Blogs

As reported in Welsh newspaper the Daily Post Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board were forced to apologise following insulting behaviour by a Doctor towards two Welsh speaking patients. The incident happened last Tuesday when a mother and daughter went to the emergency department at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Bodelwyddan. As the mother was talking to her daughter in Welsh it is claimed that the Doctor told them she would take it as a “personal insult” if they continued speaking in their own language.

Today, the first day of May is the Festival of Beltane. This ancient Celtic Feast Day is the third Feast day of the Celtic year. Beltane celebrates the fertility and optimism associated with the beginning of the growing season. The other Celtic Festivals of the Celtic Year, which fall every three months, are Samhain (Halloween) celebrated on 1st November, Imbolg which is the Feast day of the Celtic Goddess Brigid celebrated on 1st February, Beltane and Lughnasa, the Celtic Feast of the harvest, celebrated on 1st August. 

On May 1st at Saint Malo Cathedral in Brittany a concert will be held beginning at 20:30. Featuring the music of Antoine de Févin the funeral service and speeches made at the 1514 funeral of Anne of Brittany will be given. This comes after the highly successful concert given at Nantes Cathedral on 5 April. This year 2014 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Anne of Brittany.

For some considerable time now there has been concerns raised about BBC Scotland’s lack of neutrality in regard to Scotland’s independence referendum campaign. Questions continue to be raised about the anti-independence stance that appears to underpin the public broadcaster’s coverage of the campaign. Given that the BBC is a publicly funded body that Scottish voters have to pay for in terms of a compulsory licence fee. It was hoped that news reporting leading up to the vote on Scottish independence would have been impartial.

There’ll be plenty of activity in Peel and the west during the early May Bank Holiday weekend (3rd – 5th May), with the third Western Open Studio Art Trail offering some new and colourful developments as part of their celebration of the visual arts.

This annual festival has proved a popular addition to the local events calendar, and will include more than forty artists from all over the Island who will be exhibiting and demonstrating their work in over eighteen venues.

Charles Moore, a columnist for The Telegraph and mouthpiece for the British establishment, has an opinion piece in The Telegraph in which he insults the Celtic nation of Cornwall and shares his animosity to the announcement by the UK government that Cornish will join the Irish, Scottish and Welsh as a Celtic national minority.  The rant is best captured by the following quote: “There is something unhealthy and divisive about this obsession with legally defining minorities.

Manx group Shenn Scoill scored a win for the Isle of Man in last night’s Pan Celtic International Song Contest (the Island’s first victory in the competition’s history) with their evocative composition Tayrn Mee Thie (Drawing Me Home), winning €3,000.

Held as part of the 43rd Pan Celtic Festival, the annual event crossed the Irish border for the first time in its history this year, as the annual celebration moved to the city of Derry in Northern Ireland.

The media information from the Celtic League says it all as Cornwall erupted into celebrations this night:

"The Cornish people are to be recognised as a national minority group by the UK Government after 15 years of campaigning.

This is an excerpt from an article in the Independent under the headline, "Cornish People Formally Declared A National Minority Along With Scots, Welsh and Irish":

The Government will announce on Thursday that the Cornish are joining the Scots, Welsh and Irish as official members of the UK’s Celtic minorities. The decision is a victory for campaigners who have long insisted that, beyond its image as the motherland of the pasty and clotted cream, Cornwall has a distinct language and culture worthy of formal recognition.

22 April, 2014

Dear Members of Parliament for Cornwall

The Cornwall Branch of the Celtic League has a growing number of members who live across Cornwall and indeed beyond - members who live in your constituencies.