Niall McCarsten's blog

Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, has congratulated the Sabhal Mor Ostaig, which roughly translates to "Teaching Barn", on its 40th birthday. The BBC quoted First Minister Salmond: " What started as no more than a barn and an idea 40 years ago, now stands as an established globally recognised Higher Education Institution charged with protecting, promoting and celebrating Scottish Gaelic.

The website "Gaelport.com" is a good source of information and news on the progress being made to reclaim the Irish tongue from the damage done by the past and present enemies of Gaelic, the Offical Language of Ireland.  From the vicious persecution of Gaelic inflicted on Ireland by the English aristocracy to the misguided action of the Irish government in 1974 to nullify the requirement that civil servants be required to be fluent in Irish, the language of our Celtic heritage has suffered. 

The Cape Breton Post website, under the headline "Gaelic Immersion Will Meet Halloween" reports that instructors at the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts "..will guide Gaelic language students through a series of lessons that remind of the importance of Halloween known as Oidhche Shamhna, in the Gaelic calendar."  Halloween, also known as the Celtic Feast day of Samhain, is rooted in Celtic Mythology and pre-christian Celtic religious practice. A time when the Otherworld opens and Faeries are said to roam and a time of danger for mortals.

As cited in a June 13, 2013 Transceltic NewsBlog article entitled "Welsh Language Under Assault from Property Developers - Charges that Local Councils have Sold Out", the impact that property development is having on Welsh speaking areas and the disruption to historical patterns of language usage remains a volatile and contentious issue.

The online "HeraldScotland" reports, in the popular "Highland Line" column written by David Ross, on the victory for the Gaelic language in Caithness: "The first Gaelic medium primary school department is to open at the start of the new school session in August, Highland Council has said." 

Dr. Emily McEwan-Fujita, a Research Associate at the Gosebrook Research Insitute for Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint May's University in Nova Scotia, has published a study on the history, current state and on-going efforts to reverse the decline of the Scots Gaelic language in the Candian Province of Nova Scotia. The article is entitled "Gaelic Revitalization Efforts in Nova Scotia: Reversing Language Shift in the 21st Century" and will appear in an upcoming publication "Celts in the America's", edited by Michael Newton. The article details the efforts under way to "revitalise" the Scottish tongue in Nova Scotia.

A national conference was held at Aberystwyth on July 4 which focused on the future of the Welsh Language.  The conference was held in the historic county of Ceredigion (Cardigan) which was a fitting venue as there are concerns about the decline of the percentage of Welsh speakers in Ceredigion based on the most recent census data. More than 160 people attended the conference with focus groups meeting across Wales leading up to the conference and over 2500 participated on-line.   

Reflecting the recent surge in support for the Welsh language, The Welsh Language Society (Cymdeithas Yr Laith Gymraeg) have called for the status of Welsh in education to be upgraded to that of a language of instruction in various subjects rather than its current status of merely being taught as a second language.

The "Scotsman" website features an article by Brian Ferguson entitled "Scottish Independence Focus of National Theatre of Scotland 2014 Programme".  The article quotes the newly appointed National Theatre's Artisitc Director, Laurie Sansom, as stating that Scotland's 2014 referendum on Independence affords a "brilliant opportunity" for the artistic interpretation of this "unusual and remarkable event".

Another sign of the surge in Celtic identity in North America is the report in the Irish American web site "Irish Central" that the Milwaukee Irish Festival to be held August 15 - 18 on the shores of Lake Michigan is expecting an astonishing 130,000 revelers.  The Irish Central calls this the "..world's largest Irish festival..", no doubt excluding St. Patrick's day celebrations.