NationStates Jolt Archive

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus - or Happy St David's day to all the taffs on NS. What does it mean to be Welsh? Is there such a thing as Welshness?

I think there are certain qualites I associate with being Welsh (valleys' girl) - although they are not all positve. There is somehting a bit naff about the clinging to victimhood that I saw growing up, but when Wales step out to play and I hear the opening lines of Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau I cannot help but fill up, and I feel like my heart is going to burst.

Maybe I'm just well Welsh. (Although I no longer live there).

I'd like to hear what others have to say - even those not from the Land of My Fathers.
:cool:

Well I once heard them described as being like the Irish without the humor or the Scots without the sex appeal, but I'm not sure that's what you are thinking of;)

I am a Welshman who was tragically born in America. *sniff*

being Welsh means you have to put up with the sheep jokes...

I have a little Welsh in me. My great-grandpa's family came from Wales.

i'm half welsh (from me dad's side) and i lived in Cardiff for two years recently.

unfortunately i see little but negatives for being Welsh or for Wales itself. probably as a result of how depressed i got at uni there, and partly due to welsh people i knew there and have known since being petty minded, stubborn, and obsessed with money (said in that oh-so annoying way)


i'm proud of my celtic roots, but not of my roots in Wales... sorta try to skip that over :P

i thought the place was called cymri and christerism was an invasive occupying force, imposed upon a far more ancient and honorable celtic landscape!

"the welsh preyed on their knees, and on their neighbors ... ... and the english relieved the diety of a great burden of grief and responsibility by claiming to be self made"

something like that. i forget how the rest of it goes, somewhat satyricly praising the highlanders and the land of ire somehow inbetween.

and i know they invented those odd spellings to annoy the their first tax collectors.

where i live in my surreal nervana mountains in california, many of the people who come over to work in the mines in the grass valley/nevada city area came from there.

also all those wonderful little two foot gauge slate railways restored by enthusiasts like the tallylin and the welsh highlands and of course that famous one out of portmaddoc, practicly in the shadow herlic.

nope, i've never been there myself, just what i've heard about from two of my interests, the little trains and then when i was in the s.c.a.

now if they could have just somehow gotten the little trains and kept the druids without being over run by the damd christers it would have been perfect.

=^^=
.../\...

I have a little Welsh in me. My great-grandpa's family came from Wales.

Likewise. My father's father's father was Welsh, and moved to France.

I've never really felt Welsh. I've only been to Wales once. Shamefully, I didn't even know it was St David's Day today (although I did know St David is the patron saint of Wales, and I know what his cross looks like).

And I've got a little Welsh flag somewhere. :p

Being Welsh requires a charming optimism, that your hopeless sports sides will one day actually beat someone.

Being Welsh requires a charming optimism, that your hopeless sports sides will one day actually beat someone.

Didn't "we" win the Six Nations' Cup a few years ago?

Didn't "we" win the Six Nations' Cup a few years ago?

Rugby's not a sport. It's a chance for closet homosexuals to grope each other.

ummm... comedy accent. and a mad alphabet. daffodils are pretty, aren't they a symbol of wales somehow? and dragons kick arse.

It means you're from Wales.

/thread

Rugby's not a sport. It's a chance for closet homosexuals to grope each other.

Can't it be both? :)

I've been to Wales many times, although I hardly ever went to places other than Cardiff. Traditionally, Welsh culture was supposed to be characterised by community choirs and various other distinct traditions, including Rugby as a national sport.

I think that the old Welsh traditions and values tend to be more followed and recognised outside Cardiff. Cardiff, like London and unlike Dublin (I'm from Ireland), is a multicultural city with a very wide racial mix, some 30-40 per cent of the population being from ethnic 'minorities'.

Nearly half of the population of Wales live in the Greater Cardiff area (1.3 million out of 3 million) and I could only give a vague impression about to what extent traditional welsh values survive in the towns and villages in the countryside in the rest of Wales where the traditional values are most likely to have survived.

Since many of the old coal mining communities have gone, since many people have moved out of Wales, and since many people from England and other countries have moved into Wales, I would expect nowadays that most people in Wales are unfamiliar with the old welsh traditions, with ceremonial occasions treated only as 'days off', with people having almost no idea of what they represent.

Everybody seems to treat Wales as if it were part of England, with recognition of Wales as a country in its own right only indicated in politically correct public information texts, like for example that all road signs have to be in the Welsh language as well as in English. I'd expect that most people in Wales don't identify themselves as being of Welsh 'nationality', but rather as simply being in a part of the UK.

I'd expect that most people in Wales don't identify themselves as being of Welsh 'nationality', but rather as simply being in a part of the UK.

I wouldn't say that too loud in the valleys. The spirit of the dragon is alive and well there. Perahps because I come from a small Welsh village it is more the case but it was (and still is) a very patriotic place. St David's Day is widely celebrated.

I have to say I did (do?) find many of the people in the valleys somewhat negative. Perhaps cities etc are different.

This St Davids day you can fool people into thinking you are Welsh by walking around with coal dust under your fingernails, singing loudly and occasionally stopping to set fire to someones house.

Can't it be both? :)

If and when England win. At all other times, it's best ignored. :p

What does it mean to be Welsh?

To have ancestry from Wales.

To have ancestry from Wales.

How far back? I have French ancestors from the Norman Conquest, but I sure as hell ain't French.

How far back? I have French ancestors from the Norman Conquest, but I sure as hell ain't French.

However far your DNA shows. Which is a hard nail to peg, admittedly...:(

I will admit that I'm a sucker for a Welsh accent, though perhaps not one like Captain Fluellen's so much ...

FLUELLEN
Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your
majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack
Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles,
fought a most prave pattle here in France.

KING HENRY V
They did, Fluellen.

FLUELLEN
Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is
remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their
Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this
hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do
believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
upon Saint Tavy's day.

KING HENRY V
I wear it for a memorable honour;
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

FLUELLEN
All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's
Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that:
God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases
his grace, and his majesty too!

KING HENRY V
Thanks, good my countryman.

FLUELLEN
By Jeshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not
who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I
need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be
God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

Being welsh means you need half a pint of spittle in your mouth to sing the national anthem.

It also means you like to get drunk and smash bottles in the faces of people who don't talk the same way you do.

Oh, you also get to lose every war you ever fought.

It means being the only gay in the village :P

It alsio means being able to pronounce "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" correctly.

It means you're from Wales.

/thread

Apparently not - I work with a Welsh nationalist. He's from Kent.

How far back? I have French ancestors from the Norman Conquest, but I sure as hell ain't French.

We're all Ethiopians. :p


the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their
Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this
hour is an honourable badge of the service

:eek: Methinks the Bard doth mock...

Rugby's not a sport. It's a chance for closet homosexuals to grope each other.

more of a sport than football is

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus - or Happy St David's day to all the taffs on NS. What does it mean to be Welsh? Is there such a thing as Welshness?

I think there are certain qualites I associate with being Welsh (valleys' girl) - although they are not all positve. There is somehting a bit naff about the clinging to victimhood that I saw growing up, but when Wales step out to play and I hear the opening lines of Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau I cannot help but fill up, and I feel like my heart is going to burst.

Maybe I'm just well Welsh. (Although I no longer live there).

I'd like to hear what others have to say - even those not from the Land of My Fathers.
:cool:

I have lived in Wales on and off for the last 5 1/2 years. I like Wales a lot; it feels like home to me. In general, I have found the people there more kind than other places that I have lived. The Welsh seem to me to be pretty optimistic and rather friendly. Though that just might in contrast to the other places where I have lived because the French and Germans seem rather shy and worry about the future more. I don't know what it is to be Welsh though. I study politics so things like that interest me, I have noticed the answer you get is different depending on what part of Wales. The more north and west they are from, they say something about the language, the more south and east you go it is more to do with the history of the country.


Everybody seems to treat Wales as if it were part of England, with recognition of Wales as a country in its own right only indicated in politically correct public information texts, like for example that all road signs have to be in the Welsh language as well as in English. I'd expect that most people in Wales don't identify themselves as being of Welsh 'nationality', but rather as simply being in a part of the UK.

Nope, about 2/3 of the Welsh when asked if there are British, English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, or other said they are Welsh only. Some places responded Welsh more often than others but most people "feel" Welsh. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=448

more of a sport than football is

I don't dispute that at all. Football is a chance for drunken hooligans to legally assault each other.

I don't dispute that at all. Football is a chance for drunken hooligans to legally assault each other.

Gay groping and drunken brawling. We just don't get to enjoy sports like this in America. :(

Being Welsh to me means that one can read the road signs of town names once you cross the English/Welsh border.

:eek: Methinks the Bard doth mock...

Hmm ... according to the Font of All Knowledge (Wiki), the leek as a symbol of Wales goes back to a battle between the Welsh and the Saxons, when Saint David himself ordered the Welshmen to wear a leek in their caps as a kind of distinguishing badge. I could have sworn there was an incident in either the Battle of Crecy or of Poitiers where the Welsh archers "did good service in a garden where leeks did grow."

I don't think Shakespeare was mocking Fluellen and the Welsh. Fluellen is a sympathetic character in the play, despite the burlesque accent Shakespeare gives him (or perhaps that's how Welshmen sounded to the English in the 16th century).

Didn't "we" win the Six Nations' Cup a few years ago?
Indeed. I was in a pub with 300 Irishmen when that happened.

And I proudly wore by BRAINS shirt.

It means you live in a place where no one else can read the street signs, even if they try really, really hard.

wales is like the forgotten part of GB. the only thing i know about it is that they have their own rugby team with red shirts and that they aren't doing to good in the 6 nations this year iirc.

To be Welsh is to be the butt of every joke.

http://www.scarygoround.com/index.php?date=20060803

Genetically, to be Welsh is, I am told, to be more British than England, except Cornwall.

Probably also includes being awful at football, what with Giggs being the only decent player of welsh origin, and cricket, Simon Jones once more an exception, and very so often winning at Rugby.;)

Indeed. I was in a pub with 300 Irishmen when that happened.

And I proudly wore by BRAINS shirt.

Just so long as you didn't drink the stuff.
Ah, that's it - being Welsh means you think Brains bitter is drinkable. That's it, the defining feature of Welshness.