By Rob Harris
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Hello from Cardiff,
I lived out a boyhood dream at the weekend: to watch Wales play a home rugby Test. Whether it’s called Cardiff Arms Park, the Millennium Stadium or now the Principality, the chance to see – or more importantly, hear – Welsh nationalism in full voice is something that can’t be downplayed.
Wales fans in full force against the Wallabies in Sydney in July.Credit: Getty Images
You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a Welsh choir and brass band belt out Land of My Fathers, Bread of Heaven or even The Green, Green Grass of Home in front of a massive home crowd.
If you want to understand Welsh nationalism, you need look only to the infamous entry in the 1888 Encyclopedia Britannica: “For Wales, see England”.
Described by Welsh scholars as one of the most inflammatory sentences ever committed to print, it still sends many potty when mentioned today.
While the plights of the Irish and the Scots against the English have long been romanced in literature, song and film, Wales often feels forgotten. But one should never underestimate this tiny nation’s sense of pride and identity.
The Brecon Beacons are now officially known as Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.Credit: Getty Images
Among the highest priorities? A slow purge of the names the English bestowed upon many of its natural beauties.
This month, the local authority that manages Wales’ highest mountain, which stands at 1085 metres in Snowdonia National Park and attracts 400,000 walkers a year, confirmed the peak would continue to be referred to solely by its Welsh name.
Eryri National Park Authority voted to use Yr Wyddfa (pronounced “Uhr With-Va”), rather than Mount Snowdon, and Eryri (“Eh Ruh-Ree”), rather than Snowdonia, in all official communication in November 2022. And surveys from this past northern summer found strong support for the move from locals and visitors, the authority said.
This was quickly followed by another national park, the Brecon Beacons, deciding to switch to using its Welsh name, Bannau Brycheiniog, pronounced “Ban-aye Bruch-ay-Nee-og”.
Welsh actor Michael Sheen (best known for his work on Masters of Sex, his portrayal of Tony Blair in The Queen, and the Twilight films) was a fierce advocate. He fronted the launch campaign and described it as “a name from our past, to take us into our future”.
The changes have ignited fierce political and public debate between staunch nationalists and unionists. They have also sparked a fresh history war, with many pointing out that in the Dictionary of the Place Names of Wales, the name “Snowdon” is documented as far back as 1095, while the first known reference to “Yr Wyddfa” was in 1284.
Historians, however, argue that Wales has a strong oral tradition, and Welsh names almost definitely date back much further.
Snowdonia National Park, now Eryri, attracts 400,000 walkers a year.Credit:
All children in Wales learn the language until the age of 16, and more than a fifth attend Welsh-medium schools where all lessons are taught in Welsh. By 2050, the goal is for 70 per cent of pupils to be fluent in the language when they leave school and for there to be 1 million Welsh speakers nationally (the Welsh population in 2022 was about 3.13 million).
But not everyone is happy about the rebranding.
“In a time when every authority in Wales is struggling financially, allocating resources to shift from being bilingual to Welsh would not have been my priority,” says Janet Finch Saunders, a Conservative member of the Welsh Assembly, adding that the national park would always be known as Snowdonia.
“Spending resources on rebranding in this current climate is not the best use of limited taxpayers’ resources. Is it going to help Wales reach the target of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050? I think not.
“What would help is building more social and affordable homes within the national park, and having small modular reactors at Trawsfynydd, so that local young people have high-paid jobs to take up in the area, and homes they can afford to buy and raise a family in.”
There is also a growing campaign to rename the nation’s sporting teams Cymru, the Welsh word for Wales. At present, both are used, though Wales remains prominent.
A petition that attracted tens of thousands of signatures said: “Wales is a name imposed on Cymru and is not a Welsh word at all. The world knows about Wales because of its English connection since 1282.
“Hardly anyone has heard of Cymru or realises we have our own unique language and culture which is totally different from the other countries within the United Kingdom.”
London tabloids The Daily Mail and The Sun have dubbed those behind the campaign “language extremists”.
But many locals prefer historic Welsh place names, and not just because they cast off the anglicisation that has been likened to “cultural vandalism”. Most want them restored simply because they evoke local history and traditions.
Opponents argue that English names are more accessible to tourists.
Tudur Owen, a Welsh language comedian and broadcaster, says Wales has a choice. “Do we keep these names and stories and tell them to the generations that inhabit this land after we’ve gone? Or do we let them be deleted because they are too difficult to pronounce and replace them with easy-to-remember English names?
“What drives a lot of the criticism is ignorance – they link the language to politics, they link it to nationalism and some kind of ulterior motive when it isn’t at all.”
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