HE HELD THE FIRST EISTEDDFOD IN 1176. TODAY, HE SAYS GOODBYE TO THE 850TH.
Today, a five-metre giant puppet of Rhys ap Gruffudd, the Lord Rhys, believed to have held the first ever recorded Eisteddfod at his castle in Cardigan in 1176, parades across the Eisteddfod Maes in Llantwd, Pembrokeshire, to The National Lottery stand.
It is his farewell appearance at Eisteddfod y Garreg Las, and the end of a summer
spent travelling the landscape he once governed. It marks over thirty years of
National Lottery investment in Welsh culture, language and heritage, part of more
than £2.6 billion invested by National Lottery players in Wales since 1994.
On Christmas Day 1176, Lord Rhys ap Gruffudd summoned the poets and musicians of Wales and beyond to a gathering at his castle in Cardigan. A year's notice was given.
Competitors arrived from across Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland. It is the first
recorded event of its kind, and the earliest forerunner of what became the National
Eisteddfod of Wales.
Eight hundred and fifty years later, that tradition is still very much alive. It is an annual festival, held each year in a different corner of Wales, that today attracts up to 170,000 people and is conducted entirely in Welsh. It is one of Europe’s great cultural festivals.
The puppet was built by Small World Theatre 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 himself once governed. Starting at his grave at St Davids Cathedral in June, it travelled through Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, drawing thousands of people onto the streets of west Wales before a homecoming at Cardigan Castle.
Today it makes its final appearance, parading across the Maes to The National Lottery stand before leaving Eisteddfod y Garreg Las for the last time.
The question it leaves behind is a simple one: what would he make of it all? A gathering in a castle in 1176, to an annual festival drawing up to 170,000 people, conducted entirely in the language he spoke, 850 years on. Andrew White, Chair of the Wales National Lottery Forum, has an answer.
The National Lottery has existed since 1994, not 850 years. But in the thirty years and more since, National Lottery players have been part of almost every layer of the story the Eisteddfod tells.
● The castle where it began: The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The National
Lottery Community Fund together invested over £7.25 million in restoring Cardigan Castle, the physical birthplace of the Eisteddfod tradition.
● The language it is conducted in: National Lottery players have invested over £36
million in organisations promoting and supporting the Welsh language, from Welsh
medium nurseries in every local authority in Wales to the Mentrau Iaith network and the Urdd residential centres where young people live Welsh together.
● The Eisteddfod itself: The National Eisteddfod has received over £1.8 million
across 43 National Lottery grants, funded by Arts Council of Wales, the Heritage
Fund and the Community Fund, supporting the artistic programme, heritage
conservation, accessibility and community participation year after year.
Across Wales as a whole, since 1994, National Lottery players have invested over £2.6 billion across more than 77,600 grants in sport, arts, heritage and community projects.
In west Wales alone, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, the landscape Lord Rhys governed and through which the puppet has just travelled, that investment is over £372 million across more than 12,000 grants.
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.”
Betsan Moses, Chief Executive of the National Eisteddfod, said:
“Rhys ap Gruffudd’s gathering in 1176 is where the Eisteddfod began, and we wanted to mark 850 years of it properly. Prosiect 1176 has done that. Thousands of people came out to meet Lord Rhys as he made his way through Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, and today he arrives at The National Lottery stand on the Maes.