Festival of Wales celebrates, preserves cultureBuzz up!By Deborah Deasy, TRIBUNE-REVIEWWednesday, September 2, 2009Last updated: 3:35 pm78th North American Festival of WalesWhen: Noon-midnight today, 9 a.m.-midnight Friday-SundayAdmission: $15 per day; $55 for four days; $30-$70 additional per concertWhere: Hilton Hotel, 600 Commonwealth Place, DowntownDetails: 412-391-4600 or Web siteAbout the writerDeborah Deasy can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7989.Sign up now!Home DeliverySubscribe to our publicationsYou might be Welsh and not know it.A last name that sounds like a first one -- Thomas, Williams, Richards, Roberts or Davis, for example -- betrays Welsh blood in many Americans' family trees."They intermarried with anyone that was around," says Nancy Gulliford of Natrona Heights, whose ancestors include people from Wales named Evans. "They came in waves."Expect a wave of their descendants to arrive today in Pittsburgh for the 78th North American Festival of Wales at the Hilton Hotel, Downtown.The annual event, hosted this year by the St. David's Society of Pittsburgh, features hymn singing -- a favorite Welsh pastime -- and a smorgasbord of culture from the rugged land of leeks, daffodils and sheep."There is a great love and history of music and poetry in the Welsh language," says Stacy Evans, executive director of the Welsh National Gymanfa Ganu Association, based in Granville, Ohio."Gymanfa Ganu" loosely means "festival of hymn singing" in a language that uses a familiar alphabet in unfamiliar ways. "We use the Roman alphabet, but the vowels are not pronounced the same way, in most cases," Evans says.Festival organizers expect to welcome about 400 Welsh-blooded guests from as far as California, Canada and the United Kingdom."These are people who are interested in preserving their Welsh heritage, and passing along their Welsh language and culture to future generations," Evans says.However, anyone may attend the festival's seminars, concerts and hymn sings. A marketplace and tearoom will offer Welsh sweets and imported goods.Performers will include politician-minstrel Dafydd Iwan and the folk group Ar Log (at 7:30 p.m. today, $30); tenor Gwyndaf Jones (7 p.m. Friday banquet performance, $70); the Bangor Slater High School Marching Band (3 p.m. today in Point State Park, free); the 80-voice North American Welsh Choir (7:30 p.m. Saturday, $40); and contestants in an "Eisteddfod" competition for singers, dancers and elocutionists.One-hour seminars will include "Welsh Immigrants in the American Coalfields," "The Diaries of Richard Burton," "The Welsh Fiddle" and "The Welsh Harp."Welsh language and singing classes will be available, plus a seminar on the Welsh Nationality Room at the University of Pittsburgh, and screenings of Welsh films and TV shows (2 to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday).Guest artisans will include love spoon carver Chris Watkins and topographical artist Olwen Hughes.Children's entertainment will be available, along with a puppet show (2:30 p.m. Saturday) by the Pastime Puppets of Mahoning Presbyterian Church, Lawrence County.The Rev. Robert Dayton leads the puppet troupe and looks forward to participating in the festival's hymn singing sessions (2:30 to 4:30 p.m. and 7 to 9:30 p.m. Sunday). Conductor Eilir Owen Griffiths and organist Alan Thomas will lead participants in singing the songs in Welsh and English."The very important thing that held Welsh culture together over the years -- because the British were so anti-Welsh language -- was the Welsh language," Dayton says. "One of the ways the Welsh language has been kept alive is through the hymns."

You ask me to plough the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear open my mother's bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I can not enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich... but how dare I cut off my mother's hair?... Each one must learn for their self the highest wisdom. It cannot be taught in words... People who work cannot dream, and wisdom comes to us in dreams.Lammas Ecovillage, Wales gets Planning Approval (finally!)Thank you for sharing stories from Earth First! Action Reports and letting others know about this website.Today the Lammas group won planning permission for their ecovillage project.Lammas is a new settlement of 9 eco-smallholdings, a campsite and a community hub building, to start construction this autumn. It will be sited on 76 acres of mixed pasture and woodland next to the village of Glandwr, Pembrokeshire. The site is on land currently belonging to Pont-y-gafel farm, next to the village of Glandwr, North Pembrokeshire. The site is currently used as farmland.After their first application was turned down for insufficient detail, Lammas put in an amended application on March 17th 2008. The first application had filled an entire wheelbarrow (the second containuing 150 illustrations and 1200 pages of text would have requuired 2 barrows - so it was submitted electronically!) However, their second application was again turned down in September 2008. Further frustration was experienced when the Welsh Assembly refused them the right to appeal on the grounds that the application was invalid on some technicality. However, appeal they did, and the appeal into the refusal of the revised planning application was heard earlier this summer. The inspector, intrigued and unvonventionally, chose not to allow lamma's expert witnesses to present their full cases in favour, preferring to open the debate about the application to the whole floor so that all voices in favour and against the application were heard. Insptector took a few weeks to reach his decision in considering the whole application.Despite the launch of a pioneering low-impact policy by Pembrokeshire County Council in 2006 and years of meticulous groundwork, consciencious dedication and patient deliberation, the long exacting process sought for approval of the project has taken over 2 years since the initial application was first submitted. Emphasising the imbalance of the current planning system which doesn't take account of climate change, Paul Wimbush of the Lammas project even suggested that it would have been easier to have applied for planning permission to build a power station! That it has succeeded is due to a tremendous drive to succeed born of an inspirational vision of low impact/low carbon living for the 21st century.Lammas was conceived as the first large-scale low impact project that would work with the planning system, (ie: to apply for planning permission in advance of the construction and establishment of the project, or in other word, not retrospectively). The Lammas Ecovillage will be completely independent of all mains services. All water will be sourced from the site using a combination of an existing spring for drinking water and rainwater harvesting from rooftops. All electricity will be produced on site using renewables. Fortunately there is an existing water turbine system on site which Lammas plans to renovate. All organic waste will be composted on site using a combination of compost toilets, wormeries and compost heaps. Fuel, in the form of coppiced willow and elephant grass, will be grown on site.The project will be managed by Lammas Low Impact Initiatives Ltd, a cooperative registered under the Industrial and Provident Society Act. A comprehensive management plan has been compiled which sets out how the project will be established and run.The smallholdings will essentially be agricultural leaseholds which are conditionally tied to requirements as set out in the management plan. Thus the objectives of the project will be assured in the long term. The requirements will cover issues such as livelihood, transport, services and monitoring.The people selected for the first phase of the project have developed well researched plans for their livelihoods. In addition to sourcing fuel, water, electricity and food from the site, the 9 households will also run small-scale farm businesses producing a wide range of quality goods including hazelnuts, smoked ham, soft fruit, woodland crafts, vegetables and cooked foods. The produce will be marketed through a variety of outlets including local shops and a Lammas market stall.Common LandSome areas of the project will be managed in common. There is an area of existing broadleaf woodland on site which will be conserved for its wildlife value. The existing conifer woodland will be managed and harvested as a resource for building. There will also be shared grazing and fuel crop areas as well as a millpond and village green.In hindsightAs Larch Maxey has written: "Lammas softly-softly approach, seeking to work with the planning system, has led to huge delays while prospective residents living locally [have poured] savings into inadequate accomodation. Opportunities to harness people's energy have been lost. Whilst it remains invaluable to have the Low-Impact Development movement broadened by projects seeking planning permission before moving on, the planning system is ill equipped for the speed and scale of the challanges we face. Until it is equipped, people must continue to take direct action towards the sustainability transition in every way they can {including} building low impact lives".More Info:Ref: http://www.lammas.org.uk/ecovillage/news.htm

Hill fort dates back 3,000 yearsMoel FamauAn earlier dig at Moel Famau showed evidence of life 10,000 years agoArchaeologists have discovered that a hill fort in Denbighshire may be almost 3,000 years old.Experts excavated Moel y Gaer in the Clwydian Range after tests suggested the Iron Age settlement (700 BC to 34 AD) might be older than first thought.Samples of metal slag and dry stone facing taken from an entrance suggest parts may date back to the Bronze Age (2,300 BC to 700 BC).It is hoped carbon dating will identify the exact age of the samples.The venture was a joint project between Bangor University and Denbighshire's Heather and Hill forts project.Professor Raimund Karl, Head of Bangor University's School of History, Welsh History and Archaeology, said: "We have recovered some quite substantial charcoal samples so we can try to arrange carbon dating, which should hopefully narrow down our dating range for the construction of the rampart."I consider the dig to have been a great success and the results will hopefully answer the research questions we started out with, as well as having opened up a couple of new ones - which we may try to explore in further fieldwork either at Moel y Gaer or at some of the other hill forts in the area."The three-year Heather and Hill forts Project has received a 1.5m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund towards research and conservation

Bore Da - Google translate goes WelshGoogle Translate now in 51 languages1 September 2009 9:09 GMT / By Stuart MilesGoogle has added Welsh to the list of languages that you can now translate giving you plenty of ways to prepare insults and decode signs when you head over the Seven bridge into Cardiff for the next game at the Millennium stadium.According to the Mountain View based company Google Translate now boasts 51 languages.New to the mixing pot this week are a further nine new languages including Afrikaans, Belarusian, Icelandic, Irish, Macedonian, Malay, Swahili, Welsh and Yiddish.But before you go and try and convince that job interviewer that you are fluent in Welsh or even English, the company admits that "the translation quality of these newest languages is still a little rough, but it will improve over time."Google says it hopes to integrate Google Translate into some of our other products although fails to mention what those products are in the blog post announcing the new offerings.The full list now includes:AfrikaansAlbanianArabicBelarusianBulgarianCatalanChineseCroatianCzechDanishDutchEnglishEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGermanGreekHebrewHindiHungarianIcelandicIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseKoreanLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalayMalteseNorwegianPersianPolishPortugueseRomanianRussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSpanishSwahiliSwedishThaiTurkishUkrainianVietnameseWelshYiddish

* Sunny Spells with only patchy cloud* 15C - 19 kph windUpdated 9:48am 1 September 2009:Welcome bynwaltersYour account | Log outTom Jones to play gig in a pubSep 1 2009 by Nathan Bevan, South Wales EchoComment (1)Recommended (1)ITS not unusual for Tom Jones to enjoy a pint of Guinness so much so hes going straight to the source by playing a gig in a Dublin pub.The Pontypridd singing legend announced the low-key September 24 show, so hush-hush that the location of it wont be revealed until minutes before its to due to start, to mark the 250th anniversary of the world-famous Irish stout.Well, you know, Im Welsh and its a Dublin pub its a perfect fit, said Jones, speaking from his Las Vegas hotel suite.And I enjoy a pint of Guinness myself, although I hope I dont consume too much of it before I start singing, he joked.The 69-year-old Voice Of The Valleys added that he was relishing the idea of getting back to up close and personal with his fans and playing an intimate venue more reminiscent of his club circuit beginnings.Sometimes, to be musically stripped down like that is really good, he said.Some people are scared of it, they cant perform unless they have a full-blown sound system, musicians and all the business they get thrown.But if you love to sing, or perform, then sometimes its good to go into areas like that.Its certainly a marked difference from having stormed the stage at Glastonbury earlier this summer in front of more than 100,000 screaming revellers.Whether youre in front of a dozen people, or thousands, you still have to put on your best performance, Jones added.Glastonbury was great, though, they were all shouting, We want Tom, We want Tom before I came on and the Red Dragon was flying high and so was I.And despite all the glitz and the glamour of his jet-setting Beverly Hills lifestyle, Jones added hes never forgotten his homeland.Ive always been a working-class person, he said.Ive never forgotten where I come from and Im proud of it.I loved singing in the clubs in Wales and only went to London to record because I couldnt make enough money gigging at home to turn professional, added Jones.But I had a ball there at home.Comment (1)Add a commentReport item as: (required) XComment: (optional)User Imagebynwalters wrote:I'm from Merthyr, same culture as Ponty, he can come and play in my pub; I can pay him 250 euros to start and pass the hat around for the rest; I can guarantee 50 to 70 people at the bar with the windows open so the people on the terrace can hear it as well.I can't serve him Guinness but I have 'Coreff* Stout' which is smoother and not so bitter, brewed by local boys and not multinational multi-millionaire financiers/industrialists.The address is 'Tavarn Ty Elise, 29690 Plouye, Finistere, Brittany, Tel: 33(0)298999644bynwalters@libertysurf.frhttp://bynbrynman.ning.comhttp://crwtynrhifnaw.blogspot.com* Coreff is the North Breton form of Cwrw (Beer)1/9/2009 12:13 PM BST on walesonline.co.ukRecommend

2010 sees the 40th anniversary of the InterCeltic Festival at Lorient on the 6th to the 15th Aug.; l'anne de la Bretagne

Home > Lehigh Valley News > Breaking NewsFire in historic Welsh church in LansfordThe Morning Call6:43 a.m. EDT, August 31, 2009Firefighters in Carbon County are on the scene of a working fire in an historic church in Lansford this morning.The fire was reported around 5:05 a.m. in the old Welsh Congregational Church in the 200 block of W. Abbott Street at Pine Street.Fire companies from Lansford, Summit Hill, Tamaqua, Nesquehoning and Coaldale are on scene, the Carbon County Communications Center said. Initial reports indicate damage may have been contained to the interior and is under control, but fire crews are expected to remain on scene for several hours. Most streets in the area of the church are blocked with fire equipment.It is the oldest Welsh church in the region, founded by coal miners who settled in the Ashton section of Lansford in the 1800s. The church has not been used for services since the 1930s, but it is considered one of the Panther Valley's historic treasures. It was restored in the 1980s and received a state historical marker in the 1990s.The building, constructed with land and lumber donated by Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co., was dedicated Dec. 26, 1850 as the Old Welsh Church. It became the First Congregational Church of Ashton in 1854 and later the English Congregational Church of Lansford to reflect a change from Welsh to English language services.The Welsh Congregational Church Preservation Society re-dedicated the church in 1985 following the restoration, which was completed by the return of the original lectern and altar chair. - Reporting by Tracy Jordan, The Morning Call*The Morning Call, 101 North Sixth Street, Allentown, PA 18101

I am from Dowlais and I've just discovered that there is a residential area of Rockville named Dowlais Drive: how did this come about? Dowlais had the largest ironworks in the world, with many of the workers moving to Pittsburgh for higher wages, also Donetsk in the Ukraine was founde by the Dowlais engineer John Hughes who was invited by the Tsar to build a works there, it was originally called Yuzovka before it's subsequent re-baptism to Stalino, but Maryland ?