Ancient Civilization - History, Europe - Civilization, Celtic History, General & Miscellaneous Medieval History

The Last of the Celts

Name: The Last of the Celts
Author: Marcus Tanner
ISBN: 9780300115352

by Marcus Tanner

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Overview

Travelling throughout the remote Celtic world, award-winning author Marcus Tanner describes the relentless pressure on Celtic communities to assimilate and warns that a distinct Celtic identity may not survive for another generation—a sobering loss that would impoverish us all.
"Tanner has concluded we must resign ourselves to the fact that Celticism is done, over, finis. He proves it in a very good and special book that every prodigal and true Celt should read and try to prove wrong."—Malachy McCourt, Washington Post Book World
"Lively. . . . [A] thoughtful book."—Publishers Weekly
"An exceptional journey into the remarkable cultural history of the Celtic people. . . . [Tanner’s] experience reads like a travelogue and an insightful history with an emphasis on cultural heritage."—Raymond L. Flynn, Boston Sunday Herald
"[An] angry, elegiac and meticulously researched book."—Christian Century

Synopsis

The Washington Post - Malachy McCourt

Despite "Riverdance," Seamus Heaney (Irish), Richard Burton (Welsh), Dylan Thomas (Welsh), Sean Connery (Scots), Robert Burns, "Auld Lang Syne," bagpipes, kilts, whiskey and soda bread, Tanner has concluded we must resign ourselves to the fact that Celticism is done, over, finis. He proves it in a very good and special book that every prodigal and true Celt should read and try to prove wrong.

About the Author, Marcus Tanner

Marcus Tanner is a freelance writer and journalist.

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Editorials

Malachy McCourt

Publishers Weekly

"[T]here is nothing that the British or the French love more than a good old Celtic revival," writes Tanner. But the recent renaissance of interest in all things Celtic is "vacuous," he continues, a mere mask for the rapid disappearance of genuine Celtic culture in the British Isles and Brittany. In this lively book, which is part travelogue and part social history, independent historian Tanner (Ireland's Holy Wars) records the results of his world travels in search of the remaining vestiges of Celtic culture. As he moves from Scotland and Belfast to Wales, Cornwall and Cape Breton, he discovers that English has replaced Celtic languages and that modernization has erased many of the remaining Celtic rituals and practices. He provides not only a portrait of modern society in flux in these regions but also a picture of each society's rich history. Tanner finds that Celtic music has become the vehicle for preserving the distinctive features of the Celtic past, although some musical spectacles that purport to preserve the culture, such as Riverdance, are more faux Celtic than the real thing. Tanner particularly laments the disappearance of such languages as Welsh, for without a living language, proverbs and other sayings that preserve a people's folkways are lost forever. This thoughtful book provides a very different, less optimistic perspective on today's Celtic revival. Agent, Natasha Fairweather at A.P. Watt. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Drawn to pursue his roots, Tanner (Ireland's Holy War) learned Welsh to read gravestones while hunting his ancestors, an exercise that blossomed into a cause. Dismissing popular music and Riverdance as poor substitutes for true Celtic culture, as reflected in the language, he tracked each dialect's history by traveling throughout Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Normandy, and more isolated pockets where versions of the original Celtic tongue linger and occasionally thrive. Alas for Tanner, he found few people using Celtic as their primary language-over the centuries, church and state have combined to suppress what was seen as a barbarous dialect. Even in Ireland, where Gaelic is taught, it isn't well retained. Most ironic is the situation in Protestant Ulster, whose Celtic roots could bind it to the rest of the island had so much history not ruined things. Though he concedes that culture can survive in some form without its native tongue, he wonders how much culture is lost as a language dies out. At once personal and well researched, this book is worthy of consideration for academic and public collections.-Robert Moore, Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, N. Billerica, MA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.