page_title: Dwynwen
section_title: Feast Day and Commemoration
hierarchical_section_title: Dwynwen / Feast Day and Commemoration
caption_attribution_description: On llanddwyn Island. It was originally built in the 16th Century.
context_page_description: Saint Dwynwen, sometimes known as Dwyn or Donwen, is the Welsh patron saint of lovers. She is celebrated throughout Wales on 25 January.
context_section_description: St Dwynwen's Church on Ynys Llanddwyn became an important shrine during the Middle Ages. The holy well became a site of pilgrimage, at which the movement of fish within its waters was believed to indicate lovers' destinies. 
  Following the Reformation, devotions at her shrine were suppressed, and the site itself quickly fell into disrepair through the effects of numerous sandstorms. Those pilgrims who still came to pray in the area visited Saint Elian's Well instead. During the nineteenth century, the Anglican Church rediscovered traditional devotions, in the course of which in the 'sixtieth year of Queen Victoria', probably 1879, a plain cross about fourteen feet (4.2m) high was erected in memory of Dwynwen.
  In 1903, a Celtic cross was erected near the ruins of the church by the Hon. F. G. Wynn of Glynllivon, son of the 3rd Baron Newborough, also in memory of its patroness. The site is now part of a nature reserve.
  Calendars from the fifteenth century and later give 25 January as the day commemorating St Dwynwen in Wales. Nicolas Roscarrok, however, gives as her day 13 July, and opines that 'St Dwin' is the same as 'Dwinwen'. In his Calendar he gives 25 January as the day of 'Dwinwent' or 'Damwent'.
  During the 1960s, a student at University College, Bangor, Vera Williams, sought to revive the observance of St Dwynwen's Day by commissioning four designs for St Dwynwen's Day cards, in the style of a "Welsh Valentine's Day". Another local press adopted the idea, and by 2004 the celebration of 25 January as a festival for Welsh lovers was so well established that even Gwynedd Council was promoting it.
  St Dwynwen is not officially commemorated in the liturgies of the Catholic or Anglican Churches; she does not appear in the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology, nor the Roman Catholic calendar for Wales, nor the 1995 revision of the Church in Wales calendar.
  She is also the patron saint of sick animals.
caption: The ruins of St Dwynwen's Church on Ynys Llanddwyn
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-G1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.4", "Image DateTime": "2011:09:21 10:34:37", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "570", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8692", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5421", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:09:21 10:34:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:09:21 10:34:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "45", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8372", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "90", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard"}