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NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

This government is a tyranny in bed with the business community screwing hard-pressed members of the public for all it can take whilst ‘doling out’ money from the reserves to fund grandiose schemes cooked up by its fellow travellers in the Chamber of Commerce and wider business circle.

News From The Celtic League

Bernard Moffatt, Outside Left: Radiation guinea pigs

There are aspects of the British nuclear industry that are like a black comedy.

A few years ago I learned that a UK train-spotters’ magazine openly published details of transports of nuclear waste.

The number of “Cornish Speakers” is reported to be somewhere between 300 and 1500 depending on the source. The Cornish Language Board puts forward the number of 300 Cornish Speakers, according to the Guardian, who claim the language of the Celtic Nation to be their “primary tongue”.   No matter, this language is taking root and beginning to thrive in what until very recently could only be described as a hostile environment.

Local fiddle player, Tomas Callister, has been nominated along with four other musicians, for Instrumentalist of the Year in the annual MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2015, and here's your chance to help him clinch the award.

Organised by Hands Up For Trad, awards will be handed out within sixteen different categories ranging from Album of the Year to Gaelic Singer of the Year, to be announced at a gala evening at the Caird Hall in Dundee on the 5 December.

The annual Ned Maddrell Lecture, hosted jointly by Culture Vannin and Yn Ҫheshaght Ghailckagh, takes place on Saturday 7 November at St John's Mill (Tynwald Mills), and will feature a guest speaker who will be discussing a minority language situation with relevance to Manx Gaelic.

Previous lectures have focused on issues in Nova Scotia, Norfolk Island and the Aboriginal languages of Australia, but this year's lecture will centre on the language revitalisation in Guernsey and Jersey; drawing comparisons with the Isle of Man.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

It’s a National disgrace just days after Tynwald approved like a load of ‘nodding donkeys’ a £50 million give away to private sector business it has been revealed that education budgets have been cut.

Isle of Man newspapers, presumably using the access to information code with which they are becoming increasingly adept, reveal cuts at four of the five secondary schools, this despite stringent efficiencies that have already been imposed over recent years.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

Last week the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which has co-signed the ‘sweetheart’ deal which allows Manx Gas to charge consumers just about what it wants, told us:

‘One of the three key priorities of the current administration is to “Protect the Vulnerable” and the Council of Ministers and all Departments and Statutory Boards have this high on their agendas’

Well how high is ‘high’?

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

Not known for pulling her punches the Language Commissioner for Wales, Meri Huws (picture), has said that place names should enjoy the same protection as listed buildings.

She told BBC Wales that changes to historic place names should be banned by law and that certain names should be given added protection by being placed on a ‘statutory register’.

The Deputy Culture Minister in the parliament of Wales Ken Skates attempted to question the idea saying the idea would be very difficulty to deliver.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

At the annual Illiam Dhone commemoration I called for a greater emphasis to be placed by Manx nationalists on remembering those prominent in the political and cultural sides of the movement.

To this end later this month a talk will be given by Bob Carswell on the life and work of Colin Jerry (details from Mec Vannin).

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

The Celtic League has urged the Isle of Man government to make a further approach to the United Kingdom about returning ‘The Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles’ to the Island.

The Chronicles are currently held by the British Library and an attempt by the Isle of Man five years ago which was supported by a number of politicians and the local newspaper group proved abortive.