The Celtibros, Spain’s Celts

When you think of the Celts you picture Scotland, Ireland and perhaps also Wales and Brittany. Red-haired, green-eyed cherubs might dance before your eyes, bagpipes ring in your ears and quite possibly you’ll be reminded of the adventures of Asterix & Obelix, the friendly Gaulish warriors who loved to be a nuisance to the Romans. Though the Celts are nowadays above all associated with the British Isles and parts of France, they have impacted on large parts of Europe, including Spain.

It is not known exactly when the Celtic tribes crossed the Pyrenean Mountains from Gaul, in modern-day France, and entered the Iberian Peninsula, but by the time the Romans arrived a few centuries BC they had merged with the indigenous Iberians to form the Celtibros. This blend of Mediterranean and Celtic blood would have been fiery indeed, and the Celtibros are said to have been fierce warriors who opposed Roman occupation for a long time. Eventually they succumbed to Roman culture but maintained many typically Celtic traits, such as bagpipes, stone houses and a tendency towards reddish hair.

Today the area where Celtibro culture is still most alive is Galicia in northern Spain, which along with parts of northern Portugal retains a strong Celtic identity that will give many an Irishman or Scotsman goose bumps as they spot a lone piper in the great square of Santiago de Compostela—perhaps the most Celtic town this side of Brittany. Andalucía is the more ‘Moorish’ part of the Spain, yet the Celts – or Celtibros – were here too, blending their blood and their culture into the rich mix that makes the Spanish people of this region so fascinating. Remember every time you pass a Spanish or Portuguese village with the word ‘Castro’ in the name that it was founded by Celts, and you realise just what a patchwork of people southern Spain really has.