HE HELD THE FIRST EISTEDDFOD IN 1176. TODAY, HE SAID GOODBYE TO THE 850TH.
And as Lord Rhys left the Eisteddfod Maes for the last time, the Cardigan company that built him was handed nearly £100,000 for its work with young people.
A five-metre giant puppet of Rhys ap Gruffudd, the lord believed to have held the first ever recorded Eisteddfod at his castle in Cardigan in 1176, took its final walk across the Eisteddfod Maes in Llantwd, Pembrokeshire, this morning.
Later the same morning, at a National Lottery stakeholder event on the same stand, Small World Theatre was presented with £99,990 of new National Lottery funding by the Cabinet Minister for Culture and Sport, Heledd Fychan MS. The presentation was a surprise.
The award comes from The National Lottery Community Fund’s People and Places programme for Amethyst, a two-year project supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 11 to 18 through creative work. It continues work already trialled at the company’s theatre in Cardigan and extends it into Pembrokeshire.
The company knew the award had been made, but not that it would be marked on the Maes, on the day its own puppet took its final walk. Deri Morgan, Arts, Health and Youth Programmes Manager, and Catrin Miles, Chair of Small World Theatre, received the cheque from Heledd Fychan MS, Trefnydd, Chief Whip and Cabinet Minister for Culture and Sport.
Deri Morgan, Arts, Health and Youth Programmes Manager at Small World Theatre, said:
"We were surprised and delighted. We really weren’t expecting it, and being handed the cheque by the Culture Minister made it more of a surprise still. The funding lets us carry on the work we are doing and reach more young people in more places. Part of it goes towards a new project in further south Pembrokeshire, and it lets us pilot work in junior schools around the move up to secondary school and peer support.”
Catrin Miles, Chair of Small World Theatre, said:
“It was the cherry on the cake. So much of the attention has been on Yr Arglwydd Rhys, and rightly so, but this shows there is another side to Small World Theatre. There are projects at grassroots level helping children and young people face the difficulties they meet. Amethyst has a track record, and this funding develops it, geographically and in the issues it can reach. It is a wonderful example of money being put to good use at grassroots level.”
John Rose, Director of The National Lottery Community Fund in Wales, said:
“Small World Theatre has spent years showing what creativity can do for young people’s wellbeing, and Amethyst is that work at its best. This funding means it carries on, and reaches further, from their theatre in Cardigan out into Pembrokeshire. There was something fitting about handing the cheque over here on the Maes, on the day the puppet they built takes its final walk. National Lottery players made both of those things possible, and I hope every one of them takes real pride in that.”
Andrew White, Chair of the Wales National Lottery Forum and Director of The National Lottery Heritage Fund in Wales, said:
“Rhys ap Gruffudd held a gathering at his castle in Cardigan in 1176. He could not have known what it would become, a festival of hundreds of thousands, conducted in the language he spoke, held annually across the length of Wales, 850 years on. National Lottery players have been part of keeping that tradition alive for over thirty of those years: restoring his castle, funding the language, supporting the Eisteddfod year after year. Standing here today, watching this extraordinary puppet arrive at The National Lottery stand, I suspect he would be proud.”
850 years, and a summer on the road
On Christmas Day 1176, Lord Rhys ap Gruffudd summoned the poets and musicians of Wales and beyond to his castle in Cardigan. A year's notice was given. Competitors came from across Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland. It is the first recorded event of its kind, and the earliest forerunner of the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Eight hundred and fifty years later, the festival draws up to 170,000 people and is conducted entirely in Welsh.
To mark the anniversary, Small World Theatre built the Lord Rhys puppet in Cardigan, the town where that first gathering was held, made possible by a grant of £238,100 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol for Prosiect 1176. It has spent the summer travelling the landscape Rhys once governed. Starting at his grave at St Davids Cathedral in June, it moved through Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, drawing thousands onto the streets of west Wales before a homecoming at Cardigan Castle. Today was the end of the road.
Photo credit National Lottery