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News From Kernow Branch Celtic League

It is indeed sad to see on other Facebook sites including that of BBC Radio Cornwall, comments such as 'You are English, get over it' 'You should be grateful to the English' and so on often made in the most aggressive of tones.

The fact of the matter is that the Cornish people have now been recognised, are no better nor worse than anyone else including the English but are not English.

The official Government announcement is here:

News From The Celtic League

The Manx Chief Minister has said that the Island does not need an expansion in population but an increased workforce taken with recent comments by the Infrastructure Minister it seems to be a change of tack from the previous announcement about freeing up land for ‘development and growth’.

It also seems to contradict statements from the Chamber of Commerce about the need for another 15,000 workers. That number together with families would involve a seismic increase in the population.

Adam Wood is about to finish his term as  Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man. Many Manx people would be forgiven for not having a clue who he is. Certainly he has been rarely seen out in public since he took the position in 2011. The Lieutenant Governor is the representative of the British monarch, who acts as the Manx head of state. The Isle of Man is an internally self-governing Crown Dependency. In reality the Lieutenant Governor represents the interests of a foreign power, the United Kingdom, in its colonial possession the Isle of Man (Mannin).

Despite the unfavourable weather conditions which plagued the one hundred and twentieth anniversary celebrations of the Snaefell Mountain Railway, many people made a pilgrimage to the summit for this special occasion.

Proceedings got under way at Laxey Tram Station with a performance by members of the National Methodist Youth Brass Band, who were on an extensive tour of the Island.

August 2015 has seen a number of commemorations and the unveiling of a plaque to mark the 850th anniversary of the Battle of Crogen that took place in the Ceiriog Valley (Welsh: Dyffryn Ceiriogin) in north-east Wales. The Welsh in 1165 faced a determined Henry II of England who brought his full resources in order to conquer Wales once and for all.

Civic leaders in a Scottish town have made a stand on the cruel slaughter of Whales in the Faroe Islands. Wick (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Ùige) in the far north of Scotland has cut all ties with its twin community in a row over the islands’ annual slaughter of whales. The Wick councillors received representations from constituents who feared the slaying last month of 250 pilot whales on the beaches of Bøur and Tórshavn, would damage Wick’s reputation as it is twinned with the Faroese town of  Klaksvík.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

Militarism is very much to the fore these days throughout the UK and the Isle of Man. There’s a veritable ‘orgy of events’ taking place to commemorate the two world wars. Not content with remembering the very real sacrifices made by those particularly in WW 2 new memorial gardens have been opened in the UK to National Servicemen who for the most part were involved from 1945 onwards in the questionable repression of National liberation struggles.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

Poet Benjamin Zephaniah has called for a wider expression of multiculturalism with the cultures of the Celtic countries being avaiable as part of the wide-stream English education system.

He made his statement at the National Eisteddfod of Wales which he visited earlier this month.

He said:

"Hindi, Chinese and French are taught [in schools], so why not Welsh? And why not Cornish? They're part of our culture,"

His comments were widely reported in Wales and Cornwall (see links):

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

BBC 4s well trailed documentary ‘Inside Sellafield’ told us nothing really new about the ghastly nuclear waste repository on the doorstep of several of the Celtic countries.

The programme touched on the amateurish way the whole operation was run at the outset and the cavalier way in which waste was handled but all this was information long in the public domain.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

In an initiative that could well be replicated in other Celtic countries (particularly the Isle of Man) ideas for tackling fuel poverty have been discussed today by a new group meeting for the first time in Inverness in Scotland

The Scottish Rural Fuel Poverty Task Force has been established by the Scottish Government. Its remit is to find ways of making it easier and more affordable for people in rural and remote Scotland to heat their homes.