This is posted in the waiting room of an Irish hospital. Interesting glimpse into their culture.
The full text of the poster
This symbol has been developed by the Hospice Friendly Hospitals Programme to respectfully identify the End of Life.
This symbol is inspired by ancient Irish history; it is not associated with any one religion or denomination.
The white spiral represents the interconnected cycle of life, birth, life and death.
The white outer circle represents continuity, infinity and completion.
Purple has been chosen as the background colour as it is associated with nobility, solemnity and spirituality.
In this hospital the symbol may be displayed on a ward to add respect and solemnity during end of life or following the death of one of our patients.
Celtic isn’t a region though, it’s an ethnic group and a language family. “Celtic paganism” typically refers to one of two things: the spiritual beliefs and practices of the historical Celtic civilizations, or the modern reconstruction based on it. It’s fairly specific in that respect.
“Pagan” alone is a large umbrella, and most modern pagans will acknowledge that, but often they’ll differentiate themselves as “Celtic pagan” or “Norse pagan” or “Greek pagan” or whathaveyou.
But historically, there wasn’t much of a point to naming one’s religion, because even if they had contact with different cultures, they were distinguished by their ethnic groups/language families, and their religion was as indistinguishable from those things as any other aspect of culture.
That was long before the modern day, when civilizations now have more heterogeneity and thus distinctions such as language, culture, ethnicity, religion, cuisine, etc., each refer to unique sets of characteristics that can blend in various ways within a multicultural society in a globalized world.