Welsh Exile Ceremony to End
By EIFION WILLIAMS
VANCOUVER - When Vancouver Welsh Society member John Pritchard led a coterie of Welsh exiles on to the stage of the National Eisteddfod of Wales last summer little did he realize that the ceremony would be the last in the Eisteddfod’s history.
The National Eisteddfod Council has decided to end the ceremony, called Wales and the World (Cymru A’r Byd), maintaining that it is no longer relevant because it is now easier for people to travel throughout the year.
Every year the Eisteddfod welcomed Welsh exiles from every corner of the world, recognizing their adopted countries in a ceremony on the main stage, led by their chosen leader.
Next to the ceremonies of Chairing and Crowning of the Bards, the welcoming ceremony was the most popular event during Eisteddfod week and was regularly televised by BBC Wales.
Dafydd Whittal, chairman of the Eisteddfod Council said, “ Over the years we have seen a significant demographic change, with fewer and fewer overseas Welsh people coming specifically to attend the Eisteddfod.”
Whittal went on to say that the Eisteddfod Council will continue to discuss with exile organizations the best ways to celebrate their relationship with Wales and to honour their contributions to the Eisteddfod.
Edward Morris Jones, past chair of Wales and the World, said the decision did not come as a shock. Many people had questioned the necessity for such a ceremony and that every event, including the Eisteddfod, must change over the years. He went on to say that the most important thing was to maintain the National Eisteddfod as an annual opportunity for the Welsh outside Wales to connect with the homeland.
“We will continue to look for ways to celebrate,” said Morris Jones, “while at the same time moving on with the Eisteddfod and the world.”
Meanwhile, John Pritchard jokes that his own prominent participation in the ceremony last year might have proved fatal for the event. Yet he can be proud of the fact that he presided over a ceremony that the people of Wales and many thousands of Welsh exiles will dearly miss.
The Eisteddfod Council might yet live to regret abolishing a ceremony in which feelings of world brotherhood, nostalgia, patriotism and that intangible feeling of hiraeth peculiar to Welsh people everywhere, flourished unabashedly for one afternoon during Eisteddfod week. No other event in the Eisteddfod does that.
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