TOTAL TALLY OF MUNROS: 75
Dia duit, Róise is ainm dom agus is breá liom an taobh amuigh. Léigh thíos chun beagán a fhoghlaim faoi mo shuíomh Gréasáin – Gaelige (Irish)
Halo, is mise Róise agus is toil leam a bhith a-muigh. Leugh gu h-ìosal gus beagan ionnsachadh mun làrach-lìn agam – Gaidghlig
Hello, my name is Róise and I am an outdoor enthusiast, a Gaelic speaker, an Irish speaker, a Munro climber, a literature lover, a musician, a wild-swimmer, and a writer…and (in a nutshell) my blog attempts to capture all these things.
Damn, I feel I’ve already fallen at the first hurdle of a successful blog. When researching how to create a successful site the resounding conclusion was that you had to find a niche in the market and stick to it. Unfortunately, I am a jack of all trades and a master of none, meaning the term ‘niche’ is a foreign concept to me. So instead I’m going out on a whim and seeing if I can make a success of my chaotic, wandering, and rambling writing.
If I were to outline a focus for this blog, amidst its rambles, it would be that I am attempting to climb all 282 Munros in my lifetime and this blog acts as a place to document and remember these journeys. But I hope that this blog could be much more – see KPIs for long term goals.
WHY THE RAMBLING CELT?
There were many issues when choosing the name for my blog. Why not call it Róise’s World or the likes? Well, tell me this…how many of you can pronounce Róise (see here how to pronounce my name)? It was clear from the beginning that the blog’s name could not stem from my own and, admittedly, I wanted the blog to be more about my adventures and interests than the ‘I’ within the story.
But, once I took Róise out of the title, I was left with an identity crisis, stripping myself of my Irish and Gaelic connections. Thus, the idea of a celt or ‘celtic’ became a necessity part of the name. Yes, I am aware that Celtic refers to a branch of the Indo-European family and includes Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, Manx, Cornish, and several extinct pre-Roman languages such as Gaulish. Alas, I cannot speak all these languages (perhaps one day I will), but for now I use Celt in the broader sense: a modern Gael.
The rambling came from wanting to connect my love of walking/the outdoors with the act of writing/thinking. The term rambling, for me, effectively captures both, on the one hand meaning to walk the countryside for pleasure, on the other hand meaning to write or speak in a lengthy, digressive, manic way. My mother was very quick to flag the negative connotations of the term ‘ramble’, but for me I have rambled all my life and some of the best things come from lengthy, inconsequential, and confused thoughts so…now you have The Rambling Celt.
HOW TO NAVIGATE THE BLOG?
I genuinely hope you’re able to navigate the blog easily without this paragraph – otherwise I’ve really screwed up on my user friendly experience. But this is just to say that the blog is currently broken into the following themes:
Munroing – this is a document of all the Munros I have done so far, including little tips and tricks for hiking along the way – I also cover what exactly a munro is here.
Wild-swimming – these are top tips and places for wild swimming which I will build upon as I create more content.
Thoughts – these are thought pieces that are entirely my own opinion.
Filming – this is a documentation of all my filming projects.
Hopefully as the website grows, I will be able to expand on these, but for now, you’re stuck with the four basics.
THE BLOG RULES
When writing, I will do my best to offer suggestions and top tips for all the activities within my blog posts, but please do take everything with a pinch of salt. I am an amateur in all senses of the word. Perhaps one day I’ll feel comfortable giving sage advice on writing, climbing, languages, music…but for now I am a learner, so don’t take all my suggestions to heart and please learn from my mistakes – I have many!
In all seriousness, for the most part, if I am not knowledgeable on a subject or feel I am misleading you, I will direct you to an appropriate source – there’s so much support out there that you’d be mad not to take it.
