Surprisingly little is known of the geographical history of Gaelic: where and when it was spoken in the past, and how and why the Gaelic-speaking area of Scotland – the Gaidhealtachd – has retreated and the language declined. A hundred years ago there were 250,000 Gaelic speakers. Now there are 80,000. This book answers four broad questions: What has been the geography of Gaelic in the past? How has that geography changed over time and space? What have been the patterns of language use within the Gaedhealtachd in the past? And what have been the processes of language change? Emphasis is upon the changing geography of the spoken language from 1698 to 1981: from the earliest date for which it is possible to document the expanse of the Gaelic language area to the most recent census to record the numbers speaking Gaelic.
This interdisciplinary volume of essays examines the real and imagined role of Classical and Celtic influence in the history of British identity formation, from late antiquity to the present day. In so doing, it makes the case for increased collaboration between the fields of Classical reception and Celtic studies, and opens up new avenues of investigation into the categories Celtic and Classical, which are presented as fundamentally interlinked and frequently interdependent. In a series of chronologically arranged chapters, beginning with the post-Roman Britons and ending with the 2016 Brexit referendum, it draws attention to the constructed and historically contingent nature of the Classical and the Celtic, and explores how notions related to both categories have been continuously combined and contrasted with one another in relation to British identities. Britishness is revealed as a site of significant Celtic-Classical cross-pollination, and a context in which received ideas about Celts, Romans, and Britons can be fruitfully reconsidered, subverted, and reformulated. Responding to important scholarly questions that are best addressed by this interdisciplinary approach, and extending the existing literature on Classical reception and national identity by treating the Celtic as an equally relevant tradition, the volume creates a new and exciting dialogue between subjects that all too often are treated in isolation, and sets the foundations for future cross-disciplinary conversations.
The first full-length ethnographic study of its kind, Highland Homecomings examines the role of place, ancestry and territorial attachment in the context of a modern age characterized by mobility and rootlessness. With an interdisciplinary approach, speaking to current themes in anthropology, archaeology, history, historical geography, cultural studies, migration studies, tourism studies, Scottish studies, Paul Basu explores the journeys made to the Scottish Highlands and Islands to undertake genealogical research and seek out ancestral sites. Using an innovative methodological approach, Basu tracks journeys between imagined homelands and physical landscapes and argues that through these genealogical journeys, individuals are able to construct meaningful self-narratives from the ambiguities of their diasporic migrant histories, and recover their sense of home and self-identity. This is a significant contribution to popular and academic Scottish studies literature, particularly appealing to popular and academic audiences in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland
This book examines the ordinary, routine, daily behaviour, experiences and beliefs of people in Scotland from the earliest times to 1600. Its purpose is to discover the character of everyday life in Scotland over time and to do so, where possible, within a comparative context. Its focus is on the mundane, but at the same time it takes heed of the people's experience of wars, famine, environmental disaster and other major causes of disturbance, and assesses the effects of longer-term processes of change in religion, politics, and economic and social affairs. In showing how the extraordinary impinged on the everyday, the book draws on every possible kind of evidence including a diverse range of documentary sources, artefactual, environmental and archaeological material, and the published work of many disciplines.The authors explore the lives of all the people of Scotland and provide unique insights into how the experience of daily life varied across time according to rank, class, gender, age, religion
This book challenges conventional wisdom and provides new insights into Scottish social and economic history. Christopher A. Whatley argues that the Union of 1707 was vital for Scottish success, but in ways which have hitherto been overlooked. He proposes that the central place of Jacobitism in the historiography of the period should be revised. Comprehensive in its coverage, the book is based not only on an exhaustive reading of secondary material but also incorporates a wealth of new evidence from previously little-used or unused primary sources.
Scotland's national bibliography, listing books, periodicals, and major articles of Scottish interest published all over the world. Covers material issued since 1988.
This volume brings together a selection of the papers presented at the “Print Networks” conference at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, in July 2011. The conference theme, “Religion and the book trade”, was chosen to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. Numerous events throughout the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world took place to commemorate this historic event, the Print Networks conference being one of many. Religious books – be they tracts, sermons, homilies, hymn books, or Bibles – were primarily used by all denominations to spread their version of Christianity, to attract people to their cause, and to retain the loyalty of supporters. But these publications are also credited with the survival of indigenous languages, and, naturally, the printers and distributors of these religious works were crucial to the process of spreading both religion and literacy among the population. The contributions to this book cover a wide gamut of religion and the book trade from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Most of the chapters are concerned with the European book trade and concentrate on Christian religions and cover both Catholic and Protestant, particularly Nonconformist/Dissenter, experiences. Most of the chapters relate to the British and Irish book trade, but there are also contributions discussing Italy and the Netherlands. There are chapters relating to the printers and publishers of religious works; authorship; the issue and production of religious periodicals; the promoters of religious libraries; and clandestine elements of the trade. This volume emphasises the pivotal role played by those in the book trade – printers, publishers or booksellers – in the distribution of religious works, and demonstrates that spreading the ideas of their authors, creators, or translators would have been far more difficult without their involvement. This book will be of interest to academics, independent scholars, heritage professionals and research students in the fields of book trade history; book arts; bibliography; bookbinding; printing and typographic history; publishing; social and industrial history; and religious history.
This encyclopedia covers the entirety of the Celtic world, both through time and across geography. Although emphasizing the areas where Celtic languages and traditions survive into the present, the work does not slight the reaches of the Celtic empire, which was the largest language and cultural group on earth prior to the rise of Rome. In some 1,500 articles, many representing original research by the finest Celtic scholars, the work covers the Celts from prehistory to the present, giving comprehensive treatment to all topics from myth to music, religion to rulers, literature to language, government to games, and all topics in between.
