Why has devolution failed to create a modern Welsh national identity?

Surely this is true of Englishness! Another stateless nation the last time I looked!

I wonder if The Curriculum Cymreig is a overplayed a bit. It has been tokenism, because many teachers and schools simply play lip service to it (only when most teachers believe in its merits and importance will it actually work) - a brief mention of something or someone Welsh in a few lessons here and there, y dyddiad yn Gymraeg, the brave few writing Nod y wers instead of lesson objectives and every pupil fluent in saying yma and Bore da. Hardly anything to write home about - ethnicity doesn't even get a look in. The troubles we have started when King Arthur became a celebrated Saxon, surrounded by Norman kights, all speaking with aristocratic and quintissentially English tones, refined on the playing fields of Eton. Appropriation of the best bits of our long established romantic icons itertwined with a romantic side to our cultural past has left us empty and bereft of romanticism. The only romanticism we have left for ourselves is a Saint and a Dragon (and the Dragon is even up for appropriation as the recent Flag of Somerset shows: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASomerset_Flag.svg).

Wales has it's own unique identity, but like American states we are intrinsically linked economically, geographically and culturally to England. England is of course due to its size, population, wealth and language the dominant player in the United Kingdom. And as unpopular as that might seem I'm very happy to call myself both Welsh and British (and Brixit aside European too).

Also sorry but "The Welsh flag does hang “unnoticed on the public building” but it does so next to the British flag." It also hangs there next to the EU flag. Why does the author single out the British flag and not the European one?

'Why has devolution failed to create a modern Welsh national identity?' It did begin to do so initially but the breaks were put on by mostly British identifying Labour politicians (17 years incumbents) and now there is inertia and disinterestedness in the whole project.

I disagree with much of this article. 20 years is short length of time after the 716 years between Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf and the establishment of devolution. It will take another 50 years at least, or organic internal Welsh growth, to foster such 'civic' ideas without being biased towards the idea of 'moving forward' or 'progression'. 'Progression', as it were, insinuates a wrongness in an opposing ideology, and is an attack upon all forms of conservatism. Conservatism with a small 'c' is an integral part of Welshness. The author also attaches ethnicity to language, which I find abhorrent, ignorant, bellicose and offensive. The growth of an English-language centred Welsh civic nationalism would be a blow to the Welsh language from which it could not recover. I refer you to Ireland. The proliferation of those in the 'devolution generation' saying they are Welsh and British, is an immensely positive step which was unfathomable 25 years ago. Their generation will have children who feel much the same way, which takes us to around the year 2050 before a generational change can occur towards being more Welsh than British. This will be gradual, with several generations which are a mixture of Welsh and British in varying degrees. Around the year 2150, then we can begin to discuss a 'Welsh civic identity' if you wish to call it such a thing, which the majority of Welsh people can approach without suspicion. Perhaps by the year 2200, we can see the national strength we have seen in Catalonia. For the time being, we must work within the devolution setting we have to ensure, first and foremost, that any civic identity which blossoms is not at the expense of the survival of a Welsh-speaking people.

Interesting essay, overall A parallel line of enquiry is why does British national identity in these islands remain so stubbornly persistent? Between the Napoleonic wars and WW1, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the world superpower. Britishness equalled progress: technologically, economically and consequentially, culturally. Britishness wasn’t confined to these islands. Sir Robert Menzies, Australian Prime Minister 1939-41, 1949-66 described himself as “British to his boot-straps”. Why, in the 21st century, do so many people in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and especially England identify with Britishness? Surely shared experience of building and empire together or standing together alone in Europe in WWII must be fading by now? Surely “contributionalism” (see Ifan Morgan Jones, Opinion 26.9.17) can’t have survived Thatcherite policies in Wales (they were certainly perceived as a kick in the teeth my many in the Valleys)? Surely it can’t be insularity in a globalised digital world?

It's impossible to avoid the fetish of fotcing union jacks into everything on TV, not to mention Britains got talent, great british bake off and all the mentions of us British and "we brits" everywhere. (very intentionally and deliberately so). Despite that most people botn in Wales do consider themselves Welsh according to the last census and a much smaller number declared themselves Welsh and British. I think most people in Wales have little trouble identifying proudly as Welsh. That's obviously quite different from a desire to be independent.

There is no civic English identity separate from the British one. All there is is a number of "England" quangos with Historic England (the former English Heritage split into the aforementioned government body and a new English Heritage constituted as a charity), Natural England, Highways England, NHS England etc. They seem more keen to use "England" than "English" now, which may be because, except for an inconvenient minority west of the Tamar, "England" may be a less contentious concept than "English". Australia was so British in the 1950s that they let Britain test nuclear bombs on their territory in open air. Most county flags in England are very recent in origin, and most are not used a great deal. The Devon flag was invented in 2002, and the design was chosen and subsequently promoted heavily by the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/news_features/2003/flap_over_flag.shtml choosing a design that looks quite similar to the Cornish flag, perhaps in an attempt to make the Cornish flag fit more neatly into the "county flag" box.

Welsh, British? The word Welsh is derived from an old saxon word meaning foreigner, so the original brits now call themelves foreign in their own land.I once saw graffiti stating,"welsh not british".What a contradiction in terms.We are Cymru,fellow countrymen and women.It is time to ditch our slave name once and for all.

The real problem for Wales is we still do not have our own broadcasting and printed media. There are a lot of similarities between many independent countries in most regions of the world. If Wales should not have independence because it shares a lot in common with England then England should be part of Germany using that argument because they have a lot in common. Actually, I see Wales in the same position as the Baltic states in the 1990s with two competing centralising ideologies in their borders. They got their independence by the determination of their peoples. There can and will be a Cymru republic as their is an Estonia, Latvia, Lituania.