ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some consequences of industrialization for the evolution of a national culture in the British Isles. It discusses the adequacy of the alternative models of core-periphery relations with regard to cultural differentiae, religious affiliation, and peripheral language maintenance. The chapter introduces a different indicator of religious affiliation in an attempt to describe changes in religious affiliation in England and the Celtic periphery. It presents new data on the distribution of religious affiliation in the counties of the British Isles from 1851-1961, as well as considering statistics on the changes in rates of Welsh and Gaelic speaking. These data indicate that industrialization has not led to a convergence of religious affiliation in the core and peripheral areas. While Celtic language maintenance has declined consistently in the periphery, this apparently has not been a direct consequence of industrialization, but rather the result of political intervention by the central government, in providing for compulsory public education on a monoglot basis.
