Standing on the stone wall of Llyn Celyn dam I watch the sun rise over the water. The mist is thick, clinging to the surface of the lake with mystical beauty that transports me to another place where natural beauty is more important than the man made world. Unfortunately, in this case, that is not the history of this landscape. This lake is not natural and the peaceful waters hide a multitude of sins. Upon the wall of the dam is a patchwork of graffiti that tells a story of Welsh anger and generational pain barely contained beneath the surface. There is no tell tale ‘cofiwch Dryweryn’ sign, despite this being the location that originally inspired the nationalist slogan, yet plenty of other words remind you that this is the rawest scar of Welsh history in the past one hundred years.

Given the dry weather, secrets which are usually hidden have been revealed as the water has receded and the landscape of the Tryweryn valley has been revealed once more. Twisted trees, which were cut at their bases, still highlight the hedgerows looking like something from a Tim Burton movie. The place is eerie as you step down into the valley bottom and walk, spongy ground beneath your feet. You pass the remnants of the community which was once here – old pottery, metal, fence posts and the foundations of the church and its graveyard. There is something distinctly otherworldly about this abandoned place, a sadness, but also hurt and fury.

In living memory this valley was a home, a community. They will tell you that it was one of the final all Welsh speaking villages and given its location between Bala and Trawsfynydd I will not argue. In 1957 Liverpool council petitioned for the purchase of the valley for the purposes of creating a reservoir that would provide for the city and its surrounding area. It had been done before and seemed justifiable given the predicted water shortages. Of course, there was outrage from the inhabitants of the valley – and Wales as a whole. There has always been a tension between the two countries and in this time of strong nationalist feeling, an array of methods were employed to prevent this act being passed. Yet, in 1962, it was passed and the evictions began. I have heard a first person account of that strange time, where a whole community were relocated into caravans so that their valley, their generational community, could be flattened and coated in concrete. These accounts confuse me having walked across the bed of the dam; the trees and chapel and roads are still visible. If you ask me this is an example of shoddy craftsmanship, yet this is perhaps to be expected given the attack that the construction site was under (even the opening ceremony only lasted three minutes due to protest!).

By 1965 there was a new lake where once a valley had been and in 1967 a memorial chapel was built on the banks of the river to commemorate the bodies left beneath the surface when the chapel had been removed. This chapel is now a Grade II listed building and the only place around the lake in which you can read about its history. Perhaps this memory-scape is minor when compared to far worse locations across the world, yet there is no denying the thread of injustice that runs through the scarred landscape. It is this injustice that fuels ill-feeling between the Welsh and English, as it is just another reminder that at one point in history the country had princes and more power over the land of our fathers.

You may ask why something that happened over fifty years ago is still relevant today and the answer is on the stones beneath my feet: the graffiti is new. You can see where old words have been washed away by the water company and yet it always returns. This is a wound that, far from healing, seems to be growing. Since 2019 the red and white phrase ‘COFIWCH DRYWERYN’ (remember Tryweryn) has begun to crop up across the country and ‘yes Cymru’ stickers have also been abundant. One cannot even walk through the streets of Oxford without coming across this sign of nationalist feeling, which points to an emerging generation of outspoken Welsh citizens. Tryweryn was where the spark originated from, but the feelings bubbling beneath the surface are so much wider and more complex today than a handful of buildings swept away by the Dee river. There is no solution, no going back, but in an age of repatriation and movements towards cultural pride, there is hope. Hope that people will remember the past and bring its lessons into the future.