The Cymru Connection
It is often said that all Welsh people know each other, which seems rather far-fetched in a country of three million people. However, given our world-famous penchant for gossip, the stereotype more or less holds true.
In English there are six degrees of Kevin Bacon, while in Welsh we have one degree of Elis James. Elis James is a Welsh comedian known for his weekly radio show on BBC Radio 5, where in the Cymru Connection segment he is challenged each week to find a mutual connection between himself and a Welsh caller within 60 seconds, with fairly reliable success.
I’ve often considered calling in myself but, seeing as I have met Elis before at the London Welsh Centre, I’m not sure it would really count. While Elis continues to grow and analyse his dataset to put to bed once and for all the question of whether all Welsh people know each other, I myself am definitely the beneficiary of one such connection - as will become apparent.
Read the Novel and Meet the Author
But first, some background: This summer at City Lit we will be running a online reading group for advanced Welsh learners. Learners will develop their literacy by reading a Welsh novel written for native speakers—y Gwyliau by Sioned Wiliam, as well as engaging with contemporary issues in Welsh life as reflected in literature.
During the final session of the course, it would be possible to meet the author of the novel. Sioned Wiliam will join online learners for an informal Q&A session. This is a very special opportunity to learn more about the work of a contemporary Welsh writer and practise your Welsh in a new context.
Wales at a Political Crossroads
There are plenty of issues to choose from as Wales’ political landscape has recently changed dramatically following the most consequential election in the history of its legislature, Senedd Cymru, and quite possibly in the history of the entire nation.
Welsh Labour, dominant in the country since 1922, were all but wiped out as leftwing Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru came out on top. Comfortably beating Labour to second place were rightwing British nationalists Reform UK, who were unable to close the gap on Plaid and look unlikely to form the next Welsh government. Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth looks set to become the next First Minister, meaning that Wales will be governed by a pro-independence party for the first time in modern history.
The election saw Wales stood at a crossroads between two competing visions on every possible issue: healthcare, the Welsh language, taxation, immigration (although this is not controlled by the Senedd), education and Wales’ constitutional future.
The Second Homes Debate: Community Under Pressure
One issue that remains high on the agenda for Welsh people is that of second home ownership: Plaid Cymru’s promises to tackle what it describes as a second homes crisis are at odds with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s description of extra taxes on second homes as “madness” last year, but may well prove popular in their Welsh-speaking heartlands in the north and west of the country.
The issue of second homes in Wales goes back decades, a paramilitary group called Meibion Glyndŵr (Sons of Glyndŵr, in reference to Owain Glyndŵr, the last Welsh Prince of Wales) even carried out a series of arson attacks against English-owned holiday homes during the 1980s.
Welsh language music has many an example of anti-second home protest songs, including Bryn Fôn’s 1989 song Meibion y Fflam (Sons of the Flame, which made fun of the police’s unsuccessful attempts to catch the perpetrators of the Meibion Glyndŵr attacks) and Fleur de Lys’ 2023 track Archfarchnad (Supermarket).
Opponents of second home ownership argue that the practice drives up house prices in picturesque areas as wealthy English families outbid locals for houses in areas of natural beauty like the Pembrokeshire coast and Llŷn peninsula. A vicious cycle then develops as these holiday homes are only inhabited during the summer months, leaving the villages in which they are found empty in the winter. Unable to make ends meet without regular custom, local businesses are forced to close, and the local (often Welsh-language) school soon follows suit.
As jobs vanish the area becomes further impoverished, making it even harder for locals to compete with outsiders for houses, and the cycle begins anew.
That this happens in mostly Welsh-speaking areas is not lost on supporters of the language, as established cymrophone communities are torn apart by the influx of second home owners, forcing young Welsh speakers to migrate to Cardiff or across the border into England to find work (in Census 2021, Cardiff and the surrounding local authorities were the only part of Wales to see a net increase in Welsh speakers).
Culture, Contradictions and Class
It is for this reason that grumbling about overtourism and second home ownership is something of a national pastime for the Welsh, but our own hands are not entirely clean.
While census data from 2021 shows that the majority of second homes in Wales are owned by English incomers (roughly 72%), there is a not insignificant number of second homes in Wales owned by wealthier Welsh families.
Nor is the second home crisis a uniquely Welsh problem; the south-west of England, which includes Cornwall, is the only region of England to have a higher rate of second home ownership than Wales, and many Mediterranean summer holiday destinations suffer from the proliferation of AirBnBs and holiday lets, prompting locals to protest overtourism in numerous creative ways (the Barcelonian tradition of spraying tourists with water pistols comes to mind).
How can we square the valid concerns of Welsh people about second homes in their country when our middle class is also partial to an Italian villa?
Literature as a Lens: Y Gwyliau
It is this question that lies at the heart of Sioned Wiliam’s Y Gwyliau (The Holiday). This comedic novel is a satire of the Welsh media class, on whom the irony of owning a second home abroad while complaining about the practice in Wales is sometimes lost.
The story follows a group of friends on holiday in a villa in Umbria in central Italy, where personal dramas play out against a wider backdrop of the slow dissolution of local communities at the hands of second home owners. The novel is clever and funny, and provides a wonderful insight into contemporary Welsh life.
While I am as big a fan of our mythology and history as anyone else, it’s important to remember that Welsh is a living, breathing language with an ever-expanding literature.
The reading group will serve as a starting point for discussion of a myriad issues in Wales, not least second home ownership, and in our last session we will be joined by none other than Sioned Wiliam herself. Remember my earlier point about all Welsh people knowing each other?
From Page to Conversation: Meeting the Author
Having the author in the class will be a fantastic opportunity to drill deeper into the issues at stake and help students to learn not just the language as a linguistic code, but as a culture.
The Welsh language is often bound up in cultural references that can be somewhat obscure to the learner: what’s the difference between a hwntw and a gog? Why is the concept of Donald Trump awarding himself a bardic chair funny? What actually is a bardic chair?
While it is not necessarily these questions which we will be answering, they serve as examples of the cultural puzzle that learners can set about unravelling as they begin to master the Welsh language. So come join us online as we read Y Gwyliau and take your learning of Welsh to the next level, not as just an artefact to be preserved, but as a witty, nuanced language that is more than equipped for the debates that face Wales today.
Advance your Welsh
Join Macsen's course, Welsh advanced: grwp llyfrau / book group where you'll discuss the themes of the novel y Gwyliau by Sioned Wiliam — and get a chance to meet the author.
