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In other words, it's the aesthetics. When I say ancestors I'm referring to your ancestral group. If I dropped you in New Zealand and told you, "Creoda, this land is where your ancestors once walked," you're not looking at towns and villages but rather the land itself. You'd feel a spiritual connection to your Irish ancestors because of the aesthetics but you're not in Ireland. You're in New Zealand.
I suspect it has to do with the drama. Scots have strong emotions over the battle of Culloden. It's central to their history. There is far more to be upset with the battle of Culloden and what came afterward than with a dynastic feud. There are a number of factors that could have touched her heart.If it were simply that, I don't think they'd consider it remarkable. What they were talking about was some weird melancholic force or something that overcame them while there. As an aside, my mother said she felt that at Culloden (despite having no Scottish link), but contrastingly at the site of the Battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire, in the Wars of the Roses which she's always been fascinated by, she felt nothing. Then years later it was discovered that the traditionally thought site was wrong, and the actual battlefield was some distance away.
Who was she with? Was there a guide who really put the battle in perspective? I worked at a Scottish restaurant and know how Scots can be about their conflicts with the English. This may have influenced your mother. An assumption of mine, of course. I obviously don't know your mother. Maybe the three of us can get on skype. That would be cool.
You're showing a tendency towards mysticism just by seriously considering a spiritual connection to land based on ethnicity. What is more likely is that it's is an emotional attachment to what you associate with the land.Not really, I never said I necessarily believed in it as a paranormal thing. Nor am I religious or care about ghost/demon stories. Just thought it was an interesting topic.
You can have an Irish-American who has never been to Ireland arrive and say, "I feel a special connection" while she is there but it's because she's associating it with who she is and who she is good, obviously. If she was adopted and told all her life she was German, then that connection wouldn't be there because she doesn't associate it with herself... or maybe she does because she likes the aesthetics. Ireland is a beautiful country after all.
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