Change at the fringe
Subtitle: a socioeconomic study of modernization in a North Wales village.
Publisher: University of Nijmegen Institute of Cultural Anthropology
Published: 1987
Language: eng
Number of pages: 144
First sentence: I still remember the day we got a grant from our university to sponsor this research in 'England.' It illustrates one of the main problems the Welsh nation is facing: a widespread misconception that Wales is part of England. To the average person outside Britain Wales is merely a corner of England having not separate
identity of its own. In the past the position of Wales within the British state has been a neglected area of study. According to Glyn Williams, a centralist ethnocentricity may be one explanation but the absence of a longstanding social science tradition within the centres of higher education in Wales itself must also bear part of the blame (Williams 1978:1). The end of this period of neglect came from outside Britain with the publication in 1975 of Michael Hechter's 'Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966.' In his book Hechter suggests 'internal colonialism' as an explanatory model for discussion of ethnic change, industrialization, and regionalism in the British Isles. Although not undisputed (see Lovering), Hechter's writings inspired many social scientists and an upsurge of interest in Celtic ethnicity has been the result.
Description: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


This thesis presents an analysis of modernization in a small village at the Celtic Fringe of the United Kingdom in North Wales. It is the result of a period of three months of fieldwork in the summer of 1986, that was part of my graduate study in Anthropology at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. During my stay in the village, I closely cooperated with Janneke Peters, who was also a student in the discipline. This writing is my elaboration of our combined fieldnotes. [I still work together with Janneke but now as husband and wife. We married in 1988 and we have three children]

Throughout the study, I have taken pains to emphasize my position as an observer. It was not my intention to take sides in any of the matters discussed. I have tried to give an account of how people in a small village at the Celtic fringe experience their lives, and what forces from outside are influencing these lives. The results are far from complete. Nevertheless, I hope they may contribute to a better understanding of the position, hopes, worries, and views of people living in small communities like Cemaes Bay.

Several people should be thanked here. I would like to start with Mr Caradog Jones and his family. They made our stay in the village a very pleasant one. Other people in the village, that expressed their views to us in interviews and therefore must remain nameless, also deserve great credit. I sincerely hope that in this writing they will recognize my respect for them. I would also like to thank Mr Medwyn Jones, who was so kind to let me study his private collection of old postcards of the village. I am further indebted to Professor W.G. Wolters. During my training at the university, his lectures promoted my understanding of, and interest in, processes of integration. He made me sharpen my argument and without his help I would undoubtedly have fallen into more errors of analysis than I have. Only on the subject of modernization, I have chosen to resist some of his criticisms.

Nijmegen
December 12, 1987                                  Eric Wassink
Notes: The tourism branch in Cemaes Bay is one of the major topics of research in this study. Changes in this sector, that are related to socioeconomic developments in Anglesey, are examined. Other changes, that can be attributed to socioeconomic developments in the United Kingdom at large, are discussed in Part Two of the thesis.

In a first paragraph I will describe, as an introduction, the events that preceded and followed on the foundation of a tourist association in the village and ended in the burning down of one of the major tourist attractions. As such the case study serves as an indication of the present day situation of tourism as we found it in the village. It shows that tourism is a highly debated topic. This debate is discussed in detail in the last paragraph of the chapter.
In between, paragraphs illustrate the course of tourism over the years. Attention is paid to tourism at the beginning of the century, the coming of a nuclear power station to the village and its effects upon tourism, and to efforts to organize tourism on the island. A description of the size of tourism in Cemaes in the mid 1980's is also given. The argument is based on interviews, postcards, newspaper articles, literature, and questionnaires among shop and hotelkeepers.

The case study in the following paragraph was based on interviews and newspaper articles. For the sake of protection of my informants, I have changed the names of all the actors in the reconstruction. I would like to stress that as an observer I have tried to refrain from giving my own opinion on the matter. I was just the 'professional stranger,' as described by Agar, who has tried to cement the story together (Agar).

4.1. The Promotion of Llanbadrig Church

In 1982, Gareth Williams, a man in his forties, came back to live in the village, after having lived for a long time elsewhere on the island. Williams, who was born and bred in Cemaes, was a man with ideas, which he liked to see put into practice. Many years he had sold Welsh souvenirs to shops everywhere in Wales. As it was his feeling that souvenirs from Wales should be manufactured in Wales, and not in Taiwan or Korea, he mostly manufactured them himself.
	A year before his return, his wife Maureen had started running a gift shop in the village. Living in the village it hurt Williams to see that tourism was a declining industry. His memories told him that tourism some twenty years ago had been a flourishing line of business providing additional income for many villagers. So Williams decided that something had to be done about it. In a brochure he tried to get together all the people that still derived their income, or part of it, from tourism. In the booklet Williams for the first time publicly disclosed one of his other plans: the establishment of a tourist association in the village. He wrote: "Hopefully before our next issue of this local guide, we the local residents can form an association."

	However, Williams found no time till 1985 to realize his plan. In that year he took over the shop from his wife and started selling framed pictures and photographs. But that was not the only reason why a tourist association was finally founded on April 1 of that year. The activities of an expatriate Irishman are also to be taken into account. These activities brought about a situation in which Williams estimated the time was ripe for the establishment of an association. This Irishman, Sean O'Toole, had come to live in Cemaes after his retirement as a promotions and sales executive. Before that he often came peddling down to Cemaes on his bicycle from a neighbouring village where he lived. Nobody in the village really knew what he did or where he came from. Once he had come to live in Cemaes he used to call in Williams' shop quite often. He told Williams about his interest in Llanbadrig Church which is standing on a rocky headland a mile outside the village. He was specially interested in a local sage that said that the old church had been founded by St. Patrick, the Irish saint, some fifteen centuries ago.

	One version of the sage, as I was told by O'Toole, describes how in 432 AD Patrick on this way to Ireland visited an old friend, Eilian, who lived in a place some eight miles to the east of Cemaes. It was after resuming his journey that Patrick was shipªwrecked. His vessel came to grief on a barren rock formation lying some 800 yards from the headland of Cemaes Bay. He was able to swim ashore and found a cave, where he sheltered. A natural well beside the cave supplied him with drinking water until he recovered from his ordeal. In gratitude for his survival, Patrick persuaded local Christians to erect a church. By the time it was completed, in the year 440 AD, Patrick was pursuing his mission in Ireland.

	According to O'Toole, the church could become a major attraction for Irish pilgrims if the sage would become more widely known in Ireland. Having worked as a professional promoter and willing to do something for the village, he began to research the history of the church and to write his findings to several newspapers. At that time, it was January 1985, except for Williams, who welcomed every initiative to make Cemaes more attractive for tourists, nobody took much notice of the activities of O'Toole. He was retired and lacked the support of a big institution. 

	In his first article, published in January 1985 in a local newspaper, O'Toole revealed some of his plans to promote the church as a tourist attraction. What he had in mind was an all in package tour from Ireland to Cemaes Bay with mini buses running between Holyhead, where the boat from Ireland arrives, and Cemaes. He was also considering the possibilities of tourist centres, hotels, and a centre for mass. The church could organize and raise the money for these projects. O'Toole further pointed at the fact that tens of thousands of pilgrims year in year out visited a place in Ireland where it was said Patrick walked barefoot. Proper sales promotion could ensure a similar flow of visitors to Cemaes. According to O'Toole, St. Patrick's Day on March 17 alone would already bring many people to the village.

	O'Toole was not easily satisfied. In March he wrote to an Irish radio producer and told him his story. And O'Toole got what he wanted. The Saturday before St. Patrick's Day he was walking through Cemaes in his best clothes. He spoke to several people telling them that an Irish broadcasting team were on their way from Ireland to do an interview with him. He also came to Williams, whom he had informed earlier about his contacts with the Irish radio. Williams immediately volunteered to drive O'Toole and his guests up to the church on their arrival by taxi from Holyhead. O'Toole, who himself had no car, gladly accepted the offer. 

	And so it came that on that windy day in March Sean O'Toole and Gareth Williams, in the company of a radioproducer and a soundrecordist from Ireland, were on their way to Llanbadrig Church to make public to a wide Irish audience the link between St. Patrick and this little village on the northern coast of Anglesey. At the church the reporters were taken down to the cave where it was said St. Patrick found shelter after his dangerous adventure. In this cave O'Toole gave his interview. After that the four men went up to the church which had just been restored at a cost of some 15,000 pounds. Meanwhile a local choir, which had been invited by O'Toole, had arrived at the church. In the church they sang some songs and more recordings were made by the radiomen. Everything thus went according to wishes. After the two men had finished Williams took them to his house, which is situated on a beautiful spot in the village, where they stayed the rest of the day enjoying his hospitality.

	On Sunday morning Williams took his guests to Bangor, a city just of the island, where the radiomen had facilities to edit their tape and make it ready for the broadcast the following day. That Monday everybody in Cemaes was listening to the Irish radio and everybody was very exited.

	Then a week or two went by and another radio team came to do an interview. This time it was the BBC. O'Toole had phoned them and told them of the Irish broadcast. Thus more people were informed about the legend of St. Patrick and the Cemaes Bay connection. There were also more articles in several local newspapers. And Williams understood that if the time  would ever be right to establish a tourist association, it would be now with all the free publicity about Llanbadrig Church. And so he decided to call a meeting.

	The meeting was held on April 1, 1985, in one of the hotels in Cemaes. Williams had invited some 75 people, people that were in tourism and had advertized with him in the booklet in 1982. He had also invited the local councillors, a borough councillor, and a county councillor. Williams assumed that a majority of the people he had invited that night would be interested in forming a tourist association to promote Llanbadrig Church as a major tourist attraction. He sat in front of his audience at a table, together with O'Toole and two members of the Holyhead tourist association, which had been formed not so long ago. Williams had asked the tourism officer for the Anglesey Borough Council, the island authority, to open the meeting. She told the gathered that tourism in the Cemaes Bay area was at a low ebb and that a lot could be done to revive it. After she had finished she introduced O'Toole to the audience.

	O'Toole, who was used to speaking in public, told the assembled that he had discovered that Llanbadrig Church possibly was the first church that had ever been dedicated to St. Patrick. He also talked about the natural beauty of the village and the surrounding area and pointed at the possibilities to attract more tourists. O'Toole told his audience that in 1923 the Vicar of St.  Patrick Church had written in his diary that Cemaes was such a healthy place that TB was unknown there, while it was a scourge in Britain at the time. At the end of his speech O'Toole summoned the listeners to join together and encourage the Irish to venerate Llanbadrig Church.

	After this there was room for people to react on what had been said and proposed. These reactions were mixed. Some were enthusiastic, others, however, expressed doubts about the possibilities to promote the church. One of the local councillors suggested that not only Irish should be encouraged to come. He further pointed out that the road leading to the church was inadequate for buses. Another problem was that there was no car park at the church.

	It soon became clear that the plans to promote Llanbadrig Church could not count on the support of a majority of the councillors present. They were against widening the road or any other adjustment which would disturb the area and take it out of character. Some said that there would be quite some opposition if the plans were going to be realized. Others wanted to postpone a decision and call a public meeting first with more information about the plans. One of them explained to me later that he was given the impression that the whole meeting was a set up and that the advocates of the plans were only considering their own profit and lacked a commitment to the community as a whole. 

	A majority of the gathered that Monday night was, however, not impressed by the objections of the councillors, and it was decided that the time was right to form an association. A committee of seven people was elected, including Williams and O'Toole. The first was proposed as chairman and the second as press secretary.  Despite the fact that he was supposed to be the press secretary, O'Toole from the beginning was the leader of the committee. He told the other members what to do and how to do it. The experience he had with meetings plus the fact that he, being retired, had more time than the other members of the committee were of course responsible for this. With his behavior during the meetings of the committee O'Toole was offending several of the other members. But a letter which he had written to a local paper was probably the main reason why he finally was forced to withdraw from the committee. In the letter O'Toole accused the Community Council of being 'an old boys club,' which values a member for his ability to say 'yes' in the right place, rather than his intelligence or width of vision.

	The dislike O'Toole had for some members of the local Community Council was rooted in an old quarrel he had had with the council about parking fees, and which had only been settled after O'Toole appealed to Anglesey's MP for an intervention. What this quarrel exactly was about is not really important for this treatise of the promotion of Llanbadrig Church. The effect of it, however, was that O'Toole was not on good terms with several members of the Community Council. Reason for O'Toole to write a letter to the press was that he was convinced that pressure was put on some members of the tourist association by councillors to 'get him out' of the association. 

	The letter was published on May 2, a month after the tourist association was established. For Williams, chairman of the tourist association and also a member of the Community Council, this behavior of one of the committee members was of course unacceptable. The association had only just been established and needed all the support it could get. It thus came to a conflict during the next meeting of the committee on May 5. On the meeting O'Toole was asked to resign from the association. But O'Toole had no intention to do so. He told the others that he was determined that the local council would not exercise any control over the association and that he could not be voted out of order according to the constitution of the association, which he himself had written.

	But in the end, O'Toole understood that it was better to resign from the association and let the others run it their way. He started operating on a personal base again, knowing that in the past this hadn't stopped him from achieving several successes in his drive to promote the church. And he was not disappointed. Several weeks later, at an open meeting of the Community Council, he made public that another success had been achieved. Holding a letter up high he explained that the letter came from the editor of the Irish Post, a paper printed in Britain for the Irish communities, and that he had obtained a center page spread for an article he had written about the legend of St. Patrick and Cemaes, which finished with an exhortation to visit the church. He pointed out that a similar advertizement would have cost some 10,000 pounds at current rates. His announcement was applauded by most of the people, yet, no word of thank was expressed and no comment in the official press report of the meeting was given to it. It was obvious that most councillors still remembered how their objections to the promotion of the church had been rejected on the meeting of April 1. And a reserved official reaction was thus predictable.

	At the end of the month of May these reservations finally turned into a total rejection of the plans to promote the church. Not being able to withhold villagers from promoting the church, the councillors sought and found support from borough councillors. At a meeting of the Anglesey tourism sub committee the decision fell to take no further actions over O'Toole's suggestions. Only a few councillors did not want to reject the plans before a fuller report on the site's possibilities had been produced.

	One of the local councillors pleaded against the plans saying: Although I would like to see more tourists coming to Anglesey, I don't think the Llanbadrig Church can stand an invasion of people and buses up that road. The Community Council are very dubious about the whole affair. Some of them are horrified that we are going to have an invasion of people that we do not want."  The director of leisure admitted the influence of local councillors in the decision. He said: I don't think the council should push any scheme if it's against the wishes of the local people. Cemaes like many other villages, doesn't want to be overwhelmed by tourism. People who are really interested in this sort of thing will still find out about it." 

Another explanation came from the chairman of the sub committee. He said that he did not want to see Anglesey attracting tourists by promoting the dead. With this remark he was pointing at the churchyard next to the church. The decision of the island's tourism sub committee was published in an article in one of the local newspapers on May 30 under the heading "FEARS OF IRISH INVASION AT CEMAES 'SHRINE.'" It was of course a set back for the tourism association which more or less had been established to promote the church. But before the members of the association even had time to meet, another event overshadowed it all.

	Only one day after the article with the telling title, Llanbadrig Church was heavily damaged in a fire. At 2.00 a.m. on Saturday June 1 a false emergency call was made to the fire service. This call resulted in the fire engines being elsewhere when a second call was made for Llanbadrig Church. The fire service did not arrive until after 4.00 a.m. that night. About half of the church roof collapsed in the fire, the porch was destroyed, and the inside of the building suffered extensive smoke damage. According to an architect, however, the walls had not cracked in the heat. 

	Many people were devastated on hearing the news that Saturday. 15,000 pounds had only recently been spent to renovate the church. It was supposed to be reconsecrated on June 30. Meanwhile the insurance hadn't been renewed. A new restoration fund was opened during an open air service amidst the ruins on Sunday and some 130 pounds was raised that first day.

       Nobody in the village believed that the fire was other than deliberate. The church had been standing there on the cliffs for more than fifteen centuries. The controversy over the church could have been the only likeable reason for someone to put a match to it. Napkins had been stolen from the clothes line of a neighbouring farm and also some paraffin. The police did not dismiss the case as one of vandalism by unidentified persons as they were aware of the recent controversies over the plans to promote the church as a tourist attraction. The only link the police had, however, was a BMX bike, stolen from the same farm, that was found under the river bridge in the center of the village. The police suspected that whoever stole the bike also started the fire. A 600 pounds reward was offered by two villagers for information leading to whoever started the fire. Rumours were that the arsonists (or arsonist) were local nationalistic Welshmen, though not from the village, who opposed to all change, and detested the English. However, they were not found and nobody was arrested. In the summer of 1986, the church still hadn't been repaired completely. Some 33,000 pounds was raised during these twelve months. O'Toole wrote a booklet about Llanbadrig Church and the sage of St. Patrick, which he published himself. The proceeds from the sales went to the restoration fund. O'Toole also communicated with the Irish Post. He hoped Irish people would also contribute towards the fund. The Borough Council created a car park adjacent to the church to cater for visitors as well as a picnic area within the car park. The realization of this car park was claimed by the tourist  association, but a councillor from the Borough Council told us that he had been fighting for it for more than ten years. 

	Meanwhile the tourist association directed its energy towards the clearing of a well which once was an attraction in the village up to the mid 1950's, when it was buried under six feet of large boulders after a landslide in the cliffs during a storm. The well, which is supposed to be the same well that supplied St. Patrick with drinking water, used to be a wishing well. Children from the village visited the well at night to recover money thrown in by visitors. It is hoped that with the boulders cleared and the footpath leading to it restored the well will increase the attraction of Llanbadrig Church once its restoration has been completed. So far the thousands and thousands of people from Ireland have not visited Cemaes yet. Some say that there has been more traffic on the road to Llanbadrig, but buses have not been sighted there.