Blogs

Bob Fitzsimmons - World Champion Boxer.

Born Helston, Cornwall, on 26th May, 1863, Bob was the youngest of 12 children. His father James Fitzsimmons was a borough constable in Helston.

James Fitzsimmons had been born in Omagh Co.Tyrone.

The 12 children were born between 1839 and 1863
.
His mother was Jane Strongman was from Truro,Cornwall.

Fitzsimmons and his family emigrated to New Zealand and arrived at Lyttleton, NZ on October 17, 1873. They brought with them only the five youngest children on the Adamant and settled in Timaru, NZ.

There will be a rally in support of the Catalan people's struggle for the right to decide on independence from Spain in the seaside town of La Baule-Escoublac in southern Brittany. As reported in the Breton website 7SEIZH it will take place on October 25, 2017 at 18:00 at La Baule-Escoublac in front of the stèle dédiée à Lluís Companys.

The following is an excerpt from the momentous announcemnt by the Scottish Governmnet ( Full text linked below):

Scotland will start exporting haggis to Canada for the first time in almost 50 years, after Macsween of Edinburgh developed  a new recipe that meets Canadian regulations. It follows the lifting of the Canadian ban on red meat imports from Europe in 2015.

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Scottish SPCA) were called to deal with an unusual incident at a house at Beecraigs Country Park in Linlithgow (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Iucha) this week. An opportunist badger had sneaked into the house through a cat flap, ate the cat's food then promptly made itself cosy on its comfy bed for forty winks.  

Animal rescue officer Connie O'Neil said: "I got a surprise when I arrived at the property and saw a badger having a nap.

Those nations and regions that we see engaged in the struggle for greater autonomy and self determination around Europe and the world are often faced with force, intimidation and suppression. Catalonia is an obvious current example of a people suffering this fate. However, the organisations and local political representatives seeking greater degrees of self determination, have the aspiration to provide a better life for their people, to protect their culture, distinct identity, and to provide social improvements and better living conditions.

An exhibition is underway at the National Museum of Scotland on Scotland’s Early Silver. Supported by The Glenmorangie Company the exhibition shows how for Scotland, unlike other parts of Europe, it was silver, not gold, that became the most important precious metal over the course of the first millennium AD. Scotland's Early Silver traces the first thousand years of the Scottish love affair with silver.

Alun Hugh Cairns is the Member of the UK Parliament (MP) for the Vale of Glamorgan (Welsh: Bro Morgannwg) in South Wales and is also Secretary of State for Wales. Given his level of responsibility he is expected to be accountable and as the saying goes is someone you need to 'keep on their toes'. Its always good to know that a politician takes this seriously, but maybe not quite as seriously as Alun Cairns cleary felt pressurised into doing a couple of days ago.

The French Government’s war on Breton, the Celtic Tongue of Brittany, has taken a bizarre turn in a jaw dropping example of the pettiness of the state bureaucracy in France.  A couple in Brittany wanted to call their newborn baby boy Fañch, a traditional name in Brittany.  However, the local registrar rejected this Celtic name and refused to record the birth unless the parents chose an “approved” French name. Fañch is a name borne notably by two Breton writers, Fañch Peru and Fañch Broudig, and is the Breton version of the name François.

The following was published in September 2013 by the Multilingual Early Language Transmission (MELT) project, a partnership between four language communities: Breton in Brittany, the Frisian language in Friesland, the Swedish language community in Finland, and the Welsh language in Wales. The project was funded by the European Commission, and was running between November 2009 and October 2011. The report was published on the web site of the Network To Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD), a European wide organisation dedicated to the importance of linguistic diversity.

Two prominent Catalan independence leaders, Jordi Sanchez of the Catalan National Assembly, and Jordi Cuixart of Omnium Cultural, were imprisoned on Monday night (16 October). They have been sent to prison by Spain's National Court while they are investigated for alleged crimes of sedition. Omnium immediately condemned the ruling as "intolerable in a democratic society". On Twitter they said: "The mobilisation continues, they won't be able to imprison an entire people!". The imprisonment of two of the best-known Catalan independence leaders has provoked outrage in Catalonia.