Celt-ish

A fiercely held identity by many inhabitants of the British Isles, and many who descend from ancient Bretons, Scots and the Irish, being Celtic has been something to be proud of and aggressively traded upon for centuries. Now, expert genealogist Bruce Durie has uncovered and analysed archaeological, DNA and linguistic evidence to come to the conclusion that this was simply an invention of the Victorian 'Celtic Nations' movement - the identity for these peoples is just plain wrong. Delving into the earliest history of the Irish, British and Scots, Durie reveals that in fact the Gaels were extant 1,500 years earlier than the European Celts. He argues the validity of the Celtic industry - music, jewellery, heritage - and further pushes back at the idea that something that isn't wrapped in tartan, speaking Gaelic with a MacMoniker is not genuinely Scottish. Instead he reasons out the true identity of these discrete peoples and seeks to debunk the commercially driven myth of the Celt. With illuminating, brand-new research, this is a book that no good Celt-ish person should be without.