The cultural landscape of Celtic countries: A review

Innovation Diffusion: A New Perspective. By L. A. Brown. Pp. xx + 345, 23.5 × 16, illustrations, index. Methuen, London, 1981.

Location and Trade Theory. By Joseph T. Johnson. (Chicago Department of Geography, Research Paper No. 198, 1981). 201 pp., 22.5 × 15. $8.00.

Rural Conservation in Inter‐War Britain. By John Sheail. 25 × 16, 263 pp., plates, figures, tables, notes, index. Clarendon, Oxford, 1981. £16.50.

Tourist Development. By Douglas Pearce. 23.5 × 15.5, 112 pp., figures, tables, bibliography, index. Topics in Applied Geography, Longmans, Harlow, 1981, £3.95.

Islay: Biography of an Island. By Margaret C. Storrie. 260 pp., 21 × 15. Numerous maps and photographs, appendix, index. Oa Press, Islay, 1981.

Easter Ross 1750‐1850: The Double Frontier. By Ian R. M. Mowat. 270 pp., 24 × 16. Bibliography, appendices, indexes. John Donald, Edinburgh, 1981. £15.00.

EDUCATIONAL

Air and Earth. By Michael Atherton and Roger Robinson. 24.5 × 19, 80 pp. Hodder &; Stoughton, Sevenoaks, 1981. £1.95.

Map Practice. By Brian Turk. 30 × 21, 32 pp. University Tutorial Press, Slough, 1981. £2.60.     

The Geographical Names of Vietnam

A Soviet place-name specialist analyzes the structure of Vietnamese place names on the basis of his attendance at a place-name seminar in Hanoi and a field trip through North Vietnam in 1963–64. Similarities with Chinese place names are found, particularly in the names of administrative divisions and towns. A wide range of generic terms, some of limited local use in mountain and river names, is discussed. The possible derivation of well-known place names such as Hanoi, Saigon, Mekong, etc., is analyzed.     

Decolonisation and mysticism in William Butler Yeats's The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose

Yeats's responsibilities as one of Ireland's most prominent artists commenced with his aspiration to make Ireland a nation. His writings incorporate the three phases of development that Frantz Fanon posited for all new nations. Although Fanon described his three phases of decolonisation well after The Celtic Twilight and The Secret Rose were compiled, Fanon's framework elucidates Yeats's writings. Yeats's use of mystical elements embodies Fanon's idea of the colonial binary, the negritude binary, and transnational consciousness. Yeats discovered the answers to decolonisation in mysticism. His insights about folklore when coupled with imagination brought about many mystical revelations that linked Ireland to mysticism of global dimensions. Yeats's insights moved Ireland beyond binaries and solely nationalistic thinking to encourage Ireland to develop a transnational consciousness, transcending postcolonial binaries to achieve nationhood.     

The West Saxon boundary clause in context: Celtic and Continental connections

The perambulatory boundary clause in England originated as a West Saxon phenomenon in the eighth century, most likely through connections with the early Celtic church, and spread with the rise of the West Saxon kings. Vernacular perambulatory charter bounds occur throughout England after the tenth century – but before 800, they appear only in Wessex, and on the Continent where West Saxons were initially installed as missionaries, in an early Latin–vernacular form. The West Saxon roots of Boniface and his followers may thus explain the presence of early perambulatory bounds in Frankish archives.     

Exotic Celtic Coinage in Britain

This paper examines the c. 250 'exotic' Celtic coins found in Britain, defined as coins originating beyond Armorican and Belgic Gaul. The coins are considered in relation to their typology, their contexts of discovery and their distribution. Several key themes emerge: the occasional import of early continental staters, perhaps in the third century BC; the arrival of fine copies of Massiliot bronze issues during the second century BC, leading to the development of British potin coinage; and, from the first half of the first century BC, the importation of an increased number of exotic coins, mostly from central Gaul, primarily to Chichester, north-east Kent and the territories north of the Thames.     

Names and Tales: On Folklore and Place Names

Abstract

Names, like stories, are linguistic performances; so the twin disciplines of folkloristics and place-name studies can learn from each other’s methods. Some names offer straightforward evidence for traditional culture, but others are rhetorical, not literal. Allusions to goblins, giants, and the Devil derive from playful storytelling rather than supernatural belief, while names of landmarks are used as pegs on which to hang local legends. The rules for coining names have varied through time and often use special linguistic markers to highlight moral or imaginative content. As we move into a more semiotically aware onomastics, we find ourselves interpreting names from a realm of popular idiom and allusion which is already familiar from folklore.     

Archaeology and the Irish rediscovery of the Celtic past

This article examines the place of archaeology in the second wave of Irish cultural nationalism, and how archaeological findings were appropriated by rival ethno‐religious communities in Ireland. In particular, it focuses on George Petrie, who was the founder of ‘scientific’ archaeology and was also one of the leading figures in the nineteenth‐century Celtic revival that sought a moral regeneration of the Irish nation In Ireland, as elsewhere, archaeology was important in reconstructing an early history of the nation where few written records existed and in making this visible through material artefacts. However, archaeology was only significant as part of a wider cultural revival that presented artefacts and sites as national symbols to an island undergoing rapid social change. This article will explore the relationship between archaeology and this national revival, and how the material objects recovered by archaeologists extended and transformed the existing repertoires of how the nation was imagined and felt. It will assess the different reception of these images in the rival Catholic and Protestant communities. Finally, it will comment on the capacity of a medieval ‘Celtic’ repertoire to provide the basis of a dynamic modern Irish national culture.