Why do I feel so strongly about being Welsh?

[tomenymur]

I was born and brought up in Wales. Whilst we spoke mainly English at home, with just my dad speaking Welsh to us, I am fluent in Welsh.
I went to university in England and have lived in London ever since.
But, why do I feel so strongly about being Welsh?
I absolutely LOVE Wales, but cant move back as my job and life is here.

If I go shopping and I see that a bag of carrots are from Wales, I would buy them even if I didn't really want carrots that week.
If I can buy specialist coffee or from a wine merchant, I'd favour a Welsh one over one down the road.

Does anyone else feel like this about their home country? I almost feel like it's a duty to do everything I can to support Wales... :o as ridiculous as that sounds

My grandmother and her siblings were all born in London in the 1920s, but their parents were welsh speakers and they all felt very strongly Welsh, so much so that my father and my brother and I identity as welsh too. My grandfather who lived in Wales until the war felt he was as much an immigrant in London as his neighbours from other countries. It's a funny thing. I'm sad I don't speak Welsh, obviously as a third generation born in England that wasn't likely but I do think theres something about growing up around a different language, even if you don't speak it, that strengthens your identity as from a place. Having family there and visiting often is also important. My father certainly felt he was going home when he visited Wales, even though he never lived there.

I married into a Welsh family and I love it. The beautiful country, the music, the rugby, the warmth of the people. Lots to be proud of!

Living away from home always makes you feel your roots more. I lived abroad in my twenties and used to religiously watch Discovering Welsh Houses even though I'm English because it reminded me of holidays. I also nearly burst into tears in the supermarket once because they had Scottish marmalade!

It's nice to appreciate your heritage and support your home country in little ways. Now I'm in Yorkshire and they're blinking obsessed with it but I find it quite nice really.

Hiraeth! I'm Welsh born and bred and I feel it even when I've just popped over the bridge for a few days to see DH's family. On holiday in the Lake District once, there was another Welsh family in a restaurant we were at and I probably made a complete tit of myself because I actually turned to them and commented on how nice it was to hear Welsh voices. We'd only been away a week!

Anti-englishness isn’t to do with a lack of education, as a pp suggested. It is based on the power dynamic where the Welsh have had power and their language taken from them by the English for centuries. English people do often treat Wales as another nice location, and can be utterly lacking in respect for the culture and language. I live in an area where many English people move to retire, or to set up a rural holiday business. There is a distinct anti- Welsh feeling, I hear the language moaned about, the Welsh language schools complained about even more. English people are not comfortable feeling at a disadvantage in Wales, and there is a deep mistrust of the Welsh language. There is also a total denial of the destruction caused by incomers from another culture , with far more money, buying property and holiday homes. Rural Wales has become too dependent on tourism, which brings in an income for some, most of them incomers, but has a huge negative effect too.

Wales is such a boring non-event.

I always say I'm British because I've got Welsh and English roots.

I'm Welsh, BTW. Unfortunate enough to have learned the useless, ugly language at school, but could drop it at GSCE.

Same here, just so proud of the county and the people. Love the way people of all nationalities settle in and adopt a welsh accent 😆 I live in London now but Wales will always be home. Just the sound of an accent on the train or something makes me happy.

@SirVixofVixHall

Only 20% of people in Wales speak Welsh, however every road sign, public document etc is published in Welsh (at what is probably a huge cost) not to mention Welsh schools etc so I would say the language has been more than catered to recently.

I do object to people holding grudges over events that happened hundreds of years ago, which nobody alive today even witnessed.

Welsh here too. Born and bred, but married and living in England for 30 years.
Considering retiring to Wales - DH is up for it.
I love Wales and Welsh people, and watch any programme on TV that's about Wales.

Some events cast very long shadows.

From my native NZ, people object to events that happened in 1840 and prior, now being compensated and apologised for. Those events have directly and negatively impacted the descendants of those who suffered the actual event, particularly loss of land, language and culture. They are still feeling the effects in terms of education, life outcomes, wealth, and also physical and emotional wellbeing.

Wales has a very special place in New Zealand, for leading the way in how to save a dying language, that some were working very hard to completely extinguish.

There's a lot that object to more obvious use and inclusion of Maori in both official usage, such as signage, and in the media as well. Tough titty. It's an official language of the nation, and has very right not just to exist, but be used and celebrated.

Hi OP. My mum is Welsh but I was raised in England. We spent all my summer holidays as a child in the Welsh town she is from and when she retired she moved back there so now my children go there during their summer holidays. Even though I never lived there and wasn't born there I still feel 'welsh'. My mum said she felt such a strong pull all her life to go back to wales and always knew she would end up living there again when she was old. She told me the Welsh word 'hiraeth' which she said doesn't have a direct translation to English but is closest to 'homesickness' but more the yearning to return to where you are from. She said it has always been in her.

@mbosnz

I don't doubt it, but everyone has to move on at some point surely?

If you trace everyone's ancestry back far enough they could claim heritage from an oppressed group. Obviously very sad but I think the best way to honour the past is to bury it and not encourage division.

I haven't been to NZ but it looks beautiful.

I think the best way to honour the past is to acknowledge it, and deal with it. That might require apology, that might require compensation. Generally, it seems, 'shit happened, it happened to you, get over it', doesn't seem to work terribly well when it comes to moving forward without rancour. . .

Otherwise, is the best way for a victim of a crime to 'honour the past', to bury that trauma and the fallout of that trauma, so as not to encourage division? Because that's what it is, on a national level.

Thank you, Aotearoa is very beautiful, as is Wales, and of course, Scotland, Ireland, and England!

Another born and bred over the better side of the bridge!

I have lived in various parts of England but it was always inevitable that I would move back home.

I am fiercely proud to be Welsh. I absolutely love how when you come across another Welsh person, there’s usually an automatic friendliness.

It wasn't hundreds of years ago @Wolfgirrl. There are people living whose grandparents were humiliated at school for speaking their native language.

Some Welsh people felt concerned enough about the suppression of Welsh culture that they set up a colony thousands of miles away. After that, it's no surprise that there is such an effort to preserve it now.

It just seems to be quite selective who should feel 'oppressed', there are still people alive from WW2 but nobody expects Germany to 'compensate' them. These are people that still live with real memories and injuries, not people that are aware of some wrongdoing to their ancestors in the past. A lot of culture was destroyed in the Blitz including architecture and artwork.

I think the UK is better off concentrating on its similarities rather than its differences. If Wales really do feel England treat them unfairly in any way they could always campaign for their own Indyref.

Would be a shame though! I have many Welsh friends and colleagues, we really don't 'feel' the difference.

I love being Welsh too op! (My username may have given that away). It's a strange deep rooted,emotional connection. Can't really explain it properly. I don't look at Wales through rose tinted glasses though, parts of it are grotty, just like anywhere. But oh how I love it presh

I’ve never really understood strong patriotic feelings. Nobody chose to be born in a particular place and they’ve rarely ‘shaped’ that place, it’s just a combination of familiarity and human nature always producing an ‘us’ and a ‘them’.

I don’t get football club rivalries either, and to me they seem much the same sort of thing!

Mind you, I’m the child of immigrants so what do I know! I don’t feel I truly belong in either culture but I’m happy in both.

The differences are there to be celebrated.

I think what monoglots and many English people can fail to appreciate is the difference in culture in Wales, or indeed other countries with a different language, which is bound up in its culture.

Even when Welsh people weren't brought up to speak the language (and every child learns it now), they still absorb that culture.

I'd hate to lose it, and it makes me proud.

I'm English, but always holidayed in Wales as a kid, beautiful country, language and people...

...but then I am ashamed to be English, so there's probably a significant degree of psychological transference!

@yoginut how is it failed to be appreciated? Not goading but I find this topic quite interesting.

Another one born and bred. DP is from Cornwall so we might retire there but otherwise staying home!

@mbosnz hi! Yes I was very proud of my very Welsh surname (although got married and changed it). I have stayed in Pontypridd where my family came from and feel a special tie to it