Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gaels of Scotland


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Gaels.  Sandstein  10:45, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Gaels of Scotland

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This article has been tagged as having multiple issues since 30 October 2017. Despite some editing by users other than the originating editor, these problems remain: the article is very poorly referenced with low quality sources and does not even accurately represent what those sources say. The subject matter of the article overlaps with others: History of Scotland (and the more detailed articles linked from there) cover the historical aspects of this article much better; Scottish Gaelic similarly addresses the linguistic side. Even if well written and referenced, the existence of this article would be of questionable value, due to overlap with other articles. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:35, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletiondiscussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 22:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Added missing closing tag. -- qedk ( t  桜  c ) 11:14, 23 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. The topic is superfluous, the content rambling and incoherent. Mutt Lunker (talk) 10:29, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * keep. Over the coming days I will attempt to restructure the page and add in reliable references on this topic matter as I feel it is a page worth of retention as the Gaels provide a very interesting and worth part of Scotland’s history and modern culture. User:EosaphOScollain(talk) 19:13, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment, tend to delete, in its current state it is not worthwhile to be kept as it deals with history and language rather than with the ethnic group, while both history and language are better dealt with in other articles. If this is supposed to be an article about an ethnic group, please compare with e.g. Aboriginal Australians to see how an ethnic group's article should look like. Marcocapelle (talk) 19:40, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment I have strong doubts that there are sufficient good quality sources to bring this article even close to the example suggested (Aboriginal Australians). I have looked at the content of courses at University of the Highlands and Islands and University of Aberdeen (both of which have schools of Gaelic studies) and can find nothing relevant to this article that would not fit into History of Scotland or Scottish Gaelic. Obviously difficult to prove a negative but, it seems there might not be the necessary good quality sources to support this article.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:12, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 14:29, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep The more relevant article is surely Gaels, which includes in its Bibliography a number of sources about Scots Gaels: Macleod, John (1997). Highlanders: A History of the Gaels. Sceptre. ISBN 978-0340639917; McLeod, Wilson (2004). Divided Gaels: Gaelic Cultural Identities in Scotland and Ireland C.1200-C.1650. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0199247226; Newton, Michael (2000). A Handbook of the Scottish Gaelic World. Four Courts Press. ISBN 978-1851825417; Newton, Michael (2009). Warriors of the Word: The World of the Scottish Highlanders. Birlinn. ISBN 978-1841588261; Richards, Eric (1999). Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances: Homicide, Eviction and the Price of Progress. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9781902930138. Other relevant sources I have found include Devine, T.M. (1994;2017) Clanship to Crofters' War: The social transformation of the Scottish Highlands. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526130822; Macdonald, S. (1997) Reimagining culture: histories, identities, and the Gaelic renaissance (Issue 7 of Berg Ethnicity and Identity Series) ISBN 9781859739808; this article, which looks at the historic concept of the Gael as an ethnicity: Hammond, Matthew H. 'Ethnicity and the Writing of Medieval Scottish history', Scottish Historical Review. April 2006, Vol. 85, Issue 219, pp1-27. ; another article, Szasz, M.C. 'Rendezvous in Edinburgh: Highland Gael and Mohegan Indian in Auld Reekie in 1767', Northern Scotland, Edinburgh University Press, Vol 1, 2010, pp 54-75, ; plus there is a 14 volume Scottish Life and Society: A Compendium of Scottish ethnology from the European Ethnological Research Centre. And that is just scratching the surface. The topic of Scots Gaels as an ethnic group, with a culture as well as a language and history, is clearly notable, and there are multiple sources which could be used to improve and expand the article. The article as it is needs more inline citations, but as an overview, it does not seem to me anywhere near bad enough that it needs to be deleted. RebeccaGreen (talk) 16:19, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 16:27, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Challenge to the points made by User:RebeccaGreen (1) If Gaels is a more relevant article, why is that a case for keeping this one?
 * (2) It is not clear what content of the suggested sources would be persuasive in keeping this article. (a) For instance, Hammond, Matthew H. 'Ethnicity and the Writing of Medieval Scottish history', Scottish Historical Review. April 2006, Vol. 85, Issue 219, pp1-27 is an examination of the historiography of Scottish ethnic groups - surely this, if it has a home in Wikipedia, is/should be covered in a history article. (b) Clanship to Crofters' War does cover the demise of clanship, and this material is found, among other places, in Scottish clan - but its treatment both by T M Devine and by Scottish clan is essentially historical. (c) Eric Richard's book on Patrick Sellar does mention the concept of racial inferiority held by people like Sellar - there are better references to illustrate that (James Hunter has a powerful quote from a Lowland newspaper in Scottish Exodus: Travels Among a Worldwide Clan), but in total they do not amount to much material.
 * Given that we have a list of many sources provided, and those with which I am familiar or to which I have easy access do not seem to provide enough to make an article - certainly not one that does not simply duplicate material found in Scottish Gaelic and History of Scotland, I question what useful content is in the suggested sources that are less accessible to me.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:29, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge (selectively) without a redirect to Gaels, no need to have a separate article for this given the manageable size of that article (i note that History of Scotland is over 18thousand words (over 30 "pagedowns"!), an eyeglazing size even for one of the diaspora - see WP:TOOBIG:)). ps. shouldn't the history of scotland article have a "see also" link to Gaels? Coolabahapple (talk) 03:28, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 02:56, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge to Gaels: is correct that there are multiple reliable books on the subject; what is less clear is that another article is needed given Gaels (which is currently easily short enough for a merge to be sensible); Scottish Gaelic; and the enormous History of Scotland. And she didn't mention S. M. Foster, Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland, 2014. This is evidently not a question of sourcing, but of article management, i.e. we need to decide what structure (which tree) of articles would serve Wikipedia best here. Personally I'd favour a merge to Gaels as the result will remain conveniently small and readable, and someone should probably split History of Scotland into a main and several subsidiary articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:51, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete —Not an ethnic group. More like history and language.Tamsier (talk)
 * Merge or rename - "Gaels" is the official word used by the Government of Nova Scotia (e.g. at Highland Village to refer to Highlanders who settled there, so the "of Scotland" bit muddies the waters. Gaels clearly exist as a separate topic, but not only (or mainly) in Scotland. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 23:43, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Happy with merge if that's the way things are moving, though I think there is scant material within this article to augment the Gaels article. Mutt Lunker (talk) 09:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.