u/TheZenPenguin

It'd be class to figure out a spot to go out after and round up a group of fellow Fenians/Kale Barroka in the city

I know this is a strange and very niche thing to be bothered by but hear me out. I'm from Ireland and I grew up being told stories from Irish mythology and folklore. Nowadays there's a significant Celtic pagan revival happening in Ireland. I love my culture and I'm very interested in our history and pre-christian traditions so I get involved in the yearly festivals as much as possible. For the most part, myself and the others I know who are interested in this sort of thing are pretty realistic about it.

As Ireland was Christianised we lost a lot of our old traditions but thankfully we have a strong literary tradition that preserved a lot of our mythology and traditions which allow for a revival/reconstruction of the belief system by stitching together the surviving literature and filling in the gaps. Essentially it's being revived not just from fun ideas but from textual evidence of the remaining continuity.

All that being said I keep seeing people online (mostly Americans and English content creators) making tutorials on "how to practice Celtic paganism". Despite all the literary evidence we have to make an educated reconstruction, the internet has taken it and run with it, appropriating my culture into a bastardisation of it's origins. Videos like "if you're a Celtic pagan, you should know this spell to hex your ex using only cinnamon and a candle"... CINNAMON DOES NOT GROW IN ANY CELTIC NATION AND HAS NO TIE TO THE TRADITIONS WHATSOEVER! So many people are just literally making shit up with no evidence and then confidently flooding the internet with misrepresentations of my culture and it is very frustrating.

This is just one example among many, it would be fine if these content creators would just say "this is how I like to practice my own beliefs" but no, they constantly have to attribute it to my culture and completely misrepresent everything about it. The worst part is, if you're actually interested in this stuff there are plenty of resources to learn about it but people seem more interested in just making up their own shit and spreading misinformation.

I've also seen this happen with not just celtic paganism but many other cultural forms that get completely hijacked by TikTok witches. Sorry for the rant, I've just seen one too many videos appropriating my culture today and nobody seems to be calling it out so I just felt like I had to say something. If you got this far, thanks for hearing me out. Rant over.

Edit: for anyone interested in learning about Celtic myth and folklore I listed a few helpful resources to start with here

My girlfriend has never seen the lads perform before and im taking her to see her first Kneecap gig in Bilbao. I speak pretty good Spanish so I can get us around but I was just checking to see if there's any good spot for after the show?

I remember loving that video but it probably got removed and I want to find out what the actual documentary was so I can play it with the sound off to the album.