Pope Francis is Welsh. The Proof is Here.

In the Vatican they ask all Welshmen to raise a hand.

And so we have a new Pope: Pope Francis from Argentina.

Now we all (should) know a region of Argentina, in the south, is called Patagonia. And we all (should) know that many of the people there speak Welsh.

I have previously proved, beyond reasonable doubt m'lud, that Pope Benedict was Welsh (see here). Now we know, very early on in his pontificate (trans: PontyFicate) that Pope Francis is Welsh.

I often wondered why Argentinian flags, shirts etc. were/are popular amongst Welsh fans whenever England make it to the World Cup: I think we now know the answer to that.

So well done Pope Francis. We all know (or should) that Welsh comes from the Germanic for 'foreignor' and was used for many peoples at the edge of the Roman Empire (the Welsh, the Walloons, the Wallachians etc.) so here's to our Welsh Pope!

It all bodes well for Saturday doesn't it?

Oh, and his first public Mass is to be on St Joseph's Day as a special nod to my dad who I can reveal is indeed Welsh.

I rest my case. I think that's all the proof we need. All I'm saying is don't be shocked if Pope Francis is hoping the Bluebirds go up this year.

Now we need a special edition Francis pint from Brains Beers and a Pieus Pie from Clarks Pies. They can send me free samples to get this blog's official thumbs-up.

The Pope is Welsh: The Evidence is Irrefutable

Our Welsh Shepherd (wearing an old Cardiff City scarf).

Many people call the Pope "our German Shepherd," but I have unearthed a conspiracy that would make Dan Brown's hair turn (albino?) white!

As Cardiff City fans have long known, the Pope is a Cardiff fan (they have long sung a song about Swansea fans going to the Vatican and being told, in no uncertain terms by His Holiness, that "Cardiff we'll support you evermore"), of course the Pope says "we" as he speaks for all the Popes on such vital matters of Faith and Morals.

But -- and hold on to your hat/Biretta here -- there is now ample proof that, as many have suspected, the Pope is in fact Welsh.

I will skip the obvious evidence, such as Welsh and Latin being the languages of heaven, and get down to the nitty gritty (as St Thomas Aquinas was wont to do).

A hobbit-like friend and fellow Cardiff City fan who shall remain nameless (let's just say he's the sort of best man who'd forget a ring), has pointed out that the Pope's Twitter id is @Pontifex. Of course Welsh is well known for its mutations, and to Latinise a Welsh word results in this kind of thing, but the evidence is clear.

The Pope is Pontyfex just as Pontypridd is the place where Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (I won't insult your intelligence by telling you that's the Welsh national anthem) was penned.

Furthermore Pontypridd sprung up around a bridge (the "Ponty" in question) built specifically to take pilgrims to the great pilgrimage site of Penrhys where today pilgrims still gather at the statue of Our Lady of Penrhys. So without the Catholic monks present there, and the place of pilgrimage, the bridge at Pontypridd would not have been built, the town of Pontypridd would not exist, and the Welsh national anthem may well not exist in its current form.

The Pope (Pontyfex) knows this and has chosen his Twitter name to reflect the importance of Catholicism to Welsh history, as well as to give a nod to his own Welsh heritage; also to acknowledge that the Papacy is the bridge which leads the Church militant to the promised land (a bit like Jacob's Ladder).

If you are still in doubt watch this week's Weatherman Walking (still on BBC iplayer) to see him visit two sites - the first, the well known Holywell in north east Wales, a place of Catholic pilgrimage for well over 1000 years. The second was the scant remains of a Chapel dedicated to St Michael the Archangel atop Holy Mountain in South East Wales. The guide (accompanying the 'weatherman' Derek) said this Chapel was in use throughout Medieval times and even after Catholicism was outlawed (by the English) it was still frequented by brave recusant souls.

So the Pope is Welsh, a Cardiff City fan and our country is, in every part, scattered with Holy places just as it was Catholic when the English were still living in Germany and its environs.

Case closed. Do you think Tom Hanks will want to make a film about it?

I Likes Barry Island - You Gorru Cos It's Tidy

Only a little before my time...

Ah memories! Watching Derek Brockway's Weatherman Walking on BBC1 tonight was full of memories as he made his way from Barry to Rhoose.

From Bank Holiday Mondays on Barry Island, to going to the fun fair as a teenager (where my friend Stephen Coles was sick after going on the waltzers, on my fifteenth birthday if I remember right).

I found out something new too, that Barry (like so much else in Wales) is named after a local Saint, the hermit St Barruc where his shrine was located and where there used to be a Holy well, before the water was diverted (boo).

There was Barry Docks and I can remember going there with my brother-in-law as he worked on the tugs. The pool at Cold Knap, where you had to have nerves of steel to jump in it (even in mid Summer). I think a wet suit would have been in order!

Then onto Porthkerry Park where we used to go in the Summer Holidays back in the 80s, all the Hurley family and some friends, to play football or cricket (there's a photo somewhere of a young Gareth Hurley with a big tear in the backside of his trousers as we played some game or other) and stay for the whole day eating and playing on the grass, at the beach and in the forest.

The caravan park at Porthkerry... more holiday memories, then there's Rhoose airport, the site of many holiday departures over the years.

A fantastic episode of Weatherman Walking. Fab'lus!

St Barruc:
History Site
Wikipedia

Advent Calendars and the Downfall of the West

No Cadbury's, no!

Advent in Welsh is known as "Winter Lent" the name goes back to when these islands were Catholic (hurrah!) before the Reformation (boo), and people would fast in preparation for the Feast of Christmas.

In those days the good people of Wales (OK, and England too) would prepare themselves for Christmas, and following Christmas Day would celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas until Epiphany - the day the Wise Men visited the Infant Christ, the first gentiles to see and worship the Son of God.

Spot the difference?

Today Christmas at its consumerist best seems to start mid November, rattles on for weeks and weeks, then by the time Christmas Day arrives, and folks eat even more chocolate than they have in the whole run-up to Christmas, a lot of people are all Christmas'd out, can't wait for Christmas to be over with, get into the shops for the sales on Boxing Day...

Where have the Twelve Days of Christmas gone? Where has the Winter Lent of Advent gone? Like all our Feast Days that used to be dotted across the calendar - they have been robbed from us, by a robber band of merchant Protestants (or morecorrectly the Mammonistas!) who saw our old traditions as a barrier to working the poor 364 days a year.

Even in my own lifetime I have seen the demise of the traditional (semi-)religious Advent calendar with its little pictures, culminating on the 24th with a double-doored picture of the Nativity, so the excitement and the reminder of what Christmas was all about was brought home to the wee bairns on Christmas Eve.

Advent calendars originated in Germany

Now, as I potter around and rarely walk about shops (having an aversion to spending money, I am my father's son) all I tend to see are chocolate-filled calendars, most with very little to do with the Christian Feast Day of Christmas at all. They may have a Coca-Cola style Santa, a snowman, little elves, or even a pop band, singer or wotnot on the front.

Bleuch.

So I am pleading with all my army of readers (yes, both of you) to not cave-in the chocolate Cadbury (owned by Kraft Foods anyway) calendars! We'll all eat enough chocolate and other goodies over Christmas anyway -- so whether buying for the grandchildren, children or the kids next door: choose an old fashioned Advent calendar, with a bit of Bethlehem about it!

In our own small way we can get Christmas back to being Christmas, and the period beforehand all about the anticipation of the coming of the Christ Child, as Leonardo Da Vinci might say the Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World).

As the greatest Englishman of the 20th Century put it:

"There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes."
- G.K. Chesterton

GKC will be chuffed to know that's what I think too.

Our Lady of Rugby and the Conversion of Wales

Our Lady of Rugby

There is a Catholic shrine to rugby! Well, to Our Lady of Rugby to be exact, and as a fellow Welsh blogger explains, this may explain how France managed to get to the World Cup final on Sunday!

Ah, you see Wales: return to the Faith of your Fathers and you too could embrace rugby glory, for the greater glory of God.

In the end, beset by Protestantism, we achieved 4th place. Not bad all in all, having lost our essential players Adam Jones, Sam Warburton and (who'd have thunk it) Rhys Priestland. Now if we can become a land of priests, if we can reignite the Land of our Fathers with the Faith of our Fathers and bring back the glory and beauty of the Age of Saints, the next World Cup will surely be ours for the taking.

Warren Gatland! Are you listening? Get on your knees. Get to Confession. Take your Rosary to training. You've gone to Catholic Poland to freeze your players' proverbials off... now take the next step and make the Welsh squad a Catholic force to convert Wales, Europe and the world via beautiful, majestic and sublime rugby.

As the great-grandson of Welsh rugby legend HVP "Viv" Huzzey, I demand no less!

There. That's that sorted.


St David - Ora Pro Nobis.

Gruffydd James: New Member of the Hurley Extended Family

Delivery of one Gruffydd James

Congratulations to Huw and Caroline on the fantastic news that little Gruffydd James has been born into the world.

OK they didn't choose Gareth, despite my extensive and expensive lobbying campaign (I suppose I'll have to release Uncle Peter now, he made for an "interesting" hostage...) but hey, it starts with G and that's more than I usually get!

So a big congrats to the Vale of Glamorgan branch of the family --yes, they really are that posh AND they still talk to us! ;-) Perhaps we'll get another visit to St Joseph's RC Church, if we can make it. It really is a beautiful, beautiful building and had a famous parishioner in Dr John Saunders Lewis the founder-leader of Plaid Cymru who converted to Catholicism (hurrah!). I recently spoke to a retired cleric whom Saunders Lewis helped teach to speak Welsh and was, for many years, the parish priest of St Joseph's and had nothing but the nicest things to say and the fondest memories of his old Penarth parish.

So hooray and hurrah for Huw and Caroline, my favourite cousin -- I know I say that to each of them, but don't tell them that ;-) And of course little Gruffydd James who is either sleeping soundly, gurgling a smile or trying out his new lungs with gusto as I type. Let's hope that Saint James, Santiago so beloved of the Spanish over many centuries, looks after his little namesake.

Anyway I must rush, I have to start my next lobbying campaign for a baby Gareth. Perhaps I should consider a mild form of bribery?

Mothers Day with Fire and Brimstone?

Excuse the American spelling - but it is a great cartoon

Reading through the Mothers Day notices in this morning's South Wales Evening Post (only Swansea could have a morning paper called the Evening Post!) I was struck by the amount of bizarre names.

I am a bit of a traditionalist. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Rebbecca, Claire, Mary and Theresa. Good names. Christian names. We seem these days to be surrounded by Tylers and Shanices. Dear God.

Still it could be worse. Hollywood is far away and so we have few Zowies, Apples and Sunset Blossoms (the 60s has a lot to answer for).

According to one report I read a few months back, the most popular name in Britain is now Mohammed. Judging by Swansea and Cardiff I'm not altogether surprised. despite this there were no Mohammeds in the Evening Post. Perhaps the Koran has a passage against paying for adverts in newspapers - or Mother's Day is too Christian?

Talking of which I read somewhere else (I am good at reading, average on retaining knowledge and poor on recalling sources: that's what age does to you) that Mothering Sunday was originally the time of year you would return to your "Mother Church," i.e. the Parish where you grew up.

Of course these were in times when we were all Catholic, and Christianity held us together, even when the Welsh, Scottish, Irish and English had their petty squabbles. Catholicism was as natural and as normal as the air our ancestors breathed, and no-one wasted their energies on searching for the meaning of life via yogic hopping or swimming with dolphins.

If we were troubled, back in the day, Christ was truly present back in our local parish church, and the widow's penny got you the same visiting rights as the Baron's ransom.

I wonder if our medieval forebears would have been as devout if they were called Talullah or Jordan, and I'd better not compare them and Mohammed or I'll be treading on egg-shells, offending all and sundry, starting a crusade/fatwa and goodness knows what else.

It's funny isn't it, that Muslims, when you get to speak to them one-on-one are, in my experience at least, quite charming, erudite, knowledgeable people --  perhaps because they are aware of the wider public image? They love their religion, they seem to defend the family as an institution and are quite traditional. All traits we can and should admire. The only ones I've seen who wish to strap explosives to themselves are dished up on Newsnight (and even then, like our own politicians, they seem to prefer to send young men off to die while they flit around TV studios: I see little difference between a "mad mullah" preaching death to the infidels - oi stop nicking our words - and the likes of Tony Blair who invades countries illegally and in the process kills many more people). Misrepresentation does seem the flavour of the day. Do most Muslims frown at the mad mullahs just as most British people frowned at Tony Blair?

It is when viewed as a mob through the lens of the media that Muslims become this snarling mass. Do people in Muslim countries watch photos of anarchists rioting and smashing windows, then turn to each other and say "those mad Christians, look how they behave, I've never seen such hatred" thinking it a fair representation of most "Brits?" Or do they look at the stats for street crime and thank Allah they don't (all) live here?

I wonder what Catholics come across as when viewed as a mob? The lens of the media certainly paint us as "homophobic" (whatever that means!), medieval, insular and somewhat bigoted. Not all bad then ;-) Worse still is when "Fr. Pete" is on the radio and we are representing by someone more interested in promoting gooey, clingy, happy clappy, kum-by-ya, "inclusive" Catholicism who present Christ as some sort of feminine milksop coupled with the traits of a trendy social worker. The sermon is so 'touchy feely' you think he's having some sort of febrile convulsion as the homily on loving everyone is sneaked in between hits from Freddie Mercury and Elton John (that the priest tells the DJ were "just great").

My fear is that as a mob all Catholics could do in this day an age is get a concession from a tea and biscuits wholesaler... Sure we don't want the wailing mobs (having said that if it's against the banks or the BBC and its blasphemy... ;-) why not?), the fanaticism of the ultramontane sort or the clericalism that sees all priests --especially the "Fr Pete" sorts who go from parish to parish ripping out altar rails in the name of progress-- as infallible in every pronouncement. But just once in a while, even if not via the mob, wouldn't it be nice to hear a priest give it some of the old 'fire and brimstone' instead of the usual media-fodder happy clappy vomit inducing goo? I know it would do me the power of good!

St Patrick's Day Greetings to all Nigerians

For those who don't know me, I am Welsh with a bit of Irish thrown in for good measure (the best bit as my local postmaster keeps reminding me).

So today I have lots of reasons to celebrate St Patrick.

It's not known from which area the young Welshman was taken circa the age of 16. It may have been Wales as we know it today, it may have been from the Welsh kingdom of Strathclyde or somewhere in-between.

Other Saints and holy men went to Ireland before and after Patrick, yet it is Patrick the young Welsh shepherd and slave that we remember.

The Welsh retained the Faith that the Romans had brought, even after the Empire fell, took it to Ireland, where the monasticism of Patrick spread. Years later that monasticism was re-introduced to Europe proper, and post-Reformation, the Catholic Faith was re-introduced to Britain by the waves of Irish settlers who came here, including my own grandfather.

So, we have:

• The Romans convert the Britons/Welsh (Welsh being old Saxon for foreigner/Roman) to Roman Catholicism.
• St Patrick the Welshman takes the Catholic Faith and Monasticism to the Irish.
• The Irish take Monasticism to Mainland Europe to reinvigorate the whole Catholic Church even to its heartlands in France and Italy.
• The Irish come to Wales (and England) to reinforce the few native Catholics (recusants) left after penal laws etc.

It's almost like a large wonderful circle of history. If those Romans hadn't converted the Welsh, and St Patrick hadn't converted the Irish, I may not be a Welsh Catholic today.

So lift a glass to St Patrick, the Welsh-Irishman. I know it's Lent (and I know you have all been keeping your Lenten fast!), but we are allowed an exemption for special Feast Days. I'm sure St Patrick knew this when his number was called on the 17th of March (subsequent calendar changes notwithstanding), which just goes to show he must have been well acclimatised with the natives by then.

Nigerian Bishops: "Hey! It's our day too."

Let me close by asking you to say a prayer for Nigeria and her people.

You see, Nigeria's Patron Saint is St Patrick, so it must be tough for them as I bet nobody ever thinks of Nigeria on St Patrick's Day (apart from Nigerians of course).

So a big cheer for the Nigerians, and a polite clap for the Irish.

As the natives might say: Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh! (ban-ock-tee na fay-lah paw-rig ur-iv), St Patrick's Day Blessing Upon You.

Hurrah for King Arthur, Welsh & Roman

I was doing a search the other week, I forget what for, and I came across this image which I instantly saved.

I'm not one for 'role playing' games, though my children did go through a few years of collecting and painting the Lord of the Rings ones (being a fan of Tolkien I was quietly pleased, though shocked at the prices!). The "new age" type especially can be a bit worrying.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this image though, as it clearly shows King Arthur (or one of his knights - maybe Gareth?) with a shield bearing the Chi Rho: the Roman Papal symbol.

As a Welshman, a Romano-Briton, Arthur would have been a Catholic defending his people from the Germanic Pagan onslaught during the time historians dubbed the Dark Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire.

All too often films, popular imagery etc. airbrushes out Arthur's Welshness and his Roman Catholicism.

Was Arthur, the Welshman, the Romano-Celt Chieftain, a Defender of the Faith? I certainly like to think so.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi - St David's Day, Get Your Daffs On!

It's St David's Day tomorrow and as I know all of you relatives (and readers!) will be celebrating (from Texas to Orkney!) here are some pertinent facts from celtnet. I have changed the usage of "CE" (Christian/Common Era) to "AD" (Latin: Year of Our Lord), as is traditional. Sorry if I missed any.

St David's is an important day, full of celebration in Wales.

I would only wish a few things:

• That the day would bring more Welsh people back to the Catholic Faith and the Sacraments as celebrated by St David.
• That more of the English and Scots would celebrate St George's and St Andrew's (I need not mention the Irish!). I'm not greedy, I would like nationhood to be a shared joy, and our Catholic heritage likewise.

The History of Dewi Sant (St David)
The Literary Sources


Dewi (David) is the patron saint of Wales, whose feast day is the 1st of March. He lived about 580 AD, about a century after the withdrawal of Rome from the British Isles and some half century after the time of Arthur (effectively during the time of the final Anglo-Saxon conquest of England).
In Wales, this is the 'time of the saints' where the Cymry (Welsh) were finally completely Christianized (possibly as a result of the Saxon threat) and where the majority of modern Churches (llanau — literally 'sacred enclosures' were established).
David himself is known primarily from early Medieval texts in Latin and Welsh known as the Buchedd Dewi (Life of St David) and it is in these that we find out most about David as an historical character. This was written during the 11th century by Rhigyfarch, eldest son of Sulien Ddoeth (Sulien the Wise, who was Bishop of St David's between 1071–78 and 1080–85). Rigyfarch probably wrote the Life of St David with the express aim of could establishing some independence for the Welsh church, which was risking losing its independence following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. This failed, as Rhigyfarch's father was the last independent Welsh bishop of St David's.
Outside the Buchedd Dewi other references to Dewi occur. The first of these was a stone that used to sit in the doorway to the chancel of the Chapel at Llanddewibrefi (see below) that probably dated near the foundation of the church (c 650AD). The stone is broken now, but it was recorded during the 18th century. Dewi is also mentioned in the catalogue of Irish saints (c 730AD). A further Iris text from c 800AD (the Félire Oengusso Céli Dé [Martyrology of Angus the Culdee]) names St David and gives March 1st as his feast day, the first known reference to St David's day.
Dewi is also mentioned in the Life of Paul of Léon written in 884 AD. The next reference comes from Asser, author of the Life of King Alfred (completed c 893 AD). Interestingly, Asser must have been a Welshman for he uses the Welsh form of Dewi's name Degui in this work, rather than the Latinate form and he refers to the 'Church at St Davids and the bishopric thereof'.
The next reference comes from a poem in the Book of Taliesin know as Arymes Prydein Fawr (The Great Prophecy of Britain). This was written c 930AD and there are several references:

To god and Dewi did they commend themselves
...
Through the intercession of Dewi and Britain's saints.
...
may Dewi be the leader of our warriors


Here, Dewi is invoked as the protector of the Cymry (Welsh) and these are the first references we have to him as Wales' patron saint.
Of the British patron saints David is unique in that he is native to the country he represents and he's a well-documented historical figure. Indeed, in many ways more is known about him than many of his contemporaries. Though most of the information we have comes from Rhigyfarch's 'Life of St David' and also from the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) who wrote a book about his travels through Wales in the 12th century.

Greg Mulholland MP and the Call for English Anthem Usage

500 AD and Glastonbury is still held by "Welsh" tribes

After a minor kerfuffle from my last post, it seems that at least one MP agrees with me, that God Save the Queen is indeed the anthem of the UK and not of England.

As Wikipedia says:

On 20 April 2007, Greg Mulholland, the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds North West, introduced an Early Day Motion (EDM) in the House of Commons, proposing that England have its own national anthem. The EDM called for all English sporting associations to "adopt an appropriate song that English sportsmen and women, and the English public, would favour when competing as England."^[3] There has also been an EDM calling for "Jerusalem" to be given official status as the national anthem of England, proposed by Daniel Kawczynski, the Conservative Party MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham on 18 October 2006.^[4]

In April 2008 Greg Mulholland called for the England national rugby league team to replace "God Save the Queen" with an English national anthem at the Rugby League World Cup (RL World Cup) to be held in Australia in autumn 2008^[5] and on 28 April he put forward another EDM in the House of Commons, noting that Scotland and Wales who are also taking part in the RL World Cup, will all have their own national anthems, and therefore calling on England to use an English national anthem rather than the British national anthem, with the proposal that English rugby league fans should be given the chance to choose an English anthem.^[6] However, God Save the Queen was used.

On St George's Day, April 23, 2010, the Commonwealth Games Council for England launched a poll to allow the public to decide which anthem is to be played at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. Voters could choose between God Save the Queen, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory with the winning song being adopted as the official anthem for Team England. ^[7] Jerusalem was declared the winner on 30 May 2010, securing 52% of the vote. ^[8]

If the English wish to have Jerusalem as their anthem who am I (Welsh, part-Irish and so devoid of any rights on such matters apparently) to say otherwise. It is certainly very stirring (moreso than God Save the Queen may I dare to opine?)

Of course, if Our Lord Jesus Christ did indeed come to the West Country, brought by Joseph of Arimathea so folk-tales say, then of course it was still part of Welsh Britain, where the native tribes would have spoke ancient Welsh, perhaps intermixed with some Latin).

The arrival of the English was some 400+ years away, apart from some mercenaries fighting for the Romans as the Empire crumbled, to protect the East Coast of what became England from raiders. Some historians say these mercenaries became the settlers that the "invading" Germanic tribes came to join - I believe it's a moot point. The West Country itself remained "Welsh" for much longer of course (eventually only Wales and Cornwall as we recognise them today were left separate of Anglo-Saxon tribal kingdoms and their vessel fiefdoms)

Still it's nice to think that Jesus Christ may have come to these islands and met the natives later called Welsh (or "foreigner" in old Anglo-Saxon English, they gave similar names to peoples in what would become Belgium and Italy). If only because the Welsh kept the Roman and Christian Faith, and via the Welshman St Patrick exported it to Ireland where monasticism really took off and thrived as Europe as a whole entered what has been called the 'Dark Ages.'


P.S. I don't know if Greg Mulholland is English or not. Does that negate his argument for asking for an English anthem as opposed to the British one?

Link:
Britannia After the Roman Withdrawal

Heol-y-Plwcca & City Road: Growing Up Where Two Welsh Martyrs Were Killed

St Philip Evans

I still remember to this day coming across a small plaque on a wall at the very bottom end of Crwys Road, where it met Mackintosh Place, Albany Road, City Road and Richmond Road, quite a thoroughfare in Roath, Cardiff.

I believe it was on the wall of a branch of Nat West Bank which stood on the corner between Crwys and Richmond Road - but I might be wrong there (lap it up, it may be the last time ;-) ).

Anyhow, this plaque struck me because it told me that I was standing on the spot where two Catholic Saints were martyred for their Faith.

It seemed weird to read that in the middle of urban Cardiff with cars whizzing by in all manner of directions (a five way junction is a startling place by anyone's reckoning).

Here was the place where St John Lloyd and St Philip Evans met their fate on the scaffold, merely for being Catholic priests in Wales. That is how terrible (in its real sense) those penal times were, when men could be killed for offering the Mass to those who were practising the religion that their forefathers had, for many generations.

You might even say that Welshmen had witnessed the Sacrifice of the Mass since the time of the Roman Empire, since circa the third Century A.D.

Maybe I was crass in my ignorance not to have hitherto known this historical reality, but to discover that two Saints had died on that spot really made an impression on me as a teenager (yes, I have a good memory, before anyone quips in!)..

The B4261 is City Road, the A469 is Albany Road

So it was the other day on researching some part of Cardiff's history I fell upon a reference to the Saints being martyred at a place called Pwllhalog.

This struck me as strange, as I quite literally grew up just around the corner from the spot where the martyrs were hung. Yet I had never heard of Pwllhalog as a place.

I know enough schoolboy Welsh to know that Pwll means Pool, but more than that? Just lake Manuel in Fawlty Towers I had to state "I know nothing."

On researching this further, it seems that the place name may well be Pwll Halog and translates as Unhallowed Pool.

According to the Real Cardiff site, City Road used to be called Heol-y-Plwcca:

Up until the middle of last century it was known as Heol-y-Plwcca after the gallows field at its northern end. Here, in a plot known as 'the Cut Throats', more or less where the Road has its junction with Albany, stood the town gibbet. Nearby were plots called Cae Budr (the defiled field), Plwcca Halog (the unhallowed plot), and Pwll Halog (the unhallowed pool). Today they've got side streets built across them and are happily called Strathnairn, Glenroy and Keppoch. The grimness has been vanquished, buried under backgarden clay and foundation, forgotten.

 According to the site/page Walk Down City Road:

City Road used to be called Plwcca Lane.

Plwcca means reeds or rushes. Before the houses were built this part of Roath was rough scrub land. People used to come to collect the rushes to make baskets.

In 1829, the building that is now the Mackintosh Institute was a mansion out in the countryside. It was called Roath Castle because the tops of its walls looked like the turrets on a castle.

In those days, City Road was called Castle Road because it led to Roath Castle.

In 1905, Cardiff was granted the status of city rather than simply a town and Castle Road became City Road.

So we are left to wonder did Heol-y-Plwcca gain its name from the rushes that people gathered there, or from the gallows where the Saints met their end? Plwcca seems to mean plot and/or scrubland, with Halog (unhallowed) seeming to be the part of the name(s) from the area linked to the death of the guilty and possibly the burial-site on unconsecrated ground of 'criminals.'

I wonder if the 'unhallowed plot' refers to a burial plot where the Saints may well have ended up, discarded as common criminals by the government officials that oversaw their martyrdom?

If so (and I realise I am taking a little poetic licence here) might the fact that "today they've got side streets built across them and are happily called Strathnairn...." mean that the street I spent most of my youngest years on (the same Strathnairn near the City Road end), be at least near the place of their martyrdom, if not even closer to the site of their burial?

I have found one reference to their being hung, drawn and quartered (a particularly brutal manner of death - the fate of William Wallace in the film Braveheart), but other information seems scanty, so I simply do not know if they ended up being scattered around Britain as a warning, or put in unmarked graves locally.

But how fascinating to find out more of the background of Heol-y-Plwcca, which would become City Road.

When I was up my Nan's, Anne Huzzey's house in Pentwyn a few years before she passed away, she told me about when she was young, growing up on Strathnairn Street and her Uncle Walter would come home from working on the railways and send her around to City Road to buy fish and chips.

It's funny that two Welsh priests found martyrdom at the end of City Road, where my Nan bought fish and chips, where I spent my very earliest, formative years and later would return to drink in the Roath Park - a pub which made it into one of the tabloid papers for being in the top ten "worst pubs in Britain." I still remember starting a tour of Cardiff's pubs on my 18th birthday at that very establishment.

As a youngster in the late 70s I remember City Road being full of car dealerships (seems weird now) and someone once told me it was in the Guinness Book of Records for having the world's greatest concentration of car dealers in a road. I still don't know if that was an urban myth.

Isn't it weird how one single road can change so much and encapsulate so much?

From Heol-y-Plwcca and the Martyrdom of two Saints to City Road, take-aways and allegedly one of the worst pubs in Britain.

Life rolls on...

St Peter's Church, Roath, Cardiff

St Peter's Church, Roath

It's been quite a few years since I've been to St Peter's in Cardiff.

It has changed quite a bit from images I've seen on the internet since I went there as a child, and was married there in 1994.

The beautiful stain glassed windows and breath-taking Pieta statue (the Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ, taken off the Cross) is still there, but the decor has changed for the better as far as I can tell. I seem to recall white-washed walls and ceilings.

As this picture shows the ceilings now have motifs, including a 'Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus' above the altar.

There is similar decor (on a purple backdrop) around the Pieta.

Michelangelo's original 1499 Pieta in St Peter's Basilica, Rome

Sadly there is no history section at the moment on their main site. Hopefully this is something that will change in the future as St Peter's is the oldest existing Catholic Church in Cardiff and so I'm sure has a great history to it.



Link:
St Peter's Parish Roath
St Peter's Parish Archives/Records

Remembering Newtown: The Story of a Near Forgotten Community

...the Irish newcomers quickly made Newtown their own. "Little Ireland", as it became known, had a school and its own church, St Paul's. The church in particular was central to the devout Catholic community. Musical and sporting talents like boxing legend Jimmy Driscoll were also nurtured. It was, as resident Mary Sullivan - whose Irish grandmother emigrated there - recalls, "a town within a city."

Above Right: World famous boxer Jim Driscoll, outside his pub in Newtown with the famous 'Cork Pipers'.


Call me an old romantic ("old?" I ask pleadingly, "romantic?" Mrs Hurley asks cynically) but I like to think that just as the Welshman, St Patrick, took Catholicism to the people of Ireland, so the new Irish settlers of the 19th Century brought the Catholic Faith back to a Wales that had it ripped from them in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Just as St Patrick took the heathen Irish and created a land of monasticism and devout Faith, so the Irish settlers would bring at least some of the Welsh, amongst whom they settled, mixed and married, back to the Faith of Our Lady of Cardigan, Our Lady of Bala, and Our Lady of Penrhys. In that noble aim, born initially out of economic necessity (even survival!), the small enclave of Newtown, Cardiff, played its part.

(1536-40). The loss of the monasteries and the sustenance that helped the Welsh poor to survive; the giving of food and medicinal herbs to keep the body whole, as well as the sustenance of the spiritual soul was devastating, not only to the economic well-being of the populace, but to the very heart of the Welsh nationalistic veracity. These calamities forced the Welsh to rethink their attitudes toward the monarchs of the era

Link:
Remembering Newtown by Maxine Roper

Newtown: Cardiff's 'Little Ireland'

St Paul's Church, Tyndall Street

Newtown was an area of Cardiff between Splott and the Docks, known as 'Little Ireland.'

My dad has often spoken of his childhood in Newtown and when travelling on the "new" flyover that goes from Cardiff jail to the new revamped Docks with the Welsh Assembly building etc. one can see the area where Newtown used to be.

The area was demolished (I got the impression of slum clearances, but perhaps that is unfair) the year I was born, 1970.

Did my Irish grandfather end up living in Newtown with his Welsh wife because the Irish tended to gravitate there? Or were the rents cheaper? Or was it a work-related move?

Furthermore, it's interesting to read that Newtown was established by the Marquis of Bute, specifically for Irish workers. In the superb essay When the Heart Stopped Beating, published in the South Wales Echo, Dan O'Neil marks the irony of the Marquis of Bute who built Newtown for the Irish workers escaping the Irish famine all but begging forgiveness for bringing in "Papists" -- when his own son would convert to the One, Holy, Apostolic, Catholic Church.

Certainly reading a booklet on the Catholic history of Cardiff some years back, there was an editorial from the (19th Century) South Wales Echo which tried to paint the growth of the Irish population in Cardiff in general, and the establishment of a Catholic Church in particular, as if the Spanish Armada were en route again, as if the gunpowder plot were happening again: it was full of hysteria and hyperbole akin to an Al Qaeda cell being discovered in the city.

Altar boys in Newtown

The following site (see link at end) gives an excellent overview of Newtown, a community torn down 40 years ago.

Here's a piece from the When the Heart Stopped Beating article:

The last Mass was celebrated in Saint Paul’s Church, Newtown, on Sunday, October 22, 1967.And that, more than anything else, more than the sight of old houses falling, familiar pubs reduced to dust, men, women and children moving from the homes where they were born - that, more than anything else spelled out that this was truly . . . .The End. For Saint Paul’s was the beating heart of Little Ireland. When it was built it signalled that the men and women from the Ould Sod had come to stay.  They had come fresh from the terrible famine, that calamity imprinted on the world’s mind as the Great Hunger, and they had built the vast docks which were to make Cardiff the coal capital of the world; and they brought their customs, and their religion with them.

Link:
Newtown, Cardiff