Tir Neb

“Yma o hyd” – “Still here”: the title of a well-known song by Welsh-language singer Dafydd Iwan pretty much sums up one of the most obvious yet most surprising things about Wales, the fact that echoes of the indigenous culture of Britain still resonate after millennia of invasion, colonisation, oppression, wars, emigration, immigration, post-industrial decay, self-destruction and benign neglect, from the time of the Romans to the 21st century.   And still the people of Wales feel there is something distinctive and precious about this damp green corner of the crowded island of Britain and the people who live here.

There are about 3 million Welsh people today, which means there are about 3 million different ways of being Welsh, and 3 million different ideas of what “Wales” and “Welshness” mean to each of us, from traditional romantic notions of woad-smeared Ancient Britons, enduring through the mythical Celtic Twilight, to resolutely globalised citizens of the 21st century, whose Welshness is entirely unconscious – some might say suppressed – but whose hearts still lift inexplicably when they cross the Severn bridges or see the Welsh mountains looming towards them across the English border.

Increasingly, we are learning not to define ourselves solely along the old binary axis of Welsh-English (except when it comes to rugby of course!), but are gradually becoming a more confident nation of multi-layered identities, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-national.  Instead of defining ourselves against our powerful English neighbours, we are learning to define ourselves in our own terms: Welsh and British and many other things.

And of course that old binary distinction was always far too simplistic anyway: the native people of Britain share common ancestors in these islands and in Europe, right back to the Ice Age, leaving little room for self-deluding myths of ancient tribal supremacy or futile bitterness at ancient wrongs.  We are more than just the bearers of our convoluted histories, more than just “a people bred on legends, warming our hands at the red past” as the Welsh poet R.S. Thomas once put it, in his characteristically double-edged view of “Welsh History“.

The slender thread that binds all of us in Wales to the deep British past is still here, “yma o hyd”.  The cultures, languages and multiple histories of Wales – and of all of Britain – are still available to all its people today, wherever they or their ancestors came from.  And this is surely a cause for celebration, not because we are “better” than our neighbours, but simply because we are still here, Wales is still here, and it still offers all of us that deep rich connection to this small green gem of a land.

So these pages are simply an occasional snapshot of one Welshman’s ideas of “his” Wales, one among millions.  I hope you enjoy whatever you find here.  Better yet, why not make your own journey into Wales and find a Wales of your own?