Celtic Polemic

So let's get this straight; at the end of the Ice Age we came up from the Basque Country i.e. the Western Mediterranean up through the Atlantic, which somehow ties in with Irish legend and why many Welsh are short, dark & stocky. The Culture to be seen mainly in Halstatt & La Tene whom we referred to as the Keltoi and now Celts, crossed over 4 or 5 centuries before Christ, were tall and blonde and brought their Gaelic Language with them, before taking it to Ireland and subduing the indigenous tribes, so much so they now claim Celtic heritage. These were followed by the Brythons who then subdued the Gaels on the mainland except for the Western & Northern fringes, although the Silures & Ordovices were Brythons the west was still in the hands of the Gaels, as was Kernow/Cornwall, so that when the Romans came it was these Brythons who defended the Island. That part of Britain today known as England became Latinized, that is why there are so few Welsh words in the English language, one that took a thousand years to develop yet is so poor that from its Latin & Greek base it has to borrow to fill a book. Scotland wasn't one Country but was fought over by three cultures: Caledonian Picts, of whom MacBeth was one; Strathclyde Welsh, whose Capital  was Dumbarton the fort of the Britons; &  the Dalriada Irish; each with its own king; Dewi Prysor claims descent from the Dalriadan, allright friend? Little Dalriada of the Irish Gaelic culture won over through Kenneth McAlpin when finally the King of the Picts had a change of mind and declared himself King of the Scots, but before Strathclyde & Cumbria (Cambria & Cumbria are interchangable) were shared between the English & Scots the Welsh Cunedda had already moved down to Wales from the Edinburgh area to throw out the Irish who had come back to the West, mainly in Dyfed; Dewi or David preached to Gaels. Ireland and the Isles were invaded by the Vikings leaving a red haired strain but not their language. The Romans who were at least our third group of invaders left us enough words to to look back on their colonization with a sense of pride,  leaving us with about a thousand words and the golden age of Welsh history, that of Saints & Sovereign Kings, before defending ouselves once again against a greater onslaught. What I'm saying is we are claiming a Celtic identity based on a provisional colonization that has left its mark, i.e. it's all about the  language we spoke at a given point of time and managed against adversity to hold on to against all the odds; but we were speaking a different language before the Celts turned up and weren't the Celts aggressive invaders themselves? The Irish speak Gaelic therefore are considered Celtic; The Scots ditto, and it's noticeable that as Scotland grew, not diminish, as is Wales's case, the Language only went so far, with many Lowland Scots (Rabbie Burns wrote an English dialect) not considering themselves Celts at all. The English who speak a Latin & Greek based Language relate to a Classical heritage, when in fact they were Germanic Barbarians. The Welsh being predominantly British Celts intermingled with Gaels see themselves as Celts, so do the Cornish who up to Arthur & Geraint's time were a Gaelic remnant who became Brythonic; The Bretons the same, comprising Welsh & Cornish, with the females of the original inhabitants supposed to have had their tongues cut out so that the Brythonic tongue stayed pure; this is why Galizia & The Asturias are often not included in Celtic movements, it's because they don't speak the lingo; That's why North Walians have doubts about many of their southern counterparts, why certain mining immigrant families can never accept Cymru, and why today's Cardiffians are feeling blackmailed when although it's the capital, they turn their television antennaes & minds towards England. Now along comes DNA testing that tells us that in defining ourselves as Celts based on a society encountered by the Greeks & Romans at  a certain point of time, we  ignore thousands upon thousands of years of previous history, 'Celtic' does not define the moment we met our destiny because they were just as warlike and bullying as: the Romans; Germanics (Anglo-Saxons & French); and Scandinavians (Vikings & Normans) who came later, it was a necessary reaction to the realization that there was a common cause, similar to the way Geoffrey of Monmouth showed the Normans that the Welsh were no way inferior, that we also had a great heritage, something tangent with which we could fight back against mainly English, French & Spanish domination. A hitherto largely ignored concept of a coherent though not Political Celtic Culture up till now repudiated by sceptical archaeologists who widely term it en bloc 'Iron Age'  was glorified by the romantic movement of 19th century Europe and its minorities  which led the Welsh and Bretons to reclaim their King Arthur who'd won so many battles against the English & French and was only sleeping in some cliffside cave on the verge of being reawoken. There's even a theory that Halstatt & La Tene Cultures were not Celtic, that the river tables were misread and that the maps were wrongly drawn.

However, my point is that according to DNA most of us in the west came up from Southern Europe therefore are not Celts, that the Celts in only a few hundred years managed to impose their language on us, ipso facto we are Celts; The Druids & Megaliths weren't Celtic don't forget. It's given many of us a 'raison d'etre', uniting the 'Celtic' Countries, listening to Alan Stivell; not having to be enslaved to England & France, that having managed to hold on to this language we are still Celts and are living representatives of an old Culture that can stand up in its own right against foreign domination that imposes propaganda to the extent that we are somehow inferior, It took form in 19th century romanticism giving us something somehow tangent to grab hold of, it became our sword & shield,  Arthur is its epitome. The English have Greek and Roman heroes, the French have Charlemagne. To sum it all up; our language is Celtic, we are not, we are Celtic because we want to be, we don't have another collective name because although we were a people before the Celts imposed their language on us nothing is known about them except in Irish legend; Our history begins with an already colonised Britain and the Celts. In civil law one may call oneself what one wants, so Heck why not Celt in that case? it's a mainly linguistic argument, thats why certain movements don't accept for membership: the Galicians; Asturians; and Gaul Cisalpinos. One last point; Ironic, Celtic unity; there are often 2 chapels, 2 bagadou & 2 choirs where there should only be 1; and many Gaels say 'Selt' whereas the Brythons pronounce it 'Kelt'.

 Our standpoint is that of  a Celtic hillfort with its 360°  lookout; We have clear sight, we are in our own home and we are on a final defence. The Celts themselves must have raped & pillaged the indigenous tribes, even though modern history inclines more to assimilation and a continuous thread rather than upheavals, because the Romans certainly did, Boudicca was whipped and her daughters raped, and she was a Queen whose husband had been an ally; the English, or as they still were at the time Germans gave history and us the first 'treason of the long knives'; nobody was crueller than the Normans; English law was still condemning Welsh workers to be hanged drawn & quartered in the mid 19th century. So, leave us alone. Although it must be admitted that many have been enticed over to the other side so much so that not only don't they recognize the enemy anymore , they have become them, figuratively speaking of course; many return home as though infiltrating and undermine from the inside because the law and refgime is on their side, all for our own good mind.

PS. Celtic colonization doesn't count because we've decided it's ourselves; Roman colonisation is respected because they didn't stay; Norman colonisation is decried because they stayed to long; English colonisation is hated because they are still there.