The Radnor model

 

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Remember when the two Wales model, or was it the three, was all the rage.  Something about how modern day Wales was still influenced by the division between the Principality and the March. It didn't make much sense to me as anglicisation was always a process not an event.

Anyway this map which I came across in a new book about the March illustrates that things were a bit more complex than could be described by drawing a simple line on a map.  The cantrefi which later went to make up Radnorshire stand out as areas in the March which had resisted the Normans for 200 years, often successfully.  It says something about Radnorian independence .......... perhaps there is something to be said for drawing lines after all.

Nid ddoe y dechreuodd y rhyfel hwn

Mae'r fideo yn chwe mlwydd oed, gyda llaw.

Gagauzia

The Gagauz are a Turkic speaking but Orthodox Christian people mainly living near the Ukrainian border in Moldova.  Enjoying a degree of autonomy within Moldova: their fear has been that Moldova would be subsumed within the Romanian state;  their desire that they could find a home within the Russian Federation.  The current events in Ukraine make this wish a possibility.  If the Russians do absorb the Black Sea coast up to Moldova then the Gagauz and Bulgarian speaking borderlands could easily end up in Russia; with Moldova itself uniting with Romania.

Anyway, here is a popular Gagauz song.

Donbass

The usual virtue signallers were quick to add Ukrainian flags to their twitter accounts but more sickening than this was the way in which ordinary folk swallowed the war propaganda of the mainstream media.  I doubt if many Welsh folk had much clue about the origins of the war but anyway I'm reminded of Traudl Junge's words at the end of the film Downfall.  Ignorance is no excuse.  I like this song because it speaks of keeping faith with the generation who fought against the Nazis, the sentiment touches me.

The 1921 Census

At £3.50 for every household downloaded only the most well-heeled genealogist will be making much use of the recently released 1921 Census.  Never mind in two or three years it will be free, if the government allows us to live that long.

Despite the cost it is possible to dig out some information for free, especially if you are dealing with unusual names and known locations, for example I dug out a great great uncle of 70 who had recently married a 28 year old, and no, his name wasn't Sion White.

More usefully the site has a search facility that allows you to bring up all manner of sociological information without the need to cough up for cash.  For example you can search Welsh speakers by any number of criteria - age, sex, birthplace, occupation, current location etc. The search will give you the numbers and even the names.

Here are a few random results:

Wales had 1374 Welsh speakers born in Radnorshire, although only 141 of them were living in the county.  At this point we should remember that the Radnorshire of the registration districts did not coincide with the historic county borders.  Large chunks were included with Hay and Builth in neighbouring Breconshire, while other parishes were included with Kington in Herefordshire.  The Knighton sub-district included many English parishes, all this the result of a deliberate Victorian policy to tame the wild Radnorians by including them with more civilized folk.

Cwmteuddwr was still 25% welsh speaking in 1921, with Rhayader at just under 10% and St Harmon at 7.6% still exhibiting some vestige of the old native tongue. Nearby Llangurig was still 67% welsh speaking at this time and of course Welsh still dominated in the western parishes of Builth hundred. 

Most of the Radnorshire born Welsh speakers lived in the coalfield, 517 in Glamorgan, 52 in Monmouthshire - including my Gwystre born grandmother and 286 in Carmarthenshire. This last being a surprisingly high figure perhaps related to the opening of new pits?

Amongst the usual Joneses, Evanses, Davieses and the like, we find familiar local surnames such as Bywater, Bufton, Hamer etc.   It's a reminder that the process of language shift in Radnorshire was part and parcel of a general shift occuring in those parts of rural Wales open to the border.  Radnorshire wasn't different just further along the line.

An Irish Patriot in Radnorshire

The Irish War of Independence saw Cork born Sheila Browne commanding Liverpool's Cumman na mBan.  As such she engaged in various revolutionary activities: an arms raid, obtaining paraffin for arson attacks and transporting money to Dublin. Finally arrested she spent three months in jail before she was released through lack of evidence.

This was enough to obtain her a small military pension from the Free State government, although it might have alarmed the good folk of Radnorshire, where she was evacuated along with a class of Liverpool schoolchildren in 1941. Billeted in the wilds of Rhiwlen, Miss Brown now encountered some difficulties with the Dublin bureaucrats.  They wanted a person of sufficient stature to confirm her existence, but where, she complained, was she to find such a person when her only neighbours were mountains and her companions children?  Eventually she moved closer to civilization in Hundred House.

Miss Browne was clearly able through education and connections to cope with the red tape.  Sadly this was not true of Kate Evans, a miner's wife from the Irish community of Dowlais.  We've met Mrs Evans before, she was the leading light of a group who were obtaining explosives from the mines and transporting it to Ireland.  Eventually she was caught and jailed for 7 years.  The bureaucrats were unimpressed and wondered about her maiden name, some of her comrades could not be traced, the evidence of others was ignored while they engaged in an ill-tempered correspondence with an official who had had enough of their enquiries in other cases.  Mrs Evans, a widow in ill-health had her pension application rejected.

Mrs Evans wrote to De Valera complaining of being forgotten after suffering much for Ireland, her letter was passed back to the pensions office and ignored. It's ever thus for the working class.  Here's a song about Cumann na mBan:

Nothing on the Telly

One of the depressing features of present day Wales is how anglocentric professed adherents  of its national movement have become.  Oh sure they generally claim to be Europeans, whatever that means, but anything outside the Atlanticist bubble doesn't get a look in, they are good little followers of the BBC and the Guardian.

Personally I dumped my TV more than 20 years ago, disgusted by the one-sided reporting on the Balkan wars, a few years later I stopped buying the London papers.  I don't think I've missed very much.

There is plenty to see on YouTube, great Russian war films like 72 Hours, Come and See, and The Dawns Here Are Quiet ..... all with English subtitles; and popular shows like the superb Detective Anna - 98 episodes for anyone missing endless re-runs of Poirot and Miss Marple.

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Wales Today

The Covid era is dominated by agendas: big pharma - which has far too much influence over the medical profession - wants to make money; environmentalists want to shut down industry; eugenists want to rid the planet of useless eaters; comic-book billionaires dream of transhumanism and outer space.  Oh and the media remember who butters their bread and have mutated into mere propaganda machines.

If all that wasn't bad enough the real driving force are the West's deep states.  They see the pandemic as an opportunity to implement measures that would be impossible in normal circumstances - vaccine passports will quickly form the basis of digital identity cards and the disappearance of cash is just  around the corner.  Imagine what power, for good, but more likely evil, those two measures would give the state. When conspiracy theorists talk of chipping they are just a couple of years ahead of the curve.

Where does Wales stand in all this?  Let's be honest Wales is finished.  When the main nationalist party is just an echo chamber for globalist talking points what chance does Wales have?  They can't even do anything to stem the ethnic cleansing via cheque book that is happening in all the rural areas, worse than that they don't even want to.  There is an historic shift happening towards a multi-polar world, the West is rotting from the head, all of which escapes the notice of nationalists, fixated as they are on the Anglo values of the BBC and the blue check media.

Thank you.

Some more music from Ireland

The very talented Dea  Matrona.

The American Election

Of course the news media don't certify the result of the American election, that's the job of the electoral college and perhaps ultimately the Supreme Court.  The drama still has a few more scenes left to play

Let's assume though that Biden has won, there are quite a few positives to take away.  No more Pompeo or Pence for starters, although their replacements will be equally as satanic.  The white working class support for Trump dropped a little, no doubt disillusioned with the failure to drain the swamp.  Meanwhile black and Latino support rose, showing that men, especially, reject identity politics and are attracted to the idea of unity based on common economic interests, call it class if you like. 

Then you have 70 million voters who must be thoroughly disillusioned with crooked mainstream politics, that's a great engine for real change.  And finally some of the most obnoxious people on the planet think they've won a great victory, they'll be emboldened - really they can't help themselves - and will no doubt hasten a day of reckoning with their stupidity.

So what has any of this to do with Wales?  At least there is some interest in the US Election amongst the Welsh political class, although none of it advances much beyond echoing woke mainstream media talking points.  The world beyond the EU and the Anglosphere elicits little interest, and this at a time when global power is shifting away from the West.  Nationalists make the perfectly valid point that Wales is rich enough to be independent, whether it has the necessary leadership to bring that about is doubtful.

What's Happening

How many realise that the architect of the lockdown Neil Ferguson is an old boy of Llanidloes High School?  He's the same age as another OB, the actor who plays Ian Beale in the BBC soap Eastenders, perhaps they were contemporaries. Anyway, as in any mediocre soap, a blonde proved the downfall of Ferguson, while perhaps the country would have been better served if Mr Beale had been its chief advisor on matters pandemic.

The one reliable statistic amidst a deluge of facts and nonsense are excess deaths, the weekly comparison with this year's totals and those of previous years provided every Tuesday by the ONS. These show that up until week 13 of 2020 things were proceeding much as usual, there was a big jump in week 14 - but that was only marginally worse than the figure for week 2 of 2015.  For the last three weeks the figures have steamed ahead, peaking in week 16 (April 17) with a slight fall in week 17.  I'd expect them to fall again next week.

Of course these figures are time delayed by a week or so and the excess deaths  may also include victims of other diseases who avoided seeking prompt treatment for fear of contracting the virus. That said they do give an idea of the severity of the outbreak, serious but not overwhelmingly so, especially for the majority of the economically active.

COVID-19

The virus, while serious, is not so dangerous that it has replaced the old normal in the minds of many.

Remainers hope that it will derail brexit, Labour see the possibility of escaping what seemed like an inevitable decade of Tory rule and Nationalists dream that it might prove a wedge between Wales and Westminster.   For the climate crisis crowd empty skies and travel restrictions are a glimpse of utopia while authoritarians revel in the new rules and limitations on freedom. You feel that the "old normal" would be far from their minds if they were truly worried about their own imminent mortality.

The real danger for the majority is not severe acute respiratory syndrome or even the economic consequences of a prolonged lockdown, rather it is the opportunity the pandemic affords the West's kleptocracy - let's call them the deep state - to progress a wishlist that makes a reality of what was previously the preserve of science fiction novels, from the cashless society to chipping.

Americana 2

Americana

The Past is a Foreign Country

Spot the Welsh language poster in these film snippets of the Irish fascist party Ailtiri na hAiseirghe. There's an interesting book entitled Architects of the Resurrection detailing the activities of this group. Their policy basically saw the establishment of a Catholic, wholly Gaelic Ireland somewhat along the lines of Salazar's Portugal and the military conquest of the North. 

Music of the Russian Federation, 1

A Mari folk song. An ethnic group of 600k living on the banks of the Volga.

Musical Interlude

This is a great song.  Perhaps there should be something similar for elderly Welsh nationalists completely at odds with the current direction of the movement.

Post Referendum Blues

Class - do you remember the 20th century when class and/or nationalism dominated the discourse.  No wonder the elites encouraged us to concentrate on less dangerous causes such as gender or race. War was still fine of course, as long as the slaughter was aimed at the unpeople, those countries that didn't fall in with the globalist world view. Yet in the homelands, the US and the EU, "progressives" became obsessed with minorities of one kind or another, to ideas that posed no threat whatsoever to the elites.

This is why the Leave vote is a bit of a turn up, because suddenly those 20th century issues are back on the agenda. Look at this piece from the Spectator highlighting the class nature of the vote:

"The Brexiteer/Remainer divide splits almost perfectly, and beautifully, along class lines. Of local authorities that have a high number of manufacturing jobs, a whopping 86 per cent voted Leave. Of those bits of Britain with low manufacturing, only 42 per cent did so. Of local authorities with average house prices of less than £282,000, 79 per cent voted Leave; where house prices are above that figure, just 28 per cent did so. Of the 240 local authorities that have low education levels — i.e. more than a quarter of adults do not have five A to Cs at GCSE — 83 per cent voted Leave. Then there’s pay, the basic gauge of one’s place in the pecking order: 77 per cent of local authorities in which lots of people earn a low wage (of less than £23,000) voted Leave, compared with only 35 per cent of areas with decent pay packets."

How the "progressives" hate it.  People who haven't been to university deciding their future!

Wales - another 20th century discourse making something of a comeback after the Brexit vote is Welsh independence.  Not independence as might be understood by Americans or Icelanders or most other free peoples but "independence in Europe" by which is meant a desire to be on board the EU train, destination unknown.

Five local authorities in Wales voted to Remain, three following the British pattern (yes British not English vide East Renfrew etc.) of wealthier areas voting for the status quo - the Vale, Monmouth and Cardiff.  In Gwynedd and Ceredigion the Welsh language is said to have played a part, although I  do wonder about the influence of the university vote.

What is clear is that a segment of Welsh society we might characterise as the clerks voted strongly for Remain.  By this I mean people who work, directly or indirectly, for the state in non-manual occupations.  In their pique at being outvoted by the great unwashed we see elements of this clerkish class rallying to the cause of  Welsh independence, not as a worthwhile aim in itself but as a means of remaining inside a club which they see as protective of their economic interests.  I can't see this enthusiasm lasting very long.

Meanwhile the Leave majority are told they are stupid or racist or ungrateful for all that EU largese.  Seriously the clerks need to go on some sort of refresher course on engaging with folk who don't share their enthusiasms.

Scotland - according to the polls around a third of SNP voters opted for Leave.  Here's an interesting fact, the most pro-Remain councils were hardly hotbeds of separatism.  Edinburgh 74% Remain, 39% Indy; East Renfrew 74% Remain, 37% Indy and East Dunbarton 71% Remain, 39% Indy.

Now perhaps there will be enough Remainers who are so enamoured of the EU that they'll dump their unionism and help win a second Indy referendum. Maybe.  What then?  An independent Scotland will have to negotiate its membership of the club.  It will have to adopt the Euro and some of those Operation Fear scares might actually become real - tariffs on trade with the English market, a real border with customs and passport control.  Oh and its doubtful if Scotland would be allowed membership if it dumped Nato - so forget about closing Holy Loch as well.  Would an SNP government put EU membership to the vote?  Would they win?

My own view is if Brexit happens, still a big if of course, then both Scotland and Ireland would have to forget the EU and enter a free trade area with Wales and England, that's the economic and geographic reality.

The Lads in their Hundreds

When my father had his stroke he would wonder why I couldn't smell the pine oil being extracted from the trees at Holly Barn, his childhood home. We would talk about his father's visit on leave from the Great War and how his older brother had run away rather than face saying goodbye. For him it had happened just the other day.  I try to imagine what it must have been like to have to return to the trenches after a brief spell at home.

There was no home leave in my father's war, he sailed from Glasgow in the Queen Mary to eventually arrive in Egypt and on to Italy. He didn't make it back until 1946. Before he left his grandfather, who lost three sons in the Great War, had shook his hand and said they'd likely not meet again.

There was no great European war for my generation and for that we are asked to thank the EU and show our gratitude by voting to remain inside the community. I'm not so sure. How do the people of Serbia or Libya or the Donbas feel about that? Why do so few see the dangers of war with Russia, provoked in part by the EU and especially by what might be termed its military wing - Nato?

I voted to leave in 1975 and will do so again. This means sharing a bed with Empire loyalists, British nationalists, 1950s nostalgists etc. but so what. Look at the company the decent folk on the pro side have to keep, the warmongers and neoliberal elites, it's a wonder the stench doesn't overpower them.

Of course Plaid Cymru think that they can reform the EU from inside, well good luck with that. I believe that there is a very faint chance of the Welsh nation surviving outside the EU and none at all within, although this may be moot given the West's eagerness for confrontation with the East.

The Irish Slave Myth

In 1968, presumably in a spirit of revolutionary fervour, I bought a hardback book entitled Celtic Nationalism.  It hardly lived up to the times, consisting of two pedestrian contributions from Gwynfor Evans and Hugh Macdiarmid while more than half the book was taken up with an academic essay on, mainly, 19C Irish nationalism by Owen Dudley Edwards.  One thing I did gather from the book was that there had been an element of pro-slavery, anti-black racism within Irish nationalism, especially in the writings of John Mitchel and Arthur Griffith. 

Fast forward  half a century and we find a Limerick historian, Liam Hogan, valiantly attempting to stem the myth of Irish slavery - a popular and growing meme, especially in the United States.  This meme, either through ignorance, me-too-victimhood or out and out dishonesty and anti-black racism, equates chattel slavery with indentured servitude.  You can read Hogan's ongoing debunking of the myth - in 5 parts, starting here or here.

The Growth in Social Media Mentions of the Irish Slave Myth - from Hogan

Not the least disservice performed by this pervasive myth is to cast a shadow over the very real historical sufferings of the Irish people while providing ammunition for her enemies.  Only last week there was a small example of a Scottish writer's reasonable comment on the Highland Clearances being equated by anti-SNP voices as if it were a Scottish appropriation of the slave myth.