Letter to the Editor

Dear Janet,

Your newsletter continues to interest us in the ‘goings on’ of fellow clan members.

Congratulations to Steve & his band on their achievements –great for a band only four years old.  Steve looks ‘bonny’ with his Bass Drum.  Both my dad & my husband were pipers in the Blue Lake Highland Pipe Band & so we know how much work & dedication goes into preparations for competition. 

Talking of pipers, every Friday at noon, a lone piper plays traditional Scottish airs on the balcony of the Glen Innes Town Hall.  Glen Innes is in northern New South Wales, with a population of 10,000.  They welcome visitors with the Gaelic ‘CEUD MILE FAILTE’, meaning one hundred thousand welcomes.

The town has its own tartan & the Australian Standing Stones.  The stones are recognized as a national monument to Australia’s Celtic pioneers & as a national gathering point for Celtic descendants & clans.  The annual Celtic Festival attracts thousands of people.  Highlights of the Festival include a street parade, Celtic dancers, concerts, choirs, storytellers, yard dog trials & The Kirking of the Tartan.

As we all know stone circles were built by the Celts

as calendars and they later developed religious significance.  The main feature of the Aust Standing Stones is a circle of 24 stones, representing the 24 hour day.

Outside the circle, four ‘cardinal’ stones mark true north, east, south & west.  These stones, with a single stone just inside the circle, form the Southern Cross – symbolizing the link between the old & new worlds.  Another formation represents the Ionic cross, symbol of the early Christian Church & still used on Roman Catholic churches.  Other stones mark the summer & winter solstices, the longest & shortest days of the year.  There are three stones standing in the centre of the circle.  The northern stone, the Gaelic Stone represents Gaelic-speaking Celts from Ireland, Scotland & the Isle of Man; the southern most stone, the Brythonic Stone, represents Brythonic-speaking Celts of Wales, Cornwall & Brittany; the gold-coloured middle stone, the Australian Stone, represents all Australians.

Outside this array, there are the Gorsedd Stone, for the Cornish & Welsh, & Ogham Stone for the Irish.  The Ogham Stone has an inscription carved in Ogham, the oldest writing known to have been used by the Celts.  It translates in Gaelic as GLEANN MAQI AONGUSA, the Glen of the Sons of Angus, or, more simply, “Glen Innes.”                               Dawn