Thoughts on Galicia?

[kingandrew]

Damion,

I agree with what you are saying. And although the language was a defining element for many in the past, it seems less emphasized today. After all, most Scots or Irish people don't speak Gaelic as a mother tongue, but this does not change their identification with a Celtic cultural heritage. As a Scottish-American, I certainly don't speak Gaelic, either.

If one wishes to go back far enough, the whole island of Britain was populated by Celts. That's why it is called "Britain" after all. However, the arrivals of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings certainly encroached on them and led to our modern geographical distribution of Celts along the western coastal edges of Europe.

I just want people to recognize that the meaning of these term has shifted over time and that using an ancient statue of a man in a plaid-patterned skirt is of limited use in proving a direct connection to the modern kilt without some consistent evidence for the intervening centuries. But the Galicians seem to have as much appreciation and affinity for many of these traditions as any of us in the diaspora. So I see no reason to exclude them from any modern definition of Celtic culture groups.

Andrew