(Q60413)

Alan Heusaff was the founder and principal guiding force behind the Celtic League from the 1960s until the 1990s. He also established the League's magazine, Carn, which he edited for many years. As a young man, he involved himself in the movement for political and cultural autonomy in his native Brittany, and joined the separatist PNB (Parti National Breton) in 1938. During the Second World War, Heusaff became a member of Bezen Perrot, a Breton unit of the SS, as his Breton nationalist opposition to the French state led him into collaboration with the Nazis against the Maquis. He was wounded while fighting against Free French forces during the battle of Normandy in 1944, and was sentenced to death in absentia by the French authorities. After the war, Heusaff moved to Ireland, where he worked in the Irish Meteorological Service. He was the first General Secretary of the Celtic League, and held that responsibility for twenty-five years, becoming Secretary of the International branch in 1986.