Blogs

Australia is home to one of the largest Celtic Diasporas in the world. With substantial emigration from countries such as Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales and Brittany approximately half of its population can lay claim to Celtic roots. The Celtic Council of Australia is an important organisation in bringing together those from the various Celtic societies. Since its formation the Celtic Council has encouraged Celtic activities, including establishing the Australian Standing Stones at Glen Innes, achieved along with the local community of the town.

A motion to be moved Ireland’s Seanad today will call on the Irish Government to meet its international obligations by designating extensive coastal areas and seas around Ireland as “marine protected areas” (MPAs).

Ireland already meets obligations under OSPAR and has Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) but this motion if adopted will provide much more extensive and wide ranging protection.

It is truly shocking and sounds like a crisis you would expect to hear reported from a third world country however it is Mann (Isle of Man) 2018 where the Foodbank say children are not being fed at home - not because of neglect but because hard pressed families cannot afford it:

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/hungry-pupils-slipping-t...

One of the high points for me at the 2015 Celtic League AGM in Dublin was a personal trip that my good friend Tom Hanley arranged for me around the various sites of importance to the 1916 Easter Rising.

The centenary of the rising was the following year so the various places such as museums and Kilmainham jail where the leaders of the Rising were executed were under siege already from the tourism traffic but somehow Tom always managed to get us to the head of the queue.

Councillors in the Irish city of Derry (Irish: Doire) have voted to light up local government buildings in the colours of the Palestinian flag. The motion was passed at a special meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council on Monday. It follows events last week when more than 60 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, which met with widescale condemnation in Ireland.

Irish-language manuscripts are the focus of a major exhibition underway at Trinity College Dublin (Coláiste na Tríonóide Baile Átha Cliath). Trinity Library has a collection of over 200 medieval and early modern manuscripts written in the Irish language. Covering over a thousand years of Irish literature and learning, the collection is seen as one of the most important collections in the world. 

Well, the time when many local folks go into forced hibernation is fast approaching, as the annual invasion will soon be upon us. Many say that Cornwall depends on tourism. That comment is often arrogantly rammed down our throats by people from elsewhere in an attempt to say that 'we are dependent on them and their English pounds'. (We read it so many times as well. Soon too we shall again witness undersized England football shirts stretched across oversized bellies as we are constantly reminded that their football team just about won a cup in....1966......yawn!) 

With much talk in Mann lately about realising a tourism dividend from Cruise ship traffic one small town in Co Donegal Ireland is already realising the potential. This weekend the large Cruise ship Queen Victoria docked at the town and as this report from Highland Radio indicates the town is realising real benefits from such passing tourism trade (link):

http://www.highlandradio.com/2018/05/21/tourists-in-their-thousands-desc...

One of the more unusual aspect of my two decades plus working as a Union official for the old Transport and General Workers Union was dealing with support to foreign seafarers who found themselves in difficulty in the Isle of Man and had for example to be repatriated because of a domestic crisis in their home country.

I also met regularly with the Isle of Man Shipping Register officials and pressed them to ensure good standards for foreign crewed Manx registered vessels (I wonder does the Manx TUC still do that - I doubt it!).

“Of course the Manx government are right and we need to get our electronic communications up to speed even if in my case its just so the links between the Celtic countries are further cemented.”