The European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the European Union.

The ECHR was formed as part of the Council of Europe in the aftermath of WW2 and was predominantly championed by that obviously Marxist enemy of the British people, err, Winston Churchill. Its goal is to protect people in Europe from tyrannical and fascist governments. A particularly appropriate role when dealing with the current Tories.

It is the cornerstone of the "Never Again" consensus which has reigned throughout Europe since 1945.

Disguised as Frenchmen.

Thats the wrong bacon.

A Scottish breakfast should be using streaky bacon.

I guess you could probably get away with ayrshire bacon.

But this thinly sliced gammon the English call bacon is not right.

Haggis and Potato Scone. No toast. Should also be streaky bacon not back "bacon" which is basically thinly sliced gammon and not bacon at all. But that seems to be a fight thats been lost over the years.

The bacon is wrong.

A Scottish breakfast should only use streaky bacon.

But I realise thats a battle that's probably been lost.

Doesnt have to be Stornoway black pudding.

Just any regular black pudding without huge lumps of fat like they seem to eat in England.

> Fuarag

This was a new term to me.

It sounds very much like Cranachan. Not sure why its got a different name.

To be fair, the only meaningful difference between American Halloween and traditional Scottish Halloween is that you just demand the sweets instead of performing for them and you carve a pumpkin instead of a neep.

It#s really just the same thing. The loss of the performance is disappointing, for sure. But overall, its clearly still the same tradition.

No, I mean Halloween was literally created in Scotland.

And inventions from the Age of Nationalism which is when Irish "history" seems to have been created and references to such material just don't cut it.

There is Halloween in Scottish literature from the late 1600s.

There is no Halloween in Irish literature of the period.

There is no Samhain in Irish literature of the period.

From your own damn link > The festival was not recorded in detail until the early modern era.

There is a world of difference between a folk practise which has some sort of root in an ancient festival or tradition but whose roots are forgotten and actual continuation of a tradition over time. Its comical to even suggest that druidic era customs continued anywhere in the British Isles when we know that they did not.

For instance take jack o lanterns. Im not aware of a single primary source that links them directly to Samhain. Certainly its reasonable that they have association with the autumn season and Samhain could have been a harvest festival. But the link is entirely based on circumstance and best guess. Its not evidenced.

Its very easy to separate Halloween from Samhain from the complete lack of evidence of Halloween in Ireland (outwith pockets in the Scots planter communities) before the modern era or of any continued celebration of Samhain as a harvest festival (or whatever it actually was because that's pretty damn fuzzy).

Halloween was created, in Scotland, to continue Catholic traditions in an era where Calvinism made any "popery" either unwelcome or outright illegal. The mask of older Celtic traditions from half remembered folk tales was at best a ruse to obscure that it was just people who wanted their parties to keep going after the new protestant religion tried to ban them.

And while there is a complete lack of Irish evidence, Scots literature and other primary sources are filled with Halloween from the late 1600s onwards.