I think back over 20 years ago and to the referendum for a Welsh Assembly. I was living in Alltwen near Pontardawe. My son was 2 it was a September night not as cold as it is today yet I was worried. I looked at the images in the TV..there was a feel to the no campaign that I saw saw in the leave campaign nearly 20 years later. These were the proto English nationalists , the Kippers of the future, and the bigots to be. They smirked as I watched the TV they were breaking out the champagne, they were laughing, they cheered as it was announced that Nowadays leading in 7 areas.As the night wore on I became increasingly gloomy but then in the early hours towards dawn Neath Port Talbot came through with a massive majority for yes. All depended on Carmarthen and my spirits began to revive ...perhaps it was not over..and then Carmarthen came and victory was achieved....how quickly 20 years. Have gone by....but the forces of reaction are still there..they never went away. .they formed the basis of the leave campaign and they will appear again as Wales seeks its own way and its own independence. Much of the block within Wales will seek to oppose and use any method necessary to oppose it's enemies. It's becoming unpleasant on social media and yet we can trace the origins of the kipper right back to this point in 1997. In the twenty years that have gone by
🚩Wales
has become more racist, more intolerant and more brutal.....the roots
lay deep and will require much work and campaigning to remove this
cancer....the new right is still with us hidden behind cuddly images and
nice persona...yet however fair and layman like they seem the reality
fails to hide the foul stench beneath......Written on Owain Glyndŵr day ... back to my Welsh roots.........
Here are some powerful thoughts and perceptions long acknowledged but never so powerfully realised before. The sheer size of the castle in Caernarfon
brings home the reality of military occupation. It was 750 years ago yet you still realiser how the domination of the town and the port shows how thoroughly the area was garrisoned. The castles of Edward 1 at Harlech,Caernarfon Beaumaris, Conway show the iron heel of the Anglo Norman state across north Wales.
It wa this Anglo Norman state that learnt the model that made Wales the first colony, the model that would be used in Ireland and in Sicily. In the castle of Caernarfon on a gigantic Chess board are the figures of the conquest. The largest is Edward Longs hanks himself brooding, in control;l and dominating all the others. I saw further evidence the line of the princes of Wales from imagination, through Vortigen created , constructed, the mysterious gap from the last Welsh ruler to the present Saxe-Coberg- Gothas claiming the title. There were films of previous Investitures from 1911 and 1969. Each gave lip service to the Welsh identity but each slammed the boot of the English state both consciously and consciously on the Welsh identity. I remembered 1969 I was 11 at an English Prep school, We had the events pushed down our throats..there was nothing said to us of Welsh history or culture.
Within the Welsh Fusiliers museum within the walls of the castle of Canarfon I heard the tunes of the song the British Grenadiers playing like a leitmotiv of oppression of formulated created history...and I felt sick We saw and learnt within the castle of how Edward used the legend of the dream of Maxen Wledig , how it was used by Henry Tudor. Yet strangely not a word of how the Anglo Saxon invaders were them selves the enemy faced by the Celt and of the legends of Arthur Not a word given, not an explanation sought.
It was a military occupation first and foremost and brought home to me even more powerfully than before of this process. One branch of my family comes from North Wales and I have always been aware of how the Arthurian legends come from Wales, from Brittany and of how the Imagination form the base of so much of the borrowed, purloined culture of the Anglo Norman state. A returning Arthur would have by definition opposed them, would-be have created an Celtic faith far different from the patriarchal war processing state that the Anglo Normans imposed. Yet that was something I realised much later.
Walking around town in April we passed a book shop where I see in the window a book by Gideon Brough called” The rise and Fall of Owain Glyn Dwr. The book is very important. It stresses the Welsh revolt here as an important part of the Hundreds Year war. For too long this revolt was seen as a sub plot of a rebellion by an obscure Welshman against the King. Brough sees this campaign as part of a wider European war. He stresses the role of Glyn Dwr not only as a soldier but also as a thinker and as an administrator. He stresses the role of a separate rebel state in terms of law and administration and recognises its value to a sense of Welsh identity.
GlynDwr brought down the Edwardian state in Wales, he had real roots in the Welsh population. We cannot claim him as the founder of a modern Welsh nationalist identity but we can rescue him from obscurity and denial. They never told me about him at Prep School I just heard of the Edwardian conquest. They never told me of Hywell Dda, of Gruffudd Ap Llywelyn, and of the knowledge, culture and learning within Wales prior to the building of Carnafon and the Anglo Norman occupation.
I owe a massive debt to several individuals one was Professor Glanmor Williams who taught me Welsh history at University another was Walter Davies of Dynevor School teaching me of Welsh History for A level and how the role of the French revolutions influence on Wales , and the slate and lead mines of North Wales gave me two excellent essays for my A Levels allowing me to go to University in the 1970s. I have been led to discover both the land, the people from where a great part of my ancestors came from.
In April of this year I stood in Blaeanau-ffestiniog and remembered the slate industry and the lead industry and how it made possible all the things I am now. The land of my people comes back to me. It was hidden a long tome ago. It was ignored my the Anglo Norman State, the English Prep School and yet it retuned. My Son is Morgan Rhys, he speaks with the accent of his ancestors and I still with a Midlands accent feel innately Welsh and aware of my history and origins. Am I local/ I dont sound it and yet I feel I am part of that history and peoples. I loath the English state and its little England outlook. I return from North Wales as the UK buckles and begins to break apart. I whispered in the Eagle tower in the ear of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd . Wales will be free again. And I know that I must learn Welsh and complete the process that began many years ago.
Although the song is always sung in Welsh, the English translation is equally evocative of the passion felt
Please note: the following, while a literal translation, unfortunately doesn't rhyme or scan with the music. Since the song is nearly always performed in Welsh, this is presented to give an idea of the sentiment behind the song.
This land of my fathers is dear to me
Land of poets and singers, and people of stature
Her brave warriors, fine patriots
Shed their blood for freedom
Chorus:
Land! Land! I am true to my land!
As long as the sea serves as a wall for this pure, dear land
May the language endure for ever.
Old land of the mountains, paradise of the poets,
Every valley, every cliff a beauty guards;
Through love of my country, enchanting voices will be
Her streams and rivers to me.
Chorus
Though the enemy have trampled my country underfoot,
The old language of the Welsh knows no retreat,
The spirit is not hindered by the treacherous hand
Nor silenced the sweet harp of my lan
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