When were Celts about?

Answer 1

In Britain, they weren't.

In June 1792, a group of bards in London staged an entirely fictitious ceremony on Primrose Hill involving a stone circle made from pebbles and claimed they were reviving an ancient ritual that stretched right back 'to the ancient Celtic nation and it's druids'.

Prior to this there is no record of the word 'Celts' being used to describe the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain or Ireland, and it was certainly not a term they used themselves.

The word 'Celt' was coined by the Greek historian Herodotus in 450 BC to describe the people living near the Northern side of the Danube north of the alps.

The Roman name for such people were 'Galli' - 'chicken people' - and they called the inhabitants of the British Isles as 'Britanni', never Celts.

A Welsh linguist living in Oxford in the 17th Century noted the similarities between the languages spoken in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and Brittany. He called these languages 'Celtic' and the name stuck, even though there is no such thing as an ethnically homogenous Celtic nation.

The romanticised idea of a Celtic Empire of horse-loving master craftsmen, wise old druids, harp-strumming poets and fierce bearded warriors is the product of the Celtic Revival that started in the late 18th Century, which has more to do with modern Irish, Welsh and Scottish nationalism than with any historical reality.