Alan Heusaff

TIRELESS FIGHTER FOR CELTIC UNITY DIES

Alan Heusaff, a founder member and long time Secretary General of the Celtic League, has died at his home in Spiddal, Co. Galway, Éire.

Alan was born in Brittany in 1921 and was active in cultural movements as a youth, eventually joining the Breton National Party in 1938. In the wave of French xenophobia which followed the second world war
and the hostility towards minorities in France, he left the country and, with many other Bretons, settled in Ireland. After a University Degree course he joined the Irish Meteorological service with which he remained until his retirement.

The Breton community in Dublin immediately became the focus for inter-celtic organisation and an embryonic inter-celtic movement was established publishing, An Aimsir Cheilteach. Formed in 1947, this functioned for several years. In 1961 the pan Celtic movement reorganised with the formation of the Celtic League in 1961 at Rhos in Wales. Alan Heusaff was a founder and the first Secretary General of the League and remained in that role for twenty five years.

He was a tireless campaigner for all the Celtic countries and meticulous in ensuring that meetings of the League were held on a rotational basis annually in all the countries whatever the logistics problems.
He also established the inter Celtic quarterly journal CARN, which has been produced now for almost thirty years, and provides information in both English and all the Celtic languages on the Celtic scene.

Latterly, as Secretary of the League's International branch, he carried on liaison with the Celtic diaspora and also acted as contact for the League's United States branch. Well organised to the end, just months
before his death Alan arranged the transfer of records, on both his work for the Breton movement and the Celtic League, to the University of Aberystwyth. He was also in the process of handing over his present
League duties to a newly appointed International Secretary.

Alan Heusaff was fortunate  in that he was able to see in his lifetime some of the devolutionary moves which have occurred in the Celtic countries. However, he believed that the only future for the Celtic
countries was as independent partners in a Celtic confederation.

In the days immediately prior to his death, he was liaising with me over the arrest of activists in Brittany, campaigning against the waveband reallocations being forced on an Irish language radio station
and also promoting the rights of a Scottish child to be taught through the medium of Gaelic. He recognised the value of the big issues without forgetting the small. He saw and appreciated the worth of the large Celtic countries without forgetting the efforts to maintain political identity, culture and language in the smaller countries like Mannin (Isle of Man) and Kernow (Cornwall).

Alan Heusaff may have died but the ideals he epitomised and the campaign for freedom within the Celtic countries that he and the other founders of the Celtic League promoted will go on until their goal is realised.

J.B. Moffatt - General Secretary, Celtic League.

Grave-side oration pledges to continue the quest for political and cultural freedom for the Celtic peoples.

Nationalists from Scotland, Brittany and Mannin joined family and mourners at the funeral of Alan Heusaff in Co. Galway on Saturday, 6th November 1999. The parish church at Spiddal was packed for the funeral service. His coffin was covered with the flag of his native Brittany and several wreaths with the symbols of the Celtic nations.

At the grave-side Michael Mac Aonghusa and Secretary General of the Celtic League, Bernard Moffatt, paid tributes to the work of Alan Heusaff for the inter Celtic cause and the Breton National Anthem was played.

Both men outlined the debt that the inter Celtic movement owed to Alan Heusaff and others who promoted freedom for the Celtic countries. His commitment had been selfless for over sixty years.

The Secretary General said that it was fortunate Alan had lived long enough to see the moves towards devolution in Wales, Scotland and the other Celtic countries and also the reconciliation in Ireland which should at long last unite the divided country. He also said that Alan Heusaff's lifetime of work would be continued by the present membership of the Celtic League.

Bernard Moffatt
Secretary General, Celtic League