Have you noticed your local newspapers abounding with photographs of Breton musicians and sprinkled with names such as Carré Manchot, Fanfan and Hervé le Floch?  So, the thought occurs: why so much one-way awareness?   A quick look at the history of Brittany may suggest at least one answer and should certainly ring a few bells in the average Irish head.

Think little country, big exploitative neighbour….

Brittany is a region with a fantastically rich and ancient archaeological heritage, where the works of man are intimately wedded to the landscape, a landscape which in places bears an uncanny resemblance to parts of Ireland.   Standing stones are common, and the famous alignments of menhirs at Carnac pre-date the Pyramids and Stonehenge and (probably) Newgrange as well.   In more recent times, several settlements were founded by Irish and Welsh monks, including St Malo, Quimper and St Gildas de Rhuys, where I wrote these lines.

Brittany was an independent duchy, once a kingdom.  But in 1532 Francois 1 of France grabbed the region.  He promised rights to the Breton people, some basic freedoms including a veto over French taxation by a local parliament in Rennes, the right to be tried in Brittany and freedom from being conscripted to fight outside the region.  The treaty was regularly broken by the French, the Bretons responded with fierce uprisings, and these were savagely crushed by the French.  

Over the next few centuries the Breton language was virtually extinguished, the countryside was depopulated, and advocating Breton independence became a criminal offence.  Even today, the French government defines Brittany as the region covered by four departments only: Finistère, Côte-d'Armor, Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan.  The fifth department, Loire Atlantique, was removed from the former province in 1941 by the Vichy government and many Bretons, including about three-quarters of the people of Loire Atlantique, do not accept this division.  Clinging to Breton culture and their Catholic religion, and reviving the language, the folk-lore and the old customs became the means of sustaining a unique Breton identity.  Are those bells ringing for you?

Follow this history through to the last quarter of the twentieth century.  France and Brittany are part of the European Union.  As a Breton nationalist you have the chance to establish a more positive approach to their national destiny among your fellow Bretons, helped by funding and the European Charter for Minority Languages; France signed that in 1999 but is unable to ratify it constitutionally.  But no longer can Brittany be treated as it was in the past.  

Now cast your eye around Europe for a template, a model with a similar history which has used its place in Europe to help it to stand clear of the shadow of its former oppressor.

Any candidates?  One stands head and shoulders above the rest

– and it rains a lot there, too!