I spent some time in Wales this past fall. My impression was that as we got further west and north (especially into Gwynedd) nationalistic sentiment increased, or at the very least was on more open display. This included more frequent sightings of the flag of Owain Glyndwr.
I have read a little about Welsh nationalism, but not a lot, and know only some basics about the desire for self-determination and some grievances against the English. I talked a little to people in Wales, but not in any depth.
I am wondering how is Welsh nationalism is viewed outside Wales. And I suppose also inside Wales.
Is it controversial/problematic similar to the way Sinn Fein is controversial outside (and probably inside) Ireland?
Is flag of Owain Glyndwr recognized outside Wales and if so, what kind of connotations does it carry?
Never heard of that flag that I can recall. Don’t have any real impression of Welsh nationalism at all, although I’ve heard some vague things about it, mostly in conjunctions with Scottish independence and Brexit.
I don’t recognize that flag at all, and I suspect that most Americans (except maybe those of Welsh descent) wouldn’t, either. For that matter, it wouldn’t surprise me if most Americans wouldn’t recognize the Welsh flag, either.
I also don’t think that most Americans would know much about Welsh nationalism or the Welsh self-determination movement, but that’s probably largely a factor of many Americans not having a lot of knowledge (or curiosity) about internal politics in other countries.
I listen to the BBC a fair amount, and watch BBC World News, and even so, I don’t recall hearing/seeing much of anything about Welsh nationalism there. I’m far more familiar with the Scottish movement (at least in part because they’ve had an actual referendum on the topic).
I’m aware of Welsh nationalism solely due to a recent episode of “The Crown”. I’m guessing that a majority of Americans who do know about it are in the same boat.
ETA: No idea on the Owain Glyndwr flag, though I was aware of the green & white flag with a red dragon on it.
I’ve only ever heard of Welsh nationalism in the context of Plaid Cymru and how they fit into the balance of power in Parliament. Those Americans who’ve even heard of Sinn Fein probably have a negative association due to the party’s connections to the Provisional IRA. The SNP is more familiar in this country due to the Scottish independence referendum, and Nicola Sturgeon’s role in trying to stop Brexit.
And, by “more familiar,” we’re likely talking about “familiar to maybe 5-10% of Americans, as opposed to the less than 1% of Americans who know anything about Wales.”
I lived in the UK for a number of years, got a degree up in Scotland, flat-shared with a future SNP-staffer who was TOTALLY into ‘reasons why English domination sucks’, my parents are still English-based and my brother used to live in Cardiff … and I barely even know that Welsh Nationalism is a thing. So that gives you some idea! My impression is that in the nationalistic fervour stakes, among the ‘junior partners’ to the Union, the ordering is Northern Ireland top, then Scotland, then a biiiig gap, then Wales.
That may be unfair to Welsh Nationalists. They have managed to keep their national language alive, probably more than any other not-originally-English-speaking part of the Union. But there’s no way Welsh Nationalists would ever be remotely as controversial as Sinn Fein, who are associated with people who used to actually blow shit up (and people) on a regular basis.
My main association with the flag of Owain Glyndwr comes from the time when my former housemate went off with some mates and chained themselves to the railings around the Stone of Scone to protest the “chaining of Scotland to the English Government”. They unfurled a Lion Rampant of Scotland as part of the whole thing, and guess which flag a bemused tour guide thought it was?
Considering that the Lion Rampant looks like thisand the flag of Owain Glyndwr looks like this… an understandable mistake!
Visiting Wales last August, I picked up a book entitled “Neighbours from Hell: English Attitudes toward the Welsh” by Mike Parker.
There’s nothing about the flag per se, but it does touch on “how Welsh nationalism is viewed” in England.
Parker, who himself is English, chronicles a litany of centuries of English contempt for and condescension to the Welsh.
To wit: in England a stereotype was long fostered that the Welsh were cunning, overemotional, lazy, and generally inferior. Even the private use of the Welsh language was suppressed on the grounds that it was incomprehensible and anti-modern. And some English who moved to Wales saw themselves as being on a civilizing mission.
Basically, Welsh interest in strengthening Welsh language use was condemned by some in England as “extremist” and akin to IRA terrorism [!] One of the tabloids called the annual Welsh cultural event, the Eisteddfod, a “Festival of Fear and Hatred” and warned it would spur violence.
The book is polemical but very well documented, and shockingly, several examples of blatant anti-Welsh prejudice are from the last couple of decades.
My three brothers live in Cardiff, and they’ve only reported Welsh ‘nationalism’ based on rugby tournaments. Though, despite being the capital of Wales, Cardiff is no doubt less nationalist, more cosmopolitan than the West and North of the country, as the OP suggests. Also, I get the impression that Welsh nationalists aren’t generally looking for separation from the rest of the UK, just more powers devolved from Westminster, which is inherrently less extreme.
Quite. And Scottish news probably catches the eye of Scottish-Americans interested in the “old country”, who outnumber similarly minded Welsh-Americans.
I would guess not one in a thousand people in the English-speaking world outside Wales and parts of the UK knows who Owain Glyndwr was, or what his flag looks like.
The fact Welsh nationalism even exists isn’t something most people know.
I thought the Tudor dynasty was originally from Wales. They ruled England for a pretty long time. How is this stereotype of the Welsh reconciled with that? Or is it a matter of “the Welsh schemed their way into controlling the country, and produced a bunch of overemotional, lazy, inferior kings and queens who did a shitty job of running the country?”
I’m not sure one in 1000 people in England know who Owain Glyndwr is.
I wouldn’t recognise the flag of Owain Glyndwr. I’m English but I’ve spent a lot of time in Wales. I have seen the flag, now that I’m reminded of it, once or twice, during football matches, but I would never be able to look at it and say yeah, that’s the flag of Owain Glyndwr. Usually they just fly the Welsh flag.
Welsh nationalism is more about keeping the Welsh language alive than anything else, and even in areas like Chester where people don’t get jobs due to not speaking Welsh, people seem to accept the efforts to keep Welsh alive (and they’re successful efforts, too). There wasn’t any resistance in the rest of the UK to the Welsh National Assembly, and it seems to function pretty well, but it’s much too small a country to function as an independent entity - Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party that does well in elections, doesn’t even advocate for that.
It’d be really surprising if people outside the UK recognised a flag that is barely known in the UK, looks a lot like a different flag, and isn’t usually used because there’s another cooler one with a dragon on it.
I didn’t know about the flag, or Welsh nationalism in general, but I know of Owain Glyndwr in the form of “Owen Glendower”, the character in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1. Shakespeare portrays him as a boastful but ultimately not very effective rebel who has magical powers (or at least thinks he does).
I suspect that to the extent that most people outside Wales know about Glyndwr, it’s through Shakespeare. I’ve seen at least one Welsh writer call Shakespeare’s portrayal racist and bigoted, so perhaps it’s debatable whether reading Henry IV really constitutes “knowing” him.
Similarly, I suspect most people, or at least those who don’t think Shakespeare made him up from whole cloth, think that MacBeth really did murder King Duncan in his sleep, to usurp his throne. In reality, Mac Bethad mac Findláich killed King Donnchad mac Crinian in battle, after Donnchad invaded his lands with a large army, presumably to punish him.
