Gaeldom under attack

Babygael · Gaeldom under attack

The polarisation between the Anglo-scot was increasing and leading not only to an open tension between the two, but an unwillingness to acknowledge that Gaelic laid the very foundation of Scotland. This is illustrated for example, in the famous poetic flyting between Walter kennedy, a Gaelic poet from Carrick, and the Lallans-Scots-speaking William Dunbar in 1508. Dunbar denigrates his foul "Irish' speech and manners, and boasts of inglis' superiority,while Kennedy claims that Gaelic is the true mother language of all Scotland.

Many of the most powerful in both Scotland and England by this time set their ambitions at wiping out differences between peoples within Britain in order to Gain more power in a united Kingdom.A letter from the English privi council in 1559 expressed the desire that "This famous isle may be conjoined in heart as in continent, with uniformity of language,manners and conditions. Many of the scottish nobility had allready long been Anglocised:by the sixteenth centuary even the Lowland Scots had long been, in the eyes of nearly all who used it `English' and not `Scots".

The Scotland which mattered politically and economically was consciously Anglo-Saxon, and would have indignantly repudiated the suggestion that it was any thing else.

Revolts against the authority of James 1V and intrigues with the English king gave the King reason to declare the Lordship of the Isles outlawed in 1493. Although several insurrections to reinstate the Lordship were to follow during the next fifty years, the Clan Donald and their followers were broken and destabilisation was acheived, the beginning of the period known in Gaelic as `Linn nan creach' `The Age of Feudes and Plundering'.

In contrast to the conservative nature of the followers of the Clan Donald,some Clans, most notabily the Campbells, tended to be "Progressive" and in alignment with the central Government. Such Clans were employed as agents to enforce policies upon those more devoted to the old Gaelic order.. The use of such agents ensured that no Gaelic unity would coalesce to threaten central authority..........To be cont

Gaelic in Scottish History and Culture by Michael Newton.

Babygael

Religion was a powerful means of changing society and expressing a whole spectrum of beliefs and values; politics and religion have always been closely related. The`progressive ' clans adopted protestantism soon after it was recognised by the Scottish parliament in 1560 ( although we have no means of knowing how clan members reacted at this time). Although protestantism fuelled a number of significant intellectual developments in the Gaidhealtachd-most noticably the first printed book in Gaelic in 1567 (the first in any celtic language) and the incentive for wide spread literacy- it also opened a further channel for the propagation of English cultural and linguistic norms.Little wonder that Protestant Ministers were among the most zealous Hanoverian (Pro-Union, anti-Jacobite) agents during the Jacobite Risings.

When James V1 of Scotland became James 1 of the new united Kingdom in 1603, he immediately moved to London and set about"unifying" his kingdom by aggressively attacking non-English elements-the natural enemies of union would be lumped together as papist,Irish,Borderers and Highlanders. Expeditions to conquer and occupy the Highlands were planned, although the attempt to plant Lowlanders in Lewis met with failure.Addressing parliament in 1604,King James triumphantly declared that God had ~united these two Kingdoms~ in Language,Religion and similitude of manners'-despite the fact that Gaelic covered about half of scotlands land mass and population, and that Religious orders in Scotland were vastly different to those of England.

In 1609 Ulster was ravaged and colonised by protestant subjects, not only a loss to the Gaels of the province itself but also a breaking of a crucial link between Irish and Scottish Gaeldom. At the same time, a number of Highland Chiefs were kidnapped and forced to agree to the statutes of Iona, a set of laws designed to Anglicise Gaelic Society and to bring it forcibly under controle of central Government.Among other things, it required all men of wealth to send their children to the Lowlands to be educated in English,adopt and support the protestant Faith,abandon their weapons and a number of their specifically Gaelic institutions,such as Poets.

An agressive plan of establishing Protestant schools specifically designed to root out the Gaelic language and all signs of `Popery" was passed into law in 1616. And this explicitly anti-Gaelic agenda of education has been continued right into the present.

Although a great many of the statutes were ignored by many Clan Chiefs, who were in practicle terms beyond easy access of central authorities, the effects of Anglicisation and a split of loyalties began to be felt in Gaeldom. By the middle 1600's Clan Chiefs were already being criticised by the poets-------spokespersons for the Gaelic community---- for being more interested in spending their Clan fortunes on foreign fashions than in maintaining traditional Gaelic values and duties.

Just the magnetic pull of wealth and power on the Gaelic Chieftians to join the British ascendancy---by definition of Anglo-Centric----was enough to cause some to change their cultural and Linguistic allegiance, and thus to disown their Gaelic identity and join those who saw it as barbaric and a threat to `British" unity. In 1705 the Gaelic Poet MacGilleathain exalted the role of Gaelic in the formation of Scotland and the education of europe,but lamented;

`S tearc luchd agaoil b`e sud an sao al fa seach
Thuit `sann tur maraon lehughdrich pfein
`sna Flaith` `mbudh du`, ghabh do cumhdach speis
Reic iadsan chuirt ` air caint uir oNde
`S do threig le hair budh nar leo ngca mhain fein.

Translated:
Few are those who love it.What a somersault the world has taken!
It has fallen from the tower, together with its authors
And the princess who inherited it , who took an interest in defending it.
It has been sold in the court for a new speech dating from only yesterday
And scornfully abandoned: people were ashamed of their own language.

wisnaeme

.

'Babygael'; Moran taing, tha sin gle' mhath gu dearbh. Smile

.

wisnaeme

Aye, that was then and to dwell too long on it will instill a sense of grievance of past wrongs. So we that are the remnants of Gaeldom and their decendants, in the Highlands, in the the Islands, in the Lowlands and in the Borders, Scots all and those who have chosen Scotland to be their home, together must go forward in spite of them and the modern day detractors of the gael, of the Scot. The detractors together with those that hinder and deny us the right to be free born and maisters of our own land and destiny.
Our greatest enemy today is not the unionists among us, it is the apathy and indifference from our ain fellow Scots. The great MacDiarmid through the mouth of Sorley MacLean in his sadness poured soft-spoken scorn and contempt on them far better than I could ever express.

Ma chuireadh criochan roimh neach
Ach iad a chuir e fhein,
Dhan fhaire far an ruigear iad
Cha tug aon neach a cheum.

'S ma tha mhor-chuid gu faingte teann,
A' leantainn slighe crion,
'S e'n leisg fhann fhein is coireach air,
An luths cha dhearbh iad fior.

'S fhearr leo n't-seasgaireachd na'n treoir,
Buigead thar staailinn bhuadh,
Is duintean beaga moraltachd
Os cionn nam beann bith-bhuan.

Mullach an t-saoghail a' chlach lom;
Is eiginn neach cur dheth
Na ghabhas,agus sin gach eile,
Mum bi an aird' na bheachd.

If there are bounds to any man
Save those himself has set
To far horizons they're postponed
And none have reached them yet.

And if most men are close curtailed
And keep a petty groove
'Tis their own sloth that is to blame'Their powers
they will not proove.

Preferring ease to energy,
Soft lives to steel-like wills,
And mole-heaps of morality
To the eternal hills.

All earth's high peaks are naked stone
And so must men forego
All they can shed-and that's all else!-
Proportionate heights to show.

There is a story behind my treasured copy of Sorley MacLean's From Wood to Ridge. In the year 1996 I was in Portree and a friend of mine, Arthur Cormack introduced me to Sorley, after meeting himself I begged my absence for a minute or two in which I dashed to my car to collect this copy of his works for himself to sign. One slight problem it was a borrowed copy from Coventry library, so I bought another copy locally and returned that to the library instead with a suitable explanation. Smile

.

Babygael

Hai wisnaeme, that poem was great,hope you dont mind but I printed it for my files.I realise that was all in the past,but if you dont know your past,you are condemened to repeat your mistakes. in my attempt to learn the language,I started getting into all the different aspects of Gaeldom and just thought I would share. To be honest I hadn't paid it much mind before, probably like many others. Now however, the more I read about it the more hooked I become!

I don't know about you but at school all we got was English history and with an English bias,time to change that !

in order for the Union to work,Gaelic culture had to be destroyed, and whats more even up to the present day,kept well on its knees for me the Gaelhealtachd is a symbol of Independence,as they were a people apart and seperate from the English.Revitilising the language is an outward sign of that independent spirit. An "In your face" kind of thing!Just when they thought they had gotten rid of us all,"enemys of the Union" we just keep popping up all over the place!

I've just been in contact with the secretary of the Moray Gaelic group hoping to partake,albeit from Barbados! A few ladies were interested in emailing me They don't speak gaelic in Boghall!

interestingly enough one of the members just brought out a Gaelic/English dictionary.Can't remember his name at the moment.

Today we display all the trappings of "unionisation"" by our Anglocised ways,whether we like it or not! However, much has been learnt and gained from the experience. yes I agree there's nothing wrong with unionist,I mean a one party state is not exactly a healthy situation!The more the merrier!
As been so aptly put by the Bard himself, MacDiarmid ,we are our own worse enemy! Rolling Eyes

Wow, meeting Sorley Maclean and getting his autograph? How cool is that!