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THE CELTIC CONNECTION « JULY 1993
FEATURES IN THIS ISSUE
MUSIC
■ FOLK FESTIVALS...........4
CROPEDY.......................19
■ HOTHOUSE FLOWERS. 6
■ LARK IN THE CLEAR AIRE (WILL MILLAR). 19
• SHARON SHANNON... 4
•TOMMY MAKEM...........5
•PRECIPICE.....................12
•SOLSTICE REVIEW 16,17
• SINEAD O'CONNOR.. 19 •WELSH HARPIST.........15
•RECIPES..........................18
•ASTROLOGY..................18
•GENEALOGY.................28
•VIDEOS...........................12
•MR. O'NANYMOUS.....24
•ROBERT HENDERSON26
•BAIRBRE MURRAY......27
•LYDIA LANGSTAFF.... 11
• PSYCHIC.........................28
•WARREN FERGUSON. 29
COLUMNS
THEATRE
•IRISH THEATRE IN CALGARY........................6
•BLOOMSDAY...................7
•DANCING AT LUGHNASA...................19
FEATURES
• AER LINGUS.................20
• IRISH STUDENTS........25
•BALLYVAUGHAN.......13
SPORTS
•GAELIC FOOTBALL
LEAGUE..........................21
•WORLD CUP..................22
• PLAYER PROFILES.......23
•GAA RESULTS...............22
•SEATTLE GAELS...........26
BOOKS
• THE RED HAND.........14
MYTHOLOGY
•MARGE FERGUSON.......8
•NEW WESTMINSTER
PIPE BAND.....................10
•FAMILY CREST..............29
SERVICES
KELTS
• AVERTISING INDEX ....30 9 'CLASSIFIED....................31
Our Apologies
We at The Celtic Connection would like to apologize for some errors printed in last month's issue. In Kevin McFadden's column, A Brief History of Ireland, the Battle of the Boyne was mistakenly dated at 1649. It was, in fact, in 1690. Regarding that same battle, Charles I was incorrectly said to have been involved. It was actually King James II.
•
We apologize also for some errors which made unclear Joseph Maher's story, Wear a Bloomsday Rose. It was not May who escaped from a drunken father; it was her son Ken._
THE CELTIC CONNECTION
Volume 3, Number 7 #741 - 916 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V5Z 1K7 Tel: (604) 731-4261 Fax: (604) 731-5043
Maura McCay
Publisher/Editor
Tom Collins
Design/Art Director
Alicia Martin
Assistant Editor
Deirdre Keohane
Illustrator
Vivien ne Connolly
Distribution
Catholine Egan
Display Advertising
Jacinta French
Subscription Sales
Philomena Daly
Accounting
Dermot Byrne
Distribution
Karen Franklin
Photography
Subscription rate $25 Cdn for Canadian subscribers or $30 U.S. for U.S. subscribers. Published 11 times per year. Unsolicited submissions must be accompanied by a Canadian stamped envelope. Contents copyright 1993 The Celtic Connection.
Canada Post Canadian Publications Agreement 477842 Printed in Canada.
Renaissance
WhETriER OR NOT TriEy CAN cUiM CeMc ANCESTRy, MORE ANd MORE pEOplE ARE
lookiNq to its taUsmans foR iNsiqkr 'into whence TriEy
CAME, W/rlERE TriEy'RE qOJNq
T
By DAWN HANNA
Features Writer for The Vancouver Sun i HE OMENS are everywhere. There is the music — from bands such as Capercaillie, Figgy Duff and Runrig. There is the art — on everything from t-shirts to porcelain. There are the books — on mythology, knotworkand spiritualism. And there's more — a newspaper, stores and festivals.
They all point to one thing: as more and more people look to the past, to help them find their way in the present. They all point to a Celtic renaissance.
And Vancouver, unexpectedly, is finding itself riding at the crest of the neo-Celtic wave.
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Noel Blakely is the Celtic half of All My Relations, a half-native, half-Celtic store in Vancouver. The store sells original drawings, paintings and prints, music, jewellery, cards and other paraphernalia with a Celtic theme or design, but it's the books that are the store's life-blood — a clue to the reason behind the revival.
"I think a lot of people are searching for a new spirituality," the 37 year-old explained, fingering the spine of one book, The Celtic Shaman.
"People want to know more about where they came from and what their ancestors did and how they lived. They're basically searching for something to improve their lives and they're looking at what worked in the past to see if it will work again."
So people are reading about the ancient Celts and how they worshipped the land, and how they saw God as inhabiting the rocks,
mountains, rivers, lakes, trees and animals.
They read about how a Celtic culture first emerged in 800 BC in the area where presently Austria and Switzerland exist, and how the Celts expanded through France and Spain, and eventually to the British Isles, where the culture flourished and survived well into the first millennium.
They are reading the Celtic myths, of great heroes such as Cuchulain; of great heroines such as Boudicca and Emer; and of the warrior goddesses.
They are exploring the intricacies of Celtic artwork and its expressions of the journey of the human soul. "And," says Blakely, "they want more."
"I get asked all the time, 'Is there somewhere to go? Where do you go to explore more of this?' People want it, but it's not there. If a Celtic church opened up, I think people would explore it. I would explore it."
•
When Maura McCay began her journey of the soul, she didn't know it would bring her back to her roots.
She was in her mid-thirties. She had nursed a close friend through cancer and seen him die. She had left her job in the corporate world. It was, to say the least, a time of upheaval and uncertainty.
Then, she started working as a volunteer at the University of B.C.'s Museum of Anthropology, leading groups of schoolchildren and tourists through halls of artifacts from B.C.'s native Indian cultures.
As she began to delve more into the native art, mythology and
other cultural traditions, McCay found solace, wisdom and healing.
"I had always felt the museum was like a cathedral and the artwork was sacred," McCay remembers. "And then I started thinking to myself: Where is our sacred artwork?"
Then McCay met renowned Celtic artist and author, Aidan Meehan, and saw some of the intricate, elaborate drawings.
"I saw this one piece — called Devenish — and it just completely resonated for me and I understood that this was our sacred artwork," McCay said.
The realization took McCay full circle. As a child, the daughter of an Irish father, she had lived in an Irish-influenced community in the Gatineau Valley of Quebec.
Today, she is the publisher and editor of The Celtic Connection, North America's only Celtic newspaper, circulation: 20,000.
Flip though a copy of The Celtic Connection and you get even more of a sense of revival. There are ads for festivals, pubs and stores, from North Vancouver to Edmonton to New York, from Whidbey Island to Galway, Ireland.
The paper, which started almost two years ago, has only two full-time staffers out of a dedicated team of ten. It's made to appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, from recent Irish immigrants to those third and fourth generation Canadians with ancestral ties to Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England; and to Celtophiles — those without any Celtic heritage, but with an interest in things Celtic.