ABSTRACT

Celtic ethnicities, identities and geographies are, James (1999b: 25) comments, ‘living political, as well as cultural issue[s]’. In this chapter, I argue that this applies not only within the British Isles, but also in the United States where, for example, politicisation of Irish-American communities over St Patrick’s Day parades is well documented (see Davis 1995; Moss 1995; Byron 1999). In contrast to these historically long-standing Irish-American disputes over representations of their ‘Celtic’ culture and identity, it has been only in the last five years that Scottish-American groups have co-ordinated celebrations of ‘Scottish’ nationality by marking a date in the calendar. The US Senate formally recognised ‘the outstanding achievements and contributions made by Scottish Americans to the United States’ in March 1998, when it unanimously passed Resolution 155 annually establishing 6 April as ‘Tartan Day’ (see Figure 9.1; Congressional Record – Senate 1998: S2373).1