#gaelposting

[anarchotolkienist]

you’re attacking that neopagan kind of birthstone post about druid plants, but could you please elaborate or at least clarify the explicit trope that is being used that has been historically weaponized?

I used to spend about a good third of my time on this godforsaken website attacking that idea, but sure, I'll do it again. This will be a bit of an effortpost, so I'll stick it under the readmore

There is a notion of 'celts' or Gaels as being magicial and somehow deeply in touch with nature and connected to pre-Christian worldviews that the people who decided to make up the "Celtic tree astrology" used. This is also why Buffy used Irish Gaelic as the language of the demons, why Warhammer uses Gaelic as Elvish, why garbled Scottish Gaelic is used by Wiccans as the basis for their new religious construct, why people call themselves Druids to go an say chants in bad Welsh in Stonehenge, or Tursachan Chalanais, or wherever, etc etc. This stuff is everywhere in popular culture today, by far the dominant view of Celtic language speaking peoples. Made up neopagan nonsense is the only thing you find if you go looking for Gaelic folklore, unless you know where to look, and so on and so on. I could multiply examples Endless, and in fact have throughout the lifespan of this blog, and probably will continue to.

To make a long history extremely brief (you can ask me for sources on specifics, or ask me to expand if you're interested), this is directly rooted in a mediaeval legalistic discussion in Catholic justifications for the expansionist policies of the Normans, especially in Ireland, who against the vigourous protestation of the Church in Ireland claimed that the Gaelic Irish were practically Pagan in practice and that conquest against fellow Christians was justified to bring them in like with the Church. That this was nonsense I hope I don't need to state. Similar discourses about the Gaels in Scotland exist at the same time, as is clear from the earliest sources we have postdating the Gaelic kingdom of Alba becoming Scotland discussing the 'coastal Scots' - who speak Ynglis (early Scots) and are civilised - and the 'forest Scots' (who speak 'Scottis' (Middle Gaelic) and have all the hallmarks of barbarity. This discourse of Gaelic savagery remains in place fairly unchanged as the Scottish and then British crowns try various methods for integrating Gaeldom under the developing early state, provoking constant conflict and unrest, support certain clans and chiefs against others and generally massively upset and destabilise life among the Gaels both in Scotland and Ireland. This campaign, which is material in root but has a superstructure of Gaelic savagery and threat justifying it develops through attempts at assimilation, more or less failed colonial schemes in Leòdhas and Ìle, the splitting of the Gaelic Irish from the Gaelic Scots through legal means and the genocide of the Irish Gaels in Ulster, eventually culminates in the total ban on Gaelic culture, ethnic cleansing and permanent military occupation of large swathes of Northern Scotland, and the destruction of the clan system and therefore of Gaelic independence from the Scottish and British state, following the last rising in 1745-6.

What's relevant here is that the attitude of Gaelic barbarity, standing lower on the civilisational ladder than the Anglo Saxons of the Lowlands and of England, was continuously present as a justification for all these things. This package included associations with the natural world, with paganisms, with emotion, and etc. This set of things then become picked up on by the developing antiquarian movement and early national romantics of the 18th century, when the Gaels stop being a serious military threat to the comfortable lives of the Anglo nobility and developing bourgeoise who ran the state following the ethnic cleansing after Culloden and permanent occupation of the Highlands (again, ongoing to this day). They could then, as happened with other colonised peoples, be picked up on and romanticised instead, made into a noble savage, these perceived traits which before had made them undesirable now making them a sad but romantic relic of an inexorably disappearing past. It is no surprise that Sir Walter Scott (a curse upon him and all his kin) could make Gaels the romantic leads of his pseudohistorical epics at the exact same time that Gaels were being driven from their traditional lands in their millions and lost all traditional land rights. These moves are related. This tradition is what's picked up on by Gardner when he decides to use mangled versions of Gaelic Catholic practice (primarily) as collected by the Gaelic folklorist Alasdair MacIlleMhìcheil as the coating for Wicca, the most influential neo-pagan "religion" to claim a 'Celtic' root and the base of a lot of oncoming nonsense like that Celtic Tree Astrology horseshit that started this whole thing, and give it a pagan coat of paint while also adding some half-understood Dharmic concepts (three-fold law anyone?) and a spice of deeply racist Western Esotericism to the mix. That's why shit like that is directly harmful, not just historically but in the present total blotting out of actually existing culture of Celtic language speakers and their extremely precarious communities today.

If you want to read more, I especially recommend Dr. Silke Stroh's work Gaelic Scotland in the Colonial Imaginary, Dr. Aonghas MacCoinnich's book Plantation and Civility in the North-Atlantic World, the edited collection Mio-rún Mór nan Gall on Lowland-Highland divide, the Gaelic writer known in English as Ian Crichton Smith's essay A real people in a real place on these impacts on Gaelic speaking communities in the 20th century, Dr. Donnchadh Sneddons essay on Gaelic racial ideas present in Howard and Lovecrafts writings, and Dr. James Hunter's The Making of the Crofting Community for a focus on the clearings of Gaels after the land thefts of the late 18th and early 19th century.

@grimdr an do chaill mi dad cudromach, an canadh tu?

[tootiredforaname]

tá tú i do mhúinteoir?? bhuel, ní haon ábhar mortais é a bheith mar bharradóir an chaidrimh...

[w0e-t0-th3-r3public]

//Gaelposting via screenshots cause Tumblr search does not work.

[anarchotolkienist]

Sc. G. Sea anemony is 'Cìochag tràghad', little beach tit, and a jellyfish is 'cìoch na maghdinn mara', Mermaid's Breast. Idk what it is about sea things that make Gaelic languages so horny.

i love gaeilge so much

[anarchotolkienist]

D. -Ach ciamar chaidh dhaibh nuair ràinig am feachd Pholiceman iad A. -'S e 'th' air sin naidheachd. Chaidh na mnathan gu treuntas anabarach. D. -Càite air an t-saoghal an robh na fir nuair 's e na mnathan a thionndaidh a-mach? A. -Bha iad aig an taigh a' toirt an àire air na pàistean 's a bhruich [sic] bhuntata 's sgadain. D. -Dè dhèanadh na mnathan feadh na bha siud de Pholiceman? A. -Nach gòrach thu a Dhòmhnaill! Nuair chaidh na mhathan an tarraing, chan fhaicheadh tu cùlaibh spailpein caola Ghlaschu le stùr a' fàgail a' ghlinne. (Litreachadh an là an-diugh)

Tìm an Òbain, 17mh den Mhàirt 1883- tha an Còmhradh seo a' dèanamh iomradh air Blàr a' Chumhaing anns an Eilean Sgìtheanach, nuair a chuir muinntir a' Bhràighe - is gu seachd àraid na boireannaich - an ruaig air feachd phoileis a bha air tighinn suas bho Ghlaschu gus daoine fhuadachadh.

[anarchotolkienist]

Once again Sc. Gaelic wins.

Milky Way in European languages and origins.

More words maps >>

[anarchotolkienist]

The committment and pride of Gaels to being miserable bastards never fails to make me laugh. The Gaelic congregation was debating something after the service (in Gaelic) and one of the old islanders paused for a while, thinking and then said (translated) "...What's the Gaelic for Optimist?", to which an old lady from Lewis replied, quick as a whip, "There's no word for it. We've never needed it." I love this people so much.

[anarchotolkienist]

The Highlands is the kind of ecological desert you get after genociding an indigenous people and replacing their multifaceted economic activity with a fucking monoproduce headed exclusively by the interests of capital. Stop romanticising it, it's not supposed to be the way it is.

[anarchotolkienist]

Is e an-diugh an 140mh ceann-là de Bhlàr a' Chumhaing, no Battle of the Braes sa chànain eile, ann an sgìre a' Bhràighe san Eilean Sgitheanach. B' ann eadar poilis Ghlaschu agus croitearan is cotairean an eilein a bha am blàr seo, is na Gàidheil a' strì son còirichean talmhainn a chaidh a ghoid orra leis na h-uachdarain mhòra - gu sònraichte cead-ionaltraidh Bheinn Lì a bh' aca air chleachdadh cho fada is a bha Gàidheil san eilean - fhaighinn air ais. Bha an gall mòr seo air an robh 'Sherriff Ivory' ann an Port Rìgh os cionn poileas Gallta a bha feuchainn ri croitearan a dhliùilt aontachadh air cìsean gun chead-ionaltraidh fhaighinn an greim sa Bhaile Mheadhanach, ach chruinnich muinntir na sgìre aig a' Chumhang - 'dorast' na sgìre mar gum biodh - gus blàr is amhreit a chumail riutha, le badain is maide is clachan. Fhuair na croitearan saorsa, is phiobraich am blàr soirbheachail seo Gàidheil eile, air Gàidhealtachd is air fhògradh, gus ceartas a sheasamh ann an 'cogadh nan Croitearan'. Is iad as adhbhar a fhuair sinn Achd na Croitearachd, a chuir crìoch air linn nam fuadaichean, agus is iad as adhbhar a mhair a' Ghàidhlig idir beò dar linn fhèin. Cuireamaid clach air an càrn, is sìos leis a' phoileas, cho fìor an-diugh is a bha e nan là-san.

[Dealbh: an càrn-cuimhne faisg air Camas Dìonabhaig san Eilean Sgìtheanach, air an urrainnear na leanas a leughadh: Faisg air a' Chàrn seo, air an 9mh là deug den Ghiblean 1882, chrìochnaich an cath a chuir muinntir a' Bhràighe air sgàth tuath na Gàidhealtachd]

[anarchotolkienist]

'Uist would enter a song about Uist' is the truest thing I have ever read. Mull enters a clearance song, gets everyone in tears but ruins the mood. Scalpaigh would just enter Eilean Scalpaigh na Hearadh every year, untill they eventually snap and submits a version of Ailein Duinn Because It's Ours Goddammit, and wins. They would then go back to submitting Eilean Scalpaigh na Hearadh

Tha seo cho fìor lmao

[anarchotolkienist]

A few Sgitheanach comrades of mine are invovled with Iomairt an Eilein, trying to protect their own community, their own language and culture, from rural gentrification, which is driving all but the wealthiest out of their communities, out of the villages where they were born and raised, by incoming buyers of holiday homes. A signature is almost nothing, but there are good people involve, clever people, who will be able to do something with the energy unleashed by a significant campaign. So if you care about Gaelic language and culture, about rural peoples rights, about gentrification and fighting increasing centralisation, put a name to it, or share around what's happening. I'm sure that people in other parts of the Highlands, or diasporic Gaels looking to return, will be able to sympathise - it's a region-wide problem. I hope that other organisations of young people might be able to come together and co-operate, because you're going to need to struggle on a broad front, just like during the last clearances. A petition is a baby step, but it is a step, and it might help unite more people behind these demands for further campaigning. (Also, purely on a personal level, I'd appreciate it, as a Gaelic-speaker trying desperately to find a place where I could live full-time in a Gaelic community)

[anarchotolkienist]

That's the last speaker of Braes Gaelic dead, and the culture death marching ever west- and Northwards. How long untill we will need to bury the last elder? Solas ur Dè dhur n-anam, tha a' Ghàidhealtachd a' sìor-fhàs nas bochd' is nas bochd às aonais ur leithid.

[anarchotolkienist]

For people wondering about concrete steps that can be taken in the Highlands to sabotage the profits and prestige that landlords get out of keeping the land a desert, bereft both of people and wildlife - break their feeding stations. They bait deer to be easy to kill, and artificially inflate the carrying capacity of the depleted area, which is both ecologically and economically a catastrophe for all involved except for those who stole the land. Map them out. Break them.

[anarchotolkienist]

This is the sort of thing that that big post I did was about btw - these pictures are both taken in Cleared villages - you can see the ruins of the old Taighean Dubha to the side, half-hidden under the grass. This was the site of a genocide whos traces are still visible in the landscape - in the cutesy pictures, framing the shot of Eilean a’ Cheò with its romantic cattle.

Talisker Bay, Isle of Skye  - September 2020 Pentax K1000 on Lomography 400

[anarchotolkienist]

'Writing a play in Gaelic about a courtship featuring Gaelic courtship traditions is parochial and limiting. Writing a play in English featuring the courtship traditions of the English upper class is brilliant and universal. If you disagree with this it's because of your stupid dumb peasant brain.'

[anarchotolkienist]

I'm not in favour of bilingualism. I am in favour of Gaelic, and I am bitterly opposed to English. I am very tired of defenses of Gaelic which are really just defenses of the economic benefits of speaking more than one language instead of actually defending the right of the continued existence of Gaels, which is what this whole thing is about.