About the website
Historical background
‘Glaniad’ (Welsh for ‘landing’) is a website which tells the story of the Welsh emigrants who settled in Patagonia, South America, during the late 19th century. Their aim was to settle in a place where they would be able to live and worship freely as Welsh people, and preserve their language and traditions.
The first settlers, some 150 in total, sailed from Liverpool in May 1865 on board the ‘Mimosa’. Two months and 8,000 miles later, they arrived at New Bay (later renamed Porth Madryn/Puerto Madryn), and caught sight of the land which would become their new home. The reality of life in Patagonia, a barren and inhospitable place, was to prove extremely challenging for the early settlers. Many faced great poverty and hardship as they struggled to make a living from the land. In time, however, they established their own Welsh-speaking communities where they built chapels and schools.
The fortunes of the Welsh settlement or ‘Wladfa’ changed dramatically during the 20th century as it became tied even closer to the Argentinian state. Spanish became the official language and the status of the Welsh language and culture was gradually eroded. Since the 1960s, however, new links have been made between Wales and Patagonia, leading to a revival of interest in the Welsh language and culture among many of the descendants of the first Welsh settlers.
About the project
‘Glaniad’ is a partnership project to digitise items of cultural and historical significance to Wales and Patagonia. The two main deliverables of the project will be a searchable gallery of digitised images and a trilingual website consisting of themes and articles which provide educational interpretation of the digitised items. It is envisaged that content created by this project will be housed within the ‘Gathering the Jewels’ website.
The project will run from early 2005 to spring of 2006, although it is expected to be used as a high quality educational resource for many years to come. Partners in the project are CyMAL, Culturenet Cymru, the National Library of Wales, the University of Wales Bangor Archives and Library, and various organisations in Patagonia. The project is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and is run under the auspices of CyMAL with other partners providing content, editorial and technical services.
