According to tradition the Gaels are descended from
Adam, and Gaelic was spoken in the Garden of Eden. Jacob and his tribe
emigrated to Thrace and eventually to Egypt, where they met a princess called
Scota. Over many generations the community moved to Carthage and eventually to
Galicia in Spain, until they were dislodged after long and fierce campaigns by
the Romans. They moved to Ireland, and through marriage became the high kings.
From about the first century AD the Gaels started to come to Scotland from
Ireland, at first settling in the west of Argyll, which became the kingdom of
Dalriata. In 523 AD St Columba came from Ulster and settled in the isle of Iona
bringing Christianity to Scotland, England and parts of Europe.
Thereafter Iona and Dalriata flourished as a centre
of civilisation, keeping the lamp of learning alive after the Roman empire had
fallen and the dark ages had descended on England and the rest of Europe. The
Gaels took over the kingdom of the Picts in the north east of Scotland and then
the other kingdoms in southern Scotland, creating Scotland as a single kingdom
within its present boundaries by 1013 AD. Scotland is therefore older than
England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium and other European
countries.
By about the tenth century Gaelic was the official
language of all of Scotland and Ireland. The kings of Northumberland sent their
sons to Iona to be educated, and the influence and reputation of the Gaels
spread throughout Europe. They settled in the Faroes and Iceland, travelled to
North America before the Vikings, and traded with the Mediterranean over a
thousand years ago. They invented tartan and whisky, brought the bagpipes and
introduced most of the characteristics by which Scotland is internationally
known today. By the fifteenth century the tide had turned.
The kings of Scotland, based in Edinburgh, who by
then spoke English rather than Gaelic, set about taming the Gaels through
persecution of the language, then by massacre in 1746 and finally by dispersion
in the 19th century. It is only since 1984 that Gaelic has re-emerged in
Scottish life as a proud part of our heritage. Today it has once more become
the medium of instruction in a number of schools at primary level, and the
college of Sabhal Mor Ostaig seven miles from our office was set up for post
school education where degrees are granted for cultural and media studies all taught through Gaelic.
