SkepticalSentimental

teashoesandhair:

lovewales:

_{Cofiwch Dryweryn / Remember Tryweryn  |  by Nic Dafis}

OK so today is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the reservoir in the Tryweryn valley, and so here is a quick impromptu history lesson, because this is a thing and not many people know about the thing.

• Capel Celyn was a village in the Tryweryn valley of Wales. I’ll shove a photo at the end of this post, because I can’t shove a photo here due to Tumblr being a pile of poo. The most well recognised image of Tryweryn now is probably the photo above, which is a piece of graffiti situated in Llanrhystud. It means ‘remember Tryweryn’ and it has become a symbol of Welsh nationalism and independence.
• In 1956, a private bill, sponsored by Liverpool City Council, was brought before Parliament which would enable the purchase of inhabited land within Wales in order to build a reservoir which would provide water for the English city of Liverpool. The plans meant that the village would have to be flooded, which, as you can probably imagine, was not really conducive to continuing village life for the inhabitants. Now, the usual reaction of most people today - you’d hope - would be “oh, well, oops. I guess we could always put our reservoir somewhere else, where there aren’t actual human people and an actual village with an actual school and church and homes.”
• However, Welsh representation in British politics was basically non-existent in 1956. Wales’ governance had been merged with England after the Acts of Union way back in 1542. From 1746 up until 1967, there was a legal act that created a parliamentary definition of ‘England’ as including Wales as well (the Wales and Berwick Act). Wales didn’t have a unified government position (just separate positions, such as the Welsh Department of the Board of Education and other Welsh components of existing departments) until 1965, with the creation of the Welsh Office; a department within Parliament that dealt with issues of Welsh governance. There wasn’t a separate governing body for Wales until 1998, when a referendum finally voted for the creation of the Welsh Assembly, which is the governing body of Wales today. So, as you can probably imagine, government resistance to the Capel Celyn plans back in 1956 was minimal at best, and the plans went ahead, despite 35 of Wales’ 36 MPs voting against the bill.
• Capel Celyn was flooded in 1965, displacing 48 out of 67 households, and submerging 12 residential homes, as well as several public buildings including a school, a chapel and a cemetery.
• The plans increased support for Welsh devolution within Wales and also led to nationalist groups taking more militant action. The site was bombed in 1963 by Welsh nationalists, and in 1962, two party members of Plaid Cymru - the Welsh independence political party - sabotaged the site’s power supply. Despite the resistance, the reservoir was opened on 21st October 1965.
• Liverpool Council officially apologised for flooding the village in 2005, which was a lovely gesture. Really.

(Photos from here and here)

Edit: there are more photos here.

(via english-history-trip)

floweryshell:

3x03 || 5x01

whysoserious:

What do I have to do to make people fucking listen to me?

peakyblinded:

Answer me this…