Wales

Wales. Ireland and Wales are frequently bracketed together as ‘Celtic’ countries, largely on the basis of language. The Irish and Welsh languages do indeed share similarities of structure, though this fact is outweighed by the inability of the speakers of the one to comprehend the other. The Irish are ‘Q’ Celts (thus ceann is the word for ‘head’), whereas the Welsh are ‘P’ Celts (their word for ‘head’ is pen). These linguistic divisions, however, did not prevent political and cultural ties being forged between south‐eastern Ireland and south Wales during the early Christian centuries. Clear evidence of Irish links is provided by 40 ogam stones, most of them in south Wales, testifying to the memory of Irish rulers in that area (Brycheiniog or Brecon). St David, whose main associations were also with south Wales, was mentioned regularly in Irish saints' Lives. There was an Irish translation of the Historia Brittonum. Christianity itself may also have reached Ireland from Wales. It was not until the Viking centuries (800–1000) that the links between the Christian communities across the Irish Sea were seriously weakened and the Welsh scribes learned to differentiate between the Viking ‘Gentiles’ of Dublin (Gynhon Dulyn) and the Irish (Gwyddl).

During the early Christian period, monasticism in Wales and Ireland seems to have been organized on similar ‘Celtic’ lines, with bishops playing a minor role. In modern times, however, Irish and Welsh have been divided by religion. Outside Ulster the religious identity of the majority of the Irish population is Catholic. In contrast Welsh identity since the late 18th century has been largely shaped by Calvinism. In Wales as in Scotland (another ‘Celtic’ country) Irish immigrants after the Great Famine were made to feel unwelcome. The Monmouth militia was termed ‘the Pope's Own’ because of the large number of ‘papists’ in its ranks. In Wales, as in Ulster, many opposed the Irish home rule bill of 1886 on the grounds that home rule meant Rome rule. The Irish were also seen as a threat to the survival of the Welsh language, since they turned more to English than Welsh as a means of communication. A Catholic Irishman, though a Celt, might feel as unwelcome in Celtic Wales as in Saxon England.

In broad political and social terms, however, the histories of Wales and Ireland offer many parallels. In particular both countries have experienced colonization at the hand of a more populous and powerful neighbour. By the 7th century the Britons had been driven west of the Severn. Offa's Dyke became the de facto border, though the Welsh, who still saw themselves as ‘Britons’, dreamed of driving the Saxons east, out of their homeland. (Welsh was in fact the Saxon word for the Britons. The Welsh themselves used Cymry, ‘fellow countrymen’, cognate with ‘Cumbria’ and related to ‘co’ as in co‐operative.) A second wave of colonization from the east took place after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and it is this period which offers the closest parallels with Ireland after the Anglo‐Norman invasion of 1169. As in Ireland, English and Flemish settlers colonized the most fertile areas. As in Ireland, towns became English‐speaking settlements from which the natives were excluded. And as in Ireland, a Celtic resurgence took place in Wales following upon the demographic crises of the mid‐14th century. There was also a strong Anglo‐Norman military presence in both countries, symbolized by the stone castles and earthwork mottes of the marcher lordships. In fact the Anglo‐Norman lords who had successfully established themselves in Wales in the century after 1066 moved to Ireland as their ‘next assignment’. The Fitzgeralds, who took their name from Gerald of Pembroke, were the most successful of these conquistadors, occupying the rich lands of Leinster and the Golden Vale of Limerick. Like their equivalents in Wales these marcher lords enjoyed a great deal of power at the local level.

After the extension of royal power in England from the 1530s onwards, the incorporation of both Wales and Ireland into a wider monarchical structure became possible. English common law, English‐style county administration, and a state church on English lines were introduced into both Wales and Ireland. In Wales the changes met with some resistance, but this was soon overcome. In Ireland there was little resistance at first, but religion proved to be a stumbling block. In a period of prolonged Anglo‐Spanish rivalry the strategic significance of Ireland for the Tudors was immense and Ireland became the target for a new wave of colonization. Such figures as Sir Henry Sidney, Sir John Perrott, and Sir John Davies, all of Welsh background, played key roles in the Elizabethan conquest and the accompanying plantations, as did Welsh settlers of more humble origins. The work of Gerald of Wales, who had commented on Ireland and Wales in the 12th century, was referred to 500 years later by Davies in his True Causes.

The Welsh model of Anglicization was indeed seen as appropriate for Ireland, but whereas Wales was, on the whole, incorporated peaceably into a closer union with England, Anglo‐Irish relations remained troubled during the 17th century and erupted once again during the 1790s. There was no equivalent in Wales of the insurrection of 1798.

During the 19th century, the economies of Wales and Ireland began to diverge. Large‐scale industrialization came to south Wales (and parts of the north) in the form of coal and slate mining and iron working. This was in marked contrast to Ireland, where the Lagan valley in the north‐east was the only area to be industrialized. It was industrialization which enabled Wales to avoid the massive depopulation and large‐scale emigration which most of Ireland experienced after the Famine. In rural Wales, however, there were obvious parallels with rural Ireland, in particular the religious tensions existing between Anglican landlords and nonconformist tenants. In the 1859 Merioneth election tenants at Bala who had opposed the wishes of their landlord were evicted. The result was to create an enduring bitterness which led eventually to the decline of the Anglo‐Welsh ascendancy. The rise of the ‘Young Wales’ nationalist party (Cymru Fydd) in the 1880s owed a great deal to the model provided by Parnell's Nationalist Party. Indeed Tom Ellis, leader of Cymru Fydd, was known as the ‘Parnell of Wales’. Liberalism, however, linked as it was to nonconformity, proved to be more powerful than nationalism in Wales. Welsh nationalism took a cultural form in the shape of enthusiasm for the Welsh language and attendance at festivals of Welsh culture (eisteddfodau). Here parallels with the Gaelic League in Ireland suggest themselves.

During the 20th century Wales and Ireland took divergent paths. Ireland was partitioned into two states, one of which became the Republic of Ireland. In Wales, political nationalism remained very much a minority movement and south Wales, at the western end of the M4 corridor, became closely tied economically with southern England. In the choice between union and independence, Wales seems to have decided that its best interests lay with the Union, provided that its own cultural identity could be maintained.

Bibliography

Davis, R. R. , Domination and Conquest: The Experience of Ireland, Scotland and Wales 1100–1300 (1990)
Evans, D. Simon , The Welsh and the Irish before the Normans: Contact or Impact?, Proceedings of the British Academy, 75 (1989)
Morgan, K. O. , Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880–1980 (1981)

Hugh Kearney