Mar 8, 2008

Pompton Lakes store is Celtic treasure-troveBy Lorraine AshDailyRecord.com

It takes eight yards of material to make a kilt, and there are more than 4,000 registered tartans.

Jewelry with a Celtic claddagh — symbol of two hands holding a crowned heart — can be given as a gift to anyone.

The famed Irish china made in the village of Belleek celebrated its 150th anniversary with an archive collection.

Arran Aromatics, a company on the Isle of Arran off southwest Scotland, creates organic soaps, perfumes and lotions packaged with a decorative thistle, the Scottish national flower.

“We have a holiday home there,” said Laura Rooney, who with her husband, Gerry Rooney, owns Pipeline Celtic Themes, the shop that brims with these treasures and many more.

“It’s a turn-of-the-century farmhouse called Braehead, meaning ‘Top of the Hill,’ and overlooks the Clyde River before it hits the ocean.”

As she helped customers, Gerry Rooney, born in Uddingston, Scotland, prepared a new bagpipe for Gedalia Zemel of Newark, a new player still learning on the practice chanter and the only bagpiper in the marching band at his school in Rockland County, Shaarei Arazim. He comes by it naturally, he said: His grandfather was ordained by the chief rabbi of Ireland.

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