About Us

Bradan Press was founded in 2016 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Our mission is to connect readers worldwide with Gaelic and Celtic languages and cultures. Bradan means “salmon” in Scottish Gaelic, and refers to the Salmon of Wisdom on the official Nova Scotia Gaelic flag. The Salmon of Wisdom appears in the tales of Fionn MacCumhail, found in the Gaelic oral traditions of Nova Scotia, Scotland, and Ireland.

We are proud to carry on the tradition of Scottish Gaelic publishing in Nova Scotia. The first Gaelic book was published in Nova Scotia 185 years ago. The longest-running Gaelic newspaper in the world was published in Nova Scotia just over a century ago. The Scottish Gaels are one of the founding cultures of Nova Scotia, and have been here for over 250 years. Bradan Press also acknowledges, honours, and appreciates the other founding cultures and minoritized language communities of Nova Scotia.

Bradan Press is located in K’jipuktuk which is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people. We respect the Mi’kmaq people, language, and culture. We are grateful for how the Mi’kmaq people welcomed the Gaels from Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries, and helped them to survive in Mi’kma’ki. Some Canadian Gael settlers and their descendants became powerful public officials and were responsible for carrying out genocidal actions against the Mi’kmaq people, including the implementation of the residential school system. Canadian Gaels were wrong to do this and we condemn their actions. The Gaels and other settlers signed treaties with Mi’kmaw people promising to live in peace and friendship. Today, all Nova Scotians, both Mi’kmaq and non-Mi’kmaq, are Treaty People. Bradan Press seeks out opportunities to educate ourselves, our readers, and our social media followers about Mi’kmaq language, culture, and history; how to acknowledge and redress the harm done by Gaels to Mi’kmaq; and our obligations as Treaty People. We are also working on the positive representation of Mi’kmaq people in our publications through our editorial process.

Bradan Press respects the Acadian language minority community of Nova Scotia and is dedicated to providing cultural resources about Gaelic in French, as well as in English and Gaelic, for Nova Scotia students and educators. We work with an Acadian Nova Scotian professional translator.

Bradan Press respects the African Nova Scotian community and we seek to represent African Nova Scotian participation in and commonalities with Nova Scotia Gaelic culture in our social media presence. We also pay attention to the representation of Nova Scotians’ diversity in our publications. For example, the illustrations in our children’s books G is for Gael: An Alphabet of Nova Scotia’s Gaelic Culture and G comme Gaël : L’alphabet de la cuture gaélique en Nouvelle-Écosse, represent Nova Scotian children in their diversity of skin tones and cultural heritages, to convey the message that all Nova Scotians, and all Canadians, are welcome to participate in and enjoy Nova Scotia’s Gaelic culture.