In the name of Ossian: Celtic Galicia and the ‘brothers from the north’

ABSTRACT

The modern Celtic myth is a complex framework because of its variety of constituent elements. In essence, it consists of an empathetic celebration of otherness, based on a timeless narrative and restorative nostalgia, but including nationalist and capitalist-market interests. Since the first edition of the Ossianic poems by James Macpherson in 1760, Celticness has firmly settled within a collective imagination in search of alternative aesthetic, political, and even spiritual values. It has been exploited in different geocultural spaces and articulated in propaganda strategies, to found ethnic consciousness and fill the gaps of history. In addition to other Celtic areas of Europe, Galicia (NW Spain) has a long Celtophile tradition, with relevant intellectual support, ritual symbologies, and media productions. This article focuses on Galician Celtic-based history, icons, events, phenomena like the Real Banda of bagpipes, the Interceltic Festival of Ortigueira, and the renewed archaeological attempt to locate Galician ancestry within Iron Age Celts. Celticness has been the main identity locus in the construction of Galicia as a nation, shaping a specific social awareness and even invoking racial arguments. Comparison is established with Scotland, Brittany and Ireland (the ‘brothers from the north’) in their respective perception and treatment of modern Celticness.

KEYWORDS:

• Galicia
• Celticness
• nationalism
• cultural strategies
• Ortigueira
• Real Banda de Gaitas

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to the contributors of personal communications (list below), for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48YxyR-PSi8. Accessed 8 September 2017.

2 In this paper all the translations into English are by the author, and all the emphasis are original.

3 ‘Resurgence’; a literary and intellectual movement that discovered Galicia to itself through poetry, extolling the landscape, race, and traditions.

4 FIL: Festival Interceltique of Lorient; it is the largest Celtic festival in the world, since 1971.

5 See the special issue of Galician journal Grial: ‘A cultura galaica, os celtas e o Atlántico’ [Galician culture, the Celts and the Atlantic], edited by Castro & Reboreda, 2017; chiefly based on works by B. Cunliffe, J. Koch, J. Farley, H. Fraser, S. James, and others.

Additional information

Funding

The research from which this paper is drawn has received no funds or grants.