Celts in the New World

At the end of the eighteenth century the poems of Ossian became celebrated from Moscow to Philadelphia. Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson, along with many others were caught up in the mania for the lives and times of the great men of ancient mythology and their lesser followers. To some extent the cult of Ossian grew from the apprehension that one of the world's outstanding civilisations was disappearing soon after the demise of the dynasty that had seized on it as a support for its own dying cause. But while Bonnie Prince Charlie was drinking himself to death in the salons of Europe, many of his former supporters, along with fellow Celts, indifferent or even opposed to him, were carrying the remnants of their culture across the Atlantic to the New WorId where, in various forms it was to achieve a long-lasting survival. Today, the interest in this early migration is not only greater than ever, but as the two ensuing articles demonstrate, is also leading to a new scholarly appraisal.