Irish Culture and the Celtic Identity

The Celts 100-500 BC

Celtic living structures

Ring forts

The Dying Gaul – 230-220 BC. By antmoose - [1], CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=562371

Celtic clothing in Ireland

Women in the west of Ireland, 1930s

‘Brehon Laws’• The harpist is the only musician who is of noble standing. • The poet who overcharges for a poem shall be stripped of half his rank in society.• When somone is ill, no bad news to be brought and no talking across the bed. • Whoever comes to your door you must feed him and care for him with no questions asked.It is illegal to give somebody food

that has been found with a dead mouse or weasel.• A layman may drink six pints of ale with his dinner but a monk my drink only three pints. This is so he will not be intoxicated

when prayer-time arrives.• February first is the day on which husband and wife may decide to walk away from the marriage.• If a man takes a woman off on a horse, into the woods or onto a sea-going ship, and if members of the woman's tribe are

present, they must object within 24 hours or they may not demand payment of the fine.• The husband-to-be shall pay a bride price of land, cattle, horses, gold or silver to the father of the bride. • Husband and wife retain individual rights to all land, flocks and household goods each brings to the marriage.• A husband who through listlessness does not go to his wife in her bed must pay a fine.• If a pregnant woman craves a morsel of food and her husband withholds it though stinginess or neglect he must pay a fine.• When you become old your family must provide you with one oatcake a day plus a container of sour milk. They must bathe you

every 20th night and wash your head every Saturday. Seventeen sticks of firewood is the allotment for keeping you warm.

Irish Mythology

Roman Empire (27 B.C.- 476 A.D.)

Hadrian’s Wall

Roman Road, England

The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Anglo Saxons

Helmet

Anglo-Saxon Language

1066: The Normans conquer Anglo-Saxon England

Norman Castle and village

Norman castle in England

Norman castle in Scotland

Norman castle in Ireland

16th century English clothing

16th century Irish Clothing

Women in the west of Ireland, 1930s

Hibernis ipis hiberniores (More Irish than the Irish themselves) - A View of the present State of Ireland by Edmund Spenser (1596“…Lord Breningham, who being the most auncyent Barron in England, is nowe waxen the most salvage Irish, naming himselfe Irish … and the other the great Mortimer, who forgetting howe great he was once in England, or English at all, is now become the most barbarous of them all, and is now called Macnemarra; and [not] much better then he is the ould Lord Courrie, who having lewdly wasted all the land and signoryes that he had and aliened them unto the Irishe, is himselfe also now growne quite Irishe. … for wher the lords and cheife men wax so barbarous and bastard like, what shal be hoped of the pesantes, and baser people? … ther vile customes, which yee have now next to declare, the which, noe doubte, but are very bad and barbarous, being borowed from the Irishe, as there apparell, ther language, their riding, and many other the lyke … It semeth strang to me that the English should take more delight to speake that language more then ther owne, whereas they should (me thinkes) rather take scorne to acquiante ther tonges therto: for it hath alwayes bene the use of the conqueror to dispose the language of the conquered, and to force him by all meanes to learne his.

Statutes of Kilkenny: for colonists in the Pale (14th century)• It was illegal to marry a native Irish woman (most colonists were men)• It was illegal to sell weapons to the native Irish• It was illegal to speak Irish• It was illegal to follow Irish laws• It was illegal to play Irish sports (hurling)• It was illegal to dress in the Irish way• It was illegal for the native Irish to enter into the Pale

Early depiction of the Irish Sport called ‘Hurling’ (here called ‘Shinty’)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmzivRetelE

Irish musical instruments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mjWhMn-VnU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZtccQ7ggk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Tt9HgPXDo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W22gpBv00gg