Celtic Recipes

Early Cornish kings feasted on oysters, roast pork and fine wine, archaeologists have found.

Excavations at Tintagel Castle have also revealed they imported bowls from Turkey and glass goblets from Spain.

Findings from a dig last year have been released this week, as archaeologists return to the site to find out how people lived more than 1,000 years ago.

The first research excavations at the castle in decades unearthed finds from the late 5th and 6th Centuries.

The passing of the 1536 and 1542 Acts of Union made English the language of law and administration of government. Although the Welsh language was not banned, it lost its status and centuries of steady linguistic decline followed.  Until the mid-19th century, the majority of the Welsh population could speak Welsh – more than 80%. The 2001 census showed that 20.8% of the population was able to speak Welsh (582,400 people), an increase compared to the 1991 census (18.7%).

Scotland's Celtic Psalter dates from the 11th Century and contains hand-written psalms in bold, clear Irish miniscule script giving a text of the Psalms in Latin. The 1,000 years old psalter, which is the oldest Scottish book still in Scotland, has Gaelic and Pictish Celtic illustrations. With its extraordinary illuminations in vivid green, red, purple and gold, it has been described as Scotland's version of the famous Book of Kells in Dublin. The Book of Kells/Leabhar Cheanannais is kept in the library of Dublin's Trinity College and was made by Celtic Monks around 800AD.

The remains of the wooden hut where Saint Columba was thought to have meditated and prayed on Iona have been dated to his lifetime. Saint Columba (Gaelic: Colm Cille) is credited with spreading Christianity in Scotland. He was the great-great-grandson of Niall Noígíallach, Irish high king who reigned in the late 4th and early 5 centuries, and ancestor of the Uí Néill family who were dominant in Ireland from the 6th to the 10th century.