Questions traditional conceptualisations of Celticity that rely on a homogeneous interpretation of what it means to be a Celt in contemporary society.

“Finely researched and lucidly written . . . details the rise, ebb, and flow of the idea of a common Celtic identity linking Ireland and Wales.” —The New York Review of Books Who are the Celts, and what does it mean to be Celtic? In this book, Caoimhín De Barra focuses on nationalists in Ireland and Wales between 1860 and 1925, a time period when people in these countries came to identify themselves as Celts. De Barra chooses to examine Ireland and Wales because, of the six so-called Celtic nations, these two were the furthest apart in terms of their linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic differences. The Coming of the Celts, AD 1860 is divided into three parts. The first concentrates on the emergence of a sense of Celtic identity and the ways in which political and cultural nationalists in both countries borrowed ideas from one another in promoting this sense of identity. The second part follows the efforts to create a more formal relationship between the Celtic countries through the Pan-Celtic movement; the subsequent successes and failures of this movement in Ireland and Wales are compared and contrasted. Finally, the book discusses the public juxtaposition of Welsh and Irish nationalisms during the Irish Revolution. De Barra’s is the first book to critique what “Celtic” has meant historically, and it sheds light on the modern political and cultural connections between Ireland and Wales, as well as modern Irish and Welsh history. It will also be of interest to professional historians working in the field of “Four Nations” history, which places an emphasis on understanding the relationships and connections between the four nations of Britain and Ireland.

A comprehensive look at Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and continental Celtic traditions, both pagan and Christian, this guide includes the Celtic approach to shamanism, fairies, Wicca, neopaganism, magic, and Druidism. It draws a map for today’s Celtic quest, with the way of the pilgrim, honor of one’s ancestors, and the language and culture. The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Yorkshire Celtic Wisdom helps you understand the many varieties of celtic spirituality and mysticism. In this Complete Idiot’s Guide®, you get: • The spiritual history of the Celts, from ancient shamans to renowned druids to modern paganism. • The magical realm of spirit—otherwise known as the otherworld. • The mysticism of the natural world, from standing to holy wells • Why myths and stories are so important to the Celtic tradition.

Mysticism, Myth and Celtic Identity explores how the mythical and mystical past informs national imaginations. Building on notions of invented tradition and myths of the nation, it looks at the power of narrative and fiction to shape identity, with particular reference to the British and Celtic contexts. The authors consider how aspects of the past are reinterpreted or reimagined in a variety of ways to give coherence to desired national groupings, or groups aspiring to nationhood and its 'defence'. The coverage is unusually broad in its historical sweep, dealing with work from prehistory to the contemporary, with a particular emphasis on the period from the eighteenth century to the present. The subject matter includes notions of ancient deities, Druids, Celticity, the archaeological remains of pagan religions, traditional folk tales, racial and religious myths and ethnic politics, and the different types of returns and hauntings that can recycle these ideas in culture. Innovative and interdisciplinary, the scholarship in Mysticism, Myth and Celtic Identity is mainly literary but also geographical and historical and draws on religious studies, politics and the social sciences. Thus the collection offers a stimulatingly broad number of new viewpoints on a matter of great topical relevance: national identity and the politicization of its myths.

In Modernism and the Celtic Revival, Gregory Castle examines the impact of anthropology on the work of Irish Revivalists such as W. B. Yeats, John M. Synge and James Joyce. Castle argues that anthropology enabled Irish Revivalists to confront and combat British imperialism, even as these Irish writers remained ambivalently dependent on the cultural and political discourses they sought to undermine. Castle shows how Irish Modernists employed textual and rhetorical strategies first developed in anthropology to translate, reassemble and edit oral and folk-cultural material. In doing so, he claims, they confronted and undermined inherited notions of identity which Ireland, often a site of ethnographic curiosity throughout the nineteenth-century, had been subject to. Drawing on a wide range of post-colonial theory, this book should be of interest to scholars in Irish studies, post-colonial studies and Modernism.

These ten essays by scholars from a number of disciplines, are part of a major research project that investigates the notion of the Celts and suggests new directions for future study. The essays discuss Celtic music, representation of Celts in film and TV, folklore, spirituality, festivals, education and tourism.