ABSTRACT
According to Cunliffe (1997), Europe is in the grip of a New Celtomania which offers a comforting vision of past unity and creativeness at a time when ethnic divisions are becoming increasingly painful and disturbing. The Celtic now has a wider spatial claim than Atlantic Europe, and more personal meanings besides mother tongue and ancestry. It is a prolific consumption style: in Piccini’s (1996) words, ‘Celts sell’. Celtic musical styles have transcended folk and ‘gone global’, and the promise of Arthurian romance attracts thousands to sites such as Tintagel and Glastonbury (Robb 1998; Bowman 1993). Bowman’s (1996) ‘cardiac Celts’ seeking an ‘Anglo-Saxon bypass’ may find refuge in this expanded identity, which differs radically from the traditional conception of the Celt.
