Quote Originally Posted by Peter C. View Post
I don`t know how you tell a Cornish man, as people have been moving to and from Cornwall for centuries. In fact if you check the DNA of anyone indiginous to the British Isles, you will probably find links to every country in the group, as they have been mingling for centuries.

Peter
Peter,
How do you tell a Cornish man what?

Seriously, though, I'm not quite sure what you mean here: are you suggesting that someone needs a certain DNA in order to lay claim to a cultural heritage? How do you tell if someone is a Welsh man? A Scottish man? A Breton woman? A Cornish man, I guess, is somebody who was born in and/or lives in Cornwall and/or has Cornish ancestry. Someone who identifies themself as being Cornish is no less Cornish than someone who identifies themself as Irish is Irish for similar reasons.

For centuries the Cornish had their own language, which unfortunately all but died out. The Cornish dialect, though, is still going strong (much like the dialects of other areas of the British Isles) and is even evident in the way I speak - 150 years and five generations away from my Cornish born ancestors. The reason for this is that the Cornish had their own traditions and customs which they took to all corners of the world, including the area in which I was born.

To say that there is no such thing as a Cornish identity, which I think is what you are suggesting, because there is no distinct "Cornish" DNA is completely irrelevant. Being Cornish is about relating to a distinct culture, just as being Irish, Welsh, Manx, Breton, Galician, Lithuanian, Polish etc. is.

For the record, I do not consider myself Cornish - I am an Australian who grew up in an area and a household with very obvious historical and cultural links to Cornwall. I also have Scots, Irish, English and German ancestry. (You are 100% correct when you say that people from all Celtic nations have been intermingling for centuries - nowhere is that more evident than in Australia, where people from everywhere have been intermingling for the last couple of centuries.)

I wear the kilt because it looks great, feels comfortable and because it acknowledges an ancestry which is is not "just" English (that is in no way a slur against England or the English).

I'm sorry to hijack this thread, but I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Regards,

Troy