Emmett McIntyre's blog

The Cornish Language Partnership (MAGA) have announced “Speak Cornish Week – 2014”.  The website “this is the west county” is reporting under the headline “Speak Cornish Week Celebrates Unique Heritage Following Minority Status” that the Cornish Language Partnership Chair, Councillor Julian German, will launch the event on July 21.

Music, dance and the Celtic tongue of Scotland are all on display at one of the world's premiere celebrations of Celtic culture, the Hebridean Celtic Festival.

The rebirth of Celtic Identity in North America and accompanying surge in attendance at Celtic festivals is not letting up. The Annapolis Irish festival is being held this weekend, (July 11-12) in the historic American city of Annapolis, Maryland.  A stunning 20, 000 revellers are expected to attend.  Estimates vary on the number of American’s claiming descent from the modern Celtic Nations.  An analysis of the American 2010 Census data proffered in an August 2013 article in “Business Insider” estimates descendants of Celtic immigrants to be in the vicinity of an astounding 50 million.

A study which will be of interest to Celtic language activists has been published by Soillse, the Gaelic sociolinguistic research network based in Scotland’s University of the Highlands, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow. The study shows that less than 30% of immigrants into the Scots Gaelic language heartlands make an attempt at acquiring Celtic language proficiency.

Transceltic have been notified by anonymous sources on the Isle of Man who report a disturbance north of Kirk Michael on the island’s North West coast. The unrest seems to be concentrated in an area of wetlands called Ballaugh Curraghs. 

Unconfirmed reports are that a renegade band of Irish trooping Faeries, blown off course when caught in a gale off of Donegal‘s Malin Head (Cionn Mhalanna) in Ireland's far north, have made an  unwelcome landing on  the Manx coast. 

Welsh language activists continue to recognize Property Development as a lethal threat to the future health of the Welsh tongue.  The “Tivy-Side Advertiser”, a weekly Welsh language newspaper, is reporting under the headline “Hunger Strike For Welsh Language” that language activist Iolo Selyf, a member of the Welsh Language Society (Cymdeithas Yr Iaith) has joined a 24 hour hunger strike to protest the fact that the recently unveiled Welsh Government draft planning law “does not contain a single reference to the Welsh language”.

The Faeries must have been at the pints of the President of America's prestigious Council of Foreign Relations during his many trips to Belfast in his capacity as the Chair of the “Northern Ireland Inter-Party Talks Dealing with Parades, Flags and the Past”. Mr Haass also served as “United States Special Envoy to Northern Ireland.” This icon of the American power structure is reported in multiple news accounts declaring in favour of the Irish tongue being made an official language of Northern Ireland.

As reported by Transceltic in April of this year, the Welsh government’s response to issues raised in two separate independent reports on the future of the Welsh tongue were attacked by the Welsh Language Society (Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg) and the Party Of Wales (Plaid Cymru). At the time Robin Farrar, Chair of the Welsh Language Society, characterised the government’s response to the findings of two separate commissions as a “complete farce”, stating: “They (the Welsh Government) continue to delay and refuse to make important changes.  They have chosen to ignore or reject any recommenda

An awards ceremony has been held in Cardiff to recognise and honour health care workers who provide quality health care in the Welsh tongue.  This ceremony comes in the context of the recent report from Welsh Language Commissioner Meri Huws which highlighted concerns raised by Welsh speaking patients about healthcare services provided in their own language.  

Scholars from the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Scotland’s Gaelic College, will attend the “Rannasachadh na Gaidhlig”, an academic conference sponsored by the University of Edinburgh.  The biennial academic conference, first held in 2000, promotes research on “...all topics related to Gaelic as well as to promoted research through the medium of Gaelic”.