International a.k.a. Dunardry Heritage Association supports Clan MacTavish interests worldwide and includes both the Dunardry and Stratherrick Clan MacTavish sites.

MacTavish International a.k.a. Dunardry Heritage Association supports Clan MacTavish interests worldwide and includes both the Dunardry and Stratherrick Clan MacTavish sites.

Bretons and Britons

Robert Gunn, Author and Historian

Arthur - Part One

Brittany

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Brittany, also known as French Bretagne; Breton-Briez, is an ancient provice of the duchy of France, compromising the country known as Armorica until the influx of the Briton Celts of Britain. For those not familiar with the different Celts in Britain in the ancient days, there were the ancient race of the Irish in Ireland; the Picts in the north of Scotland (also called collectively “Caledonians” by the Romans); the Silures or ancient Welsh; the Scots in Dalriada (around 500 AD) from the Irish; the Britons of Strathclyde - a race of Celtic people strongly related to the Welsh both in customs and in the form of Celtic language; and at least a dozen different south and central British Celtic tribes that were, for the most part, thoroughly Romanised. Gaelic Celtic and Brythonic Celtic are the main types of Celtic language; but that is truthfully an oversimplification, as there were so many forms of Celtic languages.

When the Romans left Britain, and the Angles and Saxons, already present, they were brought in as reinforcement troops and paid by the Roman legions; the Angles and Saxons slowly merged forming a people we now call the Anglo-Saxons. They were a Germanic, war-like group of people who aggressively sought more and more land for themselves throughout the whole of the British mainland. Their constant wars against the native Celtic peoples forced the Scots to war on them and the Britons to seek haven in a new land, across the channel in an area of northwest France, now known as Brittany. (From the name Britons).

It consists of the northwestern peninsula of France, nearly corresponding to the modern departments of Finitere, Cotes-du-Nord, Morbihan, Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Antlantique.

The historical evolution of Brittany has been mainly determined by its remoteness. The region has twice been a shelter for the Celts. The earliest inhabitants of whom there is record were Celtic tribes, possible intermingled with the remnants of an earlier race whose monuments are menhirs, dolems, and cromlechs (most numerous at Carna, Morbihan). Conquered by Julius Caesar in 56 B.C., Armorica took part in the unsuccessful rising against him in (see Vercingetorix - Main menu) 52-51 B.C. It was only superficially Romanised.

In my search of information relating to the Celts of Brittany, I have come across some very interesting articles on the ancient Celts from 3000 B.C. To the end of the 1st century A.D. It may be an entire series of essays for me down the road, (if I ever get caught up), and if anyone is interested in this topic, please let me know via email.

I found this information, of Breton resistance to the armies of Rome, n an old book of my grandfathers, “The Oldest Unknown Race” by C. Thomas McAlistair, 1892. In this old tome I found this fascinating

history of Bretons fighting the Romans under Caesar.