of our family’s Gaelic culture particularly because it happened here, and not so very long ago.

Now as much as ever, Americans who have Gaelic ancestry should be delighted to understand themselves as Gaelic Americans. We should see and hear that term more and more often. In addition to or exclusive of Scottish American identity. And it’s not a bad idea for me and other Gaelic-Americans to spend time and interest in reconnecting with our Gaelic past. And supporting Gaelic language and culture revitalization initiatives that will help us give those young cousins who come after us a better understanding of their Gaelic heritage and identity.

Get Your Gaelic On!

The post Gaelic, Not Gaelic: Two Scotlands two Diasporas appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

A Storm is Brewing at the Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College

A storm is erupting over the Royal designation given to a Canadian Gaelic College by Queen Elizabeth II. Colaisde na Gàidhlig – The Gaelic College in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia is to be styled immediately as The Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College, for its contribution to preserving Gaelic and Scottish culture in Canada.

The designation has caused a huge amount of controversy in the community, resulting in the chair of the college board of governors stepping down over the issue earlier today.

The Member of the Legislative Assembly for Inverness, Nova Scotia said the addition of the word ‘royal’ doesn’t sit well with people who have a strong understanding of the history of the Gaels. Allan MacMaster, who is also the conservative critic for Gaelic Affairs, delivered a speech in the House of Assembly last week following the colleges decision to change its name.

He said you have to look at the history that brought many people to Nova Scotia, and that at one time as much as 80 per cent of the province spoke Gaelic.

“If you look, after the Battle of Culloden (in the 1700s), there were efforts made in Scotland to destroy the clan system and some of that was to try to eliminate the speaking of Gaelic in Scotland,” MacMaster said.

In the 1600s, Scottish Highland clan chiefs were required to send their heirs to other parts of the country to be educated in a different language, he said.

“All of those things emanate from England and from the Crown,” MacMaster said. “To have the Gaelic College today be given the title of royal and connecting it to the Crown, for a lot of people, they find it offensive.”

Situated in the heart of Cape Breton’s earliest Scottish settlement, the institution is the only one of its kind in North America, and was founded in 1938 by Rev. A.W.R. MacKenzie devoted to the study and preservation of the Gaelic language and Celtic arts and culture. During the first half of the 19th century, Cape Breton experienced an influx of Highland Scots numbering approximately 50,000 as a result of the Highland Clearances. Today, the descendants of the Scots dominate Cape Breton Island’s culture, particularly in rural communities. Gaelic is still the first language of a number of elderly Cape Bretoners.

The acting chair of the College, Kirk McRae, says the honour is a welcome one. He said: “It creates more awareness and things with the college,

“It’s a designation that doesn’t come easy. It’s just an honour of name, it doesn’t take away what the goals are of the college and what the goals are of our instructors, students and staff, that is to grow the Gaelic culture.”

The Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College

Alex Morrision, a retired military officer, has stepped down as his voluntary role as board chair as a result of the controversy. According to the college’s Facebook page, while Morrison contacted the Queen’s offices without consulting the members of the board, the decision to change the college’s name was not his alone, with the board voting on and accepting the name change.

The response to the name change on the Facebook page has been largely negative, however others thought people were overreacting to the name change. One commenter said: “Good Lord what a tempest in a teapot. So if the Queen provides her coat of arms to HP sauce am I not to eat it?”

MacRae said he was somewhat surprised by the amount of feedback on the name change, but said the board doesn’t plan to reverse its decision.

“There’s going to be no change,” said MacRae. “It’s wonderful the passion people have and I understand their points of view, and I respect their points of view. We (were) bestowed this, and for the board, everyone I felt genuinely thought we were going forward and it was a good thing. The name doesn’t take away from the day-to-day activities of college, and that’s to grow the Gaelic culture and language.”

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