Alan Heusaff, Alan Heussaff was a Breton nationalist, linguist, dictionary compiler, prolific journalist and lifetime campaigner for solidarity between the Celtic peoples.
31 Facts About Alan Heusaff
2.
Alan Heusaff continued his studies at University College, Galway, and, on graduation, joined the Irish Meteorological Service, becoming a naturalised Irish citizen in 1955.
3.
Alan Heusaff was fluent in all the six modern Celtic languages as well as English, French and German.
4.
Alan Heusaff married Brid Ni Dhochartaigh in 1953 ; the couple had six children, four girls and two boys.
5.
Alan Heusaff was born in 1921 in Sant Ivi, near Rosporden, now in Kernev.
6.
Alan Heusaff's family originated in nearby Toulgoat and his parents, Sebastien and Mari Heusaff, were native Breton speakers.
7.
Alan Heusaff spoke only Breton at the time he was sent to school.
8.
Nevertheless, Alan Heusaff had a good ear for languages and eventually joined the Ecole Normale in Kemper where he trained as a primary-school teacher.
9.
Alan Heusaff continued to be acutely aware of the state's policy on Breton.
10.
In 1938, as a teenager, Alan Heusaff joined the Parti National Breton which sought to re-assert Breton independence.
11.
Alan Heusaff joined the PNB's uniformed but unarmed Bagadou Stourm and then gravitated to the Kadervenn group of PNB, which believed in direct action.
12.
Alan Heusaff became convinced that only separation from France would save both the language and the cultural identity, which he believed was dependent on its survival.
13.
Alan Heusaff had been working as a primary school teach at Kerien and between 1941 and 1942 he began to write articles about the problems of Brittany under the pseudonym "Mab Ivi".
14.
Alan Heusaff had become a kerrenour in Bezen Kadoudal, which, in December 1943, became Bezen Perrot and which Alan Heusaff saw as the nucleus of a Breton independence army.
15.
In June 1944, shortly after D-Day, Alan Heusaff was at Ploerdut, Morbihan, with members of the Bezen Perrot, when they became involved in a firefight with members of a Free French commando unit.
16.
Alan Heusaff was seriously wounded in the shoulder and lung.
17.
Alan Heusaff had connections with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur keltische studien in Berlin and had been on a research trip to Brittany in 1943.
18.
On leaving hospital in late 1944, Alan Heusaff found Breton contacts in Strasbourg and spent time there.
19.
Alan Heusaff joined them and adopted the name Bernhard Heubacher, receiving papers with Hielscher's help.
20.
Alan Heusaff took his wife to Brittany for the first time in 1967 but were forbidden to visit Finistere, his home department.
21.
Alan Heusaff's 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.
22.
On 20 May 1950, Alan Heusaff left Marburg under the alias "Bernard Heubacher", and travelled through Belgium to England and Wales, and then to Ireland, where he enrolled in University College, Galway, to finish his degree.
23.
Alan 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.
24.
Alan Heusaff became a naturalised citizen under his own name in 1955.
25.
Alan Heusaff worked at Dublin Airport for the rest of his career.
26.
Alan Heusaff 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.
27.
In July 1990, Alan Heusaff wrote of the future of the League:.
28.
Alan 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 Raidio Teilifis Eireann's neglect of Irish language programmes.
29.
Alan Heusaff 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.
30.
Alan Heusaff contributed to Breton language magazines in Brittany such as Hor Yezh, Galva, Breman, Gwalarn, Arvor, Ar Bed Keltiek, An Amzer and Al Liamm.
31.
Alan Heusaff published a dictionary of his own dialect of Sant Ivi as Geriaoueg Sant Ivi, initially in the magazine Hor Yezh between 1962 and 1973.