The Celts

Scotland, Tales from the Border

17/09/2014 09:57
Leaving Northumberland, the last of the English counties, there’s a nearly invisible border, separating England from Scotland on the Cheviot Hills. And it could be completely invisible but there’s a large sign reading Fàilte gu Alba, (Welcome to Scotland), a large St. Andrew’s banner and a hot dog...

Ellan Vannin

27/06/2014 12:20
The Isle of Man, Ellan Vannin in Gaelic, on a world map a small dot between Ireland and Great Britain, is basically known for a couple of subjects. First at all for being a tax haven. There are no taxes on capital gains and transfers or benefits. Although the OECD, the Organization for Economic...

Belfast - Béal Feirste

17/03/2014 12:39
The city starts a new cloudy dawn. Good enough weather that will make unnecessary to open the umbrella, though it gonna not be sunny. The Sun, the newspaper, is bent on the lonely table of Caffe Italia. Just past the first page and there are good news. On the third is Samantha, she’s from...

Abbey Road

21/12/2013 13:34
It is not just a London street neither a cover of the Beatles. There are plenty of Abbey Roads, Abbey streets, Abbey lanes or alleys or passages in Irish geography. The spread of Christianity by the early monks and friars caused the proliferation of abbeys, rural churches and convents when early...

As Easy as Kissing the Saint

22/10/2013 18:35
My first pilgrimage was quite accidental. I left Madrid without having the foggiest idea about where to go. So I said goodbye to my friends in the capital and went to Chamartín Station as I could have gone either to Atocha. There was no intention whatsoever, just as there was neither choosing...

Tro Breizh

25/08/2013 10:50
Tro Breizh means nothing else than: through Brittany. In Breton, of course. In the days when long pilgrimages started, Brittany eased to local believers with no means access to a venerable prayer and nearest relics between the cities hosting the story of the Seven Holy Founders of...

Kernow

19/05/2013 12:03
Ann was seventeen. Me too. It was 1977 and she spent several weeks that summer in Barcelona. I do not remember exactly how we met. Anyway, since then we spent whole days together. We read Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince, in our bad French. We met at bars and parties. We used to go up and down the...

The Castles of Cymru

15/04/2013 17:51
Wales, Cymru i.e., is located under a large cloud. Under the cloud it’s raining and rain sometimes bends with the wind force. Then the rain falls horizontally. When the wind blows the cloud, while drags a new one. Cymru, i.e. Wales, does not suffer drought. Its underground aquifers are full. The...

Scotland

10/03/2013 12:49
Whisky,kilts and tartans, golf, castles, a sausage called haggis, Sean Connery and a monster in a lake. A rugby selection and an unintelligible language, be either English or Gaelic. Bagpipes and last names beginning on Mac. Deep estuaries named firth and seven hundred islands. Robert...

The Lords of the Isles

11/02/2013 19:03
From Northern Ireland coast it’s clearly seen North Channel opposite bank, the steep profile of other lands. If not for water temperature would even be easy to reach swimming. Is the Kintyre peninsula, the island of Mull, and other Scottish coast. Further north, from White Park Bay it’s also seen,...

Red Hand Counties

20/01/2013 15:09
There was a time when the kingdom of Ulster, Ulaidh in Gaelic, one of four that existed on the island of Ireland with Connacht, Munster and Leister, left no heir to the throne. To solve such mismanagement was agreed a challenge, a boats competition, whoever who touched before the bank would be...

Crosses, High Crosses and Calvaries

27/11/2012 17:18
In the mid of the fog peek, as in that famous Michael Jackson’s zombies choreography, slabs and tombstones stands up everywhere in the cemetery. Even crows caw on one of the gates that define the space while the last day’s light provide a glimpse of a great cross that emerges and stands out among...

The Celts (no filter)

23/11/2012 10:01
As French schoolboys, no matter where do they born, were inculcated in the notion that their ancestors were Gauls, even in any of the tiny Polynesia Islands or any Amazonian tribe in Guiana, Spanish pupils sought to identify with celtiberic roots, regardless these were Iberian-blooded or just...

Old Stones

22/11/2012 09:53
On the leaves of grass still covered with dew a glance looks to the rusty surface of the stone. Following up the porous granite skin striations to find an incontestable crack that splits two cyclopean blocks. The one vertically growing is interrupted by another tracing a different path. Rests...
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