Welsh people culturally

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Re: Welsh people culturally

Top post. A lot of great points there, we are a country who have suffered and been suppressed to the point of national submission rather a revolt nature of previous centuries.

Definitely didn't think I'd see Fremantle Dockers mentioned in this thread! They're much better than the Eagles in the past few seasons.

As far as I am concerned if people are going to talk about the pride in being Welsh, in Welsh culture and in the Welsh language then they need to walk the walk when it comes to probably the most visible show of passion and identity ......sport

So anyone playing this card loses all credibility when they vote conservative or reform.... or suck up to English football teams like Daffyd Ellis Thomas and the like

It's pathetic

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Re: Welsh people culturally

Identity is about how we feel about ourselves and our roots, and is probably riddled with contradictions.

I was born in Wales but lived almost all of my life in England. I don't have many ingrained memories of Cardiff from my childhood - but I do have some (we stayed with grandparents in Cardiff regularly and came back to Wales on holiday). But from my earliest memories I have identified as from Cardiff and Wales (my unfortunate brother was born in Shrewsbury so has had an identity crisis all his life!). That feeling got deeper and stronger over time.

For me it is partly to do with history and a sense of injustice in the way Wales and its language and culture were crushed and subsumed into England (no act of union for us, unlike Scotland or Ireland). It was Owain Glydwr, Dic Penderyn, the Newport Rising, the Black Domain, the ethnic and national melting pot of South Wales, pride in the Fed, shame at the race riots, Nye Bevan, Cardiff City and Welsh rugby in the golden age. It was also exposure to low level anti-Welsh jokes and abuse from certain types of English twats - in my experience laddish suits in the construction industry.

Pride in roots, memories, a sense of place, protection of language and culture (I don't speak Welsh - but half my family do), a drive to assert that identity and push back against repression of all sorts defines small nation nationalism for me. It is resistance. Big nation nationalism is quite different. It can have some benign features and also be about maintenance of cultures, but it is often aggressive, imperialist and oppressive. There is a world of difference between Welsh, Basque or Palestinian nationalism on one hand and English, Russian or American nationalism on the other.

There's none so patriotic as someone who has always lived away from their perceived roots :-)

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Re: Welsh people culturally

There's none so patriotic as someone who has always lived away from their perceived roots :-)

Liverpudlians

The Irish

[jon1959]

Re: Welsh people culturally

There's none so patriotic as someone who has always lived away from their perceived roots :-)

I hope you're not taking the piss out of my daffodil hat?

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Re: Welsh people culturally

I hope you're not taking the piss out of my daffodil hat?

If you have got one of those please keep it in a box under the stairs

[jon1959]

Re: Welsh people culturally

If you have got one of those please keep it in a box under the stairs

I have just checked and am happy to report I do not own a daffodil hat, have never owned (or worn) a daffodil hat, and think that the people who wear them at the big rugby 'events' look proper stupid.

I do though have a fine collection of Wales football bucket hats!

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Re: Welsh people culturally

I hope you're not taking the piss out of my daffodil hat?

Surely not. I'm sure that you are as genuine as all those who take part in New York's St Patrick Day's Parade :-)

By the way, regarding the subject of perceived identity, I remember reading in the German magazine 'Stern' about a chap who was born illegitimate and whose mother was made pregnant around the end of World War II.

She lived in what was to become the GDR and informed her son that she was taken advantage of by an American soldier, who had duly disappeared after a quick pecadillo. Growing up in East Germany the son felt different to his peers regarding his status but came to take an interest in his American roots. He couldn't identify his father but he started collecting trinkets in the way of cap badges and other paraphernalia. When he became an adult he even got hold of an old American car and embraced his 'otherness' as it were.

That was until his mother was on her death bed and when she advised him that she had been raped by a Russian soldier but felt that it wouldn't be helpful in the circumstances to relate that to the communist authorities.

P.S. Should we really be proud of our roots when we had no say in what happened in history? And, equally, should young Germans, for example, have any shame regarding the actions of their forefathers as it's the other half of the same coin.......

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Re: Welsh people culturally

I have just checked and am happy to report I do not own a daffodil hat, have never owned (or worn) a daffodil hat, and think that the people who wear them at the big rugby 'events' look proper stupid.

I do though have a fine collection of Wales football bucket hats!

Your criticism of people who live in Wales and attend rugby matches in such apparell has been noted. You are now on the hitlist of the Tafia.:wales:

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Re: Welsh people culturally

I have just checked and am happy to report I do not own a daffodil hat, have never owned (or worn) a daffodil hat, and think that the people who wear them at the big rugby 'events' look proper stupid.

I do though have a fine collection of Wales football bucket hats!

Bucket hats are great

I know a woman who is a raving tory , born in Radyr , wears one of those stupid daffodil hats twice a year and also a " valley girl " t shirt

When Thatcher shut the pits I bet she was clapping

Patriotism eh

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Re: Welsh people culturally

Your criticism of people who live in Wales and attend rugby matches in such apparell has been noted. You are now on the hitlist of the Tafia.:wales:

They can wear what they want but they look utterly stupid

Red and white hats and scarves are fine

It's the part time fake , pick what I want out of being Welsh that I find pathetic

It's no good singing the Welsh national anthem or y hyd and it's superb lyrics about resistance if you vote conservative .....who have trampled all over Wales and we're totally opposed to a Welsh government and instead of getting behind ALL Welsh sport ......drone on and on about Welsh rugby yet shun the local Welsh football sides

Once you do that ones claims to being patriotic or culturally Welsh are null and void

[jon1959]

Re: Welsh people culturally

There's none so patriotic as someone who has always lived away from their perceived roots :-)

Surely not. I'm sure that you are as genuine as all those who take part in New York's St Patrick Day's Parade :-)

P.S. Should we really be proud of our roots when we had no say in what happened in history? And, equally, should young Germans, for example, have any shame regarding the actions of their forefathers as it's the other half of the same coin.......

This might be an interesting discussion if it stays on the subject that Wozza began.

I have never described myself as patriotic. That to me implies 'false pride' and 'my country right or wrong'. Samuel Johnson's line 'patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel' is still true today - although he used that as a put down of Pitt's misuse of 'patriotism' for political purposes.

A sense of identity or of roots does not require pride or patriotism. As I said above I feel both pride and shame at different parts of Welsh history - but mainly connection. Whether we had a say or not in what made our nation seems to be missing the point. Identity is not all about personal achievement - it is a messy and often irrational and confused set of emotional ties. I don't see the point in over-analysing that.

Also I'm not convinced that New York Irish and Sheffield Welsh have the same experience. One is about people who have mainly never set foot in Ireland, distance, disconnect, 'Old Country' tales, plastic shamrocks, franchise Guinness and a background of Tammany Hall and the NYPD (similar in Boston). The other is about a short drive to the border, watching my team at away grounds close to my home and walking the streets of Cardiff up to a dozen times a year!

And our bucket hats are better!

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Re: Welsh people culturally

This might be an interesting discussion if it stays on the subject that Wozza began.

I have never described myself as patriotic. That to me implies 'false pride' and 'my country right or wrong'. Samuel Johnson's line 'patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel' is still true today - although he used that as a put down of Pitt's misuse of 'patriotism' for political purposes.

A sense of identity or of roots does not require pride or patriotism. As I said above I feel both pride and shame at different parts of Welsh history - but mainly connection. Whether we had a say or not in what made our nation seems to be missing the point. Identity is not all about personal achievement - it is a messy and often irrational and confused set of emotional ties. I don't see the point in over-analysing that.

Also I'm not convinced that New York Irish and Sheffield Welsh have the same experience. One is about people who have mainly never set foot in Ireland, distance, disconnect, 'Old Country' tales, plastic shamrocks, franchise Guinness and a background of Tammany Hall and the NYPD (similar in Boston). The other is about a short drive to the border, watching my team at away grounds close to my home and walking the streets of Cardiff up to a dozen times a year!

And our bucket hats are better!

By the way, I have a friend whose first language is Welsh, she teaches Ethnography in a Welsh university and wears a daffodil hat to rugby games. She would be described as rather faux Welsh by a certain individual* on here without knowing her background.

*Not you, of course!

By the way, I think you have no equal on here regarding your contributions and knowledge!

[JamesWales]

Re: Welsh people culturally

This might be an interesting discussion if it stays on the subject that Wozza began.

I have never described myself as patriotic. That to me implies 'false pride' and 'my country right or wrong'. Samuel Johnson's line 'patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel' is still true today - although he used that as a put down of Pitt's misuse of 'patriotism' for political purposes.

A sense of identity or of roots does not require pride or patriotism. As I said above I feel both pride and shame at different parts of Welsh history - but mainly connection. Whether we had a say or not in what made our nation seems to be missing the point. Identity is not all about personal achievement - it is a messy and often irrational and confused set of emotional ties. I don't see the point in over-analysing that.

Also I'm not convinced that New York Irish and Sheffield Welsh have the same experience. One is about people who have mainly never set foot in Ireland, distance, disconnect, 'Old Country' tales, plastic shamrocks, franchise Guinness and a background of Tammany Hall and the NYPD (similar in Boston). The other is about a short drive to the border, watching my team at away grounds close to my home and walking the streets of Cardiff up to a dozen times a year!

And our bucket hats are better!

Agree with a lot of this but why do you interpret it as a "false pride" ?

Patriotism is just the word for love of ones country, no? I view it as such, in much the same way as one can love their family or city or community etc. it doesn't mean refusing to accept their many flaws.

I'm not sure if I'm patriotic. I want the best for my country but feel quite sad for it too and feel we have less and less holding us all together. I actually feel quite lost identity wise tbh. Even Cardiff City is lessened since the rebrand.

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Re: Welsh people culturally

By the way, I have a friend whose first language is Welsh, she teaches Ethnography in a Welsh university and wears a daffodil hat to rugby games. She would be described as rather faux Welsh by a certain individual* on here without knowing her background.

*Not you, of course!

By the way, I think you have no equal on here regarding your contributions and knowledge!

Well that would be of course bollocks

If a person has Welsh as a first language, teaches ethnography at a Welsh university and wears a Welsh rugby daffodil or whatever then I would prefer she threw the daft hat away but she's clearly not a faux Taffy is she ?

But if she spent every Saturday during the football season ignoring Welsh teams to kiss the arse of English sides she would be exactly the sort of running with the horse and hounds type that deserves ridicule

It's really not difficult to rationalise even for a person who has an air of academic superiority like yourself

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Re: Welsh people culturally

Agree with a lot of this but why do you interpret it as a "false pride" ?

Patriotism is just the word for love of ones country, no? I view it as such, in much the same way as one can love their family or city or community etc. it doesn't mean refusing to accept their many flaws.

I'm not sure if I'm patriotic. I want the best for my country but feel quite sad for it too and feel we have less and less holding us all together. I actually feel quite lost identity wise tbh. Even Cardiff City is lessened since the rebrand.

I find it very difficult to have any sort of connection with a Welsh football fan at CCS wearing a Welsh bucket hat who then spends the rest of the week on a man united or Liverpool fc forum and his Facebook page is full of mo salah nonsense

And he's born and bred in Canton

It's this sort of cobblers that brings patriotism down to its knees

Wales is full of these types