21st October marks the anniversary of the opening of the controversial resevoir in the Tryweryn valley near Bala, to supply drinking water to the residents of the city of Liverpool, the day still marks a grave injustice and raw wound.
Tryweryn was an idyllic village set deep in the Welsh valleys where the chapel and post office were the epicentre of community life. In all 800 acres of land was drowned, as well as the school, the post office, the chapel and the cemetery, in order to create the reservoir. Twelve complete farms and land belonging to four other farms were drowned.
Shortly after the flooding a piece of graffiti appeared on a piece of wall, just outside the village of Llanrhysted, on the way to Aberystwyth. The graffiti read "Cofiwch Drwyweryn " "Remember Tryweryn" it is still to be seen, many years later.
The wall itself was never intended to be more than a bold gesture, but over time it grew into a powerful cultural landmark. Generations of travellers on the road to Aberystwyth have seen it as a reminder of lost communities and as a symbol of resistance.
Despite being vandalised, repainted, and even partly demolished on several occasions, it has always been quickly restored by local people determined to preserve its message. In recent years, its influence has spread well beyond its original location.
Today, the wall near Aberystwyth is both a physical landmark and a rallying point in the story of Wales’s fight to protect its language, land, and communites. The message of 'Cofiwch Dryweryn' is such an important one to Welsh people, and it should never be forgotten, a poignant symbol of when overwhelming voices were ignored by Westminster.
The battle began in 1955 when the City of Liverpool were seeking a new water supply. In the summer of that year Liverpool's Water Committee announced its intention to drown the valley of Dolaneg, where the shrine of Ann Griffiths, the Welsh saint and hymn writer, stands.
This of course, provoked uproar. Magnaminously Liverpool bowed to Welsh demands and said they would flood the Tryweryn valley instead. This proved to be a carefully planned scheme to hoodwink the Welsh into thinking they were dictating where a resevoir could be built.
In 1956, a private members bill was put before parliament seeking to create this folly. The bill was bought forth by Liverpool City Council, which allowed them to by-pass the usual criteria for planning permission to the relevant landowners in the area. It would involve disrupting railway lines and road links, and at the heart of it, the flooding of the village of Capel Celyn.
This one of the last bastions of Welsh speaking settlements, which had its own school, the site of Wales first Sunday school post office, a chapel, cemetery and a number of farms and homesteads, it was a community in every sense of the word.
Feelings were naturally instantly aroused to fever pitch as the notion of the English drowning out the Welsh, made the symbolism of the creation of the resevoir even more potent. But to members of Liverpool council, the farms that they were drowning were no more than convenient stretches of land along a remote valley floor that could be put to a more convenient and productive use to supply its own citizens with water, but to many was just an arrogant misuse of power, a flooding used primarily as a way of boosting profits.
Capel Celyn
MPs were powerless to stop the development because the government was determined to push the Bill through Parliament. It would be fiercely opposed, such was the passion aroused.
The political parties in Wales were united in their opposition to the scheme because it was considered an affront to Wales that valuable resources were being taken away from the country. There was a feeling of sadness because a community was being shattered and families who had lived in the area for generations were forced to leave their homes.
Locals were determined to oppose the scheme to the bitter end and demonstrations, petitions and marches were organised. The Tryweryn Defence Committee was formed in 1956 and included some of Wales’ most prominent and revered personalities, including Ifan ab Owen Edwards and Megan Lloyd George,.
Although opposition to the scheme did not come only from Welsh nationalists, the Tryweryn cause inspired Plaid Cymru, and provided an impetus to its campaigns. The party won its first elected political representation soon after.
In September 1956 Plaid Cymru held a Save Tryweryn Rally, leading a procession of protesters through the centre of Bala. The following month the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Alderman J H Morgan, called a Save Tryweryn meeting in the city. Attended by 300 representatives from local government and trade unions and 10 MPs, the meeting decided to send a delegation to Liverpool to appeal for a change of heart.
In November 1956 a procession, led by Gwynfor Evans and including 70 villagers, was held in Liverpool to oppose the reservoir, but the Liverpool councillors voted to go ahead with the proposed scheme by 94 votes to one.
During the summer of 1957 Gwynfor Evans proposed Meirionnydd County Council could build a reservoir in Cwm Croes, where only one farm would be affected, and sell the water from the reservoir to Liverpool Corporation.
It would also see a number of individuals being compelled to take direct action against the plan, between 1962 and 1963 there were attempts to sabotage the building of the resevoir, in acts of desperation, since previous passive demonstrations had failed.
On three occasions between 1962 and 1963 there were attempts to sabotage the building of the reservoir. The first explosion, on February 10, led to Aberystwyth University student Emyr Llywelyn Jones, being sentenced to prison for 12 months for his part in the offence.
On the day of his sentence, two other members of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru ('movement for the defence of Wales'; MAC)Owain Williams and John Albert Jones, blew up a pylon at Gellilydan near Blaenau Ffestiniog. But by then work was already well underway and Llyn Celyn was officially opened on October 28, 1965.
At the opening ceremony, where the Lord Mayor of Liverpool was present, a protest was held, including the appearance in military uniforms of the Free Wales Army. The ceremony was stopped when protestors climbed over the dam.
MPs were powerless to stop the development because the government was determined to push the Bill through Parliament. The local authorities did not have a voice in the decision either and this caused great resentment.
It remains to this day, the greatest symbol of the struggle of the Welsh language, a way of life destroyed on the whims of Conservative Government without consultation by Welsh authorities, its people, or the support from Welsh M.Ps, who were to wage an 8 year battle against it. Opposition to the scheme received the backing of the vast majority of the Welsh people, with the backing of trade unionists, and cultural and religious groups.
Control over its own water became and has remained an inflammatory issue here in Wales. The political parties were to be united in their opposition to the scheme because it was considered such an affront to the people of Wales, because such valuable resources were being stolen away from the country. The agricultural value of the land was rich compared to some land that could have been considered. A feeling of great sadness because a community was being shattered and families who had lived in the area for generations were being forced to lose their homes.
When on Thursday, October 21st, 1965, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool came to open Tryweryn dam ( built at a cost of £20 million) where every house and tree had disappeared, he was to be met by a vast crowd of protesters, in 19 October 2005 Liverpool City Council finally issued an apology, but many thought it was just a worthless political gesture that had arrived far too late.
I hope that we have by now learnt the tragic lessons of Tryweryn and the reverberations that are still felt to this day. The place names like bells still ring out- Hafod Fadog, Y Ganedd Lyd, Cae Fado, Y Gelli, Pen Y Bryn Mawr, Gwerndelw, Tyncerrig, Maesydail.
These bells now ring underwater and are heard by no one. An evocative image, forever stitched in time, which remembers the bells of Cantre'r Gwaelod and the loss associated with inundation. It would also feed the flames of a resurgent nationalism, re-igniting the imagination, peoples identity and defence of the language? Y iath, and would pave the way for devolution, and the strengthening and protection of the Welsh Language alongside the growth of Cymdeithas Y Iaith /The Welsh Language Society. Some would argue though that the Welsh nation is still being fobbed off, since the assembly that has been granted to them, has no real political power.
There is now a memorial on the side of the lake and a memorial garden and the grave stones from Capel Cemetry have been moved here. At the end of the day it was not just a stretch of land that was flooded against the people of Wales's will, but a whole community of people, a culture and a language because of colonial arrogance and misuse of power. Tryweryn remains as a byword for shame and a grave injustice. Years later it would inspire the Manic Street Preachers to ask " Where are we going"?" in their song " Ready for Drowning, "
and the following much anthologised poem by R.S Thomas. A tragic story that we must continue to share.
The remnants of Capel Celyn still remain visible to visitors to the lake at certain times of the year, when water levels reduce. A powerful reminder of our history and our land, and how it has been exploited to serve the interests of others.
Cofiwch Dryweryn. Drowned against the wishes of all Welsh MPs, the water of this reservoir still supplies Liverpool with drinking water, with no benefit to Wales. A powerful reminder that a English government very rarely has Wales' best interests at heart.
R.S Thomas - Resevoirs
There are places in Wales I don't go:
Resevoirs that are the subconscious
Of a people, troubled far down
with gravestones, chapels, villages even:
The serenity of their expression
Revolts me, it is a pose
for strangers, a watercolour's appeal
To the mass, instead of the poem's
Harsher conditions. There are the hills
Too; gardens under the scum
Of the forests, and the smashed faces
Of the farms with the stone trickle
Of their tears down the hills' side.
Where can I go, then, from the smell
Of decay, from the putrefying of a dead
Nation? I have walked the shore
For an hour and seen the English
Scavenging among the remains
Of our culture, covering the sand
Like the tide and, with the roughness
Of the tide, elbowing our language
Into the grave that we have dug for it.
Huw Jones - Dwr ( inspired by Tryweryn) Capel Celyn - The drowning of a village
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