Folk
Folk without an enriched sense of their culture are like trees with shallow roots…
To our minds, this analogy
describes the loss of identity and sense of meaningless that creates vulnerability to the vagaries of the worst
excesses of modern life. A situation steadily worsened by the consistent undermining of the bonds of community.
Agencies picking up the pieces and the tab for tackling the symptoms of this rootlessness are essential. But beyond this -
what is called for is nothing less than to reconvene a sense of ‘peoplehood’; deep roots for an identity that builds
resilience, embodies shared values, and in the same breath, transcends narrow forms of nationalism.
The very name GalGael is our way of re-rooting these notions of identity in nourishing ground and recognises that there
is both a bit of the stranger and a bit of the native in us all. In history, Gal Gaidheal were a 9thC people; the Gal -
the ‘strange or foreign’ Norse, embraced by the Gael - the 'heartland people'.
As a modern day people, GalGael folk have been re-visioning inclusive forms of community that build on our interdependence
rather than slip into dependency culture, and that explore our collective responsibilities, not just our rights. From this
stand point, we are reweaving the fabric of our families and communities, experimenting with notions of clanship, extended
family and kinship. You can read about the people that make up our extended family on the pages that follow, including our
founder; the late Colin Macleod.