Are you Gaelic Traditionalists? What is the difference between Traditionalism and Reconstructionism?
If a tradition has to be pieced together from fragmentary survivals, books and folklore, it is Reconstructionism. If there is a community of people already following an intact tradition, complete with a full system of belief and practices they can teach you, that means you are joining an existing tradition. In the early years of the CR movement, we probably tended to gravitate towards calling ourselves reconstructionists, not traditionalists, because of our commitment to accuracy and honesty, and our respect for the living cultures. While there are ancient manuscripts and books of 19th Century folklore that describe things similar to what we wanted, there was no living tradition that had preserved a complete, polytheistic Celtic religion as part of the living culture. There were Catholics with some easily re-Paganized bits. There were the piles of obscure books. There were some small survivals of practices, beliefs and attitudes in some of our families of origin, but no complete spirit
