Celts (modern)

The modern Celts are a related group of ethnicities who share similar Celtic languages, cultures, genetics, and artistic histories, and who live in or descend from one of the regions on the western extremities of Europe populated by the Celts.
A modern Celtic identity emerged in Western Europe following the identification of the native peoples of the Atlantic fringe as Celts by Edward Lhuyd in the 18th century. Lhuyd and others equated the Celts described by Greco-Roman writers with the pre-Roman peoples of France, Great Britain, and Ireland. They categorised the ancient Irish and British languages as Celtic languages. The descendants of these ancient languages are the Brittonic and Goidelic languages, and the people who speak them are considered modern Celts.
The concept of modern Celtic identity evolved during the course of the 19th century into the Celtic Revival. By the late 19th century, it often took the form of ethnic nationalism, particularly within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, where the Irish War of Independence resulted in the secession of the Irish Free State, in 1922. There were also significant Welsh, Scottish, and Breton nationalist movements, giving rise to the concept of Celtic nations. After World War II, the focus of the Celtic movement shifted to linguistic revival and protectionism, e.g. with the foundation of the Celtic League in 1961, dedicated to preserving the surviving Celtic languages.
The Celtic revival also led to the emergence of musical and artistic styles identified as Celtic. Music typically drew on folk traditions within the Celtic nations. Art drew on the decorative styles of Celtic art produced by the ancient Celts and early medieval Christianity, along with folk styles. Cultural events to promote "inter-Celtic" cultural exchange also emerged.
In the late 20th century, some authors criticised the idea of modern Celtic identity, usually by downplaying the value of the linguistic component in defining culture and cultural connection, sometimes also arguing that there never was a common Celtic culture, even in ancient times. Malcolm Chapman's 1992 book The Celts: The Construction of a Myth led to what archaeologist Barry Cunliffe has called a "politically correct disdain for the use of 'Celt.

Definitions

Traditionally, the essential defining criterion of Celticity is seen as peoples and countries that do, or once did, use Celtic languages and it is asserted that an index of connectedness to the Celtic languages has to be borne in mind before branching out into other cultural domains.
An alternative approach to defining the Celts is the contemporary inclusive and associative definition proposed by Vincent and Ruth Megaw and Raimund Karl. It holds that a Celt is someone who uses a Celtic language or produces or uses a distinctive Celtic cultural expression or has been referred to as a Celt in historical materials or has identified themselves or been identified by others as a Celt or has a demonstrated descent from the Celts.
Since the Enlightenment, the term Celtic has been applied to a wide variety of peoples and cultural traits present and past. Today, Celtic is often used to describe people of the Celtic nations and their respective cultures and languages. Except for the Bretons, all groups mentioned have been subject to strong Anglicisation since the Early Modern period, and hence are also described as participating in an Anglo-Celtic macro-culture. By the same token, the Bretons have been subject to strong Frenchification since the Early Modern period, and can similarly be described as participating in a Franco-Celtic macro-culture.
Less common is the assumption of Celticity for European cultures deriving from Continental Celtic roots. These were either Romanised or Germanised much earlier, before the Early Middle Ages. Nevertheless, Celtic origins are many times implied for continental groups such as the Asturians, Galicians, Portuguese, Swiss, Northern Italians, Belgians and Austrians. The names of Belgium and Aquitaine hark back to Gallia Belgica and Gallia Aquitania, respectively, in turn named for the Belgae and the Aquitani. The Latin name of the Swiss Confederacy, Confoederatio Helvetica, harks back to the Helvetii, the name of Galicia to the Gallaeci and the Auvergne of France to the Averni.

Celtic revival and romanticism

'Celt' has been adopted as a label of self-identification by a variety of peoples at different times. 'Celticity' can refer to the inferred links between them.
During the 19th century, French nationalists gave a privileged significance to their descent from the Gauls. The struggles of Vercingetorix were portrayed as a forerunner of the 19th-century struggles in defence of French nationalism, including the wars of both Napoleons. Basic French history textbooks emphasised the ways in which Gauls could be seen as an example of cultural assimilation. In the late Middle Ages, some French writers believed that their language was primarily Celtic, rather than Latin. A similar use of Celticity for 19th-century nationalism was made in Switzerland, when the Swiss were seen to originate in the Celtic tribe of the Helvetii, a link still found in the official Latin name of Switzerland, Confœderatio Helvetica, the source of the nation code CH and the name used on postage stamps.
Before the advance of Indo-European studies, philologists established that there was a relationship between the Goidelic and Brythonic languages, as well as a relationship between these languages and the extinct Celtic languages such as Gaulish, spoken in classical times. The terms Goidelic and Brythonic were first used to describe the two Celtic language families by Edward Lhuyd in his 1707 study and, according to the National Museum Wales, during that century "people who spoke Celtic languages were seen as Celts."
At the same time, there was also a tendency to stress other heritages in the British Isles at certain times. For example, in the Isle of Man, in the Victorian era, the Viking heritage was emphasised, and in Scotland, both Norse and Anglo-Saxon heritage was emphasised.
A romantic image of the Celt as a noble savage was cultivated by the early William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, Lady Charlotte Guest, Lady Llanover, James Macpherson, Chateaubriand, Théodore Hersart de la Villemarqué and the many others influenced by them. This image coloured not only the English perception of their neighbours on the so-called "Celtic fringe", but also Irish nationalism and its analogues in the other Celtic-speaking countries. Among the enduring products of this resurgence of interest in a romantic, pre-industrial, brooding, mystical Celticity are Gorseddau, the revival of the Cornish language, and the revival of the Gaelic games.

Contemporary Celtic identity

The modern Celtic groups' distinctiveness as national, as opposed to regional, minorities has been periodically recognised by major British newspapers. For example, a Guardian editorial in 1990 pointed to these differences, and said that they should be constitutionally recognised:

Smaller minorities also have equally proud visions of themselves as irreducibly Welsh, Irish, Manx or Cornish. These identities are distinctly national in ways which proud people from Yorkshire, much less proud people from Berkshire will never know. Any new constitutional settlement which ignores these factors will be built on uneven ground.

The Republic of Ireland, on surpassing Britain's GDP per capita in the 1990s for the first time, was given the moniker "Celtic tiger". Thanks in part to campaigning on the part of Cornish regionalists, Cornwall was able to obtain Objective One funding from the European Union. Scotland and Wales obtained agencies like the Welsh Development Agency, and in the first two decades of the 21st century Scottish and Welsh Nationalists have supported the institutions of the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. More broadly, distinct identities in opposition to that of the metropolitan capitals have been forged and taken strong root.
These latter evolutions have proceeded hand in hand with the growth of a pan-Celtic or inter-Celtic dimension, seen in many organisations and festivals operating across various Celtic countries. Celtic studies departments at many universities in Europe and beyond, have studied the various ancient and modern Celtic languages and associated history and folklore under one roof.
Some of the most vibrant aspects of modern Celtic culture are music, song and festivals. Under the Music, Festivals and Dance sections below, the richness of these aspects that have captured the world's attention are outlined.
Sports such as hurling, Gaelic football and shinty are seen as being Celtic.
The USA has also taken part in discussions of modern Celticity. For example, Virginia Senator James H. Webb, in his 2004 book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, controversially asserts that the early "pioneering" immigrants to North America were of Scots-Irish origins. He goes on to argue that their distinct Celtic traits, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon settlers, helped construct the modern American identity. Irish Americans also played an important role in the shaping of 19th-century Irish republicanism through the Fenian movement and the development of view that the Great Hunger was a British atrocity.

Criticism of modern Celticism

In 1996, Ruth Megaw and Emeritus Professor Vincent Megaw of Flinders University in the Antiquity article "Ancient Celts and modern ethnicity" examined ethnic identity particularly in relation to Celtic identity in arguing against critics seemingly motivated by an English nationalist agenda opposed to further integration with Europe who saw modern Celtic identity as a threat.
In 1998, Simon James of the University of Leicester in the Antiquity article "Celts, politics and motivation in archaeology" replied to Ruth and Vincent Megaw's article questioning the suitability of the term Celtic in the historic sense. The core of his argument was that the Iron Age peoples of Britain should be considered not as generic Celts, but as a mosaic of different societies, each with their own traditions and histories.
Later in 1998, this line of reasoning came under criticism, being labelled an intellectual extension of modern British cultural colonialism, as well as for simplifying the anthropological correlation between material culture and ethnicity. Ruth and Vincent Megaw in the Antiquity article "The Mechanism of Dreams?': A Partial Response to Our Critics." attacked 'Celt-sceptics' for being motivated by English nationalism or anxieties about the decline of British imperial power.
Simon James, in 1998, wrote a response arguing that the rejection of a Celtic past was not 'nationalist' but partly due to archaeological evidence, and usually by a post-colonial and multi-cultural agenda with recognition that Britain has always been home to multiple identities.
Recently, the Insular Celts have increasingly been seen as part of an Atlantic trading-networked culture speaking Celtic languages of the Atlantic Bronze Age and probably earlier.
In 2003, Professor John Collis of the University of Sheffield wrote a book titled The Celts: Origins, Myths and Invention, itself criticised in 2004 by Ruth and Vincent Megaw in Antiquity.