"Celtic, Gaelic, or Anglo-Irish: Which is the Real
Ireland?"
Bloomfield resident Brian Ó Broin, a medieval literature
professor at William Paterson University and a prizewinning Gaelic novelist, traces
the history of Ireland from pre-Celtic times through the series of invasions
that brought Christianity, cities, castles, Gaelic culture and English culture
to this mysterious island nation of North West Europe right up to the modern
day. Using slides and recordings (and maybe even a song or two!) Professor Ó
Broin demonstrates the color, the uniqueness, and the resilience of this modern
European country which sent so many emigrants to America, as Ireland faces the
challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
Ireland has always been a target of invasion. the Celts
invaded Ireland three hundred years before Christ, completely displacing the
previous stone-age culture whose mysterious structures, like that of Newgrange,
still dot the landscape. Six hundred years of Pagan Celtic culture followed the
invasion, and the tribal warrior culture of that period is still visible in
surviving Gaelic texts such as the Fenian stories and the Táin Bó Cuailgne. An
African-tinged Christian monasticism followed conversion to Christianity, and
the monastic sites of this period are still to be found throughout the country,
marked by their strange cone-tipped bell towers. Vikings saw easy pickings in
these monasteries, and came to raid. They stayed, however, and founded
Ireland's first cities, like Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. The
French-speaking Normans followed, bringing in feudal culture from England and
France. Finally, the English themselves came, in several catastrophic waves,
and still remain to this day in the six counties of Northern Ireland. The other
twenty-six counties, however, have been a self-governing nation since 1922,
constitutionally enshrining both the Gaelic and English cultures. Ireland is a
member of the United Nations, and has been in the European Union since 1973.
