The Sea Kingdoms: The History of Celtic Britain & Ireland

by Alistair Moffat

Alistair Moffat's journey, from the Scottish islands and Scotland, to the English coast, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland, ignores national boundaries to reveal the rich fabric of culture and history of Celtic Britain which still survives today. This is a vividly told, dramatic and enlightening account of the oral history, legends and battles of a people whose past stretches back many hundred of years. The Sea Kingdoms is a story of great tragedies, ancient myths and spectacular beauty.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Scotland, Ireland, Historical, Anthropology, British Literature

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Alistair Moffat is an award winning writer, historian and former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Director of Programmes at Scottish Television.

Moffat was educated at the University of St Andrews, graduating in 1972 with a degree in Medieval History. He is the founder of the Borders Book Festival and Co-Chairman of The Great Tapestry of Scotland.

Reviews

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

To those of you who watch tv.......you know those days when you are flicking tv channels and you come across a documentary and it is so atmospheric that before you realise it you have sat quietly, staring at the screen like a zombie, for an hour or more. Only speaking when you feel the need to say 'wow' as you learn some amazing tidbit about history, or animals...or whatever it is that the doco it about. Okay, now I have created scene here's my point. That is what this book was like.
The author, Alistair Moffat, really nails this book. I got exactly what I wanted when I picked this book out at the library. It combines atmosphere and learning in perfect quantity. I even felt like reading it again when I was finished.
I will be reading more of Moffat's books if I can get my hands on them.

[Indra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book written from a passionate perspective, which was both good and bad. The author is clearly biased and insists on a few incidents that are historically contested, but the overall content is great. It's a development of Celtic people in the British isles. I was personally more interested in the pre-roman phase, but there is much more medieval and modern content (still interesting). There's stuff about folklore, navigation, politics, religion, conversion to Christianity, etc. My favorite insights were:

I finally understood the tension between Wales, Scotland and England, and I finally know what's the deal with Ireland and UK (I honestly did not know).
In the folklore and arts area, the myths, storytelling and pagan beliefs were fascinating, I can't get the ghost fences out of my head, plus the idea of the Celtic Otherworld. Worship of wells, and use of cauldrons reminded me of the sacred use of cauldrons in Ancient China, I will look more into that afterwards.
I read the Mabinogion before this book and more things made sense now, even though my Mabinogion edition was heavily annotated.
I also remembered some Irish myths I had been reading but had gotten a bit tedious due to all the formulas and repetitions. Now, I had never thought about it, but Alistair Moffat reminds you that these stories were constructed orally for oral retelling, and the repetitions and formulas were crucial for memorization. We do not give these ancient stories enough credit, sometimes.

In short:
I really enjoyed the insight to this pagan world, of this ancient environment where the stories I love could arise naturally. I recommended this book to anyone interested in cultural works from this ancient Celtic territories.

[Boy Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the subtitle suggests this is a history of Celtic Britain & Ireland. If you're wondering where that is, it's all of Ireland, Cornwall, Wales, The Isle of Man, The Scottish highlands and islands. It's a passable if completely jumbled work. I've found reading Moffat to be much like panning for gold. You have to sift through a lot of material to find the flecks of gold, and very occasionally you get a sizeable nugget. Where I find Moffat at his best is actually in his descriptions of the natural world.

"The long fingers of the Atlantic reach so deeply into the heart of Argyll that, even though it is part of the Scottish mainland, nowhere is more than twelve miles from the coast."

Another moving passage that made me think of the low stone wall in Ursula Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea and whether she may have taken it from Celtic history.

"On the island of Barra the graveyards used not to have gates, and each time a funeral procession approached, the dry stone wall was broken down to allow entry into the country of the dead. Because almost all of Lewis's townships are on the coast, the graves are dug in sandy soil. So that the wind cannot take the sand, graves at Dalmore are filled in as soon as the minister has finished the formalities, and the mourners sometimes stamp down the clods themselves. Buried in the loose sand, the people of Dalmore seem to be waiting for the sea to take them. Ministers were traditionally buried facing landward, towards their earthly charges, while their congregations headstones looked to the minister and past him out to the eternal surge of the sea."

Moffat's also good with the little anecdote or discovered phrase.

"Every three or four years Shetlandic crofters would 'ride the Hagri'. On their tough little ponies, the crofters went around the boundaries of their common grazing land that lay beyond the dykes of their in-bye (home) fields. At each boundary stone a young boy 'got a sair treshin sae as he soud mind weel whar do hagmets stude', or he 'got a sore thrashing so as he should remember well where the boundary stones were'. Different boys were beaten at each stone and these indelible memories were printed on their memories in what was called 'the whipping custom'."

Moffat can also evoke the atmosphere of an event really well.

"When the Cornish rugby team won the county shampionships at Twickenham in 1991 and again contested the final in 1992, 40,000 Cornish men, women and children, more than 10 per cent of the whole population, went to London to support their team. In the pre-match caperings ordinary people came up with a popular iconography: Cornwall fans wore the black and gold Cornish kilt while carrying a giant pasty around the ground. There was a huge inflatable Cornish chough bouncing over the heads of the crowd and replicas of the Padstow 'Obby 'Oss danced on the pitch. The black and white flags bearing the cross of Cornwall's patron saint, St Piran, seemed to flutter everywhere, along with the banners proclaiming 'Kernow Bys Vyken', 'Cornwall forever'. Thoroughly intoxicated by the determination and desire of the Cornish team, a radio commentator, describing a try scored by a Cornish player who carried several Yorkshiremen on his back as he charged for the line, shouted into his microphone that 'he dived for the line, festooned with Saxons.'"

To add to that he's also just full of mythologies and etymologies.

"Tarbert or Tarbet is from tairm-bert, meaning an 'overbringing', and it is almost always to be found between two lochs. The long peninsula of Kintyre is almost and island where West Lock Tarbert gets within a mile of East Loch Tarbert, and it was here that King Magnus Bareleg of Norway did what the name Tarbert means. At the end of the eleventh century, King Edgar of Scotland agreed to cede control of all the islands off the west coast to Norway in return for a peaceful frontier. Magnus promptly sailed to Kintyre and had his sailors drag their boat across the narrow neck of land to prove that Kintyre was an island and that it should therefore belong to him."

He's also chosen some great bits of verse to include. This one was taken from the marginalia of a manuscript copied out by a monk:

"Fierce and wild is the wind tonight.
It tosses the tresses of the sea to white.
On such a night as this I take my ease,
Fierce Northmen only course the quiet seas."

It was written during the period when the Norsemen were sailing over in their dreki and just blood eagling people left, right, and centre.

Moffat did have a difficult job of turning that ephemeral beauty of the Celtic languages into the three languages in a trenchcoat of English. We can see how much is lost in translation when reading something like An ataireachd ard about Uig Bay on the Isle of Lewis,

An ataireachd ard,
Cluinn fuaim na h-ataireachd ard,
Tha torunn a' chuain
Mar a chualas leums' e nam phaisd,
Gun mhuthadh, gun truas,
A' sluaisreadh ganneimh na tragh'd
An ataireachd bhuan
Cluinn fuiam na h'ataireachd ard.

The high surge of the sea,
Listen to the high surge of the sea,
It is the sound of the ocean,
As I heard it when I was a child,
Without cease, without pity,
It washes back and forth on the sands of the beach.
The eternal surge of the sea,
Listen to the high surge of the sea.

The English just can't capture the rolling waves of the Atlantic in the way the Gaelic does.

Moffat also gives us short little asides that will enrich your reading life.

"Thrall is the Norse word for 'slave' and it changed meaning somewhat as it passed into English as enthralled."

or

"A surprising footnote is that there is a small but fascinating group of Celtic loan words that have made their way into English by a very circuitous route. For example, moccasin is not a North American Indian word: it comes from the Gaelic mo chasan, meaning my feet."

Look there's plenty of facts in here, many of them fascinating. There's also a lot of very dull information.

I've read a few Moffat books now and so I'm starting to get quite used to his style. It's become clear to me that he has this deep well of Scottish historical knowledge and with every book he writes he goes to the well and draws from that same knowledge set. He then flavours that material with whatever the topic of the book is. If we imagine a piece of millionaire's shortbread (caramel slice for Aussies and Kiwis), Moffat's core stuff is the biscuit base and the caramel, the topic at hand serves as the chocolate on top. It's true that without the chocolate it wouldn't be quite right but the bulk of the flavour is coming from the same base. Unfortunately, the reuse of material isn't just across books it sometimes happens in the same book. Indeed in this work several facts were delivered multiple times. An example being.

"So influential were the Prebyterian immigrants to the early USA that eleven of the first fifteen Presidents were of Ulster Scots extraction."

A fascinating fact, which is delivered too many times. At least I'm not likely to forget it. To expand on the geneaology of the USA Moffat also points out:

"At the inaugration of the President-elect Richard Nixon, there was a moment when he shook hands with Billy Graham. Beside him stood the outgoing President, Lyndon Johnson, while behind him was the figure of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong. All Border names of Border descent borne by the square-jawed, hard-bitten men whose families had been at the core of this amazing period in British history."

Which again is interesting but the poetry of the American situation seems to escape Moffat. The very Scots driven from their country by the English would go on to father sons that would drive the English from America and later turn America into the global hegemon. Much is made about Armstrong taking some Tartan to the moon but little about how the Scottish dreams were finally allowed to soar on American soil.

There are also a few times when I'm not quite sure I agree with what Moffat is saying or rather I'm concerned about the accuracy of his conclusions:

"The Celtic languages of Britain are old and share a good deal with those of the Masai of East Africa, The Amazonian Indians and the Australian Aborigines."

This statement is just plonked down without any evidence or reasoning behind it. It's also the sort of point that is only interesting if its actually explained. What do they share? The fact that they're oral cultures? The phonemes are similar? The language is based on the natural world? Without any backing or elucidation, it just hangs as a strange undeveloped thought.

England has possibly the worst national anthem in the world. I'd never read the English translation of the Welsh one but what a beaut by comparison to God saving our country's monarch.

"O land of my fathers, O land of my love,
Dear mother of minstrels who kindle and move,
And hero on hero, who at honour's proud call,
For freedom their lifeblood let fall.

Wales! Wales! O but my heart is with you!
As long as the sea
Your bulwark shall be,
To Cymru my heart shall be true.

O land of the mountains, the bard's paradise,
Whose precipice proud, valleys lone as the skies,
Green murmuring forest, far echoing flood,
Fire the fancy and quicken the blood.
Wales! Wales!

For tho' the fierce foeman has ravaged your realm,
The old speech of Cymru he cannot o'erwhelm,
Our passionate poets to silence command,
Or banish the harp from your strand.
Wales! Wales!

I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they either lived in an area with a Celtic history or had a general interest in it. It's not a historical masterpiece and at times it's very dry. But as a light background to the region it's a good a start as any.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable read, even if the size of the print is a strain on my old eyes. Alistair Moffat's 'The Sea Kingdoms' is a powerful historical odyssey to strange distant lands that our modern day map books cannot name. It's a Homeric journey from iron age to space age through the Celtic islands of Britain and Ireland. The book is packed with a fascinating range of information that encompasses the histories, languages, religions, myths and legends of a culture that has existed and barely survived through ravages of invasion, rebellion and time. The Sea Kingdoms has a huge sweep from Kernow in the south west to Pict land and Viking outposts in the northern isles, Gaelic Ireland and Cymru in the west to the kingdoms of Ulster, Man, Alba Dalraida and the Hebrides.
Whatever your DNA, Moffat's narrative stirs the blood and lets you appreciate R'yn ni yma o hyd.

[Snicketts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent overview of the Celtic races of the UK, with a comprehensive timeline, from what is known of their origins, through the Romans, the coming of the Christian missionaries and a very good couple of chapters on the Celtic saints, to the Welsh resistance, the Scottish clan wars, the land clearances and the Irish uprisings. It manages to tread a fine line between what is known and what has been added since the celtic world has been adapted for the masses through the years of romantic ideals, legends and myths.

The early chapters were particularly interesting as they established the 'otherness' of the culture, in how they measured time, in family, in race memories and how they saw the physical world. This is a theme that recurred throughout with the author maintaining that that otherness is still echoing in the places that identify as being Celtic. The saints were also an interesting and surprising topic, arriving so soon after the Romans.

Some of the research feels a little dated now - the book was published in 2002 and a lot of new ground has been covered since then, but the sense of culture and 'apartness' captured in this narrative is no less relevant.

A very good read with a mix of history and story that never takes a dive into the romantic.

[Ifor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant, in every sense epic

A fascinating retelling of the history of the Celtic nations of Britain, Moffat succeeds in a moving account. The descriptions are vivid and the prose flows. This is far from a staid list of dates and times; Moffat succeeds in capturing much of the spirit and the feel of the landscapes he described.. A compelling read.

[Ash Catt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough, and an undeniably entertaining read. The thing is, in mainstream history, you are rarely presented with a book like this. Even with trends in history to write about those who have been ignored, the Celts seemed to have been passed over here too. It goes without saying that their history is worthy of consideration in terms of British history.

The main drawback of this book is it's romanticism. It's hard to feel in trustworthy hands when the book embellishes what it writes so much, in order to 'paint a picture'. It certainly paints one, but it leaves you wondering whether if what you've been presented is all too fantastic.

There is clear agenda running through this book, which makes it seem very 'English v. Celts'. Now, the English people (I being one myself) have committed atrocities, especially in Scotland and Ireland. We have committed acts of violence, torture and murder, and we have gone out of our way to erase Celtic identity in our very Whiggish view of Britain as it should be, and this is indisputable. However, clear mindedness must still prevail in history. This book denigrates the English often, especially when looking at customs, and takes a rather sneering tone on occasion. Moral judgments aren't really relevant in historical writing, and they do nothing for this book.

However, this book is thorough. Especially impressed was I with the pre-Medieval period discussed in this book. Many works seem to leave this period as a very small section, but this considers it thoroughly. It reads with compassion (maybe a little too much) and empathy, and has an understanding of humans and their culture. It is a perspective widening and fascinating book, let down by a romantic agenda driving the work.

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review, I find. I love the fact that someone was so into the Celtic history of the UK that they went around researching and visiting all the out of the way, forgotten kingdoms, fading languages, strange customs and half-forgotten stories. The combined stories are beautifully told in a writing style that I found flowed admirably. The amount of work that went into compiling this book is formidable.

So, the above elements of the book were absolutely riveting. It provided a lot of information about the Celtic history of the UK which to my mind is the most interesting part of the old history and I certainly feel I know more about that than I did before. However, by the last third of the book I started to be aware of the very strong agenda that the author has. There are omissions, that even I, with little knowledge of the matters discussed, could see and did not understand. This awareness means that I found myself forced to take a lot of the bald assentations this book makes with a grain of salt; not a bad thing to do with any history really, I suppose but it is a shame the agenda is so strong that it made me cautious of the facts.

Also, I found the first half, or possibly even third to be the most interesting and the only part that actually reflects the title. My interest in this book was captured primarily because of the ‘sea kingdoms’ theme, and it is strong, relevant and very readable in the first part of the book. The later part is very much Scottish and much more related to the Highlands than anything else. While it was interesting and much of it totally new to me, I was sad to have left the sea so far behind that it was not mentioned for chapters at a time and had little relevance to the stories being told.

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book by Alistair Moffat that I've read and, as you'd guess given the fact that I've kept reading him, I've enjoyed them all. The Sea Kingdoms is an attempt at a history of Celtic Britain and Ireland but, by the nature of the subject and the sources, it's more a series of impressions and snapshots: places, events, people, all serving to illuminate some aspect of the other history of these islands, the history that has never been written but has been sung, recited, felt. It's as much a geography as a history, or a story of how the two interweave in the language and culture of a people acutely aware of the beauty and awe of their land. But, being united by the sea, the sea has also washed much away, leaving traces in the sand but only impressions where there was once much more. It's unlikely that even the best efforts of archaeologists will retrieve much more, and the history of the Celts, like the people, is bathed in the westering sun setting in the circle sea.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A helpful history of the Celtic peoples of the British Isles and Ireland, organized in thematic (language, religion, etc.) and regional (Cornwall, Wales, Man, Ireland, Scotland) chapters. One complaint: Moffatt does a good job of diggin up the origins of family and place names, prverbial sayings and folktales, but he never helps us with the pronunciation of all these Gaelic and welsh knots of consonants and vowels. Take "piobhaireachd," for example. The English simplified the spelling to "pibroch," which many of them and most Americans still can't pronounce. They'll say "pee-brock," which is sort of close (like calling Loch Ness "lock ness"). What is it, you ask? The piobhaireachd is a long "classical" tune--as opposed to a shorter piece, a dance or march--played on the Highland bagpipes. Would be nice to grapple with some of this Celtic language that is so central to the book.

[Dan Vine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very readable introduction to Celtic history but I wonder how scholarly it is. Having just read another of this author's works of popular history, on a subject about which I know more, I am reminded of my misgivings about this book that I read a few years back. Still I did enjoy it at the time even if I have subsequently come to doubt some of the more memorable claims that he makes.

[Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first third to half of this book was heavily focused on religion. While I understand that religion was a massive part of ancient Celtic life, and know the author to be openly Christian; I simply lack the interest in such things. However, I can objectively see the attraction in a more ancient form of Christianity as opposed to the more industrialised, corrupted form of modern times.

Much of the remainder of the book focused on relationships between different Celtic nations, skirmishes fought, mass emigration, ancient traditions, and the situations leading up to all these. It answers a lot of minor historical questions I've considered over the years.

The author's strength is definitely in anecdotes about his travels and the humour found in the people that he meets. If he ever releases a volume of such interactions, I will be one of the first to acquire it. But, perhaps, part of the charm of such wee stories is in the sporadic nature of their insertion in the book.

Overall, an educational and informative book, but it took me a LONG time to read.

[Tim Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alistair Moffat has produced in this work one of the most intriguing and informative history books I have read in some time, covering the Celtic peoples, history, and traditions of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man (and to a much lesser extent Brittany in northern France) as well as of England itself. Too often the history of the British Isles is the history of the English, and in this book he seeks to show an entire element of British history now largely forgotten.

Very importantly Moffat defines just what the term Celtic means. Celts are not defined by their race or by their place of birth; rather the Celts of Britain are a speech community. At one time an older version of Welsh was spoken all over the island of Britain and Irish Gaelic was the common tongue of Ireland; they were both cousin languages, sharing syntax and vocabulary, though later becoming mutually unintelligible. The very language of the Celts has often been at the core of their identity from early times, as the Celts have long believed that if their language fell from use that their nation - whether Welsh, Irish, or other - would fade from history. The opponents of the Celts understood this and for centuries have attacked their language, seeking to eliminate its use from government, the courts, churches and schools, full well realizing that to fully dominate the Celts they had to be rid of their unifying and defining language. As the author summarizes; the war for Britain "was as much a war of words as of blood and steel."

Celts were also linked by the sea, hence the title of this book. For centuries the sea was a much better highway than land, and once the ocean linked a Celtic community that stretched to mainland Europe, including modern Portugal, Spain, and France. Indeed the sea was often the focus of much more effort than land, with castles once constructed more to guard stretches of sea rather than areas of land, and the powerful Lord of the Isles starting in the mid-14th century ruling his Sea Kingdom from a movable court at sea, with the islands of Islay and Tiree serving as an administrative center and granary respectively.

Very often we see in this book that the story of the Celtic peoples is the story for the war for Britain. The Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the English, and the British won that war he writes, a victory more or less complete by the end of the18th century. This is a history written by the victors; too often the side of the losers was not told, or improperly told, aided by the fact that the Celts were largely a non-literate (though not illiterate) culture, greatly valuing oral tradition but for the most part not embracers of the written word. Indeed Moffat spends much time analyzing the English and modern view that only written sources should be valued and oral sources are automatically suspect, a view that has cost the world a vast store of history, culture, and literature.

The Celtic lands were by no means completely non-literate; in a striking paradox the Irish monks were noted producers of written material, preserving much ancient Greek and Roman knowledge and literature that might have otherwise been lost. Indeed the saga of the Celtic and particularly Irish monks fills several fascinating chapters; members of this group may have even visited North America prior to Columbus.

Today the Celtic speech community is largely extinct. Cornish and Manx possess no native speakers, the ancient words only on the lips of enthusiasts. Scots Gaelic will likely become extinct within a generation and Irish is in decline as well; only Welsh shows any real strength. Efforts are being made to preserve the Celtic languages, not out of any "weird, woolly, quaint, or daft" dream of supplanting English, but merely to seek to preserve ancient traditions and knowledge of Celtic history and culture. Language preservation is all the more important when one realizes that Celtic history often lacks obvious ruins, with little to compare to say the Valley of the Kings or the Parthenon.

Perhaps even more damaging Moffat writes is that Celtic history is in serious dangerous of being reduced to quaint local color and comfortable entertainment, something more suited to the tourist trade and Hollywood than real history, and unfortunately much Celtic history that is known to the public is a fairly recent invention. The Highland Clearances of the 19th century saw the removal of thousands from the Scottish Highlands, leading to the myth - much embraced by many from Victorian painters to modern filmmakers - of the lonely, windswept, majestic wilderness that was an entirely artificial creation. The kilt most well known today is more properly called the feileadh beag or small kilt and is actually the creation of an 18th century English factory owner to aid employees in his ironworks; even the word kilt is from the Danish kilte, which means "to tuck up." Even the tradition of identifying certain tartan patterns (or setts) with certain clan names dates largely back to a book published in 1842 that was largely made-up. The much-loved Welsh tradition of the Gorsedd, a three-day convention of bards and druids, was mostly made up by Edward Williams (who later called himself Iolo Morgannwg), a skilled 18th century Welsh scholar who created much of what is popularly thought of about bards and particularly the Druids (though interweaving so much actual history, rituals, and literature that it has taken entire academic careers to distinguish fact from his fancy). Even when it became known that his (and that of another proponent of druidism, William Price) culture never really existed as such, many still embraced their efforts as part of a national Welsh revival and something decidedly un-English.

A fascinating book, covering many aspects of the Celts; from the bold Border Reivers to the real Rob Roy to Irish nationalism to Cornish wrestling.

[Cedric · Rating 3 out of 5]

The text of BBC serial, it's not a history, but contains a lot of history. It's not quite a travel tale, but based on travelling. An attempt to capture the survivals of the Celtic heritage in Britain - the actual survivals not the New Age rubbish. Does succeed very well in looking at British history from two unusual angles - the Irish Sea as the centre of a maritime civilisation that lasted for millennia, and the losers in the making of modern Britain.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this was a dense read, but quite enlightening, especially into the divisions of Wales, Scotland, Ireland (and even Cornwall where I ultimately have settled in as an ex-pat) from England based on their Celtic cultural ties. All very interesting and I’m quite impressed with how Moffat mirrors the melodic and sonorous aspect of Celtic oral tradition in the writing the English language.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is fine, but, in my opinion, misnamed. There is very little about the Celts in here. (The author discusses the Vikings more frequently and more in depth than the Celts.) This is more a history of Britian, with minor appearances from Ireland, told through a vaguely Celtic lens. If you want to read about the Celts, and only the Celts, read Alice Roberts' book instead.

[Sebvand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sure it was a bit biased and also this book would jump between tidbits of history without much connecting these areas. But also it was just really interesting and all the stories and descriptions of places were very evocative. Basically it makes you went to travel the west of Britain and visit all the forgotten ruins of its celtic past.

[Phil Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

This intriguing book mixes history, travelogue and Celtic culture, often jumping about the story thematically, rather than a more conventional chronological historical narrative. As an amateur-historian, I prefer a more linear narrative, especially as that would allow me to focus better on the Viking-era history I enjoy. However, pure history is not Moffat’s goal and the book brims with fascinating details and character studies as we travel through the Celtic west of the British Isles.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the narrative. A little confused and repetitive in places, but i've re-read so obviously enjoyed it enough...

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is wonderful history, told like a mythic tale around a crackling campfire. It has the magic of misty islands and the gravitas of tall mountains and the romance of ancient poetry. I loved every lyric word of it.

The story of the kingdoms of the islands and the seaward looking coasts are actually relevant to our world in ways we have almost forgotten. The events of heroism, treachery and glory that built and destroyed these Celtic strongholds were not written and stored in archives, but memorized and stored in the peoples' hearts. Instead of treaties and tax rolls, the Celts left us poetry and tales. Until quite recently, most historians have preferred to stay safely with the tax rolls and the better documented Norman kingdoms. But even when studying the Normans, it is hard to ignore that in the mountainous highlands, in Ireland and the Islands, there were other folk who lived, schemed, loved, farmed, fished and fought in their own folkways, with their own music and a rich culture.

In charming, almost poetic sentences, Alistair Moffat takes us to see those other folk and tells us about their Gods and their heroes. If you love poetry and myth, you can pig out on this rich feast. I heartily recommend it , especially if you ever wondered about the untold bits of history.

[Madeleine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would like to give the author of this book two gifts:

1. an editor

2. footnotes.

This is a very free-form history of Scotland, Wales, Isle of Mann, Ireland, and Cornwall (in that order of prominence in the book). There is a lot to potentially like about the book--an alternate look at British and Irish history centered on the the islands' original inhabitants is appealing. Unfortunately, most chapters wander all over the place, with little point and less structure.

The author argues that the written history of Celtic Britain and Ireland is non-existent and/or written by the English conquerors, and therefore not to be trusted. This makes perfect sense to me as a political statement, but there is such a thing as moderation. This book would have been strengthened, not weakened, by judicious and critical use of the relevant background/scholarly sources that do exist. In their absence, the author relies far too heavily on anecdotes from his own travels and information from mysterious non-cited sources.

I bought this book in Belfast last summer, so I have a travel-related soft spot for it...but there have got to be better books out there that do the same thing.

...also, the font is teeny and it hurt my eyes.

[Caroline Gerardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

My daughter is in College in Ireland. I read this book before she left, mostly out-loud in quips to her.
Books are part of the flow of my life, I am always shopping for more great ones, but family and friends seem to arrive at my open door, sometimes for the dinner on the stove, more often to pinch the latest book I read. Sadly someone "borrowed" this one before I finished. I will need to buy it again.
The book approaches history like that, telling tales and winding around a thing.
If you stole this book, I'm hoping you send some good fairies over here in payment.

[Mira · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read about any country. Moffat doesn't load you up with dates to the point that you become unaware of what actually occured when. It's a satisfying read when you come away with a picture of a place that is informed, detailed, and poetic. An ode to the languages, the people, and, most importantly, the places passed through.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding traditional Irish language a little more actually helps understand the place when traveling there...such a strong connection to the land and the vivid ways in which what we take for granted as everyday objects, feelings, movements and events are described makes for a higher level of appreciation. Brilliant.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at a world not hidden, but mostly lost, the Celtic culture of history of the Islands comprising Ireland and Great Britain today with their remnant populations in Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Man. Along the way, Moffat gives a wonderful view of where words have come from and the meaning behind current folklore and traditions.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow reading to take in all the historical facts presented, but very interesting and eye-opening.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent history of British Isles from the Gaelic point of view; a view centred on the Irish sea rather than London and on the interplay of different cultures rather than the predominance of one.

[Myra Thomson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant account of Celtic Britain. 'The best picture of the Celtic race yet written.' South Wales Echo says it all!!

[Andrew]

This is an easy book to read, and sets out an unusual view point that does make sense.

[David Comerford · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. Better than A Genetic Journey. I still think that I bought too many Alastair Moffat books, but if I was to choose 2 then they would be this one and The Faded Map.