The Non-Celtic Confederacy

[Booner]

I've never considered the southern society as being Celtic. Scots-Irish yes, but not Celtic.

 

[63rdOVI]

There is a book on Amazon called"Attack and Die Southern military tactics and heritage "McWitney and Jameson. That argues Confederate soldiers died due to their brave Celtic nature. I call BS . In war people die a lot unless one side runs away. I don't see culture really playing a part one way or the other but's just me.
Leftyhunter

Agreed. I can't believe that these Americans considered themselves anything but Americans by this time. It's for sure that the only kilt-wearing members of either army belonged to the 79th New York or perhaps some outlying militia, unless I'm forgetting a particular regiment. These folks were culturally American, not Celtic in any sense of the term.

 

[rpkennedy]

There is a book on Amazon called"Attack and Die Southern military tactics and heritage "McWitney and Jameson. That argues Confederate soldiers died due to their brave Celtic nature. I call BS . In war people die a lot unless one side runs away. I don't see culture really playing a part one way or the other but's just me.
Leftyhunter

IIRC, Grady McWhiney is one of the historians who posit the Celtic heritage of the South.

Ryan

 

[63rdOVI]

IIRC, Grady McWhiney is one of the historians who posit the Celtic heritage of the South.

Ryan

Nuff said.

 

[rpkennedy]

I've never considered the southern society as being Celtic. Scots-Irish yes, but not Celtic.

There were pockets of Scots-Irish culture but, for the most part, Southern society was based on Anglo-Saxon culture and that's certainly what the Southern movers and shakers looked back on as their heritage.

Ryan

 

[leftyhunter]

IIRC, Grady McWhiney is one of the historians who posit the Celtic heritage of the South.

Ryan

Guess who's book I won't be buying? What a croc that guy; but for his readers what ever blows their skirt. I deal with drug addicts and alkies at work constantly so reading bad history isn't so bad.
Leftyhunter

 

[Booner]

A little more info on the Ulster Scots-Irish immigration to the U.S.

The southern provinces, Virginia and the Carolinas, were hardly considered, for the impoverished Ulstermen would seen nothing attractive in a region of plantations and slave-owning, where the Church of England was established. Maryland had been founded for Roman Catholics, was principally a plantation colony, and now had an Established Church; it was therefore no place for Presbyterians who wanted small farms. New York's governors were reportedly hard on dissenters, and her lands up the Hudson were owned in great estates. Eliminating these, there remained the Middle colonies and New England. Reports from Penn's settlements were enthusiastic as to the quality of land and the treatment of colonists; moreover, an invitation to settle there had come from the Secretary.

The people who entered America by the Delaware River, found a land of the heart's desire. Their enthusiastic praise of Pennsylvania persuaded others to follow them, and then still others, until by 1720 "to go to America" meant, for most emigrants from Ulster, to take ship for the Delaware River ports, and then head west. For the entire fifty-eight years of the Great Migration, the large majority of Scotch-Irish made their entry to America through Philadelphia or Chester or New Castle.

With these towns as their starting point, and the western frontier their destination, the immigrants, as they poured in found their path of progress almost laid out for them by geography. The Great Valley lead westward for a hundred miles or more; then when high mountains blocked further easy movement in that direction, the Valley turned southwestward across the Potomac to become the Shenandoah Valley. From the southern terminus of the Valley of Virginia, it was a short trip, by the time the pioneers had reached it, into the Piedmont regions of the Carolinas, where colonists were now warmly welcomed. Within this seven hundred mile arc of back-country, therefore, from Philadelphia as far as the upper Savannah River, most of the Scotch-Irish made their homes

The complete article is here-->http://www.irishgenealogy.com/surnames/migration-scotch-irish.htm

 

[rpkennedy]

Guess who's book I won't be buying? What a croc that guy; but for his readers what ever blows their skirt. I deal with drug addicts and alkies at work constantly so reading bad history isn't so bad.
Leftyhunter

It was he and Forest McDonald who posited the "Celtic Theory". It's an interesting concept but has no basis in reality.

Ryan

 

[Booner]

There were pockets of Scots-Irish culture but, for the most part, Southern society was based on Anglo-Saxon culture and that's certainly what the Southern movers and shakers looked back on as their heritage. Ryan

I think you're correct. I'm thinking more about the yeomen farmer in the Piedmont and mountain areas. By the time the Ulster Scots made it into the area, the "movers and shakers" were well entrenched.

 

[Waterloo50]

There were pockets of Scots-Irish culture but, for the most part, Southern society was based on Anglo-Saxon culture and that's certainly what the Southern movers and shakers looked back on as their heritage.

Ryan

The way I see it is that what we are really talking about is sectarianism, I think its easy to be fooled into thinking that this was predominantly an Irish problem, it was and still is rife in Scotland. You only have to look at the two main football/Soccer clubs in Scotland today, Celtic FC is for the most part Catholic and Rangers is Protestant, this came about because the Irish Scots had mostly settled within Catholic areas of Scotland. My point is that when these same communities entered the USA they would have held onto their religious identities, others may have described them as Scots or Scot Irish but those old divides were still visible. When those in the South describe themselves as predominantly Anglo-Saxon, I wonder if what they were really doing was distancing themselves from these two religious groups, especially in light of the fact that those in England would have seen themselves as Anglican. lets also not forget the more recent description of Brit/Irish, 'Anglo Celts', it just seems to me that using the term Anglo-Saxon was nothing more than an attempt to identify people of pure English heritage which rightly or wrongly would have been viewed as the more superior of the groups. Its only my humble opinion but Anglo-Saxon was used in an attempt to make a distinction between various religious groups and 'the have and have not's', it has a great deal to do with British society in that anyone who wasn't wealthy, White and English was at an immediate disadvantage, we still call it the 'Old Boys Network'.

 

[Pat Young]

We had one poster a year or so ago just flat out insist that Confederates were highly gifted regal people vs the sundry and lowly WASPs. He insisted that the cause of the ACW was tied into Celtic superiority. I can't name him off the top of my head but he got a lot of replies to his thread.
Leftyhunter

We get threads like that occassionally. I have also seen the same claim raised elsewhere.

I think that it is claer, that whatever geneology might tell us, a whole lot of Southern whites referred to themselves as Anglo-Saxon.

 

[Irishtom29]

Celtic stuff has been cool for several years, thus some people not from Celtic speaking backgrounds want to horn in on the action.

 

[Schwallanscher]

Absolutely spot on, I can't recall anytime in British History excluding 'ancient history' where the Brits have fought over anything other than religion, Protestant v Catholic mostly and that was only because of the Monarchy. The far right in Britain still have a tendency to claim that they are Anglo Saxon, for some reason they can't seem to grasp the idea that Britain was a melting pot of people from all over Europe, people came and people left, its always been that way. Anglo Saxon or Celtic, it makes me chuckle really, they are all one and the same.

don't forget the french

 

[Waterloo50]

Celtic stuff has been cool for several years, thus some people not from Celtic speaking backgrounds want to horn in on the action.

I agree, the change came about in Britain during the 1970's with the emergence of the Hippy/New age Traveller movement. The old ways were seen as Celtic, not many people wanted to imagine that they were Anglo-Saxon. A quick visit to a small town called Glastonbury will soon prove that. There are plenty of Celtic shops in Glastonbury, where you can purchase anything from Celtic Jewellery through to Celtic art, people have even moved from remote places like Iona to set up shop in the West Country. Even the tattooist is making a fortune in Celtic armbands.

 

[Waterloo50]

don't forget the french

or the Germans.

 

[Schwallanscher]

or the Germans.

where do you think those angeln and sachsen were from

 

[Irishtom29]

or the Germans.

We forget the Germans at our peril.

This reminds me of the joke where the Irish kid in Chicago goes to confession in the neighborhood's German Catholic church rather than its Irish Catholic one.

 

[Waterloo50]

where do you think those angeln and sachsen were from

Saxony...but where did they come from.

 

[63rdOVI]

Saxony...but where did they come from.

Exactly! They came from the steppes before they came to Europe, but that was thousands of years ago.

 

[Schwallanscher]

We forget the Germans at our peril.

aren't irish guys all for sweet mauser music?