Penyberth

Penyberth was a farmhouse at Penrhos, on the Llŷn Peninsula near Pwllheli, Gwynedd, which had been the home to generations of patrons of poets, but destroyed in 1936 in order to build a training camp and aerodrome for the RAF.

Welsh nationalism was ignited in 1936 when the UK government settled on establishing the RAF Penrhos bombing school at Penyberth on the Llŷn peninsula in Gwynedd. The events surrounding the protest, known as "Tân yn Llŷn" ("Fire in Llŷn"), helped define "Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru". [John Davies, "A History of Wales", Penguin, 1994, ISBN 0-14-014581-8, Page 593] The UK government settled on Llŷn as the sight for its new bombing school after similar locations Northumberland and Dorset were met with protests. [Davies, "op cit", page 592]

However, UK Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin refused to hear the case against the bombing school in Wales, despite a deputation representing half a million Welsh protesters [Davies, "op cit", page 592] . Protest against the bombing school was summed up by Saunders Lewis when he wrote that the UK government was intent upon turning one of the 'essential homes of Welsh culture, idiom, and literature' into a place for promoting a barbaric method of warfare. [Davies, "op cit", page 592] Construction of the bombing school building began exactly 400 years after the first Act of Union annexing Wales into England. [Davies, "op cit", page 592]

On 8 September 1936 the bombing school building was set on fire and in the investigations which followed Plaid Cymru members Saunders Lewis, Lewis Valentine, and D.J. Williams claimed responsibility. [Davies, "op cit", page 592] The trial at Caernarfon failed to agree on a verdict and the case was sent to the Old Bailey in London. The "Three" were sentenced to nine months imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs, and on their release they were greeted as heroes by fifteen thousand Welsh at a pavilion Caernarfon. [Davies, "op cit", page 592]

Many Welsh were angered by the judge's scornful treatment of the Welsh language, by the decision to move the trial to London, and by the decision of University Collage, Swansea, to dismiss Lewis from his post before he had been found guilty. [Davies, "op cit", page 593] Dafydd Glyn Jones wrote of the fire that it was "the first time in five centuries that Wales struck back at England with a measure of violence... To the Welsh people, who had long ceased to believe that they had it in them, it was a profound shock." [Davies, "op cit", page 593]

This incident is known in the Welsh language as "Llosgi'r ysgol fomio" ("the burning of the bombing school") or "Tân yn Llŷn" ("Fire in Llŷn"), and has attained iconic status in Welsh nationalist circles.

Today Penyberth is the site of the annual Wakestock contemporary music festival.

References

*Jenkins, Dafydd (1998), "A nation on trial: Penyberth, 1936". Translated by Ann Corkett. Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press. ISBN 1-86057-001-1.

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/cymruaryrawyr/database/penyberth.shtml BBC "Cymru ar yr Awyr"] - sound clips of Saunders Lewis and DJ Williams speaking about the incident (in Welsh)
* [http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~sm99dp00/cuimris/penyberth.html Sabhal Mòr Ostaig] - picture of the three
* [http://www.gtj.org.uk/item.php?lang=en&id=9348&t=1 National Library of Wales, "Gathering the Jewels"] - admission ticket to the trial of Saunders Lewis, Lewis Valentine and D. J. Williams, at Caernarfon