Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr: February 2016

Monday, 29 February 2016

Welsh National Day - March 1st - A New Flag For a New Movement of Welsh Socialist Republicans

March 1st 2016 apart from being St Davids Day and Wales National Day.

It is also four years since the formation of Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr - The Great Unrest.

Four years ago Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr was only present in West Wales but since then we have expanded to South Wales and North Wales and have supporters in mid Wales.

We have also produced the magazine Liberation the third Issue will come out at end of March 2016 as will a new Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr website..

Today we adopt a new flag for our Welsh Socialist Republican Movement by combining the White Eagle of Snowdon with Red Flag of the 1831 Merthyr Rising - we authentically combine national and social liberation for Wales in our symbolic flag on this St David's Day March 1st 2016.

What did we say on our foundation in March 2012 :

 "Leanne Wood taking the leadership of Plaid Cymru will spread and perpetuate the illusion that Plaid Cymru is or can become a vehicle for a progressive, socialist and republican movement, that Plaid Cymru can challenge the Westminster imposed austerities, take Wales out of the neo-imperialist wars in the middle east and elsewhere, and get rid of those imposters posing as the Prince and Princess of Wales.

 Plaid Cymru cannot really do this, because it is at bottom the party that represents Welsh businessmen, and not the working people of Wales.

Its call for an independent Wales inside the European Union only seeks to change one set of rulers from Westminster for another in Brussels, the pound for the Euro.  

The essential link between national and class oppression was exposed in Ireland by James Connolly. In Wales, Gethin ap Gruffydd is one of the few Welsh patriots that recognises that at root the national question in Wales is a class question." in 2012.

There are less people in Wales today who share the illusions about Plaid Cymru being the vehicle for a progressive socialist republican movement in 2016 than in 2012 - truth is a process that is revealed over time and actions always speak louder than words.

Here are a few actions from Yr Aflonddwch Mawr over the past four years in defence of Wales and exposing Imperialism and Capitalism.

WELSH LAND QUESTION

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/land-of-my-fathers-reclaimed-by.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO8WY0EBV-c

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/gethin-ap-gruffydd-of-great-unrest.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/great-unrest-group-2012-supports-welsh.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/democracy-of-mountains-speech-on-mynydd.html

ANTI FASCISM

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/wales-swansea-people-reject-racism-of.html

ANTI IMPERIALISM

NEWPORT

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/announcing-creation-of-red-block.html

CARMARTHEN

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/injustice-and-empire-sir-thomas-picton.html

KURDISH SOLIDARITY

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1543790405893752/?fref=ts

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/ideological-foundations-of-nation-state.html

WELSH SOCIALIST HISTORY

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/peoples-socialist-history-of-wales-land.html

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/rhys-ap-thomas-godfather-of-crachach.html

Newport

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/newport-insurection-call-for-bob-bright.html

Merthyr

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/at-merthyr-rising-2015.html

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr raising the Red Flag in Hirwaun

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr

New Flag of Welsh Socialist Republicanism

We'll be loyal to our land
And we'll defend our country
Despite any oppression and betrayal
We'll maintain belief in the truth
Whilst there's a sun in the sky
Whilst there's a God as a guide
The Spirit of Rebeca will live in the 'Efail Wen.' (Efail Wen)
The Spirit of Rebeca will live in the 'Efail Wen.'

Thursday, 25 February 2016

"European Union membership not helpful to formation of Public Bank in Wales" says Ellen Brown of Public Banking Institute at meeting in Cardiff on 24th February 2016 reports Alan Roderick Jones

Ellen Brown gave a very informative lecture on "A Public Bank for Wales and The World Economic Situation" in Cardiff on the 24th February organised by Arian Cymru.

The World Situation

She informed us that 25% of the worlds banks are public banks and not private banks, that it used to be 40% of world banks were public before the recent era of neoliberal privatisations.

Given that banks can create credit and hence money ,they have unique role in society which should be for the public good however private banks have subverted that public good to their own private profit and we need to reverse this neo liberal trend.

We are now in the 21st century debt era of "Bail ins" and not just government bailouts for banks has in the past but for depositor "Bail in's".

In 2011 the G20 facilitated "Bail ins" and the "Bail in" is now law in the Eurozone.

We saw a bail in at work in the Cypriot financial crisis and it is a very concerning new development for bank depositors.

Article 123 of The Lisbon Treaty of the EU forbids direct borrowing from the national central bank by member governments and this makes borrowing more expensive for projects like infrastructure than it should be.

In the past when borrowing was from the national bank projects were cheaper, now that the government borrows from the private banks infrastructure projects have become twice as expensive.

Ellen Brown called for a People's Quantitive Easing has the existing QE was only benefiting the banks and stock and commodity markets and not the people.

She mentioned the debate in the European Parliament for a People's QE and the notion of helicoptering funds to people's bank accounts to solve the people's debt problem.

Ellen Brown was of the view that a No vote in Wales to the European Union would provide best framework to advance public banking in Wales - she was especially concerned about the secret TTIP negotiations of The European Union which subordinates nations to corporations..

Wales

There was a discussion about a Welsh Public Bank on the model of the Bank of North Dakota the only public bank in the United States.

The Bank of North Dakota was formed from North Dakota's State and local government funds being deposited in it own bank. North Dakota has a population of 640,000 people.

Ian Jenkins of Arian Cymru made the point that one of the obstacles to the creation of such a public bank in Wales is that the UK local authorities are obliged by law to deposit their money only with the big five private banks.

It was also noted that the private banks have sold risky investments to local authorities.

Therefore there would be a requirement to change the law in UK to make local authorities deposit their funds with a Public Bank if one were formed in Wales..

Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru AM at the meeting said Plaid Cymru supported a public bank for Wales and there were discussions around question of an infrastructure bank for Wales.

Alan Jones of Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr said we should be clear about what terms we use as Bank of England can be seen as Nationalised Public Bank - would it not be better to talk about social ownership of a bank and call it a Community Bank of Wales, something which could start small in a Welsh town or county and grow as it overcame regulatory obstacles to become a genuine Welsh National Community Bank.

It was mentioned by an audience member that Hampshire had a community bank and we should look at that development .

The meeting thanked Ellen Brown for her informative lecture and hoped next time she visited Wales we would have a Welsh Public Bank.

SEE ALSO:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-24400036

http://democracy.portsmouth.gov.uk/documents/s4134/Hampshire%20Community%20Bank.pdf

http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/richard-werner-co-operative-bank-for.html

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

S.O.S Save Our Sovereignty Campaign - Vote to Leave In Referendum 23rd June 2016

Tuesday, 23 February 2016

The Nature of the European Union and its State by Barrington Jones

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr is starting a discussion on the European Union and Barry Jones opens the discussion on the European Union and its State - he writes

Illusions of some sections of the Labour Movement, the left and other liberals have led to a reservoir of continuing support for the EU.

In addition the hijacking of the Out Campaign by UKIP has alienated many others.

I have noticed four main themes in this EU support:

The EU protects our human rights especially from from the Tories.

The EU has prevented wars in Europe.

We are financially better off in the EU

We need to be part of the EU to trade

Each of these need to be addressed.

I wish to concentrate on the burgeoning EU Super State

THE NATURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND ITS STATE

One of the main faults of the “Social Democrats” of the 2nd International (apart from backing the “Great War”) was their failure to understand the nature of the State. ( Jeremy Corbyn is making the same mistake in 2016)

The view of Scientific Socialists, (Marxist/Leninists) is that the state is not a neutral body assisting government but is an instrument by which one class imposes its rule over another. This applies to the capitalist state and the state under socialism.

“The state is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms”(p.12 The State and Revolution” V I Lenin.

Many advances in Social Services, Pensions, Health Care and Education have also blurred the perception of the British State.

However, these advances can easily be lost as we have seen recently, exposing the true nature of the bourgeois state its laws, police, civil service and judiciary.

How then should we view the role of the European Union, its institutions and political direction?

Since being agreed in 1957 and established in 1958, the “Common Market” or The Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (TEEC) “Treaty of Rome” there have been many incremental and insidious changes.

Through the The Merger Treaty, The Single European Act, The Amsterdam Treaty ,Maastricht Treaty, the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty bit by bit the nature of this Trade agreement has changed and the power of the EU over its member states has been increasing.

The much vaunted vetoes of individual nations have all but disappeared.

The latest, the Lisbon Treaty effectively bans socialism or any restriction on the free market.

The imposition of The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will shackle and imprison socialism along with the countries that wish to implement any public control or any standards which will or may reduce profits or infringe upon the Free Market.

It is effectively impossible to obtain all the details of the TTIP agreement that the unelected Commissioner is negotiating (see However, one dangerous element is that there appears to be no way to change TTIP or opt out after it is agreed).

The fact that there is an elected Parliament gives the impression the the EU is democratic in nature but this could not be further from the truth.

The attached graphics outline the way the EU is governed and the Parliament has effectively one power only, that is to sack the Commission in total, which it did in 1999 as a result of a high level of fraud. (the EU finances have never been approved by the auditors).

The real government of the EU is the unelected officers of the Commission one of whom, Cecilia Malmström, is negotiating the TTIP agreement in secret.

A claim was made by John Hilary, the Executive Director of campaign group War on Want, in an Independent Voices article.

In the piece Hilary said he had met with Malmström earlier this year and challenged her on why she insisted on continuing the TTIP negotiations when so many EU citizens (over 3 million) were against it.

She coldly said “I do not take my mandate from the European people.”

Later in a video Malmström says: “I have not said that. What I was trying to explain was that the mandate to negotiate TTIP and all other trade agreements is given by the Council [of Ministers].

This clearly indicates that the Council itself does not consider itself answerable to the European people.

If this structure was not bad enough the day to day running of the EU is in the hands of an appointed Secretariat even more removed from democratic control.

It currently consists of 7 directorates-general, the Legal Service, 5 departments under the Secretary-General (e.g. internal audit, general political questions) and has around 3200 employees. (See attachment 2).

It is perhaps odd that those attacking socialism and clamouring for less state intervention in society are not wanting the same from the EU

To understand the bureaucracy, treaties and thousands of directives would take a legal mind and tremendous patience. Suffice to say the government by the Commissioners is not open to scrutiny or open to criticism.

Returning to TTIP, if the Treaty is binding and cannot be altered or exited, this raises the question of how it can be implemented. We have seen Greece crippled by the IMF, the EU Bank and Merkel the Italian government replaced and the banks in Cyprus robbed but legal enforcement may have to resort to physical force.

In this context the proposal by Jean Claude Juncker (see below) for an EU army becomes frightening. Our police force is already undergoing training in Israel and Saudi Arabia. How long before they put this training into practice at home.

In the coming capitalist crisis and the battles that will result we need to have as much room to manoeuver as possible.

Particularly to negotiate equitable agreements with the developing world.

The 3rd Reich was formed when Hitler was appointed Chancellor and changed the Laws.

Restrictive laws are already in place banning socialism and social ownership and intervention Trade Unionists, environmentalists, nationalists and democrats will bear the brunt of the attack.

However, like in the Italian and German Steel industries and European railways they have not yet been enforced.

If the EU and the US gets the state power to enforce them and TTIP we have a ready made European 4th Reich.

Some recommended viewing;-

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/jean-claude-juncker-calls-for-eu-army-european-commission-miltary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xo0v8WKekQ&feature=share

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnOTyOjV4I4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shK9lHmg9x8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neSsyp-bfmI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neSsyp-bfmI

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10306461/EU-auditors-must-tone-down-criticism-of-Brussels-spending-says-Herman-Van-Rompuy.html

The Illusion of Democracy

The documentation of the EU is deliberately misleading, listing; the bodies of the EU as;

The European Parliament
The European Council
The Council of the EU
The European Commissioner
The Court of Justice
The European Central Bank
The Court of Auditors

As if the Parliament was the highest body. In fact the Parliament has no effective powers except for the ability to sack the Commission as a whole which of course is then reappointed. This happened after fraud was uncovered in 1999.

In reality the EU is run by the Secretariat listed below working under the unelected Commission

The Secretariat

Office Post Name

Office of the Secretary-General Secretary-General of the European Parliament Klaus Welle
Legal Service Jurisconsult of the European Parliament Freddy Drexler
Directorate-General for the Presidency Director-General Francesca R. Ratti
Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union Director-General Riccardo Ribera d'Alcalà
Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union Director-General Luis Marco Aguiriano Nalda Directorate-General for Communication Director-General Juana Lahousse-Juárez
Directorate-General for Personnel Director-General Yves Quitin
Directorate-General for Infrastructure and Logistics Director-General Constantin Stratigakis
Directorate-General for Translation Director-General Janet Pitt
Directorate-General for Interpretation and Conferences Director-General Agniezska Walter-Drop
Directorate-General for Finance Director-General Roger Vanhaeren
Directorate-General for Security and Safety Deputy Secretary-General of the European Parliament Director-General (acting) Francesca R. RATTI
Directorate-General for Innovation and Technological Support Director-General Giancarlo Vilella

SEE ALSO: http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/subordinating-nations-to-corporations.html

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

Inside the PKK ( The Kurdish Workers Party)

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr says it is shameful that these brave fighters of PKK against ISIL are regarded as terrorists by the British Government - we are Welsh People and no British Government speaks for us - has no Turkish Government speaks for the Kurds.

We offer you our solidarity and apologise for British Government on behalf of the Welsh people for its support of Turkey and its slandering of PKK - you are are our brothers and sisters in the struggle for national and social liberation and that struggle and solidarity transcends both borders and time.

LIFT THE BAN ON THE PKK

LIFT THE BAN ON THE PKK

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/113738

Sunday, 14 February 2016

Defend Our Common Land - Swansea 16th February - Oppose RWE application

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr will be present on 16th February in Swansea to oppose RWE application to take over common land has part of our fight for Welsh Land Rights

A public inquiry opens on Tuesday (16 February) into the controversial application by RWE Innogy UK Ltd to erect wind turbines and associated infrastructure on Mynydd y Gwair common north of Swansea. We object strongly to the application and will be represented by our member Clare Moseley.

Mynydd-y-GwairWe deplore the proposed devastation of this magnificent, sweeping, hilltop common. The 16 wind-turbines with all the paraphernalia that goes with them will rip the heart out of this special place. Here people are accustomed to walk and ride in peace.

Clare Moseley’s mother, the late Jan Moseley, was a winner of the Countryside Council for Wales’s ‘My Special Place’ competition in 2005 with her description of Mynydd y Gwair. She wrote:

I could have chosen a photo of sundew and sphagnum or of the view of surrounding mountains, estuaries and ten counties that can be seen from the top of Mynydd-y-Gwair—but this vast wild plateau loud with skylarks where the weathers meet is essentially where the land and sky join in complete 360 degree harmony. I can step out of my door onto the common and see an unchanged landscape though bronze age eyes; a sacred mountain surrounded by the upper waters of rivers and burial sites. And all the time the sky changes, throwing cloud shadows and highlighting other parts in gold. At night the total darkness provides a panorama of the stars, and the flitting of bats replaces the majesty of the flight of the red kite by day.

All this would be lost if the wind turbines are allowed on the common. The objectors will fight doggedly to save their beloved common.

Save Our Common Mountain Environment (SOCME) is among the many objectors.

The inquiry is to be held in the function room at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Somerset Place, Swansea, starting at 10am on Tuesday 16 February 2016 and will sit as required for the rest of the week and on Tuesday 23 February. Anyone may attend. The inquiry is into the proposed exchange of and works on common land in connection with the proposal to site wind turbines here.

JOIN ADFEDDIANT - RECLAIM OUR LAND :

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1427905090808404/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Friday, 12 February 2016

Eugene Debs (1916) "The seed that James Connolly sowed in the brains and hearts of his enslaved countrymen will germinate now that his precious blood has fertilized the soil and in due time the social revolution will accomplish what the Irish rebellion failed in, and sweep landlordism and capitalism and every other form of oppression from the Emerald Isle and from the face of the earth".

The British government has eternally disgraced and damned itself by the brutal and cowardly murder of the leaders of the Irish revolt. Granting all that can be justly charged against them their motive was of the purest and their attempt to establish a republic and liberate their people as brave and patriotic an act as ever sent heroes to martyrs’ graves.

The Sinn Fein movement consisted of liberty-loving Irishmen who were brave enough and grand enough to offer up their lives to speed the day of freedom and self-government for their long-suffering fellow-countrymen. The leaders may have miscalculated in the making of their plans and been precipitate in executing them but they set the example of heroic self-sacrifice and paid the penalty with their lives. Pearse, the provisional president, was one of the most cultured of men and one of the bravest that ever gave his life to the cause of freedom. Skeffington was eminent as a humanitarian and though he had not even an active part in the outbreak, he was shot like a dog without even the semblance of a trial.

But one of the commanding figures of the Sinn Feiners, and one of the most heroic was our Socialist comrade, James Connolly, whose fate will make Great Britain blush for a thousand years to come.

James Connolly was well known to the Socialists and working people of the United States. He addressed them by thousands and often they were stirred to enthusiasm by his eloquence and his inspiring appeals. He was a man of extraordinary ability and power, magnetic personality, and a natural leader of men, and his foul taking off, the eternal disgrace of his royal murderers, is an irreparable calamity to the labor movement.

In the first outbreak between the Irish rebels and the British soldiers Connolly was severely wounded and it was while he was in a semi-unconscious state as the result of his wounds that he was dragged forth to be shot. Limp and almost lifeless this heroic comrade of ours was propped up against a dead wall and while trying with glazed eyes to look his assassins in the face the firing squad riddled his great heart with bullets.

James Connolly is dead and yet does he live and speak to the oppressed and as he never lived and spoke before.

The seed that James Connolly sowed in the brains and hearts of his enslaved countrymen will germinate now that his precious blood has fertilized the soil and in due time the social revolution will accomplish what the Irish rebellion failed in, and sweep landlordism and capitalism and every other form of oppression from the Emerald Isle and from the face of the earth.

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1916/connolly.htm

Tuesday, 9 February 2016

St Valentines Day Massacre. Harlech 1345 by Gethin ap Gruffydd.

14th February 1345
.
Welsh St Valentines Day Massacre
.
Following on the Llywelyn Bren Southern Insurrection of 1315 –16 and subsequent brutal execution and imprisonment of its leaders, the Welsh became pretty passive and quiet. The early decades of the 14th century – “A Distant Mirror” was a time of hard bitter winters followed by long rainy springs leading the way into wet damp summers. This would lead to famine and in Europe, the legend of werewolves would be born as people turned to cannibalism and then blamed the wolf for human depravities. On top of all this, the plague was to start making it’s ravaging deadly way across Europe towards Wales. Against this background, the Welsh had more than enough to worry about. Welsh society, at this period, was not such that it would spark peasant or popular revolt as beloved by Marxist historians (although note the revolt of 24 fits that bill to some degree). Instead, in Wales, there occurred a rise in crime and outlawry as men took to the great woodlands to become “Adar y Griem”.
.
By the 1340’s however, things were getting pretty grim as the English Colonists sought to ‘screw the Welsh’ with unreasonable tax demands and any other illogical excuse they could use to oppress and exploit the native, until at last in Northern Wales and in the Colonist Planted Perfeddwlad of the new shire of Denbigh, Welsh resentment was, once again, on the boil – stirred up once more by ‘Y Clerwyr’ with their ‘Mab Darogan’ prophecies and ballads of Anti – English sentiments.

The stage was thus set for ‘Kick off’ and this took place with what we may call the ‘Beltain Bash’ of 1st May 1344 when Colonists from Rhuddlan attended a Fair at St Asaph in celebration of the ‘Feast of St Phillip and St James’. The Fair became severely disturbed by a running riot with the Colonists being chased back to Rhuddlan where the Welsh then took to attacking the Castle and garrison Town. Generally running amok, the Welsh took advantage of the situation and began to loot and pillage before they torched the new borough.
.
As you can well imagine this did not go down well with the Colonists who called upon their king to enforce some 'Law & Order' on the unruly Welsh. One thing led to another and later in the year, one John de Huntington - the English king’s Sheriff of Merioneth was feloniously slain whilst holding court in the Kings name and robbed of the rolls of the king (evidence to Taxes and debts etc - Interestingly, the Merthyr insurrectionists of 1831 would seek to do the same - that is destroy Court records).

The situation was simmering to the boil and on 14th February 1345 as Henry de Shaldeforde, the English Prince’s Attorney, went about Royal Business, he, and a party of his men were ambushed by the Welsh and slain as they made their way from Harlech to Caernarfon.

Those responsible were to go on the run and took to the woods for safety and become wanted outlaws, but these incidents, at this time, were not to be the signal for a major national Welsh revolt. Ten years were to pass, and in the year of 1354 there was to be born a babe to become the Legend we know as our National hero and nation’s redeemer ‘Owain Glynd?r – Mab Darogan’ who, in a further 45 years, would lead the Welsh in the greatest of all Welsh Revolts.
.
Postscript 1345. Since first writing an account of the “Welsh Troubles” of 1345, I have come across a further reference to one of the Harlech Partisans. Having been declared an outlaw, one of the Welsh escaped to Cornwall where he hid out for a number of years. In these hard and forbidding times many of the down trodden poor or those declared ‘outlaw’ or ‘criminal’ for political reasons, may not only have escaped to the woodlands to become ‘Adar y Greim’ many may also have escaped to the independent Lordships of the Welsh Marches where they may have been hired as retainers (perhaps better known by the English as ''Hired Thugs'' and ''Hitmen'') and become involved in the numerous cross frontier disputes in the “Border Troubles” that raged between the many lords and nobles of the Marches.

.
During the 14th century, there would be a considerable rise in the number of Welshmen leaving to become mercenaries in Europe, particularly in Flanders and in France as well as in Germany and Spain. The mercenary tradition of the Welsh really began in earnest following the great revolt of 1294. Somewhat ironically the 1294 revolt had, as one of its causes, Welsh refusal to be conscripted to go and fight in England’s Scottish War. Other causes of this revolt were taxation and land dispute which, in many ways, makes of this revolt one of Europe’s first ‘Popular Rebellions’, although the later revolts of 1316 and 1345 had ''populist motivations'' it would be in the Owain Glyndwr war that is best seen elements pf a ''Welsh Peasant Rebellion".
.
The 14th century also saw many Welsh Men become ‘Gwenoliaid Cymreig’ Mercenaries * fighting in the armies of England or France. An episode of particular interest is one that occurs on 24 July 1345 when Jacob Van Artevelde of Ghent in Flanders was attacked and killed by an insurrection of weavers, with him fell 500 of his Welsh bodyguard. It is of further interest to note that history records that it was a Welshman, one Gruffydd of Wales who had, a few years earlier, killed Jacob’s wife and brother.
.
The Flanders and French connection also reminds us of two of the most famous of the ‘Gwenoliaid Cymreig’ mercenaries. They were Ieuan Wyn and Owain Lawgoch, Yvain de Galles. Owain Lawgoch (Owain of the Red hand) was thought of as the long awaited ‘Mab Darogan in Wales of the 1370s, unfortunately, this was not to be as Owain Lawgoch was assassinated by the English before he had the opportunity to return to Wales.
.
Generally speaking, the Welsh Mercenaries in Flanders were well known as a pretty wild bunch and cause of much trouble in way of arson and looting, on occasion, well out of control and uncaring of whom they would pick a fight with. On one occasion it is recorded that a body of Welsh mercenaries were returned to Wales as undisciplined rabble who had annoyed much of a local population. Flemish chroniclers also record the Welsh as only wearing one shoe and having a liking for toasted cheese. There is, of course, a significant Flemish connection with Wales and also a Welsh Mercenary connection with the low countries ( Netherland ) that would last into the 17th century.
.
* Gwenoliaid Cymreig – Welsh Swallows, a Welsh term for Mercenaries similar to the Irish Wild Geese. The term ‘Gwenoliaid Cymreig’ comes from heraldry and poetry where those without land were referred to as the ‘Cyw’r Wennol’ – young of the Swallows which in heraldry were painted without feet so, symbolic of being with out land. Further of interest in matters of heraldry is that the ‘Red Hand’ was used to note that some one was outlawed.
.
It is interesting to note: that it was in the 1440’s, 28 years after the end of the last Great War of Welsh Independence 1416-22, that the Welsh were, once more, stirring with discontent and starting again to yearn for a ‘Mab Darogan’. But it was not to be, the ‘troubles’ of the 1440’s were to only lead the Welsh closer towards involvement in ‘English Dynastic troubles of the ‘War of the Roses’, and we all know which ‘treacherous trail’ that took the Welsh down, led by a ‘False Mab Darogan’ by the name of ‘Henry Tudor.

SEE ALSO :

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/welsh-mercenaries-in-history-hes-fought.html

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/rhys-ap-thomas-godfather-of-crachach.htm

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/peoples-socialist-history-of-wales-land.html

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr