Celtic History

• Celtic Mythology :

  Portrayed by the Greeks and Romans as fearsome and dangerous barbarians, the non-literate ancient Celts bequeathed no texts to redress the biased picture left by the Classical authors. Today, however, archaeology has given them a voice, through the physical traces they left behind, revealing much about Celtic society, economy and religious practices not mentioned in the surviving Classical texts.

  The Celts can now be seen as an intelligent, complex, wealthy and accomplished family of societies, who came to play a pivotal role in the making of Europe. The people we call Celts have deep roots in European history, which can be traced back for at least twenty-five centuries. The earliest recorded Celtic civilization dates from around 700 BC. However, it is also possible that as early as 2000 BC communities with Celtic origins already existed in both Britain and Ireland.

  Despite fierce Viking invasions of all these areas, mainly during the ninth and tenth centuries, the Celtic spirit remained alive, and these countries are now the present-day focus for the revival of Celtic culture. Though there has been steady but quietly unbroken continuity of the Celtic art form in all the Celtic countries, especially Ireland and Wales, it is really only since the turn of the last century that the Celtic art revival has proceeded with vigor. Today it is ever on the increase. There are artists and craftspeople working in almost every medium, utilizing Celtic designs. The intrinsic beauty of these patterns is so strong that it is very easy to see why the art form has become so well loved.

• Celtic Symbolism :

  Celtic art displays a richness of color, intricacy and symbolism to equal that of any of the world's finest styles of art. The seven created beings of the Celtic world - plant, insect, fish, reptile, bird, mammal and man are all featured in the artwork.

  Like their pagan gods and spirits, the Druids themselves are said to have practiced shape-shifting, or changing of form, so it is not unusual to find their gods portrayed as having bird or animal servants, or even bird or animal body parts. This same characteristic was later incorporated into the Christian Gospels, where the evangelists are given both animal and human forms.

• Celtic Spirituality :

  Before Britain and Ireland was Christianized, the Celtic nation lived a pagan tribal life. They were farmers, artists and warriors, worshipping the natural aspects around them: the sun, the moon, the stars and the Earth Mother. The term ’Keltoi’ was given by Greek writers to a race of `barbarians’ who emerged from the Rhinelands of Central Europe as a distinct group of clans or tribes between 1000 and 500 BC.

  Celtic art with its characteristic abstract symbols, floral patterns and imaginative decoration, the distinctive La Tene style was to provide inspiration for the artists who created the illuminated manuscripts and intricate stone carvings in Britain and Ireland over a thousand years later. The earliest remnants of their Celtic culture date from between 800 and 450 BC and are attributed to artists of the Hallstatt period, named after archaeological finds found in a cemetery in Hallstatt, Austria. These outstanding finds include many stylized bird, animal and human representations, crafted with such mastery and fluidity of line as to give the impression of life and movement.

• Celtic Christianity :

  The majority of the population of Britain still believe in God and think well of Jesus Christ, yet only a small minority attend worship in the historic churches with any regularity. We live in times in which there is a growing dissatisfaction with the scientific and technological world-view and in which there is an increasing acceptance of the paranormal and the reality of unseen worlds, yet this is in no way Precipitating an increase in church attendance. We live in times when meditation groups, alternative therapies and self-awareness courses are mushrooming, yet these and many other spiritual practices are held at arm’s length by most churches, who consider them at best eccentric and at worst pagan.