Celtic Europe

Was the Isle of Skye a part of the Gaelic Kingdom of Dál Riata? The short answer for this is yes and no. Historical documents from later periods such as 13th century De Situ Albanie, seem to assume that Skye was part of Dál Riata. But more reliable sources such as the Annals of Ulster seem to contradict them, as they record the Cenél Gabráin sept of Dál Riata invading Skye and attempting to conquer it from the natives. This could only be the case if Skye had been an independent polity, one that likely controlled other nearby territories such as Wester Ross. The same source also records multiple individuals from Skye with Pictish names such as Gartnait, Talorg, and Cano, while the archaeological record attests to the Pictish culture predominant on the island. The Dál Riata are first recorded attacking Skye in the year 649 AD. After nineteen years of fighting, the ruling dynasty of Skye was dislodged and forced to flee to Ireland. The middle Irish tale Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin records the adventures of Skye’s Pictish king, Cano, son of Gartnait during his exile in Ireland. He was only there for two years, and returned with a fleet —of the Irish Corcu Loígde of Munster— to reclaim his kingdom. From them onward, constant fighting between Dál Riata and the people of Skye was recorded, which didn’t seem to abate until the early 700s. By that point, Skye seems to have become integrated into Dál Riata, although the original ruling dynasty —descendants of that same Cano, son of Gartnait— retained their position as rulers. This likely indicates a settlement through marriage alliances rather than a successful conquest. But Skye didn’t remain a part of Dál Riata for long. The growth of the Gaelic kingdom seems to have attracted the ire of the Pictish king of neighboring Foirtriu, Óengus I, who conquered first Skye, then Dál Riata in a series of campaigns between the years 730 and 740 AD. The last known ruler of Skye, Cano’s great grandson Talorgan, son of Congus, was defeated in battle by Óengus’ son Bruide in 731, then captured by his own unnamed brother and handed over to Óengus in the year 734; he was executed by drowning. With that, Skye was brought back into the Pictish orbit as a satellite of Foirtriu, where it would remain until the end of the century, at which point it was conquered by Norse Vikings. https://t.me/CelticEurope

Gyptis offers the bowl of wine to Protis; art by Sandrine Duval. 🇬🇷⚜️🇫🇷 Around the year 600 B.C; a marriage between a Gallic chieftain’s daughter and a Greek merchant led to the foundation of the city of Massalia —now Marseille— in southern France. Protis, son of Euxenus came to Gaul from the Greek city of Phocaea (modern Foça in Turkey) and established contact with a local Celtic tribe, the Segobriges. The local chief, Nannus, is said to have held a feast in which his daughter, Gyptis, was allowed to choose a mate by presenting the man with a bowl of wine. She chose the Greek adventurer, and an alliance was sealed between the two people whereby the Greeks were allowed to build a settlement within the territory of the Celts, that settlement of course, being Massalia. The relationship brought prosperity to both peoples, but within about twenty years it broke down. The new chief of the Segobriges, Nannus’ son Comanus, began to fear the growing power and wealth of the Greek settlers, whose numbers increased day by day. He is said to have initiated a war, during which an attempt was made to infiltrate the city in carts full of victuals that were being brought in for a religious festival. The plot was betrayed by one of Comanus’ own nobles, enabling the Greeks to foil it and launch a counterattack in which Comanus was defeated and killed. From then on, the relationship was inverted, with Massalia becoming a fully independent and powerful state and the Segobriges reduced to being its vassals. Soon, the Greek colony had built a small empire in southern Gaul and the western Mediterranean. The foundation of satellite colonies throughout southern France, such as Nice (Greek: Níkaia; “victory”), attest to territorial expansion and successful battles against the natives. But Massalia’s power did not last long. The city was defeated by an alliance of Carthage and the Etruscan League at the naval Battle of Alalia (~535 B.C.), thus losing its dominance in the Mediterranean. Massalia then went into decline, and soon found itself beleaguered by the resurgent natives of Gaul. By the year 387 B.C; the Segobriges were on the rebound and led by a king named Catumandus, besieged the Greek city. Fortunately for the Massaliotes, the conflict ended with a peace treaty. Still, Massalia never recovered its initial power, and constantly found itself confronted by aggressive natives. At some point, the Segobriges were displaced in the area by the Celto-Ligurian Salluvii, who proved to be much dreaded bullies to the Greek settlers. Unable to defeat them or free themselves from their yoke, the Massaliotes were eventually forced to beg Rome for intervention, which came in the late 120s B.C; and resulted in the conquest of southern Gaul. Ironically, this would eventually lead Massalia’s final undoing, as the consequent period of tranquility and security didn’t even last a century. In 49 B.C; the Massaliotes made the mistake of taking the side of Gnaeus Pompey in the civil war against Julius Caesar. The result was the Siege of Massalia by Caesar, which ended in a humiliating surrender and the confiscation of all Massalia’s surrounding territories.

Doon ring-fort in county Donegal, Ireland. 🇮🇪 The construction of Doon fort is dated to the 5th century AD. It was likely a residence for local chiefs of the Cenél mBógaine sept of Cenél Conaill for many centuries. https://t.me/CelticEurope

Artistic reconstruction of the Pictish fortified homestead (or “dun”) of Torr-Dhuin in the Highlands of Scotland; art by Chris Mitchell. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Torr-Dhuin is located near Auchteraw in the Great Glen, between Loch Ness and Loch Oich. It has not been extensively and therefore is undated; typology alone suggests late iron age to early medieval period.

Left: Iron horse-hoof scrapers discovered in a Celtiberian burial at Bronchales, in Teruel province, Spain; 5th century B.C. Right: Iron horse-shoe discovered in the Celtiberian necropolis of Aguilar de Anguita, in Guadalajara province, Spain; 3rd century B.C. 🇪🇸 Celtiberian horse-shoes are among the earliest known in archaeology, rivaled only by Etruscan finds from northern Italy dating to ~400 B.C. Recent finds of hoof-scrapers from Bronchales are the earliest evidence of the practice of shoeing horses in existence. It therefore appears quite likely that the horseshoe is a Celtiberian invention. The six burials unearthed at Bronchales were also revelatory, as they contained much material from Andalusia, which to archaeologist Francisco Burrillo suggests that Celtiberian herdsmen used to regularly take their herds of cattle south to trade with the Iberian civilization (think how every summer Scottish Highlanders used to travel with their cattle to Crieff in the Strathearn Lowlands for trade); indeed, the men buried at Bronchales may just be the earliest known “vaqueros” (i.e. ‘cowboys’). https://t.me/CelticEurope

Afon (river) Eden in Coed-y-Brenin forest park; Gwynedd, Wales. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 https://t.me/CelticEurope

Celtic iron sword discovred near Rzeszów, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of Poland; early La Tène (4th century B.C.) period. 🇵🇱 https://t.me/CelticEurope

🇺🇸🇮🇪⚡️ — President Trump on Ireland:

I would love to see Ireland unified. I have friends on both sides. Great people. It's going to happen eventually. I think it would be a fantastic thing. How can it be bad?

September 11 also marks some other major world events: That day in the year 1565, the Ottoman army of sultan Suleiman the Magnificent finished withdrawing from Malta after having been utterly mauled and humiliated by the Knights Hospitaller in the brutal four-month long Great Siege of Malta. 🇲🇹🇹🇷 The knights —mostly Spaniards, Italians, and Frenchmen— defeated a force that was 7 times more numerous than themselves, with the Turks suffering a staggering 30,000 dead. The same date exactly 118 years later, another massive Ottoman army that was besieging Vienna had their siege operations disrupted by a huge relief army —mostly Poles, Germans and Lithuanians— led by king Jan III Sobieski of Poland. The following day, the Turks were utterly smashed via the largest cavalry charge in history, putting a definitive end to Ottoman attempts to conquer Europe. And then of course we all remember what happened in 2001. One can’t help but wonder whether that specific date was chosen (by the child-trafficker class) for that specific event for very specific reasons…

On September 11, 1297 was fought the Battle of Stirling Bridge. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚔️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Scots led by William Wallace and Andrew Moray inflicted a spectacular defeat on the kingdom of England. Art by Angus McBride (RIP: 1931-2007). England had just invaded Scotland the year previous on orders of king Edward I “Longshanks”, and the Scottish king John de Balliol was taken prisoner, but a rebellion was quickly raised by Wallace and Moray. John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Hugh de Cressigham, took a large army to Stirling to deal with the insurgents. Wallace rebuffed an offer of peace conveyed by Franciscan friars (first image), then battle was commenced. The English began crossing the bridge over the river Forth to attack. The Scots waited for half of them to cross, then attacked them before they could successfully deploy. Over 5,000 English were killed, including Cressingham, whose skin was later used to make a baldric for Wallace’s sword.

🇧🇪🇳🇱🇩🇪⚜️🇫🇷🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Occupying a huge territory that spanned parts of several modern nations was a Gallic tribal alliance known as the ‘Belgae’; hence the name of the modern nation of Belgium. It is uncertain how the Belgae came into existence, or what in particular set them apart from the rest of the Gauls. In all likelihood it was merely political, i.e. the formation of an alliance or coalition for the pursuit of power. Aside from their territory on the European continent, tribes such as the Atrebates possessed large swaths of territory in southern England, and archaeological evidence suggests that Belgic peoples had connections with eastern Scotland as well. Julius Caesar informed that the Belgae were the most bellicose and militaristic of all the Gauls (only the Swiss Helvetii, he says, matched them in this aspect of their character), and that the tribes dwelling farther east were more primitive, wild, and beyond the reach of commerce. He also claimed that many of them were of Germanic origin. This claim has been called into question, given that the archaeological and linguistic evidence would appear to show otherwise: The culture of these “Germanic” Belgae of the time fit into the same La Tène mould as that of the rest of Gaul, while place-names such as Bagacum (Bavay) and Noviomagus (Nijmegen), and tribal names such as those of the Eburones, Nervii, Condrusi, Caerosi, Paemani, and Geidumni are unquestionably Celtic. Names of individuals reflect the same reality, with leaders of the supposedly Germanic Nervii and Eburones bearing Gaulish names such as Boduognatus, Cativolcus, and Ambiorix. Perhaps the sole exception were the Atuatuci, whom Caesar informs us, had detached from the migrating Germanic horde of the Cimbri and Teutones in the late 2nd century B.C. Claims of a Germanic origin may have been fabricated —a common ancient practice— by the locals for propaganda purposes (i.e. like the claim in Historia Brittonum that the Britons descended from “Brutus of Troy”). Aside from the Atuatuci, the Belgae were all unquestionably a Celtic people. This doesn’t mean, however, that they didn’t have some Germanic blood running through their veins, nor does it negate that some may have been migrants from beyond the Rhine. Indeed, archaeologists like Barry Cunliffe have described archaeological evidence that the Marne region received a migratory movement of Danubian Gauls from the area of present day Hungary in the mid 3rd century B.C. (The Ancient Celts, p. 87). It’s also quite reasonable to assume that being separated only by the river Rhine, intermarriage between Belgic Gauls and their Germanic neighbours would have been a commonplace occurrence.

A modern genetic study of the Netherlands and northern Belgium reveals Gallic (blue) and Germanic (orange) admixture varying across regions and time. Source here. 🇳🇱🇧🇪

Accoutrements discovered in the stone-lined cist burial of a warrior in the Marshill area of Alloa, in Clackmannanshire, Scotland; 1st century AD. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 The warrior was buried with a sword and spear, replicas of which have been made by Ratho Byres Forge and Alan Braby (image 3). Also among the finds were bronze and iron rings that formed part of a belt, bronze toe rings, a glass bead and a bronze cloak pin. Traces of a leather scabbard and a white tunic or cloak were also present. https://t.me/CelticEurope

Portrait of the Norman baron Hugh de Lacy by Gerald of Wales, from his work Expugnatio Hibernica. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇮🇪 After the first English invasion of Ireland, Hugh de Lacy was appointed Lord of Meath by king Henry II of England in the year 1172, and acted as the de facto English viceroy on the island. Lacy gained infamy after luring the Irish king of Bréifne, Tighernán Ó’Ruairc to a parley at the Hill of Ward in Meath, where the Normans instigated a scuffle and sprung a treacherous ambush. Ó’Ruairc was killed, while De Lacy panicked and fled from the violence. De Lacy briefly fell out of royal favor after he married Róis Ní Chonchobhair, daughter of former Irish High King Ruaidrí Ó’Conchobhair without king Henry’s permission. The marriage was eventually approved and Lacy restored to his position. During his tenure, he was also noted for building large numbers of motte-and-bailey castles in Meath to defend against and better control the native population. This apparently wasn’t enough, however: the year 1186 Lacy was killed by an Irish assassin nicknamed “Gilla-gan-mathair” (“Motherless lad”) Ó’Maidhaigh, who approached him as he inspected a newly completed castle at Durrow, then struck off his head with an axe he’d been concealing under his cloak. The assassin escaped on foot in spite of being pursued by multiple soldiers. The Annals of the Four Masters state that the killing was carried out in revenge of St. Columba, i.e. for having profaned churches and monasteries founded by and associated with the saint.

Twisted gold torcs found near Leekfrith, in Staffordshire, England; 400-250 B.C. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 https://t.me/CelticEurope

Everyone here knows I’m not a fan of AI… still… I gotta admit this was pretty awesome; made me laugh.

Montefortino type bronze helmet discovered near Landau an der Isar, in Bavaria, Germany; 3rd century B.C. 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 Based on typology, the helmet is likely of Italian origin, and was perhaps acquired through trade, or perhaps it had belonged to an adventurer from Cisalpine Gaul.

“Scottish” human rights lawyer Anas Sarwar recycles Longshanks’ infamous line from Braveheart: “The problem with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots”. 🦄🤡 https://t.me/CelticEurope

In Dover, England. Thousands of patriots organize to stop foreign invaders. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿👏🏻 https://t.me/CelticEurope

Coastal bluebell prairie in Fife, Scotland; Angus visible in the distance. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿