Henffych i'n Prifardd

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My first duty is to thank the BBC for giving me a front row seat, and more, at the chairing ceremony at this year's National Eisteddfod of Wales. The Welsh version of their caption denotes a seat in the pavilion, and a first class seat it was.

I hope this effusive outburst will allow them to forgive me for nicking a load of their shots of the ceremony for this post. Or to put it another way, the photos in this post are courtesy of the BBC.

I had to start, as they did, with an outside shot of the pavilion. When I first started attending the festival this was a wooden structure and the talk was of replacing it but it took a while for the pavilion to evolve into its current form.

Anyway, we are here to follow the ceremony of the Chairing of the Bard, which event is for most aficionados the peak of the week, so to speak. The Chair is awarded for the best poem in cynghanedd, a strict traditional metre.

The event is replete with ceremony, as it is not only an Eisteddfod competition; it is also a major event in the calendar of the Gorsedd which really notches it up the ceremonial rankings.

Nuff guff and back to the event. The Corn Gwlad (two of them!) summons the audience from the four corners of the earth. This is even better than the trumpets at the 1969 investiture in Caernarfon Castle. Believe me.

Next, the Archdruid welcomes the assembly and introduces the ceremony. Christine James is the first ever female archdruid and this event will mark the end of her three year term. The election of a female to this office was long overdue. There was a serious glass ceiling here and another ceiling below it. Nominees for archdruid must be winners of the Chair, Crown or Prose Medal and women were scarce in these ranks up to recent times.

The first woman ever to win a chair was Mererid Hopwood in Denbigh in 2001. I have written about that chairing elsewhere.

And who pops up to read the adjudication on behalf of the three person jury but Mererid herself.

I should mention that she not only won the chair in 2001, but two years later also won the crown. She launched into a lively adjudication as the tension mounted in the pavilion. I should make two points here. The judges only know the competitors by their pen names, so the judging is absolutely fair. And, there is an absolute standard to be achieved for the award.

In recent times, in 2009 and 2013, the chair was not awarded as the required standard was not reached. The phrase in Welsh, "neb yn deilwng" (no one worthy), is one to send an audience's collective heart down into the pits. Without the award the bottom falls out of the ceremony. And, don't forget, each chair is specially commissioned for each particular eisteddfod. It is made of local materials and by a local artist. So there are many levels of potential disappointment here.

As I watch Mererid's lively and sometimes amusing adjudication my heart starts rising. Her enthusiasm is tangible. There must certainly be a chair this year.

And so there is. The winner is called by his pen name and asked to stand as the searchlights sweep the audience. Suddenly applause breaks out in one corner of the crowd; on this cue the searchlights converge.

The camera finally picks out the winner in the crowd. Everyone is wildly curious to know who he is but they'll have to wait awhile until he is vested and led to the stage.

He turns out to be Hywel Meilyr Griffiths, from Talybont in Cardiganshire, and a previous winner of the crown in 2008.

Once he is comfortably seated in his new chair the honours begin.

The traditional song of praise is sung. "Henffych i'n Prifardd ...", the first words of which I have taken for the title of this post: Hail to our chaired poet ...

He is then read a witty poem in his honour, which an accomplished and clever poet has personalised at the last moment.

Then we have the first of the local elements. Dawns y Blodau, the flower dance, is performed by a bevy of very young local schoolgirls. It is very impressive and is a touch added by Cynan way back in 1936 when he reformed what was a stodgy old show and turned it into a modern performance.

Next, the Aberthged, the offering of the fruits of the earth, is presented by a local young girl.

The Corn Hirlas, or horn of plenty, is presented by a local married woman.

And, finally, the Archdruid wraps it up, and, on this occasion, seeing as she is bowing out, thanks all and sundry for their help and cooperation during the three years of her reign.

A rousing version of Hen Wlad fy Nhadau swells from the audience, ably channeled by the Gorsedd choirmaster.

And this finds its echoes on stage.

After which the Gorsedd and all its pomps goes to ground until next year's event.

This year's eisteddfod was in Meifod (near Welshpool) and next year it will visit Caldicot (near Cardiff).

I had a go at tweeting the ceremony live from the pavilion (via BBC) and you can see the results here. It turned out to be a bit frantic but it was fun. Unfortunately there's a serious typo in Mererid's name (blot on copybook). But otherwise it worked out OK. Start from the bottom.

TŶ BACH

That Sleeve, designed by Gráinne Ghleoite
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I had occasion recently to search through my remaining few vinyl LPs to see if I had a copy of Téanam Ort, a first recording by a Dublin Irish language folk group called TŶ BACH. The LP was recorded in a studio in the heart of Belfast at the height of the troubles in 1974. I had got a copy because I was involved in the recording as a fiddle playing extra member of the group for the duration.

I had rehearsed with the group in the intimacy of one of their sitting rooms and still vividly remember the shock when we went into studio and were placed miles apart. This, no doubt, suited the recording crew who wanted four virgin tracks for the mix, but it didn't suit me as I couldn't relate to the rest of the group being in the next parish, so to speak. I think that arrangement took somewhat from the gusto and group sound but, nevertheless, it was an LP and as such a fairly status item in its time.

The record launch made the social column of the Evening Herald on 4/10/74. The caption reads

Members of Ty Bach group at the Conradh na Gaeilge reception were from left, Cionnaith Mac Diarmada, Gearoid O Murchu and Colm Mac Sealaigh.

Two of the members of TŶ BACH on the Eisteddfod Field:
Gearóid on guitar and Colm on mandolin

As you might read on the record sleeve, if you had one, the group was formed after the musicians in question, Colm, Gearóid and Ken, had paid a visit to the 1973 Welsh National Eisteddfod in Ruthin in North Wales.

Gearóid & Colm again,
with third member, Ken (in red), in the background

The musicians went down a bomb both on the field and in some of the pubs around the town. The wider group of Irish who went to the Eisteddfod from Craobh Móibhí of Conradh na Gaeilge had also practiced some modern Welsh protest songs, yn Gymraeg and in part harmony, and this also made a great impression as the Welsh normally sang this class of song in unison and most of them would have been very dicey on the words beyond the first verse.

The Tracks

The tracks on the record were a mixture of traditional Irish ballads, some new protest songs and some taken from a store of modern Welsh songs.

Donnchadh Ó Súilleabháin

I can't bring up the 1973 Eisteddfod without mentioning Donnchadh Ó Súilleabháin, who, as General Secretary of Oireachtas na Gaeilge, was responsible for the Oireachtas stand (above) on the Eisteddfod field. He was also responsible for me going to Coláiste Mhuire, a fully Irish medium school, for my primary and secondary education though there was nary a word of Irish in my family.

Yr Archdderwydd Christine

Mererid Hopwood

This is an image I will always remember. It was at the Denbigh Eisteddfod in 2001, when, for the first time, the coveted chair was won by a woman. I have described elsewhere the electric atmosphere of that moment.

At the same Eisteddfod, one of the adjudicators, saw fit to comment on an entry for the light englyn competition, the subject for which was "red herring". The englyn is a verse form written in cynghanedd and the light englyn, while observing the rules of this strict metre, would be the nearest thing to the “limerick” of Welsh poetry (though, not to be outdone, the Eisteddfod also has a separate competition for limericks). The entry was from Bwni (Bunny). Entries are always under pen-names in the interest of an unbiased adjudication. Bwni, though not the winner, indulged in this increasingly relevant irrelevancy:

Mewn prifardd a phrifarddes - rhoed inni Orau dyn a dynes, Er hyn oll nid ym fawr nes Heddiw i Archdderwyddes

In poet and poetess laureate, we have the best of man and woman. Nevertheless, we are no nearer, today, to an Archdruidess.

Bwni is referring to the fact that, up to then, no woman had won the chair and very few the crown, the two principal competition winners from which the Archdruid was elected. The adjudicator remarked that with an increasing number of women taking up writing poetry in strict meter, and otherwise, there might be some hope of progress on this front in the future.

Neither were aware at that point of what was about to happen on the stage in Denbigh that year.

Well, it took 12 more years, but we finally have a female Archdruid.

Christine James

The election of Christine James (Bardic name Christine) to this position in 2013 is important for two reasons. She is the first woman to hold the post and she is a learner and not a native speaker. So, a serious shower of shards of breaking glass from two ceilings.

Llongyfarchiadau mawr i hi

Daw Fe Ddaw Yr Awr

That Hug
We are approaching the tenth anniversary of the breaking of a significan glass ceiling in the cultural life of Welsh Wales.

For the first time ever, the Eisteddfod Chair, Y Gadair, was won by a woman at the Denbigh Eisteddfod in 2001. It was an electric occasion.

For its sheer impact, this occasion was on a par with the posthumous award of the Chair, at the Birkenhead Eisteddfod in 1917, to Hedd Wyn who had just died on the Western Front in WWI days before.

Since 2001, only one other woman has won the chair, Hilma Ll. Edwards, in 2008.

So all eyes will be on Wrexham for 16:30 on Friday 5 August. Will it be another woman on this occasion? Will the Chair be withheld for want of an entry of sufficiently high standard, as was the case as recently as 2009?

I'll leave you on a lighter note from 2001. The Englyn competition boasted an ironic entry in the light of what happened with the Chair. "Bunny" on the theme of "Red Herring" bemoaned the lack of a female archdruid. Chair Bards are normally preferred for this office, though we have even had a Prose Medal winner as Archdruid in recent times after the qualifications were widened to include this category.

Two female Chair Bards must surely increase the chances of a female Archdruid in the near future.

Mererid Hopwood with the Archdruid, 2001

Heddwch, Eisteddwch

I have been involved with the Welsh National Eisteddfod since the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969. "Eisteddfod yr Arwisgiad" if I remember correctly.

The Prince had been invested in Caernarfon Castle and had discovered his "Welshness" for the occasion. He had undergone a Welsh cultural immersion course, prepared and serviced by the best in the Principality, which culminated in his making a speech in Welsh at the Investiture. Despite this promising start precious few words of Welsh have passed his lips since. Of 20 other speeches in Wales, only one has been fully in Welsh. The rest were in English, although of these 9 have a Welsh formulaic opening/closing.

Meanwhile, in 1969, the Free Wales Army were blowing things up, claiming a direct line of violent lineage from Saunders Lewis's example of the firing of Yr Ysgol Fomio in 1936.

The Welsh Language Society (Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg) were painting out monolingual road signs, chaining themselves to TV masts, and, to all intents and purposes, "refusing to recognise the court" which was attempting to conduct its business in the Welsh heartland through the medium of English.

What is the Eisteddfod?
But back to the 1969 Eisteddfod. It was like an amalgam of the Oireachtas, a Fleadh Ceoil and the Spring Show all rolled into one. And all through the medium of Welsh. The buzz was enormous and the lines of the conflicts emerging within Wales were all reflected there: traditional welsh nationalists versus community/political activists; native welsh versus holiday-home tourists; linguistic purists versus a looser learner-embracing culture. Palpable excitement.

The Eisteddfod is a fantastic festival. It is a concentrated outpouring of Welshness over one week in August. It is the pinnacle of a vast range of cultural activity which goes on throughout the preceding year. You can get a flavour in my report of the Denbigh 2001 Eisteddfod on my site. This also references a number of partial updates to 2005.

Welsh Labour Party Funks it
It is ironic that the Welsh Labour Party decided not to have a stand at this years Eisteddfod. It was they who were first onto the field, and this long before political parties were allowed. Labour was then in Government and the Welsh Office (ie the then "local" branch of the UK administration) had an official stand on the field entitled "Llafur yng Nghymru". This was subtly translated in small print as "Manpower in Wales" but it was well understood by all to be the Labour Party in Wales.

Eisteddfod Website
The Eisteddfod itself has a website, which, despite a makeover this year, is still a bit chaotic and lacking in structure. While the webcams are very welcome - they allow those who can't quite make it there to see the show - the text-based aspects of the site seem to have deteriorated, and you have to go chasing BBC or Google news to see what is going on during the week. Attendance has been falling over the last few years and there is a strong case to be made for the festival making much greater use of technology to further the cause. The aim of the festival is to support Welsh culture and language and both physical attendance and virtual attendance on the web can contribute here.

Dillwyn's death
Dillwyn Miles has had a long and productive association with the Eisteddfod. He was for many years the Herald Bard, in a costume of his own design, and he has written what is effectively the public history of the Gorsedd of Bards (in English) and a series of personal reminiscences (in Welsh). He died this year, aged 91, just before Eisteddfod week.

Still only one female chair
The highlight of the 2001 Eisteddfod was the winning of the chair by Mererid Hopwood, the first woman ever to do so. Well, six years later she retains this distinction.

There are three competitions, the winners of which qualify to be candidates for Archdruid. These are the Chair and Crown, both for poetry, and the Prose Medal. The Crown has been won in the past by women, but only rarely, and this year's Prose Medal winner was a woman. But the number of women in the candidate pool is still very small and the prospect of a female Archdruid in the near future looks slim.

New Archdruid
A new Archdruid starts a three year term next year and has already been chosen. He is Dic Jones (Dic Yr Hendre) who won the chair as far back as 1966.

He also won the chair in 1976 but was disqualified over a technical conflict of interest. As a member of one of the local Eisteddfod committees, Dic did not qualify to enter the competition, but, as entries are adjudicated under pen names, this was not picked up until the last minute. The ensuing panic was a wonder to behold. But it all got sorted out in the end. Nevertheless Dic was held in bad odour for some time afterwards.

It is good to see him making Archdruid at this stage.


Results
The three principal literary competition results this year were as follows.

The Chair was won by T James Jones, who had won the Crown in 1986 and 1988. His brother Aled Gwyn won the Crown in 1995, while his other brother John Gwilym Jones won the chair in 1981.

His nephew Tudur Dylan Jones won the Crown this year, having won the Chair on two previous occasions. Clearly a unique family in the history of the Eisteddfod.

The Prose Medal was won by Mary Annes Payne who will now enter the pool of candidates for Archdruid.

None of this should give the impression that prizes are awarded lightly. One of the things that has impressed me about the Eisteddfod is that standards are maintained and where entries are not up to scratch no prize is awarded. Crowns and Chairs have been withheld over the years, much to the disappointment of attendees, not to mention the competitors. This year the Gold Medal for craftwork was withheld.

Further Links
Further Welsh material on my site.

The Dublin Welsh Male Voice Choir (PDF 450KB) which I joined in 1970.

Welsh typo to lift up your heart. Enjoy.