peaccenicked
25th March 2002, 20:10
Orwell notes on nationalism 1945
"2. CELTIC NATIONALISM. Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism have points of difference but are alike in their anti-English orientation. Members of all three movements have opposed the war while continuing to describe themselves as pro-Russian, and the lunatic fringe has even contrived to be simultaneously pro-Russian and pro-Nazi. But Celtic nationalism is not the same thing as anglophobia. Its motive force is a belief in the past and future greatness of the Celtic peoples, and it has a strong tinge of racialism. The Celt is supposed to be spiritually superior to the Saxon -- simpler, more creative, less vulgar, less snobbish, etc. -- but the usual power hunger is there under the surface. One symptom of it is the delusion that Eire, Scotland or even Wales could preserve its independence unaided and owes nothing to British protection. Among writers, good examples of this school of thought are Hugh MacDiarmid and Sean O'Casey. No modern Irish writer, even of the stature of Yeats or Joyce, is completely free from traces of nationalism"
Durp! unmentionable expletives.
Talk about doubletalk!
Here is Cricthon Smith on Sorley maClean
mainstream celtic nationalists.
"To MacLean at this time the Spanish government, and also the British Empire, were monstrosities. He had a hatred of despotism. We find this also in his long unfinished poem, The Cuillins, where there are references to many of the great rebels and radicals of the past in different countries. He records that when he was young his great heroes were Shelley and Blake, and that in those days he was more interested in politics than in poetry. As far as Scotland was concerned, the great radical figure he admired most was a man from his own clan, the legendary John Maclean, of whom he wrote:"
Not they who died
in the hauteur of Inverkeithing
in spite of valour and pride
the high head of our story;
but he who was in Glasgow
the battle post of the poor
great John MacLean
the top and hem of our story.
"Thus it is that MacLean was a great love poet (who had wished to go to Spain but was unable to do so for family reasons), a great political poet and also a great war poet. He served in the African Desert during the Second World War and was wounded three times, the last time severely. He saw fascism not only in Spain, not only in Nazism, but probably also in the Highlands at the time of the Clearances. Possibly his best- known and perhaps his greatest single poem is Hallaig, which is about a cleared village and which has a strange, eerie picture of the dead haunting a place and walking there. MacLean was also a scholar of the Highlands and had a tremendous interest in Highland genealogy"
(Edited by peaccenicked at 8:11 pm on Mar. 25, 2002)
(Edited by peaccenicked at 8:19 pm on Mar. 25, 2002)
"2. CELTIC NATIONALISM. Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism have points of difference but are alike in their anti-English orientation. Members of all three movements have opposed the war while continuing to describe themselves as pro-Russian, and the lunatic fringe has even contrived to be simultaneously pro-Russian and pro-Nazi. But Celtic nationalism is not the same thing as anglophobia. Its motive force is a belief in the past and future greatness of the Celtic peoples, and it has a strong tinge of racialism. The Celt is supposed to be spiritually superior to the Saxon -- simpler, more creative, less vulgar, less snobbish, etc. -- but the usual power hunger is there under the surface. One symptom of it is the delusion that Eire, Scotland or even Wales could preserve its independence unaided and owes nothing to British protection. Among writers, good examples of this school of thought are Hugh MacDiarmid and Sean O'Casey. No modern Irish writer, even of the stature of Yeats or Joyce, is completely free from traces of nationalism"
Durp! unmentionable expletives.
Talk about doubletalk!
Here is Cricthon Smith on Sorley maClean
mainstream celtic nationalists.
"To MacLean at this time the Spanish government, and also the British Empire, were monstrosities. He had a hatred of despotism. We find this also in his long unfinished poem, The Cuillins, where there are references to many of the great rebels and radicals of the past in different countries. He records that when he was young his great heroes were Shelley and Blake, and that in those days he was more interested in politics than in poetry. As far as Scotland was concerned, the great radical figure he admired most was a man from his own clan, the legendary John Maclean, of whom he wrote:"
Not they who died
in the hauteur of Inverkeithing
in spite of valour and pride
the high head of our story;
but he who was in Glasgow
the battle post of the poor
great John MacLean
the top and hem of our story.
"Thus it is that MacLean was a great love poet (who had wished to go to Spain but was unable to do so for family reasons), a great political poet and also a great war poet. He served in the African Desert during the Second World War and was wounded three times, the last time severely. He saw fascism not only in Spain, not only in Nazism, but probably also in the Highlands at the time of the Clearances. Possibly his best- known and perhaps his greatest single poem is Hallaig, which is about a cleared village and which has a strange, eerie picture of the dead haunting a place and walking there. MacLean was also a scholar of the Highlands and had a tremendous interest in Highland genealogy"
(Edited by peaccenicked at 8:11 pm on Mar. 25, 2002)
(Edited by peaccenicked at 8:19 pm on Mar. 25, 2002)