Blogs

If you're looking for somewhere vibrant, family-friendly and entertaining at the beginning of August, then you need look no further than the west coast of the Island, as the town of Peel prepares for its annual carnival and the Traditional Boat Weekend.

There's more of an international feel to this year's Peel Carnival, with the introduction of Viva Brasil, an exotic troupe of feather-clad, costumed, Brazilian samba dancers, who will be promoting the event and joining the popular afternoon parade.

In a surprise announcement, Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones has called for the doubling of the number of Welsh speakers by the year 2050.  An ambitious goal given the governments on-going hesitation in introducing Welsh medium educational reforms.  The Welsh Government's Minister for the Welsh Language, Alun Davies, describes the statement by Jones as  "deliberately ambitious".  Plaid Cymru characterized the First Minister's statement as " another superficial stunt".

News the Celtic League:

The Celtic League General Secretary, Rhisiart Talebot, has received a reply from the EU Fisheries Commission about the activities of EU flagged super trawlers in waters forming a broad arc from the NW of Africa to Orkney.

These vessels with a massive processing capacity are rapidly devastating fish stocks in these areas and the issue was recently in focus in Donegal where indigenous fishing are having to go further and fish longer to make a living.

News from Yr Undeb Geltaidd - Cangen Cymru Wales Branch Celtic League

HEDD WYN

Our colleagues at Yr Undeb Geltaidd - Cangen Cymru Wales Branch Celtic League have an interesting post (lifted from History Wales) about the biopic on Welsh writer and poet ‘Hedd Wyn’ (Ellis Humphrey Evans) who was killed in WW1. He was posthumously awarded the bard's chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod.

The film premiered twenty years ago today and eventually was the first Welsh language film nominated for an Academy award.

News from the Celtic League:

That rare event - crooked bankers being jailed - occurred in Ireland last week when Anglo Irish Bank executives John Bowe and Willie McAteer and the former chief executive of Irish Life and Permanent, Denis Casey were sentenced after being found guilty last month of agreeing a scheme to mislead the public about the true health of Anglo

 News from Kernow Matters To Us:

Wonderful news below!

12 Cornish young people played host to 12 of their Breton peers over a 10-day camp at Tehidy Woods recently.

The 24 young people, led by Breton and Cornish youth workers, shared their cultures and languages during the camp, which was organised and run jointly by Kowethas (the Cornish Language Fellowship) and their Breton sister cultural organisation, UBAPAR.

News from the Celtic League:

The likelihood that Scotland will move to hold another independence referendum has been heightened by the news that the issue which pointedly was not on the SNP conference agenda last year will be included this time. The SNP hold there conference in October in Glasgow.

Meanwhile Party membership continues to grow and recently passed the 120,000 member mark (link):

The notion of Welsh medium education enjoys wide support amongst the electorate in Wales. A poll released in late 2014 sponsored by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) showed 63% of the people surveyed agreed that schools “should teach all pupils to communicate effectively in Welsh” thus ensuring graduates enjoy a command of the Welsh tongue upon graduation.  Studies have shown that bilingually schooled students academically outperform monolingually schooled students.

Currently teaching at Harvard University, internationally famous photographer, Chris Killip, recently returned to the Isle of Man for the opening of a new exhibition of his work at the Manx Museum, and to present a sell out talk about his life and work.

His seminal work The Isle of Man: A Book About the Manx, published in 1980, captured a view of Manx life which was soon to disappear, focusing on a rural community through the lens of a plate camera, and the stark black and white images, with which Chris Killip made an indelible mark in the photographic world.

News from the Celtic League:

‘Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse for the worlds oceans!’

We have been reporting on the assault on the marine environment by so called Super-Trawlers like the Margiris and Annelies Ilena which can catch and process over 200 tonnes a day.

Super trawlers now operate in all the Oceans of the world and we posted a link from Greenpeace on what they termed ‘the monster boats’ fishing waters from the Pacific and South Atlantic to Northern waters around Europe.