Welsh Anthem

Video Find of the Day

Here's a great song that apparently has been taken seriously as a unofficial Welsh national anthem, in spite of a line deprecating Margaret (Maggie) Thatcher. The singer wrote it; it came out in 1981. Now Dafydd Iwan is president of Plaid Cymru, the "Party of Wales", which seeks an independent national status for Wales within the European Union, and revival of the language, among other things. The title Yma O Hyd means Still Here. It's from the chorus which in English goes We're still here / We're still here / In spite of everything / In spite of everything / We're still here. The full words in Welsh and an English translation of the version in the video can be found here.

YMA O HYD - DAFYDD IWAN + IMAGES OF WALES



The song that is usually regarded as the unofficial national anthem, at least for the purposes of opening football games, is not nearly so good, I think, and like ours, too hard to sing. It's Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Land Of My Fathers. I had a time finding a video of it to compare it fairly with Yma O Hyd. The best I could do was this one with a phonetic guide, which you have to go to YouTube to see: LEARN "LAND OF MY FATHERS" THE EASY WAY