after the Easter Rising Celtic nationalisms were boosted immensely by the Irish Easter Rising of 1916, where a group of revolutionaries belonging to the Irish Republican Brotherhood struck militantly against the British Empire during the First World War to assert an Irish Republic. Part of their political vision, building on earlier Irish-Ireland policies was a re-Gaelicisation of Ireland: that is to say a de-colonisation of Anglo cultural, linguistic and economic hegemony and a re-assertion of the native Celtic culture. After the initial rising, their politics coalesced in Ireland around Sinn Féin. In other Celtic nations, groups were founded holding similar views and voiced solidarity with Ireland during the Irish War of Independence: this included the Breton-journal Breiz Atao, the Scots National League of Ruaraidh Erskine and various figures in Wales who would later go on to found Plaid Cymru. The presence of James Connolly and the October Revolution in Russia taking place at the same time, also led some to imagine a Celtic socialism or communism; an idea associated with Erskine, as well as the revolutionary John Maclean and William Gillies. Erskine claimed the "collectivist ethos in the Celtic past", had been, "undermined by Anglo-Saxon values of greed and selfishness." The hope of some Celtic nationalists that a semi-independent Ireland could act as a springboard for Irish Republican Army-esque equivalents for their own nations and the "liberation" of the rest of the Celtosphere would prove a disappointment. A militant Scottish volunteer force founded by Gillies, Fianna na hAlba; which like the Óglaigh na hÉireann advocated republicanism and Gaelic nationalism; was discouraged by Michael Collins who advised Gillies that the British state was stronger in Scotland than Ireland and that public opinion was more against them. Once the Irish Free State was established, the ruling parties; Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil; were content to engage in inter-governmental diplomacy with the British state in an effort to have returned the counties in Northern Ireland, rather than supporting Celtic nationalist militants within Britain. The Irish state, particularly under Éamon de Valera did make some effort on the cultural and linguistic front in regards to Pan-Celticism. For instance in the summer of 1947, the Irish Taoiseach de Valera visited the Isle of Man and met with Manxman, Ned Maddrell. While there he had the Irish Folklore Commission make recordings of the last, old, native Manx Gaelic-speakers, including Maddrell. Post-war initiatives and the Celtic League