And no mention of organised sport! Footballers, rugby players and boxers – aren’t they are modern Welsh heroes?

Problem with “the years when Wales’s political and civic ethos was bound in with that of England and Britain” is that there is little to inspire us, is there? Afterall, that’s the only period of history I was taught in school. I’m sure the same is true of the majority of people in Wales. So why aren’t we over-run with Welsh heros and inspirational figures from the period? Why do we look to people we WERE NOT (generally) taught about? Is it about celebration, or about reclaiming our own history, sense of self?

Of course, what has happened since is also as relevant and inspirational, but not in the same way. The Tudors. Henry Tudor leads a Welsh army and becomes king of England. Do we celebrate that? Well no, because the scumbag sold his country down the river. Do we forget it? Certainly not, there is a lesson there that is relevant for our times – don’t follow leaders who promise Wales the world, but in reality are just using “Wales” to further their own political ambitions.

Britishness isn’t really A Welsh Tradition, unless you mean the Romano-tribal version of it No, “Britishness” is purely an invention, a pact between the Scottish and English governments. Like “The United Kingdom”, it is a construct, an ultimately meaningless phrase. And since Wales didn’t exist at the time of Union, and we certainly didn’t have a say in it (and neither did the Irish afaik), then how can we possibly claim it?

No, I think the reason we look back to the distant past rather than the recent one is that there is little to be proud of, little to inspire. Plenty to inform, plenty to learn the lessons from. But an increasinly self-confident and independent country doesn’t need petty politicians and aristocrats – it needs figureheads. Leaders. We just forgot that, it became all about the Union. It’s time we remembered, you are right. But if you can find people from the recent past who inspire the same passion, patriotism and energy as those medieval figures then I’ll gladly shout them from the rooftops too. (from your post, I have the feeling you can’t either… they don’t exist)

Dafydd El once famously said that “English is a Welsh language”. In that vein, I suppose you could say Britishness is a Welsh tradition. You don’t have to approve of it, just recognise that it’s an important part of Welsh history. We can’t pretend that nothing happened from 1536 to 1966.

I don’t understand what you’re looking for here. Wales, post medieval, has heroes we can be proud of. Great men and women doing great things, working their collective wills on Westminster. People like Bevan were game-changers, no question. But they were still playing Westminsters game. Whereas the “traditional” heroes that Wales looks to, the Glyndwrs and Llewellyns and Hywel Dda’s and Arthurs, weren’t playing England’s game, they were playing their own. The Welsh one. And until we get modern heroes who play the Welsh game (Adam Price??) then we will continue to look back and hold up to those stubborn, complex people from yesteryear, because for all their faults they are still people to be celebrated. Still “ours”.

I don’t say that colonisation should be celebrated. All I suggest is that modern Welshness is as much a product of the 500+ years that Wales and England have been in union/Wales has been annexed* as any time before it. We should be able to find a way to draw from that era as well as from those medieval heroes.

* delete according to ideology

A Wales comfortable with it’s own colonisation? Over my dead one…