Early Welsh Saints

[QuentinDeakin]

TYWYN & DISTRICT HISTORY SOCIETY

As a follow up to November's talk on Bardsey Island, the society's meeting on 11th December 2023 presented a programme on Welsh saints spanning a millenium. There were four speakers. Dr Ian Richards began with a well-researched account of sixth-century Saint Cadfan who travelled to Tywyn from Brittany. Dr Quentin Deakin took on three Celtic saints. Saint Tudno, who was buried on Bardsey, gave the name to Llandudno. His church may still be visited on the slopes of the Great Orme. Secondly, Saint Beuno of St Asaph, whose well and church remain a site of pilgrimage alongside that of his niece the seventh-century virgin martyr Saint Winefride in Holywell. Her medieval shrine and well attracts up to thirty thousand pilgrims and visitors annually and has also given the town its name. Quentin linked early Welsh Christianity to pre-Christian beliefs. The third speaker, Liz Deakin, continued the story of Saint Winefride's twelfth century canonisation by Rome and the building of the shrine, which immediately attracted royal visitors including Richard 1 and Henry V. Liz went on to consider the continuing fascination of this charismatic saint for contemporary authors, artists, film-makers and poets, with an emphasis on Gerard Manley-Hopkins, the English poet/Jesuit priest. She concluded with a reading of his famous poem on Saint Winefride's Well. The final speaker, Ron Marshall, took the audience back to the turn of the seventeenth century when the Jesuits first appeared, having been trained on the Continent. This was a time of great religious strife, the Jesuits coming to Britain determined to convert it back to the Catholic faith. One such was John Roberts from Trawsfynydd, martyred for his beliefs and activities which had brought him to the attention of a Protestant Crown and state.