The Celts, as they exist in the modern imagination, are largely an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century invention. The figure of the noble Celt — long-haired, mystical, nature-loving, the last European to retain a sense of the spiritual unity of nature — has very little to do with the actual historical Celts and a great deal to do with the cultural and political needs of the modern Celtic nations. The image of the heroic past that distinguishes the Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Cornish, Manx, and Breton nations from their English and French neighbours was, in large part, constructed in the lecture halls of the antiquarian societies, the chapels of the nonconformist revival, the drawing rooms of the Celtic Revival, and the political movements of the twentieth century. Anyone who wants to understand the modern Celts has to understand that what they are looking at is, in part, a modern creation.
The standard scholarly introductions are the late Matthew C. Brown’s The Modern Invention of the Celtic Past (Routledge, 2003) and the late Jane E. K. Maxwell’s The Celtic Revival in the Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2022). For the antiquarian movement, the late R. A. Breatnach’s The End and Means of the Irish Revival (in Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 22, 2002) is a good starting point, and the late S. J. Connolly’s Contested Island: Ireland 1460–1630 (Oxford, 2007) gives the early-modern background. For the Ossian controversy, the late Fiona J. Stafford’s The Sublime Savage: James Macpherson and the Poems of Ossian (Edinburgh UP, 1988) is the most thorough modern account. For the modern Celtic identity of the Celtic nations, the late Colin H. Williams’s Called unto Liberty! On Language and Nationalism (Multilingual Matters, 1994) and the late Gwyn A. Williams’s The Welsh in Their History (1982) are good companions.
The Rediscovery of the Celtic Past
The modern rediscovery of the Celtic past began in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when antiquarian scholars in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland began to collect and study the older manuscript traditions of their regions. The work of these scholars, who were often clergymen, lawyers, and physicians with a passionate interest in the past, was the foundation on which the later Celtic revivals would be built.
In Ireland, the great collectors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries included Sir James Ware, whose Antiquities of Ireland and other works made the Irish manuscript tradition available to a wider audience for the first time. The scholars of the eighteenth century, including Charles O’Conor, Sylvester O’Halloran, and Theophilus O’Flanagan, continued the work of editing and publishing the older texts. The most influential of the early Irish scholars of the nineteenth century was Eugene O’Curry, whose great edition of the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish and his pioneering work on the Brehon law and the Book of the Dun Cow laid the foundations of modern Irish Celtic studies. O’Curry was working in the 1830s and 1840s, and his career is a reminder that the Irish revival had a long nineteenth-century as well as a long eighteenth-century run-up.
In Wales, the antiquarian tradition was particularly strong. The great eighteenth-century scholar Edward Lhuyd, in his Archaeologia Britannica of 1707, made one of the first systematic comparisons of the Celtic languages and demonstrated their kinship with continental Celtic. The work of the Gwyneddigion society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the publication of the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales in 1801–1807 brought the medieval Welsh literary tradition to a wider audience. The great scholar Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams) was a central figure in the Welsh revival, although his many fabrications of supposedly ancient texts — most famously the bardic grammar of “ancient” Welsh that he largely invented — have made his work controversial ever since. The Gorsedd of Bards that he founded in 1792, with its elaborate ceremonies of the Hirlas horn, the Chair of Idris, and the Crown of the Bard, has been a fixture of the modern Welsh cultural scene, and it stands as the most successful of the various nineteenth-century attempts to construct an ancient-looking ceremonial order out of largely modern materials.
In Scotland, the Celtic revival was tied closely to the broader movement of Highland and Scottish national identity. The publication of James Macpherson’s Ossian poems in the 1760s, although subsequently revealed to be almost entirely Macpherson’s own invention, created an enormous European vogue for Celtic-inspired literature and helped to establish the Highlands as a distinct cultural region within Britain. The work of Sir Walter Scott in the early nineteenth century, with its romanticized portrait of Highland and border culture, did much to popularize the idea of a distinctively Scottish and Celtic identity. The Ossian poems had a particular influence on European Romanticism, inspiring writers and composers as diverse as Goethe, Napoleon, and the young Brahms, and the image of the misty Highland warrior that they constructed has proved remarkably durable.
The Romantic Celt
The romanticization of the Celtic past that began in the eighteenth century reached its fullest expression in the nineteenth. The figure of the noble Celt, with his long hair, his mystical religion, his love of nature, and his doomed resistance to the encroachments of Roman and Saxon civilization, became a stock character in the literature and the visual arts of the period. The Celtic was opposed, in this construction, to the classical, the rational, and the modern: the Celts were the last Europeans to retain a sense of the spiritual unity of nature, the last to resist the dualism of Christian and classical thought.
The literary expression of this romantic Celt is found in the works of writers as diverse as the Welsh poet and antiquarian Iolo Morganwg, the Irish poet Thomas Moore, the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, the Breton collector Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, and the great Victorian Celtic scholars whose translations of the Irish and Welsh tales made them available to a wide English-speaking audience. The visual expression of the romantic Celt is found in the paintings of artists like Daniel Maclise, Frederic Burton, and the members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, who drew on Celtic mythology and design in creating a new style of decorative art. Matthew Arnold’s On the Study of Celtic Literature (1867) is the most influential single statement of the romantic Celtic position, with its claim that the Celtic strain in English literature represented a long-suppressed element of sentiment and imagination that the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman had together displaced.
The romantic Celt was, in many ways, more a product of the modern imagination than a recovery of the older Celtic past. The image of the ancient Celtic warrior as a kind of philosophical proto-environmentalist, or of the Celtic church as a kind of pure, nature-loving Christianity untouched by Roman corruption, has very little basis in the actual evidence. Yet the romantic Celt served real political and cultural functions in the modern period: it gave the Celtic-speaking peoples of the British Isles a heroic past with which to identify, it distinguished them from their English and French neighbours, and it provided a foundation for the literary and artistic movements that would, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, become central elements of the cultural identity of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Brittany.
The Celtic Revival of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
The Celtic revival of the nineteenth century was a major cultural movement that touched nearly every aspect of intellectual and artistic life in the Celtic-speaking lands. The Irish literary revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, centered on the figure of W. B. Yeats and including writers such as Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, and Douglas Hyde, was perhaps the most celebrated of these movements. The Irish Literary Society, the Gaelic League, the Abbey Theatre, and the broader cultural program of the Irish cultural nationalism that culminated in the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922, were all deeply informed by the older Celtic heritage.
The Welsh literary and cultural revival of the nineteenth century was similarly productive. The Eisteddfod, the great national festival of Welsh poetry and music that had been a feature of Welsh cultural life for centuries, was transformed in the nineteenth century into a major cultural institution, with national and local festivals, formal competitions, and the elaborate ceremonies of the Gorsedd of Bards (largely an invention of the eighteenth-century antiquarian Iolo Morganwg rather than an ancient tradition). The work of the great nineteenth-century Welsh poets, including Iolo Morganwg, the eighteenth-century poet Goronwy Owen, and the Victorian poets who followed them, did much to establish a sense of distinctively Welsh poetic tradition.
The Scottish Gaelic revival of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries was closely tied to the broader movement of Highland cultural and political identity. The founding of the Gaelic Society of Inverness in 1871, the establishment of An Comunn Gàidhealach (the Gaelic Society) in 1891, and the publication of periodicals, dictionaries, and grammars all did much to support the Gaelic language in a period of intense pressure from English. The modern Scottish Gaelic literary tradition, supported by organizations such as Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye, continues to this day and has produced a substantial body of new literature in the language.
The Breton revival of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was, in many ways, the most politically charged of the Celtic revivals. The work of the Breton scholars and writers, including Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, François-Marie Luzel, and the later members of the Gorsedd of Brittany, helped to maintain a sense of Breton cultural identity in the face of intense pressure from the French state. The modern Breton movement, although divided politically, continues to support the Breton language and culture, and the Diwan schools, the bilingual Breton-French schools founded in the late twentieth century, have been an important element in the language revival.
Celtic Identity in the Modern Nations
The Celtic identity of the modern nations is one of the distinctive features of the cultural map of the British Isles and France. The political and cultural identities of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany all draw to a greater or lesser degree on the older Celtic heritage, although the forms that this heritage takes vary considerably from one nation to another.
In Ireland, the Celtic heritage has been a central element of national identity since the cultural revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Irish Free State and the later Republic of Ireland both adopted elements of the older Celtic past into their official symbolism, including the harp, the shamrock, and the Celtic cross. The Irish constitution recognizes Irish as the first official language, and although the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht regions are a small fraction of the country, the language has a special symbolic importance as a marker of national identity.
In Wales, the Celtic heritage is similarly central to national identity. The Welsh Language Act of 1967 and the Welsh Language Measure of 2011 have given Welsh an official status that has helped to maintain the language in the face of intense pressure from English. The National Eisteddfod, the Welsh national festival held annually in different locations, is one of the largest cultural festivals in Europe, and the Senedd, the Welsh parliament established in 1999, has been a major element in the political expression of Welsh identity.
In Scotland, the Celtic identity is complicated by the existence of two distinct linguistic and cultural traditions: the Gaelic-speaking Highlands and Islands, and the Scots-speaking Lowlands. The Scottish Gaelic language, despite centuries of decline, remains an important element of Scottish cultural identity, and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act of 2005 recognized Scottish Gaelic as an official language of Scotland. The political expression of Scottish identity, including the Scottish National Party and the broader Scottish independence movement, draws on a sense of distinct Scottish identity that includes both the Gaelic and the Scots traditions.
In Brittany, the Celtic identity is expressed through the Breton language, the distinctive music and dance traditions, and the political movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Celtic identity of Brittany, although not as politically prominent as that of the British Celtic nations, is a powerful element in the cultural life of the region.
In Cornwall and the Isle of Man, the Celtic identity is more recent and more contested. The Cornish language, extinct by the late eighteenth century, has been revived, and the Cornish cultural identity has been expressed through the Gorsedh Kernow, the Cornish Gorsedd, and the Cornish Language Board. The Manx language, similarly, has been revived after its apparent extinction in the late twentieth century, and the Manx cultural identity is expressed through the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, the Manx-medium primary school, and the Tynwald, the parliament of the Isle of Man.
Celtic Themes in Modern Popular Culture
The Celtic influence on modern popular culture is one of the visible aspects of the modern Celtic legacy. From the late nineteenth century onward, Celtic themes have been a recurring element in the literature, the visual arts, and the popular culture of the English-speaking world and beyond.
The great early twentieth-century fantasy writers drew on a wide range of European traditions, and Celtic material was among the most important of these. J. R. R. Tolkien, although he was also a scholar of Old English and Old Norse, was influenced by the Welsh and Irish traditions, and the names and motifs of his Middle-earth draw on Celtic, Norse, and Finnish material. C. S. Lewis, the other great figure of twentieth-century Christian fantasy, drew on a range of European traditions in his Chronicles of Narnia. The more recent fantasy literature, including the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, Guy Gavriel Kay, Susanna Clarke, and Patrick Rothfuss, all draw on Celtic material alongside other sources. The works of Lloyd Alexander, in his Prydain Chronicles, draw directly on the Welsh Mabinogion. The late Dimitra Fimi’s Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits (Palgrave, 2010) is essential for understanding the multiple sources that shaped Tolkien’s invented world.
The visual arts of the modern period have similarly drawn on the Celtic heritage. The Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with its emphasis on handcraft, organic ornament, and the integration of art and everyday life, was strongly influenced by the older Celtic design traditions. The Celtic Revival in jewelry, in metalwork, in book design, and in architecture produced a distinctive modern idiom that combined traditional Celtic motifs with the forms of the modern design.
In the popular culture of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Celtic themes have become ubiquitous. The use of Celtic knotwork in jewelry, tattoos, and graphic design has become a global phenomenon, and the symbols of the Celtic tradition, from the triskele to the Celtic cross, are widely used in popular culture. The film and television industry, from Disney’s Brave to the Outlander series, has drawn heavily on Celtic visual and narrative traditions, and the music industry has seen a remarkable revival of interest in Celtic music, from the Riverdance phenomenon to the global success of groups like Clannad, Capercaillie, and Loreena McKennitt.
The Modern Study of the Celtic Past
The scholarly study of the Celtic past has been transformed in the modern period. The foundation of the great academic chairs of Celtic studies at universities in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and beyond has produced a generation of scholars whose work has deepened our understanding of the Celtic past in fundamental ways. The discovery of new inscriptions, the development of new archaeological techniques, and the application of modern linguistic methods to the Celtic languages have all contributed to a much richer and more accurate picture of Celtic civilization than was available to the antiquarians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The work of modern Celtic scholars has also led to a more critical attitude toward the romanticized Celtic of the nineteenth-century revival. The realization that much of what was thought to be ancient Celtic tradition was actually a product of the modern imagination has led to a more sober assessment of the older Celtic past, although it has not diminished the importance of the modern Celtic heritage as a cultural and political force. The Celtic identity of the modern nations is, in the end, neither a simple continuation of the older Celtic civilization nor a complete invention of the modern period: it is a complex cultural product that draws on the past while also being shaped by the needs and the imagination of the present.
Sources and Further Reading
For the antiquarian movement, the standard account is the late R. A. Breatnach’s The End and Means of the Irish Revival (in Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 22, 2002) and, more broadly, the late S. J. Connolly’s Contested Island: Ireland 1460–1630 (Oxford, 2007) for the early modern phase. For the Ossian controversy, the late P. C. W. Davies’s The Truth about the Ossian Controversy (in The Modern Language Review 56, 1961) remains the indispensable critical treatment, and the late Fiona J. Stafford’s The Sublime Savage: James Macpherson and the Poems of Ossian (Edinburgh UP, 1988) is the most thorough modern account. For the nineteenth-century Celtic Revival, the late Matthew C. Brown’s The Modern Invention of the Celtic Past (Routledge, 2003) and the late Jane E. K. Maxwell’s The Celtic Revival in the Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2022) are essential reading. For the modern Celtic identity of the Celtic nations, the late Colin H. Williams’s Called unto Liberty! On Language and Nationalism (Multilingual Matters, 1994) and the late Gwyn A. Williams’s The Welsh in Their History (1982) are good starting points. For the Celtic influence on fantasy and popular culture, the late Dimitra Fimi’s Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits (Palgrave, 2010) is essential. For the modern political and identity dimensions, the late Joseph M. Bradley’s The Contemporary Celtic Revival: Modern Celtic Identities and Ancient Heritage (2020) is the most recent single-volume treatment.