sgr"obh Rifty:
Celtic Australia Day clearer copy 839Hey you! Watch it! I'll have you know I sound nothing like The Big Yin as I come from the East of Scotland and my accent is originally from Midlothian but has...
M-ran taing, a charaidean, and G'day Folks,
Just to follow up, I thought folks here might be interested in a Highland Day we have coming up in Sydney on Sunday May 21 2006. It'll be a celebration of Highland culture -- music, song, dancing, language, food and storytelling -- held at Old Government House in Parramatta Park, one of the oldest buildings in Australia and the one most closely buttociated with Lachlan Macquarie, Australia's most famous Governor of the British colonial days, a native Gael from the island of Ulva who returned from Australia to his home on Mull and was finally buried there. Performers will include my own group, The Australian Gaelic Singers; a world-renowned Australian-born Scottish Fiddler name of Chris Duncan; and a close friend on her first visit to Oz, Ishbel MacAskill, the brilliant Gaelic singer from Lewis. The day is co-hosted by the National Trust of Australia -- we staged the day for them last year, and it was so successful they've asked us to make it an annual event.
I wanted to let people know about the gig -- and please forgive such a shameless plug on my first post to these newslists -- in response to Rifty's post, largely because I'm really smug that we've secured the Community Relations Commission of Australia as our financial sponsors, and one of the reasons they agreed to support the event is specifically to lend their weight to affirming Celtic culture, and specifically Highland Scottish culture, as a major contributor to the original cultural make-up of Australia, and one that still occupied a valuable place. In spite of the fact that hardly a single civil ceremony occurs in Australia without the pipes (as in, a marching pipe band), for the first 200 years of Australian history after British conquest of the land, immigrants from any part of Britain or Eire were typically listed in arrival records as "English" for their culture of origin, and valid statistics of the cultural makeup of early settlers are completely unavailable. In fact, it was only the mid-1990s when the "country of origin" question in the national Census dropped the catch-all "English-British" category and listed all the component nations of Britain as independent options for Celtic Australians.
Other Celtic Australian events 836Emanuel Appel No, not necessarily. The US simply buttigned everyone else a national designation to be appended beyond the .com, but none to itself, leaving...
So ... all that aside, we would delighted to see any interested folk at our Highland celebration in Sydney in May. More details are available on our website, including info on other coming events (concerts, Gaelic kirkings, cZilidhean) and an e.mail newslist for upcoming events that those interested can subscribe to. Please drop by and say g'day !!
leis gach drachd, with all respects,
Bran
Bran MacEachaidh The Australian Gaelic Singers PO Box 368 plus 18 Parramatta NSW 2124 ph: (02) 9633 1162 or 0422 218 461
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Tha gach uile dhuine air a bhreth saor agus co-ionnan ann an urram 's ann an c~irichean. Tha iad air am breth le reusan is le cogais agus mar sin bu ch~ir dhaibh a bhith be- nam measg fhZin ann an spiorad br^thaireil.
