Gwynfor Evans is dead

I've been so busy, I not only haven't been blogging, but I haven't even been following any news I don't have to. And I missed this.

I've had a special place in my heart for Wales ever since I fell in love with the language as a teenager. I've also always been impressed with guys like Saunders Lewis, who was part of a group that set fire to a government installation as a protest, then went straight to a constable before anybody had seen the fire and turned themselves in. By the time they were booked, they were sitting calmly in the police station discussing the finer points of a particular Welsh poetic form. Nobody was hurt, and they didn't try to make a run for it. Irish revolutionaries have historically made rebellion a brutal thinng (with some cause, to be sure), but the Welsh have mostly been gents about it. Velvet rebels.

Gwynfor Evans was the first Welsh Nationalist in Parliament. He has also the distinction of being one of the very few politicians that ever made Margaret Thatcher back down. I think hunger strikes are a stupid weapon as a general rule, but when Gwynfor did it, it not only worked, but he came out smelling like a rose and Magi-To-Gwell had to salvage face. Ballsy, indeed!

Apparently Gwynfor had been sick for a long time. It's not that many men who make it to 92 anyway, and he's had reason to hold out. When Gwynfor entered politics in the 30s, Wales was Britain's Appalachia: poor, hopeless, and trying to survive on memories and tourists. Gwynfor lived to see his beloved country with a parliament of its own (well, a mini-parliament), and serious rumblings of independence.

Cysga mewn hedd, Gwynfor, bach. Rwyt ti wedi ennill dy orffwys gan chwys. Mae dy wlad yn falch ohonot.