In March 1878, the  'Thomas' process, which enabled iron ore containing phosphorus to be used in steel making was developed at Blaenavon Ironworks by Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Gilchrist. 

Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, whose father was Welsh born, was an industrial chemist in London who developed a solution to the problem of phosphorus in iron ore, which resulted in the production of low grade steel. His cousin, Percy Gilchrist was a chemist at the Blaenavon ironworks, where they persuaded the manager, Edward Martin to help test the process.

The invention was a success and proved to be of world-wide importance.  It increased Blaenavon's production so much that the nearby Big Pit coal mine was sunk to service its needs.  The population of Blaenavon parish subsequently grew to 11,452 by 1891.  

Born this day,1884 in Talysarn, Gwynedd

R Williams Parry, who was one of Wales' greatest poets, renowned for his early romantic poetry.  He won the chair at the 1910 National Eisteddfod.  

The Flintshire Bridge was opened on 6th March 1998 to provide an alternative route into North Wales from North-West England.

It spans 200 metres across the River Dee Estuary and is more than 18m high to allow shipping to pass underneath. It is Britain's largest asymmetric cable-stayed bridge.   

Died on this day 1895

Isaac D. Seyburn, Welsh-born American who served as an officer in the United States Navy during the Civil War and was wounded in action during the 1861 Battle of port Royal, he later moved to Louisiana, where he operated a sugar plantation.   

Born this day 1928 in Bolton (the son of a Welsh railway guard)  

Glyn Owen, television and film actor, best known for his roles in the hospital drama Emergency Ward 10 and the BBC series Howards Way.  

Born this day, 1965 in Caerau near Maesteg

Allan Bateman, former Welsh rugby union and rugby league international, who also played for the British and Irish Lions at rugby union and Great Britain at rugby league.

The new exhibition at Oriel Mwldan in Cardigan opened on Saturday 2nd March
Watch a short documentary video here

Liz Whittaker reviews -

Artist Chris Nurses latest exhibition, newly opened at Oriel Mwldan is full of thoughtful, stimulating ideas. However, because the thread which binds the various pieces of work together is tenuous and thus open to multiple interpretation, one review cannot claim to do it justice.

Experiencing the variety of exhibits, there is a sense of being drawn back into memories of the military pictures first seen in childhood; of the Kings Guards in fairy stories, and Disney films. The gorgeously uniformed, unlikely army, march across a battlefield map accompanied by serene floating ducks and scampering girl guides, all recalling a long ago dreamworld and yet, there is something about the military feel of it all that is adult, especially where death appears, suddenly and in garish garb.

Autobituaries connected to real lives from a bygone age, are augmented with flashing lights, bright and beautiful, but they are about real deaths, and their connection with death is ambivalent, celebratory and simulateously less than significant. Also they seem familiar, seen in passing in films, resembling signposts on an American freeway, or in a road movie, where what they advertise is entertainment, food, or even fuel.

Read More Here

Saturday 2 March - Saturday 13 April 2013
Dydd Sadwrn 2 Mawrth - Dydd Sadwrn 13 Ebrill 2013


Admission to Oriel Mwldan is free. Opening times are 10am - 8pm daily.
Mae Mynediad i Oriel Mwldan am ddim. Ar agor o 10yb - 8yh bob dydd.

This message was received today from Alwyn Griffiths and is the official notification to the winner of the Celticos/AmeriCymru Trail Tour:-

A message from Alwyn

Llongyfarchiadau/

Congratulations to Brett Hull

I hope you can soon visit us in Wales to participate in the ameriCymru trail tour, or of course you pass the price on to friends or family.

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Please feel free to contact me on alwyn@celticos.com to redeem your prize.

It has been enjoyable, exiting experience working with Ceri in creating the competition and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ceri for his hard work. Diolch Ceri.

The ameriCymru trail is generating a great deal of interest on both sides of the Atlantic, both Ceri and myself will keep the ameriCymru members informed of all latest developments.

The Celticos team is looking forward to meet and give our guests from North America a Croeso Cynnes/Warm Welcome

Congratulations/Llongyfarchaidau to Brett Hull. If you want to learn more about the AmeriCymru Trail Tour go here:-

Celticos/AmeriCymru Trail Tour

"The unpurged images of day recede;
the Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed."
Flirting at the Funeral and Cillian Press are going to Gort Festival!!

Is America named after a Welshman?

On this day 1496, John Cabot received the letter of authority from Henry VII to make a voyage of discovery to North America 

It has been suggested that the name, "America" was derived from the name of Richard ap Meryk, anglicised to Richard Amerike a wealthy Bristol merchant of Welsh descent, who was the principal owner of the "Matthew", the ship sailed by John Cabot, the Italian navigator during his voyage of exploration to North America in 1497.  However the more widely held view is that America is the named after the Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci.

Richard Amerike was born at Meryk Court, Weston under Penyard, near Ross-on-Wye in 1445, Herefordshire and was a descendant of the Earls of Gwent. he came into contact with John Cabot when Cabot came to Bristol in 1495 hoping to find  sponsors of a voyage of discovery.  At that time, Amerike and other Bristol merchants were trying to find new sources of fish and other resources and so impressed were they with Cabot, that they arranged an audience with King Henry VII who gave Cabot the authority to make the voyage and claim lands on his behalf.

The legend grew that the North American continent had been named for him because he was the main sponsor of the voyage and that his coat of arms was similar to the flag later adopted by the independent United States.

On this day 1295 the Battle of Maes Moydog occurred.

After the death of Llywelyn ap Grufydd in 1282, his brother Dafydd had taken up the mantle and continued the fight, however on his capture and public execution in 1283, Edward I hoped that Wales would be pacified.  He also introduced the English shire system and English laws, with The Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and poured an enormous amount of money and effort into both the rebuilding of damaged castles and the construction of new ones.  The Welsh however resented English rule and rebelled  unsuccessfully in 1287 and 1288. Welsh discontent was brought to a head in 1294, when the payment of an unpopular tax coincided with the raising of Welsh troops for Edward's campaign in Gascony. 

30th September 1294  -  Welsh soldiers assembling at Shrewsbury, due to march to Portsmouth for Edward’s campaign in Gascony, mutinied and killed their English officers, the rebels rallied around a distant cousin of Llywelyn, Madog ap Llywelyn and several Welsh castles were put under siege.  

October 1294  - Edward  mustered an army at his customary base of Worcester, to send reinforcements to a besieged Brecon Castle.

5th December 1294  -  Edward led an army to Wrexham as the Welsh had managed to push the English out of North Wales into  Chester.  Some 10,000 rebels surrendered and were pardoned on the condition they serve with Edward in France. Madog, however, managed to convince his followers that it was better to die defending their homeland, than in a foreign land. 

24th December 1294  -  Edward was joined at his new castle on the Conway Estuary by Reginald de Gray’s force of 11,000 men

12th January 1295  - Edward sacked  Nefyn, but on the return journey, they were ambushed by Welsh forces near Bangor who retook the  booty they had taken from the town.  The King and most of his force survived and made it back to Conway, where they were besieged.

5th March 1295  - Madog marched on Shrewsbury and camped at Maes Moydog, near Montgomery.  However, 2,500 English from Oswestry under the command of William de Beauchamp approached the Welsh camp and routed the Welsh army. The English lost just 90 men, the Welsh 700 

10th March 1295  -  The Welsh lost  a further 500 men following a midnight sortie of their camp. 

15th April 1295  -  Edward sent a force to occupy Anglesey and ordered the construction of Beaumaris Castle. 

Edward received surrenders and pledges of allegiance from all over Wales.  Madog went on the run but was eventually forced to surrender and imprisoned in the Tower of London for the rest of his life.

Born this day, 1886 in Pontypridd

Frederick Hall Thomas, known as Freddie Welsh - World lightweight champion. 

In the early part of the 20th century, the area around Pontypridd produced more champions  than any other  comparably sized region  in the world and Freddie Welsh was one such champion. 

Freddie was a sickly child, suffering from consumption and his parents were advised for him to take up boxing to strengthen his lungs.  Freddie was a natural and when aged sixteen, he decided to further his career in America, where initially, he just earned enough to live as a  hobo or  migratory worker, jumping trains to avoid paying the fare, but he soon became a professional boxer and his fortunes changed.

To start with, he took the name Freddie Cymro but changed it to Freddie Welsh on the advice that the pronunciation may confuse the American public and soon established himself on the East Coast.  However, Freddie then returned to Wales to look after his seriously ill mother and subsequently became British and World lightweight champion.    

The  Britannia Bridge connecting Ynys Mon (Anglesey) with the rest of Wales was opened on 5th March 1850.

The tubular, wrought iron box section bridge was designed and built by Robert Stephenson for carrying rail traffic but was rebuilt as a  steel truss arch bridge to carry both road and rail traffic, following a fire in 1970.

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Hollywood and music legends unite for charity single in aid of the Welsh National Coal Mining Memorial. Rugby fans will be given an exclusive first look as the music video is launched ahead of the Wales v England game at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

The single, which so far has been kept strictly under wraps, will feature the singing talents of: Aled Jones, Caroline Sheen, Daniel and Laura Curtis, Dennis O'Neill, Darren Parry , Ioan Gruffudd, Iris Williams, Jamie Pugh , John Owen Jones, Jonathan Pryce, JP Jones , Mark Llewelyn Evans , Matthew Rhys, Paul Child , Paul Potts, Rebecca Evans, Rhys Meirion , Samantha Link , Sian Phillips, Tom Lukas, Wynne Evans . With special spoken contributions by Michael Sheen, Boyd Clack, Joe Calzaghe and the late Richard Burton with the kind permission of the Dick Cavett Show. The song also features over three hundred local musicians, choirs and bands from around South Wales including BTM Brass Band, The Gentlemen Songsters Choir, The Richard Williams Singers, The Aber Valley Male Choir and one hundred and twenty school children. The bass guitar on the song is played by World renowned musician Pino Palladino.

The recording of the song has taken place at locations all over the World. Co-producer and composer Laura Curtis said We wanted to reach out to Welsh artists across the world and invite them to take part. Many of these artists have hectic schedules due to them being in the middle of filming TV series or films. Going into a recording studio wasnt an option for them, so we came up with the idea of using iPads and iPhones for them to record their lines. The quality once mixed into the song is really high and the results have been brilliant.

The song has been written and produced by Daniel and Laura Curtis from Caerphilly. This is not their first mining related project, in September 2012 they organised an underground concert in a mine to honour those who lost their lives in mining disasters. The concert involved lowering a piano 300 ft underground for the first time.

After being made redundant in 2011, Daniel Curtis made the decision to follow his life-time passion and become a self-employed professional musician and project manager, specialising in music events. Due to close family ties with coal mining he decided to put his efforts into a project that would raise money for a cause that was very important to him.

Daniel Curtis said My two great grandfathers died in mines and after the emotional experience of performing the concert underground last year I wanted to create a song that paid tribute to the legacy of coal mining. The response that we have received has been amazing and we have tried to involve everybody who has wanted to take part. Each artist has added their own personal style to the recording and made the song something very special. We are delighted with the way that it has turned out.

Dan and Laura with Michael Sheen

Michael Sheen OBE said I want to lend my support to this incredibly worthy cause that is part of our history and our heritage. I hope that everyone will get behind this and give it the boost it deserves."

The Prime Minister, David Cameron has also expressed his support saying; We owe a great debt to those who were, and continue to be, involved in the industry. We cannot forget those who lost their lives in mining related disasters over the years, including Senghenydd. I wish the single every success.

The National Coal Mining Memorial will be unveiled on the 100th anniversary of the Senghenydd disaster where 440 people died in the UKs worst ever coal mining disaster. The National Memorial will be a national monument to remember the over 8,000 people who have died in Welsh coal mines. The memorial is costing over 220,000 and will contain a walk of remembrance, monument and garden.

The song will be available to buy from the 16 ^th March in Tesco on iTunes, Amazon and many other outlets nationally. The song can be pre-ordered from www.nationalminingmemorial.co.uk

The production of the single has been sponsored by a number of local businesses. The two primary sponsors are Giovannis Restaurant in Cardiff and Foy Wealth.

Storming review of Flirting at the Funeral in NWR99: Keil writes beautifully..... Thank you very much!

http://www.newwelshreview.com/article.php?id=463

Author Returns to a Time When Kids Could Play Outside

Tom Evans new book hearkens back to a time before parents saw threats behind every tree

full of fun, freedom, pranks, competitiveness, danger and discovery

OXFORD, England (PRWEB) November 01, 2012

Tom Evans new book When Kids Could Play Outside (published by AuthorHouse) is a true, controversial account of a young boys journey through his formative years, transporting readers back to the 1970s, when playing outside in the South Wales Valleys had very few rules or restrictions. It was an era, Evans says, full of fun, freedom, pranks, competitiveness, danger and discovery.

An excerpt from When Kids Could Play Outside :

Three old women have gone to the trouble of carrying their wooden dining chairs out into the street and are sitting in the sunshine supervising the activities like lifeguards on watch at the local swimming pool. The street seems to be a hive of activity, laughter, and fun.
The energy, the sound, and the smell are exhilarating as I stand there silently savoring every minute, frightened that it may be taken away from me at any time. I am home, and this is the best time in my life. Maybe I am in heaven.
You know, its strange, but I have no recollection or very little memory from before this moment in time. Somehow it feels like my young body was an empty shell, just waiting for this moment, my arrival, and my rebirth.

Evans hopes that readers will find that When Kids Could Play Outside transports them back to a time full of fun, freedom and danger! It will make them laugh at the pranks and inspire them to encourage their own children to get off their PCs and get out in the sunshine .

About the Author
Tom Evans was brought up and educated in Mountain Ash, Mid-Glamorgan, then moved to Witney, Oxfordshire, England. For the past 25 years, Evans has worked in manufacturing, after training as a work study engineer with Japanese giant Hitachi in the 1980s.

Evans has been happily married to Deborah, his high school sweetheart, for over 25 years. They have three children: Curtis, Sadie and Tayah.

Evans decided to write When Kids Could Play Outside after noticing just how much fun and freedom the young generation of today have been deprived of.

AuthorHouse, an Author Solutions, Inc. self-publishing imprint, is a leading provider of book publishing, marketing, and bookselling services for authors around the globe and offers the industrys only suite of Hollywood book-to-film services. Committed to providing the highest level of customer service, AuthorHouse assigns each author personal publishing and marketing consultants who provide guidance throughout the process. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, AuthorHouse celebrated 15 years of service to authors in Sept. 2011.For more information or to publish a book visit authorhouse.com or call 1-888-519-5121. For the latest, follow @authorhouse on Twitter.

Born this day 1800 in Risca 

William Price  -   Physician and eccentric (pictured  in ritual, Neo-druidic attire whilst on stage)

He trained as a doctor in Caerphilly and after qualifying from the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1821 he returned to Wales to practice.  He became involved in Chartist politics, becoming a local leader and after the Chartist march on Newport in 1839, he fled to France disguised as a woman, whilst in France,  he visited the Louvre museum, where he became highly interested in a stone with a Greek inscription that he interpreted as a prophecy given by an ancient Welsh prince named Alun, who would liberate the Welsh people.  Feeling that that the prophecy applied to him, Price returned to Wales to free his people from the English-dominated authorities.

Upon his return, he began to get increasingly interested in Welsh cultural activities, he scorned orthodox religion, claimed to be an arch-druid and performed ancient rites on the Pontypridd rocking-stone.  Price was also responsible for the building of the famous "Round houses" in Pontypridd, persuading a local builder to build them, even though he didn't own the land.  At this time he had taken to wearing  a white tunic, covering a scarlet waistcoat,  green cloth trousers and a huge fox skin hat, he neither shaved or cut his hair.

After another spell in France, he returned and opened a medical practice in Llantrisant and in 1881 at the age of 81 married  Gwenllian Llewelyn, who was only 21 and she bore him a son, whom Price named Iesu Grist (Jesus  Christ), however, the infant died after five months and Price decided to cremate his son’s body upon the summit of a hill outside Llantrisant.  Cremation at the time was unlawful and Price was arrested and put on trial for the illegal disposal of a corpse.  However, he successfully argued that there was no legislation that specifically outlawed it and this paved the way for the Cremation Act of 1902.  On his release, Price returned to Llantrisant to find a crowd of supporters cheering for his victory and  in 1892 he erected a pole which was over sixty feet high, with a crescent moon symbol at its peak, on top of the hill where the cremation had taken place.

William Price died on 23rd January 1893 and 20,000 people attended his cremation on a pyre of two tons of coal, on a hillside overlooking Llantrisant.  

A relatively unreported and serious riot took place on 4th March 1919 in the Canadian Army Camp at Kinmel Park, near Abergele in North Wales. 

There was discontent among the 15,000 Canadian soldiers waiting to be repatriated after World War One, as the place was a sea of mud, sleeping conditions were cramped and blankets in short supply.  On top of this, food rations had been halved and many had not received their pay for over a month.  The tipping point seemed to be when it was announced that the ships designated to take the Canadians home had been allocated to the Americans.

The men at Kinmel were infuriated and after nothing was done following several protests, the mood turned to outrage.  Some of the soldiers looted and started fires in Quartermaster's Stores and officers'  messes.  Rifle shots were exchanged with officers resulting in the deaths of three rioters and two guards, with many others being wounded.

The mutiny was put down the following  morning and 78 of the Canadian soldiers were arrested.  However the incident was "hushed up" and the remaining Canadians had been transported home by 25th March. 

Born this day 1948 in Ely, Cardiff

Shakin' Stevens, (born Michael Barratt)  "Shaky - Pop and rock and roll singer and songwriter who was the biggest-selling singles artist in the UK in the 1980s, entering the charts on 33 occasions.    

Born this day, 1955 in Llandudno

Joseph Patrick "Joey" Jones,   former Welsh soccer international, who won 72 caps. He also won the European Cup with Liverpool and is best remembered for his uncompromising style of play and committed attitude.  

Born this day 1924 in Rhuthun

David Oswald Thomas, who was a philosopher, best known for his interpretation of the work of the philosopher Richard Price.

After his early education at Denbigh Grammar School, he became a bank clerk, followed by military service in the RAF. After demobilization he entered the University College of Wales at Bangor, where he studied philosophy, taking a particular interest in the political philosophy of Richard Price. Thomas felt that thinkers like Price had received insufficient attention and made the eighteenth-century Welsh philosopher his life's work. In 1977, he published the definitive study of Price, The Honest Mind.