The Celts: "Each object or aspect of life impressed them vividly and stirred them profoundly..... They were, and are, an indispensable and never-failing assertor of humanity as against the tyranny of principles, the coldness and barrenness of institutions..........the Celt has always been a rebel against anything that has not in it the breath of life, against any un-spiritual and purely external form of domination."   ---   Thomas Rolleston, 1911.

a   The Welsh have been involved in the development of Australia from the earliest days of European settlement. Their impact has been notable in a number of key areas of Australian life -- especially in the mining industry - but has always been limited by their relatively small numbers. It has also been obscured by the long-held but misleading view that, with the exception of the Irish, all British people who have settled in Australia have been culturally homogeneous. Although overwhelmingly Protestant and, since the sixteenth century, politically and economically integrated with England, the Welsh have brought to Australia a distinctive cultural identity....  from information by A Ffestin Hughes

innaustralia.gif (8775 bytes)   GO TO WELSH CULTURE IN AUSTRALIA

by A Ffestin Hughes
In Australia as in Wales, the leaders and patrons of the Welsh communities were also drawn largely from the ranks of chapel ministers or deacons. They were the ones who organised the Cymanfaoedd Canu, the great hymn-singing festivals that are so closely linked with the idea of Wales. In the 1860s and 1870s, the heyday of Welsh settlement in Victoria, it was not unusual for a Cymanfa Canu in Ballarat to last for several days and to draw crowds of 800 or more...

Rhod Gilbert - Welsh humour in Sydney

s  WELSH HUMOUR: An Englishman thought he would have a few days and visit churches around the country. He started in Plymouth and was most impressed when he noticed a golden coloured telephone. The notice attached said " Direct line to GOD; call cost £10,000 a time "So, on his way back to London he called in at Salisbury Cathedral and, after looking around, found another golden coloured telephone with the same notice. Over the next few weeks as he went around the country he always found things the same. Then one day he had to go to Swansea and thought,  "Well, let's see if if it is the same in Wales". Sure enough, there was the phone and message but with a slight difference - the call charge was only 4p! He asked the clergyman why the call was only 4p, when it was £10,000 elsewhere? Back came the answer, in a strong Welsh accent  - "Well, bach, it's only a local call, see!

Mark Watson - Welsh humour in Melbourne

Mark highlights some of the comical differences in the British and Australian vernacular

Recipe for Cawl (pronounced "cowl") from Burry Port, S Wales

To serve 5-6 people. Buy 2 lbs of neck of lamb or similar cheap cuts of lamb – make sure it is as tender as you can get. Boil and simmer for 2-3 hrs minimum, drain off fat and scum (cool if necessary to do so). Add 3 decent sized chopped onions and simmer for up to an hour. Add 3 to 4 potatoes, less than half a swede and even less parsnip, all cut into coarse chunks and simmer for 20 mins. Add 3 sliced leeks and simmer gently on top until cooked. Add salt to taste. Serve.

Alternatively: The liquor can be strained and served as soup first and the meat and veg served as a main course with a white parsley sauce)

   

A visit to the 2005 Welsh National Eisteddfod

Bevan is ultimate Welsh hero

"An icon of the left, he was a true working class hero," said Mr Hancock....."The scourge of the right, he took on Conservative British establishment and changed Britain for every....."To Nye it was the ordinary people who mattered and he was their champion...."Wales and the rest of Britain owe him a great deal, a great socialist and a great man - a true Welsh hero."

NHS founder Aneurin Bevan beat off icons from the ancient and modern world in an online poll to find the greatest-ever Welsh person. The competition was stiff - he beat the 15th Century rebel prince of Wales Owain Glyndwr by just 117 votes. Singer Tom Jones was third, Plaid's first MP Gwynfor Evans fourth and actor Richard Burton fifth.

Zeta Jones was the first woman on the list

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Association of Australian Celtic Wrestlers

Incorporating elements from several different sports indigenous to the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland & the Province of Brittany in France we have created a unique fusion style that we call Pan-Celtic Wrestling. These sports were practiced in colonial Australia & the styles considered ancestral to Pan-Celtic wrestling. They include Cornish, Breton, Devonshire, Scottish, Irish and the Welsh:

Ymaflyd Codwn Cefn or the back fall style of wrestling in the Cymraeg (Welsh) language, is known from the 1420AD poem `Robert ap Meredydd` by Rhys Goch Eyyri. It was practiced as part of the `y pedwar camp ar hugain` or `four & twenty accomplishments1 which included singing, hunting & weapons training in addition to yamavael or unarmed combat, used as the training regime for warriors. It was the same style as practiced in Cornwall that used a jacket for dynamic throws but also borrowed elements from the Devon style of outplay. It survived until the 1940s as a rural sport known as `purring` that according to accounts was similar to the `shin kicking` event mentioned above. The historian Darren Lewis has written several articles about this sport, actively bringing awareness of it back to Welsh national consciousness.

Download a file to read more

Click here to email the Association

The psychology of the Welsh ... not wholly bad or good?

... the Welsh people themselves-- a people that Dylan Thomas, in the 20th century, praised as "not wholly bad or good."

.... (Welsh literature) tells the story of a people who have managed to retain much of their fullness of spirit despite a very early loss of most of their territory and political independence.

....It tells the story of a people who are still struggling to avert the loss of their ancient culture and language upon which much of that culture depends.  

This is the story of that struggle: the theme is constant: it is a struggle for survival against almost impossible odds......

Read more; Chapter 1 The Beginning

from `The Long Struggle for Identity: The Story of Wales and its People' - by Peter N. Williams, Ph.D. 

Did You Know?
Welshman, David Jones started what is now the oldest department store in the world still trading under its original name. It has been open in Melbourne for over 162 years.
Six out of the ten most common names in Britain are Welsh! They are; Jones, Williams, Davies, Edwards, Thomas and Roberts.
Wales has more castles per thousand square miles than any other country in Europe (Find out why).  

BOOKS

Some classic books to give you a feeling for Wales and the Welsh:

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How Green was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. Also his sequels; Up into the Singing Mountain, Down Where the Moon is Small and Green, Green My Valley Now. Stories of life in South Wales and emigration to Argentina and return to Wales.

Rape of the Fair Country, The Hosts Of Rebecca and Song of the Earth by Alexander Cordell. The books are set in the Welsh Iron communities of Blaenavon and Nantyglo in the 19th century.

Both these writers have a similar romantic style and though they are period pieces they do give an insight into Welshness.

Australian Story - the Welsh in Australia by Elisa James

Elisa James is the pen name of Liz Corbett

Liz, a Melbourne based writer, is working on a novel in which two of the main characters are Welsh.  

Set in 1841, the novel traces the journey of a group of emigrants travelling from St Katherine’s Wharf, London to the Port Phillip District in New South Wales. It is a story about losing a father, and of leaving home. It is about decisions we make that take us to the edge........

Read an excerpt

  IN NEW ZEALAND

More about Taffy Parry and the indomitable Tommy Tui
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Federal Ministers Mark St David's Day

On Sunday 1st March 2009 Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, offered their good wishes to people of Welsh descent celebrating Saint David's Day across Australia.

Minister Gillard said her experience as a Welsh migrant to Adelaide in 1964 had been a strong influence in her life. "My strong belief that every Australian child should get a world class education, no matter what their background, is firmly grounded in my experience as a migrant" the deputy prime minister said.

Senator Chris Evans said "Like many Australians, I claim an ancestry outside this country. My father is a Welshman and we migrated to Australia when we I was a young child ....... Our Australian multicultural society allows us not only to be proud Australians but also to be proud of our cultural diversity and St David's Day gives me the opportunity to reflect on my Welsh heritage".

Early census records indicate about 1800 Welsh-born in the colonies by 1851. The 2006 census showed 113,250 Australians claim Welsh descent. There were three Welshmen  among Captain Cook's crew on his early voyages and some of the early convict arrivals were from Wales. Among the Welsh convict  arrivals of the 1830s were leaders of the emerging trade union movement in South Wales.

Source: Y Ddraig Goch, May 2009

LINKS:

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Some well known Welsh Australians:
 
Rolf Harris, born of Welsh emigrants to Australia
rolf
Julia Gillard, born in Barry, S Wales. Migrated in 1966 with her family to Australia.
 
julia

Len Evans (who died at the age of 75 in August 2006). Restauranter, winemaker and wine critic extraordinaire, Len left his beloved Wales as a boy before going to England and eventually emigrating to Australia.

len evans
Naomi Watts, brought up in Wales by her Welsh mother.
naomi
kylie
 Kylie and Danii Minogue, Welsh mother who emigrated to Australia from Maesteg, S Wales.
danii

 

was an interactive internet communication project that links upper primary/secondary students in Wales and New South Wales.

From Glyn to Gulgong was a joint project between the Welsh Education Ministry, the NSW Department of Education and Training, the British Council and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

You might be interested to browse some of the findings

..and yes, youngsters still dream of playing rugby for Wales

Henry Thomas

Click here to hear the National Anthem; Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers)

ONE cannot talk about culture in Wales without including references to rygbi (rugby) - or generally when Welsh people are speaking English it is referred to as football. The Welsh have always boasted some of the finest rugby footballers in the world and in the past they have attained world status. The Cardiff Arms Park, or Millennium Stadium. with its removable roof and huge capacity it is one of the great stadiums in the world. Sitting within metres of the shopping centre of Cardiff it guarantees that International day is an event that will stay in one's memory, as shoppers, tourists and spectators mingle and the pubs are filled with the strains of Calon Lan and Bread of Heaven.

Welsh Jinkers

Alas in today's modern game of super-sized backs the agile, jinking classic Welsh footballer seems not able to compete physically (though Shane Williams, once considered too small to play rugby at a senior level, was voted world's best player in 2008). Similarly with the forwards, the Welsh are not a big race, and today's lack of success is possibly a symptom of a lack of hard, physically fit men following the closure of the coal mines and steel mills.

Still, Welsh supporters are passionate, knowledgeable and appreciative of good, skilful,  flowing football. The Welsh do not need an excuse to sing at the game, and yes, youngsters still dream of playing rugby for Wales.

If soccer is the world game then rugby is the game they play in heaven. The Welsh rugby bard of the 70s and 80s, Max Boyce, coined the expression and it has stuck. His account of the Fly Half (Second five-eighths in Australia) Factory where the `assembly line' for such greats as Cliff Morgan, Barry John, Phil Bennet and Johnathon Davies (to name but a few) were built ("Aye, and the rejects, stamp them second class and send them to England") is memorable. So to his poem - `9-3' when the little town of Llanelli beat the mighty All Blacks ("When the scoreboard read, Llanelli - naw {nine}, Zeland Newydd - tri {New Zealand - three}"). As mentioned singing and passion was, and still is, a part of the fun. `Oggy, Oggy Oggy, OI! OI! OI!' was a call I remember 40 years ago in Cardiff, and of course Australian sports supporters have adopted the idea as their own now with the chant `Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, OI! OI! OI!'.

 

     Wales - a Culture of Mining and Steel as well as of Natural Beauty

The abundance of accessible coal and iron ore deposits in Wales eventually led to coal and steel industries developing and growing in those areas. Particularly from the Industrial Revolution onwards.

COAL - South Wales had long been admired for its natural beauty but exploitation in the cause of Britain's industrial revolution (traditionally dated 1730 - 1850) was to change all this for ever.

Steam was replacing hand labour and factories were replacing homes as centres for manufacturing processes. Britons were building great iron ships and railways around the world. Welsh steam coal became the fuel of choice for boilers everywhere and new techniques enabled the use of coal (as coke) in iron smelting. Smoking chimneys joined colliery winding gear to dominate the rows of terraced housing built in the Welsh valleys for immigrant workers from all around Britain.

An old view of Clydach Vale, the Rhondda Valley


Go to `The industrialisation of the South Wales Valleys'

source: Data Wales

 

Great Ports

One outstanding feature of the commercial economy of Great Britain during the second half of the 1800s was the uninterrupted development of South Wales as the greatest steam coal-exporting centre.

With the onset of steam ships and extensive new railways the steam coals of South Wales were sent in ever-increasing quantities to all continents. By 1914, Cardiff and Barry became the greatest coal-exporting ports and thus the biggest ports (by tonnage) in the world.

The excellence of South Wales team coal made it  a  standard for comparative purposes. Sailing ships powered by South Wales steam coal broke all records and demand from European navies and steamship lines soared.

Source: http://www.therhondda.co.uk/facts/markets.html

  

 

A personal history

Ebbw Vale Steel Mill

 

 

 STEEL - Steel once followed coal as the second major employer employing thousands across Wales.

From the 1760s iron began being produced along the entire Heads of the Valleys area. This is where the South Wales coal field came to the surface producing all the raw materials needed for making iron - limestone, wood (charcoal), coal and iron ore.

The industrial revolution forged towns such as Ebbw Vale, Newport and Merthyr Tydfil and thousands flocked from all over Europe to prosperity in these thriving industrial heartlands of south Wales.

Over the years Welsh steel towns became the biggest and most modern steel producers in the world. Steel and tinplate was produced in the valleys, Cardiff, Newport and west through Port Talbot, Llanelli and beyond.

Times have changed both for Coal and for Steel...

 

Even More Steel Closures

BBC News 26/01/09

Wales Remembers the bitter conflict, which caused the devastation of the minefields of South Wales (and Northern England) in 1984

Wales Online 03/02/09