The Eisteddfod Returns Renewed for a New Age ; Tens of Thousands of People Will Gather On the Fringes of Snowdonia This Weekend for an Eight-Day Celebration of Welsh Culture and Heritage. Steffan Rhys Examines the Continued Relevance of the National Eisteddfod

Western Mail › July 30, 2009

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Summary

IT WAS hard to tell what Hardeep Singh Kohli was thinking as he watched the Gorsedd of the Bards ceremony.

Paying his first visit to the National Eisteddfod, the Scottish Sikh television presenter looked on as an archdruid in robes inducted a select few into the Gorsedd in Cardiff last year.

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The Eisteddfod Returns Renewed for a New Age ; Tens of Thousands of People Will Gather On the Fringes of Snowdonia This Weekend for an Eight-Day Celebration of Welsh Culture and Heritage. Steffan Rhys Examines the Continued Relevance of the National Eisteddfod

It was hardly a reflection of modern Wales that Kohli saw as made a TV programme on his experience.

But it was the centrepiece of an event whose central ethos is the affirmation of centuries of Welsh tradition, literature, art, music, performance and patriotism.

The Eisteddfod, at its heart, exists to celebrate Wales and its Welsh language. It is why the week's most revered events are the chairing and crowning of the bard, as well as the Gorsedd.

It is also what has...

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