Re: 'Return Stonehenge' says archdruid

From: allan connochie (allan_at_EASYNET.CO.UK)
Date: 06/26/04 

Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 01:20:56 +0100

"Féachadóir" <Féach@d.óir> wrote in message
news:tpdpd05qkiordjsrfd3rqjtpk31i5ehtec@4ax.com...
> Scríobh "allan connochie" <allan@EASYNET.CO.UK>:
> >
> >"Féachadóir" <Féach@d.óir> wrote in message
> >news:7kund0p5u22rmap42rha1g84pubog4oqjt@4ax.com...
> >> Scríobh "allan connochie" <allan@EASYNET.CO.UK>:
> >> >
> >> >"Féachadóir" <Féach@d.óir> wrote in message
> >> >news:sj8ld0l8h5p5ru0tu6dfk3r5269glgj5gr@4ax.com...
> >> >> Scríobh "allan connochie" <allan@EASYNET.CO.UK>:
> >> >>
> >> >> [snip]
> >> >> >The Book
> >> >> In the ninth century when the Book of Kells was moved, Mac Alpín was
> >> >> uniting the Scots and Pictish kingdom. It might not be the modern
> >> >> Scottish nation, but something certainly existed.
> >> >
> >> >Well precisely it wasn't Scotland. The kingdom which emerged, Alba,
> >> >constituted only a smallish part of what is now Scotland. Even the
> >Western
> >> >Isles themselves were not part of this kingdom. They didn't become
truly
> >> >part of Scotland until four centuries afterwards.
> >>
> >> Isn't this a bit like the US didn't exist in the late 1700s, because
> >> there were only 13 states?
> >
> >I see where you're coming from right enough but I'm still not sure.
There
> >was a nucleus of some kind of merging state
> >yes but it didn't even encompass Iona. Hence the book was never in this
> >emerging state.
>
> I never said the book was the property of Scotland. In fact I said
> several times it belonged to the Columban monks, and was theirs to
> move around s they wished. *Separately*, I questioned the statement
> that Scotland didn't exist at the time. It did. It was an emerging
> state at the time.

Well was it? An emerging nation state at that! Again I see where you're
coming from but it can only be voewed like that retrospectively I think and
like I said it covered only a part of the land mass. When the book was
produced Dalriada and the Pictish kingdoms were seperate distinct entities
even if some Pictish kings had ruled Dalriada too. MacAlpin conquered part
of the Pictish peoples in the 840s but even then he probably had limited
power, if any, over the more northerly Picts. We have no way of knowing if
they really regarded it as a new nation emerging and really it was not the
Scottish nation as such. Of course it was to be almost another 200 years
before the Southern Uplands came into the kingdom; 400 years before the
Western Isles were incorporated, and the way over half a millenium before
the Northern Isles. I know folk often try to but it's a step too far to
describe MacAlpin's Alba as the Scottish nation. Even at the time of the
start of the second millenium rather than being a single nation there were
really just disparate peoples within a kingdom. The Wars of Independence
are often looked on as the time when the nation was truly forged. Half a
millenium after MacAlpin.

>
> >The Western Isles had been part of Gaeldom and it was
> >simply moved to another part of Gaeldom when the Norse were overrunning
the
> >Western Isles.
>
> If were going to claim the book for Gaeldom, then it should rest in
> Gleann Cholm Cille, which AFAIK is the home of the only one of
> Colmcille's monasteries still in a Gaeltacht.

I'm not claiming it for Gaeldom. Just stating that that was the culture
that produced it, and that culture was not divided by the national borders
of Scotland and Ireland.

> >It's very much like folk describe St Cuthbert as a great English saint.
> >Looking at it in modern eyes he of course wasn't English. He was born,
> >raised and initially worked in what has been a fully integrated part of
> >Scotland for a millenium. But at that time he was a Northumbrian.
> >Generally regarded as part of the heptachery. He was as English as Bede
if
> >that means anything at all. It's just that borders which emerged later
> >confuse the matter.
>
> Was he Gaelic or Saxon? If the latter, then I'd classify him as
> English, albeit with qualifications about time and borders. Its as
> handy a label as any.

 The vast majority of the inhabitants of Scotland at that time would have
been neither Gaelic or Anglian. It's almost certain that the Britons and
Picts were far more numerous. Gaels were in Dalriada and the Northumbrian
Angles were in this small part of south-eastern Scotland. Cuthbert is
generally thought of as Anglian though of course he may have had British
blood too. Gaels were always somewhat scarce in this part of the world and
apart from a few monks at Lindisfarne it would be another 300 years or so
before Gaelic made much of an impression in the area, and it was a pretty
insignificant impression at that once it arrived. Probably nothing more
than a few land owners.

cheers

Allan

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