Gaelic Nova Scotia: An Economic, Cultural, and - Gaelic Affairs

327 Pages·2002·4.13 MB·English

by  Mike Kennedy

Curatorial Report No. 97
GAELIC
NOVA SCOTIA
AN ECONOMIC,
CULTURAL, AND
SOCIAL IMPACT
STUDY
Michael Kennedy
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Nova Scotia Museum
Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada
November 2002
Maps of Nova Scotia
GAELIC NOVA SCOTIA
AN ECONOMIC, CULTURAL, AND SOCIAL IMPACT STUDY
Michael Kennedy
Nova Scotia Museum
Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada
Nova Scotia Museum
1747 Summer Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3H 3A6
© Crown copyright, Province of Nova Scotia
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
writing from the Nova Scotia Museum, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms
agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Nova Scotia Museum at
the above address.
Cataloguing in Publication Data
ISBN 0-88871-774-1
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Section One: The Marginalization of Gaelic
Celtic Roots 10
Gaelic Settlement of Nova Scotia 16
Gaelic Nova Scotia 21
The Status of Gaelic in the 19th Century 27
The Thin Edge of The Wedge: Education in 19th-Century Nova Scotia 39
Gaelic Language and Status: The 20th Century 63
The Multicultural Era: New Initiatives, Old Problems 91
The Current Status of Gaelic in Nova Scotia 112
Section Two: Gaelic Culture in Nova Scotia
The Social Environment 115
Cultural Expression 128
Gaelic and the Modern Media 222
Gaelic Organizations 230
Section Three: Culture and Tourism
The Community Approach 236
The Institutional Approach 237
Cultural Promotion 244
Section Four: The Gaelic Economy
Events 261
Lessons 271
Products 272
Recording 273
Touring 273
Section Five: Looking Ahead
Strengths of Gaelic Nova Scotia 275
Weaknesses 280
Opportunities 285
Threats 290
Priorities 295
Bibliography
Selected Bibliography 318
INTRODUCTION
Scope and Method
Scottish Gaels are one of Nova Scotia’s largest ethnic groups, and Gaelic culture
contributes tens of millions of dollars per year to the provincial economy. Yet, there has
never been a systematic policy developed to provide support for the culture in Nova
Scotia, and surprisingly little accurate information about the province’s Gaelic heritage is
widely known or available. This report represents a first attempt to address that need.

The initial idea for this study came from David Newlands of the Heritage Division of the
Nova Scotia Department of Tourism and Culture, who brought together representatives
from Cultural Affairs, the Department of Education, and the Gaelic community to discuss
the prospect of developing a Gaelic cultural policy. At that time, it became apparent that
an assessment of the state of Gaelic in the province was a necessary prerequisite to
planning. Peter Guildford of Cultural Affairs assumed responsibility for the project, and
the ad hoc committee drew up a research plan identifying four major areas of enquiry:
(1) a description of the historical context of Gaelic language and culture in Nova Scotia;
(2) an inventory of the current resources available for, and opportunities to participate in,
Gaelic language and cultural activities; (3) an assessment of the economic contribution of
Gaelic language and cultural activities to the province; and (4) an assessment of the
potential of Gaelic cultural resources and activities as tourism product. The research
proposal was put to public tender, and Dr. Michael Kennedy was awarded the contract as
project coordinator.
Given the tight time line and the relative paucity of previous research on the province’s
Gaelic heritage, a large amount of ground had to be covered and a great deal of new
information synthesized rather quickly. Research was conducted in the Nova Scotia
Archives in Halifax, at the Beaton Institute, University College of Cape Breton, at St.
Francis Xavier University, over the Internet, and in the field. Scores of documents were
reviewed, including archival and government papers, census returns, academic studies,
television documentaries and field recordings, print media, and studies in culture,
tourism, and economic development. In addition, nearly 500 individuals and
organizations were contacted for information. They seemed particularly heartened to hear
that the government was planning a development plan for Gaelic, and their enthusiasm
and co-operation played a critical role in the success of the project. The media was also
helpful, providing good publicity for the research and publishing local contact numbers
for the research assistants and the project coordinator.
In order to ensure as thorough coverage as possible for the project, which ran for less
than three months, from February into April, Dr. Kennedy selected research assistants to
assist in the gathering and preparation of specific sets of data. For the enumeration of the
various Gaelic events that take place each year, the province was divided into four major
zones, and research assistants with local knowledge were engaged to canvass each of
these areas and to act as local contacts.
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These were Eastern Cape Breton (Jenna MacNeil), western Cape Breton (Derrick and
Melody Cameron), Antigonish and Pictou County (Trueman Matheson), and Halifax and
mainland (Caroline Cameron). Tracey Dares-MacNeil collected data on Gaelic in the
music industry before leaving the project to give birth to her first child, Jessie Helen.
Gaeltalk Communications surveyed published Gaelic sources to provide an estimation of
the number of Gaelic poets once active in Nova Scotia, and Jonathan Dembling provided
invaluable assistance in census analysis and in the production of graphics for the report.
The Problem of Culture and Identity
One of the most difficult challenges for this report was also one of the most basic—how
to determine what constituted Nova Scotia’s Gaelic culture? Cultural identity is
fundamentally about being a part of one recognizable culture rather than another and is,
therefore, highly communal. However, just where the individual is located within one
cultural group and where the boundaries between that group and another are drawn can
also be quite idiosyncratic — a fundamental tension, that makes analysis a complicated
and, at times, controversial undertaking. Cultural identity is an amalgam of a large
number of multi-faceted and often contradictory elements: personality, race, language,
religion, sex, age, occupation, wealth, social standing, political affiliation, marital status,
family, community, region, province, nation, and society, among others. At these points
of intersection — and particularly where these points of intersection occur between
cultural groups — identity is subjected to especially heavy but often invisible strains.
Cultural identity must be fluid enough to accommodate these various demands but also
sufficiently rigid to have meaningful distinctiveness.
Many cultural groups have a series of formal social structures that help stabilize culture
and reinforce the sense of shared identity. In a modern, bureaucratic society these may
include, among other things, an educational system, a legal system, and a system of
governance that have grown out of the particular language and culture and that, in turn,
support and shape them, enhancing their viability and prestige and, in most instances,
establishing recognizable standards of excellence. Usually associated with these
institutions of social control is a standard, literary language with clearly defined legal
status and some form of media — print, radio, television, etc. — which operates in that
language, serving as a mass outlet for the expression of the group’s cultural arts and
reinforcing the group’s cultural perspective on events.
Some cultures, by contrast, find themselves subsumed within others — often after
outright conflict and conquest at some point in their history. In this sort of arrangement
they frequently lack many, and in some cases, all, of these formal structures for
identifying, stabilizing, and reinforcing their culture. Instead, they are placed in the
contradictory situation where the chief institutions of social control are not rooted in their
culture or language and are effectively barred to those individuals most rooted in the
native culture, who would normally play the most active part in determining their
direction and function. Instead of playing a supporting and reinforcing role, these
institutions actually undermine the minority group’s social structure, culture, and
language and erode its sense of a distinctive and worthy identity.
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As more and more of the minority group assimilate into the dominant society, the issue of
what constitutes the boundaries of cultural identity for the minority group becomes
increasingly problematic. It is not simply a case of one group getting smaller and another
group getting larger. Many of those becoming a functional part of the dominant society
are unable or unwilling to shed their former cultural identity — or at least their sense of
cultural identity, which is not always the same thing. This desire to be a part of both
cultures helps legitimize the process of external mediation of the minority group’s culture
by also challenging the central importance of a fully functional culture to the minority
group’s identity. Take, for example, people of impeccable Acadian descent who have
been thoroughly assimilated into English-speaking society. They may have been raised
with no knowledge of the French language or Acadian traditions and may be
indistinguishable from their English neighbours with whom they interact on a daily basis.
They may not even be able to communicate or effectively interact with French-speaking
Acadians, having no knowledge of their language or traditions. They may be accepted as
English by their acquaintances and consider themselves English. In such a situation, there
is no real identity issue. But what if, in all this, these individuals happen to consider
themselves still to be Acadian? Such a belief would pose a serious challenge to what
constitutes Acadian identity and, ultimately, to what constitutes the essentials of Acadian
culture.
This presents a problem for the individuals in question and also for the larger ethnic
group. The concept of cultural identity, as mentioned before, needs to have a communal
element, and if individuals find themselves excluded from a particular group of which
they feel a part, then there is potential for conflict. Those seeking to be included in a
particular cultural group with which they really have little or no functional interaction
may attempt to do so by relegating to secondary importance primary characteristics, such
as language, that bar their full participation in that group. The same minority group may
feel that these characteristics are the very basis of its cultural identity. This conflict can
help further undermine the culture’s viability by realigning priorities and redirecting the
resources necessary to sustain that culture to areas of far less importance — from French
language schools, for instance, to ethnic costumes, festivals, or symbols of varying
degrees of relevance and accuracy.
For individuals caught between two cultures in this way, attempting to maintain a sense
of identity based upon a functional cultural role within the dominant society and little
more than a sentimental (and sometimes entirely imaginary) cultural attachment to the
minority group can be a confusing and painful experience. It can also have serious
repercussions for the minority group as a whole, as these individuals — by the very fact
of their assimilation — are often in positions of greater social authority than members of
the minority group. They tend to have greater access to and influence over the main
institutions of social control such as schools, government, and the media and are,
therefore, often in a better position to forward their cultural agenda, despite the weakness
of their grounding in the minority culture.
This is a very real but also a very clear-cut example of one major problem minority
cultural groups face. Issues concerning culture, identity, and assimilation, however, are
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rarely cast in such dramatic relief. Again, to use the Acadian example, the French
language may be a fundamental defining characteristic of Acadian society, but there are
fluent French speakers who are not Acadians and fluent English speakers who are. There
are fluent French-speaking Acadians who wish to abandon their culture and non–French
speaking Acadians who wish to embrace it. There are French speakers from other areas
(France, for example) who can easily converse with Acadians and understand their
literature, but who would be less at home with the customs, forms of social interaction,
and sense of humour than English-speaking Cajuns from Louisiana might be. There are
French speakers from the heart of Acadian communities who are otherwise
indistinguishable from mainstream English North Americans and non-French speakers on
the periphery whose social patterns and customs seem to immediately mark them as
Acadian. And everywhere in between are people with varying levels of language
proficiency, knowledge of history and tradition, and varying degrees of interest in their
culture. On top of this, culture is continually evolving, making it difficult in some
instances to distinguish between normal social change and assimilation.
For Nova Scotia’s Scottish Gaelic population the problems of cultural identity are even
more complicated and critical. Definitions of “Celt,” “Scot,” “Gael” and “Highlander”
and ideas on when they should be used and to whom they should apply are even more
hotly contested and complex than definitions of “Acadian,” “Cajun,” or “French.”
English has been expanding into the Gaelic cultural world for roughly a thousand years,
and the results, particularly in the last two and a half centuries, have been far reaching.
Gaelic has long since been displaced from the major institutions of social control in
Scotland, mounting a strong challenge to the culture’s viability even in its homeland, let
alone in its New World communities. Massive decline of the Gaelic language has been
the most notable result of this uneven relationship, but cultural knowledge and skills
have deteriorated apace within once-flourishing Gaelic communities. English culture is
playing an increasingly important role in charting the direction for Gaelic culture and for
setting its cultural definitions and priorities. Assimilation is a fact of life for all Gaels.
Such enormous social change has resulted not only in evident cultural decline but has
also made subtler but equally pernicious challenges to Gaelic cultural identity. A long
period of social and linguistic decay undermines confidence not only in the declining
culture itself but also in the perceived competence of individuals from within the
declining cultural group. For many, the worst symptoms of repression and cultural decay
are now mistaken as inherent qualities of Gaelic culture itself and of Gaels. The negative
connotations of cultural conservatism, in such instances, encourage some individuals to
disassociate themselves as much as possible from the more meaningful aspects of their
culture, which are often stigmatized as “backward” and dysfunctional, although such
individuals are rarely willing to give up their sense of attachment to the culture entirely.
This encourages internal redefinition of the minority culture, as in the hypothetical
Acadian example above, to make it fit more comfortably into mainstream (in this case,
English) definitions of respectability and to align it with mainstream goals.
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