The Druí of Celtic Druid Temple will celebrate the first Full Moon of the Celtic Year with ceremony this Friday the 19th of November at 8pm. We are very happy to announce that we have a new venue and facilitator for you to join on the banks of the Boyne. Druí Fasach /i\ Cait will host her first Full Moon ceremony this Friday. We will also be at our regular locations at Tara, Temple Crom and in Vienna. You can read more about joining our Full Moon ceremony on our website here.

Below is a very comprehensive article from Hotpress dated 18th April 2013 written by Adrienne Murphy. It details the 1963 constitutional case taken against mandatory fluoridation of our water and how that case may be legally challenged today.........have a read and realise that rat poison is still being put in our drinking water because of corrupt political will and prohibitive costs of taking a legal challenge against this.

https://www.hotpress.com/opinion/judgement-that-permitted-fluoridation-of-water-may-have-been-unsound-9708554
By: Adrienne Murphy

For the first time, former Minister for Finance, Richie Ryan, has spoken about his role in the 1963 constitutional case, taken against the mandatory fluoridation of water in Ireland. Startling new evidence suggests that the judgement may have been unsound…

In a startling new development in our investigation into the policy of mandatory fluoridation of the drinking water in Ireland, Hot Press has spoken to Richie Ryan – the former Fine Gael TD, Minister for Finance and MEP.
We can now reveal for the first time that Richie Ryan was not only the chief instigator and driver of the legal attempt to prevent the introduction of mandatory water fluoridation by the Irish State back in the early ‘60s, but he also provided funding for the case, not only handling it on a pro bono basis but also covering from his own pocket many of the considerable expenses in what was a lengthy and dramatic constitutional action.
It is a revelation that the former Minister for Finance has never before made public. During the ‘60s when the fluoride controversy erupted, Richie Ryan was the Fine Gael spokesman on Health and Social Welfare. He retired from Irish politics in 1982, to concentrate on Europe. He was an MEP until 1986, when he was appointed to the European Court of Auditors.
Anti-fluoride campaigners are often depicted as conspiracy theorists and cranks. Richie Ryan is about as far from that caricature as it is possible to get and his re-emergence adds considerable further weight to the current campaign to end the policy of mandatory fluoridation in Ireland.
While the vast majority of people in Ireland are automatically force-fed fluoride on a daily basis in the water that comes from their taps, not many have any understanding of the background to this policy, or the controversy that surrounded it when the measure was first introduced in 1960. Indeed, until the publicity surrounding recent Hot Press articles, many young people were completely unaware of the existence of fluoride – and indeed of the concerns about it that have been gaining momentum outside Ireland.
The decision to fluoridate water in Ireland was originally made official in 1960, under the Health (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Act. Shortly afterwards, a Dublin woman Gladys Ryan (no relation to Richie Ryan) took a constitutional case, opposing fluoridation. Her recent death, aged 91, alongside this year’s looming court action against the State by ‘The Girl Against Fluoride’, Aisling Fitzgibbon, have thrown a fresh focus on the extraordinary 1963 Ryan Vs. the Attorney General case.
As we reveal here, there is mounting evidence that the judgement in the action may have been unsound.
At the time there was widespread concern in Ireland about fluoridation. Sodium Fluoride, once commonly used as rat poison, was considered by many to be dangerous, and there was a groundswell of opposition to the decision to put it into the national water supply.
Hot Press can reveal now that Gladys Ryan’s case became the legal battleground between aggressive United States-sponsored promotion of water fluoridation and a high level of resistance by Irish citizens who believed that the policy could have damaging long-term effects.
The Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Act was introduced by the Fianna Fáil Minister For Health, Sean MacEntee. The Irish health authorities had heard about water fluoridation from the US scientist Trendley H. Dean, the US-government sponsored so-called ‘father of fluoridation’, who originally visited Ireland in 1952 to give a lecture promoting water fluoridation in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.
Interestingly, a decade earlier, Dean had been very vocal in his opposition to the artificial fluoridation of public drinking water, on the grounds that it was potentially dangerous to human health. His u-turn on the issue saw him achieving a senior position with the American Dental Association by 1953. It has been speculated by anti-fluoride campaigners that there was a direct trade-off involved.
In Ireland, the Fluorine Consultative Council was originally appointed in 1956, by the then Minister for Health T.F.O’Higgins of Fine Gael. The Council’s Chairperson was Thomas A. Murphy (Professor of Social and Preventative Medicine and Registrar, University College, Dublin). The aim of the Council was to advise “whether, with a view to reducing the incidence of dental caries it is desirable to provide for an increased intake of fluorine (sic), and, if the Council considers it so desirable, to advise as to the best method of securing such an increased intake and as to any safegaurds and precautions necessary.”
A change of Government in 1957 saw Sean MacEntee inherit the Health portfolio. Murphy meanwhile had gone on a fluoridation ‘fact-finding’ mission to the US. Here scientists sponsored by the US Public Health Service – which was now aggressively pushing water fluoridation across the States, against huge public opposition – gave Murphy an overwhelmingly positive report on the safety and dental benefits of water fluoridation.
Murphy returned to Ireland and his report landed on MacEntee’s desk. Soon afterwards, MacEntee introduced the Water Fluoridation bill in the Dáil.
Recently I had the honour of being the first journalist in decades to discuss the dramatic events of the time with Richie Ryan. He recalls an extraordinary level of bias in the State’s attitude to the issue from the very start.
“Throughout the debate about fluoridation in the Dáil and during the legal proceedings,” he recalls, “both in the High Court and in the Supreme Court, whenever there was a little bit of tittle-tattle from any part of the world pro-fluoridation, the Dept issued a press statement. But never, ever of course did they reveal that certain nations had voted down fluoridation, or rescinded a previous decision to have it. In other words, they carried out a propaganda campaign, showing their complete bias.”
The case which Gladys Ryan took lasted 65 days, at that time the longest civil case in Irish legal history. The case argued on Gladys Ryan’s behalf was that the concerned mother of five’s constitutional right to bodily integrity, and her constitutional right as a parent to manage the health of her children, were infringed on by the Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Act.
For anti-fluoride campaigners, Gladys Ryan is a heroic figure, who took personal risks in trying to protect the Irish population from being systematically exposed to a harmful chemical. Indeed, given that her action delayed the implementation of fluoridation by four years, she arguably did indeed mitigate potential bodily damage caused by systemic ingestion of fluoride.
In the press at the time, however, Sean MacEntee caricatured Mrs Ryan as the proponent of a ‘flat earth society’. His account in an article published by the Journal of the Irish Dental Association is equally insulting. “A lady, whose means to sustain a High Court action were not commensurate with her disposition to litigate, initiated proceedings to have it declared invalid,” he wrote. …”These vexatious legal proceedings cost the tax payers £31, 500, not one penny of which was recovered from the lady who instituted them.”
“Of course, having started on the path,” Richie Ryan recalls now, “MacEntee wouldn’t divert from it. Just like those in the Department of Health who are never going to admit that they made a mistake in relation to this.”
The truth is that it was Richie Ryan – then a member of Dublin Corporation, a Fine Gael TD and a solicitor – who was the real driving force behind the intense legal battle. He came to realise, once the court case had begun that, in sponsoring that legal challenge, he was in effect taking on the might of the United States government, who were the first promoters of water fluoridation in the world.
“It was a huge cost, because it went on for so long,” Richie Ryan, now 84 years old, remembers. “I didn’t price it at the time, so I couldn’t even guess how much it would be in today’s terms. But it was a lot. It included covering the expenses of the expert witnesses, who came from the ends of the earth.
“We had some months of work to do before the case began,” he recalls, “and when it was running for so long, it was really a question of 20 hours work a day. You had to be in court – the easy part! – and then you had consultations afterwards, and after that there’d be more work and documentation required for the following day. It absorbed six to eight months entirely.”
Ryan had personally, and in his new role as Fine Gael spokesman on Health, oppossed water fluoridation vociferously since the bill was introduced in the Dáil in 1959. For the 1963 case, he put together a high-powered legal team – including, as Senior Counsel, Maud Gonne McBride’s son Sean McBride, then a former Minister for Foreign Affairs and later a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The anti-fluoridation case they mounted has gone down in history as one of the most extensive ever legal efforts to halt fluoridation. Looking at it with the benefit of hindsight 50 years on, it is remarkable that Ryan’s team and the expert witnesses they called advanced very similar scientific, health and precautionary arguments to those that scientists opposing fluoridation are making even more strongly today – because there is further evidence available now. But the authorities clearly knew 50 years ago what the problems were and chose to ignore them.
“And the Department of Health today is even more determined not to be found in the wrong,” Richie Ryan quips, in his South Dublin home. After all these years, he is still razor sharp – and as convinced as ever that fluoridation is a misbegotten policy. “That’s why they have never revealed the long-term health effects of fluoride. I think they have a closed mind. Their attitude is to defend themselves at all costs, because they would not want to have a situation in which they can be proved wrong.”
According to Richie Ryan, the State defendants were taken by surprise in 1963 by the sheer strength of the case his team put forward.
“They didn’t expect that we would amass such an army of experts,” he remembers. “They thought it would simply be a question of legal argument. They have admitted to me personally that they were stunned at the extent and the ability of our team. Then, they obviously got onto the wires to America, and the Americans said they’d make their top witnesses available for them, which they did.”
So why were the US government of the time willing to give of their resources to push through the bill which would introduce fluoridation in Ireland?
George L. Waldbott, a leading US medical expert on fluoride and one of the world’s most famous opponents of water fluoridation, was one of the witnesses invited to give evidence by Richie Ryan. In his 1965 book, A Struggle With Titans: Forces Behind Fluoridation, Waldbott describes his experience of the 1963 case in Dublin, and shines a fascinating light on why the US government spared no expense in its attempt to influence the judge’s decision.
“Any lawsuit on fluoridation,” he wrote, “whether in the US or elsewhere in the world, is directed against the US Public Health Service, which sponsored fluoridation prematurely before research had been carried out to prove its safety.”
Indeed, it was seen as crucial for the vested interests in the US that the constitutional objection in Ireland should be defeated. For if Gladys Ryan had prevailed, then the ripple effect back in the US would potentially have caused huge credibility problems for the Health Authorities and the military there.
I ask Richie Ryan, was it really US policy that was on trial?
“Yes, it was,” he concurs. “They saw that if this European case went against fluoridation, it was going to strengthen the arm of the anti-flouridationists in the United States. So the Americans were quickly on the scene.”
Waldbott writes that he warned Richie Ryan’s team that the preponderance of fluoride research had been carried out by Public Health Service sponsored scientists, and that many scientists who’d done their own research into fluoride’s health effects feared reprisal if they went public with the results.
Waldbott goes on to describe how US pro-fluoridation scientists sat immediately behind the Irish state’s legal team throughout the case, “advising them constantly, handing them written suggestions on slips of paper regarding examination of the plaintiff’s witnesses.
“This, I feared, was an ominous sign,” he added. “No matter how thoroughly informed the plaintiff’s attorneys were on the subject, they could not acquire enough knowledge to match the constant onslaught of statements, most of which originated with the Public Health Service in Washington, DC, and the American Dental Association in Chicago.”
In the end, the case was lost, with Mr. Justice John Kenny deciding in favour of the State. While there is a tendency to see this as a clear confirmation of the validity of fluoridation, information which Hot Press has uncovered now suggests that nothing could be further from the truth.
For one, George Waldbott was very clear that the decision was flawed.
“This important decision concerning the constitutional rights of the Irish citizen in the matter of his children’s health depended entirely upon the expert evidence, and upon the ruling of one man, learned in the law but not in science,” he reflected. “Yet, the decision hinged upon scientific, not legal, evidence. The judge decided that one set of experts was totally right, even to the point of proving a negative, ie. that fluoridation carries no possibility of harm to any member of a large population and that the other set of experts, equally eminent and well-qualified, was totally mistaken and incorrect to the point of failing to establish even a possibility of harm. He failed to take into account that medicine is not an absolute science like mathematics or physics.”
In his judgement, Justice Kenny stressed that he considered the pro-fluoridationist evidence given by US scientists to be stronger than that provided by Ryan’s team. In particular, the judge commended Dr. Harold Hodge, the top US government-sponsored fluoride researcher and advocate of water fluoridation at the time, who spent six days in court in Dublin, making the case for the safety and dental effectiveness of fluoride.
And thereby hangs a tale…
Harold Hodge was the chief source of safety information on fluoride in the US and the world for decades. This man and the research he promoted created the foundation for the dental lobby’s belief in the dental benefits of water fluoridation. As George Walbott observed, in essence the judgement hinges on the fact that Justice Kenny was impressed – and ultimately convinced – by Hodge. He came, after all, with the imprimatur of the US Government.
“A special word of thanks is due to Professor Hodge,” Justice Kenny said in his judgement, “who was in the witness box for six days and who gave his evidence with unfailing courtesy and in non-technical language.”
The deferential tone is unmistakable. It is the quicksand on which the decision is based.
“I come now to deal with the evidence in this case. I accept the whole of the evidence given by Professors Hodge and Ericsson and by Dr. Galagan… If… evidence in any way contradicts that of Professors Hodge and Ericsson and that of Dr. Galagan, I prefer the evidence of Professors Hodge and Ericsson and Dr. Galagan.”
What Justice Kenny didn’t know was that Hodge and his working methods would later be widely discredited – placing a previously hidden question mark over the Kenny judgement to the extent that it should now arguably be seen as unsound.
These are murky waters, in which those opposing fluoridation are routinely depicted as loonies and conspiracy theorists. However, since the declassification of previously classified US information in the mid ‘90s, clear evidence has emerged that fluoridationists – including Harold Hodge ­– and many of their studies, were at best questionable, and at worst knowingly fraudulent.
We can only speculate now how Justice Kenny would have felt had he read Christopher Bryson’s The Fluoride Deception (2004, Seven Stories), which paints a thoroughly documented, sinister picture of Harold Hodge as arch-promoter of fluoridation.
The Fluoride Deception reveals that Hodge was Chief Toxicologist of the Manhattan Project – which produced the first atomic bomb, during the World War II, that was ultimately used in Hiroshima. It also contains solid evidence that fluoridation policy was promoted as a counter against the threat of damages claims arising from these highly classified military activities.
Indeed, it is absolutely clear that Hodge did not present ‘all of the evidence’ to which he was privy at the time of the court hearing and that under the pretext of the US national security interest he could omit crucial evidence he had been fully aware of as early as 1946 – 17 years before the Irish court case.
In that year, there had been an accidental leak of gaseous hydrofluoric acid – devastating crops, harming livestock and people, near Gloucester and Salem in the USA. The leaks were emitted from a DuPont plant that was manufacturing ‘hex’, a fluoride compound that enriches uranium isotopes for the purposes of nuclear weaponry. The possibility of litigation caused panic within certain lobby groups benefiting from the exploitation of industrial fluorides.
As part of a strategy to fend off liability for the damages caused by airborne fluoride, in a secret and recently declassified memo to his superior, Hodge had written:
“Would there be any use in making attempts to counteract the local fear of fluoride on the part of residents of Salem and Gloucester counties through lectures on F toxicology and perhaps the usefulness of F in tooth health?” (‘F’ was code for Fluoride)
More tellingly, in terms of what Hodge knew, Bryson’s research also provides an account from fluoride whistleblower and one-time colleague of Hodge, Phyllis Mullenix.
Mullenix began her research career in neurotoxicology for the Forsyth Institute when she developed a new, more accurate system of analysing the effects of chemicals on the brain and central nervous system, using computer technology. However, Mullenix was subsequently fired for attempting to publish the stunning findings of her research, documenting damage caused by low concentrations of fluoride on the brains of rats.
In 1996, Mullenix confirmed that she had also discovered declassified documents pertaining to research by Hodge for the Manhattan Project, showing that as early as 1946 Hodge fully knew that fluoride would cause neurological damage even at low concentrations – that is, at concentrations of approximately 1ppm.
Despite this prior knowledge, Hodge declared to the world, and to Justice Kenny, that at concentrations of 1ppm fluoride in water was a safe prophylaxis against dental caries.
Additionally, Justice Kenny was ignorant of the fact that Hodge was one of a group of scientists involved in carrying out experiments on unsuspecting patients at Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital – experiments during which subjects were injected with fatal doses of plutonium.
It seems bizarre now that this extraordinarily controversial figure was a key engineer in shaping the public’s acceptance of the idea that fluoride is safe at low concentrations, both in the US and in Ireland.
That, however, is not the only basis for arguing that the judgement may have been unsound. In part, Justice Kenny’s decision against Gladys Ryan was based on a technicality. In its case, the State argued that because Ireland is an island with a big rural community with many people living on the fringes, it is impossible to provide piped water to everyone because of the high cost. It was argued, therefore, that citizens do not actually have a right to piped water, even if they live in a piped water area.
Therefore, the legal reasoning continued, if you don’t want to drink the fluoridated piped water, you can find some other water to drink. In a twist that with the benefit of hindsight seems almost medieval, Gladys Ryan was actually advised in court of the location of several old water pumps around Dublin, where she could go to collect non-fluoridated water for her family to drink.
The judgement also clearly ignored the fact that in fluoridated areas, every cup of tea made in a café, restaurant, hospital or school would have fluoride in it, meaning that the entitlement of a citizen to travel to get non-fluoridated water, on which this aspect of the judgement hinged, was a nonsense.
50 years on, Richie Ryan still expresses his frustration that the quality of scientific testimony his team amassed arguing against any conclusive belief in the safety of fluoridation was so simply dismissed by Justice Kenny.
“The evidence in the case,” he says now, “was of such serious concern to competent medical people that it’s strange that it was dismissed – and that it was suggested that people who didn’t want to take fluoridated tap water could go up the mountains and drink water from a stream.” He laughs now and offers a common sense reaction to Justice Kenny’s near-theological reasoning: “It’s ridiculous.”
But there is another aspect of the case that is also troubling. Justice Kenny had been a civil servant before he became a legal eagle. And among the positions he held was one as Private Secretary to Sean MacEntee in one of his prior ministerial positions. It seems extraordinary that he was appointed to hear a case being taken against a measure, which had been introduced by a Minister with whom he had enjoyed a very close working relationship – offering a further basis for questioning the original judgement.
Ryan, generally forthright in his response to questions, is guarded when I ask him about the judge who heard the fluoridation case. Did he know at the time that Kenny had previously worked as Private Secretary to MacEntee?
“I did,” he replies. Was it open for you to challenge his hearing the case? I ask.
“It would have been for Senior Counsel to do it – Sean McBride, Paddy McGilligan, who was Professor of Constitutional and International Law in UCD, and Tommy Connolly SC – and they decided not to. But they were aware of it all right. It was common knowledge.”
Were they worried about it?
“Well, one has to hope for the best,” Ryan says.
Which leaves the question: did Justice Kenny make Gladys Ryan’s team aware of the connection, as would now be expected, or did he offer to resile from the case?
As a solicitor, Richie Ryan agrees that evidence pointing to the deliberate withholding of vital information by the State’s key witness, Harold Hodge, back in 1963 calls the judgement into question. It is the kind of information that might yet prove hugely helpful in the renewed court attempt to defeat mandatory fluoridation in Ireland, which is being undertaken by Aisling Fitzgibbon, aka The Girl Against Fluoride. In the meantime, it might also give pause for thought to the Junior Minister in charge of fluoridation policy, Alex White, who has yet to answer the 27 questions recently posed, in an Open Letter to him, by Hot Press.
We await developments with keen interest

If you got this far you might be interested in following up with the Girl against Flouride....her case didn't go ahead following is an excerpt from this article on indymendia published on Wednesday August 30, 2017by 1 of indy "At the beginning of the campaign, we were naive enough to think that once politicians and councillors were aware of the health implications of fluoride, they'd want it removed from our water.......When the political avenue was unsuccessful we attempted to go down the legal route, misguidedly thinking that a court case would reverse the law.............Fortunately, we met an ethical solicitor in Dublin who, after a few meetings with our barristers, knew that we didn’t stand a chance against the government and the corporations they represented. The court case would cost millions and we would lose because water fluoridation wasn’t a mainstream topic. We were advised at this juncture to continue to spread awareness which we did......."

They also burned a 14 foot high Eight Spoke Sun Wheel on the ground inside a national monument using paraffin. See the pdf / doc on the home page of this website for full report

So we know what the fires of helloween were and are about, we know too that they were always celebrated by the catholick church and we know what the exact timing for their ceremonial fires are. We also know that the ability of the church to regulate their event has long gone into chaos. We know that the ‘wiccan burning cult’ seeks to stand in where the priests of the church used to be i.e. between you and the Source.

A choice - The Celtic New Year is honoured at dusk on the Dark Moon of Samhain - 15 Nov 2020 while Helloween is a profitable event on the commercial calendar 31st October 2020 shrouded in fear and celebrated by the “wiccan burning cult” disconnected from the ways of our ancestors. Which do you honour?

Introduction
We, the members of Celtic Druid Temple, being indigenous people of the Land known as Éire, proclaim and exercise our rights to self determination and self government, to practice, revitalize and evolve our cultural traditions and customs, to celebrate our ceremonies on ancestral sacred ground and to be secure in the enjoyment of our own means of subsistence and development, to engage freely in all our traditional and other economic activities, to preserve, honour and share our wisdom traditions, to maintain our right to choose traditional medicines and the natural holistic health practices of our Celtic Forest Nation of Éire.


We are Celtic Gaelic people of Ireland. We remain living on our ancestral homelands and seek to develop and continue our living cultural traditions and customs. We honour the Celtic Calendar with celebrations at our ancestral sacred temples and burial grounds. We live as people under the guiding principals of Meas, Meitheal and Mead. Meas encapsulates the concept of respect for self, others and Nature. Meitheal is the mechanism for working together through sharing the responsibilities of producing food, fuel and shelter. Mead is a celebratory drink made from honey and water and is our symbol of celebratory abundance. We live by these principles of self help, co operation and co creation with Nature to provide food, water, medicine, shelter and fuel for our families and community. We promote the use and learning of our native language Gaeilge. Our livelihoods depend on healthy natural woodlands, springs, waterways, sea and sky. Our sacred ancestral lands are of fundamental importance to our collective spiritual, physical and cultural survival as an indigenous people.

We are determined to preserve, develop and share with future generations the abundance of Nature from the Land, Sea and Sky. This includes access to our sacred herbs and vital medicinal plants, animals, birds, fish and minerals. We are preserving, developing and will share with future generations our Celtic Gaelic identity in accordance with our own cultural patterns, social institutions and body of Living Laws without external interference or discrimination.
Principles

1. Indigenous Status of Celtic Druid Temple
2. Self identifying as an Indigenous Celtic Gael
3. UN Permanent Forum definition of “indigenous peoples”
4. International Human Rights Law
5. Overall Intention to proclaim define and exercise our rights as members of Celtic Druid Temple


1. Indigenous Status of Celtic Druid Temple
The Celtic Druid Temple is an organised group of Celtic Gaelic People and Druí (Spiritual guide, teacher and ceremonial leader) honouring Nature as Supreme Being and are determined to practice, revitalize and evolve our cultural traditions and customs by celebrating our ceremonies on ancestral sacred ground in accordance with our Celtic calendar.

Structure and chronology

• 1993 Originally formed as the Heritage Awareness Group identifying indigenous sacred sites and providing educational seminars to the general public supported by local county councils and public libraries.
• 22nd of November 2012 Incorporated as Celtic Druid Temple Company no. 520451
• 30th of August 2017 Changed form to an unincorporated association named Celtic Druid Temple governed by a constitution.

Recognition

BUNREACHT NA hÉIREANN (Constitution of Ireland)

• Article 44 Secures our freedom to practice our religion.
  2 1° Freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion are, subject to public order and morality, guaranteed to every citizen.

Department of Health

• The Department recognises Druidry as an indigenous religion https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/publications/socialinclusion/interculturalguide/traditional/

Department of Finance

• On the 19th of May 2015 the Department recognised Celtic Druid Temple as an organisation established to promote the indigenous religion of Ireland with Nature as the Supreme Being and granted Celtic Druid Temple the following charity no. CHY20684

Dept of Social Protection

• On the 3rd of February 2016 Solemniser Status was granted by the Department to Celtic Druid Temple. The legally binding marriage registration certificate states that the marriage ceremony is performed "according to the Rites of Passage of the Indigenous Wisdom Tradition of Celtic Druid Temple”

Department of Justice

• On the 13th of June 2018 the Department recognised Celtic Druid Temple as an organisation established to promote the indigenous religion of Ireland and granted Celtic Druid Temple the following registered charity number RCN 20106003
• The Druí of Celtic Druid Temple have jury service exemption status and have exercised this exemption.
• An Garda Siochana have on four occasions provided protection for our public ceremonies
  

European Convention on Human Rights

Article 9(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the rights of adherents to this policy document to full enjoyment of rights to thought, conscience and religion, including the ancient traditions of the Celtic Druid faith, and, more specifically, to our right of pilgrimage.
All comments and questions welcomed – celticdruidtemple@gmail.com

2. Self identifying as an Indigenous Celtic Gael

If just one of the following determinants is a 'yes' for you – then you can self identify as an Indigenous Celtic Man or Woman and become a member of our Celtic Forest Nation of Éire. This is a true identity even if you do not currently live in Ireland but wish to live here and to have your descendants live here as your ancestors did.

1 Do you have Gaelic Celtic ancestors?
2 Do you live on or wish to live on the land of your ancestors?
3 Do you seek to live by the Celtic Calendar?
4 Do you want to learn / speak Gaeilge?
5 Do you wish to provide food for your family directly from the Land, Sea and Sky of Éire?
6 Do you wish to preserve, develop and transmit our connection to our Land, Sea and Sky of Éire?
7 Do you wish to restore our Celtic identity, cultural patterns, social institutions and lawful ways?
8 Do you wish to restore Ireland as a Celtic Forest Nation?


3. UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 'working' definition of “indigenous peoples”

* Self-identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and acceptance by the community as their member;
* Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies;
* Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources;
* Distinct social, economic or political systems;
* Distinct language, culture and beliefs;
* Form non-dominant groups of society; and
* Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities.

Excerpt of a legal opinion by an international law expert who addresses indigenous issues. “Members of the Celtic Druid Temple have the right to self-identification as indigenous; there is historical continuity of indigenous-ness from prior to British invasions; the Temple’s members are tied to territory and resources; indigenous Irish do possess distinct social, economic and political systems and distinct language, culture and beliefs; and it is clear that the Temple and its members are resolved to “maintain and reproduce ... ancestral environments and systems as distinct peoples and communities” (in a modern setting). At end, according to the Permanent Forum document, “the most fruitful approach is to identify, rather than define indigenous peoples.” The Temple is clearly asserting distinct rights.”

4. International Human Rights Law
The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations as General Assembly Resolution No. 61/295 (13 September 2007). Courts can apply the declaration in decisions and legislatures and other bodies can cite it to support positions to uphold and enforce specific provisions in the Declaration.

“The Declaration addresses both individual and collective rights; cultural rights and identity; rights to education, health, employment, language, and others. It outlaws discrimination against indigenous peoples and promotes their full and effective participation in all matters that concern them. It also ensures their right to remain distinct and to pursue their own priorities in economic, social and cultural development. The Declaration explicitly encourages harmonious and cooperative relations between States and indigenous peoples.”

Article 24 of the Declaration provides (in full):

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Indigenous individuals also have the right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services.
2. Indigenous individuals have an equal right to the enjoyment of the highest standard of physical and mental heath. States shall take necessary steps with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of this right.

Article 1 of the Declaration states the right of indigenous peoples, both individually and collectively, to enjoy all human rights as stated by the U.N. or otherwise.
Article 3 secures the right of self-determination, meaning the right to “freely determine” their political status and “freely” pursue and secure their own economic, social and cultural development.

Article 24 addresses the human right to health with this language:

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Indigenous individuals also have the right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services.
2. Indigenous individuals have an equal right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. States shall take the necessary steps with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the right.
Excerpt of a legal opinion by an international law expert who addresses indigenous issues. “There is no specific language in the Declaration that addresses the right to refuse specific health measures or procedures, including vaccination. However the language about “their” health practices assumes a right to define what those might be, and the language “highest standard of physical and mental health” assumes that any given “standard” is the “highest” or most appropriate. Inappropriate standards include procedures or practices that are harmful or repulsive to a given indigenous group. I note that the Celtic Druid Temple is in fact engaging in an ongoing debate over the appropriateness of vaccination, and the right to reject it, and there is a right to speak to that — and be acknowledged in positions. I think that one of the most important points for the Celtic Druid Temple’s word is that the obligation is on the state (i.e. government) to deal with complaints of violations of human rights without requiring any person or group to “prove” their right. It is a matter of asserting a given right, e.g. the right to refuse vaccination, and compelling the state to engage. The right to refuse vaccination is a difficult subject, however, there is a right to articulate that right in general terms and compel the state to address it.”


5. Overall Intention to proclaim define and exercise our rights as members of Celtic Druid Temple

Celtic Druid Temple is officially recognised as the indigenous religion of Éire. Celtic Druid Temple presents a modern expression of the indigenous spiritual tradition of this island. Every man woman and child can choose to openly practice the indigenous spiritual traditions of this island. We can now openly show reverence to Nature as the Supreme Being and acknowledge the Spirit of our Celtic Ancestors without fear of censure. The dignity and inherent divinity of every man woman and child can be honoured and nurtured to its fullest expression.

We are in contact with indigenous peoples / groups in Europe, Russia, Australia, North America, South America and throughout the island of Ireland. It is our intention to share this statement with these groups seeking a declaration of acknowledgement and support from them with a view to developing relationships with and acknowledgement from other indigenous groups around the world that respect Nature. The first paragraph from the top of this page is on the back of the new CDT membership identity card. This replaces the Celtic Gaelic Oath that was shown on the back of the CDT identity card. The Oath will continue to be used and will appear on our Almanac, CDT website and in our social media as graphics/script.

The above policy statment can be downloaded as a doc or pdf here

Dagda at 00:25 on the 23/12/19 is due south. He dominates An Geimhreadh, the longest night. This image shows Dagda (aka Orion) in the middle of the night on the longest night based on looking and seeing from An Forradh (the seat of judgement) on Tara Éire.