Alan Heusaff
Encyclopedia
Alan Heusaff, also Alan Heussaff (23 July 1921, Saint-Yvi
, Finistère
– 3 November 1999, Galway
) was a Breton
nationalist
, linguist, dictionary compiler, prolific journalist and lifetime campaigner for solidarity between the Celtic peoples. A co-founder of the Celtic League
in 1961, he was its first General Secretary until 1984.
A native Breton
speaker, he trained as a primary school teacher but in his early twenties joined the separatist Bezen Perrot
militia (1943–44), for which he
was sentenced to death in absentia
at a court martial by the post-WWII French government, but eventually amnestied in 1967. After studying mathematics and physics at the University of Marburg, Germany
, he arrived in Ireland
in 1950. He continued his studies at University College, Galway, and, on graduation, joined the Irish Meteorological Service, becoming a naturalised Irish citizen in 1955.
An aviation meteorologist
, he devoted his spare time and retirement to peaceful activism, promoting the Celtic languages, culture and political autonomy of the Celtic countries. Among the honours he received for his work was the 1986 Gradam an Phiarsaigh (annual Pearse award) presented by the President of Ireland, Patrick Hillery
. In the same year, at the Welsh Eisteddfod, he was elected as a Bard
of the Welsh Gorsedd
. He was fluent in all the six modern Celtic languages as well as English
, French
and German
.
, Galway
. He married Bríd Ní Dhochartaigh in 1953 (died 2 February 2008); the couple had six children, four girls and two boys.
, near Rosporden
, now in Kernev (Cornouaille
, Department of Finistère
). His family originated in nearby Toulgoat and his parents, Sébastien and Mari Heusaff, were native Breton speakers. Heusaff spoke only Breton at the time he was sent to school. (1) When Heusaff was growing up it was estimated there were well over a million native speakers of this Celtic language. In 1925 the French Minister of Education, Anatole de Monzie
, made clear the Government policy: "For the linguistic unity of France, Breton must be exterminated". Now banned by law was the teaching of language, literature, history, folklore and anything interpreted as "nationalist". (2)
Arriving in a French-speaking school in these circumstances profoundly affected the young boy. His community's language was openly vilified and children were punished if caught speaking it. Nevertheless, Heusaff had a good ear for languages and eventually joined the École Normale in Kemper
(Quimper, Finistère) where he trained as a primary-school teacher. He continued to be acutely aware of the state's policy on Breton. Most native speakers, under these conditions, were made illiterate in their own language by the state. Yet Breton was an old literary language with the first manuscripts in it surviving from a century earlier than such manuscripts in French. (3) To teach himself literacy in Breton, Heusaff sent for a correspondence course from Skol-Ober founded in 1932 by Marc'harid Gourlaouen (1902–1987). As it was not politic to do so openly, he found help from a native speaker who offered the use of his address as a post-restante to receive the lessons. In an interview in 2005 with the historian Daniel Leach
, his widow, Bríd Heusaff commented on the effect of his school experience on his life: "I'm fairly certain that if Breton had been taught at school when Alan went there… and if there had been some respect for it, that he would never have become involved in the Breton movement at all. Because his main interest, really, was the language". (4)
In 1938, still a teenager, Heusaff joined the Parti National Breton
(PNB) which sought to re-assert Breton independence. The crowns of Brittany
and France had become unified by the marriage of Anne of Brittany
to Charles VIII of France
, as a condition following the defeat of the Breton armies at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier
in 1488. Following the death of Charles VIII in 1498, Anne was forced to marry his cousin, Louis XII of France
, to ensure the French crown's continued control of Brittany. Under the Traité d'Union de la Bretagne à la France, September 18, 1532, the Breton Parliament remained in being until the French National Assembly
, following the French Revolution
, arbitrarily abolished it in 1790. This caused a complicated situation in Brittany as many Bretons had spearheaded the Revolution as a means of overthrowing the centralist politics of the French monarchy. (5)
Heusaff stated in 1970: "From 1938 onwards I shared the conviction that Brittany could never regain her freedom "by consent"; the French state would use all its strength to prevent that ever happening. I agreed that we should seek external support, wherever it came from, because we were too weak to attain our aims alone. Why should we not do what all free countries do when their freedom is threatened; seek alliances? By doing so we were affirming that we were already free". (6)
Heusaff joined the PNB's uniformed but unarmed Bagadoù Stourm and then gravitated to the Kadervenn group of PNB, which believed in direct action. He became convinced that only separation from France would save both the language and the cultural identity, which he believed was dependent on its survival. Like many other Breton nationalists, he was greatly influenced by the Irish example of the 1916 Easter Rising
, and particularly by the account of it given in Louis Napoleon Le Roux
's La vie de Patrice Pearse (1932). From the experience of their fellow Celts of Ireland during World War I, many young Bretons came to believe that if war were to break out again in Europe, then France's difficulty would be Brittany's opportunity.
Philippe Pétain
signed an Armistice
. The establishment in July of Marshal Pétain's French collaborationist government in Vichy
, however, still gave it legal authority not only in the "unoccupied south" but also in northern and western France occupied by the German Wehrmacht
. Many Breton militants soon realised that Germany was of little support to them. Rather than help the Bretons achieve their cultural and political freedoms from France, the German Occupation allowed the French collaborationist government of Vichy
to remove a large section of historic Brittany, the department of Loire-Atlantique
, from Brittany in 1941. This area included Naoned (Nantes
) the historical capital and seat of the Dukes of Brittany. The transformation of ancient Breton borders was something post-war governments were happy to inherit. With German approval, Vichy suppressed the Breton National Committee
(Comité national breton, CNB, which had been declared by nationalists in 1940) and its journal L'Heure Bretonne
.
From 1941, as resistance to the occupiers grew, Breton nationalism became more divided. Moderates adopted a neutralist
position, imitating that of neutral Ireland. But others, including the militant activist Célestin Lainé (later known as Neven Henaff), continued to make overtures to the Nazis, hoping for their support for an independent Brittany with ties to Germany, The more supportive nationalists were of the Germans, they reasoned, the more likely Berlin would be to abandon Vichy and create a Breton state. (7) The war divide within Brittany as a whole deepened at the same time and members of the Maquis
, the French Resistance
, began to view all Breton nationalists as potential collaborators
. They allegedly began a policy of assassination of leading Bretons in September 1943. Yann Bricler, a PNB official in Kemper and manager of the PNB magazine Stur
, was shot dead in his office. Another nationalist, Yves Kerhoas, was also assassinated. Then, on 12 December 1943, Abbé Yann Vari Perrot, the 66-year-old parish priest of Scrignac
, was shot dead on the steps of his church. Perrot had been decorated for his services in World War I, but was a native speaker and leading cultural Breton nationalist, a playwright and writer, involved in devising a standard orthography for the language.
Célestin Lainé
had led an underground physical force movement, Gwenn-ha-Du
(black and white, named after the Breton national flag) from 1930, had organised militant groups such as Lu Brezon, renamed Bezen Kadoudal, and now saw the opportunity to organise an open, uniformed and armed group - Bezen Perrot. The conditions of this unit was that it would not fight outside the borders of Brittany but remain as "a protective militia" against the French Maquis's attempts to eliminate Breton activists. But as the conflict on the ground intensified and German reprisals against resisters and civilians became more ferocious, the authorities took the Bezen Perrot and other groups in hand. By 1944, they had provided the unit with uniforms and weapons, and listed them as a unit of the SD, Sicherheitsdienst
(auxiliary police). Lainé made clear that Bezen Perrot's war was against France and was on behalf of Brittany not Germany. But although he was reported as concerned that the unit should not operate on behalf of the SD it was used by them and mounted guard on the SD interrogation centre in Rennes
. In the months before and after the Allied D-Day landings in June 1944, atrocities were reported on all sides of the conflict in Brittany.
Heusaff had been working as a primary school teach at Kerien
(Querrien
) not far from his home and between 1941 and 1942 he began to write articles about the problems of Brittany under the pseudonym "Mab Ivi" (Son of Ivi, his home village). Others articles appeared in L'Heure Bretonne" and "Arvor. In 1942 he resigned his teaching post. Heusaff had become a kerrenour (lieutenant) in Bezen Kadoudal, which, in December, 1943, became Bezen Perrot and which the now 22-year-old Heusaff saw as the nucleus of a Breton independence army. (8)
A fuller account of the Bezen Perrot, including Heusaff's role in it, is given in Daniel Leach's Fugitive Ireland (Four Courts Press, 2009). Among controversies, Leach deals with some later accusations depicting Heusaff as a member of the LVF
, showing them to be unfounded. The main focus of the book is an analysis of why Ireland gave asylum
after the war to some Bretons and other foreign militants who had collaborated with Axis forces. Controversies on these issues are also elucidated in Leach's article "Irish Post-War Asylum: Nazi sympathy, Pan Celticism or raisons d'etat?" (History Ireland, May/June, 2007). (10)
In June 1944, shortly after D-Day, Heusaff was at Ploërdut
, Morbihan
, with members of the Bezen Perrot, when they became involved in a firefight with members of a Free French
commando unit. He was seriously wounded in the shoulder and lung. Two others members of his unit, Yann Laizet and Jean Larnicol, were killed. Locals took Heusaff to hospital where he remained for a few weeks before evacuated to a German hospital in Montabaur
, Alsace-Lorraine
, where he remained until September 1944.
While in hospital he was visited by Friedrich Hielscher
(1902–90), the poet, philosopher and journalist. He had connections with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für keltische studien (German Society for Celtic Studies
) in Berlin
and had been on a research trip to Brittany in 1943. It is suspected that he took this trip on behalf of the Abwehr
(German intelligence), or the Ahnenerbe
, which came under the SS. According to some reports, Hielscher had been involved in a resistance circle to the Nazis since the 1930s, helping Jews and others in danger from the regime. Indeed, Hielsher had contacts with members of oppressed "peuples de culture" since 1927 and some members of his group were arrested as early as 1933. (11)
On leaving hospital in Alsace
in late 1944, Heusaff took up Hielscher's offer. Hielscher suggested that when Heusaff recovered he should come to his home in Potsdam
. But arriving in Potsdam, he found Hielscher had been arrested among the conspirators of the 20 July 1944 assassination plot against Hitler. Hielscher remained in a concentration camp for six months. Heusaff found Breton contacts in Strasbourg
and spent time there. Hielscher, released from the concentration camp, moved to Marburg with his wife.
Other Bezen Perrot members were living there under assumed identities. Heusaff joined them and adopted the name Bernhard Heubacher, receiving papers with Hielscher's help. Until 1947 he worked in forestry
, It was a frugal existence, sometimes he was forced to live on nettle soup
. With Hielscher's help, he entered the university to study Physics and Maths. He remained there until 1950. Then he decided to follow other Breton militants who had sought asylum in Ireland. The Allies had swept through Brittany
in August 1944, and as the Germans retreated, many of the Bezen Perrot had fled to Germany as well. On 19 September 1944, the Germans on the Crozon Peninsula had surrendered but pockets in L'Orient and in Saint-Nazaire
did not surrender until May 1945.
The former Mayor of Brest
, Dr Le Gorgeu
, an opponent of all forms of Breton nationalism, had taken over civil administration and started a round-up of Breton nationalists. By November, 1944, 2,000 Bretons were arrested including priests, women, children and even Bretons who had fought in the Resistance. Some had purportedly done little more than attend a Breton language class; others died of ill treatment in prison. Prisoners from the Rennes Central Gaol reportedly often appeared before the examining magistrate with broken limbs and bruises.
By the end of 1946, 3,000 Bretons had been put in special camps; 300 of them had been sentenced to penal servitude for varying terms and 60 sentenced to death. Others had been sentenced to terms of "civil degradation", a loss of all civil rights as citizens and removal of qualifications. As Professor Per Denez
later wrote:
Of those involved in the Breton movement generally, 38 had been killed and 9 executed by firing squad, according to contemporary sources such as the Welsh newspaper Baner Ac Amserau Cymru.
Heusaff could not return to Brittany. Like others who went to Ireland seeking asylum, he was sentenced to death in absentia, not for war crimes, but for the crime of "attacks upon the integrity of the French State". (14) He was to receive an amnesty in 1967, along with other Breton militants had who had been similarly sentenced. Heusaff took his wife to Brittany for the first time in 1967 but were forbidden to visit Finistère, his home department. This restriction was lifted in the early 1970s. From then on until his death, Heusaff returned to Brittany on many occasions, staying with his family as well attending many cultural events. His family had in no way supported his wartime activities and, indeed, his brother had served in the French Army and become a Prisoner of War. (15)
to England
and Wales
, and then to Ireland, where he enrolled in University College, Galway, to finish his degree. To finance himself, he taught German classes. One of his students was Bríd Ní Dhochartaigh from the Fanaid Gaeltacht in County Donegal
. In 1953, the couple married and had six children. He had learned to speak Irish fluently. The couple's two sons and four daughters were raised as an Irish speaking family. (16)
Heusaff joined the Irish Meteorological Service in 1952 still as Bernard Heubacher and worked at Dublin Airport
for eighteen months before being transferred to Shannon Airport. He became a naturalised citizen under his own name in 1955. In 1958, the Heusaff family moved back to Dublin. He worked for the Meteorological Service at Dublin Airport for the rest of his career. Interested in ecological matters, he also spent time researching the history of weather patterns as recorded in Irish annals and documents from earliest times. After his death, Brendan McWilliams, director of the service, and a well-known Irish Times columnist, wrote:
, of co-operation between the six modern Celtic nations (the Irish, Manx, Scots, Welsh, Cornish and Bretons) had first been given published form by Charles de Gaulle
(1837–1880), a Breton language poet who published his ideas in Les Celtes au XIXe siécle (Celts in the 19th Century) in 1864. The League was born in a meeting at the Eisteddfod at Rhos, near Llangollen
, in North Wales in 1961. (18)
The principal aims were then: (1) to foster co-operation between the national movements in the Celtic countries, particularly in efforts to obtain international recognition and to share the experiences of their struggles and exchange constructive ideas. (2)
Heusaff was elected General Secretary, a position he held until 1984-85, while Gwynfor Evans
, president of Plaid Cymru
and later to be the first Plaid Cymru Member of Parliament, was elected as president. Dr Noelle Davis was elected treasurer. An existing magazine Celtic Voice was offered as a means of propagating the League. By the second annual meeting on 30 September 1962, the League had branches in all six Celtic countries as well as in London
. The League then launched its own quarterly journal Celtic News
, initially edited by Welsh historian Dr Ceinwen Thomas of University College, Cardiff. From 1963 until 1971, an annual volume was also published constituting up to 180 pages. Celtic News continued under various editors until a more professionally produced journal, Carn
, was launched in the Spring of 1973, with Frank Thomson
, a Scottish writer and journalist, as its first editor. Still published quarterly, Carn carries articles in all six Celtic languages, as well as in English and French.
Gwynfor Evans MP continued as President until 1972, while Vice-Presidents consisted of leaders of the main political national parties, such as Dr Yann Fouéré
of the Mouvement Pour l'Organisation de la Bretagne; Dr Robert McIntyre
of the Scottish National Party
(and its first Member of Parliament) and Robert Dunstone, the president of the Cornish movement, Mebyon Kernow
. However, by 1972, it was decided that conflicts of interest were arising and that the League should elect its own independent president and officials. Such a conflict had arisen in 1969 at the League's annual meeting it Dublin when Gwynfor Evans used his League office to speak of Plaid Cymru policies which conflicted with attitudes in other Celtic countries. Pádraig Ó Conchúir became the first "chairman" replacing Gwynfor Evans. Later the officer of "chairman" was replaced by "convenor".
Under Heusaff's enthusiastic guidance and diligent work, however, the League was viable enough to give evidence to the European Commission of Human Rights
in 1963 concerning the persecution of the Breton language. This aroused media attention. The League sent an official delegation to the 14th Congress of the Federal Union of European Nationalities
(representing ethnic minorities), and in November 1965, the League delivered a 62 page memorandum, arguing the case for self-government for the Celtic countries to the United Nations
Organization and distributed it in 1966 to members of the Council of Europe
.
The League also took a leading part in many other campaigns, for example, monitoring submarine activity in the Irish Sea
where they refused to surface, snaring fishing net
s and causing the loss of boats and lives. Ensuing publicity over the years to these incidents brought the League into mainstream politics. Another success was the League's spearheading of a campaign to transfer the ownership of the bird island sanctuary, the Calf of Man
, from the English National Trust to the Manx National Trust. The League soon made the idea of Pan-Celticism a public issue and forced the academic Celtic Congress
, founded in 1900, into actions such as adopting a "Charter of Cultural Rights" in 1974. In 1979 a Celtic Film and Television Festival
was inaugurated and in 1981 UNESCO
launched their permanent "Project for the Study and Promotion of Celtic Cultures". Conferences, book fairs, television programmes, and an International Federation of Celtic Wrestling was formed.
The burgeoning of the Celtic idea, came from Heusaff's original vision. Although he resigned office around 1985, he continued to work diligently for the League. As a tribute to his work The Celtic League published that year a festschrift in his honour For A Celtic Future, of essays by many leading Celticists, and edited by Cathal Ó Luain, who had become convenor of the League. Upon
his retirement from the Meteorological Service in 1986, Alan and Bríd moved to Seanadh Gharráin, near Spidéal, County Galway
, where he concentrated on his lexicographical work, kept up a voluminous correspondence with his Celtic contacts, and remained involved in the League. In July 1990, Heusaff wrote of the future of the League:
Before he died it was arranged that all Heusaff's papers connected with the Celtic League should be deposited in the National Library of Wales
at Aberystwyth
, and are classified as 681, Celtic League Archive.
and involved in Na Teaghlaigh Ghaelacha, an organisation for Irish speaking families. Bríd became a member of the Executive of Conradh na Gaeilge and was very active in Irish language activities. Heusaff took part in Irish language campaigns such as Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta and was the first person to refuse, on principle, to pay a television licence because of Raidió Teilifís Éireann
's (RTÉ) neglect of Irish language programmes. This campaign ultimately resulted in the establishment of Teilifís na Gaeilge (later TG4
) in 1996.
In 1986 Irish President, Patrick Hillery
, presented him with the Gradam an Phiarsaigh annual award for promoting the ideals of Patrick Pearse
in contemporary Ireland. Later that year he was elected as a Bard
of the Welsh Gorsedd
, as "Gwenerzh" (Muse) as having made a distinguished contribution to the Welsh nation, language and culture. (20)
and the struggle of his native country for independence. He taught Breton language classes in his spare time in Dublin and became a prolific journalist in Breton, editing Argoad, a Breton language news bulletin, with an English edition Breton News
, which he founded in 1959. He also contributed to Breton language magazines in Brittany such as Hor Yezh, Galva, Breman, Gwalarn
, Arvor, Ar Bed Keltiek, An Amzer and Al Liamm. The first all-Breton dictionary, Geriadur Brezhoneg, published by An Here in 1995, cited Heusaff as a major contributor. This provoked some protest given renewed controversies in Brittany over his and other's wartime background. Heusaff also published a dictionary of his own dialect of Sant Ivi as Geriaoueg Sant Ivi, initially in the magazine Hor Yezh between 1962-73. A revised version of the work was issued in book form in 1996. (21)
Saint-Yvi
Saint-Yvi, or Saint-Yvy, is a commune in the Finistère department in Bretagne in northwestern France.Saint-Yvi was previously known as Saint-Yvy; its name was officially changed on September 16, 2005.-Population:...
, Finistère
Finistère
Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...
– 3 November 1999, Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
) was a Breton
Breton people
The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...
nationalist
Breton nationalism
Breton nationalism is the nationalism of the traditional province of Brittany in France. Brittany is considered to be one of the six Celtic nations...
, linguist, dictionary compiler, prolific journalist and lifetime campaigner for solidarity between the Celtic peoples. A co-founder of the Celtic League
Celtic League (political organisation)
The Celtic League is a non-governmental organisation that promotes self-determination and Celtic identity and culture in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man, known as the Celtic nations. It places particular emphasis on the indigenous Celtic languages...
in 1961, he was its first General Secretary until 1984.
A native Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
speaker, he trained as a primary school teacher but in his early twenties joined the separatist Bezen Perrot
Bezen Perrot
The Bezen Perrot was a Breton collaborationist force during the Nazi occupation of France that grew from the earlier Lu Brezhon militia. Led by Célestin Lainé and Alan Heusaff, as many as 70 to 80 people joined the ranks of the Bezen Perrot, or "Perrot Unit", at one point or another...
militia (1943–44), for which he
was sentenced to death in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
at a court martial by the post-WWII French government, but eventually amnestied in 1967. After studying mathematics and physics at the University of Marburg, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, he arrived in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
in 1950. He continued his studies at University College, Galway, and, on graduation, joined the Irish Meteorological Service, becoming a naturalised Irish citizen in 1955.
An aviation meteorologist
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
, he devoted his spare time and retirement to peaceful activism, promoting the Celtic languages, culture and political autonomy of the Celtic countries. Among the honours he received for his work was the 1986 Gradam an Phiarsaigh (annual Pearse award) presented by the President of Ireland, Patrick Hillery
Patrick Hillery
Patrick John "Paddy" Hillery was an Irish politician and the sixth President of Ireland from 1976 until 1990. First elected at the 1951 general election as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Clare, he remained in Dáil Éireann until 1973...
. In the same year, at the Welsh Eisteddfod, he was elected as a Bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...
of the Welsh Gorsedd
Gorsedd
A gorsedd plural gorseddau, is a community or coming together of modern-day bards. The word is of Welsh origin, meaning "throne". It is occasionally spelled gorsedh , or goursez in Brittany....
. He was fluent in all the six modern Celtic languages as well as English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
Death
Heusaff died on 3 November 1999, at his home near An Spidéal in ConnemaraConnemara
Connemara is a district in the west of Ireland consisting of a broad peninsula between Killary Harbour and Kilkieran Bay in the west of County Galway.-Overview:...
, Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
. He married Bríd Ní Dhochartaigh in 1953 (died 2 February 2008); the couple had six children, four girls and two boys.
Youth in Brittany
Heusaff was born in 1921 in Sant IviSaint-Yvi
Saint-Yvi, or Saint-Yvy, is a commune in the Finistère department in Bretagne in northwestern France.Saint-Yvi was previously known as Saint-Yvy; its name was officially changed on September 16, 2005.-Population:...
, near Rosporden
Rosporden
Rosporden is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.The small city specializes in the manufacture of "chouchen," a version of mead native to Bretagne, and is known as "The Capital of Chouchen."-Population:...
, now in Kernev (Cornouaille
Cornouaille
Cornouaille is a historic region in Brittany, in northwest France. The name is identical to the French name for the Duchy of Cornwall, since the area was settled by migrant princes from Cornwall...
, Department of Finistère
Finistère
Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...
). His family originated in nearby Toulgoat and his parents, Sébastien and Mari Heusaff, were native Breton speakers. Heusaff spoke only Breton at the time he was sent to school. (1) When Heusaff was growing up it was estimated there were well over a million native speakers of this Celtic language. In 1925 the French Minister of Education, Anatole de Monzie
Anatole de Monzie
Anatole de Monzie was a French administrator, encyclopaedist , political figure and scholar. His father was a tax collector in Bazas, Gironde where Anatole - a name he disliked from an early age - was born in 1876...
, made clear the Government policy: "For the linguistic unity of France, Breton must be exterminated". Now banned by law was the teaching of language, literature, history, folklore and anything interpreted as "nationalist". (2)
Arriving in a French-speaking school in these circumstances profoundly affected the young boy. His community's language was openly vilified and children were punished if caught speaking it. Nevertheless, Heusaff had a good ear for languages and eventually joined the École Normale in Kemper
Kemper
Kemper may refer to:* Booz Allen Classic , was a regular golf tournament on the PGA Tour from 1968 to 2006...
(Quimper, Finistère) where he trained as a primary-school teacher. He continued to be acutely aware of the state's policy on Breton. Most native speakers, under these conditions, were made illiterate in their own language by the state. Yet Breton was an old literary language with the first manuscripts in it surviving from a century earlier than such manuscripts in French. (3) To teach himself literacy in Breton, Heusaff sent for a correspondence course from Skol-Ober founded in 1932 by Marc'harid Gourlaouen (1902–1987). As it was not politic to do so openly, he found help from a native speaker who offered the use of his address as a post-restante to receive the lessons. In an interview in 2005 with the historian Daniel Leach
Daniel Leach
Daniel Leach is an Australian footballer who plays for Football League Two club Barnet as a defender.-Career:He attended St. Joseph's Nudgee College in Virginia, Queensland, and played state football for Queensland. He moved on to the Queensland Academy of Sport Football Program, and also played...
, his widow, Bríd Heusaff commented on the effect of his school experience on his life: "I'm fairly certain that if Breton had been taught at school when Alan went there… and if there had been some respect for it, that he would never have become involved in the Breton movement at all. Because his main interest, really, was the language". (4)
In 1938, still a teenager, Heusaff joined the Parti National Breton
Breton National Party
The Breton National Party was a nationalist party in Brittany that existed from 1931 to 1944. The party was disbanded after the liberation of France in World War II, because of ties to the Nazi party....
(PNB) which sought to re-assert Breton independence. The crowns of Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
and France had become unified by the marriage of Anne of Brittany
Anne of Brittany
Anne, Duchess of Brittany , also known as Anna of Brittany , was a Breton ruler, who was to become queen to two successive French kings. She was born in Nantes, Brittany, and was the daughter of Francis II, Duke of Brittany and Margaret of Foix. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Eleanor of...
to Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...
, as a condition following the defeat of the Breton armies at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier
Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (1488)
The Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier took place on July 28, 1488, between the forces of king Charles VIII of France, and those of Francis II, Duke of Brittany and his allies. The defeat of the latter signalled the end to the "guerre folle" , a feudal conflict in which French aristocrats revolted...
in 1488. Following the death of Charles VIII in 1498, Anne was forced to marry his cousin, Louis XII of France
Louis XII of France
Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...
, to ensure the French crown's continued control of Brittany. Under the Traité d'Union de la Bretagne à la France, September 18, 1532, the Breton Parliament remained in being until the French National Assembly
French National Assembly
The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate ....
, following the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, arbitrarily abolished it in 1790. This caused a complicated situation in Brittany as many Bretons had spearheaded the Revolution as a means of overthrowing the centralist politics of the French monarchy. (5)
Heusaff stated in 1970: "From 1938 onwards I shared the conviction that Brittany could never regain her freedom "by consent"; the French state would use all its strength to prevent that ever happening. I agreed that we should seek external support, wherever it came from, because we were too weak to attain our aims alone. Why should we not do what all free countries do when their freedom is threatened; seek alliances? By doing so we were affirming that we were already free". (6)
Heusaff joined the PNB's uniformed but unarmed Bagadoù Stourm and then gravitated to the Kadervenn group of PNB, which believed in direct action. He became convinced that only separation from France would save both the language and the cultural identity, which he believed was dependent on its survival. Like many other Breton nationalists, he was greatly influenced by the Irish example of the 1916 Easter Rising
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
, and particularly by the account of it given in Louis Napoleon Le Roux
Louis Napoleon Le Roux
Louis Napoléon Le Roux was a Breton nationalist. He is also known as Loeiz-Napoleon Ar Rouz in the Breton language. In 1911 he was one of the founders of the Breton Nationalist Party with Camille Le Mercier d'Erm. He typically signed himself Louis N...
's La vie de Patrice Pearse (1932). From the experience of their fellow Celts of Ireland during World War I, many young Bretons came to believe that if war were to break out again in Europe, then France's difficulty would be Brittany's opportunity.
German occupation
In 1940 German forces overwhelmed the French armies and Marshal of FranceMarshal of France
The Marshal of France is a military distinction in contemporary France, not a military rank. It is granted to generals for exceptional achievements...
Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
signed an Armistice
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
. The establishment in July of Marshal Pétain's French collaborationist government in Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
, however, still gave it legal authority not only in the "unoccupied south" but also in northern and western France occupied by the German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
. Many Breton militants soon realised that Germany was of little support to them. Rather than help the Bretons achieve their cultural and political freedoms from France, the German Occupation allowed the French collaborationist government of Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
to remove a large section of historic Brittany, the department of Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique is a department on the west coast of France named after the Loire River and the Atlantic Ocean.-History:...
, from Brittany in 1941. This area included Naoned (Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
) the historical capital and seat of the Dukes of Brittany. The transformation of ancient Breton borders was something post-war governments were happy to inherit. With German approval, Vichy suppressed the Breton National Committee
Breton National Committee
The Breton National Committee was a Breton nationalist body founded on July 3, 1940 at the so-called "Congress of Pontivy", headed by François Debeauvais and Olier Mordrel. It was designed to promote Breton independence from France by collaboration with the occupying German forces. They drew up a...
(Comité national breton, CNB, which had been declared by nationalists in 1940) and its journal L'Heure Bretonne
L'Heure Bretonne
L'Heure Bretonne was a Breton nationalist weekly newspaper which was published from June 1940 to June 1944. It was the organ of the Breton National Party and was strongly associated with collaborationist politics during World War II....
.
From 1941, as resistance to the occupiers grew, Breton nationalism became more divided. Moderates adopted a neutralist
Neutrality (international relations)
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
position, imitating that of neutral Ireland. But others, including the militant activist Célestin Lainé (later known as Neven Henaff), continued to make overtures to the Nazis, hoping for their support for an independent Brittany with ties to Germany, The more supportive nationalists were of the Germans, they reasoned, the more likely Berlin would be to abandon Vichy and create a Breton state. (7) The war divide within Brittany as a whole deepened at the same time and members of the Maquis
Maquis (World War II)
The Maquis were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance. Initially they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire to provide forced labour for Germany...
, the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
, began to view all Breton nationalists as potential collaborators
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
. They allegedly began a policy of assassination of leading Bretons in September 1943. Yann Bricler, a PNB official in Kemper and manager of the PNB magazine Stur
Štúr
Štúr is surname of: * Ľudovít Velislav Štúr, * 3393 Štúr, a main belt asteroid* Štúrovo* , née Kazárová - References :...
, was shot dead in his office. Another nationalist, Yves Kerhoas, was also assassinated. Then, on 12 December 1943, Abbé Yann Vari Perrot, the 66-year-old parish priest of Scrignac
Scrignac
Scrignac is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.-Population:Inhabitants of Scrignac are called in French Scrignacois.-References:** -External links:*...
, was shot dead on the steps of his church. Perrot had been decorated for his services in World War I, but was a native speaker and leading cultural Breton nationalist, a playwright and writer, involved in devising a standard orthography for the language.
Célestin Lainé
Célestin Lainé
Célestin Lainé was a Breton nationalist and collaborator during the Second World War who led the SS affiliated Bezen Perrot militia. His Breton language name is Neven Hénaff. He was a chemical engineer by training. After the war he lived in Ireland.- Breton terrorism :He was born in 1908 in Nantes...
had led an underground physical force movement, Gwenn-ha-Du
Gwenn ha du (terrorism)
Gwenn ha Du was a Breton-based terrorist group founded at the end of 1930 in Paris by Célestin Lainé. It advocated Breton nationalism through "direct action" and published a secret manual aimed at instructing readers in terrorism...
(black and white, named after the Breton national flag) from 1930, had organised militant groups such as Lu Brezon, renamed Bezen Kadoudal, and now saw the opportunity to organise an open, uniformed and armed group - Bezen Perrot. The conditions of this unit was that it would not fight outside the borders of Brittany but remain as "a protective militia" against the French Maquis's attempts to eliminate Breton activists. But as the conflict on the ground intensified and German reprisals against resisters and civilians became more ferocious, the authorities took the Bezen Perrot and other groups in hand. By 1944, they had provided the unit with uniforms and weapons, and listed them as a unit of the SD, Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
(auxiliary police). Lainé made clear that Bezen Perrot's war was against France and was on behalf of Brittany not Germany. But although he was reported as concerned that the unit should not operate on behalf of the SD it was used by them and mounted guard on the SD interrogation centre in Rennes
Rennes
Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...
. In the months before and after the Allied D-Day landings in June 1944, atrocities were reported on all sides of the conflict in Brittany.
Heusaff had been working as a primary school teach at Kerien
Kerien
Kerien is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:-External links:*...
(Querrien
Querrien
Querrien is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Querrien are called in French Querriennois.-Breton language:...
) not far from his home and between 1941 and 1942 he began to write articles about the problems of Brittany under the pseudonym "Mab Ivi" (Son of Ivi, his home village). Others articles appeared in L'Heure Bretonne" and "Arvor. In 1942 he resigned his teaching post. Heusaff had become a kerrenour (lieutenant) in Bezen Kadoudal, which, in December, 1943, became Bezen Perrot and which the now 22-year-old Heusaff saw as the nucleus of a Breton independence army. (8)
"We were prepared to co-operate with the devil himself, if that would get rid of the French. The French were the greatest enemies of the Breton people". (9)
A fuller account of the Bezen Perrot, including Heusaff's role in it, is given in Daniel Leach's Fugitive Ireland (Four Courts Press, 2009). Among controversies, Leach deals with some later accusations depicting Heusaff as a member of the LVF
LVF
LVF can refer to:* Loyalist Volunteer Force* Légion des Volontaires Français* Left ventricular failure...
, showing them to be unfounded. The main focus of the book is an analysis of why Ireland gave asylum
Right of asylum
Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...
after the war to some Bretons and other foreign militants who had collaborated with Axis forces. Controversies on these issues are also elucidated in Leach's article "Irish Post-War Asylum: Nazi sympathy, Pan Celticism or raisons d'etat?" (History Ireland, May/June, 2007). (10)
In June 1944, shortly after D-Day, Heusaff was at Ploërdut
Ploërdut
Ploërdut is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France.-References:* * -External links:* *...
, Morbihan
Morbihan
Morbihan is a department in Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Morbihan , the enclosed sea that is the principal feature of the coastline.-History:...
, with members of the Bezen Perrot, when they became involved in a firefight with members of a Free French
Free French Forces
The Free French Forces were French partisans in World War II who decided to continue fighting against the forces of the Axis powers after the surrender of France and subsequent German occupation and, in the case of Vichy France, collaboration with the Germans.-Definition:In many sources, Free...
commando unit. He was seriously wounded in the shoulder and lung. Two others members of his unit, Yann Laizet and Jean Larnicol, were killed. Locals took Heusaff to hospital where he remained for a few weeks before evacuated to a German hospital in Montabaur
Montabaur
Montabaur is a town and the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. At the same time, it is also the administrative centre of the Verbandsgemeinde of Montabaur – a kind of collective municipality – to which 24 other communities belong...
, Alsace-Lorraine
Alsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
, where he remained until September 1944.
While in hospital he was visited by Friedrich Hielscher
Friedrich Hielscher
Friedrich Hielscher was a German intellectual involved in the Conservative Revolutionary movement during the Weimar Republic and in the German resistance during the Nazi era....
(1902–90), the poet, philosopher and journalist. He had connections with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für keltische studien (German Society for Celtic Studies
Celtic Studies
Celtic studies is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to a Celtic people. This ranges from linguistics, literature and art history archaeology and history, the focus lying on the study of the various Celtic languages, living and extinct...
) in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and had been on a research trip to Brittany in 1943. It is suspected that he took this trip on behalf of the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
(German intelligence), or the Ahnenerbe
Ahnenerbe
The Ahnenerbe was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History." Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, the Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan...
, which came under the SS. According to some reports, Hielscher had been involved in a resistance circle to the Nazis since the 1930s, helping Jews and others in danger from the regime. Indeed, Hielsher had contacts with members of oppressed "peuples de culture" since 1927 and some members of his group were arrested as early as 1933. (11)
On leaving hospital in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
in late 1944, Heusaff took up Hielscher's offer. Hielscher suggested that when Heusaff recovered he should come to his home in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
. But arriving in Potsdam, he found Hielscher had been arrested among the conspirators of the 20 July 1944 assassination plot against Hitler. Hielscher remained in a concentration camp for six months. Heusaff found Breton contacts in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
and spent time there. Hielscher, released from the concentration camp, moved to Marburg with his wife.
Other Bezen Perrot members were living there under assumed identities. Heusaff joined them and adopted the name Bernhard Heubacher, receiving papers with Hielscher's help. Until 1947 he worked in forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...
, It was a frugal existence, sometimes he was forced to live on nettle soup
Nettle soup
Nettle soup is a soup prepared from stinging nettles. It is eaten principally during spring and early summer, when young nettle buds are collected. It is often served with sliced boiled eggs. The dish is traditionally eaten in the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe....
. With Hielscher's help, he entered the university to study Physics and Maths. He remained there until 1950. Then he decided to follow other Breton militants who had sought asylum in Ireland. The Allies had swept through Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
in August 1944, and as the Germans retreated, many of the Bezen Perrot had fled to Germany as well. On 19 September 1944, the Germans on the Crozon Peninsula had surrendered but pockets in L'Orient and in Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire
Saint-Nazaire , is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France.The town has a major harbour, on the right bank of the Loire River estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean. The town is at the south of the second-largest swamp in France, called "la Brière"...
did not surrender until May 1945.
The former Mayor of Brest
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
, Dr Le Gorgeu
Victor Pierre Le Gorgeu
Victor Pierre Le Gorgeu was a French politician of France's Third, Fourth and Fifth Republics. Among his offices have been senator for Finistère ....
, an opponent of all forms of Breton nationalism, had taken over civil administration and started a round-up of Breton nationalists. By November, 1944, 2,000 Bretons were arrested including priests, women, children and even Bretons who had fought in the Resistance. Some had purportedly done little more than attend a Breton language class; others died of ill treatment in prison. Prisoners from the Rennes Central Gaol reportedly often appeared before the examining magistrate with broken limbs and bruises.
By the end of 1946, 3,000 Bretons had been put in special camps; 300 of them had been sentenced to penal servitude for varying terms and 60 sentenced to death. Others had been sentenced to terms of "civil degradation", a loss of all civil rights as citizens and removal of qualifications. As Professor Per Denez
Pêr Denez
Pierre Denis, known also as Pêr Denez , was a French linguist, lexicographer, scholar and writer.Denis was born in Rennes. Thanks to his contributions in the form of novels, essays and linguistics, he contributed to the preservation of the written Breton language...
later wrote:
"At twenty-one, my university degree was taken away from me because I had been a member of the PNB. What is more, I had been condemned to "national dishonour" … This meant that I could no longer become a schoolmaster, a teacher, a journalist, a doctor, a solicitor. And goodness knows how many other things. In 1945, it was hard to believe that the Declaration of Human Rights also applied to the Bretons".(12)
Of those involved in the Breton movement generally, 38 had been killed and 9 executed by firing squad, according to contemporary sources such as the Welsh newspaper Baner Ac Amserau Cymru.
Heusaff could not return to Brittany. Like others who went to Ireland seeking asylum, he was sentenced to death in absentia, not for war crimes, but for the crime of "attacks upon the integrity of the French State". (14) He was to receive an amnesty in 1967, along with other Breton militants had who had been similarly sentenced. Heusaff took his wife to Brittany for the first time in 1967 but were forbidden to visit Finistère, his home department. This restriction was lifted in the early 1970s. From then on until his death, Heusaff returned to Brittany on many occasions, staying with his family as well attending many cultural events. His family had in no way supported his wartime activities and, indeed, his brother had served in the French Army and become a Prisoner of War. (15)
Meteorology
On 20 May 1950, Heusaff left Marburg under the alias "Bernard Heubacher", and travelled through BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and then to Ireland, where he enrolled in University College, Galway, to finish his degree. To finance himself, he taught German classes. One of his students was Bríd Ní Dhochartaigh from the Fanaid Gaeltacht in County Donegal
County Donegal
County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...
. In 1953, the couple married and had six children. He had learned to speak Irish fluently. The couple's two sons and four daughters were raised as an Irish speaking family. (16)
Heusaff joined the Irish Meteorological Service in 1952 still as Bernard Heubacher and worked at Dublin Airport
Dublin Airport
Dublin Airport, , is operated by the Dublin Airport Authority. Located in Collinstown, in the Fingal part of County Dublin, 18.4 million passengers passed through the airport in 2010, making it the busiest airport in the Republic of Ireland, followed by Cork and Shannon...
for eighteen months before being transferred to Shannon Airport. He became a naturalised citizen under his own name in 1955. In 1958, the Heusaff family moved back to Dublin. He worked for the Meteorological Service at Dublin Airport for the rest of his career. Interested in ecological matters, he also spent time researching the history of weather patterns as recorded in Irish annals and documents from earliest times. After his death, Brendan McWilliams, director of the service, and a well-known Irish Times columnist, wrote:
"Alan spent his entire working life in aviation meteorology…. In addition to his operational duties, he made brave efforts over a period of 15 years to bring the ancient climate of our island into focus, delving into historical documents to identify and record whatever mention might be made of the weather. He found many such references, and unearthed nearly 1,000 useful records extending over 1,400 years from AD 490 to 1829 which, collectively, have added significantly to knowledge of the Irish climate in the centuries gone by".McWilliams adds: "He was a meticulous and conscientious meteorologist, and I personally remember him as always cheerful, courteous and eager to help to solve whatever operational problems might arise." (17)
The Celtic League
The formation of The Celtic league is regarded as Heusaff's major achievement. The modern philosophy of Pan-CelticismPan-Celticism
Pan-Celticism is the name given to various political and cultural movements and organisations that promote greater contact between the Celtic nations.-Types of Pan-Celticism:Pan-Celticism can operate on one or all of the following levels listed below:...
, of co-operation between the six modern Celtic nations (the Irish, Manx, Scots, Welsh, Cornish and Bretons) had first been given published form by Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle (poet)
Charles Jules-Joseph de Gaulle was a French writer who was a pioneer of Pan-Celticism and the bardic revival. He is also known as Charlez Vro-C'hall, the Breton language version of his name. He was the uncle of General de Gaulle.-Life:Born in Valenciennes, Nord, de Gaulle was struck by a...
(1837–1880), a Breton language poet who published his ideas in Les Celtes au XIXe siécle (Celts in the 19th Century) in 1864. The League was born in a meeting at the Eisteddfod at Rhos, near Llangollen
Llangollen
Llangollen is a small town and community in Denbighshire, north-east Wales, situated on the River Dee and on the edge of the Berwyn mountains. It has a population of 3,412.-History:...
, in North Wales in 1961. (18)
The principal aims were then: (1) to foster co-operation between the national movements in the Celtic countries, particularly in efforts to obtain international recognition and to share the experiences of their struggles and exchange constructive ideas. (2)
Heusaff was elected General Secretary, a position he held until 1984-85, while Gwynfor Evans
Gwynfor Evans
Dr Richard Gwynfor Evans , was a Welsh politician, lawyer and author. President of Plaid Cymru for thirty six years, he was the first Member of Parliament to represent Plaid Cymru at Westminster ....
, president of Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...
and later to be the first Plaid Cymru Member of Parliament, was elected as president. Dr Noelle Davis was elected treasurer. An existing magazine Celtic Voice was offered as a means of propagating the League. By the second annual meeting on 30 September 1962, the League had branches in all six Celtic countries as well as in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The League then launched its own quarterly journal Celtic News
Celtic News
The Celtic News is the Irish based subsidiary of the Scottish Newspaper group; Dunfermline Press. The Celtic News has bought several titles in recent years for multiple millions of euro...
, initially edited by Welsh historian Dr Ceinwen Thomas of University College, Cardiff. From 1963 until 1971, an annual volume was also published constituting up to 180 pages. Celtic News continued under various editors until a more professionally produced journal, Carn
Carn
Carn is the official magazine of the Celtic League. The name, which is cognate with the English word 'cairn', was chosen for its symbolic value and because it can be found in each of the living Celtic languages...
, was launched in the Spring of 1973, with Frank Thomson
Frank Thomson
Frank Thomson was a railroad executive from the United States, and the sixth president of the Pennsylvania Railroad .-Life:Frank Thomson was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 1841. At age 17, Thomson became an apprentice in the PRR machine shops in Altoona, and studied mechanical engineering...
, a Scottish writer and journalist, as its first editor. Still published quarterly, Carn carries articles in all six Celtic languages, as well as in English and French.
Gwynfor Evans MP continued as President until 1972, while Vice-Presidents consisted of leaders of the main political national parties, such as Dr Yann Fouéré
Yann Fouéré
Yann Fouéré was a Breton nationalist and an European federalist. He was born as Jean-Adolphe Fouéré in Aignan, Gers....
of the Mouvement Pour l'Organisation de la Bretagne; Dr Robert McIntyre
Robert McIntyre
Dr Robert Douglas McIntyre was the Leader of the Scottish National Party from 1947–1956 and a doctor by profession...
of the Scottish National Party
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....
(and its first Member of Parliament) and Robert Dunstone, the president of the Cornish movement, Mebyon Kernow
Mebyon Kernow
Mebyon Kernow is a left-of-centre political party in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It primarily campaigns for devolution to Cornwall in the form of a Cornish Assembly, as well as social democracy and environmental protection.MK was formed as a pressure group in 1951, and contained as members activists...
. However, by 1972, it was decided that conflicts of interest were arising and that the League should elect its own independent president and officials. Such a conflict had arisen in 1969 at the League's annual meeting it Dublin when Gwynfor Evans used his League office to speak of Plaid Cymru policies which conflicted with attitudes in other Celtic countries. Pádraig Ó Conchúir became the first "chairman" replacing Gwynfor Evans. Later the officer of "chairman" was replaced by "convenor".
Under Heusaff's enthusiastic guidance and diligent work, however, the League was viable enough to give evidence to the European Commission of Human Rights
European Commission of Human Rights
European Commission of Human Rights was a special tribunal.From 1954 to the entry into force of Protocol 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, individuals did not have direct access to the European Court of Human Rights; they had to apply to the Commission, which if it found the case to be...
in 1963 concerning the persecution of the Breton language. This aroused media attention. The League sent an official delegation to the 14th Congress of the Federal Union of European Nationalities
Federal Union of European Nationalities
The Federal Union of European Nationalities is an international nongovernmental organization established in 1949 in conjunction with the formation of the Council of Europe. As of 2007, there were 84 member organizations representing ethnic, linguistic and national minorities within Europe...
(representing ethnic minorities), and in November 1965, the League delivered a 62 page memorandum, arguing the case for self-government for the Celtic countries to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Organization and distributed it in 1966 to members of the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
.
The League also took a leading part in many other campaigns, for example, monitoring submarine activity in the Irish Sea
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel, and to the Atlantic Ocean in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man...
where they refused to surface, snaring fishing net
Fishing net
A fishing net or fishnet is a net that is used for fishing. Fishing nets are meshes usually formed by knotting a relatively thin thread. Modern nets are usually made of artificial polyamides like nylon, although nets of organic polyamides such as wool or silk thread were common until recently and...
s and causing the loss of boats and lives. Ensuing publicity over the years to these incidents brought the League into mainstream politics. Another success was the League's spearheading of a campaign to transfer the ownership of the bird island sanctuary, the Calf of Man
Calf of Man
Calf of Man, sometimes known as the Calf of Mann , is a island , off the southwest coast of the Isle of Man. It is separated from the Isle of Man by a narrow stretch of water called the Calf Sound. Like the nearby rocky islets of Chicken Rock and Kitterland, it is part of the parish of Rushen. It...
, from the English National Trust to the Manx National Trust. The League soon made the idea of Pan-Celticism a public issue and forced the academic Celtic Congress
Celtic Congress
The International Celtic Congress is a cultural organisation that seeks to promote the Celtic languages of the nations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man. It was formed out of previously existing bodies that had sought to advance the same goals such as the Celtic...
, founded in 1900, into actions such as adopting a "Charter of Cultural Rights" in 1974. In 1979 a Celtic Film and Television Festival
Celtic Media Festival
The Celtic Media Festival, previously known as the Celtic Film and Television Festival, aims to promote the languages and cultures of the Celtic nations on screen and in broadcasting. The festival is an annual three-day celebration of broadcasting and film from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall...
was inaugurated and in 1981 UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
launched their permanent "Project for the Study and Promotion of Celtic Cultures". Conferences, book fairs, television programmes, and an International Federation of Celtic Wrestling was formed.
The burgeoning of the Celtic idea, came from Heusaff's original vision. Although he resigned office around 1985, he continued to work diligently for the League. As a tribute to his work The Celtic League published that year a festschrift in his honour For A Celtic Future, of essays by many leading Celticists, and edited by Cathal Ó Luain, who had become convenor of the League. Upon
his retirement from the Meteorological Service in 1986, Alan and Bríd moved to Seanadh Gharráin, near Spidéal, County Galway
County Galway
County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...
, where he concentrated on his lexicographical work, kept up a voluminous correspondence with his Celtic contacts, and remained involved in the League. In July 1990, Heusaff wrote of the future of the League:
"The Celtic League has a role to play in stimulating Inter Celtic contacts, Inter Celtic solidarity, which could express itself in contributing to pressure on politicians and international/European institutions to steer developments in Europe towards full recognition of the rights of our nations including languages. Other Inter Celtic organizations exist (i.e. Celtic Congress), also Inter Celtic events (Film and Television Festival. Celtic Congress of Writers etc.) – but we are the only association so far working on a continuous or permanent basis. We need to think about what contribution the Celtic peoples and their cultures can make to the development of European unity, to formulate proposals and suggestions, disseminating them, instead of adopting an aloof sort of attitude. We lack people to do this work. Many European peoples have something like an attachment to Celtic matters. I believe we should appeal to them to help to get recognition and the freedom we need to realize our national aims. Our problem is to bring young people to join in the work. The cosmopolitanization of culture, which now rules supreme, the control of the media by the agents of uniformity, are great obstacles to our progress."(19)
Before he died it was arranged that all Heusaff's papers connected with the Celtic League should be deposited in the National Library of Wales
National Library of Wales
The National Library of Wales , Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales; one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies.Welsh is its main medium of communication...
at Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
, and are classified as 681, Celtic League Archive.
Irish language activist
Heusaff and his wife were members of Conradh na GaeilgeConradh na Gaeilge
Conradh na Gaeilge is a non-governmental organisation that promotes the Irish language in Ireland and abroad. The motto of the League is Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin amháin .-Origins:...
and involved in Na Teaghlaigh Ghaelacha, an organisation for Irish speaking families. Bríd became a member of the Executive of Conradh na Gaeilge and was very active in Irish language activities. Heusaff took part in Irish language campaigns such as Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta and was the first person to refuse, on principle, to pay a television licence because of Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
's (RTÉ) neglect of Irish language programmes. This campaign ultimately resulted in the establishment of Teilifís na Gaeilge (later TG4
TG4
TG4 is a public service broadcaster for Irish language speakers. The channel has been on-air since 31 October 1996 in the Republic of Ireland and since April 2005 in Northern Ireland....
) in 1996.
In 1986 Irish President, Patrick Hillery
Patrick Hillery
Patrick John "Paddy" Hillery was an Irish politician and the sixth President of Ireland from 1976 until 1990. First elected at the 1951 general election as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Clare, he remained in Dáil Éireann until 1973...
, presented him with the Gradam an Phiarsaigh annual award for promoting the ideals of Patrick Pearse
Patrick Pearse
Patrick Henry Pearse was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916...
in contemporary Ireland. Later that year he was elected as a Bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...
of the Welsh Gorsedd
Gorsedd
A gorsedd plural gorseddau, is a community or coming together of modern-day bards. The word is of Welsh origin, meaning "throne". It is occasionally spelled gorsedh , or goursez in Brittany....
, as "Gwenerzh" (Muse) as having made a distinguished contribution to the Welsh nation, language and culture. (20)
Breton Language Scholar
While working passionately for the language and culture of his adopted country, Heusaff never ceased to promote the Breton languageBreton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
and the struggle of his native country for independence. He taught Breton language classes in his spare time in Dublin and became a prolific journalist in Breton, editing Argoad, a Breton language news bulletin, with an English edition Breton News
Breton News
Breton News was a magazine set up by Alan Heusaff amongst Breton émigrés in Ireland in the 1950s. It was published in English, French and Breton, and aimed to disseminate information about the political situation in Brittany amongst people in the Celtic countries, which he felt was not being...
, which he founded in 1959. He also contributed to Breton language magazines in Brittany such as Hor Yezh, Galva, Breman, Gwalarn
Gwalarn
Gwalarn was a Breton language literary journal. By extension, the term refers to the style of literature that it encouraged. 166 issues appeared between 1925 and May 1944....
, Arvor, Ar Bed Keltiek, An Amzer and Al Liamm. The first all-Breton dictionary, Geriadur Brezhoneg, published by An Here in 1995, cited Heusaff as a major contributor. This provoked some protest given renewed controversies in Brittany over his and other's wartime background. Heusaff also published a dictionary of his own dialect of Sant Ivi as Geriaoueg Sant Ivi, initially in the magazine Hor Yezh between 1962-73. A revised version of the work was issued in book form in 1996. (21)
See also
- Celtic League (political organisation)Celtic League (political organisation)The Celtic League is a non-governmental organisation that promotes self-determination and Celtic identity and culture in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man, known as the Celtic nations. It places particular emphasis on the indigenous Celtic languages...