What would offend a Celt?

[cmacq]

Would it be more accurate then to refer to the Irish as Gaels, Ancient British as Britons/Brythonic and leave 'Celt' for the more European based cultures?

As far as I'm aware, those locations have large amounts of 'Viking' blood so it'd be hard to find a true 'celt' amongst them.

The way the term was used in the Classical sense, yes. Now, as to the modern usage, which is a recent usurpation and abstraction of the ancient concept, it can only be applied in terms of a general ill-defined culture, both past and present.

Right,

These things are never so cut and dry. The Orkney, Shetland, Outer Hebrides, and Faeroe islands took in a lot of Norse in the Medieval Period. The Inner Hebrides not so much. For example, as I'm somewhat fimiliar with the subject, my family occupied Mull, and Iona, but their main island was Ulva. If clan names are any indication, there was a lot of intermarriage with the Norse settlers, particularly those that occupied the Outer Hebrides in the late Medieval Period.

Now, my family line, which bears the clan name, traces a lineage to the House of Alpin, and thus is tied to the ruling houses of Dalriata (in Ireland) and several in Alba. However, tradition holds that my surname, was not Goidelic and its meaning applied to horse rearing, as are several other clan names from the same vicinity. In the 1930’s a linguist phonetically matched the clan name to a dialect of ancient Greek ; a word with a similar meaning, again having to do with horses (this most likely goes back to some earlier IE root word). Interestingly enough when the Classical Greeks and later Romans did mention the Hebrides, they used the term Haemodae or Hebudes and called the inhabitants the Επίδιοι or Epidii, which contains the Brittonic and/or Gaulish root epos, meaning horse. I think Epidii has been rendered to mean 'those of the horse.' This would precede the Goidelic migration by as little as 400, or possible as much as 1000 yrs. There is more family tradition, but I don't want to muddy the water any more than it is already. I think you get my drift. Something like this may appear simple on the surface, yet as you go deeper, one finds nothing is as clear as it once seemed.

Right,
the point is I’ve never heard any relative, which many are well read and steeped in family lore and history, ever refer to any relation as a Celt or collective as being Celtic in any way, shape, or form. Not to draw too fine a point, nor offend anyone, but I had always supposed that the term, Celt, was yet another Fenian ploy to extract quick cash from the unwitting American; a fool and his money. Of course, this to support of their various vices, and other ill-conceived sundries, all in the name of a unity and relationship that for most there never was. I had hoped this would have subsided a bit with the recent appearance of the Gaelic Tiger and all, but I guess old habits are hard to break?


Hope this may help


CmacQ