At 1:15 pm -0600 9/5/99, John Hooker wrote:
>Since then I
>have worked independently and in relative isolation, although I have
>variously communicated with Martyn Jope, Colin Haselgrove, Jeffrey
>May, Andrew FitzPatrick, Philip de Jersey and others -- none of whom
>ever told me not to use the word "Celt". It was when I first got
>on-line that I ever heard of this idea.
I have recently been hearing Miranda Green talk, and reading some of her
latest essays. She seems careful now not to use the word Celitc for the
images she is talking about, preferring to use a geographical term like
Gallo-British. She doesn't claim that Celts didn't exist (I don't know her
views on this) but says that there is enough controversy that she wants to
avoid it by using a descriptive term.
>
>As to modern Celtic ethnicity: well, we all have the right to define
>ourselves, it is one of the most basic human rights.
Problems arise, though, when *others* want to define *our* ethnicity.
This question has come up on a Celtic Cultures list. It's amazing how much
pseudo-Celticism there is around, particularly in North America. It always
amuses me when traditional *English* folk music appears in US record stores
in the Celtic section. And, on that list, there were discussion about
whether Lowland Scots could properly describe themselves as Celtic, given
the considerable difference in their culture and language and history from
the Highlanders.
Daniel Cohen
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