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Media Release from Culture Vannin:

Bequest makes possible a new award for young people learning Manx

/ New award for young people learning Manx

25.04.2022

Culture Vannin is delighted to announce the launch of the ‘Sophia Morrison Award’, which recognises and celebrates the achievement of young people learning the Manx language.

The Celtic Media festival is an annual three day event that brings together media professionals from the Celtic nations and regions. This year the Festival will be held in Quimper, Brittany (Breton: Kemper, Breizh) from the 7th to the 9th of June 2022. The event sees conference panel sessions, workshops, pitching sessions and many networking events. It brings together delegates from the Celtic nations and regions to share and learn from each other’s experiences.

A rare Pictish carved stone, originally discovered by archaeologists in early 2020, has now been excavated. Thought to date to the 5th or 6th Centuries the stone is 5.5ft (1.7m) long and was found by a team from the University of Aberdeen during survey work at Aberlemno, Angus (Scottish Gaelic: Obar Leamhnach, Aonghas). The site is near what is thought to have been the location of the Battle of Dun Nechtain, also known as the Battle of Nechtansmere. This was fought in 685 AD, when the Picts led by King Bridei Mac Bili, defeated an army of Northumbrian Angles.

Ukraine - statement from the Celtic League

Kremlin's Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine on Thursday 24 February 2022. The Celtic League condemns in the strongest terms Putin’s acts of aggression against the state of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people and his deliberate targeting of civilians

The world finds itself at a crossroads once again with Putin’s dream of an expansionist Tsarist Empire and an oppressed Ukrainian people fighting for liberation within their own borders. 

The Isle of Skye (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Eilean Sgitheanach) is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Now fossil hunters have announced that 170m years ago the Isle of Skye was home to an enormous flying reptile called Jurassic pterosaur (pterodactyl) with a wingspan of about 8 feet (2.5 metres) or larger. 

Inverclyde (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Chluaidh) councillors have voted in favour of Scotland’s flag being flown on council buildings all year round. The national flag of Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Bratach na h-Alba) is a white cross against a blue background. It is known as the Saltire and it is hard to imagine any other country in the world having to vote on flying their national flag.  However, it needed Alba councillor Chris McEleny to succeed in having the matter discussed at a full meeting of the council and passed. 

The Massacre of Glencoe (Scottish Gaelic: Mort Ghlinne Comhann) took place 330 years ago but the memory of the horror and infamy of the events that took place early in the morning of 13 February 1692 remain poignant. One of the most beautiful places in Scotland Glen Coe (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Comhann) takes its name from the River Coe that winds and tumbles its way through the glen. It is hard for those who visit this area of great beauty today to think that it was the site of such a treacherous act of murder and brutality against the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe.

A memorial wall in Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery is to be "discontinued" after it was physically attacked for a third time. Dublin Cemeteries Trust has stated that : "it is the firm view of Dublin Cemeteries Trust that if the wall were to be repaired for a third time it would be vandalised again." The memorial wall was always controversial after being first unveiled in April 2016, during the centenary commemoration of the Easter Rising.

A missing hillwalker was clever enough to leave clues in the snow so that rescuers would know where to search. The walker had set out across the Cairngorms (Scottish Gaelic: Am Monadh Ruadh) a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland. His plan had been to reach Aviemore (Scottish Gaelic: An Aghaidh Mhòr) but was reported as overdue at his accommodation. Although the man had left details of his planned route and was well equipped, once missing the Braemar and Cairngorm mountain rescue teams were deployed to search for him.

A Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland police inquiry has found significant investigative and intelligence failings and "collusive behaviours" by  Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers linked to a series of loyalist murders in Belfast in the 1990s. The report investigated nine attacks by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) a proscribed terrorist group, in which 11 people were murdered. The report also found evidence that eight UDA members had been working as informants and that between them they had been linked by intelligence to 27 murders or attempted murders.