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[hairtusk]

'Wool waulking is a traditional Scottish process of finishing and strengthening newly woven woolen fabrics. It is a significant social and cultural activity, often carried out by women in the Highlands of Scotland. The Gaelic songs that are sung during waulking have a distinctive rhythmic pattern that aids in synchronising the work.'

(Video and text via Inverness Outlanders)

[cosmonautroger]

Coast Of Ireland

[sinbad-goodwin]

we seriously need more young people to learn cornish. it seems like theres like 3 speakers dying for every 1 new learner. sad and disheartening :-(

[lottsoflanguages]

Not my usual post but I felt I needed to put this out there + it does relate to how Irish institutions refuse to promote our culture.

I don't know if anyone reading this was watching Eurosong tonight. It's the selection of Ireland's Eurovision entry. During it, after a folk and traditional inspired song, the panel basically lambasted it. The consensus was that because Ireland did poorly at Eurovision 2007 (18 years ago btw) with a culturally Irish song that Europe does not like Ireland or its culture and that we shouldn't send a culturally Irish song to Eurovision because we need to modernise (what they actually mean is pander) to their idea of modern European standards. These comments made me quite furious and devastated (clearly evident by the fact I'm posting this). RTE has always come across to me not actually caring about our language or culture when it comes to promoting it to a younger audience. They don't seem to realise that branding Gaeilge and its culture as "an old persons thing" is going to cause detrimental damage to our already endangered heritage, since young people should be the ones you focus on, they're the ones who would be able to bring it down to future generations. Now, back to Eurosong, the way those comments were delivered gave me a sense that we shouldn't even bother sending something remotely Irish to Eurovision. Our culture is clearly embarrassing and something we should be ashamed of because of one bad result 18 years ago and as a result we should hide our heritage and erase it, there can and will not be anything identifyably Irish. It goes without saying that this is a disgusting approach to a dying culture. We hate to admit it, but Gaeilge is dying and we can't even blame the Brits anymore for this. It is the Irish institutions, our government, our broadcaster, everything around us is doing nothing to preserve our heritage. Oh but don't worry guys because that road sign's in Irish so its fine. And don't worry RTE love trad just look at Samantha Mumba doing a lil jig (all that was /sarc btw). It really struck home especially when; 1. the identifiably Irish song finished last in the televote and 2. The Norwegian song that has nothing to do with Ireland (the artist only came to Ireland for the first time last week) won the whole thing and will represent us in Basel. Now, I'll clarify some things. I have all but respect for Emmy herself. She seems absolutely lovely and I will fully support her as our nation's representative. I also generally don't have an issue with artists from other countries representing their non-native lands (see: Celine Dion). My issue stems from the fact that this song was so clearly (at least in my opinion) originally written with the Norwegian national selection in mind. Norway must've rejected it and Emmy's team just went "hey ireland has their selection still open for applicants let's fob it onto them" (that happens much more than you think it does at Eurovision) That's just my theory. So, what RTE have decided to do is mock and put down anything that remotely feels too-Irish in favour of one of Norway's scraps. They would rather pretend to be Norway than appear too-Irish. Cultural folk inspired entries do well at Eurovision, Kalush Orchestra won the whole thing nearly 3 years ago with a folk-hip hop fusion, it got the highest televote ever seen in eurovision (and no, that was not all war pity votes, people do actually like this stuff).

RTE and other Irish institutions are curating this idea that Irish culture and language is something to be ashamed of, something thats cringe or something thats a novelty. It is particular BS in the context of Eurosong and the whole "we can't do good with something cultural" as Ireland's biggest music acts at the moment are those who embrace their heritage within their music (e.g. Hozier, Kneecap, Fontaines DC) and if Irish culture does end up making a comeback, it'll be because of these guys, not our institutions. We've been a (mostly) independent nation for over 100 years, yet Irish still declines. We can't blame the Brits anymore for this lads. In however many years time when Irish culture is nothing more than a distant memory, we'll look back and know exactly who to blame

Apologies if this is all completely incoherent, it's 1am, i'm on a sleeping tablet but autism brain is going. anyways, oíche mhaith a chairde <3