#celticist

I'd like to preface this with that this is a screenshot of a post I saw a few days ago in the #welsh tag and that the OP has since deleted this post, but the sentiment is something I'd like to address since I see a lot of parallels with this kind of thinking in other contexts, such as in LGBTQIA+ rights conversations.

So, the most obvious elephant in the room is the idea that Welsh is super widely spoken in Wales now and that it isn't in as much danger as other Celtic languages. This idea is wishful thinking at best and erases the very real danger that Welsh is in and that it could be lost just as easily as Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Cornish (which is related to Welsh) actually did die out and has had to be revived. To make a metaphor out of this, we classify languages on a scale of non-threatened to endangered in a similar way to how we classify species.

Here are the statuses of Welsh and Irish as of 2010 (above) and the statuses of Lions and Tigers (below).

On paper tigers are more 'in danger' than lions. But that does not mean that lions are suddenly not in danger at all. The little bracket above CR, EN and VU labels all of these classifications as threatened. It isn't (and definitely shouldn't) be a competition of 'who is most in danger' because you do not want the thing you care about (whether it be a species or a language) to be in danger.

To come back to the original screenshot "they* [Welsh speakers] have always had the means and the ways because the English didn't beat or slaughter them for speaking it"- on the most basic of levels, this is just incorrect. The Welsh Not was a wooden token hung around schoolchildren's necks if they spoke Welsh in school. If someone else spoke Welsh the Not would be hung around their neck. At the end of the school day, whoever was wearing the Not would be beaten and caned by their teachers. I needn't go into much detail but there have been concerted efforts to beat Welsh out of schoolchildren. With the lions vs tigers metaphor, making the claim Welsh speakers have never been beaten for speaking Welsh because they always had the means and ways, while Irish speakers were beaten and never had the means or ways is like claiming poachers have never shot lions, only tigers. Bottom line is, lions and tigers are both victim to poaching and both species have suffered as a result. Similarly, Welsh and Irish have both suffered language loss and both need conservation efforts in order to survive.

(*sidenote- the consistent use of 'them' and 'they' in the original post is definitely indicative of a 'us vs them' sentiment which is a deeply unhelpful attitude to have when it comes to endangered languages and the Celtic languages in particular)

I see parallels with LGBTQIA+ rights in this situation. When equal marriage came in for gay and lesbian couples in the UK in 2014, many allies began to act like gay rights had now been achieved and that gay issues had been done, they're solved. Except, they really weren't (and aren't). Progress has been made in Wales and undeniably Welsh is doing the best out of the living Celtic languages. But that doesn't mean Welsh has been saved or that full equality for Welsh speakers has been achieved. It very much hasn't. The sentiment of the post in the screenshot is not conducive to helping Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Putting down Welsh speakers and erasing Welsh-language history will not save Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Pretending Welsh has had it easy in some kind of lap of luxury is a deeply harmful and bogus claim.

I'll address the tags under the cut as this post is getting long.

("Rule Britannia is out of bounds"- Life on Mars, David Bowie, 1971)

As promised, here is a more in-depth exploration of Wales' relationship to indigeneity or colonised status. And how England created the (political) concept of Great Britain when it formally annexed Wales in 1542. This is a long post but I will try and be brief where possible to do so. I graduated with a degree in Celtic Studies last year from Aberystwyth University so it's time to put that to use.

In my last post, I went over the groundwork for this conversation - so if you haven't read that one yet I strongly suggest you read that one first then come back to this one. In that first post, I establish the stickiness in claiming or applying the status of colonised onto the modern nation and people of Wales. I also explore how claims of indigeneity (intended to legitimise Welsh nativism through dubious claims of descent from the Iron Age Britons) are weaponised in modern political contexts.

With all that said - how does one categorise the suffering of Wales/its culture and language without straying into the language of the colonised?

Early Medieval English Imperial desire for Wales:

Very often, you will hear people make the claim that Wales was 'England's first colony' and that the other nations bordering England were guinea pigs for Britain's later colonial empire. My previous writing on this topic has established the difficulty in applying colonised as a term to Wales and its context. Which leads to the question of what do we describe it as instead?

For this, we need to make a distinction between colonialism and imperialism.

The two concepts are very similar (and do overlap slightly) but they have crucial differences which allow us to be more precise and succinct with our wording which aids both communication of the subject and quells misunderstanding through language which doesn't fit the situation.

Put simply, Imperialism is when one country, people or nation desires to extend power over another (usually a close-by or neighbouring territory) - especially (but not solely) through the means of expansionism.

Colonialism is also when a country, people or nation wants to extend power over another - but primarily through invasion and typically (but not always) against territories that are further afield and not immediate neighbours).

A lot of the way in which we view early British history in Wales is tinged with a kind of exceptionalism for what happened between England and Wales. Very often, what was done is framed as uniquely terrible for the time and held up as a poster child for the unique evil of England's expansionist desires. Yet all over Europe at the same time this was happening - other European nations and peoples were engaging in the same subjugator-subjugatee relationship. The exceptionalism present in framing Wales as uniquely suffering in this period is, unfortunately, borne out of the same British imperial culture which was thrust upon it and has become irrevocably entwined with culturally. It is a kind of British arrogance (which ironically crops up in anti-British arguments in Welsh independence activism) which presupposes nobody could have suffered the same or worse than they have, which demands the active ignorance of other, contemporary examples of that which they claim to oppose.

Wales was the first victim of English (later British) Imperialism - not its first colonial victim.

The build-up to and annexation of Wales by England:

Wales was annexed twice - once before the age of states and once shortly before that age dawned. The concept of states (as in, sovereign countries) didn't really exist until after the Treaties of Westphalia (1648). In which the concept of non-interference in the religious affairs of other countries (and other domestic affairs) was established and international relations was born. This is relevant to Wales' situation - as what England did to Wales happened long before the age of states began.

There was the Conquest of Wales by Edward I between 1277 and 1283. (Before that, the Norman Conquest of Wales by 1081). (However, the latter being conducted by the Normans is not necessarily equatable to the actions of England the country, which itself had only just been invaded by the Normans). And then the Laws in Wales Acts which formally incorporated Wales into the realm of the Kingdom of England in 1542.

The Conquest of Wales by Edward I overran the territories of the last Prince of Wales (from the Welsh monarchic tradition), Llywelyn the Last and divided the territories into Welsh Principalities and Marcher Lordships. This setup remained until 1542, when Henry VIII passed the Laws in Wales Acts and formally annexed Wales and made it (in all the legal senses) a part of England.

By the time international relations was in its infancy (i.e. shortly after the Peace of Westphalia) Wales had been absorbed into England for just over 100 years. The relevancy of this is that Westphalia had been about religious liberty - Henry VIII's incorporation of Wales into the Kingdom of England was partly informed by religion. Henry VIII had just broken away from Rome and established the Protestant Church of England, whereas Wales was still largely Catholic. The Laws in Wales Acts also replaced the language of the courts in Wales with English, cutting off monolingual Welsh speakers from legal representation. The language of worship became English instead of Latin. Wales was culturally assimilated into England over a long period of time. And that meant ensuring Wales followed the 'correct' religion and spoke the 'correct' language. After the Peace of Westphalia, these actions by Henry VIII to bend Wales to his new religion and to assimilate Wales into England would have been in poor taste or decried in light of the new Westphalian system that was developing in Europe. Alas, these events took place before then and temporally speaking, Wales was locked out of this recourse.

By contrast, Scotland was unified with England into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 (after the Peace of Westphalia). England committed numerous acts of cultural erosion and destruction against Wales and Scotland at this time - but its Union with Scotland differs to that with Wales. Wales was incorporated into England, whereas Scotland was 'invited' to join a union between England (which then included Wales) and itself. Simplifying it greatly - like a marriage proposal in which the two spouses are *supposed* to be equals. After the Act of Union with Scotland, the whole island of Great Britain was 'unified' and thus the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed from two states - England (inc. Wales) and Scotland into one state.

Welsh Nationalism and Nationhood as separate from Statehood:

Wales and Scotland were the victims of English imperialism in many similar, but also many different ways.

Wales, having never been a 'state' was unable to acquire this status since it had long been incorporated into England by the time the concept of states had developed. Wales was unlucky in this way, because other nations on this island such as Scotland had managed to establish themselves long enough to survive into the age of states and thus became one. Because of this, Welsh nationalism cannot look to an era in which it was a free state because that did not happen. Instead, Welsh nationalism very often looks back with rose-tinted spectacles to Wales prior to Edward I's conquest and/or prior to Henry VIII's Laws in Wales Acts.

But nationhood and statehood are not the same thing - and it is the conflation of these two concepts (like the conflation of colonialism and imperialism) which has led to much of the confusion on these topics. Nationhood is acquired by a group of people who share several of these things: a common language, history, culture and (usually) territory. Not all of these things are required, but most nations have all or almost all of these qualities. Wales has a language (Welsh), a common history, culture and territory (Wales). Statehood is acquired by an association of people who have most or all of these things: formal institutions of government, laws, permanent territorial boundaries and sovereignty. Wales before 1283 very loosely had government and laws (monarchy and Laws of Hywel Dda) but had no permanent territory due to the conquest and lost some sovereignty in 1283 and total sovereignty in 1542.

Even if Wales had met all the criteria for a state in 1283, it would not have been eligible to become one - no nation in the world was able to do that yet because the concept (or proto-concept) for it would only be invented in 1648. Even England did not qualify for state status yet. Put simply, Wales got very unlucky with history and geography in such a way which prevented it from having a historical statehood post-1648 like neighbouring England and Scotland.

Naturally, when Welsh nationalism attempts to recall a past in which it was a 'state' - it is always an imagined and romanticised history. A fantasied history which generates ideas of the persecuted 'indigenous' Cymro where it shouldn't really be (in all seriousness, the injustices inflicted upon Wales by England are enough - extra additional injustices reliant upon a claim to to 'nativeness' do not need to be invented in order to be taken seriously). In the modern world, claims of nativeness in a European context are fraught, misguided, in poor taste and often copy the homework of the indigenous peoples those same European powers marginalised or colonised. In the modern world, a white Welshman claiming indigeneity is doing so in a postcolonial world and there really is no escaping that. Succinctly - the Welsh nationalist who relies upon a created sense of nativeness can only do so by drawing upon the work of marginalised native peoples living in parts of the world formerly colonised by Great Britain. To claim native status as a Welshman is to misunderstand and misappropriate history while wielding the language of the genuinely colonised while contributing nothing to it. It is purely extractive and a slap in the face of non-European native peoples everywhere. The pining for this return* to a prior point in Wales' history where it was a fully functional, sovereign nation populated only by 'native' or 'indigenous' Cymry is an alarming and ahistorical fantasy that all too easily slides into ethnonationalism and nativism -ancient or modern.

(*the choice of the word 'return' here is no accident - the desire to 'return' is inextricably linked to the alt-right dogwhistle 'retvrn' and it it is frighteningly common to see elements of that subculture crop up in Welsh nationalist calls to return to a point in Wales' history where it was 'sovreign'.)

Welsh nationalism which isn't vigilant to this kind of thinking very often will find itself arguing blatant untruths. For example, on the milder side of fake history, I've come across Welsh nationalist groups claiming symbolism from Owain ap Gruffydd's coat of arms - despite the fact he lived before the age of heraldry and he never used these arms because they were attributed to him later.

What next for Wales after 1542?:

Since Wales was fully and formally incorporated into the Kingdom of England by 1542, English colonisation of the Americas prior to 1707 naturally included Welsh colonists as well as English colonists. After 1707 Scots joined in with the now British colonisation of the Americas (both as/for/on the side of the Brits and as Scots fleeing Scotland after the Act of Union decimated Scottish Gaelic traditional culture). The Welsh, on the other hand, were more intimately involved with the colonisation of the Americas before that.

Though England spearheaded its colonisation of the Americas, Wales was not an unwilling participant dragged along by its association with and incorporation into England - Welsh colonisation, like Scottish colonisation, was often motivated by religious or cultural persecution - of which colonisation of another land was a possible solution to cultural loss in their home countries. Pennsylvania was settled by many Welsh Quakers and the idea of a Welsh Tract was floated to the Welsh settlers in 1684. The idea was to create a county which would operate in the Welsh language and serve as a vehicle for the preservation of the Welsh language. This attempt was not as successful as Wales' colony in Patagonia, Argentina in which native populations there were displaced at the behest of the Argentinian government - who needed the land settled and cleared. Welsh colonists took up this mantle and created Y Wladfa colony there in 1865.

Returning to the 17th Century - Welsh people were active colonists in the Americas during this time - motivated by saving the Welsh language and freedom of religion (especially the developing Nonconformist denominations of Protestant Christianity developing at this time). It was not so much that England was forcing Wales to participate in its colonialism, but that Wales has its own wants and ends for colonialism and was motivated entirely on its own grounds.

Back at home, Wales was still hard-done-by due to England - but two things can be true at once. Wales was a victim of English imperialism, but was also a perpetrator itself of colonial violence against Native Americans. England was no such victim of imperialism of any kind and the power dynamic for England had always been one rooted in absolute expansionism.

Summary and Conclusion:

With all of that said - if you were to ask point blank if I feel it is appropriate or okay for Wales to claim it was colonised by England and that Welsh people are in some way, more indigenous to the island than any other people living here - my answer would be no, I don't think it's okay.

I can't stop people from thinking otherwise, but I can reason that perhaps we shouldn't appropriate the struggles of people marginalised by the very nation we are talking about in order to craft a victimhood which is entirely unnecessary. Wales was a victim of English imperialism - but Wales was also an active colonising European nation. In the modern world, people are thankfully more willing to listen to the wants and needs of victims of colonialism - particularly victims of British colonialism in the Americas, Oceania and Asia. But I would warn against Welsh nationalism which seeks to capitalise on that increase in indigenous visibility in order to add legitimacy to itself (necessitating the crafting of an 'indigenous' narrative which did not exist there before). We live in the modern world where indigenous peoples are being taken more seriously than in centuries past - but that does not mean the only peoples hard-done by being taken seriously are colonised indigenous populations.

I believe it comes from a deep seated insecurity within Wales in which it is not uncommon to feel like Wales is being left behind because of all of this advancement. And this insecurity manifests as rejection of anything not obviously Welsh or demonstrably 'home-grown'. It's the national equivalent of a survival mechanism - but this is detrimental not only to the cause of Welsh nationalism, but to Wales itself. I've had people say to me (and I have read in historical sources from the last 100 years in Welsh) that the LGBTQ+ movement is actually an English invention created to erode Welsh traditional culture. Or variations on that rhetoric in which it is immigrants or other minorities which are made into this boogeyman come to destroy Wales and all Welsh ways of life. And it is so demonstrably not true but also bitter to see from the hearts and minds of my fellow Welsh speakers/Welsh people. Who have been hurt so much by the historical erosion of their culture that they confuse non-threats for threats and can only resolve to obtain some more legitimacy by appropriating the language of nativeness and colonisation in this ever changing world which, right now, is listening to native peoples for once.

It's difficult to put into words, even with all of the background knowledge above - but Wales is valuable and legitimate all on its own and doesn't need to rely upon things which isn't serving it - like ethnonationalism and nativism.

I want to live in a Wales which is uncompromising not only in its own fight for recognition and respect - but for other nations and peoples' fights for the same as well. I want to live in an independent Wales which is an ally to all those who share Wales' struggle and a Wales which rights the wrongs of its past without hesitation or compromise.

Because of The Horrors TM in my life atm I've been looking into my biological family tree. I'm adopted but estranged from my adoptive family and I never met my biological family since I was adopted just short of my 2nd birthday. I've been tracing my ancestry for about 3 years now and it's genuinely quite stress relieving to me. It's also fun and challenging from a research standpoint - putting together my own family tree gave me the skills to write articles like this one I wrote in 2022 about historical Welsh queer people, for example.

Lately, I've been finding out more about my Irish ancestors while an adoptee (and thus not knowing any of my biological family) - but also doing this as a Celticist and tired of people doing the 'my sister's friend's cousin's father's mother was Irish' thing. This has created an almost unbearable tension between curiosity at my own ancestry while trying not to be That Guy who finds out about one (1) Irish ancestor hundreds of years ago and is weird about it.

Especially since mine are quite distant ancestors - my great, great, great grandparents were born in Dublin and in a tiny village in County Down called Dunnaman (near Kilkeel). However, they were Irish Catholics and emigrated to Liverpool in the 1870s - all of their subsequent children and grandchildren were born in Liverpool and all of the above + great grandchildren were raised Catholic - including my grandmother (who died before I was born). So there was an obvious attempt to maintain that heritage. There's even evidence my great, great, great grandmother at least spoke Irish (which, as she was born in County Down, would have been Ulster Irish).

The problems with uncritically throwing oneself at an ancestor's nationality:

Now, not all North Americans of Irish (or Welsh, Scottish, Italian, Scandinavian, German etc.) descent do this - but there's a very vocal set of North Americans of Irish descent who find awe and interest in their ancestry - which is actually quite a positive thing! - however, due to either temporal or cultural disconnect, they may end up doing or saying things (and not necessarily with bad intentions) which can have a negative impact on the Irish and the Irish language (or [nationality] and [language(s) associated with that nationality].

I'm reminded of the time an American commented on a Welsh language rights post I made in support of Welsh speakers, but they accidentally ended up using a white nationalist slogan by mistake. It can be a minefield - and with regards to Ireland specifically, mistakes like that can be so much worse. To literally give my own (mild) example, today I decided to relearn Irish (since I haven't spoken any in years since being taught basics at undergrad) and picked up a blank notebook I bought at Tesco the other week, while completely forgetting the inside cover of the notebook was orange. I was planning on decorating the notebook anyway and painted it a different colour. While I know that nobody would really hold it against me if I didn't change the colour, I just know that walking around with an orange notebook filled with Irish I'm relearning because of interest in my Catholic ancestors could be a confusing set of messages, at the very least. If you don't understand why this is, look up the meanings of the colours on the flag of Ireland.

Which is to say, even those of us in Northern Europe who have significantly greater physical proximity to Ireland than North America (and therefore should know better) still can and do get things wrong. And not just benignly wrong like in my case.

The tendency for some North Americans of Irish descent (Canada isn't exempt from this) to conflate Irish ancestry with a contemporary connection to the modern countries located on the island of Ireland as a whole can have results ranging from 'a bit weird' to 'jesus fucking christ'. As a Celticist, I've seen far, far too many Americans of Irish descent try to weigh in on modern Irish politics without any background knowledge or tact at all - and naturally they stake their claim on modern Irish politics entirely on the premise of having distant Irish ancestors. Or, even worse, things start to get all phrenological.

'Irish blood' and the nonexistence thereof:

'Irish blood' is continually evoked by some to validate their sense of 'Irishness' and the obsession with '[insert nationality] blood' is a distinctly North American phenomenon- likely related to or an offshoot of the concept of 'blood quantum', in which enrolment into some Native American nations and tribes is determined by how much 'Native blood' a person has. Notably, many people who would ostensibly have been described under this system as 'full blood' were registered by the US as 'half blood'. This is a method of genocide intended to wipe out tribes and nations by imposing strict measures of who does or does not qualify to enrol into a tribe or nation. This concept seems to have been extrapolated over time (in a North American context at least) into the idea of descent from other nationalities' being measured in a similar or adjacent way. This is how you end up with some North Americans declaring they are '1/8 Italian and 1/4 Irish' on their dad's side etc. While in Europe (where these nationalities hail from, crucially) this practice is seen as a really weird way to describe your ancestry. In general, it's simply 'my 4 times grandfather came from Spain' or 'my great great grandfather on my dad's side came from Finland' etc. if it comes up at all. For various political reasons, many Europeans with descent from multiple other European nationalities may choose to omit to mention descent from certain nationalities, especially if in recent history there has been conflict between their birth nation and an ancestor's nation. The most famous example of this is literally the British royal family changing their surname from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the more 'British sounding' Windsor in 1917 due to the onset of the First World War.

Where it gets really weird (and also very offensive and rude) is when cultural stereotypes get invoked alongside the whole 'blood' thing in usually quite damaging and/or disparaging ways. I've seen way too many North Americans of Irish descent claim they're alcoholics because they have 'Irish blood' or even worse, claim it's normal to domestically abuse their spouses because of it!! (Genuine thing I have seen btw). Same goes for claiming to be a naturally good chef because of 'Italian blood' and so on. As a general rule, people from the place where your ancestors were from don't generally like to be inherently be considered drunks or prone to violence due to their nationality. Or have weird and inaccurate idealisms projected onto their language or cuisine.

Aren't there any positives?

It wouldn't be fair to make a post like this without mentioning some of the positives that can come from interest in an Irish ancestor. Like I mentioned at the start of this post, I myself felt inspired to relearn Irish because of my own Irish ancestors. I was taught the Connacht dialect at undergrad, however, since my ancestor was from County Down, I'm going to try and learn Ulster Irish instead. One doesn't need Irish ancestors to learn Irish of course - when I learned I wasn't aware I had any Irish ancestors. But being inspired to learn Irish because of an ancestor can't hurt and directly increases the number of Irish speakers in the world (provided you keep at it). This is a net positive for the language as a whole.

Similarly, people who have educated themselves on Irish politics because of their ancestry and genuinely learned something are also a positive thing to come out of discovering Irish ancestors. In my experience, these people are the kind of people I enjoy talking to about being a Celticist because they actively want to learn and respect the cultures being talked about. Which is huge to me!

Conclusion:

As a Welsh speaker whose national identity is more-or-less Jan Morris-esque, my Irish ancestry is an interesting facet of my ancestry I simply didn't know about before. And being an adopted person, I can sympathise with the general sentiment of a lot of white North Americans of feeling disconnected or alienated from any ancestral heritage. The conditions which create That Guy TM as described above rely on that sense of alienation to propagate a very ineffective, tactless and often very insensitive approach to Irish and other European cultures. But the important thing is that that approach can be challenged by people genuinely interested in their ancestry who are also conscientious of the living versions of the cultures their ancestors hailed from.

For me, that means learning Irish in a dialect my ancestors are likely to have spoken. I also visited the library today to check out some books on the Irish emigration to England and the sociopolitical reasons behind that emigration. I know the broad strokes, but the details are desirable to know to get a better idea of the why and how the country of my birth had a hand in creating the conditions which led my ancestors to emigrate in the first place. I think the world would be a better place if people took the time to understand the history and politics of ancestors which don't share their nationality.

As always, reblogs and thoughts are welcomed and encouraged!

I mean, there's only so many of us even on here, but being recognised is kinda new for me!

Remember that event I went to and got those free books they're throwing out? I had a meeting with a lecturer earlier and asked if there were any more books left. My lecturer got up, walked into the next room and gestured to the copious piles of books still there and said I could help myself.

LOOK. AT. HOW. MANY. BOOKS. THERE. ARE.

Anyway, I nabbed as many books as I could carry (mostly Planet) and have some brilliant new sources to use!

Just as I put the last book I wanted into my bag, a man came in with a trolley and started taking away the other boxes. Managed to save these books just in time it seems.